Chapter Text
The case began when the Watson household ran out of milk.
John Watson had stared down the empty milk carton, as if that would prompt it into refilling itself, but after wincing his way through a cup of tea without milk, he’d admitted defeat. That was how, that afternoon, he had ended up in the dairy aisle of the nearby supermarket, with Rosie in a baby carrier on his chest.
“Take Rosie to the shops with you. She’ll probably enjoy it.”
Mary had said this while looking for her keys, responding to a call from work, until she’d eventually found them in a bowl on the worktop.
Rosie was enjoying it. By grabbing at anything in reach and trying to pull it off the shelves. Multiple times.
“Decisions, decisions.”
He examined the tub of yoghurt he’d picked up in his left hand from all the brightly coloured, same looking tubs in the aisle, placed it back on the shelf to be able to pick up the tub on the right. Then, he picked up the tub on the left again. Honestly, he could pick any random tub – Rosie still wouldn’t eat it.
“All of them wrong.”
You’re good at making those, a snide voice remarked from some corner of his brain.
No, Mary made the wrong decision tonight bailing on their quiet night in to go and sort some work thing out. He repressed the twinge in his chest from the memory of the luck and good day he wished her hitting the closed door.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she’d said. Then later she claimed she wouldn’t be able to make it home and that she was sorry.
“Can I help you sir?”
John jumped. A young girl in a polo shirt with the shop’s logo and a nametag, that read KRISHA, bounced up and down on her heels next to time. Before he had the chance to refuse her, she noticed Rosie and clapped her hands.
“Oh! I see. When my cousin had to switch to proper food, it was actually hard to get her to like yoghurt. So,” – she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach a yellow tub with bees on it from the very top shelf, pausing from breath for the first time – “we gave her one with honey in it, because she, like most little ones, enjoyed the sweetness. If you mix some with mashed bananas and put it on brown bread you can get her eating toast and sandwiches in no time! Because I know that…”
She paused, looked at him as she handed him the tub, waiting on a name.
“Rosie.”
“Because I can just tell Rosie likes honey, don’t you Rosie?”
Rosie doesn’t give her a reply, fascinated by the girl’s black-brown curls as they bobbed up and down, reaching for them as Krisha pulled faces at her. John added another tub to his basket, leaning it against the extra carton of milk. If it was good for tricking stubborn babies into eating, hopefully, it would work on stubborn consulting dectitives.
“A family with a sweet tooth I see.”
She smiled, knowingly. He almost wanted to laugh, because she was wrong but explaining would be so complicated.
“Yeah,” he mused aloud. “Something like that.”
Later, as he wrestled with full shopping bags to be able to jiggle the key in the lock of 221B, Rosie mewled her in her sleep and shook a tiny fist to voice her annoyance at being jostled. He had to pause, half in the door, just to smile at her. It still blew his mind sometimes that two nuclei could become this whole other human that was part of you. Medical school may teach you how it happens scientifically (DNA and cell division and alleles) but it was something entirely different, entirely miraculous when it was your own child.
“Hello?”
A soft voice, belonging to a tall young woman bundled in worn clothes with a bulky backpack and a grimy hat pulled low over tangled brown hair, came from behind him. She nipped at a hangnail. A member of Sherlock’s homeless network.
“Is this 221B Baker Street?”
“Yes, hello,” he ventured in a way he hoped was kind. “Are you here to pass information onto Sherlock?”
The homeless girl glanced side to side suspiciously. Either the paranoia of a junkie coming down from a high or someone genuinely afraid of being followed. Junkie, he wanted to say, because she shivered in the warm spring air as if it were icy water.
“I’ve got a case. I’m a client.”
He doubted it. She swayed on her feet so he kneed open the door, so the least disturbance was caused to the sleeping Rosie. At least, he could get her help easily if she came inside. She was only young after all and wanted help.
“Okay. What’s your name then love?”
“Enola.”
She followed him up the stairs, slowly, eyes roaming as she took in her surroundings, half cautious, half curious. She reminded him of a wild rabbit, that’d been disturbed by a passer-by and couldn’t decide whether it should run or not. A slight limp, most probably from an old injury that hadn’t healed properly, was troubling her and as he waited for her to catch up, he had the chance to get a better look at her; the more John looked, the more concerned he grew.
Arms folded tight across her chest, to ground herself and give her courage, gripping at her wrists with long but broken nails. Too skinny for her height, maybe just a growth spurt or body build on first inspection now looked more like malnutrition. The bones in her face were too defined, her eyes too sunken. Normal teenagers also don’t shiver, with sweat on their brow.
Shouldering the door to the flat open, he gestured with his head for her to sit and excused himself to place Rosie down so she could continue her nap.
“Sherlock, client.”
The mop of ridiculous dark curls appeared, adorned with a a pair of oversized goggles, in the kitchen doorway. John found himself biting his bottom lip, stopping the laughter in his chest from bursting out. An annoyed Sherlock Holmes could put a toddler, even Rosie, to shame with his petulance and pouting.
He barely locked eyes with the client before John saw him freeze for a second, a sign, however brief that he was interested. He used a long finger to pull the goggles from his head, following the motion through by tilting his head. John could almost see the rapid firing of his neurons, connections being made so fast your head spun if you attempted to follow, deductions that seemed impossible and a new door being flung open in his mind palace.
Sherlock flicked his eyes towards him, asking a silent question that John almost missed. There was a social rule he knew he had to follow but he wasn’t sure what one, so he was asking for help.
“They say you can deduce a person’s life story from their clothes.”
Enola rolled her eyes at him as she said it, standing up, but her hands were shaking, betraying her nerves. However, she looked him right in the eyes and never broke the eye contact.
“The pity in your eyes is evidence enough that it’s true. So maybe you’ll also be able to see that you missed one.”
“Missed one what?”
A cutting remark, but the indifference it dripped was fake. Sherlock always pretended to be uninterested when he was really interested. John had given up trying to figure out why.
“The sniper. R. Moran.”
“Moriarty.”
“No. His right-hand man.”
“I got him in Serbia,” was said with a smirk.
“You didn’t.”
“How would you know?”
John felt like a cat watching a tennis match while watching the two volley words with each other. They fell into silence, staring. Just staring. Slowly, they circled one another but never broke the eye contact even once. It was like Enola was reflecting Sherlock’s stare onto him. John was reminded of the telepathic battles in the superhero comics he loved as a child. Either that, or the way wild animals size each other up, to decide whether the fight was one they could win.
Finally, Enola moved her eyes down. She lifted the back of her shirt up to show the tattoo just above the base of her spine. Thorny stems made of chicken scratch formed an “M”.
An involuntary shudder ran through John. Despite reminding himself daily that Moriarty was dead, definitely dead, the name still made him shiver. Another part of the comfort was the knowledge that Sherlock had dismantled his network while being…away. He couldn’t imagine someone escaping, although he didn’t doubt the girl. How could he when she said it so plainly but so desperate to be believed? He just harboured a secret wish she was simply confused or over-exaggerating.
“You’ve seen this mark in case files before. You know what trade I was in.”
She flinched as she swallowed, and John felt his stomach plummet. Early suspicions were looking more likely.
“And the trade was?”
He prompted her softly, as he felt he already knew the answer, but he clung to the hope she’d prove him wrong. Enola blinked at him as if he was stupid.
“Sex. With minors.”
The obviously was implied.
“Born into it. Expected to die into it. But I escaped and so you’re going to help me rescue the others.”
Scrabbling at her front pocket, she produced a photograph.
“Two in particular.”
The background was a typical living room, with faded wallpaper and an old, creased sofa. It looked like a normal house. But it’s the people Enola is tapping at with a yellowed nail that concerns John.
“Hestia.”
She pointed to the swaddled baby in the photo, John thought she couldn’t be more than a week old, with her wisp of dark hair and screwed up face.
“Perseus.”
Gentley, she placed her nail on the face of the dark-haired boy with sepia brown skin. He was young, not yet ten, but already skin and bone. He was staring straight into the camera but biting his lip like he was trying to stop it from trembling.
“Me.”
Enola is recognisable in the photograph, younger but no less battle hardened, sitting, her head held high and staring down the camera. One of her arms is around the fourth person’s waist, like she’s trying to hold her up with only one arm.
None of the children are smiling, all of them have the same silvery grey eyes, and Enola keeps the face of the fourth person deliberately covered by her thumb. As soon as she noticed John looking, she snapped;
“She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was years ago.”
Sherlock drew their attention as he fidgeted. His brow was furrowed in a cross between frustration and sympathy and John felt a rush of affection. Sherlock hated when clients prevented him from getting answers by putting the information forward as a personal narrative. His brain did not work with life stories, they were not what it wanted either. John could see him itching to snap, to get to the facts, the things that would let him solve the puzzle and the case.
But he didn’t. He listened to the girl, considered her feelings. He kept flicking his eyes towards John to check that he was doing it right. John loved his friend for it in that moment.
“Escape has only been possible since Moriarty’s network began to get dismantled, about three years ago, but now, Moran is back. Hunting us down.”
Enola tried to laugh but ended up making a strangled noise. Her legs gave away from under her and she collapsed on the sofa. John, having leapt from his chair, steered her by holding her elbow
“That’s why I am here. See I don’t mind that the crosshairs are on me. But my little brother and sister…”
A tear slipped from under her lashes and John placed his hand on top of hers. His heart almost broke from the pain from the thoughts of how this girl had survived, kept her siblings safe and what she’d been forced to do. The desire to hug her nearly overwhelmed him.
“I’ll find your siblings and end the brothel.”
Low, dark but soft, like an audio equivalent to velvet, Sherlock used the softest voice John had ever heard him use.
“I promise. We promise.”
Enola nodded, wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. Her stomach rumbled, and she flushed. At the same moment, Rosie wailed to let them know she felt left out.
"Get Rosie, I'll go get biscuits off Mrs Hudson.”
Sherlock shot a smile that John felt was meant to be reassuring then raced to the stairs. The way Enola looked, it wasn’t as reassuring as it had been meant.
After a red-faced Rosie was calm and happily playing on Mrs Hudson’s floor, John came down with tea for them, Enola’s sugar loaded. Sherlock had produced old crime scene photos from somewhere. He was nodding as Enola made some point about a warehouse.
“Do you know these people?”
“His name was J-James. Older than most, about to be shipped out to who knows where. Made a safe house. I knew they got him when they returned A-A-Annie and S-Stella. If you don’t keep running, keep on the streets as a nobody they found you and took you out.”
“So, he helped you escape?”
“Yes, and others. About ten others, I lost track. They moved us around a lot. Warehouses as well as normal houses. Kept us in groups of ten at most, five at least. Some of the people were…okay? If you can call them that. Like this one lady, she knew I was fascinated by her polaroid camera so, after a client, she’d let me use it as a reward and I think she did feel bad. No. I know she did because she did take a photo of us when I asked her to.”
“Was she part of Moriarty’s network?”
“I don’t think so. More like the wife of some criminal whose activities were useful for the network. Got caught up and was too scared to leave, I’d say.”
Sherlock gave her an impressed look. Enola shrugged, taking a bite out of one of the biscuits he’d filched off Mrs Hudson.
“Not as stupid as I look.”
John handed her another photograph, smiling as soothingly as he could.
“No, so can you recognise anyone here?”
She lists names. Enola can name too many of the dead children for John’s liking. Each and every time she stutters on the first letter of their names. Her leg bounces more with every name. She doesn’t move the other as much and he has concerns that the limp is more serious than he first thought. Catching his eye, she pulled her legs closer and tucking them out of view.
“Will you tell the police what you’ve told us?”
Sherlock asked softly and when she nodded, smiled. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear as he left the room.
“Lestrade, it’s Sherlock. The time isn’t important. What is important is the teenage girl who turned up on John and mine’s doorstep.”
His voice became muffled as he closed the door behind him. John tried to ignore the Freudian slip of him calling Baker Street his and John’s.
“You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be safe.”
Enola snorted. She didn’t believe him, and John couldn’t blame her.
“They got everyone else. I’ve only been out of there for three days. I would have come here quicker, but I was researching my options.”
“I’m sure there wasn’t many.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. There were many options but not many were actually good.”
She sighed.
“I’m considering them right now because I don’t think the police will make it until tomorrow.”
John was about to comfort her that Lestrade would arrive tonight but was interrupted by Sherlock throwing the door open and his phone at the wall.
“Lestrade can’t come until morning. Wrapping up a case, apparently.”
He paced the kitchen like a caged tiger and sneered at the fact that Lestrade could solve a case without his help. Enola was flicking her eyes between him and John. Time to step in before Sherlock scared the girl any more.
“I can stay here. The police will come here in the morning anyway, no point in trying to find a shelter.”
Enola beat him to it. She picked up her backpack and went into Sherlock’s bedroom. Sherlock looked affronted and John had to suppress a laugh. He clicked send on the text he’d wrote for Lestrade and turned to Sherlock.
“I asked him to bring a female officer when he comes tomorrow.”
“Not Donovan.”
It was said in unison. Enola was leaning on the doorway of Sherlock’s bedroom and John had the feeling she was enjoying the surprise on their faces. She threw one last line over her shoulder, before disappearing into Sherlock’s bedroom;
“I told you, Doctor Watson. I did my research. I mean, you were highly recommended, but I had my doubts.”