A/N: End of Series 2, but with a potential spoiler for Series 3, if you recognise it. Welcome back!
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Chapter 13 - The Fall
She didn't know how she had ended up outside the door to 221B Baker Street, but here she was. Best go up and pay her respects to John. Or was it too soon?
Rose's eyes stung once more and the world shifted again.
Baker Street. In the warmth of his arms she had lain, and just for that minute she felt as if the potential was there - the potential for a relationship with Sherlock Holmes.
But then he was gone, swept away on a case. The next thing she had heard about him she had read in the papers the following morning on her way to Paddington to catch the 9:15 to Cardiff.
SHERLOCK: THE SHOCKING TRUTH
She read that Sherlock had been exposed as a fraud - a fraud? - and that Richard Brooks was an actor hired by Sherlock Holmes to pose as the criminal Jim Moriarty.
She had remained glued to the pavement by the newsstand reading and rereading the article, too stunned to move until the newspaper seller huffed and tutted. She hastily shoved a five pound note into his hand and walked away with the paper without even waiting for change.
She was in a daze purchasing a one-way ticket, navigating to her train, through the turnstiles, into the carriage. It was off-peak, so she was able to find a seat, still glued to the paper. Perhaps if she kept reading it, the text would change, perhaps talk about what a hero he was again.
This couldn't be true. He's so...real. In your face, real. This is the work of some jealous competitor, or irate client or something. Surely!
I was just with him. Yesterday morning. We made...
We made...
Rose couldn't complete that last thought.
He had no reason to lie to her. He hadn't even wanted to talk about his work when they first...met. There was no need to; he was only with her for sex. That part was perfectly honest. Was theirs the only true relationship he had? One which was based on the absolute truth: I'm paying you for sex. Was it a relief for him to be in her company? Some downtime from living his life of lies?
Rose didn't believe he could be that manipulative. Or maybe he could have...
There were so many unanswered questions, but she had felt a wave of sympathy for what Sherlock was probably going through that morning - having to answer to those close to him. She wondered if she should ring him and give him her support?
She pulled out her phone and swiftly brought up Sherlock's mobile number. Should she?
Oh, to hell with it. She had a two hour trip to Cardiff anyway. She may as well do something other than read that article again.
Rose had no luck getting through to Sherlock. Her phone went straight through to his messagebank. She sent him a text anyway, composing it several times before hitting send.
ROSE: [ Thinking about you this morning. I'm here for you if you need. ]
Then she cursed herself. Of course she wasn't 'here'. She would be 'there', in Cardiff, living it up on the proceeds of her Psychology Graduate Intern Scholarship. All £50 per week of it. If it weren't for her parents supplementing the rest, she wouldn't have bothered. Still, it was only this, almost voluntary employment that would give her enough experience and skills to put on her curriculum vitae and help her progress her new, respectable, career.
And of course if she could fuck a few businessmen along the way, she may earn a little pocket money on the side.
No, Rose! Put that life behind you! she scolded herself.
A daughter of a friend of her parents was putting her up for a week or two, until she found a place of her own. Braith's place was a one bedroom council flat in Plasnewydd. Nice, clean, cramped. Rose was to sleep on the sofa. She'd phoned Braith who gave her directions to the flat. They spent the afternoon chatting about all manner of things, including Braith's secret obsession for her neighbour, in a kind of unrequited, doesn't know she exists, relationship. This made Rose reflect on her own relationships.
She could have been married by now. She could have been Mrs Army Dude. Instead she was sharing a council flat about to embark on a shitty job and would probably end up sucking cock in Grangetown for a tenner before too long.
Feeling completely despondent, she made noises about retiring early for the night, but not before ironing her clothes ready for her first day at the NHS-approved Eirienedd clinic in Butetown.
The next morning, Braith helped Rose with directions to Butetown, via bus, and so she set out for the five minute walk to the nearest bus stop. It was during this journey that her life destiny and planned career path were to part ways.
SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS
She stood there staring at the headlines and subsequent bylines for a good few minutes. Confident that she had now missed her bus, Rose walked inside the newsagency, her mind growing more numb by the second.
No, please, no.
She purchased the paper, didn't remember doing it, didn't recall walking back along the street towards the block of flats, paper in hand, somehow finding a bench to sit on and read. Read and read. She eventually took out her phone and checked for messages. Under Sherlock Holmes was the single message she'd sent: I'm here for you if you need.
I'm here for you.
Of course there were no other messages. They had only communicated via her sex worker mobile phone and she had tossed that, but not before copying Sherlock's number into this one. So he probably didn't even know who the message came from.
And now he was dead.
He had killed himself.
There's some mistake. There has to be. He's so strong though, a brilliant, brilliant mind. How could he sink so low that the only solution left to him was to take his own life? Did he have a mental disorder? Well that's what they said, didn't they? He had to have had something wrong with him to make up all of the cases and create a master villain in order to make himself into a super-sleuth. And then he had been found out. His whole world would have come crashing down around him if that was the case. And it wasn't, was it?
Rose stopped reading. She didn't realise how long she'd been sitting there, silently crying until an elderly couple stopped on their way past and asked her if she was all right. She braved a smile, shook her head slightly, then stood up and walked away, toward the flats.
Of course she was locked out. Braith had gone to work and Rose was going to meet her for a pint after they both finished work, then catch the bus home together. And now Rose had skived off work. But she couldn't go.
Not ever.
The point is...
The point is this: a man I ... cared about ... committed suicide and I did nothing to help him. I didn't see the signs, didn't notice he had a mental disorder, didn't make any real effort to check he was okay when his life lay in ruins. None of that.
Gonna make one hell of a therapist, Rose.
Hey.
At least he didn't die a virgin.
Good one, Rose. Make it all about you.
But she couldn't get past it: the thought that she should've done something, should've noticed that something was off.
But what about John? Did Sherlock leave a note?
Rose made up her mind then and there - approximately three hours after she had initially set out for work. Go back to London. Find out what happened. She couldn't live with herself until she did that. And she certainly was not going to enter into a psychology internship with this going on in her mind.
She was able to contact Braith at work and they met for lunch. She explained that something had happened, some tragedy back in London involving a friend - that was the truth - and Rose had to return urgently. But what about the internship, Braith had asked. Deferred, Rose lied. No such thing as deferring an internship with this organisation. Her scholarship would just be cancelled and a black mark put against her name forever more.
Her meagre belongings packed up once again and the last of her savings spent on a return ticket to London, Rose departed Cardiff and abandoned the beginnings she had strived for.
She turned up unannounced at her parents' place and understandably was denied lodgings.
And disowned.
Desperate to find a place to stay, at least temporarily, Rose phoned everyone she knew. She finally received a call back from a fellow graduate who had a sister who had a friend who was desperately trying to sell their one bedroom flat in Leinster Gardens in Bayswater - a flat in amongst a block of red brick almost tenement-like housing, in stark contrast to the beautiful Victorian era whitewashed grand porticoed designs across the street. The friend needed to let the place out while it was on the market, but was willing to halve the cost of the rent to a clean, quiet lodger.
It was perfect, except for the fact that Rose didn't have the money for bond. She didn't have any money in fact.
How to get quick cash? The only way she knew how.
She offered to stay the night at Mr Married-but-misunderstood-by-his-wife's love nest. He was a client from - before, when she had decided that the escort business was far more lucrative than working in the brothel, thanks to Sherlock. Mr Married had an odd assortment of preferences (sicknesses, Rose called them) and she had finally declined his business because of them. But now she was desperate, and this was a once only deal - five hundred pounds for the night. She would wear him out and he would sleep for most of it.
She hoped.
She had hoped right. She left his place in the early hours of the morning, but not before scrubbing herself raw in his shower and helping herself to all of the cash in his wallet, not just the five hundred.
Finally she had a place of her own for a while. She had no immediate plans other than to see John and find out what had happened to Sherlock. But she couldn't get anywhere near Baker Street. It appeared to be crawling with reporters and... fans, it seemed.
So Rose left it for a week, and in the mean time sought employment. Her only options appeared to be in the entertainment industry. She ended up with two jobs: one as a coatroom attendant in a strip club, the other as a part-time receptionist at a tyre-fitting company.
A week later she found herself on a Tuesday night outside the flat at Baker Street.
Time to pay my respects, she thought. Time for answers.
