"The countryside" turned out to be all the way in England. Sydney shook her head as she tried to follow her father through the large crowd at the airport, remembering her previous conversation with her dad. "Couldn't you find some countryside in the States?" she'd asked, and he'd replied testily that there was a family in England that he had wanted to see for a very long time, and that they lived in the country. This would be the perfect opportunity to go and see them.
Sydney had crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. Not even the enticement of going and seeing Baker Street before they went out to the manor where the Benton family lived could lighten her mood. She retrieved her bag, leaving her father's on the belt so that he would have to run around to the other side to get it, and headed for the exit, berating herself for being such a brat, yet making no effort to change her attitude. Why did she have to have a father that was so upsettingly logical in every other aspect of his life, but could make decisions like leaving the country on a whim that actually took some serious thought?
A taxi was hailed and Sydney sat forward, her moodiness giving way to curiosity as she watched the driver pull out to the left side of the road. With curious eyes, Sydney watched the scenery flash past the window, all on the wrong side of the road, in her opinion. As the taxi turned onto another street, Sydney caught a glimpse of the sign and her eyes widened. Her dad had actually brought her to Baker Street like he had promised.
For the next two hours, Sydney roved around the little apartment of her great-grandfather, touching nothing, but taking everything in with wide, calculating eyes. Her self-control broke, though, when she saw Sherlock's violin, retrieved, she knew, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at some point to prove that Sherlock Holmes had never left, and had never married. She reached out, and only the warning sound of the tour guide clearing her throat stopped her from caressing the old wood. She gave the guide a contrite smile and moved on to other parts of the apartment.
Finally, she strode up to her father, whose patience, she could tell, was waning, and announced, "I'm ready."
Her keen ears almost missed the "Finally," he uttered under his breath as he thanked the tour guide and steered his daughter out of the apartments as quickly as he could. The Bentons were waiting.
The drive out of London was long, taxing, and completely arduous. Sydney rolled her eyes and fixated her gaze on the window of the cab. "Great," she muttered as the first torrent of rain slammed into the pane. Could the day get any better a.k.a. worse? Probably not.
However, her father didn't seem the least concerned or surprised that the London skies were spastically opening up and pelting the little car with fat raindrops. "What did you expect?" he asked her with an annoyed shrug. "It's England."
"I expected," Sydney mentally shot back, but then stopped. Mental arguing wasted too much of her time. Instead, she resolved to sit back, relax, and "try" to enjoy the countryside.
She must have fallen asleep because an hour later Walter Holmes was prodding her gently. "What?" she grumbled.
He ignored her rudeness for the time being and said instead, "We're here."
Sydney sat up, trying to shake off the sleepiness she felt, and peered out the window, squinting to see around the rain splatters on the pane. They were driving through a small town, one that would have probably been in some vacationer's guide as a "quaint little spot to visit." However, despite her grumpiness, Sydney couldn't help but admire the charm of the tiny town.
"This looks exactly like the town great-grandfather visited in-" she began, but her father cut her off.
"Sydney," he pleaded tiredly, "don't mention your great-grandfather for a while, okay? And please don't start experimenting on the Bentons when you want to work out some new hypothesis." His tone brooked no argument and Sydney could do nothing but nod agreeably as the cab pulled off the street and headed down a dirt lane.
The Benton house was set far back from the lane, and Sydney leaned forward, trying to hide her natural curiosity, in an effort to see the house. The house was unlike anything she had expected.
It looked like a cross between Cinderella's house and the Seven Dwarves' house. The house was actually situated on a "hill" of sorts, surrounded on three sides by a moat of bluish-green water. Sydney tried not to snicker. Had they gone back in time, or something?
Apparently not, because the taxi rumbled across the drawbridge and had to swing around to avoid the seven cars scattered in front of the large front door. Sydney stepped out and glanced around, taking in the rolling hills behind the estate, and the large storm clouds that were quickly bearing down on them.
The door opened and a middle-aged woman darted down the steps, throwing her arms around Sydney's father, who had just finished paying for the cab. "Walter!" she cried happily. "Oh it's wonderful to see you again! It's been far too long!"
Walter Holmes actually hugged her back. Sydney was shocked that he returned the gesture since he wasn't usually a man who liked public affection. However, the smile on his face as he did so was very genuine, and he returned the sentiments given to him. With the briefest of glances at Sydney, Walter leaned in close and whispered something in the woman's ear that made her pause for a moment and her smile waver.
She glanced quickly at Sydney and then stepped away from the embrace. "No matter," she told him, and then stepped towards Sydney. Her face beamed with happy curiosity as she smiled at Sydney. "Hello, dear Sydney," she said. "How are you?"
Sydney, despite her mood and her reluctance to come traipsing halfway across the world just to find some "countryside," chose that moment to remember her manners and said politely, "Fine, thank you."
The woman smiled once more. "You're the spitting image of your mother," she told Sydney. She turned back to Walter and smiled. "It's not fair, Walter. Really it isn't. You get a lovely girl to marry, and then you get a lovely daughter to go along with it."
Walter smiled but didn't say anything, and Sydney guessed by his facial expression that he was studying her and trying to find the similarities between her and her mother. However, he wasn't left to dwell on them for too long because the happy woman was already trying to take Sydney's bag and pull it up the stairs. "Come in, come in!" she exclaimed happily. "You must meet the rest of the family. Everyone's waiting for you!"
"Great," Sydney thought. "Now I have to meet everyone else. Will this day never end?"
A/N: Thank you to the readers who are reading this. I'm so very sorry that it has taken me this long to get this chapter out, but this story takes so much plotting that I have only managed to piece snippets of it together at a time. Please review and tell me if it was worth the wait, and thanks for being so patient! :D