Sherlocked (BBC Fanfiction)

Chapter 12 - Fragile Things

“Do you understand?”

“What’s not to get?”  I said.  Mycroft continued to stare at me.

“My dear brother, as keen and clever as he may be, does not, and seem to never will, understand when a girl is…philandering with him-”

“You think I am?”  I cut him off.  I laughed.  “You think I’m flirting with Sherlock Holmes?” 

“I was only stating,” Mycroft said, unamused.  Choosing not to respond, I took to surveying the massive room.  I found my eyes settling onto the fireplace, a fire crackling, demolishing the wood.

“So, what do you do?  What is your job?”  I asked.

“I work for the Government,” he simply specified.

“He is the British Government when he's not too busy being the British Secret Services or the CIA on a freelance basis.”  I spun around, seeing Sherlock striding toward us, having stopped back at the flat to retrieve his coat.

“For goodness sake!  I occupy a minor position in the British Government,” Mycroft retorted, not even bothering to look at his brother.

“Good morning, Mycroft.  Try not to start a war before I get home, you know what it does for the traffic,” Sherlock said to him.  “Jordyn, come with me if you want to live.”

I stood up, wondering how Sherlock managed to get inside, and wrapped my blanket around me.  I started walking and said, turning my head around, “Thanks, Mycroft, for the coffee.”  I followed Sherlock to the door and outside.  A cab was waiting by the sidewalk.  We strode over and climbed inside.  It then suddenly occurred to me that this is the most I’ve ever taken a cab in three days.

Pulling the seat belt across my chest, the cabbie drove off.  “We need to go back to the vineyards,” Sherlock said to me, an urgent tone to his voice.

“What?  Why?”  I asked.  My mind went scrolling through options on why we would need to return, but none made sense.

“Amelia Williams is still alive,” he stated.

I felt muddled, disoriented.  “No.  He...ate her, though-”

“No.  When I inspected his mouth-”

He pretended not to notice my slightly disordered expression-

“-there were no traces of her flesh anywhere in his mouth.  At all.  Not even her blood,” Sherlock explained.

“What?”  I said.  “At all?”

“That means it was somebody else, but he wanted to make us think he had already taken care of Amelia Williams.  But he didn’t.  So there has to be more people, more victims.”

“Underground?”  I immediately said.  Sherlock seemed a bit surprised.  “What?  No?  Not underground?”

“No, no.  Yes,” he said.

“Yes as in no?”  I said.

“No.  No there is.  No as in yes.”

“No as in yes?  No there aren’t or yes they’re?”  I couldn’t keep this straight.

“No, there is!”

“Sherlock!”

“What?”  I shot him a look.

“Look, I want to stop back at the flat and change into actual clothes,” I said, changing the subject.

“Be quick, though.  Lives are at stake here.”