TITLE: Delicacy: A delicate operation.
AUTHOR: clarrie
DISCLAIMER: It's a multiple crossover.
I do not own any of the Conan-Doyle or Laurie R King characters used or the concept of Slayers and the Watchers Council
'-All Martians he says! Stupid bugger had stumbled on a nest of Svinkorl demons. Caused an incident, we had our work cut out sorting out that mess I'll tell you....'
'-I vant to drink your blood! Honestly Camilla, you really have to see it, too, too funny.... '
'-I mean, if you intend to do that kind of spell in the first place you need the proper ingredients, not just - Are you eating that? Pass it over then, there's a dear....'
'-Ooh, we're all martians! Pratt.'
'-The Grevhan girl, 21 I think, old enough to know better, but what can you do with the current generation....'
'-Give it to Charnen to do, I suppose. About time it started earning it's keep round here....'
'-At the dockside they said. Well it's all very hush-hush and you didn't hear it from me but....'
'-Again? They're a very odd family, well, you know the story about his mother don't you? Perfectly ridiculous....'
'Steak and kidney?' Brooke stared into his friend's face with a grin. 'Or would you like me to give you a moment to stop eavesdropping outrageously before I repeat my question?'
Reed blushed. 'Was I doing it again?' This wasn't his first visit to the canteen, it wasn't even his first visit to the canteen this week, but it always struck him the same, and he hoped to God that he'd never get used to it. So many snatches of conversations, casual chit-chat about subjects he'd never dreamt were actual reality. He looked around him at the light airy room at his fellow Watchers and grinned like a child. 'I-I just....'
'Understandable, Reed, understandable. The sight of Lill Williams struggling with a shepherd's pie can take a man like that sometimes.' Joked Brooke, reaching for a tray and joining the queue for food. 'You should have come here before the war, I remember when my father brought me here for the first time. A proper old-fashioned gentleman's club it was then of course, no women, no children, no -'
'Brooke, dear lord. Brooke, man, have you heard?' The red faced, middle aged man shook Brooke excitedly by the hand, his eyes shining wickedly. He turned to Reed and held out his hand. 'Don't believe I've had the pleasure young man, Brettingham-Smith's the name, Gregory Brettingham-Smith, yourself?'
'Reed, William Reed.' Reed introduced himself nervously. 'Ossie-that, that is Watcher Brooke is....'
'Ah, you're the Bantling Reed, good man, good man, keep him out of mischief, that's the ticket.' Brettingham-Smith tapped him amiably on the shoulder and turned back to Brooke. 'The Grevhan girl's baby, guess what she's gone and called it,' He paused, bubbling over with guilty amusement. 'Windermere!'
Brooke digested the three rapidly fired syllables. He blinked, and framed a tentative question. 'Like the lake?'
'Exactly! Exactly!' The older Watcher nodded excitedly, joyfully scandalised, 'Would you credit it!'
'Poor little sod,' Brooke choked down a laugh, 'Like the lake.' He shook his head in amused resignation, 'Why, in the name of all that is holy?'
'What? Oh some nonsense about breaking free from the stagnancy of the past, you know what she's like.' Brettingham-Smith edged forward along the queue alongside Brooke. 'I blame the parents. What's wrong with a good old name like - like....'
'Gregory, for instance?' Said Brooke, innocently.
'Quite so! Quite so!' Brettingham-Smith had the grace to blush. 'Good old name, couldn't move for Gregorys when I was a lad.'
'Watchman.' Muttered Reed.
'What? What? Watchman?' Rattled Brettingham-Smith, blinking at the junior Watcher's sudden contribution. 'Eh?'
'It-um, Watchman, the meaning - I, that is, one of the meanings behind, Gregory.' Reed stumbled, 'It, I- thought perhaps it may have accounted for the name's popularity.' He cleared his throat nervously. 'I'm sorry.'
'Windermere,' chuckled Brooke ushering his companions along the line, 'If she wanted a break - steak and kidney please, love. No, with chips and peas. That's fantastic. - from tradition, what's wrong with, I don't know, Ian?' He shook his head. 'Poor little sod....'
'Give 'em their due, Reed, If you'd spent most of your adult existence training a schoolgirl to kill things that want to use your eyeballs for a ritual sacrifice I should imagine you would've evolved a bit of an odd attitude to life too.' Brooke smiled at his friend as they walked through the dark corridors and fumbled in his pockets for his cigarettes. 'Which is not to say that I don't think a bit of fresh water in the old gene pool might help.' He grinned, 'Have you met my sister?'
'Have I-' Reed's mouth hung open, 'Brooke, I -' light dawned, slowly, as it might above, say, Mount Fuji. 'You don't have a sister.'
'Give the man a balloon!' Brooke extracted a cigarette from his case and lit it. 'Honestly though it makes me laugh, trying so very hard to be new and rational, not realising they're just keeping the ridiculousness and throwing the meaning out with the bath water.'
They continued down the corridors, past walls painted that unique light green that only public buildings willingly choose, a colour that Reed had mentally christened 'cream of broccoli'.
Brooke took out another cigarette and held it out for his colleague as they turned the corner. 'We bring it on ourselves though, never one to settle for the average,' he smiled as he noticed a familiar figure inspecting a notice board attached to the wall in the passageway ahead of them. 'For instance,' He raised his voice in an attempt to alert the Watcher to their presence, 'Look at the Giles brothers here. Oh, only one. Where's your brother, Giles old man?'
'Gus?' Giles turned from his scrutiny of the cork board in front of him and smiled warmly at the two Watchers. He was a stocky, thick set man, whose appearance of stolid, no-nonsense, conformity often reassured those who had only limited dealings with his department, the very image of a family man and generic professional, an architect perhaps, or G.P. He scratched the back of his head, disrupting his now greying hair so that wisps of it stood out boyishly.
'They found something in Cambridge,' He began to explain, 'and wanted him to have a go at identifying it. He's grubbing about in the fens as we speak, in fact, happy as a pig in sunshine. Do you need to contact him?'
'No, no,' Brooke clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder, 'Giles minor will do for our needs.' He turned to Reed, holding out his hand behind Giles in the manner of a teacher displaying a specimen to the class. 'So look at the Giles family here, Hamish and Angus! And neither of them with a closer connection to Scotland than the nearest drinks cabinet. Am I right?
'I was named for a friend of my mother's,' Explained Giles, bashfully, 'although I believe Angus was merely a break from tradition.'
'And what a break! Lordy,' Brooke patted Giles on the back, 'now, what did you and Louissa call that sprog of yours again?
Giles smiled proudly, 'Rupert.'
'Rupert! You hear that Reed? Rupert! This is wot orange juice hav done for the world.'
'Louissa is a traditional Watcher name though,' said Reed earnestly, 'am I right Mr,' Reed corrected himself, 'Watcher Giles? Glorious battle.'
'You've been studyin' Reed old chap, hardly fair,' clucked Brooke with a grin, 'Right though, right enough, very traditional family the Ghislins. What's that sister in law of yours called again, Jimmy?'
'Estrildis or Hildergarde?' Enquired Giles helpfully.
'Reckon that's my point proved there.'
Reed gently nudged open the door to the Watchers Council Library, or rather the space in which the catalogues of all the books owned by the Council were kept, and updated, for the total number of books gathered by the Council throughout the centuries would require miles of shelving to house them and an army of staff. Never the less, almost an entire floor was taken up with books waiting to be repaired, books newly acquired and in search of classification, books no longer strong enough to be entrusted to those working in the field, a nursery, retirement home and hospital of books.
It was deserted.
'Brooke?' Whispered Reed. 'I don't think it's -'
'Be with you in a jiffy!' A powerful female voice floated up from beneath the central countertop, 'Don't tie yourself in knots whispering dear,' It boomed, 'there's never anyone here Friday afternoons.'
Bathsheba Nancy Mycroftine Holmes, Miss. Not a creature about whom efforts were often made to describe. In years past, when there were still sporadic, if somewhat half-hearted, attempts by young Watchers to further their career through nepotism, the words 'handsome' and on occasion 'stately' had been thrown around. A less charitable tongue had recently uttered the phrase 'Tweed Zeppelin'.
Nature, in her wisdom, had seen fit to give Miss Holmes her father's figure and the Vernet nose, which, although compensated by the equally expansive mycroftian intellect, had resulted in a fondness for work which took her beyond the reach of nasty minds and sharp tongues, and had ultimately brought her to the quiet warmth of the Council Library. Dark walnut brown hair, dusted, of late, with strands of grey, was held atop her head in a sensible knot with a combination of wire hairpins and wishful thinking, brown eyes - warm, dark and hooded, almost the sole inheritance from her mother, peered out from behind thick lenses at her visitors. A bluestocking'd babushka, misplaced amongst the ancient volumes. 'Now, what was it you wanted?'
Brooke consulted a slip of paper. 'Gheddes,' He began uncertainly, 'Gheddes on -'
'Not a hope, sent every volume we've got of Gheddes up to Carlisle this morning.' Miss Holmes smiled politely, 'They're having something of an emergency with the - oh, but I need not bore you with that. We could call them back for you, but I shouldn't imagine they'll be back before the week's out.' Surprisingly slim, mobile fingers fluttered through the week's ledger and hovered above the pages with a pencil, 'Would that do? Good afternoon, by the way.' She added with a grin.
'Good afternoon Miss - Watcher Holmes.'
'Call me Batty, dear,' Miss Holmes ducked from view once more beneath the counter, reappearing with a tea caddy and a notebook, 'after all, he will.' She continued, raising an affectionate eyebrow in the direction of Brooke. 'Tea?'
'Tea, made by your hands, would be an ambrosian beverage. Nectar, spilt from the heavens, served by Aphrodite herself could not compare to your own particular brand of -'
'Oh do shut up, Ozzie, you silly ass.' Batty removed a tin of biscuits from a shelf beneath the counter and planted them triumphantly on the tabletop. 'And don't think that I can't see you fiddling with that pipe. Spark it up in here and you're out on your ear.'
A pale, silvery coil hovered, suspended amongst the dust, plaited threads of shining crystal, reflecting the tiniest points of light again and again until a white sheen coated the knots and loops. The dry, barren, darkness pressed against it's filigree structure, inserting itself amongst the luminous folds, clothing the entire space in an unnatural silence.
The pure clear stream of water hung frozen in the timelessness of the cavern, trapped in a state of perpetual freefall, long after the watercourse above had dried.
And below, They slept.
'Ooh, lovely.' Brooke took a sip of tea and reached out for a ginger nut. 'We saw Giles on the way in here, Bats.'
'Professor Giles is back from Cambridge?' Miss Holmes looked up excitedly from her work. 'Did he say anything? They found a thing you know, terribly interesting. They brought Angus in the moment they found it.'
'A thing Bats?'
'Hmm, hmm, that's just it, they've not a clue what it is, not a clue.' She chattered animatedly, unaware of, or simply ignoring the gentle mocking inflection in the younger Watcher's voice. 'Absolutely fascinating, Angus says they don't even know where to begin, he says apparently it doesn't comply with any known ritual for the area or the time frame. Angus says that -'
'Does he Bats?' Brooke grinned. 'Gosh.' He ducked as the blushing librarian batted him playfully about the ears. 'Wretch! See that Reed? The abuse I put up with in service to the Council? It's positively feudal, physical attacks upon my person!' He stretched himself melodramatically back in his chair and pressed his wrist to his forehead in a gesture of mock despair. 'Do with me what you will,' he sobbed plaintively, 'Take my honour, ruin me, play your dastardly games with my humble peasant heart only to cast me upon the - '
'Oh do stop it you silly boy.' Miss Holmes took a sip of her tea and turned deliberately to Reed. 'You must be going absolutely potty having to listen to him jabber on all day.'
Reed smiled shyly. 'I'm learning a lot.'
'Hmm, I dread to think.'
'Slanderous female!' Retorted Brooke. 'I'll have you know we've been discussing the fine old naming traditions.'
'Oh, did you hear about -'
'The Grevhan girl, yes, yes, old news' Brooke gave an exaggerated yawn, 'Dear me, the standards of gossip around here really are falling, Reed, don't you think?' He darted to avoid a further blow. 'Come on Reed you odious little swot, defend your mentor! Chuck a few facts over here and distract this harpy!'
'Do you, that is, Miss Holmes is there a copy of the 'Hartnell's Slayer Lore' I might borrow?'
'Several,' Miss Holmes disappeared momentarily amongst the shelves, returning with a well thumbed volume, the cover cracked and the pages shiny from the grease of a thousand thumbs. 'It'd do you well to get your own copy though, they're doing a reprint some time in the new year I believe - oh but of course, you have your meeting with the Slayer tomorrow don't you?'
Reed nodded proudly, 'We're to advise her on ballistics.'
Miss Holmes shook her head. 'You know, I remember when there was only one Watcher, well,' She hesitated, 'not only one Watcher, but you know what I mean. None of this 'need to know basis', Watching by committee, pallava.'
'It's the future, Bats. Change,' Brooke drained his cup, 'And without change, we stagnate...'
Holmes gripped the cold stone ledge and pulled himself up onto it, perching on the outcrop as the mist around him condensed on his skin. Coating him with droplets of water as if he were simply an extension of the dead stone. He smiled darkly, remembering that, in a way, he was.
He leant back against the building and stared down. A blanket of fog obliterated the city, blocking his view of the street level. Not that there would have been anything of note to see, the bustling twenty four hour city that he had left sixty years ago was no more. Two world wars and a generation of fear had dulled the inhabitant's hunger for adventure, heightened their collective longing for the hearth, left the city a neutered shell. A suburb of ten million souls.
Holmes blinked, silently, into the darkness, wondering if what had brought him back after so long was even worth it. He leant down and struck a match on the windowsill below his foot, the tiny circle of light reflected off of the Abbey National building as he lit his cigarette and blew a mouthful of smoke into the damp air below him. No, it had to be done. To come this far and then do nothing would be a mockery. He smiled, an icy, tight-lipped smile, full of poison and a dark, negative logic. His actions would be a memorial, a monument, writ large across the histories of the world. For ever, and ever, amen.
Holmes let the glowing cigarette fall from his fingers and watched as the orange spot faded into the soupy darkness. 'Goodnight, Irene.' He breathed, to the night in general, and began his descent.
To be continued.
