Many thanks to Ernil i Pheriannath/ Sparkypip for her beta work and feedback! She writes beautiful H/C stuff if that is your thing :).
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Chapter 7
February 13th, 1867 – Wednesday - Day V3
Sherlock woke early, from the first carriages going down Baker Street. He was miserably cold and fetched another blanket.
The lack of noises made him assume that John wasn't up yet. Since he felt still very exhausted, he returned to bed. The echoes of nausea and pain he felt were not the worst of it all, he was aware that his real life self had started to feel the cravings for real.
He briefly considered to get up and do some work on the case, but the tiredness was so intense - or the imaginary aftermath of imaginary chloral hydrate - it caused the inside of his eyelids to hurt. So he closed them again and concentrated on going to the floating sensation he needed as a landmark to find sleep again.
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A bit later Mrs Hudson woke him when she brought tea, fussing about, asking if he was sick or unwell.
She also handed him a telegram from Lestrade who invited them to another crime scene.
On his way to the location, Sherlock stopped at John's surgery and collected him.
As planned, the doctor had just finished his last patient for the day when he arrived.
The ride to the outskirts of London took quite some time and the doctor used it to once more complain about Holmes' palour.
He was probably right, Sherlock felt drained of energy and was shivering from the bleak weather.
At least the snow continued to melt, it had in fact started to rain non stop.
Sherlock knew the February of 1867 was the wettest Britain has seen in a long time, and all the frozen waste was now smelling and rotting.
Finally, they reached a large area that seemed to be in a state of early preparation for some building project. A sign at the entrance hinted that another large manufacturing plant for some popular goods would be built there in the near future.
They asked to cabby to actually pass the extemporary gate and try to bring them in further because no one could be seen amongst all the heaps of earth, felled trees and vast areas of mud.
The man drove the carriage inside but after a few more metres he refused to go in further, explaining all the mud and ice from the snowmelt would get the wheels stuck. This far outside of the city the snowmelt was slower. The open landscape held the cold much better than the city with its chimneys and fireplaces.
Sherlock exited the cab, the man was probably right and he could see a few carriages and men in the distance.
They would get dirty anyway, so they could walk.
John cursed the weather and the mud but followed his friend to the cluster of people in the distance.
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The new victim lay partially hidden in a heap of leaves, which had been piled up during the past autumn deep inside a small forest.
Now that the forest was cut down to make room for the new buildings the heap had been revealed.
Obviously the killer had not been aware that there would be dramatic changes to the environment when he chose where to hide the evidence of his crime.
The building process had been put on hold when snow started to fall, which had been quite late last year, but now as the weather begun to warm the workers had started to chop trees again.
The body was in an advanced state of decay and therefore it was not possible at first to determine the gender.
Clothing that would have given hints were absent. The body was completely naked, which in itself was rare.
Of all the murder victims Sherlock had read about in the Victorian age, most were dressed, at least partially.
Another issue was that the ground was still partially frozen and so was the body.
Someone quite stupid suggested to light a few fires nearby and to Sherlock's horror Anderson and Lestrade started to prepare for that.
Sherlock spent almost ten minutes trying to conjure up a solution how to do it better, but although all his ideas were good in theory, they were impractical.
Finally he surrendered to the suggestion, accepting that evidences would be destroyed, but he could do nothing about it. It was either warming the area up or wait for it to melt on it's own, which would be equally damaging to the scene. He suggested to erect a tent or something to keep the heat at place, prevent winds to carry small things away, and shield the scene from rain.
It would take days until the body would arrive at the morgue.
Sherlock felt impatience creep up his spine like a poison, bile couloured and itchy.
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February 15th, 1867 – Friday - Day V4
Two days later they stood inside the morgue, Hooper present, Anderson luckily had other things to do.
Sherlock preferred Hooper, who – although being difficult – didn't complain about the smell, didn't waste too much time with ridiculous self-praise, and who was at least moderately competent for this period.
Hooper tried to throw him out repeatedly, but he just ignored her. For hours the remains brought no important clues.
The corpse turned out to be a woman, who had born a child, but except that there was little knowledge they could gather, the decay was too far advanced.
Or maybe the fact that they found nothing just meant that science was not developed enough to do so.
Sherlock ran into one mental brickwall after another when trying to figure out ways in which he could try things with the resources he had at hand, but other than keeping his mind busy nothing came out of it.
Finally there was just one last thing to do, cut open the lungs. It was then that the first moderately interesting fact was revealed.
"Oh!" Hooper exclaimed and Sherlock stepped closer, having already given up the hope to find anything at all.
When he inspected the tissues in the dim light he found they looked wrong.
"She must have inhaled something that caused the damage... or swallowed and it went down the wrong pipe," Hooper stated.
"Take a sample," Sherlock instructed and she trew him a nasty look. He had probably ordered her around, which she wasn't too fond of.
"Here," she said two minutes later, handing over three small segments of lung tissue on a slide.
They looked at it through his magnifying glass, speculating what might cause this kind of damage while Watson just stood nearby, taking a closer look at the outstretched organs laying on the half decayed chest.
It was obvious the obnoxious smell of the cellar was getting to him and he therefore rarely spoke.
Sherlock knew Watson wasn't squeamish, but something about this corpse was getting to him. He kept his distance, which was unusual.
Sherlock cut the samples into smaller pieces and transferred them to separate plates, then added test liquids to each of them.
"Caustic..." he concluded a few minutes later, "Enough to severely impair the woman's ability to breathe."
"You mean she died because she inhaled acid fumes."
"Probably."
"Then this wasn't murder but an accident?"
"Don't draw premature conclusions," Sherlock reminded her.
"Right."
"Did the autopsy of the first victim show any signs of lung problems? Why didn't I read the report already?" Sherlock asked.
"I only finished it yesterday, we had a busy few days," Molly justified. "The DI has a copy for you. But there was no lung damage like this, although the boy's lungs weren't healthy. We found no cause of death, it is very mysterious," she added with a fair amount of sarcasm.
"Not healty, in which way?" Watson asked.
"He had asthma, not too bad, though, but it certainly prolonged the recovery time of his pneumonia," Hooper explained.
"Oh."
"But it was not the cause of death," she insisted.
Sherlock was rather disappointed by the lack of information. He wished he had been there, even with his lack of medical knowledge, he might have found something. But it was no use, the information were lost... not available.
The mystery of both deaths was certainly the most interesting clue they had found so far and Sherlock felt the rush of the case finally hit him, though in slow motion.
"I will then visit the DI after we are finished here. I insist to take a few samples of this lung with me and test it to find out what substance she might have inhaled. I will send you a message as soon as I know."
Hooper nodded appreciating his willingness to share information and the respect he showed her medical knowledge – and also that he was keeping her secret.
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2016
John woke with a start, instantly noticing what had woken him once more.
Rosie seemed to be having a bad night, as was he.
It was a few minutes past 4:30 and it was the fourth time she was awake.
Overall she was difficult since Mary's death, which was to be expected. Babies don't cope well after losing the most important person in their life.
Understandably she was moody, frustrated, not eating well, and overall quite distressed by the absence of her mother.
John had barely managed to fall asleep twice this night and he was starting to feel a headache coming up that was probably caused by the tension he couldn't shake these days.
He stared at the ceiling, waiting if she would settle down again. He couldn't take her out of the crib every time she was a little frustrated. He and everyone around would regret that. Small children needed to learn to sometimes just calm down on their own again.
As did he.
He couldn't just get up every time his nightmares took him to the aquarium and go to fetch a drink.
He would not ruin his life the way Harry had.
This time the dreams had been vicious, not only Mary had died, but Rosie too. The bullet had travelled through the baby carrier Mary was wearing for some odd nightmare reason and killing them both.
He had not only held his dying wife but also their bleeding out baby.
Mary had screamed and the simple memory of that noise was so horrible that tears started to well up in John's eyes.
Pressing his palms into his eyesockets until it hurt, he tried to gulp the distress that was rising in his throat down. But he couldn't hold back the choking sound that was the result.
Rubbing his eyes he sat up, hoping Rosie wouldn't take that as a 'someone is coming' noise.
With his head he knew she was okay but he wanted to check on her, to cling to her, make sure she was fine.
Now.
There was no use, she wouldn't sleep anytime soon, he decided. According to the noises she was sucking on her fist and lifting her sleeping sack clad legs, playing with the fabric covering her legs.
It was only a matter of time until she realised she was actually hungry, it would be her usual mealtime soon.
There were no toys in her crib and no pacifiers, Mary had set that as a ground rule. Although John had agreed back then he now needed to rely on the pacifier more often than he liked.
There were times Rosie just needed one to calm down enough to sleep and it was the only thing that helped.
The sudden stop of breastfeeding was highly disturbing for the baby and John had to switch to alternative foods earlier than he and his wife had planned, although they had discussed weaning her off, they hadn't started.
While still thinking about how Mary had held Rosie and smiled up at him while she fed her, he suddenly flinched when he heard something fall downstairs.
He shoved the duvet to the side and stood up.
The day hadn't been easy. John had been to a baby check-up with Rosie today and it was the landlady's turn to watch over the detective. After the appointment at the paediatrician John had taken Rosie to baby swimming for some quality time and they had spent a few hours at their house after that.
Mrs Hudson had babysat Sherlock and she reported he had been difficult when John came home in the evening, a sleeping baby in the carrier.
Overall John hadn't seen his flatmate more than a bit over half an hour.
And during those minutes Sherlock had been grumpy and taciturn. It had been difficult to make the detective eat dinner. He had tried to do conversation but Sherlock had just sat there and picked at his foot, silent and pale and staring into the distance.
The cravings had set in, that much he had understood. But Sherlock himself was not so forthcoming to inform him about this little fact, Mrs Hudson had told him.
Also, Sherlock had not allowed the doctor to touch him, had sent him away whenever he tried to interact with his friend.
When another unrecognisable noise made his worry start in earnest.
What the hell was Sherlock doing?
For a brief moment he considered leaving Rosie behind in her crib, but then he picked her up and headed down the stairs. She was happy about the change of scenery and so John concentrated on listening to the nightime flat.
He had almost reached the landing when another odd sound could be heard. And he realised there was a constant low knocking sound accompanying it.
And why was the person watching Sherlock not stopping him?
Who was on duty tonight?
When he entered the kitchen he saw Mycroft sitting on the kitchen table, his laptop open in front of him and his smart phone showing the feed from Sherlock's room beside it.
"What's he doing?" John asked without a greeting, leaning over the phone, but Sherlock was out of sight - except of his outstretched legs.
It seemed he had retreated into the only area of the room the cameras weren't showing.
A small spot on the ground behind the door.
"Why aren't you in there stopping this? The deal is he stays in sight."
"Strictly speaking, he is in sight," the older Holmes answered in an uninterested voice. He didn't even look up from his work.
"What's he doing?"
"Banging his head, probably."
"What the hell, Mycroft!"
John went into the living room and put Rosie down in her playpen, then hurried back towards Sherlock's door.
To his surprise he found Mycroft was blocking his way.
"Don't."
"What the hell is wrong with you? He's hurting himself!"
"He always does that, he needs the stimuli to keep himself from going crazy."
"Always?" John echoed, getting angry now and pushed past him.
"Please Dr Watson, I have seen him go through this more often than you have and trust me, it is better to let him do this than..."
"Sherlock, can I come in?" John asked, knocking carefully.
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A/N:
I am not sure if FF was malfunctioning again when I published the last chapter. You might want to check if you read it before continuing.
Sorry this took so long, but my health was giving me problems in the past weeks and I couldn't concentrate on anything.