Chapter 38: Unethical Practices Regarding Stars
"Who do you think she was, Sherlock?" John pressed as the taxi was caught in lights, yet again.
It seemed as though everything was moving slower in an attempt to dull down our haste, yet time still seemed to press upon us. There was a shadow over my shoulder, it felt like, a reminder that lives were inching closer to their end the longer we sat in the stationary vehicle. I glanced at Sherlock, seated to my left, but his gaze held a impenetrable apathy, a wall of neutrality echoed through every piece of his being. Only the slight twitching of his primaries indicated the tenseness and anxiousness he was feeling behind his mask.
"The woman on the phone? Nobody important," Sherlock commented dismissively.
"Nobody- Sherlock!" John exclaimed, irate at the flippant response.
"There's nothing we can do for her until we get to Bartholomew's, John, so we may as well focus on this," I suggested before Sherlock had the chance to retort, and John huffed before turning to stare out the window at the cars, his frustration causing his shoulders to tense.
It was another ten minutes before we reached the lab in the hospital, and Sherlock began working immediately. He took a swab of the dirt on the sole of both shoes and began analysing the material, verifying that the samples were identical before attempting to identify the source. John paced on the other side of the bench as the detective worked, casting glances to the clock hanging above the door every few minutes as he did so. I watched Sherlock in his manipulation of biochemistry curiously, inwardly noting the fact that it should have taken much longer than it did to create a reliable sample, and becoming slightly irritated at the consistent lack of results when matched with lab samples.
I was broken out of my pondering by a sharp trill from Sherlock's phone. Which was, of course, noticed and given attention by everyone but the man himself, who had moved onto gazing through a microscope as a machine ran scans on the sample.
"Sherlock, are they trying to trace the call?" John asked, his memory prompted by the sound of Sherlock's phone.
"The bomber's too smart for that," Sherlock answered absentmindedly, glancing up at the screen before returning his eye to the microscope, slightly more ire in the action than before.
My own phone trilled a notification after the room fell silent again, and I retrieved the device from my pocket to see a message from Mycroft regarding the missile plans. I grinned at the sight, my fingers tapping out a quick reply before I returned the phone to my pocket.
No progress regarding that. Sherlock's found something that demands his attention, and I'm inclined to agree. How's the dentist? -KR
"Who was that from?" John asked curiously but Sherlock cut in before I had the chance to reply.
"Mycroft asking about the missile plans. They're already out of the country. If they were that important to him, he'd have cancelled his dental appointment," he informed John, who sighed in resignation.
"His what?" he requested, and Sherlock looked up to fix him with a raised eyebrow.
"Mycroft never texts if he can talk. Look, Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them, got his head smashed in for his pains. End of story. The only mystery is this: why is my brother so determined to bore me when somebody else is being so delightfully interesting?" he countered, looking back into the microscope after finishing his brief tangent.
John stopped his pacing and turned to Sherlock, suddenly very still. "Try to remember there's a woman here who might die."
"What for?" Sherlock countered, looking up at John once again, "This hospital's full of people dying, Doctor. Why don't you go cry by their bedside and see what good it does them?"
John's face of careful anger transformed to that of disbelief, and he looked away from Sherlock as the detective's own face lit up in delight as a match to the soil sample was returned. I moved over to John, reaching up to place a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he turned back to me, forcing a smile and placing his on mine.
"That was uncalled for, Sherlock," I reprimanded, but my brother's attention was drawn to Molly as she walked in through the door.
"Any luck?" she asked brightly, and the machine verified a match as if on cue. Sherlock exclaimed in triumph as-
The breath was snatched from my lungs and my skin became cold, as though all the warmth had been sucked out of me in my panic. I took a shuddering breath as his gaze met mine and he smiled, the blackness soaking through his being clogging up the air and giving the air a putrid smell. I tried to breathe past the pressure on my chest, beyond the scream that wanted to form in my throat, to say something, anything- but the warning in his eyes was clear. A part of me felt like crying, but another was genuinely considering murder. Not yet, I decided.
I withdrew my awareness, hiding the sickly aura in an enforced blanket of calm, and moved over to hover behind John, who was hovering beside Sherlock himself. He smiled at me as I leaned against him nonchalantly, and tucked a few strands of loose hair behind my ear. The motion was irrationally calming and nonsensically endearing.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't-" Jim began, only to be cut off by Molly.
"Jim, hi!" she greeted him, smiling brightly as she walked over.
Jim seemed hesitant to enter and interrupt, which only served to heighten Molly's desire for him to do just that. It was a clever tactic, one I would employ if I appeared older, but as such all it did was increase my anger until I was simmering behind my facade. The audacity!
"Come in, come in!" she encouraged, clutching at his arm and pulling him through the doorway. As she closed the door, he walked closer to Sherlock who, after an initial evaluation, had gone back to his research.
"Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes," Molly said, Jim making an excited noise.
Catching sight of me, Molly beamed and waved to catch Jim's attention. I smiled politely and falsely alike as she introduced me, using John to hide behind as Jim returned the expression in a slightly more eerie manner. We were both thinking murder, it seemed. His aura flared in self-satisfaction as he noticed the trainers on the table, and I flung the reaction into a star for later. Molly remained silent after that, and John shifted his posture to look reproachfully at Molly.
She had the good grace to seem abashed, and feebly added, "And, uh… sorry."
"John Watson. Hi."
"Hi," Jim said in return, but he kept his gaze concentrated on Sherlock, what appeared to be honest admiration written on his features. Though I had no doubt that his expression would have been more sinister if he had allowed his obvious mental instability bleed through.
"So you're Sherlock Holmes. Molly's told me all about you. You on one of your cases?"
I wrinkled my nose at the casual London drawl, as well as the barely hidden excitement, but I had to admit that Jim was a good actor for a human. He stepped closer to Sherlock as he spoke, and John moved out of the way with barely concealed disapproval and irritation.
"Jim works in I.T. upstairs. That's how we met. Office romance," Molly provided with a giggle, which Jim mimicked.
Sherlock looked up, performing a brief analysis, before he turned back to the microscope in dismissal.
"Gay," he commented flippantly, and Molly's smile faded.
"Sorry, what?" she asked, hurt, and John frowned at Sherlock's back.
He lifted his head, realisation dawning over his features, before he backtracked with a hasty replacement of his own greeting.
"Hey," Jim responded, lowering his hand to knock off an empty petri dish. "Sorry, sorry!" He apologised with a nervous giggle, picking up the dish, and John performed an exaggerated face-palm in second-hand embarrassment, turning away.
Sherlock scowled in irritation, and the tension in the room grew until it was noticeable even through my emotional withdrawing. Noticing this, Jim walked over to Molly, giving her a loving look.
"Well, I'd better be off. See you at The Fox, about six-ish?" he asked, and Molly nodded, her smile returning.
"Yeah!" she confirmed, beaming as he placed a hand on her back. Her face, once again, faded to sadness as he looked back at Sherlock longingly. A shudder ran through me at the expression and my lip curled in distaste.
"Bye," he said, gaze still on Sherlock.
"Bye," Molly responded softly, and I felt tempted to hug her as soon as I could.
"It was nice to meet you," Jim told Sherlock, a hint of wistfulness in his voice, but Sherlock ignored him steadfastly.
John shifted, uncomfortable with the silence and situation itself, and provided a slightly embarrassed, "You too."
Jim turned to blink at him, as if committing him to memory, before he awkwardly left. I breathed a sigh of relief, slumping fully into John, who caught me with a slightly bemused look. Molly turned to Sherlock as soon as the door closed, an accusatory anger written in her posture.
"What d'you mean, gay? We're together," she insisted, voice angry to hide the fragility and insecurity Sherlock's words brought.
Sherlock looked across at her, which spoke volumes about his respect for her, and seemed to sigh to himself about her blindness to the obvious. I held onto a flicker of hope that he would approach the topic with politeness, but his next statement snuffed that flame.
"And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly. You've put on three pounds since I last saw you," he said flippantly, and I made an outraged noise in my throat that matched that of Molly's expression.
"Two and three quarters is a more accurate number. You look lovely today, Molly. Is that a new lipgloss?" I asked, and watched as she forced her expression to soften.
"Yes, Kayla, thank you for noticing. Unlike some," she said with a pointed look to Sherlock, who had adopted a blank expression as he observed. "I've heard about… Is it true?"
I blinked, before catching on. I sighed in regret before I nodded, not wanting to further upset her by providing an explanation of why simply to sate my own ego.
"He must be, with that level of personal grooming. Hair product, tinted eyelashes, taurine cream to hide frown lines. He even has the eyes to match his clubbing habits. His underwear is displayed, obviously to communicate the brand."
Sherlock, of course, had no such restrictions.
"That doesn't mean-"
"He left his number under the petri dish, Molly. I'm sorry," I supplied, dropping my gaze to the floor and scuffing my shoes as she turned her sad expression onto me.
"You'd better break it off now and save yourself the pain," Sherlock suggested in a mild tone. His nonchalant expression became that of shock as Molly ran from the room in her distress, and I moved closer to John before thinking better of it.
"Charming. Well done," he bit out, his thin lips, tense jaw and lowered brows communicating his suppressed fury.
"Just saving her time. Isn't that kinder?" Sherlock asked, seeming genuinely confused.
I shook my head. "Lockie, if you had informed her and justified why, then maybe. But showing off was unnecessary, and certainly didn't help at all."
Sherlock frowned, but he stored the feedback for contemplation. John still had his jaw clenched, but the stormy expression had faded somewhat, closer to resignation than anything. Sherlock slumped slightly before perking up, nudging one of the trainers on the desk closer to John.
"Go on, then," he prompted expectantly, and I recognised the olive branch, hoping that John would catch on. The man in question made a noise of acknowledgement, looking to Sherlock for elaboration.
"You know what I do. Off you go." Sherlock leaned back in his chair, folding his arms.
John made incoherent noises of refusal, stepping back from the trainers as if it would retract the concept. He glanced at his watch before shaking his head, making another negating noise.
"Go on," Sherlock prompted again, but John shook his head.
"I'm not just gonna stand here so you can humiliate me while I try and dessimate-"
"An outside opinion is very useful, John," I supplied, and John scoffed.
"Yeah, right!"
"Really," Sherlock confirmed.
John turned to glare at him and they locked eyes, both expressions softening. I looked between them with pursed lips, before laughing softly in realisation. I'd always thought that they'd actually known of their attraction to the other, but apparently it wasn't so. It would be interesting to observe, certainly, but I doubted either would act on it without prompting. Several seconds passed before John nodded unhappily, resigning himself to his fate.
"Fine." He cleared his throat, picking up the shoe to look at it before casting a helpless glance to its partner on the table. The shoe's, not his. "I dunno, they're just a pair of shoes- trainers," he corrected.
"Good," Sherlock said, picking up his phone as John continued.
"Umm… they're in good nick. I'd say they were pretty new…" Sherlock seemed frustrated by this statement, "except the sole has been well-worn, so the owner must have had them for a while."
Sherlock breathed a silent sigh of relief, and I smiled encouragingly as John's eyes flickered over to me.
"Uh, they're very eighties - probably one of those retro designs."
"You're on sparkling form," Sherlock praised, "What else?"
"Well, they're quite big, so a man's," John suggested.
"But…?" I prompted, remembering the smudged ink of a faded name on the shoes.
"But there's traces of a name inside in felt-tip. Adults don't write their names inside their shoes, so these belonged to a kid," John said, a hint of triumph in his voice.
Sherlock looked at him proudly. "Excellent. What else?"
"Uh…" John looked at the shoe once more before he put it down. "That's it," he said, admitting his inability to see anything more.
"That's it?" Sherlock asked, and John nodded with a hint of insecurity.
"How did I do?" He asked.
"Well, John; really well," Sherlock evaluated, but he paused as if to add more. I cut him off.
"You missed some things, but that was brilliant, John!" I confirmed, and he smiled in appreciation.
"What did I miss?" he asked, brows furrowing as he attempted to recall what he'd glossed over.
I moved closer to the desk to pick up the shoe John had examined, looking over it again. "As John said, the shoes were well-cared for, to the point where they appear new despite the use. But there are faint scuff marks where they've been cleaned, and patches of leather where the white is a different in intensity, indicating that the shoes had been discoloured then whitened. The laces have been changed by an inexperienced and uncoordinated hand, so maybe control or skin difficulties. The material surrounding the holes is dented in three… four places. There are flakes of skin on the laces but also around the rims of the inside where they've rubbed against the ankles, so skin difficulties. Eczema, probably; the fabric is slightly slimy from the cream. The fabric is worn on the inside, too, even over the arch; the owner's were weak. They're missing a tag, but there's an imprint of the label. British company, really popular twenty years ago."
At some point, John had slumped onto the desk in despair, but he straightened at the last comment. "Twenty years?" he repeated incredulously.
"They're not retro – they're original," Sherlock confirmed, showing John his phone. I caught a glimpse, the shape distorted from my perspective, but the image was definitely that of the shoe I was holding.
"Limited edition: two blue stripes, nineteen eighty-nine,."
"But there's still mud on them. They look new," John protested.
I handed Sherlock the trainer, and he looked over it thoughtfully. "Someone's kept them that way. Quite a bit of mud caked on the soles. Analysis shows it's from Sussex, with London mud overlaying it."
The first sentence seemed to resonate through me, and I felt a sickening shock as I recalled the flaring of Jim's aura when he saw the shoes. Sherlock and John continued discussing the shoes, the pollen in the soil that Sherlock had been analysing and the location it had pointed to. Jim had noticed the shoes, recognised them. It was too much of a coincidence for him to not be involved, too much at stake if he was. Or rather, too much at stake if we didn't notice such.
There was too much at stake if I told Sherlock and John.
The panic returned, a scribble of anxiety that twisted my stomach and filled my lungs. Once again, I forced myself to breathe past it, but my hands still shook and I felt unreal. The situation was more dire than anyone could know, could guess, not without the knowledge I had and the things I had Seen.
I looked up at Sherlock's noise of realisation and the resounding quiet that followed, experiencing my own fragment of John's similar confusion as the detective stared into the distance, interacting with the information in his own mind palace.
"What?" John asked, concerned. He looked across the lab, trying to see what had caught Sherlock's eye, but saw nothing.
"Carl Powers," Sherlock said simply, pensively, his voice soft in recollection.
"Sorry, who?" John asked, a sentiment I shared.
"Carl Powers, John," Sherlock repeated, and I scowled in impatience.
"What is it?" I asked, keeping my tone forcibly neutral.
"It's where I began."
Please, do not sound an alarm. They are closing in on your location and you are hidden only as long as you remain quiet. Keep quiet. Breathe a little quieter now, little wings. Slow your beating heart now, little wings. Cease the multiplication of your cells now, little wings. Hush now, little wings.
Okay, we're safe, time to be excited about an update. Hi! How are we all? As you may or may not have noticed, I have made some changes! If you're not in the mood to marvel at my modified chapters, or simply don't have time, the only real changes I have made are:
* Kayla actually having allergies to the cat. I can't believe I missed that and thank you to the lovely person that pointed it out. Please continue to point out continuity errors! I think I caught them all in my edits, but it's always good to have a outside eye.
* All mentions of angels have been changed to Beings. This is because, similarly;
* (The Being within) Kayla now comes from a sibling dimension, running alongside (the original) Sherlock's. They're separated by a repelling energy that essentially functions as a one-way, semi-permeable membrane. Fun fact.
* There is no age specified. She's just old.
* The title! Don't worry about it.
The end of this episode will be the end of this fic. Hold on until then, we're going to go out with a bang!
- Little