Histories (Part 8/17)
BBC Sherlock
Rating 15 (alcoholism, drug-taking, explicit femslash and slash, homophobia, swearing, vomiting)
Sequel to Birthday Surprise and Launch Off in which Molly gets together with Dr Harriet Watson, historian of eighteenth-century women and recovering alcoholic
Huge thanks to my beta Blooms84 for tackling this monster and making extremely helpful suggestions
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Parts 5 & 6, Part 7, Part 9 & 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17
Summary: So far this weekend, Molly's trying to console herself with dishy men in revealing armour after her break-up with Harry, Harry is endeavouring not to hit the bottle, and John is facing the very ungracious Grace Holmes. But Sherlock has a case to solve, so he's happy...
8) Friday evening: Sherlock
Once he'd got back to 221B Sherlock examined the bottles, and it didn't take long for the fingerprints to confirm his deductions, although the plaster dust evidence was irritatingly inconclusive. Then he headed back to Vauxhall to talk to some of Harry's neighbours. Inconvenient to retrace his steps, but you had to take these things logically, work out all the angles. Which also meant, he suddenly realised, ensuring that Harry was...dealt with. He hastily typed out a text to her:
You're in the clear. Still tracking down the real culprits. Don't do anything rash till I get back to you. SH
He sent the message and hoped it would have some effect. Bad enough having John away, still worse if he had to tell him when he got home that his sister had fallen off the wagon. Harry was dangerously stupid sometimes. The first time he'd ever seen her, in fact, was out cold in a hospital bed.
***
March 2010
John had got the message the previous night: Harry had broken her arm in a fall, and would need surgery. Sherlock had turned up at the hospital the next afternoon, and decided that he wasn't going to get John doing anything useful for a while. It was only then that he paid any attention to the small figure in the bed beside John's chair.
He promptly did a double take and then meticulously catalogued the way the sleeping Harry was not simply a smaller, younger version of John. Her hair was a lighter blonde even without the dye, the nose narrower, the jaw line less firm than John's, and their ear lobes were completely different.
"I ought to go and phone Clara," John said. "Could you, would you mind staying here?"
"All right," he said. "Don't be too long. Some coffee would be good."
Harry stirred three minutes after John had gone. He wondered at the time if it was deliberate - he hadn't realised then about Harry's innately poor sense of timing. There was a lot of groaning, and muttering, and then she demanded loudly:
"Oh God, why are anaesthesia hangovers so bloody awful?"
Sherlock said nothing. He didn't have much of a bedside manner at the best of times.
Harry's eyes - a lighter grey than John's - opened, and she gazed at him dopily. "And who the hell are you?"
"Don't you recognise me from John's description?"
"Haven't got m-my glasses on. John didn't say anything about tall, thin blurs. But if you're p-playing guessing games with a sick woman, you must be Sherlock." She closed her eyes, and slumped back at that point, as if she'd lost interest. He wished John would come back.
"Where's John?" she said, abruptly opening her eyes again.
"How do you know he's not here without your glasses?"
"I know what shape blur he is. Could tell him anywhere. Is he OK?"
"Yes."
"You're here, thought he m-m-might be in hospital too. Dead, dying." She sounded curious, more than concerned. Groggy from the anaesthesia still, he thought.
"Why would he be dead?" he demanded.
"If you got him killed. Do you think you could try n-not to, p-please? Be stupid if he got through Afghanistan and some crook killed him here."
"It'd help him if you didn't do things like this."
"Not my fault. A bollard attacked me."
"A bollard?"
"Sneaked up behind m-me, tripped m-me up. A bastard bollard. Can you find it and get it arrested, p-please, Sherlock?"
"Why should I?"
"Because you don't kn-know who it's going to attack next. Serial killer in the m-making."
"Are you still drunk?" he demanded.
"Wish I were. The operation would've been quicker then. Robert Liston could amputate someone's leg in 28 seconds. N-not sure if he got them drunk first."
Another long silence followed. John fighting a drinks machine, possibly, but Clara having hysterics slightly more likely. Outside possibility of John having found a medical emergency to assist at.
"Do m-m-me a favour," Harry said abruptly.
"What?"
"Get m-me a drink. Vodka would be best."
"Why should I?"
"So I don't have to ask John. Because I n-n-need it."
"You want it. Different thing."
"You're a sod, Sherlock!"
"I see you're getting to know one another," said John, reappearing with a couple of plastic cups. "Harry, Clara will be coming in this evening, so please try and behave nicely then. You do not need any alcohol, and you do not need, right now, to be yelling at Sherlock. Sherlock, can you go off and pick-pocket Lestrade, because Harry has to rest before she's in a fit state to argue properly."
"Sherlock," Harry asked, "what do you do when John's being boringly sensible?"
"Blow things up in the kitchen."
"That's stupid. Destructive. You should try kissing him instead. I have it on expert authority that he's a very good kisser."
"Harry, can you please shut up," John demanded, "and Sherlock, can you please go." He sounded exhausted. He didn't, however, deny that he was a very good kisser. Not that that was relevant data, of course, to Sherlock.