"Where are you taking me?" Madeline asked. Sherlock didn't answer her, he pulled her off of the Tube at Westminster station and hauled her up the stairs. They scanned their Oyster Cards and left the station, and Madeline couldn't help but cringe at the sight of Parliament across from the street from them. She hated even thinking about the building, it had been her prison for a brief amount of time; but it had been torturous. Literally. She dug her feet in slightly when Sherlock dragged her across the street and took her to the visitor's entrance to Parliament.
"Sherlock, no." She said, pulling out of his grasp and stepping back as the detective bought two tickets into the Parliament. He turned to her.
"I'm not taking you to the basement, don't worry." He said bluntly. "We're going up." He nodded his head at the Elizabeth Tower with its pristine clock face facing in four directions. Madeline eyed him skeptically.
"We don't have to if you don't want to." Sherlock told her. The man manning the ticket booth watched them both with an apathetic and bored expression. After a quick second of deliberation, Madeline followed Sherlock through the turnstile, metal detectors, and security gate back into the building she hated most in the city. Sherlock led her through the main lobby, away from the entrance to the basement. They tagged behind a tour group down a hallway, then the detective pushed her into a storage room and locked the door behind him.
"What are you doing?" Madeline asked nervously as Sherlock checked his watch.
"Waiting." He said absently. "Take a seat, we've still got half an hour." He watched her take a seat where he and John had waited almost five years prior for Parliament to close so they could rescue her and took a seat beside her.
"You sure can plan a date." Madeline commented. Sherlock smirked.
"It hasn't started, yet. The building begins to shut down in fifteen minutes, and in half an hour we'll be free to roam." He told her, earning a surprised look.
"You're kidding. Everything will be locked down." She argued. The detective pulled a small keychain with the Union Jack dangling on one end and a few keys on the other side.
"Not to us." He said smugly. Madeline watched the keys swing back and forth in front of her face disbelievingly.
"How did you get house keys to Parliament?" She asked him incredulously. Sherlock's expression grew sour.
"Mycroft. I've done enough for him as of late that he owes me. Did you notice how I had been taking more of his cases?" He said. Madeline shook her head and he shrugged. "As long as we don't get into a gunfight or confront any criminals tonight, Mycroft promised me free reign of the place." Sherlock swung the keychain around his finger. "Impressed yet?" Madeline let herself smile as she leaned her head onto his shoulder.
"Quite. You're very smart, Sherlock." She said, knowing his ego was absolutely glowing anyway and not seeing the need to stoke it farther. They sat quietly for a while longer until Sherlock's watch beeped and he sat upright, waking Madeline from where she'd been dozing off on his shoulder.
"It's time, let's go." He whispered like an excited teenager sneaking out for a night on the town. Madeline followed him out of the storage room and into the lobby of Parliament. It looked eerily like it had when he'd helped her out of the basement, but she shook it off and followed Sherlock as he deftly swept through the building. She kept going until she bumped into his coat and he pushed her backwards quickly.
"Be quiet!" He hissed to her, "There's a night sentry." Madeline could hear keys jangling and the sound of someone shuffling on the tile floor, so she held her breath behind Sherlock until the guard had passed.
"Mycroft was supposed to make sure no one else was here tonight." Sherlock said bitterly.
"It's okay, that makes it an adventure." Madeline whispered boldly into his ear. Even though there were no guns or imminent danger, her heart was beating a million miles an hour with adrenaline and excitement. Sherlock grabbed her hand and darted through another corridor, then unlocked a metal door that led to a flight of steps.
"Get going." He ordered her, "The door will squeak when it opens. I'll lock it behind us so the guard doesn't know something's amiss." He opened the door quickly and before the metal had finished squealing Madeline was already six steps up the metal staircase. Sherlock locked the door behind them and followed her up the stairs. He easily blew past her, and when she finally staggered to the first landing he was waiting for her.
"Jesus." She choked. "How many stairs are there?"
"Three-hundred and fourteen." Sherlock said, not sounding winded at all. "I would liked to have brought you here sooner, but only English residents are allowed to climb the tower."
"Right, like that would have stopped you." Madeline said, still breathing a little hard. Sherlock rolled his eyes and set off on the next flight of stairs, and Madeline followed him. Two-hundred and eighty steps later, they stood behind the western clock face of Big Ben. Sherlock slid his hand over the glass panes until he found the one he was looking for and pushed it open. He gestured for Madeline to look out, and she had an even harder time catching her breath when she peered outside.
The window overlooked the Thames, the London Eye, and a good deal of the riverbank. The sun was going down, so it bathed everything in a rose-gold glow, including Parliament and Big Ben.
"Oh my God, it's beautiful!" She gasped. Sherlock smirked,
"We're not even at the top, yet." He reminded her, pulling her away from the window and leading her up the other steps to the belfry. Madeline crept between the enormous bells carefully, trailing her hands over the cracks in the metal. She gawked at the view from the enormous open windows looking out over London and debated pulling down the wire covering them so she could step onto the narrow terrace and get a better look. Sherlock led her up to the very top floor after another fifty steps or so, and after he waited for her to catch her breath he all but pushed her to the windows to proudly show her the view.
The windows covered every inch of the walls, giving an excellent view of Parliament, Westminster, and the northern side of the Thames. Madeline could see for miles around, if she strained her eyes she could just barely see the spires of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London past the London Eye. The sun had sunk lower, but the twilight was casting a beautiful glow over everything in sight. Madeline inhaled deeply, even though the air was polluted, it came from her city. Her home. She turned to Sherlock, who looked as smug as a peacock.
"This is amazing!" She told him.
"Of course." He responded. "Wasn't it worth the climb?" Madeline nodded and slowly walked circles around the level, resisting the sudden bouts of vertigo that seized her if she tried to look at the streets below for too long. She gazed at Westminster with a glazed expression and a happy grin. Sherlock joined her and they looked out over London until the sun set, throwing the bank in a cloak of darkness until lights flashed on and lit up the land as far as the eye could see. Madeline shivered, and Sherlock frowned.
"Let's go back down." He told her, corralling her away from the windows and back down the stairs. She stopped at the northern clock face again to peer out over the Thames and watch the London Eye light up like a psychedelic rainbow. Then she and Sherlock both continued back down to the metal door. Sherlock tested the handle and nodded when he found it locked. He fished in his pockets for the keys and fitted one into the door, but the metal didn't open. Madeline peered over his shoulder and frowned.
"Is it still locked?" She asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
"Yes, and that's the problem." Sherlock snapped. He tried all the keys on the key ring on the door, even the one he'd used to lock the door earlier. The door stayed shut.
"You must be joking." Sherlock growled at the door.
"Maybe we could get the attention of the night guard." Madeline suggested.
"Of course, and get permanently banned from the building and a smug 'I told you so' from my brother." The detective snapped back. She shivered and hunkered deeper into her coat. A gust of wind blew through the belfry, funneling down the tower like a wind tunnel.
"We're stuck." Sherlock said bitterly.
"There are worse places to be locked in." Madeline reminded him pointedly. She blew on her hands and rubbed them together. "Let's go back up to the clock face. That way the wind won't be as bad and the stairs can get our blood going." She didn't wait for Sherlock's answer, she started to climb the stairs again. After a few more minutes of trying to open the door the detective followed her, muttering the whole way about his brother purposefully locking him in the bell tower and brainstorming ways to exact revenge.
He caught up to Madeline at the clock face. She was staring out the open panel again at the city drenched in night and peppered with bright lights.
"Great date." She told him earnestly. He gave her a flat look and she nudged his shoulder. "I mean it. Sorry I was so reluctant at first. Very clever of you to arrange this." She could see him smile in the light that hit the opaque glass panels on the clock face, and she grinned back.
"Would you like to camp out on one of the upper levels?" He asked her. "We might as well enjoy the view since we're trapped up here." Madeline nodded and followed him up to the top floor again. After she caught her breath, she took a seat leaning against the metal support in the middle of the floor and Sherlock joined her. After a while the cold from the metal seeped into her skin, and the wind blowing through the wire over the windows didn't help. Sherlock charitably spread his coat over them, and they sat on top of Madeline's coat to keep their legs warm. They quietly watched all of London continue on its way, oblivious to what was happening above their heads. After about an hour Madeline fell asleep on Sherlock's shoulder again, and he let her stay there until morning.
They were both woken by the loud, reverberating clangs that echoed up through the belfry. Madeline rolled away from Sherlock and jumped up, feeling the metal reverberate beneath her feet. She latched onto the metal support as the floor shivered again.
"The bell is ringing!" She shouted to Sherlock, who had stabilized himself and gotten over his alarm much faster than she had.
"What?" He shouted as the clock struck again. Madeline hunched her shoulders up to try and muffle the sound before it could reach her ears and shook her head. After four more rings the clock tower fell silent. Sherlock tossed her her jacket.
"It's six," He said, "Good morning." Madeline scowled at him and rubbed at her ears to try and get rid of the ringing sound that was distorting her hearing. She pulled her jacket back on and Sherlock rebuttoned his coat. They both almost sprinted down the steps to the metal door at the bottom.
"Be glad we hadn't slept below the bells by the clock face," Sherlock said. "It would have been much louder." They waited until they heard someone shuffling down the hall, then Sherlock kicked the metal door viciously and dragged Madeline into hiding with him. After a minute the metal door creaked open and the night guard poked his head in, yawned, and propped the door open for the day's visitors. Sherlock waited until the man's footsteps had faded, then quickly pulled Madeline after him. She couldn't help but laugh as they flew down the halls of Parliament- something that wasn't allowed at all. Sherlock took her to the entrance and vaulted over the turnstile, then waited impatiently while she climbed over it. They ran past the empty ticketmaster's booth and out into the street and chilly morning. Madeline bent over at the waist, torn between catching her breath and dissolving into laughter. Sherlock smirked.
"And what did you think of that excursion?" He asked smugly.
"It was great." Madeline snickered, finally calming down and standing upright again. "Ten-out-of-ten would climb Big Ben again."
