Young Writers Society

Sherlock glanced between the left-over potato pancakes on his plate, Emily at the head of the table and the unlocked kitchen door.  Torrio and John had left sometime during Emily’s process, taking a six pack with them and no intentions of helping him in the kitchen. He could read the questions across her face. It was rude that they hadn’t even bothered to check in how dinner was coming, that regular assumption that just someone would attend to it.

Sherlock really hated modern men sometimes.

“So, Emily, how was your case otherwise?  Any other fatal injuries that I should know about?”

His eyes swept to the side to glare at her, looking for some sign of tells and listening carefully to her breathing.

“No, it’s the same as they all go. We need to look into private contracting, so I don’t have to deal with his bull shit and then we can exercise your mind more. I liked having you as a partner.”

When they had first gotten to Cumberland, the night Emily went to the Goodwill after blowing out a lamp, Emily found a job very under the table. Work that Sherlock would never have considered, requirements of hunting people down but for no police work cause.

The memory quickly replayed in his mind as Sherlock thought about how different they were then. The whole ride to the store he had chided her for not being more careful with it, how she never should have had a table lamp run on an extension cord down to the river.  When he thought about the event now, why she must have had the table lamp down by the river, he really should have been helping her.  Making sure she wasn’t doing anything stupid like getting electrocuted while trying to fix the pump.

They had gone inside the thrift shop near closing time and he made his usual rude comments about quality.  Sherlock never really had the right to make judgements on the quality or the state or the ways of something.  And once they had started walking around, someone commented on the shabby state of his jacket, prompting Emily to buy him the beat band sweat shirt.  She pulled it off the rack and hung it over his thin frame, making him stoop while she slid it over his head and tightened the draw string at his neck.

“Do you think this will do for you, love?  I’ll get you some more clothes once I get a bit more money but for now you’ll just have to wear some of my old shit.”

In that moment, Sherlock wasn’t able to give her a real answer.  He just nodded and followed along as she purchased five more table lamps and set them into the back of the Plymouth.

Once again, she asked, “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“It’s perfect, Emily.  It’s the sweetest thing anyone has done for me in a while.”

“Good.  I just have a stop to make on the way home and someone to talk to about a job.  Is box macaroni good for dinner?”

Sherlock slid onto his seat while saying, “Yes, it’s perfect.  Everything you do for me is perfect.”

He should have expected that the present would be a bad sign, especially when Emily had offered to buy him the cigarettes. Pulling into the unbranded store on the way home to Opessa and ignoring the odd amounts of pickup trucks in the Douglas Inn. There was a quick exchange about brand, with Emily gone in a single moment.Sherlock didn’t want her to go into the store alone, but he was unable to move from his place in the car.  The shirt sleeves wrapped tighter and tighter around his wrists while he waited for her to come back, wondering until she arrived about the unsavory sort of unemployment she had found.

Emily had walked out of the convenience store and the phrase, “Employment for seeking persons of interest in overdue charges.”

He pushed the pieces of macaroni through tomato gravy and turned to her to say, “I don’t want to question you, but I don’t want to work for a loan shark or a bookie, again.”

“Why not? It’s money, isn’t it?”

“We were leading sheep to the slaughter and you’re alright with that? What about all of your bull shit about being a protector and how much of a patriotic American you are?”

Her hand went down on the table with a noticeable sound and Emily looked him in the eyes to say, “I don’t plan on doing it again, love, but it might happen again.  Do you understand that?”

“Yes but that doesn’t make up for all that we did in the past.”

“I don’t intend for it be but believe it or not, I don’t like hurting people.  It’s just a side effect of the job.”

There was an expected silence between them, soon interrupted by the entry of their house guests: Torrio, John and a park ranger that Sherlock didn't recognize. Emily made no movement against the first two, only making eye contact with the woman in uniform.

"Ms. Higgins, what can we do for you?"

The ranger took off her hat, moving to the chair in front of the stove and sighing for a moment. She began with, "There were a few complications with our side of the man hunt."

Torrio and John took their own places at the table. Torrio took the first chair to the left of Emily, remaining quiet with his notebook out. Sherlock turned to see John moving into the corner of his eye, taking the seat at his right and sliding a left hand into Sherlock's right. John looked at him for a moment with a questionable smile, then wiping the smirk away when the ranger began their statement.

"This was not the fault of my men, before either of you begin to question our conduct. And I lost a good man in the progress of this all."

Sherlock remained silent with Torrio and John, everyone recognizing their place at the table.

"Well Higgins, you still haven't told me what happened."

"We lost your ring leader, but through no fault of mine."

The look that spread across Emily’s face was certainly disappointment and the fear that spread through her stare.  Sherlock squeezed at John’s hand, slowly praying that the situation would not turn violent.  And that maybe Emily could manage to get through this situation, dealing with this confrontation peacefully.

“Perhaps if you were more careful with choosing good rangers and not being distracted by your own drinking problem, we wouldn’t have to step in.”

No such luck.

The drinking habits of the ranger had been obvious from the moment Sherlock was able to focus on her image. Some of that obviousness came from the blatant smell of whiskey on her breath, maybe downed courage to talk to Emily or more likely just habit.

"How dare you accuse me of such a thing, Agent O'Brien. I have never been more insulted in my life. I have half a mind to file a complaint about you."

Sherlock wanted to lean in and offer a suggestion to Emily, saying that the ranger probably did have half of a mind, and not much more. The familiar scrape of her chair against the linoleum interrupted the thought and he was left to suck on a piece of ice in an effort to keep his lips sealed.

"For one, you must not have been paying much attention or you would know that I am not an agent of any government agency," Emily paused to slide her chair out, standing at full height and glaring back down at the seated ranger. "And for two, if that was the most insulting thing you've ever heard in your life, you must be mighty sheltered."

The Ranger Higgins picked up her hat, walked across the kitchen in two steps and slammed the door shut. Its sound echoed across the kitchen with everyone left in the mild shock of the event. They all heard the car start and the fading sounds of the ranger’s transportation until the four were left entirely by themselves in the kitchen. Emily slowly sat back down, taking a drink of her water and re-folding the crumpled napkin on the table.

Torrio was the first to break the silence.

“Emily, you shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not, Joe?  I knew her judgement was impaired from the moment I laid eyes on her and now we’ve lost three months of work.”

He hadn’t realized the effort Emily put into the case until now when the phrase “three months” bounced around in his brain.Sherlock knew that she would often go in for long hauls but usually that was when a case interested her, a case that they would work in private.  They hadn’t worked one of those in nearly three months – the piece slowly clicked.

Torrio looked once to Sherlock and John before finding his way back to Emily to say, “Because that’s not how we do it in this business.  We have to be careful about the other agencies we work with, what we say to them and how we might have to let certain things slide.”

Even before she began rising from the table, Sherlock knew that this would be a breaking point for Emily.  Maybe when they first got to Cumberland and were desperate for money she had let her morals fall.  But through the seven years that they were friends, Sherlock knew that she would not stand by to let an immoral act such as this just happen because of the fault of another.

Fear grew in his heart and Sherlock once again tightened his grip on John’s hand, carefully mouthing the words of, “Stay still.  Stay quiet.”

“Do suppose, Agent Torrio, that it was our fault in letting the ring leader get away?  Or was it more of yours?”

There was a slight clink as Torrio’s fork dropped to the ceramic plate, and the slow squeak as he pushed it across the table.With the tone in Emily’s voice, Sherlock couldn’t blame the agent for forgetting the food and choosing to leave the house instead.  His half-eaten plate was present on the table as Torrio began his exit speech.

“Well, I think I ought to be going anyways.It’s getting late and if the situation is half as bad as Higgins made it out to be, there’ll be a lot of paperwork to do in the morning.”  Torrio stopped while donning his hat and then looked back at Emily to ask, “I’ll pick you up on Friday at 3 again, okay?”

“Okay.”

Sherlock watched as she purposely did not get up, giving him a wave and denying physical contact. It wasn't that he was jealous, but it certainly made him feel better to know Torrio wouldn't be sleeping a few rooms away. Particularly on a night like this, the thought occurring to Sherlock as he remembered John's hand in his.

Emily sighed, smoothing out her napkin again, and started speaking to the remaining table members.

“So how do you boys feel about church tomorrow morning?”

Sherlock felt John shifting in the seat beside him, possibly from the religion aspect but more likely their common question of John’s presence.  And if he was going to be in the house tonight, there was doubt for Sherlock of where the man would be sleeping.

After a few seconds, John managed to ask, “I’m allowed to stay?”

“Of course you can.  Just be safe and don’t do anything that I can hear.  And I’ll take this as a yes to attending church at Prince of Peace?”

“Yes ma’am.”

They sat in silence for a while, exchanging the wary looks until Emily stood and began collecting the dinner dishes.

“Well service is at 8am so let’s get the kitchen clean and hit the sack.”