Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXXXIV - Lipstick Laceration

-Emily-

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I pick up John's notepad and run my finger along the indents, searching for the solution that eludes me. I've followed it like holy scripture: phone the nursery, nap at three, dinner before six. I look around at the bottles and bowls of vile-smelling pulps and liquids and pastes – I spent thirty minutes trying to get the ratio between powder and water correct, to little effect. Addy continues to howl; relentless in her own self-destruction.

The crying is constant. It's the type of bawling that grates, drags its proverbial claws down the chalkboard, sets my teeth on edge. I look down at her with loathing. Through narrowed eyes, she regards me with hatred.

I resist the urge to pick the wretched thing up by its ankles and swing it at the opposite wall.

Mycroft phoned in the early hours of the morning with news – they'd found a multi-million pound manor just east of Hillingdon, unguarded, easy to pinpoint. There was a sudden and unexpected release of bank information, all of which pointed to transactions concerning the same accounts, the same Russian surnames. Sherlock, John and half of Scotland Yard's police turnout flew there this morning.

I decided against accompanying them.

The bruises haven't faded: I've stripped down and stood in front of the mirror, seen the extent of the damage; I bear the shadows of his knuckles like lacerations, tattooed in greying ink, greenish highlights, the occasional scab. My lip is still healing – the bottom counterpart swollen twice the size of its upper equivalent – and the bruise around my eye aches dully, throbbing in time with the pain in my ribs.

Sherlock doesn't see the bruises. He looks straight through me.

I remember the expression on his face when I staggered back into the restaurant – if I hadn't been choking on the steady stream of blood from nose to throat, I'd have found it faintly comical, such was the intensity of his horror. There were people everywhere, hands on my back and arms and waist, helping hands, hands I wanted to tear from my skin and twist at the joints. Sherlock pushed through them all. His face focused.

I looked at him, and with a pain that stemmed from something deeper than the cuts across my skin, I told him we had to leave.

He didn't move for one long minute. I stumbled, drunk on blood loss, and took his sleeve in my hand. I implored him wordlessly. Behind me, I heard fragments of phone calls; words like him, Millie Shon, murder, police. Someone returned from the bathroom with news of his departure.

"She told me. She told me to go."

I watched Sherlock Holmes shut off emotion like a tap.

It was extraordinary, that blank-faced indifference; there was no trace of feeling in it, no gleam of sentiment. Mechanical refusal. He nodded his head once and turned on his heel – I wiped the sweat and the blood from my cheeks, and I started after him, clutching at walls and tables and people in an effort to keep standing. He wasn't waiting for me. I had to hail a taxi, and, after slurring the desired address, succeeded in passing out on the car seat, only to be roused half an hour later by a very concerned taxi driver.

John's tried to mediate, to no avail – Sherlock doesn't speak to me, and I've returned to my grim cycle of scouring security footage and drinking and breaching information and drinking and taking refuge in unfamiliar cars. I turned down the offer to search this residence. I don't have the energy.

I received the phone call three hours later.

The revelation was just too good to be true. As it transpires, the manor of Hillingdon was Ivan Yakovich's place of residence – up until very recently. John told me via phone call that they'd surrounded the building and knocked down the door, sent in the Firearms Unit with instructions to shoot the Russian, spare the woman.