Chapter Text
We spent the next hour going over the results from the X-ray and the CT scans from the night before, but then I had to leave since I was on evening shift at the clinic. As I was walking down the stairs, Sherlock caught up with me on the landing.
"John, before you go, I really need to ask you something. What exactly is a Jedi?"
"Oh, my god, Sherlock. You never cease to astonish me. You're so bloody brilliant, but you don't have a clue about popular culture. Have you even heard of Star Wars?"
He shrugged. "Maybe."
"Just rent the damn movie—the first one from 1977. Watch it with Chelsea. She's probably already seen it a couple of hundred times, so she'll be able to walk you through it."
I found out later that Sherlock had actually followed my suggestion and the two of them spent the afternoon watching the iconic science fiction movie. They followed that with Chelsea's first fencing lessons with the lightsabers. The day's lessons ended, however, with an accidental bump against Chelsea's mouth by one of the colored plastic tubes. The bump was hard enough to knock out the loose tooth. Fortunately there were no ensuing tears since she was more excited about the tooth being dislodged than she was about any pain.
Sherlock used his handkerchief to pick up the baby tooth off the carpet then transferred it to a small evidence bag.
"I want to tee it," said Chelsea.
He let her examine it through the clear plastic bag then looked at her mouth to make sure that the hit by the lightsaber had not done any other damage.
That night he made a pallet for her in his bedroom, but she was unhappy about the sleeping arrangements. "I think I choud leep in the bed with you," she insisted. Her sack of clothes did not contain any pyjamas so he had dressed her for bed in one of his T-shirts. It came to her ankles.
"There's nothing wrong with sleeping on the floor," he said. "There are enough quilts for padding. It'll be comfortable. You'll be fine."
"But I'm way over here," she gestured dramatically with her arms. "What if the tooth fairy come?"
"We've already been over that more than once today. Remember? There is no tooth fairy. Why don't we leave your tooth in the other room. That way, you won't have to worry."
"No! You taid I have to put it under my pillow. It the law!"
"It's not the law."
"But I won't get any money if it not under my pillow. But I think my pillow and me chould be in your bed."
"Chelsea, I'm not going to argue about this with you. You're sleeping there on the floor. You're six feet away from me. Nothing's going to get you. The doors are all locked. Nobody's getting in."
Chelsea plopped down on the pallet and crossed her arms over her chest and pouted for a minute before pleading, "Why can't I leep with you?"
"Because."
"That not an anter," she parroted his earlier words back to him.
"You need to lie down there and go to sleep. I have some work to do in the other room. I'll leave the door cracked so there will be some light coming in. OK?"
Chelsea lay down and Sherlock covered her. She turned her face to the wall, still pouting. Just as he reached the door, she said, "Lock? If the doorch are locked, how will the tooth fairy get in to leave me money?"
Sherlock pressed his forehead against the doorframe. "There is no tooth fairy."
"But my Dad might come."
"We can only hope," Sherlock whispered. "Goodnight, Chelsea."
"I'm mad at you, Lock."
"I know. Goodnight." He turned off the light and headed to his desk and the laptop there to look once again at the scans that John had brought over that day. It would be another couple of hours before he went to bed.
Sherlock awoke the morning just as the bedroom was beginning to grow light, but when he glanced over at Chelsea's pallet on the floor, he panicked. It was empty! He leapt out of bed and scanned the room then hurried to the kitchen and the front room, calling her name. Both doors to the hallway were still locked. He returned to his bedroom and from the new angle saw what he had missed before. The tip of Brownie's leash stuck out from under his bed.
He got down on his knees and pulled a drowsy Chelsea out from under the bed. "You're ice-cold," he said. "What were you doing under there?"
She put a hand on the side of his face. "I wa tared and you wouldn't let me leep with you."
"Here." He picked her up and laid her in his bed and pulled the covers close around her. "You need to warm up and go back to sleep. It's not time to get up yet."
Sherlock left her there and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and then a shower. Not a half hour later, with just a towel wrapped around him, he was shaving in front of the lavatory mirror when Chelsea began pounding on the bathroom door and shouting, "Lock! Lock!"
He flung open the door, almost causing her to collapse inside. "What's wrong?"
"Money!" She opened one hand to reveal a palm full of coins. "There wa money under my pillow, Lock!"
"How much?"
She squatted and laid the coins on the floor and counted them. "One, two, three, four, five. Five pound!"
"That's a lot of money for just a little tooth. The tooth is gone, isn't it?"
"It wa jut like you said, Lock! I looked under my pillow—the one on the floor—and the tooth wa gone and there wa all thich money." She stood up and tried to move past him. "Now get out of the way, pleach. I've got to usch the toilet."
Sherlock grabbed a towel and wiped the remaining shaving crème from his face as he retreated to the bedroom to dress.
Later as the two of them sat at the kitchen table, eating breakfast, Chelsea was still excited over her newly acquired fortune, but puzzled. "Do you think my Dad wa here lat night and left me the money?"
Sherlock spoke from behind the newspaper he was reading. "What do you think?"
"I think if he came, he would have taid 'hello' to me and taken me home. Maybe there id a tooth fairy, after all. Maybe che idn't like my fairy. Maybe che jut want teeth, not…not…"
Sherlock put down the paper. "Not what?"
Chelsea ducked her head. "Nothing. I don't have any pocket to keep my money in, Lock."
"Oh. I probably have something." He went over to the desk and opened one of the drawers and rummaged through it. "Here." He brought back to the table a small, embroidered pouch. "See, it's just big enough to hold all five coins. But look here." He opened the pouch to reveal an almost invisible flap on the inside of the lining. "There's a secret compartment inside. Let me show you." He took one of the coins and slipped it under the flap. "Now, look." He handed the little bag to Chelsea. "Where did it go?" She examined the pouch and turned it inside out.
"Where id it?"
Sherlock took the bag and showed her how to retrieve the hidden coin. I think there's probably room for two coins in the secret part and no one would ever know they're there."
Chelsea experimented with putting the coins in the pouch and finding them again.
"Now, listen, Chelsea, you need to finish eating. I have a prospective client coming over here soon and I need for you to go to the bedroom and stay there while he's here. Just play quietly with Brownie or any of your other little friends, but not the lightsabers. Nothing that makes noise. You'll have to be quiet while he's here, understand?"
Sherlock barely got Chelsea sequestered in his bedroom when the downstairs doorbell rang. With Mrs. Hudson still gone, he had to go down himself and let in a well-dressed, young man and escort him back up the stairs. What followed was a tedious twenty minutes of the man reciting what seemed to Sherlock to be his entire life story. He kept prompting the visitor to get to the point, but the man insisted on relating every single detail of his serpentine narrative. Sherlock slumped deeper and deeper into the cushions of his chair as the man droned on.
A crash from the bedroom brought Sherlock out of his stupor and the man to his feet. "I've been hearing noises from that room the whole time I've been here. Is someone else here?" demanded the man. "You told me this meeting was strictly confidential."
The bedroom door opened and Chelsea walked out or, rather, shuffled out because her feet were in a pair of Sherlock's shoes. She was dressed in one of his white shirts that came to her ankles and wearing one of his dressing gowns over that. The robe trailed behind her as did Brownie's leash.
It was just at that moment that I came in the door.
"Oh, no, no, no, no!" shouted Sherlock, jumping up. "This is just wrong. You!" He pointed at the man. "You and your convoluted story about your house in the country and your fancy sports car and your dinner parties. It's obvious that you wife is involved with your best friend, Harold, and has been for some time. You don't need a detective, you need a lawyer, and since he'll be paid by the hour, may I suggest you learn to summarize. Now get out! And you!" He pointed at me next. "You're late! And you!" He turned on Chelsea who was standing there in his over-sized clothes with eyes opened wide. "Is this your idea of playing quietly? Who told you that you could go through my wardrobe and wear my clothes? And now, look, you've got something all over the sleeve of my best dressing gown." He turned back to me. "I can't do this anymore, John. I really can't." He retreated to the bedroom and slammed the door.
The would-be client made a hasty departure. I stood there in the front room and looked down at Chelsea, who had not said a word during Sherlock's tirade. I cleared my throat a couple of times. "I guess Sherlock's in one of his moods today, isn't he?" I said, hoping to ease the tension I could see in her face. She looked to be on the verge of tears and I certainly did not want that to happen. "For the record, I think you look cute in his clothes. What's that in your hand?" She held the drawstrings of an elaborately, embroidered pouch that I remembered seeing amidst the clutter in Sherlock's desk. "May I see it?"
She handed it to me. "It my money from the tooth fairy. See?" She opened her mouth and stuck out her lower jaw so I could see the gap where the tooth had come out. I also noticed some slight bruising under her lip.
Sherlock had told me about the earlier conversation he had with her about the tooth fairy so I was surprised when she mentioned that entity as the one responsible for leaving the money. I opened the little pouch. "Oh! Three pounds! The most the tooth fairy ever left me was 20p."
That brought a smile to her face. "No, they're five coin in there."
I shook my head. "Nope, I only count three."
"John, John, John," she said, shaking her head back and forth. "You tee but you do not obcherve."
"Now where have I heard that?" I said and I could not help chuckling. I handed the bag to her and she opened it.
"Hold out your hand," she said. She took a coin from the pouch and placed it in my palm.. "One." And another one and another one. "Two. Three." And then she pulled out a fourth coin and gave it to me. "Four. Five!" she shouted, placing the last one in my hand.
"How did you do that?" I asked. "No, wait, more importantly. Are you telling me that you got five pounds for that little bitty tooth?"
"Yep," she said, smacking her lips on the "p" just the same as I had seen and heard Sherlock do many times.
I handed her hoard of coins back to her and she placed them all in the pouch. "And did that tooth fall out by itself?" I asked, a little concerned about the bruise.
"Lock was teaching me to be a Jedi."
Listen, Chelsea, I…uh…I need to go talk to Sherlock for a few minutes. Will you be all right out here by yourself?"
"Chure," she replied and shuffled in Sherlock's shoes over to the couch.
I did not even bother to knock on the bedroom door. He would have just told me to go away. I walked in and closed the door behind me. I wanted to say "What the hell was that all about out there," but when I saw him standing at the window with his back to me, all I could ask was, "Sherlock, are you all right?"
He did not turn around, but said "I think…I…think it's time we turn her over to Child Protection or someone…someone away from me."
"I didn't think you wanted the authorities involved. What's brought this on? And what happened in here?" His bedroom was a mess. There were drawers opened and clothes scattered and the entire contents of the upper shelves of his wardrobe were in a pile on the floor, along with an overturned chair.
Sherlock turned to face me. "This is what happens when a five-year-old is left unsupervised for twenty minutes. Oh, John, you know me. You know she should never have been left here in the first place. I am…toxic. And I don't know the first thing about children. I can't even draw on my own childhood experience, because I don't think I was ever—"
"Normal?" I suggested. "I agree, Sherlock. I agree that she shouldn't stay here with you. My God, you just about scared her to death a few minutes ago. I was afraid that we were going to have another crying episode with her. But, at the same time, I am intrigued about who or what she is and would like to know Moriarty's connection or whoever did that to her, and I'm afraid if we give her to the authorities that we'll never find out."
"But it would be in her best interest."
"It would be. And when—or if—her father shows up, he'll be made to answer for those scars on her back."
Sherlock was silent for a moment and then went into the living room and I followed. "Chelsea," he said very solemnly. "Come into the bedroom a minute. I need to talk to you. John, stay out here, please."
In the bedroom, Sherlock lifted her out of his shoes. She stood in front of him and he sat down on the edge of the bed. He took off the dressing gown she was wearing and laid it on across the bed without speaking.
"I'm torry I put on your clothche. I was jut playing. Pleache don't be mad."
He started to unbutton his shirt that she wore. "I'm not angry with you, Chelsea. But I have something to tell you." He hesitated for a moment, trying to choose the right words. "You…you can't stay here with me anymore. I'm going to call some people—nice people—and they're going to take care of you until your father comes back for you."
"No, Lock! I want to tay here. I'll be good. I promich."
"It's not a matter of you being good, Chelsea. It's more about me being bad. I'm bad for you. I'm not the kind of person you should be around." He slipped the shirt off of her. She was wearing the last of the clean outfits that were in the sack with her when she arrived.
"Pleache, Lock, don't tend me away. I'll be good. I won't argue and I'll leep on the floor and I won't make mechet and I'll…"
"Chelsea, it's nothing you've done. It's me. I really don't know how to explain it to you in a way that you'd understand. But I'll try." He paused for a moment. "I have dragons within me. Well, I think of them as dragons, but maybe they're more like demons. And these beings inside me cause me to sometimes say things and do things that are hurtful to people, and…and I don't even realize that they're hurtful. And what's worse, probably, is that I don't even care. And in some people's eyes, that makes me a bad person."
"You're not bad, Lock."
"I'm afraid I am sometimes. But it's these dragons inside me that also make me very good at my job. They help me to focus and to see things and figure out things that others miss. But with you here, I can't do my job. I can't concentrate on it."
"Oh, Lock." Chelsea tried to take his hands in hers but he pulled them away.
"No, don't touch me. Don't do…that…whatever it is you do."
Chelsea clasped her hands behind her back. "Becaude what you're taying id not what you're thinking."
"What?"
She just stood there, staring at him while he digested her words. Was he being honest with himself? He, also, like me, wanted to solve the mystery of this little girl and that chance would slip away if he turned her over to Child Protection. "Remind me again how old you are," said Sherlock.
She held up five fingers. "Five yeart old. Lock, I love you and I don't want to go tumplace elch."
"You don't love me, Chelsea. You love it that I bought you shoes and lightsabers and we made biscuits and walked in the park—"
"No. I love you." She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck and he didn't resist.
I was standing in the kitchen, watching the whole scene unfold through the doorway. I could tell he was going to give in to her. Whatever those dragons or demons within him were that made him so callous and yet so brilliant, they were not going to win this time.
"Lock," she whispered in his ear as he gathered her onto his lap, her arms still clasped around his neck. "Do you think the tooth fairy knew that I was five year old and that why che gave me five coin?"
He sighed. "I thought we had decided yesterday that there is no tooth fairy."
"I think you jut told me that cho I wouldn't be tared. Bechide, you have to look at the evidenche and gather cluedch. The tooth is gone and there id all thid money."
Sherlock smiled. "Where did you learn about evidence and clues?"
"From you." She released her hold on his neck and slid off his lap and smiled at him.
"What?" he asked. "Why are you smiling?"
"You know," she said.
"No, I really don't."
"Yech, you do." She scampered through the kitchen and stopped in front of me. "Lock told me I had to leave, but we worked it out and I get to tay."
"Oh, uh, good," I said and looked at Sherlock in the bedroom.
He shrugged and cocked his head. "I guess I can manage for another day or two."
I went into the bedroom. Sherlock was still sitting on the bed, elbows on his knees, his chin resting on his fists. "Listen," I said, "I'm supposed to be at work, but I guess I can make some arrangements if you think I'd better stay here today…you know…just to keep an eye on…things."
He did not look up at me, but replied, "I'll be…we'll be fine."
I turned away and walked back toward the kitchen, but stopped in the doorway. "You were wrong, Sherlock, what you said to Chelsea just now. Sometimes you care. I just hope you made the right decision today.
He did not answer.
"I'll…uh…pop round about six tonight. I'll bring Chinese."