Chapter Text
Evidently the collusion with Sherlock at New Scotland Yard was enough to bring Chelsea out of the depression that she had been feeling all morning. They stopped for a sandwich on the way home to Baker Street and she was back to her cheerful, chatty self.
When they stepped out of the cab in front of the doorway to 221B, Sherlock exclaimed, "Oh, good, Mrs. Hudson's back home."
"Uh oh," said Chelsea and stopped him from opening the door. "She'll find out we tole the oatmeal and ger and tuff to make the bitcutch and we took her jumper."
"Oh, what have I done?" said Sherlock and he sat down on the steps to be at eye level with his young charge. "In just over seventy-two hours, I've taught you how to steal and lie. What can I do next to morally corrupt you? Teach you how to cheat at poker?"
"I know how to play poker," Chelsea said.
"Ah, but do you know how to win consistently? Come on," he said as he stood and took her hand. "Let me introduce you to my landlady."
Mrs. Hudson heard the door opening and met them in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs.
"Mrs. Hudson," exclaimed Sherlock. "It is so nice to have you back." He kissed her on the cheek. "I really don't know how I survived without you."
"Oh, Sherlock. I was only gone for a week."
"It seemed like an eternity."
"And who is this?" Mrs. Hudson asked, looking at Chelsea.
"Mrs. Hudson, may I introduce Chelsea Sherbrooke. Chelsea, Mrs. Hudson."
Chelsea extended her hand and Mrs. Hudson took it, and then was surprised when the little girl wrapped her arms around the landlady's legs. "I'm glad you're back, too, Michka...Micha… Hudon…I can't say your name."
"Trouble with her S's," explained Sherlock.
"Don't you worry about that, "said Mrs. Hudson. "You can call me Martha. Can you say that?"
Chure. I like you, Martha." Chelsea stepped back and looked up at her, the little girl's face beaming.
Sherlock did not expect this from Chelsea. He, too, had noticed how she had reacted when she first met Molly and then Mary.
"And don't you worry about your S's either. I couldn't pronounce my S's either, nor my R's. Folks couldn't understand a word I was saying until I was, oh, about 7 or 8 years old. But, Sherlock, who is she and why is she here?"
"She's the daughter of an old client who had a bit of trouble and left her with me for a few days."
"Left her…with …you?"
"Mrs. Hudson, please don't ask me to explain further. Making up lies is very exhausting."
Mrs. Hudson frowned at him. "How are John and Mary?"
"John got chot," volunteered Chelsea before Sherlock could stop her.
"Shot! Oh my goodness, is he all right? What happened?"
"He's fine," said Sherlock. "We had a bit of trouble last night. He's going home from hospital this afternoon."
"Oh...oh my! He's in hospital!" exclaimed Mrs. Hudson, flustered. "I leave for a few days. You inherit a child, John gets shot—"
"Everything's all right, Mrs. Hudson." Sherlock sniffed. "Is that roast beef I smell coming from your kitchen?"
"I've just put it on. I'll bring some up at dinner for you…and…Chelsea. I'm going to have to pop out to the shops for a few minutes. I have to take some things to the dry cleaners and I thought I had plenty of brown sugar and oatmeal and sugar in my cupboard, but I seem to be out."
Chelsea looked up at Sherlock and he shook his head no. Sherlock grabbed a jacket and coat where they hung by the door. They were the ones he had put around Chelsea when she had suffered from her bleeding episodes last night and the first night. "Would you mind terribly dropping some things off at the cleaners for me?" He draped them across Mrs. Hudson's hands. "Be sure and tell the man there that they have blood on them."
"Blood?" She held each up by its collar away from her. "Not John's?"
"Not John's. Not mine. But blood is hard to get out and they are both favorites of mine."
"Oh, Sherlock. Truth be told, I have missed the shenanigans around here. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was very quiet and rather boring at my sister's."
Sherlock left Mrs. Hudson in the entryway and escorted Chelsea up the stairs to his flat. As he helped her out of her jacket, he asked, "So you like Mrs. Hudson, do you?"
"Oh, yech, but chouldn't we tell her that we took thode thing from her cupboard?"
"I will. Chelsea, when you met Mrs. Hudson downstairs just now, you hugged her and told her you liked her. But when you first met Molly at the hospital and Mary, John's girlfriend, you acted, oh, I don't know, as if you were frightened or scared of them. Why was that?"
Chelsea shrugged. She picked up one of the light sabers off the couch. "Can we go to the park now?"
"I think you'd better rest a while first. We had a rather busy morning traipsing around the hospital and the police station. Why don't you lie down there on the couch."
"I'm not tired."
"Yes, you are. Now climb up there and lie down. Besides I think it's the law that little five-year-old girls have to take a nap every day."
Chelsea crawled onto the couch and curled up in a ball with the light saber in on hand and Brownie's leash wadded in her other hand. "It not the law," she grumbled.
"I'm pretty sure it is." Sherlock went into his bedroom and retrieved a dressing gown. By the time he returned to the living room, Chelsea was already asleep. He spread the dressing gown over her since there was a slight chill in the air. Turning his attention to his laptop, he sat at his desk and pulled up Chelsea's CT scans and located the tiny dots in the little girl's skull and shoulder blade that Molly had pointed out to him. His fingers steepled against his mouth, he stared straight ahead. Even when the image disappeared and the screen saver came on, he didn't move, lost in thought.
It was almost an hour later that he was brought back to the present by Chelsea tugging on his sleeve. "Your phone dinged." She had reached into his pocket and got it and was looking at the screen. "It's a mechaage from John. I didn't know there wa an 'h' in John."
"What?" It took a moment for Sherlock to focus on her. He had been completely absorbed in his pursuit down different paths of explanations for Chelsea's behavior and the mysterious implants. "What does he say? Can you read it?"
"Chur. He says I am home." Chelsea read each word on the phone screen slowly and deliberately. "What newch did Molly have?"
"Give it here. Let me text him."
Chelsea hugged the phone close to her body. "I can do it."
"All right. Write Tell you later."
Sherlock said each letter aloud and Chelsea repeated it as she looked for it on the keypad. It took forever before she was finally able to hit "send."
"Are you ready to go to the park?" Sherlock asked as he took his phone from her.
"Oh, yeah. Can we take the lighttaber?"
"Sure."
By the time the pair of them returned from their outing in the park, the smell of Mrs. Hudson's roast beef permeated the entire building. She came out of the kitchen while they were still at the bottom of the stairs and announced that dinner would be ready in less than an hour and that she had bought Chelsea some things while she was out. "Because," she said, "when I came home this morning I was in your flat and there was no sign that you had a little girl staying there—no toys or anything. Except those two plastic tubes you have in your hands. What are those?"
"Lighttaber," answered Chelsea.
"From Star Wars?" asked Mrs. Hudson.
"Lock id teaching me to fight like a Jedi," Chelsea explained.
"Well, if anyone could do it, he'd probably be the one. What's that around your neck?"
Chelsea looked down at the embroidered pouch that contained her coins. "I loched a tooth. See?" She jutted out her chin and bared her lower teeth so the landlady could see the gap. Lock gave me thid to keep my money in that the tooth fairy gave me—five pound!"
"Five?" exclaimed Mrs. Hudson, looking at Sherlock. "The most I ever got was 10p."
"Come on," said Sherlock, ushering Chelsea toward the stairs. "We need to wash up and clear the table to make room for Mrs. Hudson's wonderful meal."
When Sherlock opened the door to his flat, Chelsea ran to the couch where Mrs. Hudson had left some colouring books and a box of crayons and a baby doll. "Are theche for me?" she asked.
"They're what Mrs. Hudson said she bought for you. You be sure and thank her when she brings our food."
"Can I keep them?"
"Sure. Come on, now, let's get some of that grime off your hands and then you can play until time to eat."
In telling me later about the supper, Sherlock likened it to a football game in which he was a goalkeeper as he spent the entire meal deflecting Mrs. Hudson's questions about Chelsea. I do not know that I had ever heard Sherlock use a sports analogy, but I suppose he must have played sports when he was a schoolboy. And I know he fenced when he was at university.
As they were finishing eating, Sherlock reminded Chelsea that she was supposed to tell Mrs. Hudson something.
Chelsea screwed up her face, trying to remember. "Oh, yeah. Lock id going to teach me to cheat at Poker."
"Oh, Sherlock," said Mrs. Hudson disapprovingly.
Sherlock flipped his serviette teasingly at Chelsea. "That wasn't what I was referring to."
"Oh," Chelsea said, thinking again. "We're torry we took tum tuff from your kitchen, but we made really good bitcuitch. There are tum left." She slid off the books that she was sitting on and retrieved the biscuit container from the counter. She took it to Mrs. Hudson who took off the lid.
"You made these, Sherlock?"
"I don't know why that surprises everyone. I do have a degree in chemistry. Cooking is just…chemistry. But, Chelsea, that's still not what you are supposed to tell her."
Chelsea had remained standing by the older woman. "I'm torry I wore one of your jumpers. I don't know where it id now."
"It's in the bedroom somewhere," said Sherlock.
"I don't mind if you needed a jumper," said Mrs. Hudson. "It was rather big on you, wasn't it?"
Chelsea smiled. "Yeah, but I needed to wear tumthing when Lock took me to buy theche choes. Chee what they do?" She stomped her feet so the landlady could see the lights in the soles.
"Chelsea," said Sherlock, "don't you have something to tell her about the colouring books and the doll?'
"Oh!" She hugged Mrs. Hudson around the waist. "Thank you! I like to colour and I never had a doll before."
"You've never…" Mrs. Hudson, still in her chair, wrapped one arm around Chelsea and pulled her close. "Why…every little girl should have a doll." She looked questioningly at Sherlock who shrugged.
Sherlock stood and set his plate in the sink. "Thank you for sharing your dinner with us, Mrs. Hudson," he said, standing at the sink with his back to her.
"I'll just keep out a little meat and potatoes and carrots for me for tomorrow and leave the rest for you. Sherlock, are you sure you're all right with…with her staying here like this? She's welcome to stay downstairs with me."
Sherlock turned around with a forced smile on his face. "We're fine, Mrs. Hudson. Now, you are probably tired from your trip home today and doing all this for us. You go on down and I'll clean up here…sometime."
"I'll put all this away. You'd leave it here until Christmas." She moved Chelsea away so she could stand up. Sherlock went into the living room and sat down in his favorite chair.
"I have a tecret," Chelsea whispered, motioning for Mrs. Hudson to bend down. "I don't want him to hear." The little girl cupped her hands and whispered into one of Mrs. Hudson's ears. "I don't think it wa the Tooth Fairy who left me the money. I think it wa Lock."
"I don't know," said Mrs. Hudson, straightening, but keeping her voice low. "Five quid doesn't sound like Lock…like Sherlock. I think it was the Tooth Fairy. What are you going to do with all that money"
Chelsea shrugged.
"What are you going to name your doll?"
Chelsea shrugged again and smiled. "Maybe Martha."
Mrs. Hudson laid her hands along Chelsea's face. "You are such a sweet thing. But you listen to me. I want you to know that while you're here you can come to me at any time, you understand? If Sherlock ever get into one of his…well, sometimes, he has these…moods. And, well, if you ever need anything, you just come downstairs. All right?"
Chelsea laid her hands on tops of Mrs. Hudson's. "All right."
"Now you go play and I'll finish up in here."
Sherlock was glad that Mrs. Hudson had brought the gifts for Chelsea because they kept the little girl occupied most of the evening. The only time she bothered him was when she asked for some blank paper to make a get well card for me and she needed to know how to spell some of the words. He spent the evening reading and it was only when it was almost her bedtime that she came over with the doll and crawled up in his lap.
The doll had clothes on when it was new in the package, but it was naked now. "I don't think Martha ever had wingch." She showed Sherlock the doll's back.
"I don't suppose she did," said Sherlock, not quite sure how to respond. "Most dolls don't have wings. Most people don't. In fact…no people do."
"It probably a good thing," said Chelsea, "because now che can cry and it won't hurt." She laid her head against Sherlock's chest. "Do you ever cry, Lock?"
Sherlock hesitated, thinking. "Sometimes," he finally said aloud.
"Doed it hurt?"
"Not like it does you."
"My Dad cry sometimes. He cried when Mum died. It wa a long time ago, but I remember. He cried and cried."
They were both quiet for a few moments until Chelsea broke the silence. "What id wrong with me, Lock?"
Sherlock wanted to say there was nothing wrong with her, but he knew differently. "I don't know, Chelsea. You're a mystery."
She sat up and twisted to face him. "But that what you do. You tolve mychery."
"But there are some mysteries even I can't solve."
"I think you chould try to tolve thid one for me." She ran her fingers along the doll's back. "Maybe you can make her tum wingch."
"What?"
"Martha, my doll. Can you make her wingch?"
Sherlock took the naked doll and looked at it. "I don't know how."
"Well, think about it."
"OK," said Sherlock. "But now, I think it's bedtime."
"Can Martha leep with me?"
"Can Martha sleep on the floor?"
"Oh," Chelsea moaned. "I think I promiched not to argue…"
"I think you did."
"But I lept with you lat night."
"But that was different. You had just been through…something terrible."
Chelsea breathed out a heavy sigh. "Id it the law that I have to leep on the floor?"
"Well, yeah, it kind of is."
"OK." She slid off Sherlock's lap and headed for the lavatory.