What We Want, and What We Need
Chapter 2 of 12: RW of ACD's "The Sign of Four" in the contemporary BBC Sherlock. Very mildly possibly pre-slash. Somewhat omniscient narrator. I'm not really a creative writer—this all just sort of happened. Rating: T, I guess, since people are killed, and I can't really imagine anyone younger than that having any interest in it. Characters: John, Sherlock, Lestrade, Mary Morstan, Jonathan Small, other incidentals. Standard acknowledgement that I have no rights to the characters and such described herein. Thanks to Estella May online and Michael and John IRL for beta-reading. Some of my readers thought I changed it too much from the original; others thought I didn't change it enough. Let me know what you think! I'll post new chapters every few days….
Chapter 2: Mary Explains
"Who are you? John, why is there a nearsighted American librarian knitting on our couch?" Sherlock demanded.
She stood up, and, as she had before, extended a firm handshake. "Mary Morstan. Cecilia Forrester recommended I speak with you about my situation. I hope you will be able to help me, Mr. Holmes."
"Sherlock. Ah, yes, Cecilia Forrester." Sherlock recalled, or pretended to recall, his former client. "Have you been waiting long?"
"A little while, yes. But John has been kind enough to sit with me, and it's been quite pleasant." John smiled at this compliment to his hospitality. Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him, then turned to Mary. "Why didn't you see a doctor when you broke your foot?"
"My foot? It was ages ago. I was a teenager. I didn't tell anyone because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when I broke it."
"Your parents didn't notice?"
"My parents didn't notice." She seemed unwilling to offer further information about her foot.
"You don't want to tell me about your foot, but you don't mind me observing you."
"I'm observing you. Turnabout is fair play." Mary was not perturbed by Sherlock's scrutiny, which pleased both John and Sherlock.
"All right. Let's hear about your situation," Sherlock prompted her, and flopped into the chair opposite her with a flourish.
"Right," she said, and sat down, opening the book bag to reveal a large portfolio with several manila folders inside. "This is my file. I'll explain as I go. My father was – or is, but I think was – British, and my mother was American. I was born there, in California, but my mother died in childbirth. My father was off in deepest darkest Africa, doing something neo-colonialist, no doubt, and my mother's family hated him and resented me. So I was put in foster care." She flipped the first few folders, gently pausing at one, before she looked up at Sherlock and then over to John. She smiled, weakly this time, then looked down at the folders before she continued her story. "I'm sorry to go so far back, but I don't know how else to tell it."
"That's all right," encouraged Sherlock. "Any detail might be helpful."
She looked up at him, bolder again. "When I was 15, I was put in a youth home, which is where they place unwanted teenagers until they age out of the system. I had three years to go, and I was aching to get out; I'd been in nine different homes already, and I didn't feel like CPS had anything else to offer me. I learned a lot in the youth home, actually. I'm pretty quick at hotwiring a car, and I'm really good at fake ID's. Anyway, one day I stole my file from my caseworker" – she tapped the stack in front of her – "and learned a number of new things. One was that my father had been looking for me for about ten years." She turned the pages and carefully pulled out a series of letters, each one color-coded with a sticky tab, handing them to Sherlock one at a time. "As you can see, he traveled quite a lot, and to many interesting places. You can imagine how excited I was. Every child in the system dreams of a rescuing parent. I wrote to the last address, and actually received a reply." She found that, and gave it to Sherlock as well. He looked at the letters, examining the paper – hotel letterhead from throughout Africa and Europe – and reading the letters, before passing them on to John, who glanced through them and tried to sort them into the right order.
"My father sent me a one way plane ticket, LAX to Heathrow. I didn't bother explaining any of this to the social workers, because I knew they would try to stop me. I packed up my file, my friends and I hotwired a car, and off I went to the airport. I just … walked away from my whole life. My father had arranged everything: a driver to meet me, a hotel to stay in, everything. He'd written that he was coming from Africa and might be delayed, but he would find me at the hotel." She shook her head. "I was a fool, you know?" This time she looked at John.
"He never appeared." Sherlock stated what he'd long since seen coming.
Mary shook her head. "After a few days, I began to search for him. I can tell you anything you might want to know about hotels in London." She smiled bleakly. John was rapt, but Mary could tell that Sherlock was impatient. It was time to move the story along. "I found the luggage in a really nice place in Belgravia. I mean, really nice. He'd been registered in the room for a week, but no one had seen him since the first day. They tried to get me to pay damages - the room was destroyed, the windows were broken, sheets were missing – it was a mess. The hotel didn't want to call the police; I guess it's bad press when your guests are violently kidnapped from their rooms. I didn't know what to do – I was afraid of being deported, of not being able to find my father if he did return, of so many things – so I went along."
John was sympathetic, encouraging: "How old were you then?"
"I was just under seventeen, and I don't mind telling you that I was in well over my head. I was used to taking care of myself, but this was something else. I was lucky, though. The Patels, who ran the hotel my father had put me in, took pity on me. They gave me a job, helped me with immigration, even moved me to the night desk when I got into school here. I still go to them every year for Diwali." She paused, and sipped her tea, putting the mug down a safe distance from her files.