Chapter Text
"Okay Sherlock, just a question, why did you mention your opioid's when a recovering DRUG ADDICT WAS IN THE FUCKEN FLAT- where are you going?" John yells at me as I grab my Ear defenders, sunglasses and my coat.
"I need to go to visit the irregulars, for a case, I will be back as soon as possible, Ta-ta!" I say opening the door to the flat and walking out as I Watson call something out in annoyance.
As I exit onto the street I feel a pang of guilt as I have just lied to Watson, well sort of, as I am visiting the Irregular’s but not for a new case, ever since we met ‘Doddy’ I have had a nagging feeling that he must be part of something larger than just a gang, an I’ve delt with many gangs, even before Watsons’ time, but had never seen that specific tattoo, also if he’s in a gang how can he run a company? I need to talk to the irregulars, this is quite confusing indeed, this could have something to do with Ruby and Noah’s mystery…… No surely not…. I shake the thought out of my head, I’m jumping to conclusions, just like Watson, I shake the thought out of my head, good heavens I must be delirious, I need to calm my mind.
I decide to walk around the streets of London as everything always stayed the same and was the only place where routine has never changed, it’s all just peaceful, as London can be of course. As I walk down the block, past the post office, I spot a new shop? A new SHOP? I thought Advention BP would re-open after the surprise works on it, but no, an antique shop opened! Well now my mind is even more busy.
Even the slightest change in routine can change my mood. The routine is ruined, I can’t Focus on the mystery of Mr James ‘Doddy’, I need to deduce everything I can about this Antique shop? Yes that’s what it is, before I can stop myself for walking off to find Wiggins or another member of the irregulars, I find myself entering the Antique shop, with two other people looking around.
The shop was dimly lit, with some of the Lamps for sale lighting the room, there were five sections, one for clothes, female and male, one for books (I will definitely snoop in those for any Hutcon Bruce escapades) one for furniture, one for soft toys/ children’s toys and one for Vinyls’, CDs’ and photos? Why photos? Who would want photos of strangers? But still, I was almost drawn to them, there was a sign “Photos 25 pence each”. Twenty-Five pence, that echoed into my mind multiple times, twenty-five pence for ‘vintage’ photos of strangers are absolutely bollocks, why would someone want to get rid of photos that hold memories of their family?
Well, I guess they’ve gone through something traumatic, maybe like my family, Aunt Qwen almost always busy, my mother and father putting me and Mycroft into foster care and Lily being with those awful foster parents that one summer.
But that is not important, I am quite sure that I’ll be able to deduce why these photos have been donated. As I flick though some photo’s I spot a couple outside 221A and B, The man, in a army uniform standing next to most likely his wife who is almost in tears, I can’t tell exactly who it is, as the photo is in black and white, but there is a date, March 13, 1915, that man must have been drafted to fight in the first world war. The man looks about 38, about 6’1 whilst the woman looks around 5’1, and looks about eight or nine months pregnant, so of course she would be upset that her husband is going to World War one.
I found a little box to place it in, then picked another one of the same woman and man, dated two years earlier, in black and white, which looked like their wedding photos, her dress was very clearly from the 1900s, but looked very elegant on her. As I put it in the box I spied another photo of the couple, dated 1917, just after the war, the man had a prosthetic leg, sitting on the porch of 221A with his wife and Child, a little girl. The love in those photos is one that you find once in a lifetime.
I placed the Photo in the box, and I was about to leave, then I stopped as I spotted a stack of letters tied together with a photo of the Woman waving her husband from the porch as he gets into the personnel carrier, so I open the letters and they turn out to be love letters, that where dated at least every week until the war had finished, Both from the man, who was called John and the Woman Elizabeth. Just then time froze, and I was almost transported back in time, to a crowed street in 1914….