A Woman Scorned
By the time Watson, Bradstreet, and Holmes returned from the harbor the sun had risen and was giving the sky a shade of pink. Claire Watson had slept little; her mind and heart were becoming too agitated for slumber. On one hand she was glad William Gardner was getting punished, but on the other hand she felt guilty for letting this happen to him.
The house at Baker Street was empty except for herself and Mrs. Hudson, who was still fast asleep. She could hear the carriage because the shouting tones of Holmes could be heard from the open window. Quietly she descended to unlock the front door and then returned to situate herself behind the desk, making sure her face was hidden in shadow.
Watson burst into the room carrying a twig of man with faded blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Bradstreet and Holmes and (to Claire's dismay) Mycroft Holmes brought up the rear. Watson laid the man down the couch and darted for the kitchen while Holmes and the rest of the men turned to Claire.
"Well done in finding Mr. William Gardner, Miss Watson - your actions saved this man's life," Inspector Bradstreet congratulated the silent figure.
The man looked up at the mention of the last name Watson and saw at the desk with the rising sun behind her none other than Claire Watson. William gulped, seeing the same ocean-blue eyes and marble-like expression that he left four years ago. Both Holmes brothers watched him shrink back as if cornered by a wild beast.
"Why is she here?" he managed to stammer out.
Holmes opened his mouth to answer but Claire answered for herself.
"I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes's assistant, William. Did you have a nice time at the docks?" she asked sarcastically.
Holmes looked at his assistant, thinking she would be in tears or angry beyond control. To his surprise along with everyone else's, Claire looked normal except for the color of her eyes, which had gone darker. William waited for her to move but she didn't, making him sigh in relief.
"I'm glad you have moved on to a better life, Claire. It seems you are better off than I am at this moment," he said, trying to be charming.
Claire stayed behind the desk, eerily calm and statuesque, and smiled slightly at his attempt of a joke.
Watson returned with some light food and began to feed it to William slowly so his stomach would not heave it back up. Holmes appeared next to William, ready to interrogate him even if his subject was not ready to answer.
"William Bruce Gardner, you are here in my office because you were kidnapped by your former friend Jim Ellis. According to accounts by your father and others, you drove your friend to madness by having an affair with his fiancé."
William looked at Claire along with Mycroft when Holmes mentioned "others." Claire was beside herself with anger, but forced herself to only take off her gloves instead of strangling William.
"This of course is an offense of infidelity and of course many other social rules. What have you to say?" Holmes said coldly, peering at the man.
The gentleman's eyes widened before answering.
"Is it wrong to fall in love? Yes, I'll admit falling for my good friend's fiancé while I was courting was not my ideal choice; but fate it seemed to me had given me a gift and I should cherish it."
There came a snort of disbelief from the desk which made all the heads turn toward the scorned woman.
"That's a lie, William Gardner and you know it!" spat Claire, through with trying to be pleasant towards him.
The horrified man watched his former lover's eyes burst into what he thought to be flames which made him retreat further into the couch. But as Claire was about to denounce his intentions for cheating on her, Mycroft stopped her with a single sentence.
"He's not worth it, Claire."
The pair locked eyes, his grey ones seeping into her dark blue ones.
Watson tried to keep an eye on what the two were doing but his primary care was to feed the starved man. Holmes, on the other hand, watched along with William at the long-held stare by his brother and Miss Watson. Claire's eyes gradually turned back to her normal color and she lowered her head in consent, facing William once more. William had never seen anyone be able to reduce his former lover's anger that quickly and it astounded him.
"How did you do that?" he asked, awestruck by Mycroft's ability.
The large man turned to face him and glared at the young man. "It is not wise, Mr. Gardner, to meddle in other's affairs. I hoped you would have learned that by now."
Claire smiled at her friend's answer and looked at William triumphantly.
It was William's turn to smile but for a different reason entirely.
"I see you've found a new protector, I'd be careful if I were you - she's a feisty one," he drawled to Mycroft's doughy physique.
What he got in return was Claire leaping over the desk and standing in front of him, glaring at him with her eyes blazing.
"Do not assume that I need protection. Do not attempt to judge me after what you did to me, you should be worshipping the fact I didn't shoot you when I saw you and Gertrude together!" she hissed - and no one stopped her; even Bradstreet didn't bother to recognize that she had just threatened a victim of a kidnapping. William tried to break away from the glare he was getting from both her and Watson.
The doctor stood up to pull Claire back but he was livid nonetheless.
"How a gentleman could treat such a lady is beyond cruel in my eyes. Have you no sense of the consequences of your actions? You drove one man to kidnapping and murder and the woman who loved you to a lifeless statue of her former self!"
Bradstreet had heard enough and took William by his arms.
"Come on, Mr. Gardner, let's get you back to your fiancé. Have a good morning, gentlemen, Miss Watson." He inclined his head to them all and closed the door behind him.
Claire stared at the door, still livid at the man who had once been face to face with her. She didn't say a word but sat on the couch and rubbed her hands on her face, aware of how she acted. Watson stood behind and patted her shoulder.
"Don't blame yourself for your actions, Claire. If that had been I, I would have thrown him a punch or two."
His cousin snorted, looking now at the man who William called her new protector.
"I'm sorry for my outburst of anger, Mycroft. I thought I would be all right. But the way he acted it, just made my blood boil and I couldn't hold it in my mind any longer," she said, somewhat aware of the fact she had just called him by his first name.
Holmes had been quiet since Claire's outburst of anger and was now smoking a pipe next to his brother.
"Let us hope we don't have to deal with that man again. Miss Watson, you dealt with your anger better than I expected. I thought you were going to throttle that fellow when you jumped over my desk."
He hide a smile but that merely made Claire return it. Mycroft was still silent which made Claire very wary but she didn't want to press the issue any further than she had. He spoke after he brother stopped smiling and Watson had returned to his seat.
"Miss Watson, when Mr. Gardner called me your protector what did he mean by that?"
The lady before him actually blushed slightly, almost making Watson fall out of his chair.
"William got the silly notion because of your power to calm me you and I were lovers of some sort," she said matter-of-factly, trying to keep her eyes fixed to his instead of dwelling on the fact she had blushed.
Watson laughed at this along with Holmes, seeing that both Claire and Mycroft were turning progressively redder in embarrassment. Holmes stopped laughing long enough to see his brother sidestep to the door.
"Brother mine, you aren't thinking of leaving without a retort against Miss Watson's former lover?" he asked, waving his pipe around slowly.
Mycroft snorted and sat across from Claire who was through with blushing and was now looking guilty.
"Since you asked so nicely, Sherlock, I would have to say that Mr. Gardner has no business whatsoever in trying to detect my or Miss Watson's feelings."
Claire clapped at this with a smile. "Bravo, Mr. Holmes I couldn't have said it better myself," she said with a sigh. The four of them could feel as if a great weight had been lifted and saw a much happier Claire sitting in front of them.
Watson turned to his cousin. "Claire, why are you in such a good mood? Your former lover just left after admitting to breaking your heart."
His cousin laughed heartily at this. "Which is why I'm feeling so much better, I had been dying to tell William off once and for all. And since I finally did my emotions will no longer be held hostage by his memory," she said with a flick of her wrist.
Mycroft saw finally after months of poking and examining he had found what was underneath Claire Watson's armor. She had protected herself against everything and the one time she let her guard down it back lashed but for some new reason she saw a good reason to break the mold once again.
He was intrigued by this new personality of Claire and wasn't sure what to make of it, he knew his brother was interested but his short-sightedness about women weren't going to get him very far with Miss Watson. Holmes saw the look of interest in his brother's eyes and knew that look only all too well.
"Mycroft can I see you in the hallway a moment?" he asked, putting his pipe out and stepping into the small hallway.
Mycroft excused himself politely from the lady and stepped out to see his brother glaring at him once more.
The elder Holmes was confused between his brother's assistant changing moods every few moments and the fact his brother couldn't cope with him associating with her.
"Mycroft, I've seen you look that way at things before and it never ends well," the younger said right away, trying to avoid eavesdroppers.
Mycroft shrugged, "What look? I expected Miss Watson to be paranoid but not my own blood. Ever since that Greek Interpreter case you've been mocking me for associating with her," he said, getting very annoyed with his brother's lack of common sense.
"I saw you look at my assistant just now as if she was a rare breed of bird. She is not to be studied, remember what happened with Miss Burberry?" Sherlock asked rhetorically, poking at his brother's mental sore spot.
"Miss Burberry was my pet toad! Miss Watson is a woman, an entirely different species altogether! Sherlock, what exactly are you trying to say?" he asked, nose to nose with his younger brother.
Sherlock sneered at him. "I find that your friendship with my assistant is a sure sign that the world is unraveling, Mycroft. People like you don't just drop everything because of a woman who has an interesting background. Like I told Miss Watson, it's only a matter of time until you lose interest. With this last business with that Gardner fellow, I doubt she has anything else worth noting."
Holmes had finally let his brother have his true opinion, but now he couldn't help but feel the tiniest sense of remorse for what he had said.
Claire Watson had heard everything from the other side of the door and was trying to find a shred of sanity in her tortured heart. That day alone she had been up and down the emotional rollercoaster and the conversation in the hall was just the thing she didn't need.
Watson tried to calm her. "Claire, please try to stay calm - you've had a very rough day and night. You know as well as I that Holmes does not like sudden change, especially from his own family," he said reassuringly.
But Claire had enough of all the yelling about her relationship with Mycroft and with a deep breath she entered the battlefield. Mycroft was about to tell Holmes off about his assumptions when they noticed the very lady they were talking about standing in between them.
"I can't have you both fighting about me every time we meet! I've tried to be reasonable and realistic but the fact of the matter is I'm friends with Mycroft, Mr. Holmes. You may detest me for the fact I changed your brother's lifestyle just a bit. But the one thing you haven't taken into consideration on this matter is what I feel about all this."
Watson tried to pull her away but she stood firm in-between them.
Both brothers looked at her quizzically as if they had never heard of that concept but the older of two spoke first.
"My brother feels as your employer that it is his duty to protect you from my tinkering of your past and he doesn't like the fact I've changed some of my routines."
The thinner Holmes looked at Claire as if he didn't believe what his brother was saying.
"I have no desire to protect you except from the Professor, but he is right about the second point."
Claire sighed at the pair of them. "Look. Mr. Holmes, I cannot help it if your brother likes me. I'm not going to change who I am just because you don't like it!"
She crossed her arms as if daring Holmes to rebuke her.
Holmes sneered at her for the first time since the two had met.
"I am your employer, and I can ask you do to whatever I want under pain of getting sacked."
Claire's marble face broke into a very angry but sad expression.
"How dare you say that to me today? After everything I've done for your cases, you want to sack me because I'm friends with your brother and I won't change my personality?"
Claire shook her head, she was tearing up for the first time in two years and she didn't like it. Mycroft could tell she was about to cry and he tried to tell his brother to go easy on her but Holmes roared ahead.
"Yes, that's a good reason as any to sack you! You disrupt my work process with your feminine qualities. I don't even know why I hired you in the first place!"
That shout was what broke Claire's dam on her tears and without any reason they began to fall - a few at first but then there were twin streamers of tears running down her once perfect face. Claire tried to move past the gentlemen towards Watson's room where she could cry in peace.
Mycroft had no idea what to do with a crying woman and his brother seemed to angry too care. Claire began to walk up the stairs, embarrassed that she was crying but also angry at Holmes for wanting to fire her under bad terms.
Mycroft glared at his brother, "See what you've done, Sherlock?! You've gone and made your assistant cry, and I will not have you bully her every moment you get!" he said, raising his voice to his angry brother.
Watson was also glaring at Holmes.
"Holmes, why did you have to go make Claire cry? She has been through a lot in the past couple of days. You are being insufferably insensitive!" he said, shaking a finger at his friend.
The thinner Holmes looked at the two angry men with his heartless glare. "Miss Watson is my assistant, Mycroft – it is her job to do what I tell her to. By refusing to change her lifestyle choice she is in breach of that contract. I do not have the patience to try to be sensitive."
Watson was about to yell at Holmes when Mycroft interrupted him.
"Sherlock, you have to stop thinking about only yourself right now, upstairs is your faithful assistant who never questioned your judgment or practice. She has been put through a lot yesterday and this morning, she had to see a man we both realise destroyed her heart and she had to keep all of that inside her. You know as well as I that you went too far by telling her that you regretted hiring her in the first place."
Watson looked from brother to brother, wondering how it was going to end.
Holmes sighed, and looked at Watson who was still livid from his remarks about Claire.
"I suppose you are right, I did realize that today would be hard and Miss Watson held up longer than any other woman would have. But it will be more damaging if I try to apologise now."
Mycroft nodded in agreement. "True, she will not be as forgiving if you come to her right away; I shall go upstairs and attempt to make amends for your unthinking callousness," he said gruffly before heading up the stairs to the door Claire had disappeared behind.
Watson almost followed him but Holmes motioned him to go into the study.
Author's Note: I've decided to make this fic 20 chapter and then possibly do a prequel about the spy work Claire keeps alluding to. Thank you all for your support and reviews! And big thnaks to my editor KCS :)!