A/N: As promised by my refusal to go away, here is chapter seven! *dramatic fanfare* The chapter at least some of you have been waiting for, in which Rhodes' past - well, a lot of it - is revealed. Mavelle, your guess was partially right, so here's a cookie! *bestows upon you a cookie loaded with chocolate* But as for which part, you'll have to read on and find out. Oh, and I've noticed that some of you are having trouble imagining the southern accent. I can understand that, since every time someone makes a modern Holmes, he's always a Brit! Sorry I decided to be all different and weird, but if you're having difficulty imagining Rhodes' voice, just think Matthew MacConaughey, only more refined. All righty! I won't waste your time with an unnecessary amount of talk, so here's the latest chapter! Onward!

Disclaimer: Though my characters are original, my ideas are so utterly, completely not. You'll have to take your plot complaints up with Sir Doyle.

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A Perfect World
a Sherlock Holmes pastiche
by Wakizashi

Chapter Seven: Green Eyes

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Green eyes
You're the one that I wanted to find
And anyone who tried to deny you
Must be out of their mind
'Cause I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter since I met you
Honey, you should know
That I could never go on without you
Green eyes

"Green Eyes" - Coldplay

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One thing you should probably know about Ethan Rhodes is that he is a very inconsistent decorator. While the living room in his posh condo had a distinct Japanese feel to it, the kitchen was definitely Italian in design, from the grape vines etched on the wine rack to the copper pans hanging over the island counter. The spare bedroom, in which he showcased his various and completely unrelated interests - it contained a snowboard, a weight bench, and collection of model sailing ships, to name a few - had a very modern theme. But most unexpected of all was his own bedroom.

In the short time that I had known Rhodes, he had never invited me to see his bedroom. Not that there was any reason why he should feel compelled to, but I was always curious to know what it looked like. As I followed him to the end of the upstairs hallway, I prepared myself for a first-rate example in interior design. He opened the door, and my first thought was, *He must be insane.*

As elegant and classy as the rest of his condo was, the place he laid his head every night was decidedly much shabbier. As I looked around, trying to hide my distaste, I was taken aback by the complete lack of style and space it displayed. His scarred oak bed was much too large for the room, and walls had been - intentionally, it seemed - painted an unfathomably ugly shade of powder blue that clashed with the rest of the decor; if decor it could be called.

Yet somehow I felt as if I had seen it before. As I wracked my brain trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar, I gasped in sudden recognition. Except for a few minor details, such as an acoustic guitar, a small stereo, and a rack of cds, it was modeled almost flawlessly after the Vincent Van Gogh oil painting, 'Bedroom in Arles'. It was literally like stepping into Van Gogh's own bedroom. It was mildly unsettling, and indescribably cool.

"Oh my God," I breathed in amazement, unable to think of anything else to say.

Rhodes smiled. "Yes, that's been the general reaction," he said with obvious pride.

Nodding in agreement, I was vaguely aware that my friend pulled me the rest of the way into the Van Gogh room. As he went to the closet door, painted a darker shade of blue, I sat on the enormous bed, taking in every detail. If our time hadn't been so pressed, I believe I would have sat there for hours.

"How did you do this?" I asked as he began pulling clothes out of his closet that no young man has any business owning. White laboratory coats and fur-lined boots were soon flying through the air.

He shrugged, throwing a long red shawl over his shoulder. "When I moved in, I immediately noticed that the layout of this bedroom coincided precisely with the room Van Gogh had in Arles. It cost surprisingly little to imitate. The room had no carpet to begin with, and the window frame wasn't hard to replace. The bed was probably the most expensive purchase."

"Well," I remarked, "it's incredible." Everything was exactly where it should be, right down to the coat pegs on the wall behind the giant bed's headboard.

Looking through the assortment of cds, I was about to inform Rhodes that we both had the same Coldplay album when he pulled out one of the small wooden chairs and beckoned for me to sit on it. I dutifully obeyed, wondering what he would transform me into, and in answer he produced a wig of short, wavy red hair. What sort of detective work he had to do which would require such a disguise I didn't really want to know. "I hate to break it to you, Rhodes, but I'm not Irish enough to pull off red hair," I said dubiously.

"Trust me, it will work," he assured me. "Besides, if we're lucky, Hu won't even see us close enough to doubt your natural roots."

I laughed, and he stood behind me with a brush and began combing my hair back from my face. As I marveled at how gentle he was, I couldn't help but wonder why the situation wasn't at all uncomfortable. It was as if we had known each other forever. "By the way," I had to ask, "what made you suspect Hu in the first place?"

He ran the brush through the sensitive hair at the back of my neck like a professional hair stylist. "To be completely truthful, I had already done some sleuthing to find out who Chan's fellow Triad members were, and came up with the same names his wife gave us. Thomas Hu, Teddy Nguyen, Daniel Lee, and a few others. So of course, they were my primary suspects. But Hu was the only one that had left New York, and somehow he had ended up in San Francisco as well. Highly suggestive," he added, pulling my hair into a tight ponytail and pinned it securely to my head.

"Yes, highly," I agreed. He picked up the wig and fitted it firmly over my hair, and as he rearranged the bangs with an amusing fussiness, I fought the urge to scratch. "So when you asked Mrs. Chan who her husband's old friends were, you already knew."

"Right." He knelt in front of me, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized my disguise. "Still a bit too Bridgesy," he decided. From his closet he pulled out a small box, which was revealed to contain a large variety of different pairs of glasses. He selected a pair of Buddy Holly-style frames that were nerdy and fashionable at the same time. He placed them over my eyes, and through the thick but deceptively non-prescription lenses, I saw him grin. "Much better."

I stood up and looked in the small mirror next to the window. I was shocked by how so few changes could completely alter my appearance. The young woman staring back at me certainly looked twenty-two, and she had the same hazel eyes as me. But *this* young woman, with her fiery red locks and stylish specs, appeared far more glamorous than I was. I briefly considered asking Rhodes if I could wear the disguise permanently.

Belatedly I noticed that he was awaiting my approval. I turned to him and grinned, running a hand through my new do. "Just call me Maggie O'Flannigan," I declared with a bad Irish accent.

He smiled and rolled his eyes. "Calm down now, 'Maggie', you still need different clothes than the ones you're wearing. Although I rather like your taste in dress, Hu knows your preferences as well. You can't expect to pass for someone else with glasses and a wig."

His reasoning seemed logical, so I meandered around aimlessly in the Van Gogh room as Rhodes searched for some attire more appropriate for Maggie O'Flannigan than Nadia Bridges. As my eyes wandered, I suddenly noticed an article that looked more out of place than the three-disc stereo on the little desk. On the wooden chair that my backside had not occupied sat an large, light brown teddy bear that looked like it had seen many years. Curious, I bent down to examine it more closely, but I was hesitant to pick it up. It was very old and worn, and had a popped seam in the arm, along with other areas that desperately needed repair.

"Hey Rhodes," I said, gently lifting the bear's precariously attached arm. "I'm no Susie Homemaker, but back on the farm I had to repair a lot of clothes. I could fix this bear up for you, if you like."

His back stiffened where he knelt in front of the closet. "No, that's all right," he replied, his voice tight.

I frowned slightly at his sudden change in behavior. Still, I could understand if it had sentimental value; even though Rhodes didn't seem the sentimental type. "Okay," I said, shrugging. "It's cute. Where'd you get it?"

When he turned to look at me, I knew the answer before he spoke. The grief and loss on his face told me far more than words. Whoops. Way to bring up painful, unwanted memories, you stupid girl. You sure you weren't born blonde? "Oh," I blurted, hastily dropping the wool-stuffed arm. A little hesitant, I removed my glasses, went over to the closet, and sat down next to him on the hard floor. "I'm so sorry, Rhodes," I said quietly, placing my hand on his arm.

He gave his head a violent shake, his hair falling into his eyes. "No, Bridges, don't apologize," he said quickly. "I suppose I should be used to people asking about her, but..." He trailed off, and his eyes squeezed shut. When he spoke, his voice was constricted. "I just can't."

Whether he wanted comfort or not, it was clear that he *needed* it. Slowly, I removed my hand from his arm and placed it over his thin, white hand where it rested on his knee. He didn't open his eyes, but his hand slipped into mine, grasping it as tightly as it would if it were holding on to a life preserver. I tried to hold it in for as long as I could, but eventually it just came out: "What happened to her, Rhodes?"

Finally he opened his eyes. They were shining with unshed tears. "I can't tell you," he whispered.

I matched the pressure of the squeeze his hand gave me. "Why not?"

"Because you won't like what you hear." His tone was fragile; almost pleading. *Please, Bridges, please don't make me tell you,* his green eyes begged.

As heart-wrenching as those eyes were, they couldn't shake my resolve. "Rhodes," I said softly. "It's not good for you to keep all this pain shut up inside you. When I told you what had happened to my father, it felt like this huge weight was lifted off me. It can be like that for you, too. You don't have to hold this burden by yourself. I can share it with you." I reached out my other hand and enveloped his in both of mine. "You're not alone anymore, Rhodes. Don't act like you are."

We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then he took a deep, shaky breath. "You say I'm not alone," he said bitterly, "but after tonight I will be." As I tried to decipher what this meant, he heaved a sigh. "We don't really have time for this, but all right. You win. I can't really tell you about my sister, though, until you know more about my family.

"I suppose you could say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My father, Eugene Bertram Rhodes, was a successful doctor; just like his father, and so on for four generations. He had lived in Savannah, Georgia his entire life, and that's where he met my mother, Regina Wheeler. She also came from a family of aristocrats, so you can imagine how thrilled the upper-class community was when they were married.

"They were together for quite a while before they decided to have children. They tried in vain, but it was harder than they had planned. After three miscarriages, they were ready to give up when they finally had me. They were so thrilled that they chose the most boastful name they could: Ethan Nicholas. It means something like 'strong and victorious'; but I can't remember anymore, and I certainly don't agree. Naturally I was pampered to death, because at last they had a child to spoil, until four years later my mother gave birth to a daughter."

I could see where this was going. Little Ethan was the apple of his parents' eye, until the new baby came along and stole all of his attention. A story as old as time, and thankfully one I had never had to tell myself. Sometimes I loved being an only child.

"Alice Maurine," said Rhodes. "That's what they named her, and a better name would have been impossible to find. She had blonde hair, blue eyes; every bit the spitting image of Lewis Carroll's character of the same name. But my mother died giving birth to her. The doctors said she should never have gotten pregnant again, considering how hard her pregnancy with me was. My father vowed to bring up Alice, his little angel, in a way that would make his wife proud. You can guess where that left me.

"The little affection I *did* receive was lessened considerably when I decided I wanted to become a detective. I was only eleven at the time, and my father was furious at me for even thinking of abandoning the family practice. He told me I was too young to know what I wanted. But as I got older, and my wishes didn't change, my father eventually came to regard me as a disappointment to the Rhodes legacy."

Why do people try to live through their offspring? Parents always warn their children about peer pressure, but they never have any preparation when they receive it in the home. Suppressing a sigh of irritation, I gave Rhodes' hand a comforting squeeze.

He didn't seem to notice, so immersed was he in his narrative. "As for Alice," he said quietly, refusing to look in my eyes, "I couldn't stand her. She was sweet, and beautiful, and basically perfect in every way you could imagine. And my father adored her. Because of that, I ignored her in the same way Father ignored me. But for some reason, she worshiped the ground I walked on. I never understood that." He shut his eyes tightly. "I was a terrible brother.

"One August, a month before I turned eighteen, my friends invited me to the state fair. Father told me that I couldn't go unless I brought Alice along with me. I was angry, but those were the conditions. So I took her. But I refused to pay any attention to her. The only time I even acknowledged her presence when I won a prize at a carnival game that I didn't want, and I gave it to her."

"The bear," I guessed.

He nodded, his eyes still closed. "She was so happy, Bridges," he whispered miserably. "So thrilled that her big brother won a present for her. But if she hadn't been there, I would have thrown it away." Choking back a sob, he pulled his hand out of mine and covered his face with it.

At this point I didn't know what to do. Rhodes was obviously in a serious amount of pain, but there was nothing I could say or do that could make him feel better. I didn't even know the whole story, and I could only guess where it was going. I sincerely hoped I was wrong.

After an excruciatingly long pause, Rhodes continued, his hand resting on the side of his face. "We all walked around for a while, until finally we got to the haunted house. You know how those are; they're not frightening in the least, but no one will go in unless everyone dares each other. Alice, of course, was too scared. She was only fourteen, after all. My friends wanted to go, and I was too impatient to wait outside with her, so I told her to wait by the entrance until we came back."

Though I knew full well what was coming next, I willed myself to be mistaken. My guess, to my horror, proved true when he spoke again. "That was the last time I ever saw her."

My eyes slid shut. "Oh God, Rhodes," I whispered.

"When we came out, there was her bear on the ground, but no Alice. When we discovered she was missing, I panicked. I couldn't move, I couldn't even think." He drew in a shuddery breath. "Don't think I ever hated her, Bridges. She irritated me, but I still loved her. She was my sister.

"When I finally got my senses back, I tried to use my observational skills to find out where she had gone. But I was still a novice detective, and all I could conclude from the place where she had been was that there were signs of struggle. Scuff marks on the ground, a trash bin knocked over. And of course, the bear. She had been taken against her will."

I found myself blinking back tears. I had no younger siblings - no siblings, period - but I could only imagine how detrimental losing a little brother or sister could be. And Ethan Rhodes was living proof of what it did to a person.

"I..." He faltered, then tried again. "I made my friends help me search the entire fairground. We covered every square inch of that place, and asked everyone if they had seen her, but she... It was like she had disappeared. She was just gone. And when I finally came home with the news, my father erupted. He accused me of being negligent, which was true."

At last he opened his eyes and met my gaze. His eyes were a beautiful bright green. And filled with a torture he would never be rid of.

"Bridges," he said weakly. "He told me I might as well have killed her. I was responsible, and I couldn't refute the charges."

I almost told him that his father was wrong, that it hadn't been his fault. But I couldn't lie to him. Instead, I asked, "What did you do?"

"What else could I do?" he returned sourly. "My mother was dead, my sister presumably so, and my father despised me. There was nothing left for me in Georgia. So the day I turned eighteen, I left. I took Alice's bear and left, and I didn't stop until I was as far away from everything that was my old life as I could. Somehow I ended up here. I held down a job long enough to establish myself as a detective, and I heard no news of my father until I was twenty."

I blinked. "He called you?"

"No." He shook his head wearily. "He was dead, of a heart attack. He had been almost forty when I was born, and he suffered from high blood pressure." He scoffed. "He was a doctor, and he didn't even listen to his associates' advice to stay away from heavy food.

"For some reason, he never changed his will, and the Rhodes estate was inherited by the only living Rhodes: me. Of course, I couldn't go back to Savannah. And I had no desire to see that house ever again. So I hired a real estate agent and sold it."

I nodded numbly. At least now I knew where he got his seemingly endless amount of money. With the wealth that had been passed on to him, along with the money from selling the family estate, he would be set for life.

Rhodes had closed his eyes again, as if he were too ashamed to look at me. "When I was with you on the pier, and you pointed out that young girl... For one brief, ridiculous moment I thought it was Alice; little Alice in Wonderland, my father called her. But of course it couldn't possibly have been her. If she *was* alive, she would have to be twenty by now." He ran a hand through his unruly black hair. "But she's not. There's no way she could be alive."

I couldn't argue with him. People rarely went missing for six years and then just resurfaced, like nothing happened. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I raised my hand and turned his head to face me. His eyes remained stubbornly shut, but I waited patiently, my hand on his cheek, until he opened them. He stared at me for a while with those haunted eyes, until finally he spoke.

"So," he murmured, his voice sad and tired. "Do you hate me?"

Tears spilled down my cheeks at his words. Everything his father had told him, and everything he no doubt told himself every day was true. He was responsible for his sister's death. If he hadn't left her, she would still be alive. I was unable to deny any of it, but Rhodes had suffered long enough. He was a broken man; alone for years with his grief, with no one close enough to him to tell. Naturally, he just expected me to be so disgusted with him that I would never want to see him again.

Oh, how I would prove him wrong.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head fiercely. He looked almost surprised at my answer as I stroked his smooth cheek. "No, I don't hate you, Rhodes. How could I hate you? You trusted me enough to let me into your life. And you risked everything to tell me your past, just because I asked you to. You're a sweet, amazing man, and when I look in your eyes I can't understand why anyone would hate you."

Fresh tears escaped those endless green eyes, and he blinked rapidly to dispel them. They clung to his dark lashes like beads of glass. Slowly, I pulled him into an embrace, and he rested his chin on my shoulder. My vision blurred again as I pressed my hand to the back of his neck. I was aware of the time, and of how little we had left before Thomas Hu left his apartment, but right now Rhodes held far more precedence.

"You know," I said as he tightened his hold on me, "in a perfect world, nothing bad would ever happen. In a perfect world, your mother and father would be alive, and Alice would still be with you. My mother wouldn't have died, and my father would be able to walk. There wouldn't be any murders, and nobody would have to lock their doors at night. No one would get old or sick."

"In a perfect world," Rhodes commented, "I would be out of a job."

I smiled. "So would I," I replied. "But as it is, we have to take things the way we get them. And it's up to us whether or not we let this flawed, corrupt, imperfect world drag us down. But I can tell you one thing."

He pulled away just enough to meet my eyes. "What?" he said softly.

"In a perfect world, we would still be friends. With names as ludicrous as Rhodes and Bridges, we were destined to meet."

Rhodes let out a laugh, and I could tell it had escaped against his will. He reached up and brushed aside my false red curls. "Where were you six years ago?" he asked.

"Taking orders at Red Lobster."

He laughed again, and I wanted to squeeze him and never let him go. It was only a matter of time, however, before Hu would leave his apartment and do whatever he felt was more important than his massage class. And we had to be there before he left.

Rhodes stood up and pulled me to my feet, placing the Buddy Holly glasses in my hand again. Shoving a bundle of clothes into my arms, he told me to go into the spare bedroom and change. To my supreme displeasure, the ensemble that had been chosen for me consisted of a floral skirt that was too long, a white button-up sweater that needed to be rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of white heels that were far too big for my absurd little pixie feet. Once again, I had to wonder what kind of case would require Rhodes to cross-dress, but I decided I really didn't want to know.

Hoping I wouldn't trip and break an ankle, I returned the glasses to my nose and walked back to Rhodes' Van Gogh room on unsteady feet. As I leaned against the doorframe, I shot a bashful smile at him and fluttered my eyelashes coquettishly. "How do I look?" I asked, awaiting his approval.

The corners of his lips turned up. "Exquisite."

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A/N: *dies*

No, seriously. Um, let's see, some author's notes. Oh, I can't think of anything to say! It's two-thirty in the morning, and I'm just thrilled that I finished this chapter and lived. Before I go, I don't own Coldplay, though they're one of my favorite bands, and I don't own "Green Eyes", though it's one of my favorite songs.

Oh, one more thing! To all of March Hare's readers, I just talked to her, and she said she's moving to a different house and won't be able to update her story for a while. Don't blame me! *hides behind Hare* Take the one who wronged you! And now, I'm going to bed before I pass out on top of the keyboard. Just review and tell me what you thought. Do you still like Rhodes, now that you know what happened? I do. And I love his room.

Wakizashi
tricksparrow@hotmail.com