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Her name is Ashley or Ali or something like that, and it doesn’t matter because she isn’t him, and it matters because at least her name doesn’t resemble his in any way shape or form.
Sherlock thinks of her as ‘Skull,’ and calls her by that moniker, and if she finds it disagreeable, she keeps her mouth shut about it. (John would never have stood for that.)
(Another difference.)
(Good.)
He watches now as she winds her way towards the back corner of the lower city café he’d selected for its cheap coffee, its pay-by-the-minute wifi, and its over-crowded atmosphere - ingredients for anonymity.
Her stride is stunted today, and he wonders idly if she’d indulged last night, taken home a boy and –
Or perhaps no…Sherlock’s eyes narrow.
“You were attacked last night,” he says before she can sit down.
She stops, looks at him carefully. At last she nods, stiffly, and sits.
“Two men,” Sherlock notes. “One held your arms, the other struck you repeatedly in your lower abdomen.”
She nods again.
“They wanted information about me,” Sherlock concludes. He jumps when she laughs, soft and easy. It’s disquieting how her low, quiet chuckle takes him back 36 months, to another city, another life, another planet almost. “You managed to escape – twisted in the grip that held you, and ran.” His eyes are on the red welts on her neck and pushed up sleeves.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” Skull says, and it’s the truth, written in her voice and face and the way her fingers play with the hem of her shirt, as if she’s considering lifting it to show him the exact outlines of interrogating fists, stark reliefs in purple and pale.
“Of course not.” Upsetting. Reminiscent of –
Sherlock shakes his head. How long since he last slept? “Did you get what I sent you for?”
Skull grins, revealing her childhood, her diet, her smoking habit. All vastly divergent. (Perfect.)
This time her fingers don’t hesitate to dip inside her open jacket – a men’s coat, worn but serviceable, no patches (good) and a deep, dirty burgundy in colour. The inside front pocket rustles stiffly, and Skull holds out the grubby photos for Sherlock to snatch and inspect, and for a moment he’s alone, absorbed in the details he holds in his hands. These men – these fingers on triggers, eyes to scopes, noses seeking blood – will die.
A sandwich (two day old bread, wilted lettuce, greener than red tomatoes, and something that resembles bacon) appears in his field of vision. Sherlock blinks.
“Eat,” Skull says. “Those photos were taken 20 hours ago over 300 miles from here – you’re not going to catch them tonight, running on empty.”
Sherlock blinks again. “No.”
“Eat,” Skull insists.
Sherlock looks away. He can’t he can’t he can’t.
“Christ.” Skull reaches over and breaks a piece of the crust off and eats it herself. “How long have I been helping you, now, Sherlock?”
Three years, Sherlock thinks. “Three years,” he whispers.
Skull purses her lips and picks up half the sandwich, takes a bite. Something inside Sherlock unwinds, and he finds he’s able to bring hands to sandwich, sandwich to mouth, teeth together, chewing, swallowing. The taste is foul and unwanted, sour and bland at once, and it’s a battle to push masticated lumps past the tightness in his throat.
He’s known Skull longer than he’s known John.
His half of the sandwich is done. Skull is staring at him. “I got you something else,” she says, softly, and he looks at her, for once not knowing what she’s going to say or offer.
Her mobile screen lights up in front of his eyes.
Travel itinerary.
Three travel itineraries.
“How?” he asks – then shakes his head. “Mycroft.”
Skull nods, and Sherlock smiles a tight smile for no one. (John would never have – would he? – no – )
Sherlock sighs.
“You can finish it,” Skull says, soft, intense, and the light in her eyes (belief, faith, trust) is a soft sunlight glow. “Then you can go home.”
Sherlock snorts, derisive, disdainful scoff. “So eager to be rid of me? You’ll be out of a job.” Their payment system is a complicated dance of favor for favor, and she can’t possibly understand how much he owes her still, how very, very much.
Three years of being his eyes when he couldn’t surface, his hands when they were tied by caution, bound by careful planning, the safest harbor in an unrelenting storm.
Three years.
Skull grins at him, and there’s a sharp edge to it. “I think I’ll survive.” She nods at the computer in front of Sherlock, where the wifi tab has been running up the cost a treat. “You will, too, if you know what’s good for you.” On the screen, news of London. Sherlock had been drinking in the words of home before she arrived, before she brought the photos he had sent her for and this parting gift of itineraries, a welcome home present from his elder brother.
Finish it; go home.
Finish them; come home.
His fingers dance across the keyboard (cracks between the keys dusted with crumbs and cigarette ash, disgusting). The screen flips to blue, hourglass turns, he’s logged out, standing, paying at the counter, is already outside, purpose flooding his veins, guiding his muscles, focusing his mind.
Waiting, searching, tracking – chipping away at the foundations had been easy torture, mind-numbingly simple and unending.
This is none of those things.
This will be an exact detonation, an implosion set to down the entire structure, elegant, ruthless, final. Dorcee, Yudaz, Moran. Three men, three plans, one outcome, and it dances in the future like daybreak.
Skull follows him to the station and stops on the platform when he steps onto the transit train. She knows she’s not coming with, and he knows he will likely never see her again.
(Preferable.)
(No need of her in London.)
He turns and faces her. In three years her hair and clothes have fluctuated between punk and proper, but her face and her presence have been a constant. They both have new scars, and she’s still limping from last night. After a moment, he nods his good byes. “Thank you – Alex.”
He hadn’t planned on saying that, but there it is. And there’s that smile, reminding him through dissonance of one far, far away.
Train doors close, and distance between them grows, and then she’s simply another shape, collection of details growing dimmer with distance.