The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson - January 1
Title: The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson
Author: MadLori
Length: 4800
Genre: Family, humor, shameless fluff, although quite angsty of late
Pairing: Sherlock/John (established), John/OFC (referenced, in the past)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Teenagerfic
Summary:We weren’t really acknowledging the possibility that Sherlock could die. That we’d get him back in a box. We knew he was with dangerous people, people who’d kill him to keep their own secrets. But Sherlock couldn’t die, could he? He was immortal. At least he’d always seemed that way to me. Invincible and eternal. Larger than life and bigger than everyone. Taller and louder and deeper and smarter and just more. Who could kill him, and how? Surely it wouldn’t do to just use a gun or a knife or your bare hands. Wouldn’t you need silver bullets or magical incantations or some sort of ancient Mayan voodoo?
Genie's blog stars here: 1 September
The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson, Hungry Like the Wolf
1 January
Happy new year! It has certainly been a happier one than we could have predicted not so long ago. We’re all a bit calmer since we actually got to talk to and see Sherlock and know that he’s not being tortured or starved or held in some dank little hole someplace. And Dad’s pretty confident that he can find a way to get himself free, so I’m taking that on faith. We might now be in a position to help him, too. More on that later.
It’s been a busy week since Christmas. Right after getting Sherlock’s message, Dad became convinced that Sherlock would try to find a way to get a message to him, or some sort of information storage so he can put the screws to his “hosts,” so he started running around like a madman contacting every shadowy operative he’s met in the last twenty years in case Sherlock might reach out to one of them. As it turned out, when the message did come, it was a surprise to us all.
The day after Christmas, Zack’s family invited me to go with them out to Zack’s grandmother’s house in Brighton, which is a yearly thing for them. His grandmother is fantastic. She’s been a widow for twenty years and one day she decided to up and move to the seashore and become an artist, so she did. She paints these fantastic surrealistic landscapes. I seriously want one for my room.
I was a little hesitant to accept, because Ellie was still with us and I wanted to spend more time with her. But Zack and his parents weren’t leaving for Brighton until the 27th and Ellie planned to have left herself by then.
“Can’t you stay longer?” I said, when she told us she’d be leaving soon. I didn’t want to say so, but having her around made me feel closer to Sherlock. Seemed rude to want someone around not for themselves but as a stand-in for somebody else, though, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Oh, luv, it’s sweet of you to ask, but I’m a terrible houseguest.”
“You’ve been lovely so far!”
“Any moment I will become demanding and unpleasant,” she said, her eyes twinkling at me. “Besides, I have to get back to work. I’m so behind, my colleagues will throw pies at me when I return. But I’m so glad I got the chance to meet you all, finally.”
A car came for her after dinner. She hugged me and then hugged Dad, supertight. They seemed to share some kind of silent communication, then she went outside and was gone, amid promises to email and ring us, and to visit again soon.
So then it was all about The Parental Vote. I sat them down and laid it all out. “So, here’s the situation. Zack has invited me to go down to Brighton with his family for a few days.”
“How many days is a few?” Mum asked.
“They’re leaving tomorrow and coming back New Year’s Eve day.”
“And where would you be staying?” Dad asked.
“At his grandmother’s house. She lives there.”
“Genie, truth. Did his parents invite you, or did Zack?”
“They all asked me together. I swear!” I said, off their skeptical looks. Dad glanced at Mum and shifted a bit in his chair. “His parents are going to be there the whole time, Dad.”
He made a big show of considering this, complete with chin-stroking and unclear “hmmpph” noises. Mum watched him out of the corner of her eye, smirking. “All right, Genie. Last question. And I require the truth, understood?”
I nodded. “Understood.”
“Will there be sex of any variety happening on this vacation?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, Dad, here’s the thing. I think the odds are low. But I can’t rule it out completely.”
He made disgruntled noises. Mum put her hand on his knee. “John,” she said quietly.
“I know, I know,” he said, sighing. “All right. We trust you to act responsibly, Genie.”
I squeaked a little. “Thanks, Dad!” I hugged him.
Dad didn’t need to know that Mum took me aside later to make sure I’d been faithfully taking my birth-control pills and check that I had -- supplies. “Mum, I really don’t think...”
“Shush. Preparedness is the watchword.”
“That sounds like the motto from one of those Cold War public service announcements.”
“Well, maybe it is, but it applies to a lot of things.”
“You know, me and Zack haven’t -- I mean, we’ve not gone that far.”
Mum sighed. “I’m glad to hear you aren’t rushing things.”
“I can’t. Not with him. It’s...” I didn’t really know what I meant. “I guess the stakes are higher. It’s too important. Because it’s him, and it’s us, and I know I’m way too young to think long-term but...” I didn’t have a good ending for that sentence, or at least not one I felt comfortable giving voice to.
“It’s good that you’re taking it seriously. He isn’t pressuring you, is he?”
“Oh God, no. If anything he’s being extra careful. I think he’s in the same place, with the high stakes. Neither of us wants to risk mucking things up.”
“That’s always a risk, I’m afraid.”
So on the morning of the 27th, I hugged Mum and Dad goodbye and went across the street with my duffel on my back. Zack’s parents, Earl and Maria, hugged me hello. They’re super huggy, even a little overly so. I think it’s because Maria is from a very demonstrative Italian family (I’ve been to family events of theirs and was grateful to escape with my life) and it’s sort of rubbed off on her very stalwart British husband and in-laws. I can’t denigrate Zack’s Italian heritage, though. I have it to thank for his totally fantastic head of hair. It’s really excellent for running fingers through. He purrs like a cat when I do that. It’s adorable.
He also has just the right amount of chest hair, and...I’m going to just shut up now.
So Maria enveloped me in her oregano-scented embrace. “Oh, sweetheart, we’re so glad you could come,” she said. Her accent’s pure RP but she’s got Italian cadence, and it’s very strange-sounding. “What with all the trouble round your place, we thought you could do with a spot of a holiday,” she said, giving me the big warm sympathy eyes.
I guess by “all the trouble” she meant my Amazing Vanishing Dad. I wouldn’t have called it “trouble” so much as a catastrophe visited upon us by persons unknown, but people don’t really know how to address it when your dad, already known to be a personage of some import and mystery who spends his time chasing criminals and fighting crime, up and disappears with no explanation. It isn’t really a topic that regular people know how to talk about. They can talk about it if a relative of yours is sick, or going through a divorce, or having money troubles, but shadow-government conspiracies and unexplained absences aren’t really part and parcel of the neighborhood toybox of topics. “Thanks, Maria,” was all I said. “We did hear from Sherlock on Christmas. He’s all right. We hope he’ll be home soon.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful news,” she said, hugging me again. “Your poor father. I can’t imagine it. I’d go round the bend if such a thing happened to Earl.”
“Let her be, Mum,” Zack said, reaching out to drag me upstairs. “You’ll have lots of time to grill her for information. C’mon, Genie. Help me pack.”
He was already packed, of course. He just wanted to get me alone to snog me senseless, which he did. I hadn’t seen him in a few days, not since he’d popped over on Christmas morning to give me my present. It was a leather briefcase-y sort of carrier bag for my chess sets. It’s fantastic. It has slots for the boards and small individual pockets for the pieces and a pocket for my notebooks and my timer. I’d never seen such a thing before and said so, whereupon he told me that he’d had it custom-made for me, one of his dad’s friends owns a leatherworking shop.
Best boyfriend ever? Prove me wrong.
Oh, Zack’s not perfect. He’s far too invested in sport for my personal taste. I know the rules of rugby and football but I really couldn’t care less, and now he’s discovered this mixed martial arts fighting, which I think is the most horrible thing ever but he thinks is the best thing since my tits. Sometimes deployment of the tits in question is the only thing that can get him away from it. He can be crude, he sometimes says things without thinking, things that aren’t so nice. And like pretty much every teenage boy I’ve ever met, he’s sort of obsessed with the whole man-hierarchy, his status with the other blokes. This mob-mentality thing happens sometimes and lowers everyone’s IQ by about thirty points.
But he’s not a slave to it. He’s just a tad more evolved. This one time I was waiting for him in the park and he walked up with this big crowd of his mates. I was behind a fountain, he didn’t see me but I could hear him. The mates were ragging and scrapping like boys do, and they saw a sort of swishy chap go by. When he was out of earshot they started taking the piss, calling him a poof and worse. Then I heard Zack say, “Knock it off, you tossers. My girlfriend’s got gay dads and either of them could kick your skinny arses for you.” They gave him some shit about it but he didn’t back down, and they left it alone.
He got extra snogs that day, I can tell you. As he was getting right now, just because I wanted to and he’s lovely, ergo snogs. And then his hands were on my arse, which is just fine. “Your dad okay? I mean with you coming away with us?” he asked, sort of in between kissing my neck.
“He said he’d miss me. Too many of his favorite people are gone.”
“He’s still got your mum.”
“Yeah, but he can’t shag her.”
“Oh, he could. I bet Sherlock would understand.”
I snorted. “Then you don’t know Sherlock. He is the jealous type.”
“Yeah?”
“This one time a bloke chatted Dad up in a bar. Sherlock lifted his wallet and rung up a huge bill of naughty Ann Summers stuff, then had all the stuff shipped to the bloke’s secretary while the bill got sent to the bloke’s wife.”
Zack snorted. “That’s sort of diabolical.”
“Dad was pretty mad when he found out. He made Sherlock pay for all the stuff and explain it to the bloke’s wife so he wouldn’t end up divorced.”
“Hmm. Seems like the fact that the bloke was chatting up men in a bar would take care of that eventually.”
“All this talking is really interfering with our getting off. Quiet.”
So off we went to Brighton. Zack’s grandmother had made fondue. Seriously. I think her fondue set was an original avocado-green key party model from 1974. Excellent.
The beach isn’t so exciting in December, but the weather was passably tolerable so Zack and I went for walks, bundled up with the spray whipping our faces like icicles, and came back to Grandma’s cozy toasty fireplace-warmed house with our cheeks red and our noses running. Maria made cannoli and there was always tea. We cuddled up under blankets and watched old movies on Grandma’s really ripping high-def Blu-Ray system. Not one to be technologically left behind is Zack’s Grandma Lancaster.
Grandma’s house had four bedrooms so we all got our own. I snuck into Zack’s for some snogs and some hands in interesting places, but went back to my own bed before things got too heated. Then I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking about Dad. He’d be in bed now too, but probably not sleeping either. Was he staring at his ceiling? Was he curled on his side, trying to pretend he wasn’t alone? Did he talk out loud to Sherlock, as if he could hear him? Did he think about him, or did he just put it out of his mind? Was he angry, or scared?
We weren’t really acknowledging the possibility that Sherlock could die. That we’d get him back in a box. We knew he was with dangerous people, people who’d kill him to keep their own secrets. But Sherlock couldn’t die, could he? He was immortal. At least he’d always seemed that way to me. Invincible and eternal. Larger than life and bigger than everyone. Taller and louder and deeper and smarter and just more. Who could kill him, and how? Surely it wouldn’t do to just use a gun or a knife or your bare hands. Wouldn’t you need silver bullets or magical incantations or some sort of ancient Mayan voodoo?
The next day Zack and I and his parents went into Brighton. Grandma lived on the outskirts, where it wasn’t so built-up and touristy, but some of the things in town were fun. We ate bad food and enjoyed the holiday decorations that were still up. There were freezing street performers and music seeping out of the air and it was a good time.
Zack and I walked down the big pier out over the water. There was a little old grandma, hunched and withered, pushing a pram full of empty bottles. She was taking up the whole boardwalk, practically. Zack and I politely edged past her, but as I drew even with her she grabbed my arm and yanked me close. “Oi!” Zack said. “Lay off her!”
The old women’s poached-egg eyes were huge and watery. She was pushing something into my hand. “Stradivarius,” she whispered. Then she let go of me and toddled off down the pier. I just stared.
“Genie? What the hell was all that?” I couldn’t move. Zack peered at my face. “Genie? Are you all right, luv?”
I took a big breath. “Yeah. I’m okay.” I opened my hand, which had been clenched up. Lying there on my palm was a flash drive. I got out my mobile and texted Mycroft’s for-emergencies-only number. Stradivarius. That was all he needed. He knew where I was. “Zack, can we go home? I’m not feeling so great.”
“Sure, of course,” he said, frowning with concern. I felt bad about making him worry but Mycroft would send someone to collect the flash drive and I wanted to be there to hand it over.
We left his parents in town and took a taxi back to Grandma Lancaster’s house. I sat down in a comfy chair where I could see the front of the house and let her fuss over me, bringing me extra blankets and warm cocoa. “You’ve been out in this damp cold too long, you’ll catch your death,” she said. “I ought to’ve given you my puffy coat to wear.”
Within an hour, a man walked by the house. He didn’t stop, he didn’t look, but it was him. I waited until Zack was upstairs and Grandma was in the kitchen, then I slipped out the front door. He was waiting for me behind a tree a few doors down. “What’s the password?” I asked. Couldn’t be too careful.
“Stradivarius.”
“Here,” I said, handing him the flash drive. “An old woman on the Brighton pier gave me that. She knew the password. It must be from Sherlock.”
He slipped into a pocket. “Did you look at its contents?”
“No, I was afraid to.”
“Good. Best that you didn’t.” He nodded at me and left. That was all.
I was a bit on edge for the rest of our vacation. I tried to put it out of my head, but I couldn’t help but think about what it meant. If Sherlock had smuggled out some sort of leverage against his hosts, that might mean he could get them to let him go.
It might mean that he could come home.
We drove back to London on the 31st. I did not sleep with Zack, in case you were wondering, but there were some activities participated in that were new to us, and which proved to be very satisfactory.
Which brings me to the other activity on the agenda that proved to be very satisfactory, namely that my mother had a date.
Dad hugged the stuffing out of me when I got home from Zack’s. “Careful,” he murmured in my ear. “There are intense fashion negotiations taking place in your mother’s room.”
I wanted to be a witness to that, for sure, but first I had to tell Dad about the flash drive. I led him over to 221 and told him about the old woman on the pier and everything else. “Why didn’t you call and tell me right off?” he asked, his eyes bright and excited.
“I wasn’t sure, I thought - mobiles, you know. Don’t they have listening satellites and such? I didn’t want to risk it.”
“Of course. You’re better at this than I am already.” He sighed. “I hope that’s a good sign, like you said. Cor, sweetheart - I’ve had to stop waiting, stop hoping, and just try and live each day to the next because otherwise it just hurts too much to…” He broke off, swallowing hard.
“I know, Dad,” I said, grasping his hand. “He’s coming home soon. I just know it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I left Dad and went into Mum’s room. She was in her knickers and some sort of medieval-looking undergarment and Adele was tossing clothes around like the Mad Frock Bomber. Mum came over and hugged me, which was a bit odd with her half-dressed. “What’s all this?” I said.
“Your Mum is going to a very posh New Year’s Eve do tonight and she must be appropriately frocked,” Adele said. “What about this one?” she asked, holding up an emerald-green shimmery thing with fringe.
“You want me to wear green? I might as well tote around a pot of gold!”
“Green looks good on you!”
“Nope. Too Irish. And must I wear this torture device?”
“You need smooth lines, Grace. Your hips aren’t what they used to be.”
“That happens when you give birth, you know.”
“Where’d you get all these?” I said, picking up one fabulous gown after another.
“Oh, I raided some closets at work,” Adele said, flapping a hand. “Pity your mum isn’t a sample size, there could be loads more.”
“Yes, bad job on me for not being a size two at age fifty.”
“Ooh, I like this one,” I said. “It’s very mod.” It was a sheath dress made of some flowy material. It was silver and white and shimmery with subtle geometric shapes in shades of red.
Mum took it and held it up to herself. “Hmm. I like this one, too.” She stepped into the dress and Adele zipped her up. It fit her like a coat of paint.
“Oh, Pepper. Your dashing DI is going to have some sort of seizure. You even have shoes for this too, those red stilettos. And it sets off your hair beautifully.”
“I don’t know why you two didn’t just come to me first,” I said, airily.
“Oh, out with you,” Adele said, shooing me out the door. “We’ve got hair and makeup to sort out and Greg is coming for her at seven.”
So Dad and I hung out on the couch in 219, watching inane New Year’s concert specials and marathons of home-improvement shows. At around quarter till seven, Mum emerged. Dad and I both sort of stared, open-mouthed, because she looked like a movie star. Mum’s never looked her age. She could pass for forty easy, and with her figure shown off in that dress as it wasn’t in her usual pencil skirts and button-downs, she looked like she stepped off the cover of Vogue. Her red hair was flatironed and just hung straight, and Adele had brought all her considerable makeup skills to bear and made her look stunning.
Not that she isn’t stunning normally, of course. Dad got up and went over to her, shaking his head. “Oh, Grace. You look amazing.”
She blushed a little. “Thanks, John.”
“I swear, if I weren’t a married man…”
“And if you didn’t prefer cock,” Adele interjected.
“Adele!” Dad exclaimed, while Mum just laughed. “Anyway…you look really beautiful. Greg’s a lucky bugger.”
Mum touched her hair a little nervously. “You know how long it’s been since I was on a date?”
“Eighteen years?”
“Ish, yeah. Dunno what to do. What if he gets fresh?”
“Let him,” Dad said, grinning. “What’ve you got to lose?”
There was a knock at the door. Dad trotted downstairs and we heard him greeting Greg. They came up together, and I swear, the look on Greg’s face when he saw Mum might have been funny if it weren’t so obviously sincere. “Grace, I - you look - wow,” he stammered. Dad winked at me from behind Greg’s back. Greg looked fantastic himself, in a classic black tuxedo. They’d make quite the couple at whatever party this was they were going to.
“Thanks,” Mum said. “Shall we go?”
“Yes! Absolutely, let’s be off,” he said. He held her coat for her and she took his arm as they went outside to the waiting cab. Dad and I huddled at the front windows and watched them drive off.
“Nice that someone gets to be with their sweetie tonight,” I said, glum.
“You could be with yours, too,” Dad said. “You needn’t feel you have to stay home to keep your poor old Dad company.”
“I’ve spent the past four days with Zack. I need some Daddy time.” Dad looked touched by this, and he squeezed me with one arm. “Besides, I couldn’t let you sit here by yourself when the ball goes down.”
He looked down at me. “I will never stop being amazed that I ended up with a daughter as brilliant as you.”
“Aww, don’t. I’ll start crying, then you’ll start crying, and that is no way to ring in the new year.”
He agreed. So we popped some popcorn and watched a cheesy disaster movie, the sort we can never watch when Sherlock’s around because he picks them apart, and when it got near midnight we turned on the countdown. Dad got out some champagne and we had a toast, and at midnight he kissed my cheek and we had a bit of a cuddle.
We were finishing our second disaster movie when Dad’s mobile rang. He brightened up immediately. “I asked Mycroft to text me when Grace and Greg were on their way back, so we could spy on them,” he said, rubbing his hands together. We darkened the living room and crouched by the windows, peering over the sill so we could see the pavement out front.
Their taxi pulled up a few minutes later. Greg got out and came around to open Mum’s door. She stepped out. “She looks happy,” I said. She was smiling and they were joking with each other. They stood there facing each other, talking quietly, probably saying the usual “I had a nice time” and “Thanks for the lovely evening” stuff.
Greg reached out and took her hands in his. She didn’t pull away. He leaned in, slowly to give her time to disengage, but she didn’t. She leaned forward and closed the distance, and they shared a sweet kiss. “Aww, there you go,” Dad murmured. Mum pulled back. “Well, I guess they had…”
He didn’t get much further, because then Mum dropped Greg’s hands, grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him in for a real kiss, a big wet snog. “Go, Mum,” I whispered. Greg put his hands on her waist and kissed back. This went on for a few seconds before they finally broke apart. Greg looked a little gobsmacked. Mum smiled at him, gave him a little wave, and walked to the door. We heard her keys in the lock. Greg waited until the door shut behind him. He did a funny little jig complete with fist-pumps, then all but skipped back to the cab.
“Did you get all that?” came Mum’s voice from behind us. Dad and I jumped guiltily.
“Uh…I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dad said, as we knelt in a darkened lounge, peering out the windows.
She laughed and turned the lights back on. “Happy new year,” she said, coming over to hug and kiss me, then Dad. She was all glowy.
“I guess you had a good time,” Dad said, a teasing curl in his voice.
“Honestly? It was divine. Greg took me to Gordon Ramsay, can you believe it? I don’t want to know how he got those reservations. And this party was completely fabulous. I felt like a debutante. And Greg is a charming dancer, did you know? He was fantastic company.” She blushed a little. “I like him. I had fun. Like, real fun, with a man.” She shrugged. “I guess I’d sort of counted that out.”
“Never too late for it,” Dad said.
“I guess not.” She grinned.
“So you’re going to see him again?” I said.
“Definitely. Something a little less high-maintenance,” she said, gesturing at her party dress and makeup. She looked from me to Dad and back again. “Did you two have a nice night?”
“We watched bad movies and ate bad food. What’s not to love?”
She reached out and pulled us both into a group hug. “I felt a bit guilty,” she murmured. “Being out on the town and having fun when he’s still - you know. Knowing that you two were here feeling bad, and that for once, I wasn’t.”
“I’m glad you weren’t,” Dad said. “Feeling bad won’t bring him back sooner. I’m well chuffed for you, darling.” He kissed her cheek.
“Me, too,” I said, and kissed her other cheek.
So New Year’s was a ripping success for at least one of us. But that night, lying in bed, I couldn’t help but think that starting a new year without Sherlock couldn’t be a good omen.
I refuse to cave. I refuse to give up. I won’t lose hope. He’ll be home soon. I know it. He will.
Won’t he?
Next Entry
Author: MadLori
Length: 4800
Genre: Family, humor, shameless fluff, although quite angsty of late
Pairing: Sherlock/John (established), John/OFC (referenced, in the past)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Teenagerfic
Summary:We weren’t really acknowledging the possibility that Sherlock could die. That we’d get him back in a box. We knew he was with dangerous people, people who’d kill him to keep their own secrets. But Sherlock couldn’t die, could he? He was immortal. At least he’d always seemed that way to me. Invincible and eternal. Larger than life and bigger than everyone. Taller and louder and deeper and smarter and just more. Who could kill him, and how? Surely it wouldn’t do to just use a gun or a knife or your bare hands. Wouldn’t you need silver bullets or magical incantations or some sort of ancient Mayan voodoo?
Genie's blog stars here: 1 September
The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson, Hungry Like the Wolf
1 January
Happy new year! It has certainly been a happier one than we could have predicted not so long ago. We’re all a bit calmer since we actually got to talk to and see Sherlock and know that he’s not being tortured or starved or held in some dank little hole someplace. And Dad’s pretty confident that he can find a way to get himself free, so I’m taking that on faith. We might now be in a position to help him, too. More on that later.
It’s been a busy week since Christmas. Right after getting Sherlock’s message, Dad became convinced that Sherlock would try to find a way to get a message to him, or some sort of information storage so he can put the screws to his “hosts,” so he started running around like a madman contacting every shadowy operative he’s met in the last twenty years in case Sherlock might reach out to one of them. As it turned out, when the message did come, it was a surprise to us all.
The day after Christmas, Zack’s family invited me to go with them out to Zack’s grandmother’s house in Brighton, which is a yearly thing for them. His grandmother is fantastic. She’s been a widow for twenty years and one day she decided to up and move to the seashore and become an artist, so she did. She paints these fantastic surrealistic landscapes. I seriously want one for my room.
I was a little hesitant to accept, because Ellie was still with us and I wanted to spend more time with her. But Zack and his parents weren’t leaving for Brighton until the 27th and Ellie planned to have left herself by then.
“Can’t you stay longer?” I said, when she told us she’d be leaving soon. I didn’t want to say so, but having her around made me feel closer to Sherlock. Seemed rude to want someone around not for themselves but as a stand-in for somebody else, though, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Oh, luv, it’s sweet of you to ask, but I’m a terrible houseguest.”
“You’ve been lovely so far!”
“Any moment I will become demanding and unpleasant,” she said, her eyes twinkling at me. “Besides, I have to get back to work. I’m so behind, my colleagues will throw pies at me when I return. But I’m so glad I got the chance to meet you all, finally.”
A car came for her after dinner. She hugged me and then hugged Dad, supertight. They seemed to share some kind of silent communication, then she went outside and was gone, amid promises to email and ring us, and to visit again soon.
So then it was all about The Parental Vote. I sat them down and laid it all out. “So, here’s the situation. Zack has invited me to go down to Brighton with his family for a few days.”
“How many days is a few?” Mum asked.
“They’re leaving tomorrow and coming back New Year’s Eve day.”
“And where would you be staying?” Dad asked.
“At his grandmother’s house. She lives there.”
“Genie, truth. Did his parents invite you, or did Zack?”
“They all asked me together. I swear!” I said, off their skeptical looks. Dad glanced at Mum and shifted a bit in his chair. “His parents are going to be there the whole time, Dad.”
He made a big show of considering this, complete with chin-stroking and unclear “hmmpph” noises. Mum watched him out of the corner of her eye, smirking. “All right, Genie. Last question. And I require the truth, understood?”
I nodded. “Understood.”
“Will there be sex of any variety happening on this vacation?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, Dad, here’s the thing. I think the odds are low. But I can’t rule it out completely.”
He made disgruntled noises. Mum put her hand on his knee. “John,” she said quietly.
“I know, I know,” he said, sighing. “All right. We trust you to act responsibly, Genie.”
I squeaked a little. “Thanks, Dad!” I hugged him.
Dad didn’t need to know that Mum took me aside later to make sure I’d been faithfully taking my birth-control pills and check that I had -- supplies. “Mum, I really don’t think...”
“Shush. Preparedness is the watchword.”
“That sounds like the motto from one of those Cold War public service announcements.”
“Well, maybe it is, but it applies to a lot of things.”
“You know, me and Zack haven’t -- I mean, we’ve not gone that far.”
Mum sighed. “I’m glad to hear you aren’t rushing things.”
“I can’t. Not with him. It’s...” I didn’t really know what I meant. “I guess the stakes are higher. It’s too important. Because it’s him, and it’s us, and I know I’m way too young to think long-term but...” I didn’t have a good ending for that sentence, or at least not one I felt comfortable giving voice to.
“It’s good that you’re taking it seriously. He isn’t pressuring you, is he?”
“Oh God, no. If anything he’s being extra careful. I think he’s in the same place, with the high stakes. Neither of us wants to risk mucking things up.”
“That’s always a risk, I’m afraid.”
So on the morning of the 27th, I hugged Mum and Dad goodbye and went across the street with my duffel on my back. Zack’s parents, Earl and Maria, hugged me hello. They’re super huggy, even a little overly so. I think it’s because Maria is from a very demonstrative Italian family (I’ve been to family events of theirs and was grateful to escape with my life) and it’s sort of rubbed off on her very stalwart British husband and in-laws. I can’t denigrate Zack’s Italian heritage, though. I have it to thank for his totally fantastic head of hair. It’s really excellent for running fingers through. He purrs like a cat when I do that. It’s adorable.
He also has just the right amount of chest hair, and...I’m going to just shut up now.
So Maria enveloped me in her oregano-scented embrace. “Oh, sweetheart, we’re so glad you could come,” she said. Her accent’s pure RP but she’s got Italian cadence, and it’s very strange-sounding. “What with all the trouble round your place, we thought you could do with a spot of a holiday,” she said, giving me the big warm sympathy eyes.
I guess by “all the trouble” she meant my Amazing Vanishing Dad. I wouldn’t have called it “trouble” so much as a catastrophe visited upon us by persons unknown, but people don’t really know how to address it when your dad, already known to be a personage of some import and mystery who spends his time chasing criminals and fighting crime, up and disappears with no explanation. It isn’t really a topic that regular people know how to talk about. They can talk about it if a relative of yours is sick, or going through a divorce, or having money troubles, but shadow-government conspiracies and unexplained absences aren’t really part and parcel of the neighborhood toybox of topics. “Thanks, Maria,” was all I said. “We did hear from Sherlock on Christmas. He’s all right. We hope he’ll be home soon.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful news,” she said, hugging me again. “Your poor father. I can’t imagine it. I’d go round the bend if such a thing happened to Earl.”
“Let her be, Mum,” Zack said, reaching out to drag me upstairs. “You’ll have lots of time to grill her for information. C’mon, Genie. Help me pack.”
He was already packed, of course. He just wanted to get me alone to snog me senseless, which he did. I hadn’t seen him in a few days, not since he’d popped over on Christmas morning to give me my present. It was a leather briefcase-y sort of carrier bag for my chess sets. It’s fantastic. It has slots for the boards and small individual pockets for the pieces and a pocket for my notebooks and my timer. I’d never seen such a thing before and said so, whereupon he told me that he’d had it custom-made for me, one of his dad’s friends owns a leatherworking shop.
Best boyfriend ever? Prove me wrong.
Oh, Zack’s not perfect. He’s far too invested in sport for my personal taste. I know the rules of rugby and football but I really couldn’t care less, and now he’s discovered this mixed martial arts fighting, which I think is the most horrible thing ever but he thinks is the best thing since my tits. Sometimes deployment of the tits in question is the only thing that can get him away from it. He can be crude, he sometimes says things without thinking, things that aren’t so nice. And like pretty much every teenage boy I’ve ever met, he’s sort of obsessed with the whole man-hierarchy, his status with the other blokes. This mob-mentality thing happens sometimes and lowers everyone’s IQ by about thirty points.
But he’s not a slave to it. He’s just a tad more evolved. This one time I was waiting for him in the park and he walked up with this big crowd of his mates. I was behind a fountain, he didn’t see me but I could hear him. The mates were ragging and scrapping like boys do, and they saw a sort of swishy chap go by. When he was out of earshot they started taking the piss, calling him a poof and worse. Then I heard Zack say, “Knock it off, you tossers. My girlfriend’s got gay dads and either of them could kick your skinny arses for you.” They gave him some shit about it but he didn’t back down, and they left it alone.
He got extra snogs that day, I can tell you. As he was getting right now, just because I wanted to and he’s lovely, ergo snogs. And then his hands were on my arse, which is just fine. “Your dad okay? I mean with you coming away with us?” he asked, sort of in between kissing my neck.
“He said he’d miss me. Too many of his favorite people are gone.”
“He’s still got your mum.”
“Yeah, but he can’t shag her.”
“Oh, he could. I bet Sherlock would understand.”
I snorted. “Then you don’t know Sherlock. He is the jealous type.”
“Yeah?”
“This one time a bloke chatted Dad up in a bar. Sherlock lifted his wallet and rung up a huge bill of naughty Ann Summers stuff, then had all the stuff shipped to the bloke’s secretary while the bill got sent to the bloke’s wife.”
Zack snorted. “That’s sort of diabolical.”
“Dad was pretty mad when he found out. He made Sherlock pay for all the stuff and explain it to the bloke’s wife so he wouldn’t end up divorced.”
“Hmm. Seems like the fact that the bloke was chatting up men in a bar would take care of that eventually.”
“All this talking is really interfering with our getting off. Quiet.”
So off we went to Brighton. Zack’s grandmother had made fondue. Seriously. I think her fondue set was an original avocado-green key party model from 1974. Excellent.
The beach isn’t so exciting in December, but the weather was passably tolerable so Zack and I went for walks, bundled up with the spray whipping our faces like icicles, and came back to Grandma’s cozy toasty fireplace-warmed house with our cheeks red and our noses running. Maria made cannoli and there was always tea. We cuddled up under blankets and watched old movies on Grandma’s really ripping high-def Blu-Ray system. Not one to be technologically left behind is Zack’s Grandma Lancaster.
Grandma’s house had four bedrooms so we all got our own. I snuck into Zack’s for some snogs and some hands in interesting places, but went back to my own bed before things got too heated. Then I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking about Dad. He’d be in bed now too, but probably not sleeping either. Was he staring at his ceiling? Was he curled on his side, trying to pretend he wasn’t alone? Did he talk out loud to Sherlock, as if he could hear him? Did he think about him, or did he just put it out of his mind? Was he angry, or scared?
We weren’t really acknowledging the possibility that Sherlock could die. That we’d get him back in a box. We knew he was with dangerous people, people who’d kill him to keep their own secrets. But Sherlock couldn’t die, could he? He was immortal. At least he’d always seemed that way to me. Invincible and eternal. Larger than life and bigger than everyone. Taller and louder and deeper and smarter and just more. Who could kill him, and how? Surely it wouldn’t do to just use a gun or a knife or your bare hands. Wouldn’t you need silver bullets or magical incantations or some sort of ancient Mayan voodoo?
The next day Zack and I and his parents went into Brighton. Grandma lived on the outskirts, where it wasn’t so built-up and touristy, but some of the things in town were fun. We ate bad food and enjoyed the holiday decorations that were still up. There were freezing street performers and music seeping out of the air and it was a good time.
Zack and I walked down the big pier out over the water. There was a little old grandma, hunched and withered, pushing a pram full of empty bottles. She was taking up the whole boardwalk, practically. Zack and I politely edged past her, but as I drew even with her she grabbed my arm and yanked me close. “Oi!” Zack said. “Lay off her!”
The old women’s poached-egg eyes were huge and watery. She was pushing something into my hand. “Stradivarius,” she whispered. Then she let go of me and toddled off down the pier. I just stared.
“Genie? What the hell was all that?” I couldn’t move. Zack peered at my face. “Genie? Are you all right, luv?”
I took a big breath. “Yeah. I’m okay.” I opened my hand, which had been clenched up. Lying there on my palm was a flash drive. I got out my mobile and texted Mycroft’s for-emergencies-only number. Stradivarius. That was all he needed. He knew where I was. “Zack, can we go home? I’m not feeling so great.”
“Sure, of course,” he said, frowning with concern. I felt bad about making him worry but Mycroft would send someone to collect the flash drive and I wanted to be there to hand it over.
We left his parents in town and took a taxi back to Grandma Lancaster’s house. I sat down in a comfy chair where I could see the front of the house and let her fuss over me, bringing me extra blankets and warm cocoa. “You’ve been out in this damp cold too long, you’ll catch your death,” she said. “I ought to’ve given you my puffy coat to wear.”
Within an hour, a man walked by the house. He didn’t stop, he didn’t look, but it was him. I waited until Zack was upstairs and Grandma was in the kitchen, then I slipped out the front door. He was waiting for me behind a tree a few doors down. “What’s the password?” I asked. Couldn’t be too careful.
“Stradivarius.”
“Here,” I said, handing him the flash drive. “An old woman on the Brighton pier gave me that. She knew the password. It must be from Sherlock.”
He slipped into a pocket. “Did you look at its contents?”
“No, I was afraid to.”
“Good. Best that you didn’t.” He nodded at me and left. That was all.
I was a bit on edge for the rest of our vacation. I tried to put it out of my head, but I couldn’t help but think about what it meant. If Sherlock had smuggled out some sort of leverage against his hosts, that might mean he could get them to let him go.
It might mean that he could come home.
We drove back to London on the 31st. I did not sleep with Zack, in case you were wondering, but there were some activities participated in that were new to us, and which proved to be very satisfactory.
Which brings me to the other activity on the agenda that proved to be very satisfactory, namely that my mother had a date.
Dad hugged the stuffing out of me when I got home from Zack’s. “Careful,” he murmured in my ear. “There are intense fashion negotiations taking place in your mother’s room.”
I wanted to be a witness to that, for sure, but first I had to tell Dad about the flash drive. I led him over to 221 and told him about the old woman on the pier and everything else. “Why didn’t you call and tell me right off?” he asked, his eyes bright and excited.
“I wasn’t sure, I thought - mobiles, you know. Don’t they have listening satellites and such? I didn’t want to risk it.”
“Of course. You’re better at this than I am already.” He sighed. “I hope that’s a good sign, like you said. Cor, sweetheart - I’ve had to stop waiting, stop hoping, and just try and live each day to the next because otherwise it just hurts too much to…” He broke off, swallowing hard.
“I know, Dad,” I said, grasping his hand. “He’s coming home soon. I just know it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I left Dad and went into Mum’s room. She was in her knickers and some sort of medieval-looking undergarment and Adele was tossing clothes around like the Mad Frock Bomber. Mum came over and hugged me, which was a bit odd with her half-dressed. “What’s all this?” I said.
“Your Mum is going to a very posh New Year’s Eve do tonight and she must be appropriately frocked,” Adele said. “What about this one?” she asked, holding up an emerald-green shimmery thing with fringe.
“You want me to wear green? I might as well tote around a pot of gold!”
“Green looks good on you!”
“Nope. Too Irish. And must I wear this torture device?”
“You need smooth lines, Grace. Your hips aren’t what they used to be.”
“That happens when you give birth, you know.”
“Where’d you get all these?” I said, picking up one fabulous gown after another.
“Oh, I raided some closets at work,” Adele said, flapping a hand. “Pity your mum isn’t a sample size, there could be loads more.”
“Yes, bad job on me for not being a size two at age fifty.”
“Ooh, I like this one,” I said. “It’s very mod.” It was a sheath dress made of some flowy material. It was silver and white and shimmery with subtle geometric shapes in shades of red.
Mum took it and held it up to herself. “Hmm. I like this one, too.” She stepped into the dress and Adele zipped her up. It fit her like a coat of paint.
“Oh, Pepper. Your dashing DI is going to have some sort of seizure. You even have shoes for this too, those red stilettos. And it sets off your hair beautifully.”
“I don’t know why you two didn’t just come to me first,” I said, airily.
“Oh, out with you,” Adele said, shooing me out the door. “We’ve got hair and makeup to sort out and Greg is coming for her at seven.”
So Dad and I hung out on the couch in 219, watching inane New Year’s concert specials and marathons of home-improvement shows. At around quarter till seven, Mum emerged. Dad and I both sort of stared, open-mouthed, because she looked like a movie star. Mum’s never looked her age. She could pass for forty easy, and with her figure shown off in that dress as it wasn’t in her usual pencil skirts and button-downs, she looked like she stepped off the cover of Vogue. Her red hair was flatironed and just hung straight, and Adele had brought all her considerable makeup skills to bear and made her look stunning.
Not that she isn’t stunning normally, of course. Dad got up and went over to her, shaking his head. “Oh, Grace. You look amazing.”
She blushed a little. “Thanks, John.”
“I swear, if I weren’t a married man…”
“And if you didn’t prefer cock,” Adele interjected.
“Adele!” Dad exclaimed, while Mum just laughed. “Anyway…you look really beautiful. Greg’s a lucky bugger.”
Mum touched her hair a little nervously. “You know how long it’s been since I was on a date?”
“Eighteen years?”
“Ish, yeah. Dunno what to do. What if he gets fresh?”
“Let him,” Dad said, grinning. “What’ve you got to lose?”
There was a knock at the door. Dad trotted downstairs and we heard him greeting Greg. They came up together, and I swear, the look on Greg’s face when he saw Mum might have been funny if it weren’t so obviously sincere. “Grace, I - you look - wow,” he stammered. Dad winked at me from behind Greg’s back. Greg looked fantastic himself, in a classic black tuxedo. They’d make quite the couple at whatever party this was they were going to.
“Thanks,” Mum said. “Shall we go?”
“Yes! Absolutely, let’s be off,” he said. He held her coat for her and she took his arm as they went outside to the waiting cab. Dad and I huddled at the front windows and watched them drive off.
“Nice that someone gets to be with their sweetie tonight,” I said, glum.
“You could be with yours, too,” Dad said. “You needn’t feel you have to stay home to keep your poor old Dad company.”
“I’ve spent the past four days with Zack. I need some Daddy time.” Dad looked touched by this, and he squeezed me with one arm. “Besides, I couldn’t let you sit here by yourself when the ball goes down.”
He looked down at me. “I will never stop being amazed that I ended up with a daughter as brilliant as you.”
“Aww, don’t. I’ll start crying, then you’ll start crying, and that is no way to ring in the new year.”
He agreed. So we popped some popcorn and watched a cheesy disaster movie, the sort we can never watch when Sherlock’s around because he picks them apart, and when it got near midnight we turned on the countdown. Dad got out some champagne and we had a toast, and at midnight he kissed my cheek and we had a bit of a cuddle.
We were finishing our second disaster movie when Dad’s mobile rang. He brightened up immediately. “I asked Mycroft to text me when Grace and Greg were on their way back, so we could spy on them,” he said, rubbing his hands together. We darkened the living room and crouched by the windows, peering over the sill so we could see the pavement out front.
Their taxi pulled up a few minutes later. Greg got out and came around to open Mum’s door. She stepped out. “She looks happy,” I said. She was smiling and they were joking with each other. They stood there facing each other, talking quietly, probably saying the usual “I had a nice time” and “Thanks for the lovely evening” stuff.
Greg reached out and took her hands in his. She didn’t pull away. He leaned in, slowly to give her time to disengage, but she didn’t. She leaned forward and closed the distance, and they shared a sweet kiss. “Aww, there you go,” Dad murmured. Mum pulled back. “Well, I guess they had…”
He didn’t get much further, because then Mum dropped Greg’s hands, grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him in for a real kiss, a big wet snog. “Go, Mum,” I whispered. Greg put his hands on her waist and kissed back. This went on for a few seconds before they finally broke apart. Greg looked a little gobsmacked. Mum smiled at him, gave him a little wave, and walked to the door. We heard her keys in the lock. Greg waited until the door shut behind him. He did a funny little jig complete with fist-pumps, then all but skipped back to the cab.
“Did you get all that?” came Mum’s voice from behind us. Dad and I jumped guiltily.
“Uh…I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dad said, as we knelt in a darkened lounge, peering out the windows.
She laughed and turned the lights back on. “Happy new year,” she said, coming over to hug and kiss me, then Dad. She was all glowy.
“I guess you had a good time,” Dad said, a teasing curl in his voice.
“Honestly? It was divine. Greg took me to Gordon Ramsay, can you believe it? I don’t want to know how he got those reservations. And this party was completely fabulous. I felt like a debutante. And Greg is a charming dancer, did you know? He was fantastic company.” She blushed a little. “I like him. I had fun. Like, real fun, with a man.” She shrugged. “I guess I’d sort of counted that out.”
“Never too late for it,” Dad said.
“I guess not.” She grinned.
“So you’re going to see him again?” I said.
“Definitely. Something a little less high-maintenance,” she said, gesturing at her party dress and makeup. She looked from me to Dad and back again. “Did you two have a nice night?”
“We watched bad movies and ate bad food. What’s not to love?”
She reached out and pulled us both into a group hug. “I felt a bit guilty,” she murmured. “Being out on the town and having fun when he’s still - you know. Knowing that you two were here feeling bad, and that for once, I wasn’t.”
“I’m glad you weren’t,” Dad said. “Feeling bad won’t bring him back sooner. I’m well chuffed for you, darling.” He kissed her cheek.
“Me, too,” I said, and kissed her other cheek.
So New Year’s was a ripping success for at least one of us. But that night, lying in bed, I couldn’t help but think that starting a new year without Sherlock couldn’t be a good omen.
I refuse to cave. I refuse to give up. I won’t lose hope. He’ll be home soon. I know it. He will.
Won’t he?
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