Thanks y'all! I love reviews more than anything! You're right Silent Beatnik (May I still call you that? Please?) Emma is definitely bitchy and she's got every right to be. I'm not concerning myself with what is cliché; I'm concerning myself with what's real.

Chapter three

Mrs. Hudson proffered a soft green dress. I shook my head and stepped back, feeling like a balking horse.

"No," I said politely, but firmly, "I'm facing him on my terms or not at all."

Her disapproving countenance softened and she nodded.

"I will get your things then."

I pulled on a simple grey top, grodey red and grey Vans, and battered, patched, but beloved jeans; the clothes I had worn to Albert Hall. Mrs. Hudson pined my dark hair up skillfully and despite the clash of time periods, it turned my casual outfit into something elegant.

Finally, I made my way into the sitting room. Watson looked shock at first but then grinned at me; Holmes didn't even look up. The mantel was inundated in papers; I noted the chemistry set, bookcases, even that ridiculous Persian slipper everyone was so fond of mentioning. The wall behind the door had a profuse number of bullet holes in it. Silently, I glanced at the ceiling over Holmes's bedroom door. It was there, I hadn't dreamed up that piece of madness. So what the hell was wrong with Holmes? He should be at my throat for answers by know. I glanced at Watson, feeling the silence thickening like the air before a storm. What did I really know about these two men at all? From that one outburst alone, I could scrap everything I did know.

"It would probably be best," I sighed aloud and sank onto the sofa.

"Pardon me?" Watson asked, giving me a quizzical look.

"Er," I stalled uneasily; my train of thought was off schedule, an unpleasant occurrence.

Unwittingly, I looked into a pair of frosty grey eyes. Shards of ice pierced my innards and for one terrifying moment I couldn't breath again. I closed my eyes before the blackness swallowed me. The Hoover broke and deluged me with memories. Then I realized I was playing ostrich, hiding my head in the sand. Embarrassed, I opened my eyes again, though I was hesitant to make eye contact again, if only to see the blatant disgust there.

"Lâchez-moi! Tu pervertir!" was a particularly forward recollection in my mind.

"It would probably be best," I started out again, "if I found employment immediately.

"I am, most grateful for," I struggled with the words, everything was so foreign, "for your hospitality and kindness, but I mustn't impose on it any longer."

I tugged at the Green Peace patch on my thigh. The whole situation was beginning to dawn on me. My eyes turned to the window and the fog that enshrouded the world outside.

It was real. It was out there.

And suddenly I needed to be out there, just to know.

"May," I drew a deep breath and continued, "I take a walk?"

"If you do not object to some questions I would like to ask later, I would be, happy to escort you," Holmes spoke for the first time.

His hesitation over the word happy was far from lost on me. I bristled, not so much at the implication, but at the realization that I was completely at this pair's mercy. If I didn't accept their terms I would most likely end up at the mercy of someone who didn't posses any. One look into his astute grey eyes confirmed that the reason he was sure I wouldn't bolt was because he was sure I had nowhere to go. Quietly I began to smolder. Perhaps I had to accept, but I didn't have to be courteous about it.

"I will answer what I deem appropriate," I replied in a deceptively cool manner.

"Very well," Watson cut in, his tone slightly warning; to Holmes, or me I wasn't sure.

My trench was slung across a chair at the table. I threw it on and glanced down at the effect, the bottom was cut for freedom of movement and thus appeared to flare out enough to cover a dress. Nonetheless, it was not something a Victorian woman would ever wear.

'Victorian woman,' I thought with contempt and jammed my hands into my pockets. I turned to ask about my Strad and bag, but was swept out the door before the correctly phrased words removed themselves from the traffic jam of incorrect ones caught in my throat. It was just as well; if the incorrect ones had come out world war one would have started nearly three decades early.

As it was, The Cold War went from winter to summer when he took my arm. 

"Miss Kinglars, I don't believe we have in fact been properly introduced, I am Sherlock Holmes and naturally this is my colleague and associate Dr. John Watson, whom you have already met," he smoothly stated. I nodded, not sure what was expected; especially not liking having my arm threaded through his. As the three of us walked down the street all the animosity drained out of me.

This was Victorian London.

The hansom cabs, the gas lamps, the rough cockney, refined ladies, grubby street Arabs, vendors, grimy cobblestone streets, brownstones, teashops, pubs, and over it all a choking yellow-brown fog that amplified every noise made. It was enough to make you feel like a cat in a kennel.

We walked in silence for sometime, my dismay rapidly plummeting into despair.

I'd never make it here.

I was too crass and opinionated. I didn't give a damn what people thought of me; and just looking the ladies we passed was enough to make my heart land with a splat in the gutter, with every disease known to man, and a few more besides.

Impatiently I growled at myself, this would not do. I dragged my chin up and found myself facing a brown mare dolefully looking at me around her blinders.

"Hell no!" I yelled, yanking myself out of Holmes grip. The two of them (and the horse, and some pedestrians) turned and stared at me.

 "I won't be like you," I whispered to the mare, " I will never be like you."

"Miss Kinglars are you—"

"Yes, I am quite fine I assure you Watson. I don't customarily chat with horses," I sneered caustically, more at myself than anyone. To my shock, Holmes began to laugh. I watched in astonishment as his shoulders began to quake and then as it rose and burst out into the air. Recovering, I tucked a stray wisp of hair behind my ear and folded my arms.

"Please call me Emma. I don't know how I'm going to get by with all this etiquette merde," I growled to myself, unhappily scuffing the sidewalk with the toe of my Vans.

"Then you must call me John," he replied, grinning again and looking quite cute and nothing like the bumbling fool portrayed in the canon. I begin to suspect that his character had been altered for a contrasting effect that would make Holmes seem all the more brilliant.

"Very well," I nodded, "then John, what the hell is the date and how the hell did I get here?"

"It is Wednesday August 7, 1885 and I haven't the faintest notion," he said quickly, once again looking rather puzzled.

"I suppose this is going to take awhile," I said looking dubiously at the still silent Holmes. His eyes ran over me before he nodded; I sighed.

"Come Watson, Miss—"

"Emma," I supplied.

"Kinglars," he finished giving me a hand into the cab sitting by the curb.

The jostling was horrible. Through a glaring headache as we rode back to Baker street, I watch with envy as the two of them sat effortlessly straight.

When we got back to 221b the inquisition began. I told Holmes flat out, that I would not answer any questions about the future; he already knew enough from snooping through my stuff and mere observation. He gamely replied that I obviously had an unfair advantage.

"I will make it up to you when and where you chose," I offered magnanimously.

"I accept your selfless proposal," he replied graciously acknowledging the reach of my effort to bridge the gap. This made him clearly aware of the extent of my advantage, but he hadn't a clue as to the grounds. How could he? A Study in Scarlet wouldn't be published until 1887.

He wasn't alone in his primary frustration; how had I gotten here?

Next in line was who had poisoned me and why. I couldn't relate the events leading up to my transportation without giving him too much information about the future. My memory was too clouded with the pain and confusion involved to be accurate anyway. There was no point; there was no indication of anything specific. I bluntly told them I hadn't been aware time traveling was possible and if this much distance could not keep me safe, nothing could. I was no quantum physics student and I was not going to give him the smallest specific of even the year it had been. Or would be.

So we drew to a stalemate.

Holmes slouched in his chair, fingers characteristically steepled and somehow managed to glower with his eyes shut. John looked about as tired as I felt and I felt like someone had tried to put me through a cotton gin. To understate the situation; not cool.

Finally I roused myself from the overwhelmed stupor into which I'd sunk.

"Where is my Strad?"

Holmes glanced up, seeming to return from another continent, of thought at least.

"I'll get it," he murmured and rose. He disappeared into his room and returned a moment later with it and my bag. I'd never seen a stranger sight than him with a world war II mailbag slung across his three piece suit. I unlocked the pad, unzipped the case, and set it aside. Angling the body carefully to examine the label.

"Hand me a magnifying glass," I requested, distractedly. The handle was placed in my hand and I began thorough examination through the 'f' hole and of the entire violin itself.

"You don't believe It's a fake and I've stolen it do you?" an amused voice asked from somewhere above me.

"It's a Stradivarius," I cried defensively. Holmes's mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. I shrugged and tightened my bow. Standing, I attacked the shoulder rest and tuned. Everything sounded all right. I ran up a scale and smile appreciatively before launching into a warm-up piece. I worked through Humoresque, a piece by Dvorák, just a smidgen slower than usual, but ultimately please with the result. It was La Mer all right.

Finishing, I realized with a start that Humoresque hadn't been written yet.

"Would that I could get you into the Paris Conservatory," Holmes said, emotionlessly.

"No kidding," I muttered, my elation quickly wiped away in lieu of employment prospects. I put La Mer back and began to rummage through my bag. Making a mental checklist of what I had with me.

"You wouldn't last a day as a maid," he said.

"Or as a secretary," John added.

"I agree, completely," I said, dryly, "so what can I do?"

"Governess," John suggested, standing and pouring himself a glass of brandy, "it is really the only option left. Would you like a drink?"

"No thanks," I answered, inwardly flinching at the proposition.

"Yes, I think she would make a splendid governess," Holmes drawled. I glared at him.

"You honestly believe that?" I demanded.

"Have a drink, Emma." John pressed a glass into my hands in an effort to delay the inevitable war brewing. I downed it in one go and got a good laugh out of John's expression. Holmes was imperturbable as ever.

"Refill?" I called, cocking my head, and holding the glass out. He took it with a wary glance at me.

"Now you haven't answered my question," I said, turning towards Holmes and sipping the brandy.

"You haven't got much choice, Kinglars."

"You are infuriating, do you know that?" I blurt out.

"Not half as infuriating as you are," he shot back. I sat for a moment contemplating, with no small amount of horror, what I'd just said.

"Watson," I swallowed, "you'd better take this." I held my glass out to him. I'd only had a glass and few sips but I hadn't eaten anything in hours, since breakfast. When I got drunk I became brusquely truthful, which could be very dangerous and had caught me in extremely unpleasant situations once or twice before.

"Kinglars, I suggest you let Mrs. Hudson help you put on that dress and we go out to diner," Holmes said sharply.

"I apologize," I said swiftly. Turmoil and embarrassment burnt through me.

"It's been a long day," Holmes said blandly, but it was compassionate thing to say. I was grateful he didn't think me a...well I really couldn't claim he didn't think I was an idiot. He was keeping the contempt out of his behavior. Holmes could have cut me down with one casual swipe, but he didn't. I was grateful for that at least. 

Even so dinner was a miserable affair.

Did I mention I was wearing a corset?

The food was first rate and John had some truly amusing stories and was quite gifted when it came to telling them, but all I could think was: I got drunk in front of Sherlock Holmes. On the first day I'd officially made his acquaintance. Not really drunk, but enough to humiliate myself.

'What the hell am I thinking? Even if it is Sherlock Holmes, why should I care if he were the, the queen of Sheba?'  I mused.

I cracked up over my crème brûlé at the thought of Holmes as the queen of Sheba, conveniently at the punch line of John's story.

"You should write these down, they would sell," I told him, encouragingly.

He didn't reply.

"Is business not discussed over dinner?" I asked; feeling slightly abashed.

'Everything I say,' I bemoaned my terrible timing. 

"Not usually by women," Holmes said, coolly swirling the wine in his glass, "but since the topic has been brought up, I will find a position for you tomorrow."

It took a great deal of willpower not shriek out 'merci Dieu.' His nonchalant gesturing was so evidently mocking my earlier episode.

"Words cannot express," I said, demurely. I was pleased to see John took the words at face value, while Holmes took the hit. 

The meal was quickly wrapped up after that. I stretched my legs out over the seat in the cab to brace myself; wishing desperately that someone would invent cheap shocks. Folding myself arms, I rallied myself to battle my inner demons.

For all I knew, I was going to spend the rest of my life here. I just had to accept that. Panicking and going into hysterics would be a waste of time and energy. I had to make the best of what was dealt to me, even a freakish hand like this. It was too much to absorb at once so I decided to take it one day at a time. When we arrived, it was all I could do to get up the stairs before I crashed and burned.

Something really weird happened to me while I was writing this. Emma yelled out something totally OOC and of course Holmes retaliated immediately. I didn't get it; why would she say that? Then I stopped for a moment. I'd just had to put some action in the dialogue, hadn't I? She hadn't eaten in hours either. It was then I discovered:

Emma Kinglars has no tolerance for alcohol.

I hope she doesn't have anything else to spring on me. Your characters coming to life with a mind of their own is not very reassuring to a struggling wannabe writer.