Sinnerman - Sherlock (BBC)

Intermission: As The Voice Saying 'Let It Happen'

Night had fallen. She had sat there, her mind racing, her body drained, and watched as the light receded from the window and was replaced by the warm glow of the streetlight outside. Shadows grew like gentle monsters of the night. They were surprisingly comforting and wrapped around her in an eerie embrace. The coat still lay in a pile at her feet. 

Although her mind was racing, she wanted nothing more than for it to stop, for everything to stop. It felt as though she couldn't breathe through the congested thoughts. She was suspended between two lives and had no idea what to do next. A plan was needed, but it was like a thousand people were screaming possibilities to her at once. She couldn't think straight. She needed to breathe. 

Suddenly she stood up causing a rush of blood to make her dizzy. A part of her had motivated her to move in order to shut the thoughts up. She needed to distract herself. As the dizziness subsided, she turned to her pathetically small bag and opened it up. In it were a few items of clothing, pills, a spare walking stick, toiletries, and a plastic bag that had been given to her at her request. She pulled out the plastic bag and trudged towards the en-suite bathroom. Every footstep was an effort even without the throbbing pain caused by her injured leg. 

When she got to the pitch black room, she placed the bag in the sink before turning on the strip light situated above the mirror. It turned on with a ping and continued to hum like a dormant animal. Although the furnishings were all expensive and high-end, everything felt cold. She felt like the odd one out, like something stuck in your eye that you can't get out, a nuisance. Wincing, she looked at her reflection.

She had seen better days. Her green eyes seemed to have dulled and her hair had grown more limp. Bags hung under her eyes creating lines that had never existed before. Her skin was paler than usual. She was a shadow of the person she once was. It was as though a completely different person was staring back at her. 

With a sigh she reached to her left ear and carefully removed the hearing aid. Suddenly everything went quieter, the hum of the light faded away. It was replaced by the sound of moving water, constant white noise. Carefully, she placed it on the side of the sink before she emptied the contents of the plastic bag out into the bowl. 

First she picked up the box of hair dye. She hadn't chosen the colour herself, that task had been given to one of Mycroft's goons. It was a sickly, unnatural blonde colour, perfect. Placing it next to the hearing aid, she then picked up the scissors that were still in their packet. Ripping them out with her bare hands proved to be harder than expected, but she got it eventually. 

Staring directly into the mirror, she leant over the sink. 

She had cut her own hair twice before. Once when she was 3, egged on by childish curiosity, that memory had long since disappeared, only a rumour of it remained. Then when she was 14, when one of their experiments had gone wrong and she needed an emergency fringe. Initially he had botched it, so with a laugh she took the scissors from his hands and fixed it herself. Despite their attempts, her mother found out, and they were both grounded for months. 

With still hands and dead eyes, she cut her own hair for the third time. Her beautiful long waves collected in the sink like animal tails lying atop each other. Before long the sink was a mass of brown and she could feel strands of hair lapping at the bottom of her neck, a bizarre feeling she hadn't experienced before. She tried to shape it into a rugged pixie cut with a long fringe. After ages of shaping and cutting, she withdrew and observed her handiwork as a whole. It didn't look too bad, but it wasn't perfect. However, she looked like a completely different person and that's what mattered. 

Without hesitation, she robotically began to pile all of the hair into the plastic bag before tearing open the hair dye. She had never used this stuff before but she had a habit of picking things up quickly. 

Sure enough after careful and precise application, when she finally let the dye wash off and trickle down the sink, it looked perfect. It looked natural. She didn't look like Elizabeth Louise-Parker anymore, she looked like Juliet Thorn. 

As she stared at this new person standing before her, she could see a new life forming. She visualised someone who owned a shop, who was married, who lived a painfully boring and normal life. She saw someone who didn't even know of the existence of Sherlock Holmes. 

Tears had started to race down her cheeks. She felt a painful battle inside of her taking place between two people. All of her memories, her identity, her life, would be pointless and redundant. She may as well have died at the bottom of that river. A heavy sadness weighted her body down and she felt as though she was stuck between two lives. The rushing water was louder than ever, loud enough to drown out her own cries that grew bigger with each second. 

She didn't realise that she was screaming. There was a war inside of her. Everything drowned out everything to the point where nothing made any sense whatsoever. Time and life seemed to stop in that small hotel room. She was feeling the pain of death whilst remaining very much alive. 

She didn't realise that she had smashed the mirror. Because she didn't know who had smashed the mirror. It was only until Juliet looked down to see blood on her hands that she suddenly felt the physical pain that dragged her out of her state. 

Suddenly it was over. Juliet had won almost by accident. She had little time to realise that fact as she was busy pulling the glass out of her thumb. 

The break between her two lives was over. 

Half an hour later she collapsed onto the porcelain bed silently, her hands carefully wrapped up in a ripped up t-shirt. Juliet was exhausted. But her mind was wide awake. The next day she would leave the hotel and what was left of Elizabeth-Louise Parker behind, along with the memory of Sherlock Holmes. 

It took her hours to fall asleep. But just before she did, she swore she could hear the distant sound of a woman praying.