Chapter Text
True to my word, that evening I stopped by Sherlock's favorite Chinese restaurant and bought takeaway. Mealtime was interesting although a little messy since Chelsea insisted on using chopsticks because Sherlock ate with them. After supper, he gave Chelsea a bath then left her with me for a few minutes while he went downstairs to put her clothes in the wash. He had put another one of his T-shirts on her for pyjamas. When he came back up, he sat down in his favorite chair and she immediately crawled up on his lap.
"So what did the two of you do all day today?" I asked. They had both been in a good mood at supper and it was obvious the day had gone well despite Sherlock's earlier "meltdown."
"Was it a good day?" asked Sherlock.
Chelsea was sitting with her back against his chest and playing with the pouch of coins. She reached one hand up and laid it along his cheek and, leaning her head back, looked up at him. "Any day that begin with finding money under your pillow hat to be a good day, dudn't it?"
"I think that's an excellent way to start the day," agreed Sherlock. "Let's see, what did we do today? We went to the park again."
"We took the lightsabert becaude there wa plenty of room there to fight without breaking anything. We weren't really fighting, of courde. Jut pretending."
"And no one got hit in the mouth this time?" I asked.
"No," said Chelsea. "No more teeth to put under my pillow."
"Oh, you'll have some more loose ones soon enough." I said.
"And after the park, we stopped and had lunch with ice cream for dessert," continued Sherlock.
"And that lady paid our bill because che thought Lock wa beautiful," added Chelsea stretching out the syllables of beautiful.
"What?" I asked.
"That's not why," said Sherlock, smiling. "Some woman paid our bill and left a note that the reason she did it was because she thought it was so nice to see a father taking time to be with his daughter. She was gone before I had a chance to set her straight."
"She thought you were Chelsea's father?"
Chelsea shook her head no. "That may be what the note taid, but che thought he wa beautiful."
"She did not," said Sherlock as he gently wrestled with a giggling Chelsea. "You stop making things up. Oh," he continued after the two of them settled down, "and later this afternoon, we worked on pronouncing our S's."
"How did that go?"
"Not too well," said Sherlock. "One of us became frustrated after a bit and stormed out of the room."
"And by 'one of us,' you, of course, mean you."
"Maybe."
"You realize, Sherlock, that what you're saying is that a five-year-old has more patience than you."
"And a longer attention span," he said. "Oh, Chelsea, I think you've put my leg to sleep. Why don't you go over to the couch for a while?" Sherlock slid her off his lap.
"You know, what I don't understand," I said, "is she's always touching you. Why doesn't she ever pat your head and say, 'Poor Sherlock'?"
"Oh, she just looks at me and grins, and when I ask her why she's smiling, she says, 'You know.' It's a little disconcerting."
"It's a little creepy," I said.
Chelsea's voice was audible but indistinct as she murmured to her imaginary friends on the other side of the room.
"Why didn't Mary come over here with you tonight? Oh, are you still angry with her over the hostage incident?"
"She and some of her bridesmaids are doing something. Our wedding is over two months away, but you'd think it was next week the way they're all acting. And no, I'm not still angry with her. We made up. Oh, yeah." I couldn't help smiling at the thought. "We definitely made up."
Sherlock rolled his eyes then ruffled his hair with his hands. "I need a case, John. But I can't concentrate with her here. What if her father never comes back?"
"The note said 'a while'."
"A while what? A week? A month? A year? When she graduates from university? Maybe he'll come back to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day?"
"Jesus, Sherlock, keep your voice down. You want to upset her?"
Sherlock suddenly sprang out of his chair. "Chelsea, what say we go downstairs and put your clothes in the dryer?"
She turned around from the couch. "I don't have any choed on." She lifted one bare foot out from under the oversized T-shirt and wiggled it in the air.
"Oh, be spontaneous," said Sherlock, taking her by the hand.
He left the door open and I listened to their chatter as they descended the stairs. She asked him if the stairs disappeared how they would get out and he postulated some escape routes and she added her own ideas. I clicked on Sherlock's laptop to check my blog website and read through some comments for the next few minutes until I was interrupted by a child's scream.
Downstairs Sherlock and Chelsea transferred her clothes from Mrs. Hudson's washer to her dryer, and then Sherlock picked up Chelsea so that she could reach the knob on the dryer to turn it to the correct setting and push the button to start it. That is when he first noticed that something was not right. When he later spoke of this night to me, he blamed Chelsea for distracting him so that he was caught off guard, and I will admit that it was unusual that he did not detect the two intruders earlier. Sherlock was a man who could walk into a room and notice immediately if a book had been moved or a lamp had been dusted. But on this night, his heightened sense of observation was dulled and one of the men managed to hit him in the lower back with a Taser before he could react to their presence.
Sherlock dropped Chelsea and hit the floor convulsing and the second man swept Chelsea up in his arms. That is when she screamed and that is when I hit the stairs at a run. As I turned the landing, the man holding Chelsea, who was screaming and fighting like a wildcat, fired a handgun twice at me. Had it not been for her flailing arms and legs destroying his aim, I would probably be dead, but the second bullet caught my left shoulder and forced me down on the steps. The two men fled with Chelsea out the front door.
At that point I did not know that Sherlock had been hit with the Taser. Fortunately the probes had only shocked him once. He struggled to his knees, trying to shake off the effects of the electrical assault on his body. "John! John!" he called as he crawled to the bottom of the steps. Forcing himself to stand, he pulled himself up the stairs to me as gradually he was able to regain control of his muscles.
"Forget about me, Sherlock." I tried unsuccessfully to raise myself up to a sitting position to show him I was not badly injured. "You have to go after Chelsea."
"But you've been shot."
"And you're responsibility is to that little girl."
"John, I can't leave you like this." He pulled the bottom of my shirt up to my shoulder and bunched the material to staunch the bleeding.
"Call an ambulance, Sherlock, and go!"
Sherlock wavered. "John, I—"
"Sherlock, forget about me. It hurts like hell, but I'll live. But I swear to God, if you don't go after that little girl, our relationship ends right here, right now. I will never work with you again. You understand me? Our friendship is over. She needs you, Sherlock, and I don't. Not now."
Just then the downstairs front door opened and Detective Inspector Lestrade rushed in. "What the hell is going on? I drive up outside and hear a gunshot and two men leave here at a dead run. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like they were carrying someone."
Sherlock had recovered sufficiently to go back downstairs to Lestrade. "John's been shot. Call an ambulance and we have to go after those men." He grabbed his coat and scarf from the hook by the door.
Lestrade bounded up the stairs two at a time to where I lay sprawled just below the landing. "John?"
"Lestrade," called Sherlock. "We have to leave now or we'll lose them. If we haven't lost them already." He whipped out his phone and called for the ambulance himself.
"I've already called for back-up," said the Detective Inspector, "and I've called in the license and description of the car those two jackals got in. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
"When we're in the car," said Sherlock, pacing in the entryway.
"Well, we can't leave John here alone."
"Yes, you can," I said, although the pain and the shock to my system were causing me to weaken rapidly. "Sherlock, call Mary for me. Tell her…tell her what's happened."
Lestrade looked from me down to Sherlock who had stopped pacing.
"Detective Inspector," said Sherlock calmly. "Those men have kidnapped a five-year old child who was under my protection. We have to go after her now."
"John," said Lestrade, reluctantly, "someone will be here in a minute, two at the most."
"Go," I said.
Lestrade hurried down the stairs and he and Sherlock left. Sherlock never told me how much he revealed to the Detective Inspector about Chelsea, but knowing Sherlock, he did not reveal much on their drive through the night streets of London. Lestrade was continually on the radio with his dispatcher who was patching through calls on reported sightings of the car containing the two fugitives and Chelsea. The way she was screaming when they left with her, I knew what they would find when they caught up with the men who had taken Chelsea. Her back would be covered in blood from the M-shaped scar and she would be in horrific pain.
Forty-five minutes after they left Baker Street, Lestrade finally got confirmation that the car they were seeking was parked outside a housing complex on Roberta Street in Bethnal Green. Six police cars, including Lestrade's, converged on the location. It was obvious which house they were in because Chelsea's cries could be heard even through the closed door and shuttered windows.
Sherlock pleaded with the Detective Inspector to be allowed to approach the building alone to assess the situation, but, of course, Lestrade would not hear of it and ordered Sherlock to stay in the car. But of course, Sherlock was never one to follow orders. While the officers were huddled, working out what strategy they would use to end the hostage situation, Sherlock used the cover of darkness to simply enter the house next door. He had worked a case in this area of row houses a few years before and knew that some of the flats had interior doors that connected them, and, fortunately, the inhabitants of the adjacent house were not at home.
He quickly located the door that would open into the flat where Chelsea was being held. He put his ear to it. Chelsea's cries had stopped but he could hear a muffled sound. They must have gagged her. As he listened to the male voices, he quickly ascertained that that there were at least four males in the room and that one of them was Chelsea's father who was being held against his will. Evidently, Chelsea had been brought into the room to persuade him to reveal something, but Sherlock could not make out what it was. He did hear comments about the blood covering the little girl's back and how that was nothing compared to what her father would soon witness if he did not start talking. From his moans, Sherlock felt that her father had been beaten so badly that he was almost beyond talking.
It was not until one of the men announced that they had wasted enough time and they should begin cutting Chelsea that Sherlock rammed the door open with his shoulder, his gun drawn. It was at the same time that the police burst through both the front and back doors. A brief gunfight followed but the three men did not have much of a chance. Two of them fell wounded and the third surrendered.
As the police had entered the room, Sherlock had immediately thrown his hands in the air, fearing that he would be mistaken for one of the men they were after. But as soon as the gunfire was over, he whipped off his coat and headed for Chelsea who was huddled on the floor, her wrists taped to the leg of a heavy table that she appeared to have dragged part way across the room in her attempt to reach her father. She was barefoot and still wearing Sherlock's T-shirt, now soaked in blood. He knelt beside her and wrapped his coat around her and ripped through the tape on her wrists.
Lestrade loomed over him while his officers were seeing to the wounded men and restraining the other one. "What the hell are you doing in here, Sherlock, and what the hell are you doing with her? She needs an ambulance."
Sherlock stood with Chelsea cradled in his arms. The tape still covered her mouth and she was still trying to scream through it. "Lestrade…Gr…Greg? She's not…she's not…injured," he stammered. "It's not…what it looks like."
"It looks like she's covered in blood! Now put her down and wait for the paramedics. They're on their way."
Chelsea was struggling in Sherlock's arms and it was hard for him to hold her. She kept reaching for her father who had been tied to a chair but the officers had got him onto the floor. "Please, Lestrade, trust me on this. I need to get her away from here. I need to get her calmed down. Have one of your men drive me back to Baker Street."
"No. Not this time, Sherlock. This is a crime scene and this little girl has obviously suffered a traumatic injury. I can't just let you walk out of here with her. Now set her down. That's an order." He motioned for one of his men to come over and take the child from Sherlock.
When the officer put his hands on her, Chelsea ripped the tape from her mouth and screamed.
Sherlock tightened his hold on her. "Lestrade, please. I promise. I promise I will tell you all that I know about what's going on here—which isn't much—if you let me take her now. Wait!"
He turned and looked at Chelsea's father, lying on the floor. The man's face was a mass of blood and bruises but Sherlock suddenly recognized him. The great detective who was always so conscious of details, had been so concerned with Chelsea since entering the room, that it had just dawned on him where he had seen her father before. "Richard Sherbrooke." Sherlock spoke the name aloud. "Not Brook. Sherbrooke." Richard Sherbrooke had been one of Sherlock's earliest clients while he was still at university.
At the mention of his name, the nearly unconscious man opened his eyes. "Take care of her, Holmes." He struggled to get the words out. "Don't cry, Baby. It'll be all right."
Chelsea continued to alternate between sobbing and screaming for her Dad but she had ceased struggling in Sherlock's arms.
"Please, Lestrade." Sherlock said quietly.
"Officer Winston," Lestrade called out. "Take Sherlock Holmes and this child to his flat on Baker Street. Tomorrow, Sherlock. I'll expect you tomorrow. Agreed?"
Sherlock nodded and hurried out the door, following the officer to his car. He sat in the back seat with Chelsea, cocooned in his coat, on his lap. She gradually quieted just as she had done two nights before when Sherlock and John had caught up with her in the alley. "I am so sorry, Chelsea. I am so sorry," Sherlock repeated softly over and over.
"After several minutes, she finally spoke. "Id my Dad dead?"
"No, Chelsea. He's not dead. He's going to hospital. We'll go see him there but first we have to get you home and cleaned up."
"I taw John get chot. Id John dead?"
"No, John's not dead, either. But he's also in hospital. We'll see him, too."
"I wa cared, Lock."
"I know. I was scared, too."
"I don't think Jedi warrior chould be cared."
"Oh, I think even Jedi warriors might get scared sometimes. Is the pain almost gone now?"
"Almote. It till burn a little. Id my Dad going to be all right?"
"Officer Winston." Sherlock leaned forward. "Do you have some bottled water in here?"
"Oh, sure. Here." The officer passed Sherlock a bottle.
Sherlock took off the lid and made Chelsea drink some water. The crying episode had lasted much longer tonight and he worried that her blood loss was much greater. Maybe he should take her to the emergency room, he thought. But, no, too many people had already seen her tonight and there would already be too many questions that he would have to face from them. He would just keep an eye on her condition.
"Why don't you try to go to sleep? It will be a while yet before we get home."
Once they arrived back at Baker Street, Sherlock put the half-asleep Chelsea in the bathtub and gently washed her back. It was easier this time since the blood had not dried so hard, but the wounds were not quite closed either, although they were no longer bleeding. He dried her off and then wrapped a fresh towel around her.
"Your clothes are still in the dryer. I need to go down and get them because you don't have anything to wear to hospital." It was late but he was anxious to check on John's condition. Mary had texted him several times that he was doing all right, but Sherlock wanted to see for himself. "Will you be all right here alone for two minutes while I run downstairs?"
Chelsea nodded sleepily and he left her standing in the bathroom..
When Sherlock returned she was fast asleep on her pallet on the floor in his bedroom. He sent Mary a text that he would be at hospital first thing in the morning then took another one of his T-shirts out of a drawer. Without waking her, he removed the towel from Chelsea and slipped the T-shirt over her head and down to cover her legs. "Oh, I don't know," he said quietly. "I think you'd better sleep in bed with me tonight. If the Child Protection people were to get wind of it they'd probably have a fit and bring me up on charges, but I'll sleep better with you close and I'll bet you'll sleep better, too." He picked her up and laid her on his bed and drew the covers up. "Richard Sherbrooke," he said aloud then headed for the living room to look up some things on the computer. The discovery of her father's identity only led to more questions.