The boy in the park was touchingly concerned for her safety. But unlike every adult in her six-year-old life, he did not try to manipulate her with lies. His almost brutal honesty was a gift to her. "There are people in this city, unfortunately, who would hurt you without giving it a second thought; who would use you for their own dubious pleasure. There are many criminals in this cold world who would think nothing of harming a child, I'm afraid," he said quite frankly, even as London, Hyde Park, the tree under which they sat, began to fade away. "I know it," she whispered, floating away.
Memory segued into dream, and suddenly the boy was talking to her present, sixteen-year-old self in a hospital in Reading. It was odd that she was now a bit older than the boy was, a bit more worldly-wise—but still quite a lot shorter and rather less clever than he. "I taught you to discern intentions," he said sternly, disapprovingly; but she smiled at him in her dream, knowing that his scowl was caused by concern for her well-being.
"I've been deducing people as you taught me for the past ten years," she assured him. "It's kept me safe for a long time. I miscalculated this time; I'd avoided him successfully for two weeks, but it was exhausting. So I made a mistake, and he was waiting for me."
"Clever girl, using the olive oil bottle. You've spread evidence all over the kitchen—he'll be in too much haste to find it all. And you fought him well. You didn't give up."
"I might be in better condition now if I hadn't," she murmured ruefully.
"You were true to yourself," the sad-eyed policeman said affectionately, and it didn't seem strange to her that he was in the room with them. "You stood up for yourself. You're worth fighting for, my girl."
"Now it's time to make use of that persistence of yours," the young man with the kind and beautiful eyes said earnestly, holding the brown suede coat in his hands. "You can fight this. You can get well, if you don't give up."
"I'm not giving up," she rasped hoarsely through gritted teeth, and the sound of her own voice pulled her out of unconsciousness. There was no answer but the beeping of the machinery by her hospital bed. Slowly she attempted to open her eyes and found that she had regained control of her body. To her foggy delight, she realized that she could now see through both eyes. The pain was back, but muted; and she was so very tired. She drifted back into a healthy, unfevered sleep.
000
"Miss Mary Morstan, I presume," the soft, Scottish brogue wafted gently from the direction of the doorway. She opened her eyes to see a middle-aged man with light brown hair fading to grey and a pleasant face dominated by a hawk-like nose, his long white coat flapping as he bustled into the room. His eyes, blue as summer skies, smiled into hers.
"Dr Bell," she smiled back; or tried to smile, but felt that with her wired-shut jaws and still-swollen face her effort was probably barely perceptible, if not utterly futile.
But Dr Bell was a perceptive man. "Ah, you'll have that lovely smile back soon, my dear, never fear," he assured her cheerfully.
She was pleased to meet this brilliant man at last. All that day a veritable army of nurses had passed in and out of that door-changing dressings, checking vital signs, administering medicines, feeding her through a straw-and she had endured them patiently. But here was the man she had been waiting to see—the man who had looked at the meagre evidence of her attack and had somehow seen the way it had happened with amazing accuracy.
"It's about time you came back to us, lass. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever have the privilege of seeing the colour of your eyes." His words were charming, but his eyes were sharp and looked her over shrewdly. "Temperature still higher than I'd like, and pulse a mite too fast," he murmured, although he had not yet touched her or looked at the readouts on the monitors. "Colour is better, though. It was a grand fight and a long, hard week, but you've beaten the infection in the end. I knew you weren't one for giving up."
A sense of loss drifted through her. "My coat," she sighed softly, assuming it was gone forever.
"It's safe; it's being held in evidence," the doctor informed her. "Now let's have a proper look at you." And he began his official examination, using hands and instruments instead of just eyes, enumerating her injuries as he went and assessing their progress. Concussion: no longer a concern. Black eye: swelling down and vision fully returned. Broken jaw: wired and mending nicely ("But it's meals through a straw for another five weeks, I'm afraid, lass"). Cracked ribs: healing quickly. Internal bruising: no permanent damage. Lacerations: sutured with minimum scarring. "It's the infection that set in that was the worst of it, I'm afraid," he said soberly. "You must be prepared that it caused a good deal of internal scarring. It may well be that bearing children is not in your future."
She tried to imagine ever wanting to bring a child into this world that had so many men like her assailant in it, and men like her father, and like a great many other people who through abuse or neglect had made her life so difficult and so painful. "I don't care," she said through her closed teeth and with closed eyes. She was so tired.
"Mmm," he hummed in sympathetic agreement. A long silence hung in the room as he finished his examination of her to his satisfaction, raised her bed to a sitting position, and scribbled notes on a pad. Then came a soft knock on the door.
"Do you feel up to a visitor, lass? That'll be Detective Inspector Gregson at the door, huffing like an old bear. He's been that anxious to speak with you—it was he that found you, you see, and he is the detective in charge of your case."
"All right," she agreed. She was weary, but she did want to meet her bear-man properly at last. The doctor opened the door, and in came a giant with curling, ginger hair and well-trimmed beard and fierce expression which quickly changed to a tender smile as he saw she was awake and sitting up in bed.
"That's what I like to see! Up and in her right mind at last!" he exclaimed, trying to keep his boisterous, gravelly voice at a volume meant for hospital rooms. "How are you feeling, then, Miss Morstan?"
"Lucid," she said. "And grateful to you. Very grateful. But have you arrested him yet?"
The detective's bushy eyebrows raised and he glanced at the doctor quizzically. "Clever lass," Dr Bell remarked, amused.
"You found out who I am; you must have found him out as well. I left evidence all over the kitchen, and all over his face," she persisted.
"Well, child—erm, young lady—you tell me who your assailant was and I'll confirm whether I've arrested the correct suspect," DI Gregson said, pulling out a tape recorder.
She could hardly bear to have to speak his hateful name, but neither could she bear to see the brute go free because of a technicality in court. She spoke each word slowly, as precisely as she could, so as to be understood in spite of her wired-shut jaws. "Nat Denton. His wife is my second cousin. My father disappeared over a month ago and they agreed to take me in. I'd been living with them for two weeks, and I'd managed to stay out of his way until . . . . I was so tired, staying awake nights to keep watch and all . . . I let my guard down, thought he'd gone out—he cornered me in the kitchen . . . ." She stopped, mouth aching, utterly exhausted.
The detective snapped off the machine. "That's good enough for now, child," he told her gently, and the doctor kicked his foot. "Erm, young lady," he corrected hastily. Mary, quite certain she'd not been a child since she was six years old, wistfully found herself wishing he would continue calling her by that term of endearment.
"Don't you worry," DI Gregson continued, "the bloody blackguard is in custody. Tried to tell me you'd run away days before, and him with a well-scratched face and a great bloody knot on his head where you beaned him. Found his poor wife, on her knees, nearly prostrate with terror, tryin' to clean up the kitchen; but you did a fine job spreading evidence about! And then there was the broken bottle, still in the dustbin in the man's own house, along with the rags they'd been sopping up the mess with." He didn't say that the rags were soaked with her own blood as well as the olive oil she'd spewed all over the room.
"Turns out the bastard has a file of complaints against him as long as my leg," The detective went on with a fierce look. "AND he's done time in prison for assault, as well. The moron who decided that would be a good home for you needs to be tied to a post and horse-whipped, in my humble opinion."
The doctor laid a steadying hand on his friend's arm. "There now, Tobiah, I've not been idle these six days. I have a young relative, a distant cousin, who occupies a minor position in the British Government. Brilliant lad, taught him everything I knew about deductive reasoning. I spoke to him about your case, my dear-emphasizing the embarrassment to the government this would cause should it be mentioned to the press, and he agreed to intervene on your behalf."
She closed her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you both, so much."
"There now, lass, it's time we left you to rest," Dr Bell said sympathetically. "Off we go, Tobiah." She was asleep before they had even shut the door.
000
She stepped outside of the Reading County Courthouse and lifted her face to the sunshine. She was free. She'd never in her life been so free.
In the face of the overwhelming evidence, and at the strongly-worded advice of the counsel for the defence, Nat Denton had pled guilty and would soon be on his way to serve his sentence of ten years in prison. One year for each of the ten nightmarish months he'd just put her through: months in which it seemed not one day had gone by but that she had to retell and relive her experience in some way. Investigators and solicitors needed to make certain their case was air-tight; doctors and therapists tried to help her recover from the realities of her ordeal; government officials and representatives of the armed services needed to be sure of who was culpable. She had not had to speak in court, to her admitted relief, although she would have done, and gladly, in spite of the content of the evidence she would have had to present.
"Off to London, then?" Dr Bell stepped up beside her. "It's good riddance to this dismal city for you, I imagine."
She smiled at him brightly. "It hasn't been all dismal," she assured him. "I am grateful to you for all you've done." His young relative in the British Government has spoken words into the correct ears and expedited a hefty compensatory settlement that would pay for university and allow her to live in her own in a flat in London for some time. In addition, the army had settled her father's pension on her, giving her a bit of income to live on—an independent life at last, never again to be at the mercy of negligent or abusive strangers. And then today, a letter had been delivered to her in the courthouse—a thick wad of hundred pound notes with a type-written message that read simply: "From a friend of your father's with regrets". It seemed she was now to build a new life upon the financial foundation of other people's guilt. She was all right with that.
DI Gregson joined them as they walked down Friar Street, away from the looming courthouse. "Congratulations, Miss Morstan," he boomed in his gruff voice. "I hear you've been accepted to King's College! Well done, child! Erm, young lady! I know how hard you've worked for it."
Indeed, highly motived and in need of distraction, Mary had thrown herself into her studies, passing all of her A-levels in record time. "Thank you," she murmured, blushing under his praise.
"A fine doctor you'll be," he continued, "although I could wish you'd put your considerable cleverness into police work."
"Perhaps I will one day," Mary said, dimples deepening. "Dr Bell does police work on his patients' behalf—why shouldn't I?"
"That he does!" the bear-man roared with laughter. "He deduced one more little thing on behalf of yourself—he told me to bring you this." He produced a squashy package and handed it to her.
Her old brown, suede coat, so shabby and stained, whispered encouraging words to her as she stroked its softness. "Thank you, Inspector. Thank you for everything," she said. "I'll never forget either of you. You've done so much for me."
She soon boarded the train for London, never to set foot in Reading again.
000
Ten years later, Doctor Mary Morstan walked into her newest place of employment, a clinic in Westminster, and thought it looked as good a place as any to settle in for a while. Dr Sarah Sawyer, who had hired her on in spite of her record of restlessly roaming from job to job, met her at the door and began showing her around, introducing her to the others.
"And this is John Watson, one of our locum practitioners." Sarah presented her to a blond man in his late thirties and Mary looked at him with interest. His military bearing set him apart from the other doctors, and his kind, beautiful eyes and brilliant smile intrigued her.
"Pleasure to meet you," she said cheerfully. She thought it might be time to be giving up her life of roaming about and stay in this place for a while.
000
Again, my heartfelt thanks to the most lovely and wonderful mrspencil, Fang's Fawn, and Wynsom. What would I do without you ladies?
To find out more about the mysterious letter and guilt money Mary receives, read "Mary" and "Oddly Detached".
To read more about Mary's past in this AU, read "Boscombe Pond", "To Hold His Hand", "To Hold Her Heart", and "Chance Meetings".