Sorry for the late update, but mainly sorry for the lack of plot movement. I had to get this out of the way. I did end up switching chapter 6 and 7, so if you didnt read "Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines" it's at the 6th position now with "Leftovers" at chapter 7. Holy flashback batman. Let's get moving.
Three years ago:
Adelaide had been in South Africa when she had heard the news of the fall of Sherlock Holmes. People there hadn't had much interest beyond the gory spectacle of a man dramatically falling to his death after he had been labelled as a fraud. It made her sick that they would do something so awful to a man who had helped the city so much.
Not that she would admit it to anyone, but her heart lurched when the story broke. Like a tonne of bricks that now sat on her chest. Adelaide made for her small flat she had been staying in for this mission. Once she was there, she let her emotions go. The flood of tears and sobs that leapt forth were crippling. She grieved for her little brother as sadness and guilt overtook her.
Adelaide had ended up in her bed curled up with her knees to her chest. The sobbing had finally ceased when her burner phone buzzed with a message.
He is safe. Will make contact with details tomorrow.
It was short but it gave her a spark of hope. Sherlock wasn't dead. This was a plan, and she felt guilt for not keeping faith that he could pull something off. Why though? Why did he need the world to believe he was gone from it? Adelaide accessed her laptop and searched the recent stories about Sherlock. The defamation and slander that she read from the large news still disturbed her, but she dug further into message boards to find clues that the media usually missed. She took a small comfort in groups on the internet that went against the news media's barrage of slander to her brother's work. "I believe in Sherlock Holmes." So do I. What game are you playing, little brother?
After hours at the laptop, she had gotten a text saying that she was to have a 'holiday' venture which meant developing her cover story further. With this large disruption in the Holmes family, her parents would want contact. Adelaide didn't have any friends back home, not anymore. Anyone she was close to had long forgotten her, attributing it to the usual reason of losing touch instead of her being shipped around the world on MI6s bidding. Really the only ones that did care were her parents and Sherlock. Her cover was that she participated in major archaeological digs that required her to travel constantly. It was a bit ludicrous she thought. Indiana Jones had been one of her favourite movies growing up and she felt that the cover story was a bit weak and far-fetched because of it. If her family believed the staged photos and articles and the scattering of ten minute long distance phone calls, it was because they desperately wanted to. She had always wondered why Mycroft never just said that she had died. It would have been easier. Less constantly lying about her whereabouts. It weighed on her every time she heard her dad give a shaky goodbye as she rushed him off the phone. At least the only thing good that came out of the boys ignoring their parents with a strong fervour, was that the bar was low on the Holmes parents' expectations on their children visiting them. She had been surprised and disappointed that Sherlock had bought the story too, but maybe that was because he did not care about her anymore. She had hurt him too much, so he deleted her from his mind like extraneous information.
Adelaide was still haunted by what happened to her and her brother. Mycroft had told her the situation Sherlock had ended up in had been her fault, she didn't think so entirely but the guilt still filled her heart because of it. Her heart that had already taken a beating by that point, then after the business of striking her away from her home, the sentimental organ had been blackened farther than she thought it could repair itself.
She tried to get some sleep, knowing that she'd be needing it. Tomorrow she hoped she would get an explanation from Mycroft and presumably a phone call to her mother and father. She wasn't expecting to have to speak to them until this Christmas. She didn't have a fondness for Christmas anymore. It meant lying to her parents and it reminded her of the time when she met Connor. She thought about how maybe her whole life would have changed if she had said no to him that December day. Adelaide tried not to dwell on the should-haves and could-haves but this was a bad day to fight those feelings of regret.
About 16 or so years ago:
Adelaide was in her third year of her doctoral archaeological degree at Leeds University in Yorkshire when Sherlock entered as a first year student. She used to live near the centre of campus until Sherlock had decided to come to Leeds for his degree. Their parents subsidised them into a small flat on the outskirts of town to accommodate them both and gave her a Mini Cooper that was far past its prime for transport around Yorkshire. Leeds was far more car dependent than London and they wanted to make sure they would always have a way to get around.
Mycroft had been pestering Sherlock to attend his old Uni that was near London. Adelaide suspected that it was to push him into the same programs that led to their older brother's fledgling career in the British Government. Sherlock had expressed his severe disinterest in that field and had instead applied to Leeds without telling anyone until after he had received his acceptance. It was surprising to the whole family since he gave strong negative reviews of Leeds anytime they came to visit her there. But now she realised that he was more upset that she was there and not at home.
At first he had been excited to move in with her. Away from the lectures of Mycroft and the smothering of their mother. He had told her on the phone one night that it was getting worse with him being the only one left at home. Mummy meant well, but she had a hard time connecting with her emotionally obstinate children. Dad was better in that field, but Sherlock had entered that phase that most teenagers do when they feel the need to challenge their fathers. Boys could be so stupid, but she studied the stupidity of men throughout the ages, and at least it had proved to be great entertainment.
She had enjoyed having him around, she made dinner for him almost every night and had great conversations about what he was learning about and how his professors had been impressed with his work. Uni was a better fit for him because he could stand out to his professors in a large class without the other students knowing. He had been labelled a show-off more than once at his small school back home.
As the autumn deepened, Sherlock lost that thrill of being away from home and he retreated further in isolation. Adelaide felt like she had let him down in a way. The dinners got farther and farther apart when her research and duties increased. She rarely spoke at the flat if she was there, as most of her time spent in the office she had on campus. There were friends that she would hang out with from time to time, and would invite her brother along, but he would just sit quietly in a corner until she felt guilty enough to take them home before he would snap at anyone who tried to speak to him about mundane topics. Adelaide did try to get him involved with the other undergraduates by finding a student who was also in the chemistry department. Christine was taking the introductory anthropology class that Adelaide taught. The girl was a year older than Sherlock and agreed to invite and introduce him to the chemistry club that she was a member of.
To his sister's delight, Sherlock had gotten on well with the group and to her equal surprise, she walked in to the flat to find her baby brother ferociously snogging Christine on their sofa. Adelaide thought it was fantastic how red his face turned at being caught and the girl hastily left the flat with a thin excuse. The opportunity was too grand to pass up on, and Adelaide did a little ribbing on her brother's new found activity.
"Sooooo," Adelaide drew out the word. "You didn't expect me to come home this early did you?"
Sherlock looked down, still embarrassed. "Obviously."
She pressed on, "How long has this been happening, in general, not just on our couch?"
The blush deepened before he replied, "About a month." Sherlock gave a little smirk at that.
"Wow, a month. Well, I'm just glad that you've found someone else to tolerate your personality. Most people can't stand it." As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted it. It was a total slap in the face to him and out of the ordinary for her to say such a hurtful thing. She had just been so worried and frustrated that he couldn't find happiness at university that the cynical comment just leapt from her tongue. The smile he had on before her comment disappeared completely as he whisked himself away and shut himself into his bedroom. Sherlock managed to avoid her for some time after that.
Adelaide knew that the comment hurt, but she was unaware why it had cut so deep until a month or so later. She had found out about a week before the semester ended that Sherlock had adopted a different personality that was more pleasing when with the people from his club. He had been putting on a front in order for them to like him more, but it had cracked one night when he found Christine at a party hanging off a grisly rugby player. Jealousy ran through him and he proceeded to point out every fault she possessed in front of all her friends. That night he had come back to the flat with a very bloody nose, a parting gift from the rugby player that Christine had apparently been seeing off and on the past couple of years.
While dabbing up his face, Adelaide tried her best not to sound like a lecturer as she explained the difference between being more of an agreeable personality from just plain lying. He had to find a way to express himself but not insult anyone who came too close. It has been his lifelong struggle and she told him that this was not a way to solve it. He managed to shrug in some sort of understanding as he sullenly headed back to his room after she hugged him for a long moment. Sherlock had been hurt physically, but all the emotional growth that he had been making toppled down after that incident.
The past week, he had solely focused on his final examinations and took the first train home he could after his last test. Adelaide was staying a few extra days to grade term papers so she dropped Sherlock off in her beat up Mini and had to almost force him to give her a goodbye hug. He wasn't an extremely affectionate person, but she never had to fight him for an embrace before. She worried about his increasingly gloomy mood, so Adelaide called their dad to warn him of the impending dark cloud that was his son. They talked a good while and he asked her about cause his son's attitude. Sherlock would be angry with her for revealing his embarrassment, but she knew that their father would do his best to keep the boy from staying in his room the entire holiday.
The last paper she had disappointedly read, the student had confused the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of the Egyptians. This was an introductory course and the paper was written well enough to let the error pass with only a small markdown of points, but Adelaide perked up when she saw that the paper belonged to Christine the rugby snogger. Adelaide shouldn't have marked her down so low for the mistake, but she felt a bit of glee that this final mark would just interfere with Christine getting first honours. Adelaide reminded herself to tell Sherlock if he was still low-spirited over the holiday.
With all her papers marked, she packed up to deliver the final grades to her department head and grabbed her suitcase that was ready in the hall for her journey home. Dad had been saying that she would be getting new tyres for Christmas to replace the balding ones she had now, so she planned on taking the long drive back instead of the train. She headed down the stairs and ran to her car right before a downpour started. When she got to the department office, she looked around the back for the brolly she kept in there for just this reason. It wasn't there and she assumed that Sherlock had nicked it the last time it rained. He had a nasty habit of not bringing things back after he used them.
Begrudgingly, she put her coat over her head and managed to keep the papers dry until she entered the building. The office was fairly empty with everyone leaving for the holiday, but she found the submission box and placed her grade sheet inside and wished the remaining people a happy Christmas. The rain hadn't relented as she dashed into the car, still warm inside from her previous journey. Adelaide turned on the ignition and it made a dreadful noise. She was weary to be taking it on a long trip home due to that, so she decided to drop it off at a garage she heard one of her friends use to have it fixed over the holiday and take a train home instead.
The garage was past the Leeds Country Way in a rural part of town, but her friend had recommended it for the service. She was about two miles away when the car shuddered and died. Adelaide managed to coast to the side of the road with the remaining momentum. She put the car in park and rested her head against the steering wheel, "Great, I'm out in the middle of no place in the pouring rain, by myself. Good job, Addy. Myc is going to have a field day when he hears how stupid you've been," she scolded herself.
After her small pity party, Adelaide grabbed her soaking wet coat to assess the damage. She lifted up the bonnet concluded that there wasn't anything she could do, so for the time being, she decided that she would wait out the rain before hiking to the garage for assistance. She hunkered down in the passenger seat with her feet on the dash, reading one of the textbooks for a class in the new semester, when there was a sharp rap at her driver side window. Adelaide jumped and cursed herself for letting her guard down in such a precarious situation.
She shuffled up into the proper seating position and looked at the person who disturbed her reading. There, standing with a large black umbrella, was a young man with honey brown hair and hazel eyes that were peering into the vehicle along with a friendly face. He saw how he had startled her and gave a gentle wave to show he wanted to help her. Adelaide calmed herself quickly and cranked the driver side window down.
"Hiya, you're having a bit of car trouble, then?" the man spoke with a Yorkshire accent and was trying to give her the least threatening demeanour to set her at ease.
Adelaide thought about telling him that she was fine so he would leave. She knew that Mycroft would give her a thorough lecture about talking to a strange man on the side of the road. He was so bloody protective since she had gone off to university so far away from home. But the man had shifted his coat and she noticed he was wearing mechanics coveralls under it.
Adelaide decided that he might be useful in getting her off of the side of the road. "A bit, yeah. Do you work at the garage down the road? I was heading there before this happened."
The man smiled, "Yeah, I do. I am heading into work and I saw you sitting here. Do you mind if I take a look?"
Adelaide shook her head and he lifted the bonnet to look at the engine. She laughed a little when he popped his head around the bonnet to give her an amusing look that the engine was far beyond what he expected. He came back to the open window, "You know you blew a piston? I don't know how exactly you managed that, but I can't fix it here. I can have it towed back to the garage, but it'll take a while to get the parts in for repair."
"That's fine, actually! I'm headed home for the holiday and I planned on dropping it off, so you can have it as long as you like!" Adelaide said a bit too eagerly for her own tastes. What was she doing?
"Well, it looks like we are on the same page then, can I give you a lift to the garage,…?" he was asking for her name.
"Adelaide Holmes," she said quickly.
"Pleasure to meet you, Adelaide. I'm Connor Burton." They stopped talking for a beat too long to avoid awkwardness. "So, can a take you to the garage, then?
Flustered she replied, "Oh, no actually." Conner's face made a sudden downturn and she felt bad for dashing his offer. "But, I would not mind a lift to the nearest bus stop. I'll catch a train in the morning to head home."
"Well then, I can radio into the garage and they can come and pick up your car," Conner said looking to the darkening sky. "You know if you want, you could catch the last one tonight if I drive you to the station now."
Adelaide mulled over the offer and thought it kind of him to offer to take her back into town. It would be better to leave in the morning, but she felt bad if she turned down another one of his offers to be of assistance.
"Thank you, I think that could work nicely," she tried to give a smile to Conner and he perked up at her agreeableness and walked back to the van she now saw parked behind her car to radio his man at the garage. Looking at him in the rear-view mirror, she heard a pesky voice in her head that sounded like her older brother, "Yes, Adelaide, this is a grand idea. Get inside a strange man's van. I'll let Mummy know which ditch we find you in."
She shook the feeling off when Connor came back to help her with her suitcase and books. He managed to get them in his van without them getting soaked as a breakdown lorry rambled towards them. The driver exited with a grey umbrella and the two men greeted each other jovially. They discussed something about her car and Connor came back to her window.
"Mike is going to pack everything up himself, and we can head out now. Keys?" he stuck out his hand for them and she quickly took off the Mini's key from the ring and gave it to him. "Leave it in neutral, don't need to be dragging it down the road." Adelaide gave a small giggle and rolled the window as he gave the keys to his friend. Conner came back to open her door like a gentlemen and he escorted her to the passenger side of the van.
He sprinted to the other side to enter the cab and gave her a reassuring grin to counter the weariness on her face about the situation. "I promise, I'm not going to kidnap you or anything. But that seems like what a kidnapper would say, like that would be a good bluff, I guess," he was getting nervous about her apprehension and he quickly moved his right arm to rub the back of his neck, but instead caught his elbow on the hard metal frame, hitting his ulnar nerve. Conner winced and looked over to his passenger for some sympathy.
Adelaide did not give any to him. The tension had been thick between them, but seeing his face scrunch up as he fought back a colourful swear did her in and she gave into a fit of giggles. Conner looked embarrassed at first, but chuckled along as well.
Adelaide subsided her laughter enough, "Well, I don't think you're a kidnapper, you'd probably need smoother moves than that, or maybe that's your bluff," she gave a cheeky smirk. "We should get going, it's going to be dark in a couple of hours and I your friend has been staring at us. He might think we've gone mad, sitting here laughing."
Conner gave a chuckle and last rub to his arm and started the engine. They waved to Mike and started out on the road back to town. Adelaide felt like it was her turn to make conversation after she gave Conner such a cold presence earlier.
"So, how long have you been working at the garage?" she asked cheerfully.
Conner looked pleased that she was feeling better to talk with him, "I've been there about a two and a half years, now since I earned a degree in mechanical engineering but my main focus has been the business side the past year. My uncle owns five garages around Yorkshire and wants to leave it to me. All my cousins are girls and have gone off to live around the country, so he's always had me over to learn the business."
Adelaide was impressed, she thought he was a mechanic by his attire and the roughness of his hands. He caught her eyeing the dark grease stains on the sleeves of his jacket. "I still get my hands in a transmission from time to time, accounting books can muddle my head after a while and it's soothing to work on something you've always loved doing."
"I know what you mean, you sound like my little brother a bit. He likes his studies enough, but he relaxes by watching people out of windows. He enjoys deducing different things about them. I once saw him figure out what brand of tea my friend enjoyed by observing the cuffs of his shirt. He's obscenely intelligent." Adelaide said this beaming with pride.
"Well, he sounds brilliant, I'd probably like him," Conner said kindly.
Adelaide snorted oh so attractively, "Ha, he's an acquired taste, but I think you might stand a chance since you managed to coax me out of my car. My older brother is going to have a field day for accepting a lift from a stranger. He has unremittingly told me that I am too trusting and nice to people. Which probably tells you how friendly he comes off."
They both laughed at that, "Well, he's probably just concerned for you. I would be if I had a younger sister, I'm all by myself. Must be nice to have brothers."
"They are a handful. Having them in the same room usually leads to some disaster of an argument. Mycroft likes to boss Sherlock around and Sherlock enjoys doing the exact opposite just to spite him. It makes for great Christmas dinners." Adelaide rolled her eyes at the thought that it would probably be extra quarrelsome this year with Sherlock's attitude and she'd be stuck in the middle. Mycroft had a penchant for admonishing her coddling of Sherlock while simultaneously chiding her for not looking after him properly. She could never win with Mycroft, so she usually just refereed their petty arguments that ended in pouts and bruised pride.
"Sounds normal, but they are called Mycroft and Sherlock? I might be a bit obstinate if I was sidled with those monikers. You got lucky with your name, Adelaide. You don't hear it much anymore. It's very pretty." Adelaide was about to blush but Connor did it for her, turning a fantastic pink.
"Thank you, my grandmother was Adelaide. It was more popular during her time, and I haven't meet another girl with the same name until one of my friends mentioned her sister named their baby Adelaide. I suspect it'll get popular again," she noticed she was brushing off his complement and made to continue the conversation before it ended up dying in awkward silence.
"So, where did you go to university? Were you at Leeds?" she asked.
Conner perked up again, "No, thought about it though, being close to the garages, but my uncle went to Manchester and insisted I get my degree there. You're at Leeds, right? What are you studying?"
"Yes, I'm there for my doctorate in archaeology, actually." Once Adelaide began speaking about her favourite subject, she had a hard time stopping. Connor was listening intently to her ramblings, asking questions along the way. It made for actual pleasant conversation and relaxed her further. She even confessed what she did to Christine's paper after explaining what happened with Sherlock. She felt better about letting someone else know about what she did and he assured her that she was justified in marking down the paper on the academic merits alone.
Their conversation had ended up being so delightful, it made the thirty minute drive in the rain go by quickly. Connor stopped in front of the train station and the precipitation ceased.
"Here's your stop," Connor sighed and smiled nervously. Adelaide made to grab her things to take advantage of the gap in the weather when he spoke up. "Adelaide, can I have your number?" Embarrassment hit him hard when he saw her look of surprise towards his forwardness, and he started to backtrack. "I mean, a number I can reach you about your car? For when it's fixed." He made to rub his neck again and amazingly managed to hit his elbow again.
Adelaide smiled and held back her laughter. She took out a notebook and wrote down her name and the number to the phone at home and handed it to him. "Here, this is the number to my parent's house. If my brothers answer, you're better off just hanging up and trying again later. They tend to only pick up if they think I'm expecting a call and harass whomever is trying to talk to me."
Connor gave a small smile, but he looked a little disappointed when she opened the door and started to walk toward the station. She hated leaving like that. He had been so nice to her and she did enjoy his company on the way here. She took a deep breath and made her decision. Leaving her case on the ground, she sprinted back to the driver side of the van and Connor rolled the window down.
Adelaide yanked the paper she had given him and pulled a pen from her pocket to scribble more digits under the previous ones. She promptly returned the parchment to his hand. "That is the phone number to my flat here in Leeds. Call me after the holiday for coffee?" She gave him a bright encouraging smile.
Connor lit up, "Oh my god, yes," then realising how eager he sounded, tried and failed to 'play it cool'. "Yeah, totally. Coffee sounds brilliant."
Adelaide smiled and made to turn around, then remembering the season, "Happy Christmas, Connor Burton."
Connor's face returned the stupid grin he had tried to abolish twenty seconds earlier and replied back, "Happy Christmas to you, Adelaide Holmes."
The burner phone rang and she looked at the time. Four-thirty. She answered it with a solid hello and Mycroft was on the other line.
"You've heard, I presume?" His attempt to be derisive was feeble. She could hear the weariness in his voice. He had probably been up all night sorting what needed to be sorted.
"Is he okay? How is he?" Adelaide let her worried mind leak when she asked those questions, but she really didn't care, she knew that Mycroft wouldn't have been completely worry-free during this event no matter what front he put on for everyone else.
"He's at the home of his pathologist. She is patching him up and housing him until he is able to be moved. He'll be sent off to break down the crime web that Moriarty has assembled," Mycroft let out a breath like this was what he had been setting up the past few hours.
"You need something from me, don't you? What is it? Take down the network too?"
"That would be best but he won't want help. This is now his personal vendetta and I fear that it might overtake him. You will gather intel and report directly to me. As far as the government knows, you're on assignment in deep cover in New Zealand. You won't have as much resources on this as you are used to, so be creative. Watch him but keep a distance. No interference that he could detect. Monitor. Observe."
"And if he makes a mess of things?"
"Then you'll clean them up. Don't let him become a murderer. One in the family is enough."
"Stop. Please don't right now. I just grieved for my presumably dead brother and don't need to reflect more on my sad and broken life. I want one condition though: if he starts spiralling, I get to come in. If not, his blood is on your hands." They both knew she was speaking of his drug habit. It was too painful to actually mention, it was why she is what she is.
Mycroft paused before he agreed, "Yes. You should. I will give strict instructions if that occurs but you are only to make contact then." She could practically hear his hand covering his eyes in exhaustion.
Adelaide had refrained from asking Mycroft a question she feared to be answered, but this was a trying time for them both and she experienced the worst pain she had ever suffered a few hours before, so she was braver now.
"Does he know the truth, about me?"
There was a long empty space of time before he replied, "Yes, but not from me. I fear he has been busy for some time about that."
They stayed in silence for almost two minutes before she spoke.
"Go to sleep. You need it and you'll need it even more later. Take care of him, brother."
"You too, sister."
It was the most cordial they had been in years and when the line went dead, her heart felt the tiniest bit lighter.
DON'T HURT ME I'M SORRY. Super promise to have them in the same room together, but we got Holmes sibling interaction and what is this, a glimpse of what happened between the kids? le gasp. Please Review, I do so much enjoy them. Let me know how you like the chapter titles. I try to make them either good or funny. I appreciate when you can giggle a bit in the mad darkness that Sherlock goes though sometimes.