Young Holmes

Chapter two (look who finally remembered they had an account)

She spent the evening packing her things together. Now, she wasn't like one of those Dickins' orphans that only had one set of clothes but still, when she had everything together she was surprised by how little she actually owned. She had enough but still, there were no old clothes she'd keep out of sentiment. No new clothes she'd own and never wear. No festive stuff to only wear once or twice a year. To summarise, none of the stuff she'd have if that place was her home.

She was woken up rather early in the morning. Excited. Actually excited. She hadn't expected that. Quietly, she snuck to the small wardrobe, the far left one in a line of small wardrobes. Not in any way personally decorated except for the burn traces a self-made bomb had left. (One of the reasons she'd previously been sent to the headmistress) She picked out her clothes, a T-Shirt with a colourful reptile she'd made in one of the annoying crafting courses the orphanage had organised and heavily used looking jeans with traces various bush hiding times, nightly escapades and scientific experiments had left; catching herself thinking it would impress Holmes most. Also, a big men's watch she assumed to have nicked from her dad and a wing-shaped medallion she believed to be her mum's. In the bathroom, she looked at the girl in the mirror in front of her and was amused by how much of a mess she was. Her brightly orange curls she'd cut herself using crafting scissors, her pale freckles and her big, blue-green eyes with a touch of brown on the right one stood in a harsh contrast to the scar on her lip, her size of 5'7 and the focused, serious look on her face. You could've guessed her thirteen and eighteen at the same time.

Seeing the janitor, the headmistress and one of the male secretaries at the door of the dorm room, she put on her coat, grabbed her bag and quietly snuck an army knife into her pocket. "You seriously think I need two men escorting me?", she laughed and looked at the headmistress. "I think you could easily take down both of them and more but sending the entire personnel with you seemed a little weird", the woman smiled back and accompanied them to the front door. "Have a good time. Try not to come back."

During the two and a half-hour train ride she kept herself busy by observing the other people on the train. The first task she set herself, always the first task was to find the person most likely to be a threat. After a while of looking around and not seeing anyone, she noticed a black-haired man with dark eyes sitting two rows behind her. He was dressed smartly and looked so extraordinarily normal that she assumed he was doing his best to blend in. After noticing her gaze, he looked at her in surprise. Maybe he was someone who knew her from her past. An enemy of her father or something like that. She remembered having read somewhere that if a person stared at you for more than five seconds, they either wanted sex or to kill you. (She hoped it was the second reason) Next task was finding the person who was the easiest to murder. In that, she couldn't decide whether it was the secretary "guarding" her or the woman sitting across the floor who was constantly on the phone and didn't seem to notice any of her surroundings. Both could easily be poisoned by her, if she had any poison.

When they finally arrived at Paddington Station, she got up and was amused by the two men escorting her, the janitor in front of her and the secretary at the back. As she walked past the suspicious suit man, he looked at her again. The secretary put his hand on her shoulder, almost as if he was thinking she was going to run away with the potential serial killer. To mess with him a little, she suddenly stopped, causing him to run into her. "Oh, come on.", she said quietly. "I'm not going to run away with some random stranger. And if I was, you couldn't stop me."

At the platform, she immediately noticed Holmes and Watson standing next to each other waiting for her. She quickly scanned them. Watson looked tired and had some stains of baby food on the shirt he was wearing under his open jacket. He'd apparently left the baby with someone else, likely the landlady, and looked almost relieved about that. Holmes was shorter than she'd expected and looked equally tired. She didn't notice any baby traces on him, only some fresh stains on his trousers. By their colour and position, quite like the ones she wore with pride, she got to the conclusion that he'd been up late experimenting with Chlorine and some other, apparently inflammable substance she couldn't quite identify. Then he'd tried to hide the traces, which apparently worked given that Watson didn't seem to know about them. She suspected he'd be slightly pissed if he knew his friend was experimenting with explosives around his daughter. She walked up to them, slightly straightening her pose as she noticed Holmes observing her. As she reached them, Watson extended his hand, looked at her and said: "You must be Lucia, nice to meet you." Looking at the two men behind her, he added: "I think we're going to have some fun the next two weeks." She took his hand: "Hi, we'll see. And I'm okay with pretty much every nickname that makes the whole thing sound a little less pretentious." She looked over to Holmes. "Nice trousers, but why Chlorine? It makes the whole thing less controllable." He looked genuinely surprised, smiled and said: "It was worth a try. I see, you thought that too about a year ago, am I right?" "A year and a half." She smiled and took her bag back from the janitor who had offered to take it to make the whole thing look more natural. "Shall we?"