Annabella Hudson (Sherlock fanfic)

Chapter 2

I put the last of the boxes on the floor in my new room. I sighed as I looked around. This is my home now.

"Go get yourself cleaned up before I have a look at your hands." Said John. "There's an ensuite over there with a fresh bar of soap. I expect you have your own towel?"

"Yes thankyou, I have my own shampoo too, I know that auntie Martha's shampoo gives me a rash so I thought better than to come without any."

John left the room so I could clean myself up and get normal pretty clothes like I would usually wear. Just so you know, I do care for my appearance but I am not at all a priss, I hate those types of people. I brushed my hair and made myself presentable, unlike fifteen minutes ago, where I was wearing the pyjama top and trackies I had been wearing when I woke up to find my parents burnt to the crisp, I hadn't changed them at all throughout the week and today I just put on a jumper to hide the slob marks.

I sat on the table in auntie Martha's kitchen, swinging my legs with auntie Martha making a cup of tea opposite me, Mr. Holmes staring cryptically at his laptop screen next to me and John examining my hand with a first aid kit lying next to me. I winced as he moved one of my knuckles. It felt as if I had a slight fracture in one hand, unluckily it was my writing and makeup hand.

"You have a fracture in one hand. Not to worry, I'll put a bandage on it and change it when it needs changing. You can't use this hand very much over the next three weeks so you'll need to take a laptop instead of a notebook to your college. Do you have one?" I groaned internally.

"No I don't. I also don't have any other way of doing my daily makeup."

"Your inheritance comes in tomorrow." Auntie Martha piped up I opened my mouth to protest but she cut me off. "We can go get you one tomorrow when the inheritance comes in because as you are the only relative apart from me, you get the full inheritance and as for your makeup, well, I can do that easily. I used to do it when I was younger."

"Thankyou auntie Martha. I'm so lucky you live here too, Mr. Holmes probably wouldn't know makeup from paint, it would be atrocious!" I gratified

"It's Sherlock and of course I know what makeup is and I also know how to use it. I do have a mother you know." Mr. Holmes piped up.

"That mother has quite a lot to answer for, Sherlock, you and your brother." Auntie Martha butted in as she placed the cups on the table.

"Well then, Sherlock, seeing as you are being so kind as to speak, could you take a minute out of your cryptic staring to lift me off the table so I don't spill the tea?" I chirped as happily as I could with the fact that he had started talking.

"Broken your concentration huh?" John said, surprised, "and why not ask me?" He asked with a slightly hurt look on his face.

"Well, one, you're married and two, you're the same height as me. Sherlock, however is way taller than me and hasn't pledged his loyalty to anyone, therefore he can pick someone up without it being viewed as unfaithful." I chirped with a smug look on my face.

"Your parents have taught you well, Annabella. It's no surprise, they were obsessed with you becoming an excellent citizen and looking good doing it. They took you to feed the homeless when you were a week old, you know?" Auntie Martha smiled as she reminisced. A tear slipped from my eye as I remembered how good people they were, then another, and another.

"Sherlock!" I heard John whisper and I sensed Sherlock straighten up and John gesture towards something but I was too lost in my world of memories and flooded in my tears to move.

Suddenly I felt a pair of arms wrap around me from the side, it was definitely Sherlock, no-one in the room was that tall. I saw John stand up, move over to Sherlock and whisper in his ear. I could not hear what he said but he then stepped back and I felt Sherlock pick me up but he didn't put me down, instead, he carried me out of the room and down the hallway. I was confused as to what he was doing. He carried me up the stairs and into the living space with a couch and chair in it and set me down on the couch. The furniture and wallpaper in this room is very old fashioned, and there is a yellow smiley face painted on the wall.

"Run in with a psychotic serial killer that was almost as clever as me." He said as he saw me staring confused at the face. My eyebrows creased up in confusion "what would a serial killer want with you?"

"Don't you know? I'm a detective. Most popular detective ever, for that fact."

"Well I never heard about you."

"You wouldn't, you lived at the other side of the country."

"How did you know that?"

"Martha informed me of your situation. She told me where you're coming from, why you're coming and where you'll stay. She also told me to be nice to you but I don't know what she means, I'm pleasant to live with."

"So that analysis of me in the hallway earlier, that was a fluke?"

"No, it was just easier than usual" I finally looked at him and realised he was holding a violin. He started playing the violin, closing his eyes. He obviously knew this piece well, as if he had grown up playing it. It was the most beautiful piece of music I had ever heard.

"Who wrote that?"

"I did, actually."

"Really?" I chuckled slightly

"Yes. I wrote it when I was fourteen years old."

"Is that why you know it so well?"

"Yes"

"It's beautiful"

"Thankyou"

Sherlock sat down on the chair opposite me "so, tell me about what happened with your parents."

I sat up, surprised at him, but chose to comply. "Ok, my parents were the kindest people in the neighbourhood, they wouldn't hurt a fly, everyone loved them, even the outlaws of the town. Then one morning, I came downstairs to find them in the back yard, burnt to a crisp. There were shards of my mother's favourite vase on their bedroom floor and my. Father's glasses were smashed on the kitchen floor and there was a scary black jacket on my kitchen worktop, it had a picture of someone ripping their own face off on the back and on the patio, there was a stud that wasn't there the night before. After searching the scenes, they found oil spills on my grass on the front garden and blood splatters on the kitchen cupboards, that had been cleaned off." I finished, crying, with sodden cheeks. I felt sherlock's arms wrap around my shoulders once again.

"It sounds like I'll have to go down to investigate the murder, it sounds an interesting case to me, and of course, you would want closure, it's only natural. But while me and John are down at your hometown investigating, we will have to put you under protection because for whatever reason they had to murder your parents, they will also have to murder you, so you may be next. Tomorrow, before you go anywhere, we will be getting you a guard. I will be leaving two days from now, on Monday."

"Why are you doing this for me?"

"Because, you and Martha only have each other, and Martha is very dear to me, as she is close to a mother to me. Because you are one of the only things she has left, she would want you protected and therefore I want you protected."

"So you do have feelings?"

"Yes but I tend not to keep in touch with them, they get in the way."

"How?"

"I found it hard to let go of John and let him go make himself a new life with someone else. Because of this, I found a simple case so extremely hard to fathom."

"Wow. So you don't want people to leave you?"

"Nope." He popped the P.

"Well that should be easy, auntie Martha's not going anywhere and this is the only time I've left anyone or anywhere, but this time, it was because I felt I was going insane sitting there with those memories, cooped up in my house." I sighed, resting my head on his arm. I found it strange being so close to someone who wouldn't usually get close to anyone.

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What do you think about this chapter? Do you think Sherlock is changing or do you think it's a once in a lifetime experience?