A/N: Three little ducklings, second and last part. -csf
Second.
'John, stop.'
Sherlock reaches out for my arm, as soon as we open 221's front door. I look at my friend questioningly. He is like a reversed magician, capable of seeing things that are not entirely there, things that have mysteriously shifted left two inches or a new scuff mark on a blemished wallpaper.
'John, two intruders', he tells me cryptically, hot of the press as he deduces through our familiar surroundings.
'Clients?'
He shakes his head curtly, bouncing errant curls over his forehead. 'One is a seamen. There's a residue of dry algae on the fifth step's edge, where it meets the wall, can you not see? It's too much of a coincidence that our current suspects are sea farers, is it not?'
I can't see another way in which sea algae would make its way into our stairs, so I nod.
'Go check on Mrs Hudson, Sherlock. Give her the little ones. Then come up, I may need a backup', I whisper tightly.
He nods grudgingly. I could swear I still hear him say to me, "be careful".
It's my turn to make my way up those seventeen steps. I won't leave our guests waiting.
.
'Mrs Hudson!'
I'm rushing through the well known cottage feel, doily riddled, modest flat in search of our landlady. White noise rushing in my ears, as I cannot find her. A pot of boiling water on the stove is emitting a steady plume of hot water vapour, the radio is on judging by the increasingly annoying sob story novel being broadcast, but Mrs Hudson is nowhere to be seen as Cathy talks to Gemma about Brian's latest antics at the local pub. With an irrepressible eye roll, I turn off that radio drama.
'What do you think you're doing, young man?'
I turn. Relieved, amused. Mrs Hudson returns with a bunch of freshly cut herbs she grows on the window sill baskets.
'You look dreadful. Sherlock, what is it?'
England is safe. Mrs Hudson is safe, holding up a pair of sheering scissors and a bunch of thyme.
I open my mouth to explain, but before I can there's a loud crashing sound from the ceiling above, making the small hanging lamp sway like a pendulum.
'John...' My lungs deflate like crushed paper bags as the silence is filled with struggle noises – in the back of my mind I may be finally noticing how much Mrs H can hear from our flat upstairs – as I know I'm in the wrong place to backup my brave friend.
I hastily transfer those three quivering feather balls to our landlady's safe arms.
'Don't put them in the pan!'
She won't. Just like John, she's melting at the mere sight of the cute little creatures, quacking in frenetic panic as they got separated from their familiar faces.
'Sherlock, we need to talk about you keeping pets up in your flat. Is John okay with these?'
No time for superfluous conversation; John always agrees.
'Lock your doors, Mrs Hudson!'
She wrangles her hands anxiously, despite the feisty load in her arms. 'Dear, what's happening?'
I open my eyes wide to convey in one word only: 'Pirates!'
.
I climb those stairs two at a time, desperate to go second John Watson. The fight noises have lessened considerably, ominously so.
I twist my face as I perceive the wrecking of a much abused Moroccan side table, once again being smashed to bits. I don't suspect John likes it much. He's just too polite to come out and say it, instead of finding a way to have it smashed at every opportunity.
Those last, endless wooden steps halt suddenly with a huddled figure on the floor, tied hands and ankles behind his back with a shoulder strap from John's work bag. Impressive. The bag itself is flung open on the landing, the contents spread across the floor. Surprised whilst going through John's things, then, with those thin, expert fingers, accustomed to cutting and polishing diamonds. And the second marooned thief?
'Argh!'
John. The fighting continues behind the closed living room door. Right up against it, as I perceive a slammed body against the wooden barrier. I cross over the first assailant with a wide step and move on blindingly ahead through the kitchen—
I see it, just as John's nails are scratching the exposed floor boards. The doctor is sprawled on the floor, over the crumpled rug, being actively strangled by a calloused, parched skin man with deep wrinkles on his face, a hideous plaid thick shirt, and various scuff marks on his boots.
'Shrl...'
Right. Stop deducing the fifty-three year old widower man originally from Cornwall, two manufacturing jobs before turning to a family connection working with a fishing crew, and save John.
The good doctor's fingernails scratching the unyielding floorboards are turning cyanotic at their beds, oxygen deprivation, failing strengths, serious risk to life – John's life – when the smuggler is hit hard by a chair. Caught unaware by not having paid heed to John's mumbling of my name, the assailant stumbles across the floor, finally parting from the doctor. I hit him again and again, keeping him well away from John, teaching him his proper place.
'Shrl—' John croaks, sometime when the chair falls apart and all I'm holding is the back rest. 'Iz alr— Shtop't.'
Luckily for the criminal, I'm fluent in John's gibberish, otherwise I wouldn't quite be done settling the score. I drop the remnants of the chair by the failed fisherman's side and turn back to John.
His face is all red, his neck is bruising at stunning speeds – ordinarily warranting a blog entry, not this time – and he splutters slightly as he breathes ragged breaths. However his deeply bruised eyes are gaining some sincerity and his fingernails are back to healthier pinks. He blinks quickly, as if trying to dissipate dark spots only he can see. I fall on my knees beside him, find myself gently cradling his head, mentally tallying all the broad and micro fractures he may have sustained during the attempted asphyxiation. He pats my hands away, still slightly uncoordinated.
''mm fine', he mumbles, doubling the words' strength with a patented Captain Watson stare.
It's John all over.
'How many fingers am I holding up?'
'The answer is the Atomic Mass Number for Lithium?' he answers through his bruised voice, with a smirk. I wince at the perceived pain carried by that well known voice. It's all wrong.
'You seem to have got that right, but that would be assuming upon your knowledge of the periodic table.'
'Sherlock, of course I know some of the periodic table. No one knows it all by heart, except you!'
I start helping him up. 'If you care about the periodic table of the elements, why did you let the ducklings try to consume it?' I ask, with a daring squint.
He groans some residual pain left in his throat.
'Where are they?'
'Downstairs at Mrs Hudson's. You don't suppose this little fight was a decent viewing for young impressionable minds like theirs?'
He rolls his perfectly well working eyes, before he assures me: 'You start the deep clean. We don't know where these idiots have been. There's still a ruddy virus out there. I'll call Lestrade and get them collected.'
'Are you sure you are okay enough to talk so much? We can swap, you know?' I still try.
He chuckles throatily.
.
'We don't have a case, Sherlock, not if we can't figure out how they did it!'
DI Lestrade is at a loss. Having removed the extraneous intruders from 221B, he assures us a case for breaking and entering, with aggravated assault, but little more. No consequence for the shipwreck and stolen diamonds, not until Sherlock Holmes can prove how it was done. Optimistic, I glance over to Sherlock, but he just curtly shakes his head to silently convey to me he hasn't figured it out yet. Fine, we'll wait.
I know Sherlock can do it.
And so does Greg, who regrets the wait, but patiently, kindly, does a mock bow to the genius and grabs his coat to leave. Before he does, though, his loyal brown eyes lower on my bruised throat and they darken dangerously.
'Sherlock', he starts, but clips his tongue.
The consulting detective follows his gaze and assures: 'Obviously, inspector. You can tell my brother that I will solve the case... for John, that is.'
'I don't think your brother cares much who for, if it gets solved.'
'And yet, intention is everything', Sherlock admits, dreamily, as he's already reaching for his violin case.
I disguise a warm smile. Couldn't ask for better friends.
As Greg Lestrade is leaving, Mrs Hudson is coming up. As the lockdown restrictions are being eased 221B is again as busy as Piccadilly. I find that I missed that. Particularly because we are now more selective, and keep to closer and more important folks in our lives.
How she manages, I don't know, but our landlady makes her way in followed by a procession of obedient ducklings, returning home. I look upon the endearing picture with a funny feeling.
We really should have named those ducklings. But that would have been to consign them as pets, whereas I'm making sure these younglings will return to the wild and thrive. The day will come for them to fledge and leave the safety and comfort of Baker Street.
Trying to find an alternative topic for my friend to focus his eager mind, I note: 'Tell me about your case, maybe I can help.'
He seems momentarily amused. 'Even though you are my conductor of light, John, I do not expect you to scintillate every time. That would be overworking you.'
'I'll just scintillate intermittently, shall I?'
He blinks at my sarcasm.
I quickly scoop one of the ducklings roaming about on the carpet, pecking at it out of habit. 'Do it for this little one?' I ask. The thing starts packing at my jumper instead, with delighted satisfaction.
Sherlock looks at the downy, feathery duckling with a very critical stance. I recoil, bringing the poor, silently abused duck further into my arms, ready for some off-the-cuff tirade from the cutting detective. Instead what dawns next in the detective's face is wide eyed comprehension, as he sees puzzle pieces fitting together in the familiar forms of Baker Street, ghost images and thoughts that I can never follow, they are my friend's brilliance alone.
'John, you did it', he whispers, his eyes shinning green and mysterious.
'What did I do?' I ask, defensively.
He snaps out of his mental reverie and protests at once. 'Oh, just drop it, John.'
Slowly, carefully, I drop the duckling to the living room rug. Sherlock is absolutely mystified.
'I didn't mean him', he mumbles, bewildered.
'Her', I correct. 'I'm a doctor, I should know better than a detective.'
'Yes, always a success with the ladies, John. Care to join me in the cab ride? I've got a case solution to expound at the end of it, and I work better with an audience.' He grabs his coat and scarf, I'm jumping out of my chair.
.
I thought we were going to the Yard. Turns out Sherlock meant The Diogenes Club. We arrive just as DI Lestrade gets out of a heavy lines, tinted windows black car, courtesy of Mycroft Meddling Holmes. The poor inspector does not look as shocked as I would expect, and I realise maybe he too gets kidnapped on a regular basis by the British government. Every single important person in Sherlock's life must endure this treatment as a rite of passage.
We are quietly ushered to a private office at the back, all round leather bound volumes on floor to ceiling shelves, like you'd expect at an old fashioned registrar's. The births and deaths in serialized entries covering the walls wrapping around a heavy wooden desk, a few chairs and an austere formal decor, revealing no personality or traits of the occupants.
There's only a small gap of sunlight bringing animation into the sterile room, at the back, and I arrange my position there, facing the others, hands crossed behind my back, at parade's rest.
Sherlock sprawls on a convenient padded chair, Lestrade stands less than comfortably before he gives in, as the younger man glances at him, and takes a stiff sit next to Sherlock.
Mycroft comes in through a communication door, masked in the shelves full of books.
'How good of you to come', he trails polite but emptily. He then glances around the room, as if missing something that was usually there, and his gaze stops as he finds me.
'John...' the lazy upper class voice of Mycroft Holmes meets me just as I had closed my eyes to the nice sunshine boring down on me. 'And how are you today?'
'Same as yesterday', I retort, knowing full well we didn't speak yesterday, but he probably spied on me all the same. 'You're late to your baby brother's lecture. I'd have thought you would highly value your brother's foray into his success solving your case.'
'I thought I'd skip the "Science of Deduction" introduction. My brother can be so dramatic...'
I smirk, still more concerned about that lovely warm sunshine than Mycroft's antics. I can see right through Mycroft's annoyed, put off face.
Sherlock quips in: 'Perhaps John should explain it.'
I open my eyes straight at my friend and squint.
Sherlock smirks and gets up, puffing his chest, here it comes.
'John, how can you provide me with the solution and still not see it?' His tone is cold and scanty, but his actions are anything but, as he comes to my side, to lean against the same set of bookshelves and observe the room by my side. His relaying, when it comes, it aimed only at me, as if only I mattered in his case solving glory. 'Imagine it, John, if you will. A system of parabolic mirrors. Like Archimedes built to burn down ships in Syracuse. Only here the mirrors were used to shift the emitting light to a different location, spelling disaster on the coast by their presence in the wrong place. Less burning, the same destructive power. Just like old smugglers did, lighting bonfires to deceive unhappy sailors, before feasting upon the shipwrecks.'
'Smugglers?' I ask conversationally, following Sherlock's plan of ignoring the room.
'And pirates. Modern, clever, near effortless pirates. Condensing the beam of light from the nearly a occulted light fixture at the top of the lighthouse and reflecting it on the solar panels at a nearby house – I believe well find it was a very suspicious quick refurbishment of a seaside home, given the panels were fitted at a northern exposure; oh, how could I have not seen it before? – and from there to a the big concave mirror inside a white van with the door slid open and parked at the nearby – forty yards-at the most – promontory, that shone it back to the sea, taking the lighthouse's place! Frailer, having lost some intensity, but the speedboat crew was not expecting deceit, and they followed the promise of safe conduit in the perilous waters that the coast had to offer.'
'But the original lighthouse beam? Wouldn't there be two lights shining on the coast?'
'Not if the same men who redirected the original lighthouse light used their trick to occult it on the sea side. All they needed were a few reflecting foil blankets from a bigger first aid kit, fitted to the glass panes with ease. You can buy those anywhere. Easily removed at the end of the enterprise.'
'And no one saw that?'
'It was done on the sea facing side, on a coast that serves embarkations fitted with modern navigational systems, that operate further from the jagged coast line than a millionaire's speedboat. Plundering the wrecked boat was easy, Lestrade already has those details. The question was how did they attract the speedboat, John, and you've got it...' he whispers, looking deferentially at me as if I actually done any thing. 'Of course the speed boat would have their own navigational system, but it got jammed by a low frequency signal emitted by the modern pirates. Lestrade should go question that first seaman who attacked you, John, he clearly put it all together. Perhaps Lestrade should hurry as the seaman will likely try to escape to international waters by 16:17's high tide, if he's set free on bail, after which he cannot be arrested or prosecuted, and from where he intends to set up a floating popup store of stolen diamonds.'
Lestrade doesn't even complain, as he grabs his coast and, with a curt thank-you nod, leaves the office to hurry back to the Yard.
I hope Mycroft's car is waiting to take him back.
Mycroft is silent, leaning back on his swivel chair, behind the desk, pondering his baby brother with a curled lip.
'You may go', he dismisses us, with prejudice.
Sherlock smiles brightly at his win.
.
It's been a few weeks, and the detective is acting a bit strange; even for Sherlock standards. Normally I would worry that he had managed to poison himself, or was in some other way acting under the dark influence of some pervasive criminal (my friend will take his cues from just about anyone, their morality notwithstanding), but this time I have very good suspicion I know what is on his mind. My friend has come a very long and tortuous way in his association with Scotland Yard. He may have started as the odd consultant, easily dismissed by the likes of the early Anderson and Donovan team, brought into the scene by a clever Detective Inspector that saw the spark of brilliance in the rudderless younger man, but through years of active partnership Sherlock has really come very far. Sherlock Holmes is, just like he dreamt and fought so hard to be, an authority in his own field. He made a name for himself. His opinion bears absolute relevance among the specialists in the forensic field. Although the trademark social awkwardness remains, and his etiquette handling corpses at crime scenes has immense room for improvement, it is very rare now that Sherlock is not taken seriously. When he starts speaking, the investigators stop to listen. They know they are in for a treat, an opportunity at a lesson of a lifetime. And they learn. With fraying patience – but full acceptance. And that is exactly the new reality that Sherlock is ready to face.
My great friend and incredible forensic genius, has been invited to guest lecture in one of London's top universities. He nearly rejected it, of course. I almost didn't know. When I found out, I insisted hat Sherlock should take this opportunity to prove to himself and the world that he has come indeed so far.
Sherlock may have accepted the honour only because I insisted. He did ask the University that it could be a more practical lesson that he would take up as a guest lecturer. An autopsy, he suggested. A toxicology analysis in the lab, perhaps. Lord forbid he would be tempted to deduce every single student and staff member in the audience. Or, knowing Sherlock, noting he invited me along to witness his success, that my friend the genius would feel tempted to poison the whole amphitheatre full of students to practically explain the differences between the different toxins he used, whilst I struggled to save each and every life. Sometimes I'm thoroughly sure that Sherlock trust my ability since his doctor too much.
The ducklings are a distraction. And Sherlock has his own Ugly Duckling story to finish. And I for one, am very proud to be there to witness the arch.
And so will be a fatherly Lestrade, and somewhere in a dark corner of the room a little discreet camera will feed the class to Big Brother.
Sherlock once told me that the frailty of genius was its need of an audience. I beg to differ. The frailty of genius is just that, its vulnerability in exposing itself as something apart from the rest of us.
At the end of the day, Sherlock has had quite a few bad experiences. Before and after I came along. As much as my innocent friend deserves so much better from this hard world that judges harshly those that are different from the norm, it is time for me to step back and watch his brilliant light shine forth autonomously.
I can't wait for Sherlock's next guest lecture already. I just hope he doesn't try to tell the administration that a whole wing should be named after him, or that he singlehandedly could provide a whole forensics study course. Oh, he could. Can one imagine a whole class of students graduating from University sounding and acting just like Sherlock, invading the newest crime scenes? Perhaps the world is not yet ready for that.
.
Today is the day of Sherlock's lecture, and we're standing at the open rooftop area atop 221 Baker Street. Among the scape of urban roofs, steeples and high rise buildings in the distance, along with building cranes and the far away mist of greenery, there is a small area that is our alone, a secluded space set apart in the busy city.
I can't begin to explain how we managed to persuade three young ducks to climb the stairs, but they followed us with that single mindedness of blind trust. They look older now, one all shades of brown – the only female – and the other two with their green heads, yellow collar and stripped wings – two very proud mallard ducks, no mistake to be had.
'We should have prepared a little goodbye speech', I notice.
'Why?' he challenges at once. 'We have been coming up here every day, willing them to fledge away. They may never really do.'
I frown. 'Yeah, but, you know, what if they do? It's their nature.'
'We'll see them around, John. Now we must let them find their way.'
I nod, still feeling oddly emotional.
'Where did you get the eggs in the first place? You didn't steal them, did you?' I pierce the crazy scientist with a close watch.
'Most certainly not', he tells me, full of dignity, only to then add: 'I didn't have to.'
I turn to Sherlock full of protests when I'm cut off by a magnificent creature opening its wings and taking flight. It's a spectacle to behold. Just as the first duckling proves she's all grown up, and obeys that deep set instinct inside her, the two others take that lead and fledge from their home, the only home they have properly known. I quickly brush away a tear in my eye.
I'll miss them.
'Sherlock', I start, as their blurry shapes become the more indistinct in the direction of the nearest green park – they'll be happy to set up a life there. 'Sherlock, how are we getting that bathtub back downstairs?'
He opens and closes his mouth, then adopts his "that's a good challenge" demeanour.
Sometimes I wish Sherlock would think things through.
'Come on, professor Holmes, we'll be getting late for your lecture...'
.
