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Moriarty squinted hard at the treasure map in his hands, then took a sizable sip from his cracked teacup with a long, contented sigh.
This was the scheme that would make him rich.
It did not matter that this was the eighty-third time he’d jotted these words down in his personal notes (but really, who was counting?). Moriarty considered himself an optimist. What were eighty-three humiliating, infuriating losses at the hands of an overgrown corgi, when he could but taste victory on the eighty-fourth - ?
“Writin’ in your diary again, Professor?”
Todd and Smiley, apparently not content with the exceedingly simple task of drilling through seven miles of bedrock, had instead chosen to interrupt Moriarty’s sense of inner peace.
“It’s a journal, you fools!”
“Aren’t they the same thing?” said Smiley, a blithering idiot who had nothing even closely resembling a point.
“Of course not! Imbeciles! And why aren’t you cranking?!”
“Well, ya see, Professor,” Todd protested, “’s on account of me arms.”
“What about your blasted arms?”
“They hurt, Professor,” was his forlorn reply as he rubbed an unkempt furry bicep. “Think I pulled out me ligaments.”
“Well, what are you waiting for, you dimwit? Put them back in!”
As Smiley helped Todd rearrange his ligaments before the pair resigned themselves to their crank-based fate, Moriarty slurped down the remainder of his darjeeling, and mused on how horribly lazy henchmen had gotten these days. Why, when he was still a henchman, he would have drilled through seventeen miles of bedrock in half the time! It was the youth, you understand. The lowest pups of twenty held none of the tenacity and brilliance of a mature, aged wolfdog of thirty-two years.
“Professor’s really pullin’ out all the stops today, eh, Smiley?” Todd grumbled as the digging machine puttered forward. “Fools, dimwits, imbeciles… Next up’s numbskulls, I think.”
“Yeah,” said Smiley mournfully. “Almost makes ya wonder if he don’t really like us.”
But before Moriarty could protest that he did not, in fact, like them, and certainly was not keeping them around because of a profound sense of existential loneliness, the drill whacked into a portion of the unseeable void with a harsh, deafening clang.
“Smiley! Todd! What the devil was - ?!”
And their surely-deserved admonishments were drowned out by the ear-splitting peals of sirens, half-corrupted by an eternity buried in the dark.
“Warning,” blared a loud and monotone voice. “Warning. Breach detected.”
“You numbskulls!” Moriarty cried, pounding the table where he sat. “What the devil have you done now?!”
“See, Smiley?” said Todd with a knowing sigh. “Knew he’d say numbskulls next.”
“Emergency revival process has begun. Emergency revi-”
The voice’s calm, yet insistent announcement was short-lived, as it was cut off by a faint sort of sparking as the drill began to tear into a great tangle of electrical wire, revealing the vast, shadowed chamber beneath. The subsequent celebration of Moriarty and his henchmen was similarly short-lived, as it was precisely that moment that a spark floated gently into the drill’s tank of gasoline, and launched the three enterprising canines skyward with a blast so deafening and hot that a small boy in a flat three miles away poked his head out the window to inform his mother that the village festival’s fireworks had started a few hours early.
(And in a cool, sterile chamber deep, deep beneath the earth, something ancient was told to wake up.)
“Hound!”
There was the distant sound of a gas explosion.
“Hound, blast it!” An irritable Scottish terrier tossed his newspaper down and stood up - regretfully - from his comfortable chair. “We cannot keep doing this!”
There was the slightly less distant sound of a cough, a sneeze, and a vigorous full-body shake.
“I fear, Watson,” said a calm, collected voice, “that I have applied slightly too much sulphur.”
“From the smell of it, you haven’t applied anything else!”
“I assure you that I did. Somewhere in the process, I believe there was water. Perhaps a dash of uranium. Or was it plutonium?”
“...Good Lord.”
And with a fond and world-weary sigh, John H. Watson - doctor, author, veteran of the Second Afghan Hound War, and above all, loyal friend - placed a handkerchief over his wet, sensitive nose, and marched into the fold.
His companion, hunched over his makeshift laboratory with a snout faintly blackened with soot, looked less like Sherlock Hound, the great consulting detective, and more like Death warmed over, if one had neglected the hearth during the process and failed to cook Death all the way through. His clothes were untidy, his hair was unkempt, and the bags beneath his eyes were so prominent that even a respectable layer of ginger fur could not conceal the depths of his exhaustion. His long, pointed ears drooped as if soggy, and his pipe dangled listlessly from his mouth, conjuring an odour nearly as unbearable as the unfortunate bits of glassware that were all that remained of what had been either a promising contribution to the future of science or a radioactive time bomb that would now reduce their lifespans by roughly twenty years.
Watson wished he could clap his hands sternly on Hound’s shoulders, but given their considerable difference in height, he had to settle for a sombre pat on the waist.
“You’re in no state to be experimenting, Hound! How long have you been awake?”
“A little over thirty-seven hours,” he murmured, thoughtfully swirling a green liquid before his eyes. “But I assure you I’ll have this figured out by the thirty-eighth - ”
Watson harrumphed. Hound, half-asleep, was powerless to counter a Watsonian harrumph, and forlornly placed the flask back on the desk.
“The only thing you need to figure out, Hound, is a good night’s sleep.”
“But I must do something, Watson. There have simply been no cases to stimulate me. My mind must work, or I grow bored of it all. If a client does not come for us soon, I shall be forced either to die or to begin experimenting with controlled substances - ”
“A client’s come for you two!” called Marie Hudson’s lyrical voice from the doorway downstairs; and it was the work of a moment to witness how Hound’s ears perked up to full height at the sound of rapid, clambering footsteps approaching the landing.
“Why, speak of the devil!” said Watson with a gravelly chuckle.
“Not the devil, Watson,” said his companion gently. “Only Lestrade.”
Several cups of tea later, a rapt Watson and a wakeful, if teetering, Hound sat perched on the sofa, across from a disgruntled police inspector and a frightened young man.
“I seen it, I tell ya,” said the trembling youth. “‘E won’t believe me, but I seen it!”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” grumbled Lestrade. “Bug-mouthed beasts with great yellow coats - ”
“It was real, sah!” he pleaded, slapping his hands upon his thighs. “Fur like a lemon - a large, ‘orrible lemon - brighter than the sun in the storm - an’ a face like a fly, but a very large fly, you understand, not yer average fly, wouldn’t be ‘ere if it was one of them average flies - ”
“Calm down, dear fellow,” said Hound soothingly, placing a hand on his trembling shoulder. “Tell us from the beginning.”
“Well, ya see, it’s…”
And he told them his name was Daniel Green, and that he was a stablehand in the countryside, tending horses for a strict master until the day turned to dusk, often sleeping in the discomfort of the hay. It had been the dead of night when the crack of lightning woke him, and the sound of heavy footsteps crushing sodden grass. Fearful, he had reached for his lantern - and when he raised it to the window, the light blazed upon a monstrous, alien sight. A creature painted a sickly, unnatural yellow, with short, grasping limbs and a dark and hideous countenance. He had not forgotten it, and he was sure he never would.
“It ain’t just me that seen it,” he insisted. “Mabel did, too, while she was out lookin’ after the flowers. And she lives on the other side of town. And then Charlie saw it when he was out on a picnic with ‘is mum. ‘Eard people towns over have sighted the monster. It’s an awful menace, ‘s what it is!”
“We had half the force out there searching for hours. Went back the next day for it, too.” Lestrade scratched the back of his neck. “Slow week, you understand.”
“Of course, of course,” said Hound with mild amusement.
“But there’s nothing out there, Hound. Waste of time, I tell you. I only brought him here because he said he wouldn’t leave me alone if I didn’t.”
“You’ll find it, won’t you?” The young lad had turned his desperate eyes toward them. “We’ve all heard such nice things about you. Mystery genius and all that. Won’t you find it for us?”
“Well,” said Hound with a bashful chuckle, “I wouldn’t say a genius. But I will certainly try my best.”
“You will?!” said Green, delighted.
“You will?!” said Lestrade, incredulous.
“You will?!” said Watson, equally incredulous.
“While there has not, perhaps, been any sort of crime,” Hound mumbled around the stem of his pipe, “it is certainly a detective’s prerogative to investigate strange phenomena. And I wish for nothing more than something to occupy my stagnant mind.”
He lifted his head triumphantly. “I shall take your case.”
“I say, Hound!” His terrier companion folded his arms. “You haven’t had a bit of rest - ”
“Come, Watson,” said Hound, with a gentle smile and a twinkle in his eye. “The game is afoot.”
Or it would have been, had he not immediately toppled backwards and fallen asleep on the sofa.
Watson sighed, and covered his companion with a blanket, before sitting down to an afternoon of entertaining himself until Hound woke up.
It was twenty-four hours (and a less-than-entertained Watson) later that the celebrated pair found themselves behind the wheel of their two-seater, puttering toward the moors as the clouds spat electric violence across shadowed, morbid skies. Rain poured down upon their heads, soaking their thick coats and stylish hats, and the mingled wind and fog chilled their fur through to the bone.
“Once we’re finished here, Watson,” said Hound mournfully, “I’m going to build this car a roof.”
At long last, they arrived at the village the farmhand had named - a small, quaint thing, buildings worn away by rain serving as sharp contrast to the green crops that flourished from it. They parked, and removed themselves from the car, galeforce winds putting a wobble in their steps not lessened by the dirt road beneath them, which resembled its namesake less than it did the sucking, churning pit of a murky swamp.
Hound put his ears and nose to the ground - far too deeply, in fact - and took a great sniff in a bid to gather the creature’s strange, unearthly scent.
“Be sure to bring your revolver, Watson,” he said gravely. “We may need it.”
The gravity was somewhat upset by his companion’s soiled snout, which Hound had failed to notice, but Watson had not.
“Really, Hound!” the doctor admonished. “Burying your face so deeply in the mud! You’ll catch some bacterial infection.”
He had the audacity to huff, but that was not a game the elder canine planned to let him win. In this house there was only one huffer, and that huffer was Dr. John H. Watson. So the latter withdrew his handkerchief from his breast pocket, and began to dab huffily at his old friend’s nose.
“I am more than capable of cleaning myself,” was Hound’s petulant reply, followed by a sneeze.
But he thankfully did not deign to dirty himself further, and kept his nose at a respectful distance from the sludge; and for anywhere from minutes to hours, they wandered into the dismal, darkening wilds.
The wind howled like a terrible beast in their sensitive ears, and at times the ground was so boggy and thick that it felt as if hands were pulling them downward to drown them. But there seemed nothing like a monster - nothing out there at all, save for their own shadows.
“Hound!” Watson groaned desperately after the seventh time losing his boot. “We won’t find a thing! Surely it was some sort of hoax!”
A deafening crack of thunder shook the heavens and the earth, mere moments after a broad bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. For the briefest of moments, the dense fog was illuminated, and -
“There!” Hound cried, and took off like a shot.
Watson charged through the mud to follow him, huffing and puffing from the effort - damn that man’s long legs! - to find him squatting amidst trampled grass, eyes fixed on a shape on the ground.
“This,” said Hound with confidence, “is no monster.”
Watson crouched beside him to gaze at the alien pile, and found that he was right.
Though he considered himself a rational man, their client’s words had caused his imagination to run rampant - painting images of horrible, rubbery beasts with twisted faces and glistening fur and flesh. But the incandescent yellow skin, like fire amidst the fog, was not skin or hair at all. It was some sort of suit, of bright and shining material, that covered the figure before them from head to toe. Neither did the dark and bulbous countenance, malformed and hideous, appear to be as such. It was made of something inorganic, something hard and unmoving - something that, even without Hound’s deductive powers, Watson could identify as a mask.
In better circumstances, he would have asserted himself with confidence. “Of course it wasn’t a monster,” he’d state with nonchalant pride, as if he’d never once believed it; and Hound would chuckle and say it was so, even though he was sure Hound knew he had. But he was far more occupied by the figure on the ground - the manner in which it scarcely moved, and its small, slight size. Too short to be the likes of Moriarty or Smiley, in some harebrained attempt at a disguise to frighten villagers from their houses, and not stout enough, in turn, to be Todd. Too little, in fact, to be any sort of full-grown dog - not even the most miniature of chihuahuas.
“No, Hound,” whispered Watson with disbelief. “This ‘monster’ is a child.”
In an instant, the sturdy terrier had dropped upon his knees, listening and sniffing. There was breath, but it was laboured. There was a heartbeat, but it was slow. Not enough was visible to know whether it was from exhaustion, or illness, or injury, but the situation was dire; and Watson began to wish he’d exchanged the revolver on his person for his medical bag.
The suit was surely protecting the child from the rain and cold, but Watson and Hound had seen them fall to the ground at the lightning. A head wound could not go unchecked. The mask could be replaced, but it had to be removed, just for a moment. Yet no matter how they tugged at it, it refused to come off; and they fumbled for precious minutes until they identified an odd metal clasp near the neck, at the base of a line of metal teeth. Gingerly, Hound grabbed it and, with an experimental touch, pulled - and the suit came free at last, revealing the child whole underneath.
They were dressed in strange clothes, of stranger fabrics - what faraway land had this child come from, that not even Britain had sailed to? - and what had at first appeared to be a dark brown pelt Watson found at a touch to be skin, which, save from the faintest coating of fur, was otherwise bare.
“Give me your coat, Hound,” the doctor implored. “The child is hairless.”
(Watson recalled an old friend of his from medical school - jolly fellow named Stamford - was a Jonangi from West Bengal, and had a devil of a time in cold weather without suitable protection.)
“Hairless, you say?” Hound raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “Certainly an unusual encounter in the English countryside, but hardly worthy of the moniker of ‘monster’.”
He handed Watson his inverness without further question, and the latter tucked it tightly around the child’s shoulders to cover them in the meantime, assured by the continued sounds of breathing that their aid had not come too late.
The mask, now that it was more visible, was held fast to the head by a series of straps and fasteners, and Watson pulled them loose as swiftly as he could. He was surprised by the mask’s weight as he held it in his hands, but was ultimately unbothered, nearly tossing it to Holmes in favour of examining the child for injury - and he reeled, and nearly collapsed.
There was no injury. Even if there had been, he would not have reeled. Watson had seen terrible things in the war - things that had dulled his senses to horrors of scent and sight that would bring a howl to the lips of most able-bodied men. A distant part of him catalogued this fact - the lack of blood matting the hair, or lacerations mangling the face - as a good thing. The symptoms were likely due to heat, or thirst, or exhaustion. Still dire, but not so much as blood loss. They had brought refreshments in the car, and ice could be procured along the way.
It was the appearance of the child itself.
From the style of their braided hair and the shape of their face, it could be deduced that the child was, perhaps, a girl. This was not the factor that made Watson gasp, or quake in the mud where he knelt. Nor was he in shock because the girl had no snout, for it is a common trait of a pug or Pekingese. It was not even that her face was drenched in sweat, something only medically possible in hands. It was that her nose was not wet, nor did it show signs of ever having been; and her ears did not taper to points, nor droop and dangle, but were rounded at the sides of her head.
In all his years in the medical profession, Watson had never seen a face like this. No, it was a face seen only in history books, and preserved in ancient relics of a world lost to time.
“Good Lord, Hound!” the doctor exclaimed aloud. “This child is human!”
It had been an eternity, you see, since humans walked the Earth.
Watson had learned about it in textbooks as a boy, from what little that remained. They had constructed great civilizations all over the planet, a monument to society and science and art; and they had bred modern society’s ancestors from wolves as workers and companions. But then they had gone, millenia ago, in some great and terrible disaster, and that mysterious, ancient carnage had left a wasteland in its wake. Most life had been extinguished - in fact, nearly all - but within that curse was a blessing; for a strange and powerful energy mankind had called the “Gamma” had lifted the world’s surviving canines into evolution and intelligent life. So to see one before him, living in the flesh, was like stumbling upon something prehistoric - an extant Stegosaurus, or one of those long-extinct creatures the humans had once called “opossums”.
Historians, scientists, artists, politicians - all would kill to see her even for a moment. To meet with her, speak with her, run untold tests on her… to grasp at even the faintest sliver of that society of bygone days.
But Hound and Watson thought none of these things, considered none of these factors. For the most pressing factor was that this human was a child, and that came above all else.
So there was little talk between them, when the initial blow of shock had faded away. When Watson scooped the girl into his arms, the possibility of bringing her to a public hospital was not discussed. There was but one place to go - one place that meant safety - and that was Baker Street. There was no conversation in the two-seater, only driving - as quickly as could be managed without endangering the young patient in their care. And there was no explanation to Marie Hudson - not then, not yet, when they could not possibly find the words - so she, too, became a part of the silent, benevolent machine with their shared and singular goal.
This child was small, and wounded, and alone, adrift in a world that was not her own; and they would see that she was cared for no matter the cost.
From the moment she returned, she never left their sight. They checked her vitals as minutes became hours, and carefully examined her to bathe and bandage her wounds, however superficial. Occasionally she awoke in fevered delirium, which gave ample opportunity to soothe her, and bring her water, and small bits of nourishment. Soon those hours transformed into days, and she grew healthier, and more stable, until she slept less fitfully, and far more in peace.
Mrs. Hudson had so quickly taken the child’s direct care upon herself that at times Watson, and especially Hound, struggled and felt rather helpless, so they took that time to attend the New London Library’s collection of scrounged and ancient books, the largest source in all the kingdom for the literature of human history, and pored over medical texts and scientific treatises until they fell asleep with their noses dampening the paper. Some were borrowed, others were surreptitiously copied; all were given the excuse that it was for a case - a secret case, that could not be publicly spoken of.
It was a case, in a sense. How on Earth this girl was still alive was perhaps their greatest mystery ever encountered. But it was one that could only be solved by answers from the child’s lips; and so for the better part of a week, they studied, and worried and waited.
And one day, at long last, the girl was healed.
Lucy Munro awoke in warm sheets and thick pyjamas, with a stuffed bear held tightly in her arms.
She had no idea how she’d gotten there, but Lucy was one of those children who, when placed in an unfamiliar situation, is wont to accept life as it comes. Besides, given that she was no longer cold and wet, the cut on her arm had been nicely wrapped up, and she had apparently received a free bear somewhere along the way, by the standards of a six-year-old everything seemed to be going fairly well.
Her day was further improved by a knock on the door, and the scent of something that smelled exactly like breakfast.
“May I come in, dear?”
It was a funny sort of voice, though she couldn’t put a finger on why. Maybe a lady. Definitely a stranger. But everything had been strange since she woke up in the laboratory, and this sort of strange seemed all right.
So she gave an amiable “mhm”, sat up, and placed the bear in her lap; and the door opened gently to reveal what was perhaps not the last, but certainly one of the last things the average person expects to see - even if that person is a reasonably imaginative child.
Lucy’s jaw dropped. There was a considerable degree of pointing and gasping.
“You’re a dog!”
The dog-woman laughed gently. “I suppose I am! And you’re a human, aren’t you, dear?”
Lucy thought about it.
“I think so!”
“Well, I’ve never cooked for a human before,” she said, placing a tray of eggs, toast, and sausage on Lucy’s bedside table, “but I hope this will do.”
It did, and it did very nicely There was something different about the taste - something intrinsic to it that seemed changed - but that was true of any time in which you ate food in an unfamiliar place, and certainly the fact that Lucy was being given breakfast by a human-shaped talking canine meant that other differences were greatly lessened by comparison.
“What’s your name?” said Lucy, having moved past the whole dog thing to other curiosities.
“My name is Marie Hudson, dear,” she said gently. “And I have some friends who are terribly worried about you. Would you like to come and see them?”
Lucy imagined she would. She was rather big on friends.
“Are they also dogs?” she asked, brushing toast crumbs from her pyjamas.
“They certainly are!”
“Yay!”
Lucy was also rather big on dogs.
Hound and Watson were, in truth, unsure of what to expect.
It was difficult to imagine the situation from the child’s perspective - nay, not merely difficult, but entirely impossible. They’d read their histories, but could not account for all the minute differences that must undoubtedly exist between their world and the ancient past. How would a lone, living relic of it react to such an alien, terrifying reality? Would she break down? Flee? Go mad from the realisation?
They were not expecting Mrs. Hudson to return down the stairs with the child in tow, holding her hand as she skipped and bounced her way down the stairs.
“Hi!”
She waved with her other hand, which contained the bear that the duo had purchased for her while out on a restorative stroll. It swung violently back and forth, swept up in the tide of her enthusiasm and cheer.
“Why, hello, young lady!” Watson answered, unable to resist charmed laughter, and the little girl giggled in return.
“Can I pet you?”
This was not something that a dog in polite society was frequently asked.
“I-I beg your pardon?” said Watson with a considerable cough.
“Please?”
She peered up at them with wide, hopeful eyes.
“I believe,” said Hound with a chuckle, “that she is rather used to the notion of dogs as pets.”
“Ah! Well, in that case, young lady, I don’t see why not.”
“The notion extends to myself as well,” said Hound with a polite bow.
Her eyes sparkled in delight, and she wasted no time in fluffing up their arms with a great deal of fascination, her stuffed bear briefly forgotten on the floor.
“May I ask you your name, young lady?” said Hound, watching with amusement as the child vainly attempted to reach high enough to scratch his pointed ears. “Surely it must be something other than ‘young lady’.”
“I’m Lucy!” she replied, retrieving the fallen toy ursine. “What’s yours?”
“Sherlock Hound,” said the long, thin corgi, giving a modest bow from where he sat. “And this is my dear friend, Dr. John Houndish Watson.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Lucy!” rumbled the latter, and shook her hand in avuncular fashion.
She bowed in an exaggerated mimicry of Hound’s previous greeting, the bear following suit. Then she perched on the couch next to them, and stared at the trio with wide, expectant eyes.
“What are we going to do today?”
The answer was, in truth, not much.
While the enthusiasm of a cheerful child in what must seem to her like the fantasy world of her dreams was decidedly unmatched, the same could not be said of her body, which, though it had been running this morning on a combination of delicious breakfast and delight, was still too weak to hold out long enough for a trip outdoors. So her first few days within Baker Street’s walls were spent in far more placid fashion, consisting of numerous cups of tea, a considerable quantity of naps, and gifts of purchased children’s books from the neighbourhood store. Her youth meant that she regained her strength quickly, however, and soon she was practically bouncing off the walls, asking over and over when she could go outside… which meant that the trio were at last forced to contend with the most significant issue with that venture.
So the following morning after breakfast, Hound had brought in a great box of cosmetic knick-knacks, and conditions for entering the great wide world were made.
“We’re going to play a game, all right?” said Marie Hudson with a smile. “Today you’re going to pretend to be a dog.”
“Okay!” said Lucy, bursting with excitement.
“Now, Lucy.” said Watson, showing Lucy a notebook as Hound arranged false ears amidst her braids. “Can you say ‘Xoloitzcuintli?”
It took her a number of tries, but she managed it, and Hound affixed her prosthetic nose with a note of pride.
They had all agreed it best that, until it was deemed safe to reveal humanity’s survival to the wider world, she would go about life in the guise of a dog. But though Hound’s disguises were always keen, even he could not manage a full coat of false fur on short notice, as he had never needed it - and as such, they decided they ought to disguise her as one that was hairless. There were enough Jonangis in the kingdom that any claims of sharing their breed would be proven false by the merest glance, but vanishingly few Xolos had ever set foot upon English soil, so the people could quite easily be convinced.
And so, donning canine features and holding Hound and Mrs. Hudson’s hands (Watson was in charge of looking through the tourism guidebook), the last human on Earth ventured out into the world.
It was almost funny, how little attention she paid to the angel statue in town - gazing at the relic with nothing like reverence, and merely dismissing it and everything else the average citizen would view with awe in favour of fascination with the everyday people and sights that surrounded her. She showed some slight interest in the Mona Lisa on display at the museum, but informed the trio that she had already seen it when her parents took her to France, and then wandered along to look at the artwork of the canine masters of old.
All the while, she got unusual looks, and the group was constantly seized with terror that someone would see through their disguise - but it was never anything more than a private curiosity about her country of origin, and occasionally a familiar face calling out with a chuckle that they didn’t know Watson had become a father.
(The notion embarrassed him as much as it pleased him.)
It was dark by their return after a dinner out, and all were thoroughly exhausted; yet Hound, Watson, and Mrs. Hudson all felt strangely invigorated and refreshed. It was not that their lives were dispirited or unhappy, but this child seemed to have brought new life in her wake.
“Good Lord, it’s awfully late!” exclaimed Watson, checking his pocket watch. “Past your bedtime, young lady!”
“Why don’t I get you a snack while you get in your pyjamas?” offered Mrs. Hudson, already moving toward the kitchen.
Lucy looked unexpectedly conflicted.
“Well, I want to, but…”
She plopped down on the couch with a sigh.
“…I should probably go home.”
Time ground to a halt.
“My parents are probably worried,” she said, kicking her feet idly. “They made me promise to stay in the shelter, and then they’d come back… and I was just going to go outside for a minute to look for them, but I got lost… They’re probably going to be angry…”
It was foolish, they knew, but they had hoped the day would never come. Vainly, the trio had wondered if perhaps Lucy was so carefree and unattached that she would never wonder what became of the world before - never worry about where it had gone. But of course, she was a child, and she had parents whom she had loved; yet she alone was here.
Their silence confused her, apparent from the knitting of her brow.
“…It’s okay if I go home, right?”
“My dear Lucy, I…!”
Watson faltered, unable to finish his words; and before Hound could finish for him, Mrs. Hudson wrapped the young girl in an embrace.
Immediately, her expression changed to fearful concern.
“What’s wrong?” she said, bewilderment in her voice.
“…I do not believe your parents could come back for you, Lucy.” said Hound in a low, quiet voice. “Even if they wanted to, which I am so very certain they did.”
The child stared up at them with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “But they promised they would.”
“I know, Lucy,” murmured Mrs. Hudson into her ear. “I know.”
“My dear girl…” Watson knelt down to her height, and removed his hat. “…Before we met you, no one had seen a human being for more than a thousand years.”
The room was dark.
It had been dark for some days. The lantern had not been lit. The curtains, too, remained permanently drawn.
Thus, there was no one present who could see the figure that approached - a brown-furred child in a worn coat and cap, walking purposefully in the direction of the lodgings below.
She peered up at the flats above her head, then gave a few exploratory sniffs. This was definitely the place - the strangeness of the scent was unmistakable. So with a running start, she jumped, flying upward just enough for her hands to find purchase, and began scurrying her way up the wall, eventually grasping a windowsill with a firm and fluffy hand.
At last, she heaved herself up, and, perched precariously on its edge, she gave the window a knock.
No answer.
She knocked again.
“Hello! In there!”
Nothing.
“You’re Lucy, right? I brought you something!”
Still no answer.
“If you don’t let me in, I’m going to have to pick the lock!”
There was the faintest sound of shifting beneath blankets, but little more.
“All right then, Lucy! I’m coming in!”
The girl made quick work of the lock - she’d always made good use of her father’s lessons - and slid the window open, dropping in over the windowsill and softly shutting it behind her.
“…Are you going to kill me?” said a small, cracking voice from the bed.
“What? Why would I do that??”
“Because you broke in. That’s what burglars do… The TV said so.”
The girl hadn’t the slightest idea what the voice was talking about, but she decided a gentle approach was worthwhile.
“I’m Polly,” she said, removing her hat to reveal a cascade of blue ears and hair. “Mr. Hound asked me to come talk to you.”
Lucy rolled over and turned her back.
“…Don’t want to talk.”
Polly had a look over at the bedside table, which held a once-delicious, now cold breakfast. Entirely untouched.
“You should eat, you know. I can teach you how to make my favourite sandwich if you get up. I bet you’ll like it. Stuffins thinks so, too.”
She reached into a bag fastened to her back, and retrieved, somewhat improbably, a stuffed bear. He was then placed in a sitting position on Lucy’s bed, with Polly leaning on her elbows beside him.
“Mr. Hound told me you’ve also got a bear. Can Stuffins meet him?”
A sniffle.
“…Go away.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go away soon. I’m just here to come and see you. Mr. Hound’s orders. Because…”
Polly paused, and bit her lip.
“…I haven’t got any parents, either, Lucy. Not anymore. My dad got sick a few years ago, and he never got better.”
Lucy had grown even quieter than before.
“So I just want you to know you’re not alone, all right? And Mrs. Hudson, and Mr. Hound, and Dr. Watson… they helped me, too. They’re the nicest people in the world.”
Polly sat there in silence with her for a while, before getting up to go.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk. But I’ll check on you later, all right?”
“…His name’s Mr. Fluffles."
Polly turned to see that Lucy was sitting up, clutching her bear, with streaks of salt at the corners of her eyes.
“He’s the best bear, though. There aren’t any other bears as good as him.”
“Well,” said Polly with a note of defiance, “Stuffins would disagree. They’ll have to have a long discussion about it, I think.”
She nudged Stuffins back toward Lucy, who stared at him in blank confusion.
“You can hold onto him for now, if you promise to give him back later. Nothing can be scary when you have two bears.”
“But won’t you be scared if you don’t even have one?” said Lucy, wiping her nose with her sleeve.
Polly puffed out her chest. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Can I…” Lucy hiccuped. “Can I have a hug?”
Polly didn’t bother answering. She had already wrapped her in her arms.
It was a peaceful summer afternoon, and the sun came in warm through the windows. Hound reclined comfortably on the couch, deep in idle thoughts, while Watson jotted down notes with a pad and pencil, occasionally muttering to himself as he did. Distantly, in the other room, Mrs. Hudson hummed to herself over the stove, ladling meat and vegetables upon five separate plates at the table for lunch.
So recently, Watson reflected, it had only been three; and it was truly not so long since it had just been Watson alone with himself, residing in that hotel room he dreaded to recall as a weary, wounded man. It had been colliding with Hound on the boat that had changed all that, and he had not regretted a single moment since. He’d become part of an unconventional little family, perhaps, but a happy one.
Lucy was the fourth setting at the table, of course, as she had not a single place to go.
Her recovery had been slow, but she’d begun eating again, and on occasion even managed to laugh; but her foremost demand upon rising was that she get to go home - to try, just once. Investigation of the moors where she’d been rescued had turned up a deep, man-made cavern, drilled into by a device that Hound and Watson deemed suspiciously familiar, though all attempts to contact Moriarty ended in telegrams insisting he’d “gone fishing”; and half-burned scraps of a paper map had been found tangled in a tree nearby, with suggestions that it bore an “x” marking a spot.
(When she laid eyes on the map, she told them very quietly that the handwriting looked like her mother’s.)
Within the cavern was a mangled twist of electronics, beyond even Hound’s ability to comprehend, though he scribbled down diagrams and took pieces of it home for further study. Perhaps it had been a laboratory, before an explosion had torn it to pieces, though some of the damage looked to be older and more severe than any recent malfunction could have caused. Past that was a broken elevator, and an astoundingly long flight of stairs; and at the foot of that was a series of handleless doors, which unsealed at Lucy’s touch, at last revealing a cosy, mid-sized room filled with clothing and toys. In the centre was a bed, piled with colourful pillows and blankets, yet strewn with strange tubes and wires, and a child-sized pile of transparent film damp with cool liquid.
“Cryogenics…?” Hound had murmured as he squinted at the implements in confusion. “I can imagine nothing else.”
Lucy had been more occupied with showing them all of her favourite things, miraculously preserved in a better condition than any artefacts ever seen - as if they were only a few days old, rather than a few hundred thousand. It was as she was presenting them with some sort of mechanical game device that she’d stumbled and brushed against a panel, and its dark glass surface had burst into life.
Beams of light were projected into the centre of the room, forming shapes that were at first indistinct, but slowly became apparent - flickering, life-sized facsimiles of human beings. A man and a woman, both bearing a resemblance to Lucy - both with kind, loving eyes.
“It should be recording now,” said the woman.
“Lucy,” said the man, in a gentle voice. “Are you there?”
She was.
She was frozen, staring up at them, and yet they seemed not to see her.
“I hope you are, sweetheart.” The man’s face turned sad. “…I’m sorry we aren’t.”
“We” - the woman faltered, as if her voice was stuck - “We made this video in case we couldn’t come back to you. And if you’re watching it, it means that the computer knows you’re here, but enough time has passed for it to know that we won’t be there to turn it off.”
“Lucy, we… we put you in a special machine. So that, no matter what happened to us, or the rest of the world, you’d still be safe.” The man breathed a shaky sigh, and began dabbing at his glasses. “And I don’t know what the world is like, now, or where you are… but you have clothes, and food, and all your toys, and everything you need.”
“And you don’t have to stay in here, if the computer says it’s all right to go outside. If there’s anybody out there, Lucy… we want you to go meet them, okay? Just be careful, and make sure you wear your hazmat suit, and take the tablet with you…”
The woman held a copy of it up, pointing at it; and Hound saw a faintly similar object in the corner of the room, covered with ancient cracks and coated with dust.
“We love you, sweetie,” said the man, no longer able to conceal his tears. “Our brave little girl…”
“And we’ll always - we’ll always be there watching you,” the woman continued, wiping her eyes, “even if it doesn’t look like we’re there. We are. No matter what.”
“So go have fun in the future, okay?”
They were smiling, now, and holding each other’s hands.
“Promise you’ll never stop being your amazing, beautiful self. And you’d better do so many awesome things, because when you see us again, you have to tell us all about it.”
Hound thought they were going to say their goodbyes next. Maybe they did. But he couldn’t see it, because Lucy ran toward them, with her arms outstretched - and she passed through them as if they were nothing, embracing only the empty air.
The signal weakened, and began to falter and fade, but they were waving. Waving, waving, until the panel flashed and fizzed; waving, until they disappeared.
Lucy wobbled where she stood, and took one more shaky step, before her knees gave out beneath her. But she never touched the ground; Marie Hudson had caught her before she could fall. Then she held her, as tightly as she could without pain; and Hound came behind her and did the same; and Watson joined them, pulling her in with his strong arms.
They stayed like that forever, it seemed.
And then they brought Lucy home.
The fifth setting at their table was not unexpected, nor was it as dramatic as Lucy’s fourth. Rather, it felt like a natural and pleasant inevitability.
Ever since Lucy had officially become a resident of Baker Street, Polly had been around more and more often, joining them for meals, and teaching Lucy games. Sometimes she’d be followed by a gaggle of other children - the same group of pups that had set the pit trap for their runabout so long ago, before realising they were allies in the Moriarty fight. They didn’t always join Polly, but they became a recognizable presence - enough that Hound had affectionately nicknamed the rowdy band the Baker Street Irregulars.
Yet Polly was more than irregular; and soon enough she began visiting nearly every day. It was by no means unwelcome, and in fact grew to be so common that the days in which she didn’t come became a disappointment at best or a reason for worry at worst. Lucy, especially, missed her during the times she was away.
So it only seemed right when, just as Polly stood up from the dinner table to return to her solitary home, Lucy piped up and said, “How come you can’t stay?”
“Hm?” Polly turned back over her shoulder, hat askew over her ears. “What do you mean, ‘stay’?”
“You should stay here.”
“Oh, but I have to go home, Lucy!”
“Why?”
The question seemed to stymie the girl.
“Well… because I have to. I live there. It’s my house.”
“…You know, Polly,” said Mrs. Hudson, “you can stay as long as you’d like.”
“Certainly!” intoned Watson. “A young girl like you shouldn’t be living all by yourself!”
Her eyes went wide.
“B-But… I can’t just…”
“If you should prefer to remain with us,” said Hound with a fond smile, “then you need only say the word.”
Polly, for her part, never did say the word. She didn’t say any words, actually. Her throat had gone too tight.
Then, in a burst of energy and movement, she threw herself at Hound and squeezed him around the waist.
“I… I…!”
And soon everyone had followed suit, wrapping their arms around Polly until she was completely surrounded by the embrace.
Polly had never left Baker Street since.
She and Lucy were an inseparable pair, these days, though the household still suffered the occasional squabble, and had taken to life together remarkably well. Whether they saw each other as friends, or sisters, or some unknowable third, Watson did not know; but their bond was clear for all to see. And so, their life had continued in busy, domestic fashion - one that Watson wouldn’t give up for the world.
“I’ve been thinking about writing a book about what’s happened lately, Hound. Something with a snappy title. Hm…”
“‘The Yellow Coat’?” offered Hound languidly. “Our friend Green did believe Lucy’s protective suit to be fur.”
“No, no, it’s got to have more bite to it… I’ve got it! The Human of the Baskervilles! ”
“I don’t know that it quite possesses the necessary ring,” murmured his companion from beneath his hat. “And it makes her sound like some terrible threat.”
Hound’s eyes fell upon Lucy, who lay curled up in his lap, and stroked her hair with a gentle hand.
“Well, you may be right about that.” Watson rose from his desk with a wince - knees not being what they used to - and trotted over to sit beside them. “Not a less frightening child in London.”
“Mm.”
They lapsed into silence, watching her slow, easy breaths. She’d grown so much healthier, so much more content, then that tired, ragged child they’d extracted from the strange yellow suit.
“I was never under the impression that I’d get along with children,” Hound mused softly. “It was always a distant sort of fondness.”
“Distant! Ha! You were soft as a feather when Polly first came around!”
Hound smiled. “Was I really?”
“Absolutely. And those village children, and your little gang of Irregulars… I can’t imagine a child in the world that wouldn’t want you as a father.”
“Your confidence is appreciated, dear Watson,” said his friend with a touch of embarrassment, “but it borders on flattery. I can’t imagine why you would think so.”
“Well, it’s… it’s quite obvious, you see, it’s…” Watson cleared his throat, and folded his arms in a dignified manner. “It’s just that you’re a rather easy fellow to love.”
“Ah.”
His ears perked up like sentries.
“…Ah.”
It was Hound’s turn to clear his throat, and the hint of a flush glowed upon his snout.
“…You know, Watson, you have all the trappings of a wonderful father yourself.”
“Eh?!” The doctor jumped in surprise, before turning a few choice shades of pink. “Well, I suppose I did always want a gaggle of kids running around…”
Hound laughed. “And you’ll undoubtedly find a wonderful mother to have them with.”
His eyelids began to droop, and his face turned contemplative - all the markers of the canine’s frequent tendency to fall into fugue states that made him insensible to the world. Yet, though Watson neither minded nor begrudged his peculiarities, he was struck all at once with the unbridled desire to act.
“Hound!”
Watson grabbed hold of his wrist, and he started where he sat. In his lap, Lucy shifted slightly, and brief regret passed over the terrier’s face at his own boldness; but she drifted back into sleep with a murmur, and the doctor breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
“Hound,” Watson repeated, softer and more plaintive. “You’re supposed to be a genius.”
“Am I?”
“But in some regards you’re absolutely incapable.”
“…Am I?” he asked, looking rather annoyed.
“When’s the last time you saw me looking for a wife?”
“It is not something I often pay attention to, Watson, for I respect your privacy.”
“That’s because I can look after children right here without one! Myself, and Mrs. Hudson… and you.”
He offered Hound a meaningful look; and at long last, he believed Hound understood it.
“…I really have been quite the fool, haven’t I, my dear Watson?”
The tenderness in his final three words made the breath catch in the doctor’s throat.
“H-Hound, I…”
What he meant to say was never said. Perhaps it never needed to be. It was, at last, deduced - it was, at long last, known.
If you were to ask either one of them who moved first, they would not be able to tell you. It wasn’t the most important thing. All they would be able to recall is that one moment, they were gazing at each other, in mutual understanding, and that their lips were touching the next. As gentle as the brush of a feather - as soft as the fur on their faces.
They parted after a moment, flushed and warm, and glanced down to find Lucy watching them with sleepy eyes, which she rubbed vigorously as she yawned.
“Hungry,” she said thoughtfully.
“All right, everyone!” called Marie Hudson as if on cue, in a bright, clear voice. “It’s time for lunch!”
As if on cue, there was the sound of a latch opening as Polly sailed in through the window - she seemed to prefer it over entering through the door - and Lucy’s sleep-addled haze grew to wakefulness as the smell of hot food reached her nose. She shook her head to clear it, then bounced up from their laps and dashed away; and Hound and Watson, with barely suppressed chuckles, rose to their feet too, taking each other’s hands.
Everything was new, these days. What they were to each other… what Lucy was to the world. She had yet to ever leave the house without her Xolo disguise, but to live a lie forever was no way to live. They would ask her if she was ready - and then all would be revealed.
Surely there would be trouble. Surely there would be some cruelty - some who would try to use her for ill. But they would do everything in their power to assure her safety, and they would all manage together, somehow.
And surely, the world would grow to love her as much as they did.