Fight for Me

Chapter 37

That night, after John had gone upstairs to bed, Sherlock and Lydia sat in total silence. It wasn't entirely comfortable, but at the same time it wasn't necessarily uncomfortable. It was tense, weighed down by the knowledge that a wrong word would lead to Lydia's death. Yet she found more than ever that she wished to tell him everything in hopes that he would have some miraculous fix for everything.

So that is what she did. Even with her rusty sign language, she made the attempt to communicate her life to Sherlock without uttering a word. She was completely open and vulnerable, something that scared her more than anything. It as though she was afraid that, once Sherlock saw who she really was, he would only be disappointed. She was afraid of him abandoning her, taking action on the information that he was learning, and leaving her and her friends to deal with the consequences.

It was a hard thing to trust someone completely and it was something she had never done before, not even with the others in her troupe. There things in her past she refused to tell anyone about, things she was ashamed of, but she told them to Sherlock, desperate to prove that what she was telling him was the truth as she knew Sherlock would hesitate to believe her after the number of times she had lied.

So Lydia told the story of her past, breezing past the things he already knew: the death of her father and her mother's consequent decline into drugs, how the theatre became a refuge for her. But then she added how as a fourteen year old kid, she starting using herself, desperate to get some sort of relief from the shitty life she had been forced into. Sherlock seemed a bit surprised that she had been a user herself, but she tried not to gauge his reactions, knowing it would only bring pain.

"The director of the community theatre I performed in noticed that I was acting differently and it didn't take long for him to find out about the drugs," she signed, keeping her gaze fixed on a book laying open on the ground. "It wasn't a difficult leap as mum was no longer trying to hide her drug usage. But he was furious at me for throwing away my life and threatened to cut me off from the theatre if I was ever to touch the stuff again. I wanted to stop, I really did, but at that point it had become an addiction. That's how I came across the Rose Foundation, they promised to help me recover and get me the training I needed to become a professional actor. I should have realised that it was too good to be true, but I was desperate and in need of a fix, so I went with them.

"They didn't just train me in acting, singing, and dancing. The focus was on survival skills - self defense, how to cover our tracks, lying under pressure. For the first few years it was mostly theoretical and exercises in the classroom. But after that, we began to receive field tests. I learnt how to pickpocket, how to smuggle. If we were caught, we would not receive any help from the Foundation, we had to figure it out ourselves."

"Were you ever caught?" Sherlock signed, the movement of his hands causing her attention to flicker over to him.

Lydia nodded solemnly, "when I was seventeen, they sent me and a few other students. I was the oldest, so I took charge of the job and felt it was my responsibility to make sure that everyone got out safely. One of the younger students tripped a silent alarm, we didn't realise it until it was too late. I tried to help the others get to safety, but one got shot by a copper responding to the scene. The rest made it out safely, but it cost me my own freedom. Knowing that the Foundation wasn't going to help me, I used a bobby pin to pick the lock of the handcuffs and then knocked into the cop in the front seat, sending the car into a tree. When I returned to the Foundation, after making sure I had successfully escaped the police who were after me, I was punished for having gotten caught. That's when I learnt that I had to put my own safety above that of others."

Sherlock frowned at her last statement and inquired, "but don't you look out for the others that you sing with?"

"I said I learnt that lesson, I never said that I actually applied it. Cutting yourself off emotionally is harder than it appears, but of course you would know that. Sentiment has a tendency to seep through the cracks and you find yourself caring deeply about another person, no matter how hard you try to prevent it. And when it feels like it's only you and them against the world, it's nearly impossible to prevent," Lydia confessed, watching emotions pass through Sherlock's eyes.

She knew it was probably wrong to connect her life to his, but she saw herself in the cold facade he put up. And he saw his heart in his interactions with John. He claimed to be emotionless, but when she looked emotions were all she could see.

Sherlock was clearly angered by this, his jaw clenching as he changed the subject, "how does Moriarty fit into the Foundation?"

"We're part of his web. He can use any of the Foundation's assets for his own interests and in return we get protection. Your brother knows about us, but he hasn't acted upon it, why do you think that is?"

"He claimed it was because you weren't causing too much trouble so it wasn't worth the effort."

Lydia shrugged, "I suppose that is not wrong. But I'd imagine he meant it more in the sense that we are an insignificant part of Moriarty's web, he'd rather let us continue as we are in hopes that he can use us to take down people more important. Besides, if he were to try to take us down, it likely Moriarty would be able to prevent that happening, he has more power than you realise."

Sherlock leant back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin, working through the information that Lydia had given him. He had figured out most of it already, of course, but the drugs he was surprised by. She had seemed so against them, shunning her mother for using them, that was not the normal behavior of a former user. Then again, she seemed to delegate some blame for getting wrapped up in the Rose Foundation to the drugs, which would explain her hatred. And he now had confirmation that Moriarty was involved, which meant he had known that Sherlock was at the charity event and that he carved into Lydia's skin as a message for him. Sherlock would never let him get away with that.

"When will your friends be getting back from America?" Sherlock finally asked, starting to formulate a plan.

"They're scheduled to be there for another two weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are forced to stay for longer. The Foundation seems to want to keep me in your presence to spy on you."

Sherlock's lips twitched upwards, "and that is clearly going well for them."

Tilting her head down to try to hide her smile, Lydia signed, "they should have predicted I didn't want to blindly serve them anymore. If there is any way I can bring them down without bringing harm to my friends, I would happily sacrifice my own life for it."

"It will not come down to that. We will figure out a way to get that locket off safely," Sherlock assured her after standing and placing a hand on her shoulder. "For now, you should get some sleep, not everyone can survive days without sleep like I can."

"Just because you can survive it, doesn't mean you should do it. You finished your case, go get some rest too."

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(A/N): Just some quality time for Sherlock and Lydia for you all (meaning one, maybe two readers lol). Nothing too exciting happened in this one, but I promise things will pick up again, but we can't have action all of the time, mostly because I like having some peaceful time for the two of them to enjoy before I undoubtedly cause them pain 😊