Many apologies for my multitude of mistakes last time guys, my spell check went on holiday without telling me, but don't worry I've found him and now he's chained up in my basement.
Sherlock watched as Madeline collapsed beside the dog. She was tugging on his ears and cooing quietly, while she ran a careful hand over his ribcage. He hadn't moved since Madeline had appeared, and now he raised his head and looked at her with complete trust in his eyes.
Well this points to medical student of some kind. Sherlock mused silently to himself. But that display of uncensored rage would not fit with that profile. She reacted like a mother would, but with far more skill. Perhaps the dog is a offspring substitute because she- his mind didn't produce any viable ideas. I am going to need to spend more time with her. Dull.
Madeline coaxed Munchkin to his feet, having not found anything obviously wrong, she had decided he was probably winded and needed to walk it off.
She approached Sherlock, who stood there looking like tall, pale god with the sun rising at his back, slowly taking care to wait for Munchkin as he followed shakily after.
Madeline herself was feeling a little shaky.
Sherlock was snapped out of his musings by a gentle hand on his arm.
"When do you think John will be up?" Madeline's quiet voice asked.
"Not for another hour at least. Ah yes, you'll be in shock I expect, come up to the flat and I can do what John normally does. Food and liquids and warm I can do." Sherlock said, almost looking pleased.
"Not me." Madeline murmured.
"What?" Sherlock asked. "You most definitely are in shock. If you'd prefer me to wake John, I can do that-"
"Not me," She repeated, "Munchkin. I'm fine. Absolutely fine. Couldn't be better."
Sherlock nodded, understanding something that was about three steps ahead of where Madeline was.
"You don't trust yourself to identify any problems with your dog, even though it's obvious that you have had medical training of some kind."
"Have I?" Madeline asked, bewildered.
"I'm hardly ever wrong," Sherlock stated arrogantly. "But I don't think you're a doctor or nurse. That savage beating you just delivered that man would not suggest you have the understanding nature required for such a job."
Madeline fought the urge to slap him. Understanding nature indeed!
Sherlock started to walk away, towards the door of 221. "Come up," He commanded, "I'll wake John and he can look both you and the dog over."
Madeline followed after him, tripping on her feet and Munchkin, who was doing his best to herd her in the right direction.
"Munchkin."
"What?" Sherlock turned as he reached the door.
"His name is Munchkin. Call him that, not 'the dog'. It's insulting."
She made it in the door and inside without any of the offered assistance of Sherlock's arm. However when she saw the flight of stairs she had yet to face, her knees buckled. Sherlock seized this moment of weakness to scoop her up in his arms and took the stairs two at a time.
"This is totally unnecessary!" Madeline protested loudly, trying very hard not to look down. Turns out I'm afraid of heights. She laughed inwardly to herself.
"Actually, it is completely necessary. You would have taken far too long and I would have been obligated to walk slowly in case you fell or something. Incredibly dull."
Madeline was dumped unceremoniously on the couch and Munchkin immediately jumped up to take up all her foot room.
"Stay there." Sherlock barked at her as she went to move. "I'll be back in a moment."
and he was, towing a blanket and a half-dressed, half-awake John. Sherlock tossed the blanket over her with a flourish; Madeline noted with some amusement that it was still warm and obviously Sherlock was not one to wake people gently. John noticed the blood on her hands as she valiantly tried to keep them away from the pristine white blanket. His half awake mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion.
"You've taken her somewhere, haven't you?" he accused Sherlock. "Taken her somewhere and now you've got her hurt, doing something stupid for you."
Sherlock sighed dramatically. "Oh ye of little faith, I have done naught to incur your wrath, 'tis not hers but blood of another, a scoundrel, a cur, a beater of dogs-"
Madeline cut him off, something he was not used to.
"Some dick-head kicked Munchkin, so I beat him up a little." She said, sitting up and pushing the blanket off her. She pointed to Munchkin and asked, "Can you have a look at him please? I know you do people normally, but-" she smiled, "You're the only doctor I know right now. Animal or otherwise."
John smiled back, "Of course, but I'd like to take a look at your injuries too, just to make sure you are healing up properly."
Sherlock snorted from the kitchen, where he appeared to be making toast.
"You have work today remember? So you can't take too long examining her injuries." The air quotations were implied in his tone, as he waved a piece of toast around.
"Yes Sherlock, I do remember. And what will you be doing today" John looked toward Madeline edgily, as if worried for her safety.
"Well the only case I have at the moment is Madeline's, so I guess I'll be working on that." he turned to face her. "With your cooperation?"
Madeline nodded. She got the feeling that this would be an interesting day.
"Nothing dangerous, okay?" John mumbled under his breath. Madeline still heard him.
"Would you like to come through to the bathroom? More privacy." he added at a regular volume.
"Sure." Madeline agreed. Sherlock was staring at her, and it was getting uncomfortable.
She winced as John prodded at her heavily bruised ribs.
"They're healing up al right, but I think this one," he poked her second to bottom rib, "Is cracked. Be careful with it. No more fights."
"Wasn't my fault," she defended herself "you don't go around kicking people's dogs."
"No, it's not right." he agreed, smearing some kind of cream on the bruise on her cheekbone. "This will help the bruising come out, so it'll heal up faster." He handed her the bottle. "Put some more on this afternoon, I wont be back until late." He went to leave, then turned back. "If Sherlock gets to be too much, just leave. He doesn't really know what's appropriate, ever."
John left her to get dressed. Munchkin had been fine; Madeline was right about him being winded. John said that he would probably be in some pain for the next couple of days because of bruising, and that he should take it easy. Even as he said it, he wondered how she was going to tell a dog to take it easy. Madeline just nodded sagely and pointed to Munchkin then to John's chair. Munchkin stepped off the couch and carefully lifted himself onto the chair. He turned around twice and settled down in a tight bundle.
It had been two hours since John left and Madeline was bored. Sherlock had zoned out ten minutes after John left and Madeline had done the dishes, cleaned the whole kitchen and tidied anything that wasn't supposed to be in the sitting room away. She had made a sandwich, leaving half in front of Sherlock, finished her half then finished his half as well. She went down to see Mrs Hudson to complain and came back with biscuits, freshly baked.
Madeline ate two of the chocolate chip biscuits, pondering her next move. There were three options; one, she could throw a pillow at him, hard and see if that would wake him up; two, she could just go and have a shower, the only problem was that she had no clothes to speak of apart from the ones that were currently on her and covered in blood. The blood was starting to dry and crack on her face and hands and she wanted more than anything to go and scrub herself raw; three, she could sic Munchkin on him. The larger than average dog would pin him down and slobber all over his blank face.
Madeline thought seriously about this last option. It would be hilarious, but Madeline got the idea that Sherlock didn't like it when people mucked up his thinking time.
She decided that the second option was the best idea. She ninja'd her way into someone's bedroom to find something to put on after her shower, and upon opening the closet and not finding any Granddad jerseys concluded that it was Sherlock's room. She pulled a shirt from the closet and held it up to herself. Because she was so short and Sherlock was so tall the shirt came down to an inch above her knees.
I can work with this. She thought to herself. Madeline put the purple shirt down on the bed and cast around the room for a belt. She found one curled up in the corner that'd been thrown there in a tantrum. Madeline touched the chip in the paint where the solid silver buckle had hit.
Next she went in search of a towel. A clean one. All of the towels in Sherlock's room had either suspicious stains or smelled a bit off. Madeline remembered the stories of body parts and messy experiments and went into Johns room instead. It was much, much cleaner than Sherlock's and to Madeline's delight there were two clean towels folded up on the set of drawers.
Pleased, Madeline went back into the sitting room and said to a still unmoving Sherlock, "I'm going to have a shower. I also borrowed some of your clothes, but you don't mind. I'll be back up in an hour. I'm going to leave Munchkin here, he might get a bit upset after a while but just tell him I'll be back soon and he should be fine."
Sherlock didn't give any indication that he'd heard. Madeline shrugged. She had told him, it wasn't her fault he wasn't listening.
She took her time in the shower, washing her hair twice and scrubbing her skin pink as a lobster. The water was so hot it half cooked her, and when she got out forty-eight minutes later she felt awesome. All clean and sparkly and dressed in Sherlock's shirt she bounded up the stairs.
When she opened the door she was surprised to see another man in the flat, he looked a little like Sherlock so she assumed he was a brother and he was patting her dog absent-mindedly. Madeline wondered if she could leave before he noticed her, but Munchkin gave her away by getting off the couch and trotting over to her. He was very pleased by the Holmes boys it seemed, and he was a good judge of character most of the time. Madeline sighed and dragged herself over to flump down in the only available space, Sherlock's chair.
Mr. Holmes raised an eyebrow. Sherlock really didn't like it when anyone other than himself sat on his chair. Sherlock could be heard in another room thumping around, Madeline guessed he was finding something for his brother.
"So, Madeline, how are you finding my little brother's company?" Mr. Holmes the Older asked, his tone arrogant and irritating.
"Fine." she replied.
"Settling in well then?"
"I'm not staying long."
He snorted. "Do you think John thought he would be staying long? Or Mrs Hudson thought she would end up being the house keeper for a socio path and a war veteran."
Madeline glared. "She's not their house keeper."
"Quite right, Madeline. She's not." Sherlock interjected. He was standing with a large box in his arms. It hadn't been opened and she could see the return address marked Mycroft Holmes, the rest blank.
"What's that?" Madeline asked, pointing.
"I don't know, I haven't opened it yet." Sherlock replied with his 'you idiot' face.
Mycroft smiled. "Clothes," he said, "For Madeline."
Madeline looked at the box closer. "But it was sent three days ago. I only got here yesterday."
