Chapter 6: Sweet Sixteen

Emma stared at the package in her hands. Should I open it now, or after dinner? She ran the tips of her fingers down the carefully wrapped present. This was the last thing she would ever receive from her mother. Or should I wait until after Sherlock?

Emmaline was not sure what she wanted to do. Leaving it here, she knew she would think about it all night. Emma sighed but put the package down under her pillows. Out of sight, out of mind.

She got up to take one last look in the mirror at herself. She had thrown on her sheer pink tank and blue jeans without a thought earlier in the day. Her grandmother had made her add a white blazer to look 'sophisticated'. Emma had immediately rebelled against this by putting on pink high-top Converse sneakers.

"Are you ready to go yet dear?" Her grandmother called from the main room.

"Yes, I'm ready!" Emma yelled back.

With a sigh she gathered her purse and walked out the front door with her grandparents and got into the car. For this being her 'sweet sixteen' she was sure having a boring day.

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"I'm going out." Emma announced, coming out from her bedroom.

"You just got home." Her grandfather said gruffly.

"Remember that friend I told you about? Sherrie? She wants to hang out with me tonight." Emma stuck her bottom lip out in a pout.

Her grandfather stared her down before smiling. "Alright, but not too late. It is a school night."

"I promise! Thanks!" She squealed, planting a kiss on his papery cheek.

Emma dashed from the flat and down the street to the phone booth around the corner. She scraped the bottom of her bag for loose change and called the now-familiar number.

"Hello?" He answered lazily.

Emma smiled; he only ever answered the phone informally when he knew it was her calling.

"I finished with dinner." She gently reminded him.

Sherlock looked around his flat. That was right – he had invited her over that night after her birthday dinner.

"OK; get a cab and come to this address: 23 Montague Street."

"Am I meeting you there?" She asked hesitantly.

She had only ever taken a cab with Sherlock before, never on her own. She was nervous to deal with the driver and getting out at the right spot on her own.

"I will be waiting right outside." He said gently.

"OK."

"I will see you in ten minutes."

Emmaline hung up the phone. She wondered where Sherlock was meeting her. As she allowed her mind to wander and think, the cabbie pulled up to the street. He barked impatiently at her while she rifled through her wallet before finding the bills she needed to pay him with.

She huffed as she got out of the cab, slinging her purse over her. How rude, she thought. Emma turned to look at the building. It looked like an apartment building. She cocked her head curiously to the side. Did Sherlock invite me over?

Sure enough the mad detective was coming out the front door, sans scarf and coat. He lit a cigarette and waved her forward impatiently, inside the building.

"I live on the fifth floor." He told her.

She worked her way up the stairs and paused on the fifth floor landing. He sidled around her carefully, making sure not to come to close. He opened his apartment door and stepped aside for Emmaline to enter.

She was not sure what to think of his living space. It was cluttered – absolutely books, newspapers, or journals covered everywhere she looked. The small kitchen was full of microscopes and test tube vials full of mysterious liquids. There was no sofa, just one armchair. There was a desk that looked like it had been recently cleaned off and two chairs opposite each other positioned at it.

"Do you read all of these?" She asked, looking around the floor at the books scattered there.

"Some of them."

Emma glanced up at the books he had on his shelves. These were obviously his favorites – they were well taken care of, treated by a careful hand. They also appeared to be dusted regularly versus the dust that covered the innumerable other surfaces in his flat.

"Are you ready?" He asked, taking a seat at the desk.

"Ready for what?" She took the seat opposite him.

"You seemed eager to go on the case with me yesterday – I thought it would be entertaining to see how you fare with past cases I have solved."

"You want me to look at old cases and solve them?" Emma asked, disbelieving.

"Don't worry – no one's lives are depending on you." He smiled smugly and handed her a folder.

She flipped it open and stared down at its contents.

"Do you like this? Trying to prove you're smarter than everyone else?" She looked up at him abruptly.

"I am smarter than everyone else." He insisted. "I'm a genius and the whole world is just full of idiots." He said simply, taking the folder from her and looking at it himself.

Emma crossed her arms on the desk and leaned forward, making sure to catch Sherlock's attention.

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. Albert Einstein said that."

"Einstein was also an idiot." Sherlock broke eye contact to shove the folder back across the table.

"Sherlock." She scolded. "He was trying to say that everyone is a genius in their own way, in their own field. This is what you do best."

He stopped with his hands still on the folder. He looked across at her, a quizzical look on his face.

"What does that mean?"

Emma sighed. Sometimes she thought she was the person in her mid-twenties when she was around him. He acted like a confused child.

"It means," she took hold of his wrist, "That not everyone can do what you do but that does not mean they are not smart."

She lifted his hand from the folder and put it down to rest on the wood of the table. She pulled out a picture of a crime scene to show him.

"I look at this picture and I see someone who was murdered here, nothing else. What do you see when you look at it?"

Sherlock studied the photograph for a few seconds before flicking his blue eyes to meet her brown ones.

"I see everything. The blood pattern that clearly means the killer was inebriated when he killed, the empty glass that means the victim was interrupted when having a stiff drink."

He picked up another photo from the folder. "The other glass in the living room, meaning the killer was over for a drink. Why did they both need to have a glass of scotch? Probably a rough day – judging from the victim's suit, they work in the same office. Rough day, rough sale. Killer was most likely frustrated over a sale gone wrong at work – but not something small. He lost him a multi-million dollar deal."

Sherlock put the photo down.

"And that is amazing!" Emma gushed. "It is, and that is why it is amazing; only you can do it. It is something that you are good at."

Emmaline looked around the apartment and noticed her painting sitting against the wall. She directed Sherlock's attention to it.

"What do you see when you look at that?"

Sherlock shrugged. "A blending of colors and shapes and lines to make something nice to look at."

Emma smiled. "When I look at it I see the lady and her master, the sky."

Sherlock opened his mouth to say something but Emmaline cut him off.

"And that is why you are special – you have a genius analytical mind, but not everyone does. I have a…an emotional mind let us call it. You have an analytical one."

"I am still not convinced that everyone is a genius."

Emma smiled and shook her head. "I am not even going to try and convince you." She took a moment to study his haggard appearance. "How long has it been since you have eaten?"

"What day is it?" Sherlock asked absentmindedly.

"Thursday."

"I'll be okay for a bit."

He pulled out another folder. "How about this one?" He shoved it across the table at her.

"Sherlock, how long has it been since you've eaten?"

"Yesterday morning? That's not important." He insisted.

"Oh my god." She rolled her eyes and got up from the table.

"Where are you going?"

"To find you something to eat."

She walked into his kitchen. It was just as full and messy as the rest of the flat. The room was full of scientific equipment and his textbooks – it was a lab. Emmaline carefully skirted around some of the mysterious substances on the floor and opened the fridge.

All that was inside were a couple of extremely old moldy looking things on plates, and an unopened package of turkey. Emma sighed and shut the fridge. Held on by a magnet to the outside was a menu for a Chinese takeout.

She took it off the fridge and walked back out to Sherlock with it.

"What are you in the mood for?" She asked.

"I don't care."

Emmaline rolled her eyes and held her hand out. "I need your phone to order."

Sherlock pulled it out of his pants pocket and handed it over. She dialed the number and ordered him something to eat, with the promise it would be there in a half-hour.

She handed his phone back and sat down at the desk. "So what about this case?" She asked, looking down at the photos.

"Break-in, but nothing was stolen."

"Why would someone break into a house and not steal anything?" Emma shuffled through the photos, taking a careful look at each one.

She felt ridiculous trying to do this in front of him; not only had he solved the case, but doing this in his presence made her question her eye-sight. If he could see everything, and she could see nothing, then what was she? Remember Einstein – fish and tree, she calmly urged herself.

"I have no idea. What is it?"

"It was a dare; a group of kids dared another teenager to break in to the house."

"How do you know?"

Sherlock's cheeks flushed slightly pink. "The boy turned himself in the next day."

"So you did not figure this one out either!" Emma cried in disbelief.

She burst out laughing, clutching her stomach to stop it from hurting from the force of her jovial outburst.

"What's so funny?"

"I have no idea." Emma replied once she was sober.

Sherlock stared curiously at her before pulling out another folder.

They passed the time waiting for the food to arrive by looking at a number of his old cases, the solved and unsolved ones. Upon her insistence, Sherlock walked her through every case, detailing exactly how he knew what he knew. She stared at him in awe as he talked. How can one man do this, know so much? She wondered.

They were interrupted by a knock on Sherlock's door.

"That'll be the takeout." Emma grabbed her purse and walked to the door.

She paid the deliveryman and took the food back in to Sherlock.

"Alright, now you can eat." She passed the food over.

Instead of sitting back down across from him at the desk, she found a clean spot of floor and sat down. She picked up a random book and looked at the cover. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis. She set it aside and picked up another book. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.

"What are you doing down there?"

"Why are these not your favorites?" She asked her own question instead.

"How do you know they aren't?" Sherlock asked, taking a bite of noodles.

"No, the ones on the shelves are your favorites. Those get dusted and cared for; these are just tossed aside."

"What a wonderful deduction." He said sarcastically.

Emma gasped and sat up. "I did, didn't I? I deduced something!"

"Well, it wasn't all that hard to—"

"Don't you dare Sherlock Holmes!" Emma put her finger up as a warning. "I made a deduction, and I do not care how easy you think it was."

Emma sat back, proud of herself. Sherlock smiled faintly and stood up to join her on the floor. With a flourish, he deposited himself a safe distance from her. Emmaline watched, the feet of distance between them speaking to her.

"You still haven't figured it out, have you?"

Sherlock knew what she was talking about; he did not have to see the sad look in her brown eyes.

"No I have not."

"But you know. Even if you do not know why, you told Lestrade not to approach me. You keep your distance from me."

"I have observed that you are uncomfortable with members of the male species putting themselves close to you. I have also observed that you are fine however, when getting closer to them."

"How do you mean?" Emma asked, cocking her head.

"Lestrade couldn't shake your hand, but you could shake his. I can't walk close to you, but you can walk close to me. You didn't like it when I reached for your tissues on the plane, but you had no problem with encroaching on my personal space later."

Emma scooted closer to him so that only a few inches separated them.

"So?" She asked.

"I will figure it out."

"I really hope you don't." She whispered.

She was afraid Sherlock would not want to be her friend anymore if he found out. Others before had abandoned her because of it.

Silence filled the apartment; the only noise was the occasional slurp from Sherlock's noodles.

"What was your childhood like?" Emma asked abruptly.

Sherlock did not reply right away. He was thinking; too many painful memories accompanied his childhood. There were good ones too, but so many of them he just wanted to shut out. He finally decided on a safe answer.

"I was home-schooled."

"Really? That sounds boring."

"I enjoyed it; I had private tutors and my family often took trips around the world to aid in my studies."

"What was your favorite place to visit?" Emma turned her head to look up at him.

Sherlock slurped more noodles before answering.

"France; we often went to Paris." A smile touched his lips; many of his fond memories were of Paris. "My grandmother was French, and I loved to visit her."

"You had a French grandmother? What was she like?" Emma scooted closer so their knees were touching.

This was the first time she had heard him mention anything about his past and she did not want to miss any of it.

"She lived in a rather nice chateau that we visited every summer. I would often spend my time with her in the library or the garden, conversing in French. She loved to read to me in that library." Sherlock closed his eyes as he remembered. "She would make the best food for us. She did all the cooking herself – she even taught me a few things."

He chuckled and opened his eyes. "She always smelled of mint and tobacco; and she loved teaching us. Every time we went to visit we learned something new."

"Us?" Emma asked.

"My brother Mycroft and I; he is seven years older and never had much patience for her. He would always go exploring on his own, leaving grandmother and me alone."

"What happened?"

"She was old; she died when I was eighteen." Sherlock took another bite, a sign to Emmaline that he was done talking.

Emma looked down at her watch. "It's eleven o'clock!" She exclaimed, standing up abruptly.

Her knee knocked Sherlock's and he winced, rubbing it. "Sorry." She apologized, grabbing her bag. "I have to go – I have school in the morning."

"Are you alright to get a cab on your own?" Sherlock asked, also standing.

"I'll be fine." She replied.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes; it's not so far away, my flat."

"Be careful." He insisted.

"I will. Thank you Sherlock." She headed for the door.

"Happy Birthday Emmaline." Sherlock called from the doorway.

Emma turned on the stairs, smiling. "Thanks!" She waved goodbye before hurrying downstairs and outside.

Sherlock closed the door quietly and headed back into his flat. He threw away the empty take-out container. The girl had actually gotten him to eat a whole container of noodles. He picked up the fortune cookie and tore off the wrapper, breaking the cookie in half. He pulled the slip of paper out.

"Do not fear what you do not know." He read.

Sherlock made a noise and crumpled the paper in his hand. What did factory workers know?

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Emma quietly entered the flat. Her grandparents were asleep – she could see the closed bedroom door. She hurried silently to her room and closed the door. She threw the light on and changed into her pajamas as quickly as she could. Now that she had acknowledged the lateness of the hour, she found herself quite tired.

She threw herself down onto the bed and reached under her pillow. She had one present left to open while it was still her birthday. The wrapped package called to her and she tentatively took away the paper.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she clutched the gift to her chest. Her mother had taken a photo of a magnolia tree. Her mother knew they were her favorite flower. As a little girl, she had used to rush around collecting the fallen blossoms. She had taken them home and put them in a vase of water; they had looked so beautiful floating.

Emmaline put the photo on her nightstand with the photo of her and her mother; it was the last thing she would ever receive from her. Emma turned out the light and curled up under the covers on her side; the world was not fair sometimes. She tried to stifle her sobs so as not to wake her grandparents in the next room.

Hardships often prepare Ordinary people for an Extraordinary Destiny ~~ C.S. Lewis