don't own Sherlock holmes and he will show up eventually.

Yay to Vidar who won, it was indeed from "I feel Sick" by JV

I cried until there was nothing wet left within me, until my throat was raw and my back was hurting from the awkward position I found myself to be in, and even then I continued to whimper and mewl as I tried to come to grips with whatever was going on around me. I finally succumbed to exhaustion and feel into a fitful sleep assuring myself that if I was dreaming all this, then going to sleep would, of course, wake me up. Surely I had been running and been hit by a car or somehow or another hurt myself. And now I was in a coma and in the hospital, so if I could just wake up everything would be fine, I could go back to the hotel and I could eat Doritos and drink soda and I could be me and wait with bated breath until the performance tonight. I was too tired to even dream as I lay in the cold air of what couldn't be Australia and the soft misting rain that continued to fall. I don't know how long I slept for but I do know that when I woke the sky was on fire with the colors of the sunset.

I stood and my joints ached with the cold and the awkward position I had slept in for so long a time. I stood, feeling calmer, and was ready to face what was now a certainty. I was no longer in Australia and as long as I had come across oceans and continents I was pretty sure I was no longer in my time either. I wished for you to comfort me.

I was not a part of you then. I came after, after medication and pain and illness...

Right. Right...how did I forget, I used to be sane.

You still are sane, you're just on your way to insanity.

I stood in the center of a park with my oversized sweater and my tiny cut-off jeans and sandals and I wondered what I should do, because now the terror was out of my system. A strange calm had taken over because I was too tired and drained—at least emotionally—to feel anything else, and that was why I had let myself breakdown. Because in breaking down I was now able to handle whatever was happening to me. I took two steps toward the road that was circling the park and then paused. No, first I had to decide what to do about all this.

Ah how nice it was when your head was filled with coherent thoughts.

I walked to a bench and dropped down onto it. My whole being was damp, down to my bones. So sitting in the puddle that was collected on the bench didn't bother me as much as it would have normally. First thing was first, because back then—the voices were right—I thought coherently and I was methodical even in the way I thought through things. I decided that first I should find out the date, and test if my theory was correct or if I just hadn't been to London in a really long time. So where could one find the date, without asking anyone that would worry about my mental health if I requested the year? Banks, but if my time theory was right then a bank would not have a digital clock for me to look at. Then I had the thought that perhaps I could find a newsstand of some sort. If I could find the newspaper it would tell me the date and the year—sometimes—and if it didn't say the year well though my knowledge of history wasn't the best I could get a general sense of what the year was. WWII was around the 1940's because I knew Hitler died in '45 and the rest of my knowledge was similarly pathetic. But it would be better to have a general sense than no sense at all.

Completely senseless indeed.

So with a renewed sense of purpose I stood and began walking. I never considered the fact that I was possibly walking around in a time before cut-off shorts were appropriate and within moments I was reminded of this possibility when people were staring at me and I was feeling utterly self-conscious as I tugged down on the hem of my sweater. I wished that I had at least worn sweatpants, because then people wouldn't be staring so much at my legs. If that was happening on a normal day I would be happy, because it would be like an ego boost that all these men and women even were staring at my legs, not some supermodel but my legs. Now it was just embarrassing and I was starting to wonder when prostitution became illegal; worried mostly that I was going to get arrested before I could figure out what to do about my current situation.

I wasn't arrested but being arrested, no matter the time period, would have been better than what did happen. In my childhood I tended to get into trouble and I tended to go off with friends. My mother, mostly for her own peace of mind, requested that I learn at least a few basic self-defense moves. I took about a year of karate, got angry with the way they taught me and spend the rest of my life keeping myself strong and fast—when I wasn't playing the harp—and I taught myself by watching one too many "Bruce Lee"-esque movies. She often commented when I came home with a new injury that she had created a monster. It was always in jest so I thought it just as hilarious at the time. Sometimes people looked at me funny, "oh there is the girl who beat up so-and-so." But the whispers were drowned out by my music, which took over most other aspects of my life. The more certain things bothered me, the more time I dedicated to learning everything about this instrument. I was given a scholarship to a wonderful music school and from there I was accepted into an orchestra that I loved. We toured around the world and they became like my family. I loved them all desperately and we clung to each other in times of need.

So as I wondered I found myself in the crowed, dirty streets of a less then reputable neighborhood, a place were real prostitutes wondered the streets. And it was here that I was approached by a man whose breath reeked of cheap liquor. Thanks to my father I was born with the ability to tend bar. I guessed that it was whiskey or Bourbon and from the way his whole person stank of it I assumed he was beyond smashed. My roommate in college had been violent when she wasn't drunk, which wasn't often, so with that practiced ease I made my voice sound like honey and I tried to calm him down, shushing him gently when he stuck a meat-y fist at me, offering me a sixpence for a roll in an alley. I pushed lightly against his hand telling him that I was not a whore and he swung at me. The alcohol made him stupid and slow so there was no trouble in dodging his swing but he started yelling, attracting more attention than I had the capacity to deal with and so I did the only thing that seemed even half-way intelligent. I ran. I ran, I tripped, and I fell, cracking my head against the hard stones that served as the road. I may have actually knocked myself unconscious but as far as I knew I only stunned myself. For several moments I lay there, stunned, staring up into the sky which was obscured mostly by the buildings that rose up on either side of me. All I could really see was a small strip of blue sky with patches of gray clouds hanging low.

Thought not entirely sure of how long I lay there I did know that it was longer than a few hours because I saw the orange light of sunset fade into purple and then the gas lamps were lit out on the street. I wasn't sure if I should move, knowing next to nothing about head-wounds, but I thought that if I just lay here until I wasn't dizzy anymore than surely I would be safe. It was just for safety's sake, not that I was lazy or anything. Well, safety and I was sure that should I move the entire contents of my stomach would come forth in a violent display. Bad because I hate vomiting and bad because I didn't know when my next meal would be available to me. Finally, somewhere to my left, I heard a door open with a slight creak. I heard someone saying their goodbyes to whatever rested on the other side of the door and then the person turned into the alley and by the startled sound the person—I had yet to know if the person was male or female—had seen me. A hand touched my shoulder and a face came into my narrow view. The light from the gas lamps threw odd shadows over the man's face. I wouldn't have been able to guess in the dim light but his hair was short and woman in this time just didn't have short hair so I assumed it had to be a man

"Are you alright?" The man asked. I tried to nod and found that I couldn't so I just uttered a weak 'yes' and tried to form a smile though my lips were more than unwilling. Other than a prevailing need to vomit Exorcist style and a soft throbbing in my head I really was feeling fine. Considering how I could feel sometimes and still function I labeled my current state as fine and so it was not a lie to say that I was alright. The man's hand slid under my neck and his fingers felt along the bones, then moving to the back of my head—lifting it slightly—looking around for anything that would leave me in a position not to be moved. I didn't know what time I was in but I was sure that even in my time not everyone was in a position to know about what to check to see if someone who's had a fall can be safely moved or not. I knew there was something to look for but I certainly didn't know how to tell. I was impressed and automatically assumed that he was someone who had—for one reason or another—received medical training. He seemed pleased with whatever he had found and he looped his arms under my shoulders, struggling to find the best way to get me to my unsteady feet. Working together we got me to my feet and once there he began to half-carry and half let me walk on my own back into the building he had just exited. I learned that the building he had come out of was in fact the police station. This made me wonder if maybe he was a police officer, in which case I was impressed at how lucky I was to have stumbled across him.

There was much fussing as I was brought in—which for the most part I could understand—and so many things were happening that my poor, befuddled mind could not entirely grasp what was being done. The man who had found me was wearing a black coat that reached to the ground so that it swished about his ankles and had it not been made more like an Inverness cloak I would have thought it to be a trench coat from my time. It looked like the cape that my brother wore when he dressed up like Basil of Baker Street.

Trivial things do not matter. Get the story out. Remember.

He had removed his hat—a black bowler—and I could better see his hair. It was the color of the moon as was his skin, his eyes were the color of the ocean and these were hidden partially behind little half-moon glasses. Despite the fact that the glasses looked a bit out of place on the whole tough cop look he looked young, well collected and I was impressed by the very sensible side he seemed to have. I was wrapped in a man's jacket before I realized it and someone was shoving a steaming mug of soup—or stew?—into my hands. It was a soft yellow color with bits of meat and vegetables floating around in it and I inhaled it gratefully, unable to recall the last time I had eaten. The man who had found me was now sitting in a chair across from me while the activity behind me dulled to a soft roar and then to a meager buzzing noise that grated on my nerves. Nerves which were frayed enough as it was.

"Do you know your name?" He asked. His voice was kind, but there was a hint of power in there. I nodded and went back to my soup. It took me several moments but on my own I managed to realize that he had meant for me to tell him my name if I could. Thankfully I could blame that idiocy on my recent—or was it recent?—head injury. My voice was craggy from disuse and the sob-fest I had allowed myself earlier but I thought I did a rather good job of scraping out my name. "Brandy eh?" He murmured, nodding at me in a way that made me feel like he was filing everything he learned about away and into the back of his head somewhere. "Well Miss Brandy I am Simon Glass, and if I may point out...your choice of dress is rather odd, as was the situation you were found under." His voice was calm and he seemed bright and nice, so I was probably more inclined to answer his questions than anyone else around here. The only problem was I didn't know how to answer him. He wanted to know my story, but even I didn't know what my story was.

Liar. You knew what to say but you knew it was not intelligent to say.

Right. I am a liar.

I'm a liar.

"I don't know. It's blurry, I can't remember much. There are faces I see in my head and I remember things about me, and I remember what I learned—"I caught myself before I said school and replaced that and explained that I remembered much of what I had learned from tutors. He nodded and I set the empty mug aside, resisting the urge to pull my legs to my chest and curl around myself like I used to do when I was a scared, small child; like I used to do when I wanted to hide from the monsters under my bed.

"You remember how you got that scar?" He pointed at my face—was that utterly necessary?—and I nodded, though I chose not to regale him with the story, or a warped version of it. He nodded and his blue-green eyes were hooded so I couldn't read them, not that I was any good at reading people on a normal basis. He stood and smiled at me as a larger man came towards me looking like he had stepped out of a Basil Rathbone flick. I didn't watch those often, I liked Humphrey Bogart if I was going to watch movies that were that old, but I knew what the actor looked like and I knew he was utterly famous for his job at being Sherlock Holmes. I supposed it was a bad analogy since I didn't really know much about him but I was always one to over-describe things.

You like run-on sentences, you're obsessed with them.

And you're obsessed with interrupting me, what's your point?

I don't suppose I have one. Do you?

I watched the younger man walk away and the new man caught my attention once more. He introduced himself as Inspector Lestrade and I wondered for a moment why that name was so familiar to me. My ponderings were interrupted when he began asking me questions and so I answered as best I could. As best I could when I was pretending to be an amnesiac at least. After almost an hour of his questions another young man rushed to his side and whispered something in his ear. Something that certainly didn't seem to make the Inspector very happy by the red that exploded over his cheeks and the spluttering sound that escaped his lips. He excused himself and vanished, leaving me sitting at the small desk with someone's coat wrapped around me and an itchy blanket that had been tucked around my legs at some point. Things really were beginning to get hazy for me.

No dear, its just been a long time since that day. Your memory is a fine thing when it comes to useless trivia, other things...you have trouble with.

The ma—Simon Glass grinned in a comforting sort of way as he walked past the door and he was followed by a tall man. Lestrade was walking after them and muttering something to the tall man. A lady came in; she was much more of a grandmother type, short, plump and everything. She presented me with clothes they had on hand—considering the time I wasn't sure I wanted to know how a police station came to have women's clothing. The skirt was too long by several inches and pooled about my feet, it was threadbare and stained and it was warm so I didn't care. It had, in its better days, been a rather pretty rust color but now it was sort of a dirty brown with tints of red. The waist buttoned and the shirt they presented me with did too, as did the jacket that covered it. The shirt was white with blue pinstripes and the sleeves were too short and the bust was too big. I didn't mind it too much though I would later realize I had a great deal of trouble keeping it tucked into the skirt. There were some stains around the cuffs but other than that and a little discoloration due to age it was rather nice. The coat was the only thing that fit nicely, though the sleeves were a little long but only to a point that I enjoyed; just enough to cover up to my fingers. It had the same lines as trench coats made for women in my time, swooping in to hug my waist, and the back buttoned to make a sort of gather making the whole thing look like a longer blazer of my time. There were five buttons down the front of this and it was a well kept green. I assumed the stains didn't show on the dark fabric for if you ran your fingers over you could feel the little hard bits of god only knows what.

After the lady—"Call me Molly dearie, everyone does"—helped me get everything buttoned and such my fingers were raw and soar and I was ready for "Velcro" to hurry up and be invented. Molly decided that we had to do something with my hair. It had previously been falling in my face. After my bout with my own idiocy had left me scarred I had grown my hair into one long mass, mass being it had no bangs and was all the same length, and usually let it fall into my face. She pushed part of it out of her way and her eyes flickered to the scar, staring for a moment but her smile didn't even waver for a moment, she tut-tuted and ran her slightly chubby fingers through my hair as she tried to decide what to do with it. I was grateful that my experiment with purple had long since faded out. "Such a pretty color. Like the corn we used to go back home." She told me as she tried different things using her hands in place of pins. She nodded and then sighed heavily. "Those silly men, well for now I'll just have to make do but you can get a pretty ribbon for your hair later." She started pulling and tugging at my hair as she did something I couldn't see to it, though I could only guess she was trying to tame it into a braid. No easy task when my hair was only a little past my shoulders.

They didn't have shoes for me so I was left with my flip-flops since no one could see them anyway. That just meant that my feet would be cold and I'd die of exposure before anything else.

Drama Queen

I don't know what I expected them to do about me; I don't think I even bothered to expect them to do anything. However when they told me I could go home, well that startled me. Not just because I had no home but because I had forgotten that even in our country at this time police weren't as careful about the people they protected.

Anyway, that's how I found myself wondering around London after dark, in clothes that weren't meant for me, and no idea of what was going on.

And all alone.

I miss when I was alone with my thoughts.

I'm injured.

I wish you were dead.

Then you would be dead too you know.

I know.

I had slept enough so I wondered around, trying to stick to well-lit places and looking for the London Bridge. It was something that I knew; it was a constant, a perfect thing that existed in the world that I knew. Of course, a thing that big and I had managed to loose it. I told you all at the start of this that I used to be sane...maybe I lied? I did find it eventually and I found a dark corner all for myself and curled up there as the rain started to fall again, chilling me to the bones and soaking my clothes through. I contemplated throwing myself off the bridge in hopes that in "dying" I would regain my real body back in Australia where I was supposed to be with all my friends.

Where I was supposed to be with my harp, and if I was lucky I would wake up from whatever nightmare this was.

Suicidal thoughts. A sure sign of sanity.

I decided against it. There was a lone thought, buried in the back of my mind, that maybe, just maybe...maybe this was all real, maybe I was really in London of another time and maybe I wasn't dreaming. So I sat curled in a ball, waiting for sun-up and an idea of what I was meant to do. I had managed to find a few coins while I walked, little bits of change that people had dropped as they walked, and I didn't know how much it added up to but it was better than having no money at all and when it was light I could try and figure out what they were. I wasn't crying anymore and I wasn't drifting in and out of consciousness so I figured that poor, alone, cold, wet, hungry and lost was better than on the verge of death and or an emotional breakdown. My hands trembled—well my whole body was trembling—and my teeth were chattering. I was a little scared at the people that walked past me and stared, stared as though I had a second head sitting on my shoulder. I was sure I would freeze to death if I fell asleep, but when I was little and for as long as I could remember I always slept if I was too cold. That being, once more I feel asleep, fitful and out of boredom and I was sure that I would be dead before I woke up.

Oh how wrong I was...