ANARCHY [BBC Sherlock Fanfiction] [On Hold]

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Power's been out for days now.

Cheap tea lights are perched around the flat and the smell of rain has seeped through thin wallpaper. It mingles, joining with the pervasive scent of rancid meat. The leftover turkey carcass sitting in the refrigerator hasn't been cold in a while.

A little hand reaches towards one of the candle flames, which has inverted its basic nature and gone still. The hand belongs to a four-year-old girl and it doesn't falter, even when her fingertips are licked with searing heat. Her brain has momentarily bypassed instinct.

The girl's mother reaches her before the flame can curl its way past Sera's wrist.

• • •

Helen Martin leans against a doorframe, watching as her six-year-old daughter wanders the room. A blindfold is knotted over Sera's eyes, and her faintly scarred fingers are outstretched in an attempt to locate Josie Andrews, a girl from school who had invited her over for a playdate. As is the case with many mothers, Helen had been invited in for tea and never really left.

Next to her, Josie's mother chatters on about news anchors and the doom of politics.

"That's not fair," Josie says when Sera reaches her hiding spot. "You didn't give me enough time. Start over."

Helen chews her lip, picking at a curl of dead skin on the side of her fingernail and wondering which stunt would be enough to divert attention. Sera has not responded. She has instead stilled, the blindfold remaining in place over her eyes.

"You whine a lot."

Josie's mother flicks her gaze to the woman beside her, her mouth now shut in a firm line. This is a silence Sera recognizes.

"That's alright though, everyone else does," Sera remarks, in an attempt to gain back the favor of her new playmate. Josie remains quiet, a sour expression on her face, but she straightens nevertheless. She is impatient to get the game started again.

Helen feels her dread receding, and she offers a weak smile. Josie's mother crosses her arms, making no comment, but she is relieved when her daughter brings home a different friend the next day.

• • •

It began with powder, but that was exchanged for needles quickly enough.

The thirteen-year-old girl pushes the front door open, greeted with a clear view through to Helen's bedroom. The woman pushes a drawer shut, pale fingers trembling as she tugs her sleeve down in a flash. Helen pretends to not have seen her daughter as she closes her bedroom door.

• • •

Sera does not move when she receives the letters of acceptance.

During her later years in secondary school, she'd allowed her grades to drop. Despite this, she had done well on her A levels, and she'd been very adept at stroking the egos of the various universities she'd applied to.

Though a rather necessary trophy, Sera does not continue school for the shiny new degree. She wants the experience. The chance to dip herself in something different: a cesspool of hormones and conformingly rebellious young adults. She calls it a getaway. A vacation from a district of fake little people and less fake boogeymen. She is disappointed when she arrives to find no change.

She has many wonderful friends at University, or at least that's the line she likes to use when a curious uncle or aunt inquires about her education. There are, of course, people she prefers to spend her time with and those she doesn't, but calling them "friends" is a bit of a stretch.

These acquaintances, speculating upon her reserved attitude and choice of study, make little jibes from time to time, puffing their intellectual chests; after all, psychology isn't a real science. She is irritated—it eats away at her. But, at the same time, Sera can't help but enjoy their underestimations: it becomes her little game, one that no one knows she's playing and winning.

She completes her various tiers of education with recommendations from multiple professors—each of which would happily recite that Sera Martin has a glittering career in forensic psychology before her. Perhaps it is that promise that leaves her unsatisfied.

Perhaps that is also why she allows her cursor to pause over the only unread email in her inbox:

2 December 2010
To Doctor Sera Martin

Dear Dr Martin,

You have been recommended and we have some psychiatric work that may be of interest to you. A substantial sum will, of course, be enclosed upon completion.

Should you accept, please respond to this email directly. Location details will be provided accordingly. Arrive at 2:00PM next Sunday. Expect a four-week residence, but please keep luggage to a minimum.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
David Basram
Sherrinford Senior Administrator and Prison Governor