Sherlocked (BBC Fanfiction)

Chapter 1 - 221B Baker Street

“If you love me let me go,” he told me, his voice raw and breaking.  He lay on his back; his side completely blasted apart, his smaller intestine half-way hanging out of his wound.

            I swallowed back tears, sweat and blood dripping down my side.  “No,” I mumbled and pressed the blood-soaked T-shirt to his side, bombs going off all around us, shaking us to the core.  “Don’t you dare.”

            Brendon smiled at me and started crying.  He took his helmet off and shoved it at me.  “Try not to get into trouble,” he sobbed.  His words were like knives, leaving scars in my flesh.

            “No!”  I screamed at him and thrust his helmet back at him.  “Don’t say that!”

            “Jordyn, listen to me!”  He shouted using more strength than he had.  His head fell back against the dirt and rocks, his eyes perpetually open, staring up at the sky.

            “I’m listening,” I told him, my throat closing up.  “Talk to me I’m listening!” 

            My eyes snapped open to an obscured vision of a blurry bench and grass.  Rubbing the tears from my eyes, I felt my heart beating against my ribs harder than it should be.  I closed my eyes again, trying to will the nightmare/recollection away, trying to protect my subconscious from the broken memories and locking them away in a permanent slumber.

            I sat up from leaning achingly over the right and felt my muscles and rib cage expand then contract.  Assembling my philosophy that “This is better than therapy,” (I attend it anyhow) I brushed my collar bone length mud brown, wavy hair out of my eyes and rolled my shoulders.  Taking a deep breath, the fear of falling apart prevailing over all others, I stood up and stretched my sore limbs.  Checking my iPhone for the time, it read “6:45.”  The man I’m supposed to meet should be here any minute now.  With the sun sinking below the horizon and a cool breeze whipping through the park, this was my favorite time of day.

Wearing my favorite long sleeve shirt tucked into high-rise jeans, my sneakers, and Anorak military jacket, I felt apprehensive.  What if this man is an ass-hole?  What then?  This is the only option I’ve got.  “Jordyn Watson,” I heard from behind me.  The voice was deep with undertones I couldn’t quite detect.

            I spun around to see a tall man in a black Milford coat, dark pants and shoes, with a navy blue scarf, curly black hair, and high cheek bones standing in the grass about seven or eight feet from my bench.  “Sherlock Holmes,” I said. 

He walked forward and held his hand out.  “Finally get to meet you in person instead of through phone.”

            “Yes,” I agreed and shook his hand, his dwarfing mine.  I looked into his eyes and read as much as I could within half a second.  Late twenties, early thirties, lives alone, emotionally guarded-mentally and physically-my thoughts stopped there.

            “So,” he said.  “Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"What?"

           “Your haircut, the way you hold yourself, says military.  But your conversation on the phone — said you were trained, so army.  Obvious, too obvious. Your face is slightly tanned, but no tan above the wrists — you've been abroad but not sunbathing. The limp's really bad when you walk, but you don't ask for a chair when you stand, like you've overlooked about it, so it's at least comparatively psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were probably traumatic — wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan — Afghanistan or Iraq."