Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXXII - Little Suicide

-Emily-

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It is five o'clock when Addy starts to howl.

I sigh, irritated, and attempt to concentrate on the screen in front of me. Millie doesn't look up from the open book on her lap, although I know as well as she does that she's not reading. She hasn't turned the page in twenty minutes. I've been given begrudging responsibility over Addy's person in Sherlock's absence, and am currently hoping she'll scream until she passes out. I don't want to touch her if I can help it.

I blame Mycroft for the predicament. He's been texting Sherlock incessantly, convinced his brother's silence warranted his early demise. After the texts came the calls – ignored – and after the calls came the emails, sent to both Sherlock's phone and my laptop, until eventually three men in dark suits knocked on the door, sent from Mycroft, saying they were here to take a Mr Holmes by force. Sherlock had looked at me as if expecting a violent refusal on my part – and was promptly disappointed by the shrug of my shoulders and casual, "tell Mycroft I need a software update". I returned his glower with a smile as he was bodily dragged from living room to the waiting car, and decided to enact my revenge for his previous comments regarding my sexuality with a coy wave in his direction. I don't think I've ever seen Sherlock Holmes quite so close to homicide.

There is a sharp clatter as Addy – fuelled by my negligence – hurls her plastic cup at the floor; it bounces on the linoleum, rolls two feet from her stand-alone cot and comes to a halt over my newly-printed pile of documentation. Milk and saliva pool on the paperwork. I say something that would horrify mothers everywhere and slam my laptop lid shut, prepared to gag the thing with its hand-knitted scarf–

I register Millie's reaction.

She's very pale. I follow her gaze to Addy and watch as – with each cry – she flinches, visibly, as if the sound were a physical laceration. When Addy lifts her curled fists in outrage and hammers against the bars of her cot, Millie recoils – and when Addy takes a deep breath and commences one long, unceasing scream, Millie's breathing becomes so shallow and so rapid I fear the onset of hyperventilation.

I haven't told Sherlock.

I haven't told anybody. It plagues me in sleep and in consciousness, and I'm angry – there has been more than one occasion where I have found myself suddenly furious, at Millie, to the point where I have had to remove myself from the room in an effort at control. Behind closed doors, I break anything at my disposal: snap toothbrushes, crack pocket mirrors, tear tights down their nylon middle. I break for the sake of breaking. There's no justification.

Addy is crying with such force, she's knocked herself backwards; sitting on her padded legs and mouth open in a dark, glistening square. Millie's book has fallen from her lap. She's abandoned all attempts at composure now, and is currently clutching her arms as if to hold herself together at the seams. In spite of myself, and the unplaceable anger that dictates my mood, I take pity on her.

"I'll be back in an hour," I say, although I know she can't hear me. "I'm taking Addy out."

I approach the collapsible pushchair warily, its black trap mouth wide and gaping. It is comparable to a torture device, not child transportation. I curse as I try to wrench it open, struggling with the clasps and kicking the release lever until it gives: tightening the band holding back my hair, I wipe my forehead with the palm of my hand and look down. Addy looks back at me with red-rimmed eyes and wet, round lips, flushed and swollen; a halved cherry. Stiffly, I reach down and pick her up. She wriggles in my grip like an oversized maggot. I hold her at arm's length and – eyes closed – drop her into what I presume is the waiting pushchair–