Chapter two – making up time

Clarissa knocked on the classroom door at the end of the day and listened out for the "come in" from the other side of the door before pushing it open and walking in. Mr Holmes was collecting books from the desks when she walked in. Without even exchanging a word she placed her bag by his desk and started collected books with him.

When they had finished collecting the books, they placed the, in the cupboard before returning to his desk. She pulled up a chair for herself, not seeing the point of sitting across the room on her own. "I finished the work from class" she announced with a small smile, sitting herself down on the chair and pulling her note book from her bag. She placed it on the desk so that he could either look at it or allow her to work in it.

"You can get started on the next exercise in the book" he instructed, handing her a work book before sitting down at the desk. He picked up the book he had been reading earlier in his office. Now she was up close she could see that the book was French.

They fell into a blissful silence, him reading with the occasional sound of his turning the page. Her working, glancing from the workbook to her notebook and writing almost frantically, the sounds of paper on pen were considerably loud in the silence between them. After bout fifteen minutes she began to sing quietly not even aware that she was speaking out loud. "When the lights turned down, they don't know what they heard. Strike the match, play it loud, giving love to the world. We'll be raising our hands, shining up to the sky. Cause we got the fire, fire, fire, yeah we got the fire, fire, fire. And we gonna let it burn burn burn burn…"

"Your singing" the baritone pulled her out of her thoughts and she stopped singing immediately. A blush spread across her cheeks and she ducked her head slightly at the observation, he had been listening to her singing.

"Sorry" she apologise quickly.

"Why are you apologising?" he asked, looking at her over the top of his book.

Clarissa looked at him, his blue eyes immediately resting on hers and she shrugged. "When you do something wrong it's proper to apologise."

"But you weren't doing anything wrong" he said as he placed his open book on the desk and studies her features.

"You pointed out I was singing, I stopped because it must have been annoying and then apologised because it's polite" she explained. To her the logic was there, when her father pointed out how wrong she was being she would apologise for it.

Mr Holmes just stared at her for a moment. He took a breath and lent forward before correcting her. "I pointed out you were singing as a fact, nothing more. The sound was not displeasing nor was it annoying; in fact the sound was quite pleasant. I merely wanted to make you aware that you were singing because you seemed to have been doing so without realising. I knew you would be embarrassed if you knew you were singing and told you about it."

"Well I'm sorry anyway" she added just to be sure that she was in fact in the right.

"But why?" he asked a little more forcefully.

"I just am" she exclaimed with a long breath.

"Fine" he said with a tone that he wasn't convinced. "How are you doing with the work?" he changed the subject.

"Fine, thank you" she dismissed quickly.

She went back to her work aware that he was watching her but not really caring. After two minutes of silence he spoke again, his baritone pulling her from her work so she was once again making eye contact with him. "Remind me again why you were late this morning."

He was testing her on her answer which meant that he suspected something. "Forgot to change the batteries of my alarm clock" she answered with a roll of the eyes to accentuate how stupid of a mistake it was.

"Right and the bruises?" he questioned, moving his hand to rest on his chin.

"Clumsy, just bashing into things I guess." She shrugged.

Mr Holmes lent back in his chair and crossed his arms. "The pattern of bruising suggests that they are offensive in nature, likely from defending oneself from an attacker."

"You must be mistaken" she added with a smile.

"I rarely am and never about matters such as these."

"Such as what?" she questioned.

Mr Holmes smirked, the corner of his lip turning up slightly "Cases of physical abuse. I mean you've all but confirmed it. Your mother is dead; you live with your father who resents you for your mother's death. I'm assuming that you look like your mother and that is a trigger for him. He's strict and has certain ideals which you do not meet because you are not your mother even if you look like her. It started when she died but only subtly then it developed into bodily harm. It's happened since then, you've been to four schools in the last three years, I'm guessing they started to notice as well probably not as quickly as me. But then I hadn't been looking out for it, if I had I would have figured it out a lot quicker, believe me."

"I do believe you" she said.

"Is that all you picked up from that?" he asked in disbelief. Bringing his hand to rest on the side of his head.

"No I heard it all" she admitted. "But you're wrong."

"Wrong?" he repeated with uncertainty, his brows knitting and eyes narrowing.

"Wrong" she lied.

"I'm never wrong" Mr Holmes stated as a matter fact, leaning forward so he was closer to her.

Their faces were several inches apart when she responded. "This time you are."

"Really?" he asked still not believing her, she just nodded in conformation not trusting herself to speak. "Well…" he began allowing the word to trail out of his mouth slowly before continuing as his eyes flickered down her body before returning to her eyes. "You are obviously lying, I can prove it to you if you like."

"Please" was all she said in response. Clarissa nervously licked her lips which made him smile further.

"You I asked you why you were late this morning, you claimed you overslept but you couldn't look me in the eye when you said it. Instead you looked at the ground, tell-tale sign of lying right there. You then told Doctor Watson the same thing and you claimed it was your own fault, taking the blame for the situation but you have not been late one day this year since starting at the school. The most likely situation which led to you being late is that you were nursing wounds caused by your father. Not your leg wounds, you didn't even notice them because of the rush you were in this morning, I'm guessing that you suffered other injuries to the rest of your body." He paused, pursing his lip before continuing "Just like I know that you are attracted to me, it's written all over you face and in your actions."

"Wow" was all she could manage in response. She looked at the desk before snapping her attention back to her teacher. "That was incredibly sexy, do you do that often? Just go off on tangents of thought?" she countered, batting her eyelids at him.

Sherlock noticeably tensed up. The situation not only becoming awkward but incredibly wrong, if anybody walked past they could overhear the conversation and it could be the end of his career. "You can go now" he announced.

Clarissa smiled at him but packed up her stuff obediently before standing and making her way to the door. She paused before opening it and spoke over her shoulder to him. "It's not so nice when the tables are turned." She ducked out of the door and walked through the practically empty hallway, her thoughts racing with the idea he knew about her father. She didn't want to move again, somehow she'd have to make sure that he father didn't find out.