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.x.Hidden.x.Winter.x.
“Sherlock
you can’t MAKE her!” John exclaimed for the umpteenth time, obviously
frustrated with his sociopath flatmate.
“She
needs this scan.” He answered back.
“She
needs it? Her? Please Sherlock don’t pretend you’re thinking about her welfare,
you’re the one who wants this scan.”
“The
investigation cannot progress without the data from the scan.”
“Well
it doesn’t look like the scan is going to happen, so find a way around it
Sherlock, use that brain of yours!”
Sherlock
pulled at his hair staring aimlessly to try and think of another option. He
still wore his coat from having just come back from visiting Lestrade. He threw
himself onto the sofa, then stood back up and continued pacing around the flat.
“John
you’re a medical man, persuade her!”
“Are
you insane?! You want me to make a frightened young girl undergo an invasive
procedure just so you can satisfy your morbid curiosity? No, Sherlock. No.”
He
turned to the doctor, “It’s not my morbid
curiosity. The rest of the case depends on the scar that resides inside
that girl. The only way to see it is that specific ultrasound. It HAS to happen
John!”
“Well
leave me out of it, I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
Sherlock
ran his fingers through his hair again, frustrated with the turn of events. He
cast a scathing glance at his messy apartment. Paper covered the walls
outlining the case he was working on, there was just one big empty hole in the
middle, the last clue. With that clue he would have the whole thing unraveled,
he would win. He just needed this ONE more clue.
And
that girl was standing in his way.
*
Half an
hour later he was stood at a door. He rapped at the wood and waited. With a
creak, it opened slightly. He saw bright blue eyes and straight dark brown
hair. A gold chain danced in front of her eyes as it held the door closed.
“Mr.
Holmes?” She said.
“Yes,
may I come in?”
She
seemed taken aback, but closed the door and removed the chain. Holding the door
wide, she wordlessly invited Sherlock into her house.
He
looked around, analysing everything. Her flat was barely furnished. There was a
cheap table and chairs, bistro style. There was an orchid placed in a clear
vase in the centre of the table. They were placed to look out of the window
which was quite large considering the size of the rest of the place. His shoes
tapped on the floor and then he saw her trainers placed by the door. He
silently removed his own shoes and placed them next to hers. There was nothing
on the walls, they lay barren with the white walls stretching from floor to
ceiling. There was a rug in the middle of the room.
Her
kitchen and bathroom followed the same pattern, bare, clean surfaces, nothing
to show. Her bedroom was an entire new story. Papers littered the walls,
drawings of everything. Streetlamps, benches, busses, faces.
Sherlock
turned to her, “photographic memory?”
She
nodded and he grinned, she was getting more interesting with every rock he overturned.
He
started to go through each picture while he completed his mental process of
her.
“Your
family is all dead, you moved to London with your last savings to try and get a
fresh start. Because of complex circumstances you have no degree to your name
and this keeps you down at lower levels of work. However, your photographic
memory and heightened intelligence make it hard to cope so you spend your time
drawing everything. It releases the pressure, your beautiful memory demands to
be used. The rings under your eyes suggest insomnia but I disagree, you choose
not to sleep. Something happened, nightmares maybe? Your house is bare, you are
prepared to run at a moment’s notice. None of these pictures are you, you have
grown accustomed to leaving no trace of yourself behind, you have ran from
dangers before.” He spoke more to himself, but then it dawned on him.
“You’ve
met these people before. That’s how your family died, isn’t it? You moved to
London to escape them but they followed you here. You draw everything so that
in the case of your death, someone like me could come here and put the pictures
together and solve it. You don’t sleep because you are waiting for them to find
you.”
He
looked her in the eyes, blue meet blue as his eyes sought answers from her.
“Correct
on all accounts, Mr. Holmes. I am impressed.” She said, her eyes not wavering.
“There
is one thing I don’t understand, and that is why-”
“Why I
won’t go through with the procedure.” She finished his sentence, and then
glanced away from his unblinking stare.
There
was a long silence until Sherlock’s phone beeped.
“I have
to go.” He said. She nodded.
“I will
be back tonight.” She opened her mouth to protest, “you need some sleep.” He
said, putting her argument to rest.
*
“Complete
waste of my time.” Sherlock mumbled to himself as he knocked on her door.
She was
there in a t-shirt and sweatpants, her hair messy and dripping onto her
shoulders, obviously just finished a shower. Once again she wordlessly opened
the door and let him pass, her bare feet padding after him. He sat on the
bistro chair and looked around, not a single thing was different from earlier. She
barely spoke to him, a fact that he was comfortable with. People nowadays were
so obsessed to fill any silence with mindless babble, this was refreshing.
This
became a routine of theirs, he would go every morning and they would drink a
cup of tea together, sat at her bistro chairs and staring out of the large
window. He would then leave and go about his day, and then come back in the
evening, leaving just before she fell asleep.
One
ordinary evening, she answered her door to let him in, and then walked back to
her living room. It was drastically different from his visit that morning,
sheets of paper littered the floor around where she was laying on the carpet.
He didn’t speak, he knew how annoying it was when someone interrupted his work.
He sat on one of the cheap bistro chairs and watched her.
Her
dark hair swept over her shoulder and brushed the floor but she didn’t seem to
notice or care. Her thin fingers were coated in black charcoal, as were marks
on her cheeks from where she had brushed hair out of her face. She bit her lip
as she drew the charcoal across the page in light strokes. Sherlock stopped for
a moment when he looked at the pictures. They were all him.
His hands as they brushed her
table.
His face as he looked at her
pictures on the wall.
A partial view of his face. The
chain across the middle showed that it was her view of him when he first
knocked on her door.
His eyes as they burned for
answers.
Picture upon picture of him, and
this was what gave him the most information about her. She was hiding
something, the reason that she wouldn’t get the scan. For her to be drawing so
much meant that she was worried that he was close to the answer. But then
again, she wasn’t hiding what she was doing, which meant that she had accepted
that he would find out.
Perfect.
Hours later she put down the
pencil.
“You haven’t eaten.” He
commentated.
“Neither have you.” She remarked.
“I don’t eat when I’m working.”
“Neither do I.”
His mouth tilted up in a grin as
he followed her into the kitchen. She flicked the kettle and placed a teabag in
a cup. He shook his head as she offered one to him.
“Why don’t you do the scan?” He
asked moments later.
Still turned away she lifted the
cup to her lips and took a sip before placing it back on the counter.
“They won’t let me.” She
answered.
This stunned him into silence. He
had considered this possibility for the briefest of seconds before dismissing
it. There were only two reasons that were possible. First, she was pregnant,
but considering the state of flight she was in that was highly unlikely. The
only remaining option…
“You’re a virgin.” He said.
Her cheeks tinted the lightest
pink but her skin was pale enough for him to notice. Based on her appearance he
had not even considered this a possible option, surely she had had romantic
encounters in her past.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He
asked, moving towards her. She turned towards him, eyes memorising every plane
of light, every shadow as it crossed his face as he neared her.
His hands skimmed her arms to
rest at the base of her jaw.
“I could have helped you fix this
a long time ago.”
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