From mrspencil: An Irregular is missing
Warning: Minor character death, offscreen.
I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.
==Day 4: The Tragedy of London==
Geoffrey Lestrade returned home one night looking older than his wife had ever seen him before. She waited until he was out of his coat and hat and shoes, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a large bowl of soup, before she said anything. "What happened?" she murmured.
His face was drawn and paler than its wont, his large dark eyes deep with sadness. "Did you know that one of the Baker Street Irregulars was missing?"
She nodded. "Cooper, yes. Alan told me." Alan was one of her many nephews, the son of her brother Lloyd—and Alan had joined the Irregulars a year ago.
"His body was found on the riverbank." Geoffrey's voice had that quality to it wherein he was trying to stay calm, but just below the surface, he was deeply troubled.
Annie covered her mouth. That poor little boy. And all the other Irregulars, his mates—they had never lost someone from amongst their own number before. Family, naturally. Other friends and acquaintances, certainly. But not each other. She knew only too well how close-knit their camaraderie was.
"Mr. Holmes identified him." Geoffrey's voice still had that achingly distant tone to it. "The poor lad might have gone completely unidentified—one dead street urchin in a city where a dozen penniless children die every day?—but he had a unique birthmark. Mr. Holmes had told me about it, and I passed it on to my constables. Adams found him."
Annie wrapped her arms around him from behind, his body tense, rigid. Holding back a storm. "I'm sorry," she breathed. Geoffrey himself had been a street urchin as a child, looking out for other children like him until one kind constable took him off the streets and put him through school. That was why he was the only detective in the Yard who got along with the Irregulars. He understood them.
"Dear God, the look on his face," Geoffrey whispered. Annie knew her husband didn't mean Constable Adams. "You could see the grief and the guilt rip through him until he slammed that mask of his back down into place. You know the one—you've seen it. The one where he pretends to be all brain and no heart. But he was grieving all the same."
Her chest aching fiercely, Annie began to massage Geoffrey's shoulders. "Do you know how it happened?"
He shook his head. "Mr. Holmes might look into it, for his own peace of mind, but all we know is that the poor thing's neck was snapped." Annie flinched, and he turned slightly to give her an apologetic look. "Could have been another child, for the pettiest reason. It happens all the time; I doubt Mr. Holmes will find anything."
Annie knew her husband was probably right. It was the tragedy of London: so many innocents murdered for nothing, and so poor that hardly anyone else would give them a second thought, for in any city, it was always the same: the poor, the children like the Irregulars who might not even know their own ages, were invisible.
"Come, love." She kissed his hair, noting that he hadn't touched his supper at all. "Let's get you to bed."
A/N: I DON'T KNOW WHY I DID THAT I AM SO SORRY. :'( I really don't know why that was the only working solution my brain came up with in response to that prompt. Look, I didn't want to kill off an Irregular. I adore them. That's why it wasn't told from the POV of Wiggins, Holmes, Watson, or even Lestrade!
Fortunately I can promise a much happier response to the next prompt. This one… just wasn't going to be it. I'm sorry.
I'm also sorry I'm already behind and that I've barely been reviewing anybody. I feel like a horrible hypocrite. My only defense is that I'm barely churning out my own stories, I do have a full-time job, and I'm also dealing with a fair bit of depression right now. But from what I've seen, everybody's doing great thus far! Lots of fun! Keep up the good work, y'all!
