Why Fireflies Flash
Chapter Eighteen
"Crumbling Like Pastries"
Caroline Castigliano Bridal Boutique
"I never understood marriage," Anabeth says as she looks into the window of the shop.
Alfie rolls his eyes. "You weren't saying that before."
"Before I was a foolishly naive teenaged girl. Lust and hormones ruled my mind. Love was just a word that made my heart race." She shrugs and walks around to the back. "Now, it's pointless. Who needs a marriage? All it is, is a formal ceremony in which so called friends and family dress up and watch you share words. Unless you go for a more civil union. Still, the thought's shallow at best. If you need a piece of paper to tell you that your significant other loves you, you have issues."
"Love," Sherlock says as he jogs ahead to the door, "is a dangerous disadvantage, Miss Quinn."
"Certainly," Anabeth agrees. "For someone like us. Too many people are after us. We share a common enemy. Imagine if Moriarty figured our weaknesses." She chuckles as she pushes him out of the way and picks the lock. She shoves the door open and pulls her pistol from the small of her back as she slowly creeps in.
Sherlock follows her closely, Alfie goes off in search of the alarm system (which isn't that far from the back door) and John's all but disappeared from the group. Probably still back at the crime scene with Lestrade.
"You were the sniper," Sherlock says the moment they're alone.
Anabeth sighed. "You were never in any real danger. Not from me at least. Moriarty had no intentions of killing you there. Either of you. Of course things never go as planned."
"So you're working for him?"
She shrugs. "Like I said, I found my in."
"As a sniper?"
"No." Anabeth turns around abruptly, causing Sherlock to nearly run into her. "The sniper thing was an added bonus, one he already knew. He finally trusted me enough to put me in charge of something." She rolled her eyes. "I broke that trust by leaving my position and meeting you at Bart's. We're not exactly good friends."
In a flash, she's around the corner and disappeared.
The note was pinned a ball gown in the showcase room, nearly lost in the folds of fabric.
You're tough to trick. Even on base you were tough to trick. By now you've got to have narrowed it down to just a few suspects. Me as one of them no doubt. I found it all too suiting to drag you here. There's a dress, a beautiful red gown, in the fitting rooms. It should fit. You'll need that for when you take the stage. Tomorrow night perhaps? There is an open mic night at the very same bar Sherlock Holmes was drugged in the night you met.
Good luck.
221c Baker Street
"I can't do it."
"Ana, you have got to be kidding me!" Alfie shouts to the pacing woman. "You're going to let innocent people die, when you could just sing and get it over with?"
"People die all the time. Last year, 2,468,435 people died in the US alone."
"Anabeth listen yourself! This isn't you! This has never been you. No, you don't care. You haven't for a long time, but you've never allowed innocent people to just die." Alfie shakes his head. "You've taken lives deliberately. You've kidnapped. You've tortured. But none of those people were good people."
"You're wrong," Anabeth breathes. "All of it. The mental anguish I've put people through, because in their eyes they were good, surpasses anything good I have ever done. I have taken innocent lives. I have captured innocent people. And yes, I even tortured them. You don't know the horror I have done these past six months."
"Anabeth-"
"Alfred, I said I couldn't do it!" she shouts. Her hands are tossed in the air and her foot is literally stomped. "Not that I won't because god that would be so much fucking easier. I physically can't sing. I have tried."
Alfie's at a lost for words; his mouth opening and closing, not unlike a fish. The unbidden fury alight in his sister's eyes told of her hatred of being found out and perhaps a hint of sorrow as she sees the disappointment in Alfie's face. It's gone as soon as he latches on and he thinks maybe he didn't really see it.
The sound of a bedroom door slamming shut echos through the small flat. The click of the lock slightly louder.
Steam fills the tiny bathroom, swirling with scents of strawberries and warm sugar and vanilla and lilacs, mingling with the dulcet sounds of Ron Pope and Parachute and Ed Sheeran. It's all very Anabeth, when you think of it. Ryder not Quinn. Though he hasn't known either for very long.
"Get out of my bathroom Alfie."
"Wrong."
There's a loud thump as a bottle is dropped in the tub.
"Son of a bitch. Holmes, get out of my bathroom."
"Sing," the man says as he drops the lid to the toilet and sits down on top of it.
"Get out of my bathroom."
"Not until you sing."
Anabeth sighs and rinses the conditioner from hair. "I can't."
"Wrong."
The water is shut off and an olive hand is stuck out of the curtain. "Hand me my towel please?"
"Sing for me please?" He mimics her tone and stares at the curtain defiantly.
"Please," she whispers, her throat tightening at the prospect of having to sing just to get out of her shower. "Just give me my towel, Holmes."
"I might not care, Anabeth, but that doesn't mean I wish to watch innocent people die."
"I can't-" she clears her throat, "I can't help it."
Sherlock sighs. "You can do it. All you have to do is stand in front of a small crowd and sing a few bars. You did it a plethora of times as a child. Every night for your sister. It won't be hard. It isn't physical, it's psychological. Stage fright. You're afraid you'll disappoint your deceased sister. How sad is that? Sentiment. Disadvantage. You don't care remember, Anabeth? You could just throw on the dress and a pair of patent heels and belt out a tune or two. Or three. What happened? You were never afraid before. Certainly this is all in your head. Psychosomatic."
"Stop," she tries saying but it doesn't come out because she can't breath and she's choking. She's hyperventilating. "Stop," she repeats. But he just continues.
Just continues speaking, calling her out, mouthing all her worst thoughts. How can he know them? He can't.
It's all in her head.
She knows this.
She's always known this.
He can't know this.
Her stomach is churning, something akin to butterflies but twelve times worse. The room is spinning and the cream of her bathroom morphs into the browns and blacks and greens of her bedroom. How did she get here?
Someone's calling her name. It's a hollow sound.
She tries to calm her heart, tries to urge the room to stop dancing, tries to take a deep breath but it hurts like a deep stabbing. She's sweating but it's cold in her room. Of course, the fan is on. Her hair is soaked through. Not sweating, she remembers the shower.
It's too dark. Too loud. Too empty.
Why is it so bad? They're never this bad.
It's just a panic attack.
Nothing is going to harm you.
Take deep breaths.
In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five.
Calm down. Relax.
"I'm here."
"I am too, Harls."
"It's going to be fine, Anabeth."
"Deep breaths, Ana. Do it with me. There you go."
"What did you say to her, Mr. Holmes?"
Anabeth opens her eyes, her heart and breathing nearly to normal. "He asked me to sing. I told you I physically could not."
"Do it."
The three attending to Anabeth look the man who remained in the door way to the bathroom.
"Are you crazy?" Alfie wondered. "She just had a massive panic attack, and you want her to do it again?"
Sherlock shrugs off the door frame and walks toward the bed. "The only way to get over your fear is if you confront it."
"I'm not- I can't-"
He smirks and takes her shoulders into his hands. "You can, Anabeth. Sing!"
Please? Do it for me? It's her sister's voice.
Her eyes widen and she can feel her heart pick up. "What? Ow! Holmes! You're hurting me!"
"Sing, Miss Quinn."
Sing me to sleep? Please? Just one last song.
"The other night dear," she whispers, "as I lay sleeping.
I dreamed I held you in my arms."
"Ana, you don't have to do this," Alfie tells her softly.
"Ignore him, Christabella ."
"When I awoke dear I was mistaken," her voice is raspy and the soft melody her voice held slowly faded away. "So I hung my head and I cried."
"Oh, come on, Christabella," Sherlock complains. "You can do better than that."
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey"
John sighs softly and climbs off the bed with the intentions of leaving. He has to urge Alfie and Hannah out before he can though.
"You'll never know, dear, how much I love you,
Please don't take my sunshine... away ," she says breathlessly as she collapses forward into Sherlock's arms in tears.
"I told you."
"Thank you, Sherlock. "
She's sure she imagines the soft kiss to her hair, and the deep breath a second later, the arms around her body, and the small squeeze a moment later, because when she opens her eyes again, he's gone and sunlight is filtering through her satin curtains.