#I got her to read Sherlock Holmes and she still like Agatha Christie better

[starpros-sunshine]

If I loved Wataei less I might be able to talk about them more....

[glitchvault74]

:3c wish you'd write a fic where NERDs find a bookstore

Rig stands at the edge of the empty street, looking both ways as if expecting a car to come barrelling down the abandoned roadway. Pre-war habits that take a bit of time to go away, if not for the contemplative look on his face and furrowed brow as he looks left and keeps looking left.

“What is it?” Echo asks, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Oh...” Rig waves vaguely towards the direction he was looking. “There’s a bookstore I used to go to over that way somewhere. Trying to remember where exactly...”

“A bookstore?” Echo repeats, a smile spreading across her face. “Do you want to go find it?”

“Can we?” Rig asks, his own face brightening at the thought. “I mean— It was a small store and I don’t know if it’ll still be there or if it would have been ransacked by now, but—”

“Won’t know till we look,” Echo says. She turns and waves down Nick and Deacon. “Hey! Want to find a bookstore?”

“I call dibs on Shakespeare!” Deacon calls back.

Nick snorts. “If we’re calling dibs—”

“Dibs on Poe!” Rig cuts in.

“God dammit!”

“Where do we go, Rigsby?” Echo asks.

“Oh, um...” Rig starts down the street, leaving the others to follow as he tries to pick out old landmarks now worn away by war and time. “It should be... This door here.” He points at a door with a broken glass window and only the barest remains of the store name painted on what’s still intact. “It was an old Railroader meeting place. The owner was trans too. Loved her, Pamela Dempsy...” He chuckles. “Owner of Undercover Books.”

“I like it,” Deacon hums. He tries the door, and it opens. “What do you know. Unlocked.”

“The broken window wasn’t enough of a hint?” Nick asks.

Deacon shrugs and walks in first, with the others following after. Everything’s a mess of dust and mildewy paper, but there’s still books on the shelves, in small piles on scattered furniture, and in the glass display case where the register sits, open and emptied.

Rig walks straight through to one section of the store... “All the Silver Shroud comics are gone,” he calls over.

“Damn,” Echo pouts.

“That’s the first thing you check?” Nick chuckles. “Not looking for Poe?”

“Oh, I was kidding about that,” Rig grins. “You can have those if we find any.”

Nick blinks and then narrows his eyes at Deacon. “You’re a bad influence on him.”

“I didn’t teach him that,” Deacon grins. “Honest.” He heads over to the “classics” to start scanning the shelves.

Nick shakes his head and starts for the poetry. Echo looks through the murder mysteries muttering something about “Agatha Christie”. Rig watches the three of them search and smiles.

He stands there for a moment, listening to them shuffle around rather than looking for books himself. He lets out a small sigh and walks over to one of the book piles to see what had been pulled down and left behind. Old children’s books, many of which he had read a long time ago—plus two hundred years, he reminds himself. He traces the spines as he reads the titles. Dr. Seuss, Charlotte’s Web, The Boxcar Children— He flips open the cover and... yep, a list of names he remembers written on the inside. The Railroaders were not smart with their theming... He pockets the book and then pauses and looks towards the children’s section...

It takes a bit of searching—whoever organized these books by color rather than by any sensible pattern deserves whatever end they got—but he finds the five books he’s looking for.

“Hey,” Rig looks toward Nick who is in the process of pulling a book from the shelf. “Nick, what do you think of Sherlock Holmes?”

“Are you asking because I’m a detective?” Nick asks, not looking up from his reading.

Rig grins. “Did you ever read about the better Sherlock Holmes?”

“There’s a better Holmes?” Deacon asks over the book he’s pulled down.

Echo looks over as well. “One in the children’s section...?”

Rig holds up the first book. “His name is Basil and he’s the Great Mouse Detective and he’s hilariously perfect and one edition of one of the books in the series has a really terrible error where a paragraph stops mid-sentence and then the next paragraph is basically the same paragraph but rewritten.”

Deacon grins. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rig says. He holds the books to his chest. “Anyway, I’m stealing these, is that okay?”

“Only take what you can carry,” Echo says. “We’re not going to carry anything for you.”

“That’s fine, they’re light,” Rig says. He looks to the register and hums. “I wonder if the secret tote bags are still here...”

“I can do one better,” Deacon chimes in. “I think I saw a wheelbarrow nearby.”

“We’re making a library, aren’t we?” Nick asks.

Echo grins. “Yes.”

[this-year-ive-read]

Books I’ve Read in 2019 (A List in Progress)

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes - David Grann (***)

“The course of human events is not permanently altered by the great deeds of history, nor by the great men but by the small daily doings of the little men.”

Killers of the Flower Moon - The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann (**)

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien (****)

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”

“I survived, but it's not a happy ending.”

“But this too is true: stories can save us.”

Every Word You Cannot Say - Lain S Thomas (***)

“There are days when everyone needs you to be strong, even if you're dying inside, and you can only cry when no one's looking because you're petrified of letting them down.”

“I don’t know if I’m ever, really, ‘Here’”

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste NG (***)

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”

“You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.”

Night - Elie Wiesel (****)

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow”

The Alice Network - Kate Quinn (**)

“Poetry is like passion--it should not be merely pretty; it should overwhelm and bruise.”

“What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done”

Love her wild - Atticus (***)

“We are made of all those who have built and broken us”

“A sky

full

of stars

and he

was staring

at her.”

When we Left Cuba - Chanel Cleeton (****)

“For the dreams that slip through our fingers.

May we hold them in our arms one day.”

“You can love someone and still not lose your reason.”

“Not all of us have the luxury of setting the world on fire, simply because we’re angry.”

Crush - Richard Siken (***)

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river

           but then he’s still leftwith the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away

           but then he’s still left with his hands.”

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.”

“They want you to love the whole damn world but you won’t, you want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in a bath who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.”

War of the Foxes - Richard Siken (**)

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

“I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.”

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie (**)

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

Fool Me Once - Harlan Coben (***)

“All love stories,” Maya’s father had told her many years ago, “end in tragedy.”

“There are moments in life when everything changes.”

Pirate Hunters - Robert Kurson (*****)

“They made a sound I’d never heard before but somehow had known my whole life, a waterfall of muted chimes, dense and deep and old”

“When John asked his grandfather about being heroic, Arison told him that he had not done anything special, just what he thought was right”

“The world came alive when a person got a chance to be good”

“Do it now. Tomorrow is promised to no one”

“And promised himself that no matter what, he wouldn’t put off until tomorrow what his heart told him to go for today.”

“He just looked out at the world knowing it was finally too late for his father to have an adventure, and nothing seemed in color anymore.”

The Lost City of the Monkey God - Douglas Preston (***)

“But then the teules [foreigners] arrived and everything fell apart. They brought fear, and they came to wither the flowers.”

Crashing Through - Robert Kurson (****)

“It wasn't who a person believed himself to be or what he pretended he would do in a given situation. It was what he did when he got there that defined him.”

“May opened his eyes. Electric dots of silver-white, as many as the sound of a rainstorm, ran to every space in the world, and when he tried to see where they led there was no world anymore, they led everywhere, across a blanket of night that had no edges, and for a moment May didn’t know where he was among these stars, if he was under them or around them or beyond them, they were everywhere and he was everywhere, he was where he wanted to be.”

Shadow Divers - Robert Kurson (*****)

“This is where the hangers on, and wannabes, and also rans, and once greats keep believing in the sea.”

“I love you and you’re not here for me.”

Ross Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return”

“Autumn lingered on as if fond of its own perfection.”

Demelza - Winston Graham (***)

“Strange sometimes how easy bitter words came, how hard the kind ones.”

“Let me stay a little longer in the sun.”

Love Looks Pretty on You - Lang Leav (****)

“You turn him into poetry because you can’t have him any other way.”

“I have been quiet lately, I know. Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I have too much.”

“I struggle with things that are as easy to others as breathing.”

“Here is the story of my life. Hoping they would care about me or wishing they wouldn’t care so much.”

“When love swept in like the ocean

And left me in drops, like rain.”

Jeremy Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things, which rotted the hands that grasped them.”

“It isn’t where you’re born in this world, it’s what you do.”

Edgar: an Autobiography - Edgar Martinez (***)

“I concentrate on the moment and Don’t let the past or the future overwhelm me.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the greatest mariner of all time.”

Warleggan - Winston Graham (***)

“Their lives had been the tragedy of one woman who could not make up her mind.”

“It was not the cold of the night that she felt but an inner cold that no coat would cure.”

“Remember this she thought. In times of jealousy and neglect, remember this. He said: “so you are not to be rid of me, my love.” “So I am not to be rid of you, my love.””

The Black Moon - Winston Graham (**)

“Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.”

“We can’t alter the world, we can only adapt ourselves to it.”

The Lost Girls of Paris - Pam Jenoff (*)

“It is simply not enough to be as good as the men. They don’t believe we can do this and so we have to be better.”

Emma - Jane Austen (***)

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self control.”

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (****)

“Because he’s more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

“The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë (****)

“beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men;”

“But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.”

“If she gives you her heart,’ said I, ‘you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.”

“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it.  Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.—Will you have it?”

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (*****) {Reread}

“You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so”

“He made me love him without looking at me.”

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.  And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will”

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?  You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!  And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.”

[thesffcorner]

Truly Devious

Truly Devious is the first book in a YA mystery/thriller series written by Maureen Johnson. It follows Steve, a high school junior, who gets accepted to Ellingham Academy, a free private high school founded by Mr Ellingham: a newspaper and steel magnate, who viewed learning as a form of play. She gets admitted to the school because of her peculiar interest in true crime and investigations, specifically because she wants to solve the famous Ellingham mystery: who kidnapped and killed his family. This book got rave reviews; people said it was atmospheric, creepy, clever and I went into it with high expectations, but also a lot of skepticism, mostly because me and YA thrillers don’t tend to always agree.

I can happily say that this book delivers on most of the hype. It’s well written, both the case in the past and the case in the present are interesting, and the characters are well developed. However, I can’t fully recommend it, or even really explain how I feel about it because of the ending, or rather the lack thereof. I don’t mean this is an open ending, I mean there isn’t one. This is a part one to the mystery, and neither the past nor the present case are solved. I imagine we will get the answer in the sequel, but I am apprehensive, because I saw on Goodreads that there will be a third book. I just don’t see how this mystery can be stretched out into even just 2 books, let alone more; as such I might come off as a bit more negative than I probably intended, because half of a mystery is the ending, and without that how can you really be satisfied. Before we talk about that, let’s talk about the setting. The plot is set in Ellingham Academy, a private boarding school in Vermont. It was founded in the 30’s by Albert Ellingham, an incredibly wealthy man, who owns American steel, a newspaper and a production studio. He’s a true tycoon, a man clearly inspired by the likes of Howard Hughes, Joseph Pulitzer and Warren Buffet, self-made millionaires, hard core capitalists and people who as his friend Detective Marsh puts it “think they are invincible”. I like the idea of the Academy, this Montessori type establishment where learning is play, and the curriculum is very specifically tailored to the student’s interests. However, as always, I don’t see why it has to be a special high school, and can’t just be a private college or conservatory, and have the characters be 17-18, instead of 15-16. Ellingham Academy is already described as an old, classic style small, private, liberal arts college, down to being set in the middle of nowhere, on a hill, with a mostly inaccessible road and surrounded by woods. This makes for a possibly interesting atmosphere; this old isolated house, full of mystery and haunted by the past, surrounded by nature, full of an secret passages, tunnels, catacombs, etc. It should have made for an excellent backdrop to this murder mystery, but unfortunately I feel the setting just wasn’t fully utilized. Johnson does spend a great deal of time and effort into meticulously describing the Academy, the Minerva house and the grounds, but her descriptions are very sterile. There’s no sense of atmosphere or tension; a lot of the time it’s just paragraphs explaining what is on what wall, or what is what color and long tangents about the Ellinghams. This is also why I kind of shrug in confusion when I hear people say this book is creepy; nothing that happens and nothing that is said on the page is creepy; it lack proper atmosphere. If you want a book set in a small liberal arts mansion, surrounded by woods, that’s even set in Vermont, try If We Were Villains; even the Charlotte Holmes series did a better job with the setting and atmosphere. The plot really is where this book excels. It’s clear to me that Maureen Johnson is a fan of mystery novels and whodunnits; there are tons of references to Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and even noir style detective books. The Ellingham mystery is even reminiscent of the case in Murder on the Orient Express; both set during the Prohibition, and both revolving around a cast of characters implicated in the disappearance and murder of a rich, self-made millionaire’s family. There’s talk of politics of the time, a prominent clash between Mr. Ellingham and the anarchists, and the person who confessed to the crime has clearly not committed it. The way the investigation is lead by Steve too was very old school; she makes deductions based on clues and reasoning that all make sense and we can also pick up on as readers, there are clues in the interview transcripts she reads, and in general the case itself was interesting to keep me invested. The main issue with the plot was actually how the present day mystery and the past mystery intersected, which wasn’t helped by the pacing. It takes a long time before the present day story catches up to the past, and especially at the start, I really didn’t care about Ellingham and his plight, because we quickly find out that his wife and daughter are dead, meaning he never found them. So it was just a slow trudge through the motions he took on the day, and then at one point we just top cutting back to the past, because we have to focus on the present day mystery. We only come back to Ellingham in the very, very last chapter. It’s not well balanced, and it doesn’t feel like the present day story and the past are connected at all, other than Steve being interested in solving both. The present day story is interesting, but even still, I’m not sure what Hayes filming his project had to do with the Ellinghams, other than tangentially being related because they are filming a short about the Ellingham mystery. There is a thematic connection, linking to Steve’s assignment about putting a human face on mystery (which was something that really warmed me to the dean of students as a character), but other than that, even the way Steve figures out what happened, has nothing to do with the past mystery. Speaking of Hayes, this book’s other strong suit are the characters. There are plenty of them so I won’t go over all of them, but they are all developed, and interesting enough to hold my attention. Ellingham and his posse were straight out of an Agatha Christie novel; I honestly wish that the book had maybe split it’s time more evenly, focusing on a core character in the past as well as the present, so I could get more easily invested. From the present day, we have a few of the larger parts: Elle, Janelle, Nathan, Hayes and David. Elle was fine; she was very much the type of person you would find in a private boarding school, and I enjoyed how open she was about her personality, body and sex life. It’s always nice to see female characters who are a bit off and are actually in tune with their confidence and body. Janelle was also fine; I liked she was openly out, gets a girlfriend pretty quickly, and though there’s a little jealousy on Steve’s part, they very quickly move past it, and have a healthy, supportive friendship. I really liked their little trio of Janelle, Nate and Steve. Hayes was the typical Youtube star, or at least the general stereotype of someone who is attractive and charming and uses other people to do the actual difficult work for him. I liked that even though he wasn’t the nicest person, the book didn’t demonize him, and acknowledged that he did indeed have talent and could do at least some of the things he claimed he could. Nate was a surprise to me, because I expected the book to take a different direction with him (which it still might in the sequel, but I’m really hoping it won’t). He’s a writer, so he’s mostly there to discuss how difficult and annoying, while at the same time exhilarating writing can be, and I really enjoyed his banter with the other characters. David was interesting; he was kind of abrasive and an asshole, though I almost think he wasn’t enough of an asshole to Steve after what she does to him, and her horrible, non-apology she gives him. The ending caught me off guard, though in hindsight it makes a lot of sense, so I give this book points for this. I won’t spoil it, but this book does have a romance, and I surprisingly didn’t mind it. I expected someone different to be the love interest, and I was pleasantly surprised at how it actually was. Even when the romance starts, the book doesn’t spend too much time using him as a red herring, which I appreciated; I don’t know if this is just a YA thing, or a genre thing left over from noir stories, but why is the love interest always a suspect, but never actually the perpetrator? Finally Steve, who was the best developed and most complete character. I liked that she had a set personality, while there still being room for her to grow. Even though she’s awkward, and shy, she was still funny, still had good banter with the boys and the rest of the school, and was confident and smart enough to solve the present day mystery. I liked her relationship with Larry, I liked her relationship with the other characters, and enjoyed watching her grow, even if I didn’t always agree with her decisions, and thought what she does to David was horrible (and her being angry at him on the bus for helping, instead of at her parents who are the real reason she had to even be in the situation in the first place, was dumb and never addressed). All in all, a decent start to a possibly interesting mystery, depending on the answers we get in the sequel. Not bad, but as an incomplete story, I can’t in good faith recommend it, or rate it any higher, though I still think that if you like classic style mysteries and detectives, you will probably enjoy it.

[geekmama]

Bumps in the Road

Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2018, Day 2, Early Relationship

Scenes from an Engagement -- three short follow-ups to various elements in the stories that comprise the Aftermath series (Perfection, Hope Reborn, and yesterday's Beautiful, respectively) though I believe they can be read as stand-alones, too. 

And again, many thanks to Ellis_Hendricks for beta reading!

~ Day Four... 

“I could get used to this,” Sherlock said, as contented as he’d ever been in his life. 

“Yes,” said Molly, and she squeezed his hand. 

“But we are not naming him Calvin.” 

Molly sighed. 

They were still in their dressing gowns and pyjamas, seated side by side on the porch steps. The early morning air was cool and fresh, the sun shone thin but with the promise of a beautiful spring day, and they were watching their new Basset Hound puppy as he took his first post-breakfast run and sniff around the back garden. 

Sherlock was not one who ordinarily waxed poetic, but the quest they’d undertaken the day before, to fetch the puppy from Anthea’s cousin’s farm in Exmoor, still seemed little short of dreamlike. A chauffeur-driven car had arrived for them about an hour after Sherlock confirmed that he was indeed interested in acquiring the puppy, and Anthea had sent along an agent to serve as cat-sitter for Hobbes as well, Molly having stated that she wouldn’t leave the kitten for so many hours when he’d only just arrived. Sherlock and Molly had had nothing to do but climb in, buckle up, relax, and enjoy the view. 

The journey was a long one, but reason had dictated a temporary cessation of carnal delights in any case. Sherlock had lost track of the number of times they’d made love in the short time they’d been together in the aftermath of Sherrinford and that horrid, blessed phone call, and he had been amazed to find his desire only increased with each encounter. Molly had not been amazed by this, though she’d been extremely pleased and assured him that she felt the same. She also reluctantly admitted to feeling a bit “shagged out”, physically speaking, which admission had filled Sherlock with such a mixture of manly pride and tender sympathy that he should have rolled his eyes in disgust at having become such a cliché. But for once he decided he didn’t give a toss about analysing the particulars of a situation, and was only deeply and sincerely thankful.  

Watching the countryside slip by, they’d conversed in a desultory fashion, and occasionally gave into weariness, in spite of the beauty of the landscape. Molly had napped curled against him, her head pillowed against his shoulder, and it was all he could do not to bend and kiss the top of her head every few minutes. Eventually, he fell asleep, too, and only roused when they’d arrived at a rather idyllic farm not far from the borders of Exmoor National Park. 

They’d managed to rouse themselves and face Anthea’s cousin, a Mrs. Eugenia Trent, with adequate decorum, though if Mrs. Trent had scratched the surface their facade would have crumbled pretty readily. In fact, the woman’s eyes were lit with amusement from her first sight of them, though whether said amusement was the result of unseemly tells on their part or was just her natural expression remained unclear. She was kindness itself, however, and introduced them to the puppy straight away. It was love at first sight (well, second sight, the photo Anthea had sent that morning had pretty much sold Sherlock). After giving a tiny bay at the sight of the strangers he’d trotted over to them behind his parents, two really beautiful prize-winning Bassets named Terry and June. 

Mrs. Trent said, “He was the only boy in the litter, and little girls seemed the order of the day among the buyers that’ve come by. He’s ten weeks, now, and good as gold -- I’ve even started housetraining him a bit. He’s been waiting for you, Mr. Holmes, you see?” 

The latter statement was a comment on the fact that Sherlock had crouched down and the three dogs had come right over, the pup actually trying to jump up and put tiny, slightly muddy paws on Sherlock’s expensively trousered knee. Sherlock chuckled, and carefully picked the puppy up, and then could not help laughing outright as he received a series of enthusiastic puppy kisses as he stood up again, the little dog in his arms. “Yes, yes, you are a fine fellow!” he told the pup, and to Mrs. Trent it was, “I believe you’re right. We’ll take him!.” 

The transaction confirmed, Mrs. Trent had invited them in for just a bite before that long drive back to London. The “bite” turned out to be hot tea, sandwiches on homemade bread, and some of the best biscuits Sherlock had ever eaten, casting even Mrs. Hudson’s into the shade. 

The puppy had slept most of the way home. Sherlock and Molly had not. They’d argued, instead, about what to name him. 

“What’s wrong with Calvin?” Molly asked. “Calvin and Hobbes! They go together! And he looks like a Cal.” 

But Sherlock replied, “I hate the name Calvin, the comic strip’s character was named for John Calvin and he was a wretched man with his predestination and theocracy. And anyway, I looked it up and it means little bald one. I was thinking more along the lines of Hercule.” 

“From Agatha Christie?” Molly considered, but then shook her head. “We could call him Herc for short, but it lacks the crisp consonant at the beginning that will draw his attention when you shout for him. What about Excaliber, with Cal for short? Or Calico -- he is white, black, and tan. Or perhaps Caliban?” 

“Those are ridiculous, and Caliban was a monster! He would have raped Miranda, given half a chance, and peopled else this isle with Calibans.” 

“That’s awful!” 

“That’s Shakespeare!” 

They continued the debate, off and on, clear back to London and Molly’s doorstep. Then, what with the excitement of introducing the puppy to Hobbes (the kitten established dominance in short order, puffing up and hissing fiercely so that little Hercule/Calico/Excaliber ran to Sherlock, yelping), showing the pup his new home, making everyone supper, and getting ready for bed, Sherlock and Molly quite forgot the argument. The pup was Darling or Sweetheart all evening, and when he was finally asleep in the luxurious crate Anthea had provided, Sherlock took Molly to bed again and they were once more lost to the world. 

Now, however, in the clear light of a new day, Sherlock felt that the matter of the puppy’s name needed to be resolved. Darling or Sweetheart would never do long term for a hound destined to be the bane of the criminal class and boon companion to the World’s Only Consulting Detective. 

“I still think Cal is a good nickname,” Molly said. 

“Hercule is better,” Sherlock insisted. “More elegant. And French.” 

“Very well,” said Molly. “Trying calling him. Go on!” 

Sherlock frowned. “You mean summon him by name? Very well.” He cleared his throat a bit, then called out, “Hercule!” 

There was no response. The pup continued snuffling about, nose to the ground, apparently finding some fascinating scents in Molly’s neat little garden. 

Sherlock tried again, a little louder. “Here, Herc!” 

There was still no response. 

Then Molly sang out, “Cal! Here, Cal!” And when the pup jerked his head up and began to run toward them, she burst out laughing, and exclaimed, “Good boy!  What a good doggie!” 

“You must have been practicing with him!” Sherlock accused. 

“Have not!” she asserted, smug. “When would I have had time?” 

“Well, your voice is higher!” But further sulking was cut short as the pup came running to him, rather than Molly, and indicated a desire to be picked up and cuddled. Sherlock complied with a smile, and his discontent vanished entirely under a renewed onslaught of puppy kisses. 

Molly chuckled. “He knows who his new master is.” 

“Certainly he does,” Sherlock agreed, laughing, until he got the pup to settle a bit, though the little dog still gazed up at him adoringly, panting happily. Sherlock was equally smitten, and stroked him, amazed at how soft he was. The thought occurred that this was the first dog he’d ever owned -- but he shoved that dark cloud away. Plenty of time to deal with the past without spoiling the delightful present. Sherlock said to the puppy in a playfully scolding tone, “So, you think you’re a Cal, do you?” But hearing even that slight disapprobation in the voice of his master, the pup immediately laid his ears back, looking uncertain. Sherlock hastily backtracked. “No, no! Everything’s fine! But you are a smart one, aren’t you?”    

And then Molly said, “What about Calbraith?” 

“Calbraith?” Sherlock repeated (idiotically), frowning at her again. 

“Means British Warrior.” She cocked her head. “You’re not the only one who can google the meaning of names.” 

“Hmm.” Sherlock actually rather liked the sound of that, though it would be some time before the moniker would really fit. “It’s not bad,” he conceded. 

Molly smiled and, leaning close, she reached over and joined in petting the pup. She said to Sherlock, in a deceptively casual way, “It’s up to you, of course. If you really like Herc…” 

But Sherlock, in the first throes of romance and domestic bliss, thanks to the woman beside him, knew when it was time to give in gracefully. “Apparently this one does not, however,” he said, pouting only a very little, for form’s sake. “Do you, Calbraith?” he asked the pup, stroking the long ears. 

And Molly giggled as Cal took his cue and licked Sherlock’s hand.   

  o-o-o

  ~ Day Six...

 “Sherlock, what’s this?” 

Cal and Hobbes, now fast friends, had breakfasted and were curled up together in Cal’s crate, and Sherlock had gone back to bed, too, commandeering all the pillows to ensure his comfort as he went through email on his phone, his cup of tea and a plate of gingernuts on the nightstand beside him. However, he made an effort to look up at his beloved, since she was industriously preparing some of their clothing for delivery to the dry cleaners. 

Apparently including the suit he’d worn to Sherringford. 

And of course, being Molly, she had been checking the pockets. 

He stared at the small metal plaque she was now holding up. The one that said, I Love You. 

The sight of it took him right back to the moment when he’d bent to snatch it up from among the debris of the coffin he’d destroyed with his bare hands, John and Mycroft still standing like statues over by the open door as he’d concluded the process of giving himself over to pain and grief and rage. Exhausted, he nevertheless had been determined that that plaque with those words would not be left in that place, exposed to further mockery. 

“Sherlock?” 

He realized he’d been “buffering” as John called it, and, blinking, he raised his eyes to Molly’s face. She was looking worried and puzzled. A little wary. He cleared his throat a bit and then said, with a semblance of calm, “Give it to me, will you, please?” 

She came over immediately and handed it to him, but she also asked him, rather gently, “Is that from the coffin?” 

“Yes,” he replied. The plaque was so small and cool to the touch, which seemed very odd considering… 

But now Molly was sitting down on the edge of the bed beside him. “It’s alright, you know.” 

He looked up at her. 

 “I mean…everything’s going to be fine.” She bent and tenderly kissed his lips. 

He set the plaque down on the nightstand beside his cup of tea, and then his hands went to her: warm and vital, slender and alive.  “Come back to bed.” He needed her again, needed her close. Closer than close. 

Delight, worry, sympathy… he could read her like a book. “Yes. Alright,” she said, softly. “But you have to share the pillows.” 

And he was able to smile at that. “I will always share the pillows,” he replied, and as he drew her against him he wondered again at the helpless, visceral joy and agony of love.

  o-o-o

  ~ A Month Later...

 “Holmes!” 

Sherlock, with Molly on his arm, had been following the restaurant’s hostess back to their table when the vaguely familiar voice sounded and a big, beefy man pushed back his chair and stood up, looking between Sherlock and Molly in surprise. 

“And Molly Hooper! Well, I’ll be damned!” 

Bloody hell! Sherlock thought, his eyes widening ever so slightly as a jolt of recognition shot through him, though he maintained his mask of insouciance in all other respects. 

It was Glen Harrison, former rugby-playing idiot from Molly’s mid-level organic chemistry class in her first year at uni, the class in which Sherlock, at the tail-end of his graduate studies,  had reluctantly served as a teacher’s assistant. 

“Glen!” Molly smiled a bit uncertainly, glancing between her current fiancé and her former classmate cum perpetrator of bodily assault with a view to attempted rape. Nonetheless, she held out her hand to the bastard, since she had received his apology the Monday after the incident, which apology, true to form, she had accepted. She was far too soft a touch, and always had been. Thankfully for Sherlock’s youthful peace of mind, he’d observed that Molly had enough sense to steer clear of the tosser outside the classroom and, thus reassured, he’d  been able to take leave of that bastion of higher learning and pretty much delete Glen from his Mind Palace without further ado. 

Though not entirely. 

One of his favorite memories of university was the rescue of Molly Hooper, featuring his young dragon-slaying self. He’d utilized some simple moves he’d picked up from associates of Mycroft, and Glen the Great Gawk had dropped like a stone. Molly, who’d been smitten with Sherlock before the incident, was quite awestruck, and the subsequent sojourn along the river as he escorted her back to her room had been very… pleasant. 

So no, he had not forgotten Glen. Not quite. 

Now Glen was grinning, and said, “Lord, fancy meeting you two here -- the wife and I -- this is my wife, Tiffany, by the way--” 

“How do you do?” Molly murmured, and Sherlock inclined his head very slightly at Tiffany (upper middle-class antecedents, left uni to pursue modeling, whirlwind romance, engagement, marriage, two children, charitable work, garden club, PTA). 

“--we came up to town on business and actually saw the announcement of your engagement in the Times!” 

“Yeees,” said Sherlock, angry at his parents all over again, though they’d at least had the sense not to mention the wedding venue. 

But Glen gleefully nattered on. “And then, of course, it all made sense. Always wondered if consulting detective Holmes was some relation to that Holmes at uni, and there it was, in black and white: William Sherlock Scott Holmes! Good job you kept to William at school -- easy enough to take the piss without something like Sherlock providing ammunition.” 

Sherlock merely glared at the collosal berk.  

And Glen, contrary to expectation, actually took the hint. “Yeah, well, you have to admit it’s an unusual name, and you know how kids are. But anyway, congratulations, you two! God, it’s amazing to see you both again after all these years.” 

“Indeed,” said Sherlock. 

“It is,” said Molly, with rather a sharp look in Sherlock’s direction. 

He tried to subdue the flutter of dread in his bosom. 

Molly turned back to Glen and his wife. “I do hope you have a wonderful time in London. Where do you live now?” 

“Just outside Brighton,” said Glen. “Look us up next time you’re down there, eh?” 

“That would be lovely,” Molly replied. 

When hell freezes over, was Sherlock’s reply, but aloud he only said, “Yes, well, must be off, our table’s waiting.” 

“Oh, of course,” said Glen. “Cheers!” 

Sherlock and Molly resumed the journey to their (thankfully secluded) table at the back of the restaurant, Sherlock trying not to panic. The hostess saw them seated and handed them each a menu, and took their order for drinks. 

“I’ll have the Macallan, and make it a double,” said Sherlock. 

“Just a glass of the Pinot Grigio.” Molly smiled until the hostess took herself off. Then she turned, unsmiling, to glare at Sherlock. 

Feeling there was nothing for it, he said, “Soooo… not an extra strong G and T?” 

An angry flush suffused her cheeks. “You liar!” 

Sherlock sighed, well aware he deserved every bit of her anger and more. 

Molly went on. “That first time we met at Barts: you did remember me from university!” 

“Yes,” he said, simply. 

“Then why… no! Don’t tell me. You wanted my professional expertise without involving yourself in anything involving sentiment.” 

“Yes.” 

“And all these years… why, I thought I must be the most forgettable girl alive! That what had been so important to me -- that night… the… the event… YOU… had meant so little to you that you’d completely dismissed the whole thing!” 

“Yes.”’ 

“You bastard!” 

He sighed again. “Yes.” 

The hostess returned at this point, and Molly composed herself as best she could as their drinks were set on the table. Sherlock picked up his glass of Macallan and tossed back about half of it. 

As soon as the hostess took herself off again, Molly hissed, “Is that all you have to say for yourself? Just Yes, Yes, Yes?” 

Sherlock winced. “Would I’m sorry help?” 

She drew herself up. “I don’t believe you’re sorry at all! I think you’d do it again in a minute!” 

“Yes, I probably would,” he admitted. “Under the same circumstances. I mean… before… everything. I never meant to hurt you... but I always do, don’t I? And after a while I… I really did forgot about it. More or less.” 

She looked slightly less angry. However, she said, fuming, “You should be…oh! I don’t know what you deserve!” 

“To be married?” he suggested, hopefully. “So you can hold it over me for the rest of my days?” 

And she gave a chuff of laughter. “Well, there is that.”  She sat back, shaking her head. “What am I going to do with you? You’re impossible.” 

He gave a derisive sniff. “Oh, Molly, you’ve known that for years, and yet here we are. You’d better just marry me. That’ll give you all the time in the world to decide what to do with me. Let your imagination run wild. I trust you.” 

As planned, she could not suppress a smile, but there was a glint in her eye as she retorted, “You may just regret those words, Sherlock Holmes.” 

But he dared to smile, now, too. “Never in life, Molly Hooper,” he said, and knew it for God’s own truth. “I leave my fate entirely in your hands.”

 ~.~

[pendragonfics]

Part Two

Perhaps: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

Paring: Mycroft Holmes/Reader

Tags: female reader, reader is an author, references to other fandoms (like Doctor Who), coffee shops, POV Mycroft, POV reader, feels, loneliness, fluff, bad matchmaking, tea makes everything better, kissing.

Summary: Three times in which you come across and into the life of Mycroft Holmes, and he in your own.

...by word of mouth, Mycroft Holmes is interested in this writer, and takes it upon himself to investigate her. And, purely because ______ cannot let stones go un-turned from her curious nature, she investigates him -- the only way she knows how.

Word Count: 1,625

Posting Date:  2017-03-28

Current Date: 2017-06-16

The best part about being a famous author, was perhaps that few people cared to read the last page of the book, wherein your face was nestled amongst text that read things about your life and the comings to be in print. Because of this, there was a high chance that people did not take note of your face, often so that just as they left an elevator, or you were out of gaze that they realised it was the _______ ________, and had a little story to tell their friends in the office that afternoon. It was a novelty, at first, coming from a home where there had never been enough money for milk and bread bought at once. But that life had been ages and ages ago - or, at least, it felt like it. But truly, the best part about being unnoticed, also meant you could take yourself in your favourite coat to the homey coffee shop a block away from your home, and type to your heart's content.

At best, the cafe was never truly busy; there was often a lonely-heart in the corner, sipping their cappuccino, composing poetry that would never see daylight, and the milkman, who'd sweet talk the barista, who in turn would give a grin to all his patrons. Not a soul would dare interrupt a person at work on their laptop - after all, they were in London, a place teeming with keyboard-clackers and faceless suits.

The man who sat before you, though, was not face-less. He was clean-shaven, with immaculately parted hair and a tie so neat it looked as if it could cut someone if touched. Everything about him screamed posh and upper-class or perhaps vaguely important politician and there you were, dressed as if you'd run out of the house at three in the morning upon hearing a Nana had been hospitalised.

"Ms. __________," he started, hooking an umbrella to the side of the table, inspecting every detail of your soul upon sitting down. "I thought I could find you here."

You raised a brow, and slowly, lowered the face of the laptop. "Are you lost, Mr. ...?"

He shook his head. "Mr. Holmes. And no, I am not. You met my younger brother a week or so ago, whilst working on the Finnegan Heroin case," he introduces, and extends a hand across the table to yours, to shake. "I'm here to consider your side of the events as a favour to Sherlock."

"So, I take it that you're the cleverer one who pulls strings, aren't you?" You ask him, folding your hands under your chin to watch the elder Mr. Holmes as he took in your information. "I was a fan of Agatha Christie as a child, I can read people like your family seems to do," you smile, "However, not as well, evidently. So, what questions do you have for me?"

He quirks his head, and sliding a hand inside his coat pocket, withdraws a small piece of paper. The handwriting on it is pristine, the best cursive you've seen despite being a calligraphy admirer online. "Just ... if you ever noticed anything strange about Mr. Finnegan, that's all," he pushes the paper toward you, which now you can focus on the words, see what they read. "And why the greatest author in London alive was living in that apartment."

"Mr. Finnegan never struck me as odd, just a man who never took guests, and left every morning at ten for tea down in the park with his paper," you reply, pointedly ignoring the other end of the question. "He was never rude or frightening ... but if you really want all I know about him, he'd often vacuum his floors very early, and sung too high for his vocal range in the shower."

He sits there. It's quiet between the two of you - the strange man who had just appeared with his umbrella and quizzical brow, and the author with nothing better to do than type her days away - until he coughs into his fist. "Er - thank you, Ms. ________."

You lean toward him, inspecting his green eyes, "I don't suppose you have a first name, do you, Mr. Holmes?" You hum, and go to open your laptop once more to start up the tool of your trade just once more.

Mr. Holmes seems flustered at the remark, a little rosy blush staining his cheeks. "Mycroft. Mycroft Holmes."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mycroft," you grin, and disappear behind the screen of the laptop. I have a feeling I will see you again eventually.

---

The best part about being a politician like he was, was that not a soul mentioned his names on the whimsy of a breath - he was a consultant, a political grab, a man who steered the world from disaster with a flick of his finger and a thwart of an enemy. There wasn't a mention of his name on the internet save for archives of school records from when he graduated from university. It was good - he could go places with his familiar scowl and invitation from a high up known entity in government, or browse the public library without a single person interrupting his session around the paperback world.

But if Mycroft Homes had the time for browsing carelessly in libraries, let alone deviating his attention from the current upcoming crisis (tensions brewing in Antarctica for more base stations, or something) to the little (h/c) haired writer who drank her coffee the same way he did was located beside the investigation he was dragged into by his brother. It wasn't that he was getting slower in his years and needed whole attention to task to focus, no. It was that there was just something about the writer who made him want to sit down and hear all about her mind, because it must be hard to have a world stuck inside your head, to have it all in there before publication.

He sat in his office, once more absorbed in the work splayed before him. There was a meeting coming up soon, and Anthea would grab him on the way to it as to not be late. Thus, it left Mycroft to be at will staring at the manila folders before him, sorting out the figures mentally.

It wasn't until the chair opposite his desk creaked that he realised that somebody had managed to slip into his office without being detected. But with a glance, he could not help but be confused - it was none other than Ms. ________ _________. She wore a sweater with little bees embroidered into the collar, and dark blue jeans, and her best smile.

"I don't suppose this is a good time," she frowned, leaning forward. "Your assistant got in contact with me, said there was a need for follow-up meeting from what we did the other week in the cafe," she supported.

Mycroft raised a brow. "I didn't tell her ... perhaps you received this address from someone else?" But the woman before him pulls out a yellow flip phone, and shows the number it came from. Anthea's. It suddenly occurs to him that the time of the text coincides with the last time he made a home visit to 221b Baker Street, and the occasion that Sherlock pick-pocked his assistant to snoop. "My brother did this."

"I assumed so. Your assistant said it was okay to bring this in," she grabs a disposable cup from the floor beside the chair leg, and passes it to him, "I saw you eyeing my cup last time we met, Mr. Holmes." _______ beams.

He accepts the coffee, grateful for the warmth, the aroma of the cup in his hands. "Thank you very much, Ms. ________."

She laughs. "Please. Call me ________. It makes me feel a little more normal."

Mycroft can't help but know what that feels just like. "In that case, don't call me Mr. Holmes for the same reason." He goes to ask the author before him something, but she gets there first.

"I live in that apartment complex beside the elderly drug lord because I can't really see myself being alone in a fantastically big place where my pay packet can afford." She can't hold eyesight with him at this moment, staring at her hands rather than him. "I come from a family of no money, no reputation and no need for frivolity. I was the first in my bloodline to be in university, you know, Mycroft - and because of it, I do all I can to be unchanged from what I grew from." She takes a deep breath, and adds, "I may just be a great author, but I'm still the girl who grew up with welfare."

Mycroft sits there, the cup in his hands growing cold. "_________ -,"

She nods. "It's not pretty. And it can't be read in the book, I did my best to remove that part of myself from it. That's why I need to hurry up and write the second one before that part of me leaves me."

Mycroft understands, but not in the way an empathetic person would, but as someone who has seen terrible things, and knows what they are like without dipping a toe in the blood of another brother's sadness. He scribbles something on a faded yellow post-it-note, and passes it toward the woman sitting before him, Ms. ________, the tragically beautiful __________ who likes her coffee the same way he does.

"I should think I could call you again sometime, for another of these chats," he offers, the paper being folded into her palm.

She nods, "I should think so too."

<< PREVIOUS CHAPTER | >> NEXT CHAPTER

[beezarre]

tagged by @megancreations Thank you :) (PS: have you seen this? Because that sounds like something you might be interested in! :D)

Tag people you would like to know better @matildaswan (I already know you, but I’m still putting you on that list :p) @rosewindow @albatris @ellie5192 

(That’s all I can think of right now, but then again if I don’t *know* people, I wouldn’t think about them, would I? Anyway, feel free to do it (or not) and have a hug!)

Favourite place: That's a tough choice, I have many places I *really* like, but no favourites? I think it's a tie between my room and the beach.

Favourite colour: It's been evolving a lot lately, I like black for clothes, otherwise red (although less than before), blue, and some shades of green.

Favourite tv show: That's another tough one! Probably Stargate, and Sanctuary, and the Granada version of Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie's Poirot, and Wire in the blood, and Firefly, and Doctor Who, and *keeps listing indefinitely*

Favourite book: 'Princess Diaries 1' by Meg Cabot, and one I keep recommending: "The Guernsey literary potato peel pie society" by Mary Ann Schaffer. Oh, and 'Looking for Alaska' by John Green. I don't know if it qualifies as a favourite book, but it touched me so much that I'm putting it here anyway!

Pets: Do imaginary pets count? Because I have an OC that I like to think about when I'm feeling down, her name is Teacup and she's a Siberian kitten, and she's a very fierce ball of fluff!

Last song I listened to: A remix of 'I am the Doctor' by Murray Gold

First fandom: the first I really got involved in was NCIS, but I dipped a toe or two in the Stargate one before that (and went in properly afterwards.)

Hobbies: writing, reading, knitting, crochet, penpaling, listening to/playing music, learning languages, ...

Books that I'm currently reading: A few, which are on standby for a bit because I'm currently obsessed with knitting: 'Untold Story' by Monica Ali, 'Tschick' by Wolfgang Herrndorf (<3 Anne) ('His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman and Homer's 'Odyssey' have been on standby for a good while, but still on my bedside table as a reminder.) Along them are three library books that I should get to because I think I'm already supposed to have given them back.

Best thing you've ever eaten/tasted: Properly done Apple Clafoutis, that one serving of mashed potatoes in a restaurant I went to last November, a kind of Asian (?) noddles whose name I forgot, california rolls (I'm probably forgetting stuff).

[supershrinkingviolet]

I’m the Thing That Needs To Be Fixed || Self

Today was an awful day to go to therapy.

Violet could feel the pulse of the full moon in her blood, and it made her antsy and frustrated as she often was on this day. Her buttons got pushed so much faster, and that was without adding the fact that therapy had always been one of the biggest button pushers of all for her. So basically, this was about to be a fucking train wreck, and Vi wasn’t entirely sure she’d still have a job after this. What happened if Dr. Hayes didn’t ok her for work after all? Would she have to continue this ‘mandatory evaluation’ for the rest of her life?

Wouldn’t it be ironic if that was what finally drove her to end it all?

No. Stop thinking like that. That’s a bullshit thought and you know it Violet. Just open the damn door, get this over with, and you can put this all behind you. Then you could go back to spending your life the way you always do.

The last few days at work had been uncomfortable. Violet had barely spoken outside of what was explicitly required by whatever case they were working on, and even that had to be dragged out of her. Gardner apparently took the hint and responded in kind. They’d never been particularly chatty or anything, but the change in situation showed exactly how much they had talked before. Or at least sat in companionable silence, instead of a silence humming with everything she was feeling and his frustration.

But her rebellions had never extended far enough to make her stop going to the therapy other people insisted she needed, so she was here right as the clock was striking 11.

It was a pretty enough little place. It looked like a comfortable house, close enough to public transport to make it easy to get around the center of town, far enough away to give a feeling of settled privacy. All the benefits of the city without the noise. It didn’t have the look of a lived in house though, so this was just a more elaborate office. Huh. It probably made people relax. If they were interested in that sort of thing.

She went up to the forest green door and knocked briskly, trying to sound more confident than she actually felt, and less annoyed than she really was. Moments later, the door swung open.

Staring at her was a pretty woman, probably in her 30s if Vi was to take a guess. Her rich brunette hair had something done to it so it seemed to lighten it and make it seem like it shined without actually taking away from the color. Clear chocolate brown eyes stared at her out of a chiseled face that looked like it was from one of the movies Gus was endlessly introducing her to. She was dressed in a very professional deep green dress with a short cream colored jacket over it. All in all, she gave off the impression of stylish and competent, which was probably the goal. She gave a friendly smile and opened the door wider. “You must be Violet Parr. Please, come in. I wasn’t sure if I would see you today since I didn’t hear from you.”

“You said mandatory. I figured it would be worse if I didn’t show up when I was told. Besides, Gardner obviously knew about it, so its not like I’m skipping out on work.”

“Yes of course. Still. Not everyone would put so much stock in the rules.”

“What, is this small talk or are we on the fucking clock already?”

Deliberately, Vi threw in the swear word to see how the other woman would react. It wasn’t professional, but nothing about her outfit was designed to give that impression. Violet was wearing what she thought of as her ‘home’ attire. A black turtleneck was covered up by a ratty old black hoodie that had been washed way too many times to still provide any kind of warmth. The black jeans were worn nearly white at the knees and were pocked by dozens of small tears from wearing them as she wandered around the woods. Her hair was down and half covering her face, and she had her hands firmly in her sweatshirt pockets. Most other people would consider a look like this a risk, especially considering the high stakes of this ‘evaluation’.

Vi saw it as armor.

She’d worn variations on the same outfit to every therapy session she’d ever had, and she saw no point in breaking tradition. After all, therapy was all about babbling your feelings, giving up parts of yourself to be judged by someone else. This way Violet could remind her of who she was. Herself. Only herself, and no one else had any right to that.

But the woman didn’t appear the slightest bit ruffled, only nodding slightly. “Why don’t you come inside, and we can get started. I’m sure you’d rather we finish as quickly as possible.” She stepped back and Vi stepped past her into the house.

The inside gave off that same comfortable professional vibe as the outside and the woman herself. It was all designed to be non-threatening without having the hospital green effect. Comfy chairs, tasteful art, thick carpets that muffled sound. It was supposed to make you relax. For Vi, the recognition of the effect only made her tenser.

Vi dropped into a chair before she could be told to sit, and looked over as Dr. Hayes sat across from her. As always, feeling this uncomfortable and defensive had Vi launching into attack mode before she lost too much control.

“Is there any point to this? I’m sure you’ve read the files all my other therapists have made about me. I doubt they’re going to say anything new. This is a waste of time when I should be working.”

“Actually, I haven’t read any of your other files.”

That made Violet pause. They had always read her files. They always referred to things other people said, or made notes on things to dive in deeper. What did this professional mean she hadn’t looked at them? “What?”

“Oh, I know that you’ve had them. Your relative medical and psychiatric history was passed on to me. But I never like to read other people’s notes. I find it changes how I see the person before I have a chance to form my own opinions – and I rarely agree with other people.” She said all of this in the same pleasant tone she had greeted Vi in, as if the whole thing were of no consequence.

It left Vi feeling off balance, so she hunched slightly in the chair and glared out at her. “Well that’s a load of horse shit. Don’t you all get the same kind of fucking training after all? ‘What’s wrong with this person. How can I fix them. What happened when they were three years old that led to the anxiety attack last week.’ Clear cause and effect as if that matters changes all the messy shit that happens along the way.”

“Maybe. But sometimes two people can look at the same thing and come away with something completely different. Isn’t it like when you’re at work, and Mr. Gardner points out something in a case that you missed?”

“That happens because he’s better trained and has more experience. That’s different.”

“What about when you look at a case and see something he didn’t? Something he missed that you found because you bring something new to the table?”

Violet snorted and shook her head. “Now you’re fucking reaching. I’ve been in the job for 6 months, and the only training I got before that was my DADA class and an interest in mystery novels.”

“So you like to read.”

“Yeah I do, but that has fuck all to do with this.”

“It does?”

“Of course it does! I’m not reading books at my desk. Criminals don’t get caught because Agatha Christie wrote interesting locked door mysteries, and Sherlock Holmes’s methods are only good if you’re him because he always fucking tricks you. What the fuck has this to do with anything?”

“I told you, I like to make my own opinions. This helps tell me a little more about you.”

“Oh yeah? And what do you know about me?” Vi’s voice whipped out, challenging the woman. If she was going to be so bloody cool, she could do something to prove it. Prove that she was the fancy shit she thought she was.

Quietly, Dr. Hayes looked at her for a moment. Then she crossed her fingers and began. “You’re a young woman who’s been disappointed so many times, its become easier to attack first rather than risk hoping for something better. You have a very low opinion of therapists, and considering you never kept one for more than a few months, I’d say you made it a point to be difficult in all your therapy sessions. You didn’t want them, so you weren’t going to let them help. But, you still went to each of them which tells me you have a deep appreciation for rules and structure. You have a history of self harm and symptoms of malnutrition, which tells me that you have struggled with depression for a quite some time.

You like to read, so it is clearly not people as a whole you dislike, just people with the potential to hurt you, because you assume that they will. Also, the people in books can’t be let down by you, and so they are inherently safer company. But, you have become an auror, and your work matters to you. You want to do it well, and any hint of something otherwise feels like a much deeper failure. So, each case isn’t a purely intellectual problem for you. It’s a human problem. Just like your interest in books, your interest in these cases shows a deep valuing of human life you don’t know how to handle when combined with the lack of respect you have for your own.

You clearly respect Mr. Gardner on a professional level, and you value his opinion. Yet, while you kept the appointment, you aren’t willing to be cooperative with the therapist he recommended to you. So once again, you have a deep dislike for therapy, which seems out of touch with the respect you have for people and emotions otherwise. That says its something particular about being here that bothers you.”

She paused as Violet stared at her, completely tensed and frozen as the words washed over her. How? How had she gotten all that from a few words? How had she seen so much when Violet tried to give her so little? “How the fuck did you figure all that out?”

“Because while I didn’t read the reports, I can see the dates on your therapy attendance. Because I paid attention to the casual affection you use when talking about books, the admiration for Mr. Gardner, and the casual dismissal you use of yourself. So the biggest question for me is why do you dislike therapy so much when you have so many people around you who think it will help?”

“BECAUSE NOBODY EVER ASKED ME!” Violet hadn’t intended to say that, hadn’t intended to say anything at all, but suddenly she was on her feet panting as she stared at the calm woman across from her. “Everybody else sits across from me, so smug, so convinced they know what’s best for me and how to fix me. As if by shoving me in the path of the right person they can make me who I was before. Gardner didn’t even fucking tell me he was writing you, just did it and waited for your letter to show up before talking about it as if it was the simplest thing in the world. As if just because this time it’s work, that makes it so much better that he’s fucking forcing me. But its my life. And nobody’s guilt, nobody’s plans, nobody gets to take that away from me. They can make me go, but after that they can’t make me do a damn thing because its never been my fucking choice.”

Vi paused, shaking as she realized what she’d been saying. She hadn’t realized that was part of it, but that was true. First her parents had panicked and tried therapist after therapist to see if they could get their old daughter back. Mom had driven her to the office and picked her up, and each week had tried to talk cheerfully even as it was obvious she was anxiously waiting for something to work. Then the school had mandated that she work with Clyde. And he’d been so earnest, he’d tried so hard, but she had always known that neither of them had been given the choice about working with each other.

So if she’d been forced to go, why couldn’t she decide how to behave inside it? Sure, she could have cooperated and worked with them and maybe that would have done some good. But that had felt too much like being forced to go along with their plans, and she’d had too many people messing with her thoughts for her to be comfortable with a professional doing it. So she had acted out, pissed them off, and then felt incredibly bitterly satisfied when she proved once again that none of them were going to stick it out. Maybe it had meant she was still broken, but hey, at least this time the breaking was on her own terms.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting Dr. Hayes to do as the angry words rang in the air. What she hadn’t expected was to see her pull out a pen and notepad and look away from Violet.

Snarky bitter words were already on her lips as her heart began to twist, when Dr. Hayes spoke. “In that case, we can consider this session terminated. While you will still need to be seen by an auror approved mental health professional, I can give you the names of several on staff who should have space in the case loads to see you. You can pick one of them and see who suits you the best.”

Of all the things Violet had possibly expected…that wasn’t it. The casual acceptance of Vi’s point of view and the active steps to try and fix it to make sure it was exactly what she wanted. It was – something. She was sure there was a word for it, but she couldn’t find it with her system reeling the way it was.

Dr. Hayes paused and looked up at her, as if waiting for her to say something, and Vi found herself sinking back into the chair. “No. No it’s ok. Um, I’m already here anyway and I think I’d rather just get this over with. This is supposed to be about the case anyway, right?”

It was the closest to a peace offering Vi knew how to make, but Dr. Hayes seemed to understand as she put the paper away. By giving her the choice to walk out, Dr. Hayes had allowed Vi to make the choice to stay. And that made all the difference.

“Tell me about the case.”

Violet walked her through it step by step. She started with Andy’s visit, the visit to the grocer’s and the feeling that something was wrong, the journey outside town, and the discovery of the body. She followed it up with the fruitlessness of the work since, and the fact that she knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t get it to work, she couldn’t move forward. She glossed over Andy saying he hated her, because she didn’t want to focus on how much that ate away at her. The only thing she left out was the way she’d used her wolf senses to find Lara in the first place. While everything here might be confidential, she wasn’t sure if that extended to the technically illegal.

Dr. Hayes nodded carefully through the entire recitation. She didn’t take notes, but Vi knew she didn’t really need to. Maybe later she would write it all down. But in this moment, she remembered it all. She was focused. And that made it easier for Violet to keep going, hoping that maybe somebody else would be able to point out something she and Gardner had missed. But Dr. Hayes surprised her one more time.

“Why did you want to take this case?”

“What?”

“Why did you want to take this case? It was only 3 hours later, no one would have blamed you for taking a full 24 hours to be sure something was wrong. And you said that you insisted to Mr. Gardner that you wanted to follow through on this, despite his warnings. So why did you want to take the case?”

“Because Andy was scared. And it was real.” She paused, looking down and fiddling with the edge of her sleeve. “Most people don’t listen to kids when they feel something. They brush it aside, as if by being younger they don’t know what’s going on. But sometimes kids see more clearly, and they need to be taken seriously like anyone else. I needed him to know that someone was listening and trying to help.”

“So, a child comes into the aurors looking for their missing sibling and wanting help.”

Vi felt like there was some significance behind the way she’d phrased it and nodded carefully.

“Yeah, I guess you can put it that way.”

“Perhaps because when your brother was missing, you wanted there to be an auror who would help. Who would bring him home to you.”

“What the – no. No that’s not – it was about him, its not like I was trying to – “

“To rescue your brother since you didn’t get the chance before?”

“I was going to try. I was. If he’d been gone any longer, I would have gone looking for him myself, and I meant to go earlier, but Dash was actually talking to me and we weren’t screaming at each other, and I didn’t even know where to start, so I just – I didn’t do anything, and I know Jack-Jack doesn’t blame me, but that’s not the point because – “ Violet pressed her hand against her mouth, trying to stop the flood of words she had barely acknowledged even to herself.

Dr. Hayes sat quietly, letting Vi sort through everything she was feeling as she tried to pull herself back together. “But that’s not the point. That’s about me, and this case isn’t about me. Even if it started that way, it isn’t.”

“Why would you say this isn’t about you? You are the investigator. It’s your knowledge and your strength that will allow you to reach the end. So why isn’t it about you?”

“Because I don’t matter. Lara is the one who matters. She spent the last moments of her life clawing at her own neck to try and breathe to survive that much longer. She kicked back at her attacker, probably hard enough to bruise. She fought to survive, to make it home to the brother she had looked after devotedly, even getting special permission to come down from the school to do so. And Andy, the brother who risked everything to talk to someone he thought could help, no matter the cost to him. He matters. They matter. After that, I’m nothing special.”

“But you are special. Can’t you see that? You’re the one who listened to Andy, when you yourself said that most people wouldn’t. You were willing to risk Mr. Gardner’s displeasure to do something you thought was right. You found her faster than anyone could have imagined. And you remember them both. That is something important.”

Violet heard her, but she couldn’t really believe it. Maybe it wasn’t what everyone would have done, but how could she do anything else? He had needed her, and so she’d tried to be there. She’d failed him. And that fact overruled everything else.

“What does Jack-Jack think of this?”

The shift in topic had Vi scrambling to find her feet again, trying to figure out the right thing to say. “He worried. But he always does. I guess I’ve given him reason to, but that’s not really the point –“

“Not the point that you’re killing yourself to try and save him almost a year later?”

“Why do you keep fucking saying that? It’s not about me!”

“Every case you take is about you. It always will be for you. It will never be just a case, just a puzzle, because you look at the faces and the feelings, and you care. Even the simple ones will be about you because you are the one to argue for extenuating circumstances. The law isn’t black and white to you, because you care about people and people are full of shades of grey. So if you don’t learn to accept the part that is about you, you’ll never be able to work through it.”

A moment passed and then another as Violet tried to find some way to reply. The part of her mind that was curious and rational took in the word and found that they made a certain amount of sense. It matched enough of what Gardner had said to resonate. And didn’t her stance on the laws around werewolves prove that idea that she was interested in circumstances and grey areas? Hadn’t she been drawn to Gardner because he’d told her that he would teach her the work, not the flashy politics? That he would show her the spirit, not the letter of the law?

The clock struck the hour and Violet jumped, staring up at it. Dr. Hayes sighed. “I think we’ve done enough for today. But think about what I’ve said, all right?”

Violet nodded and started to walk quietly to the door. At the last minute, she paused. “Um, could I come back? And talk to you again?”

For the first time, a small genuine smile bloomed on the other woman’s face. “Yes you can. Why don’t you send me an owl with what time works for you?”

“Ok. And. Um. Thanks.” Before she could think too much more about it, Violet turned and walked out of the house, struggling to control her breathing.

Maybe today hadn’t been such a bad day for therapy after all.

[blograzorwit]

Jest A Minute (16/6/2017) from Subroto Mukherjee

Cut Cut Cut---------------------- Now in dire financial straits, a major domestic airline is cost-cutting left, right and center. I flew this airline recently and I can tell you this. They must have cut the cost of in-flight snacks served to passengers. Because the chicken sandwich, for instance, tasted -- tasted -- well, it tasted suspiciously like crow sandwich! *** Wow! What A Catch!----------------------------- In London, a high-rise residential building, Glenfell Towers fell to a horrific, towering blaze! It was too tragic for words with its heart-stopping moments! In desperation, parents on upper floors were forced to throw their children out of windows, hoping those standing below would catch them! In fact, a baby tossed from the 10th floor was safely caught by a man below! Phew! You know what? Now I suddenly feel a new respect for cricket and for those in London who love cricket, play cricket and are passionate about cricket. Because, by gosh, that sure was what I'd call taking a catch of a lifetime -- and a life-saving catch at that! *** Piggy's Anatomy-------------------------- Lately our Hollywood babe Piggy Chopra has been showing a lot of style. What's more interesting, her style has been showing a lot of her anatomy. If she shows any more anatomy, I think, after the TV show Baywatch, she has a good chance of being cast in another US TV show -- Gray's Anatomy. Heck, if fact, they might even change the title of that show to Piggy's Anatomy! *** Which Hunt-------------------- The CBI raided hotshot media baron Prannoy Roy's home. Roy called it a 'witch hunt' by the powers-that-be. I agree. Stung and smarting from the blistering criticism from Roy's NDTV (and other liberal journos and intellects), the new power dispensation has been itching to strike back -- any which way! Well, looks like our new regime is NOT not out on a witch hunt but rather on a WHICH HUNT! I mean, working hard on a list of WHICH critics to hunt down! *** Bollywood Fatsos and Fat-heads--------------------------------------------- Rishi Kapoor was given permission by the authorities to trim a tree outside his house. But what did he do? He chopped down the whole tree! Doesn't he know killing a tree is not good for our environment or for us? But how do you reason with a fat-head? Heck, this fatso does not even know what's good for him! If he did, instead of trees, he'd be chopping down on his own flab and bulk and trim down his own figure! *** Day At The Beach-------------------------- The other day was World Oceans Day. So I went to the beach to pay my respects to the great Indian Ocean that encircles our Mumbai. You know, you pick up a seashell from the beach, put it to your ear and what do you hear? You hear the sound of the waves, the roar of the sea. But guess what I heard when I put a seashell to my ear? I heard my ladylove roaring at me : "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING AT THE BEACH -- WITHOUT ME?" Oh my God! And as if that was not enough. I also heard my boss thundering : "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING AT THE BEACH -- AND NOT WORKING?" *** OUT OF HIS MIND--------------------------------- Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. Actually you know what? He is not just out of that -- he is out of his mind. Then again, I don't blame Trump for being out of his mind. Hey, if I had his kind of warped mind, I too would want to be out of it -- real fast! *** The Silly Twit on Twitter-------------------------------------- Our great leader Modi-ji has 30 million followers on Twitter. But this is what an American journo recently asked Modi-ji : "Are you on Twitter?" Here's my question to this journo : "Dear lady, are a journalist or a JOKE?" *** Cereal Killer------------------------- If, like me, you are in the bad habit of wasting your time soaking up pulp fiction, American thrillers, then you'd be half convinced that the great US is crawling with creeps, crazies, sickos, weirdos, psychos, stalkers, slashers and serial killers! On the other hand, India might not be teeming with such pervs on the prowl -- but we'd better watch out for CEREAL KILLERS! I mean, food adulteration and contamination is now so wide spread here, there are potential killers lurking in the whole gamut of food grains, pulses and cereals! *** We Love Ireland -- Suddenly-------------------------------------------- We never cared for Ireland. Or for anything about Ireland or anything to do with Ireland. Or for anything Irish. Except -- ho ho -- maybe Irish coffee (which, to our delight, is nothing but booze disguised as coffee!) But now that an Indian -- OK, half Indian -- has been elected the Prime Minister of Ireland, we are clapping, cheering, hollering and shouting the roofs off our houses in glee. Typical Indian reaction. Until yesterday, we cared two hoots for Ireland. Ireland was the LAST  thing on our minds. Now, suddenly -- HA! -- we want to be the FIRST to compliment the new PM of Ireland. *** Great Shakes------------------------ Sunny Leone was on a chartered flight when bad weather really shook up her aircraft. Exactly how was the experience? Let me draw you a clear picture of the shaking. For the passengers it was like taking a ride in a cement mixer. Or, you could say, the aircraft shook like a bed when Sunny is in it, engaging in her favorite activity! *** Dumbo Rambo--------------------------------- Bollywood is now making the Indian Rambo starring Tiger Shroff in the title role. And I am 100 percent sure Tiger will do full justice to the role. After all -- hey -- what does it take to play that all-brawn, no-brain human buffalo called Rambo? All it takes is 99 percent muscles -- and 1 percent acting! *** Gumnaam Property Dispute-------------------------------------------- Someone in Bollywood wants to re-make that old, old thriller Gumnaam. And the original makers of that film are -- naturally -- opposed to it. They claim the property belongs to them and only they can re-make it.Well, if  I may intervene in this property row, I'd say this property belongs to neither party. This property actually belongs to Agatha Christie whose bestseller And Then There Were None inspired Gumnaam in the very first place. *** Boom Zoom--------------------- Whoopee! Business for Indian airlines must be booming -- zooming. Why else would our airlines order the purchase of over 1,000 new aircraft? And the best new is this. Now if you are racing to the airport to catch a flight but you get stuck in traffic -- no sweat. When you finally reach the airport, you will find your flight is also stuck in a traffic jam of planes on the ground still waiting to take off! *** The Pomp of POTUS--------------------------------- Recently at the NATO summit, when the attending NATO country leaders gathered for a photo shoot, this is what the refined and cultured Mr Trump did. He roughly shoved aside the Prime Minister of Montenegro so he (Trump) could hog all the attention, be the center of attraction They say when someone looks like a pompous ass and acts like a pompous ass, he has to be pompous ass. No, not pompous ass, he has to be POTUS (President Of The United States)! *** Big Scream------------------------ I got a big screen TV so I could watch the new Baywatch movie starring our own Piggy Chopra. Did I just say big screen TV? Actually it turned out to be a BIG SCREAM TV -- when I dropped it accidentally on my toes! *** Side Effects--------------------- I was reading about medicines and their side effects. All medicines have side effects. Take my case. I recently had watery nose, sore throat and body ache. My doctor gave me medicines that cured my watery nose, sore throat and body ache. But there were side effects. I was left with watery eyes instead of a watery nose, sore joints instead of a sore throat and headache instead of body ache! *** Dr Sicko!----------------- Turns out an orthopedic doctor in Mumbai has a few sly bones in his own body. This Dr Sicko was secretly filming a couple of female doctors while they took their bath. You know, when you have a nasty doggie at home, you put up a sign outside your house warning 'beware of dog' Well, these two doctor ladies have now put a sign outside the home of this sneaky doctor : beware of DOC! *** Sure-Lock Homes-------------------------- Brutal crimes are on the rise in Mumbai. A poor actress was just found murdered in her own flat! Terrible state of affairs! Breaking and entering to commit heinous crimes has become rampant here. You know what this calls for? This urgently calls for Sherlock Holmes. No, wait -- I mean SURE-LOCK HOMES! *** Good Heavens!----------------------- And infamous Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi left for his heavenly abode the other day. Not long after that, we here in Mumbai experienced quite a thunder storm. The sky flashed and boomed like big guns in action! You'd think, no sooner did arms dealer Khashoggi reach the heavens than he cut a deal with the rain gods and sold them a battery of howitzers! ***