Chapter Text
London
Now
In the freezing darkness of midwinter, the ancillus who had once been known as Sherlock Holmes woke before dawn.
Sherlock swung his legs around and sat up as soon as he woke; if he didn’t, he knew from experience that the weight of despair would begin accumulating immediately like an extra blanket pressing him to the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and listened. Nothing below; overhead came the sound of footsteps dragging in the attic bedrooms. The maids were up. Judging by the slowness of the steps, it would be a good fifteen minutes before they went downstairs.
Sherlock stood and peeled off his pyjamas, folding them carefully and setting them aside in the dark. He pulled on his undergarments from the day before: linen vest and long drawers and socks. No shoes yet, not until the maids were safely downstairs. He stripped the bed, leaving the sheet and duvet bunched on the bare mattress, and then lowered himself quietly to the rug to stretch. The footsteps were noisier now, growing distant and returning, crossing over each other, quicker—back from the loo and more fully awake—and Sherlock went to the door to listen: there, he could hear a door open and shut and now the footsteps were all clattering away, the sound fading from overhead to become audible from the back stairs down the hall. Sherlock tilted his head, trying to distinguish the different patterns, but it was too hard at this distance. Silence fell.
Sherlock returned to his rug. He had an hour now before the Commander would be up, an hour in which no one was awake between him and the kitchens. Time to begin.
On the rug: crunches, pushups. Reverse crunches, lunges, squats. There was nothing in the room he could use as a pullup bar—because there was nothing in the room from which a noose could be hung—and nothing heavy enough to use as a weight; he turned the upholstered chair carefully on its side and used the short legs to do triceps presses. Chair back in position and back to the door, listening. Not yet. He drank a little water, back to the door. Noises now: voices from downstairs, the Commander’s heavy tread: he was going down to breakfast. Good. The maids would be tidying the room and making the bed now, but there would be two of them: they would be talking, not listening.
Sherlock rolled up the rug until it bumped up against the end of the bed and wedged his shoes against it to keep it unrolling. He looped the sheet around the bottom rail at the foot of the bed and sat down on the slick wood floor, bracing the soles of his stocking feet against the rug, and went to work on his makeshift rowing machine, using the sheet to pull himself forward and pushing back with his legs. His linen drawers slid easily on the polished floor. He was sweating now, more than warmed up in the chilly fireless room, but he kept going until he heard the Commander stomping back up to his bedroom, shouting something irritable to Mrs. Turner as he went.
Stop. Sherlock panted on the floor a minute, resting, then drank some more water and returned the rug to its original position. Over to the window, watching. He saw the car come around the corner, Hall getting out to open the door, the guard captain, Nicholls, coming out to speak to him briefly before the Commander appeared and settled himself officiously in the back of the car. The car drove away and Sherlock exhaled.
Back to the sheet. Sherlock retrieved his shoes and put them on—the shoes were fine leather, with thin soles, utterly unsuited for anything more strenuous than strolling down a city pavement, but Sherlock was not somewhat who needed to be taught a lesson twice. If he ran again—when he ran again—he was not going to be slowed down by blisters. He twisted the sheet into a rope again and tied it to the bed, in a loop around his waist this time. The bed was iron and heavy for its size, which was good for Sherlock’s purposes; it was unlikely to slide. Sherlock faced the barred window and began to run in place. He could not run too hard against the sheet, but it was still better than nothing. Sherlock closed his eyes, set the timer in his head to an hour, and pulled up a location from his mind palace: the hilly farmland near his parent’s country house when he’d been a child.
Sherlock had never run those hills in reality. He never used to run at all, or to do any sort of workout beyond that involved in the martial arts he had studied. But now he had nothing but time, and determination; determination that if—when—the chance came to run again, no one would catch him.
At the end of the hour, sweaty and tired, Sherlock slowed to a walk and then stepped out of the sheet. He untied it, shook the creases out, and remade the bed with careful precision. Then he stripped off his clothes, dropped them in the laundry hamper, put his pyjamas back on, and sat down to wait. Two minutes, breathing back to normal. Five minutes, sweat dried. Ten minutes and he began to feel chilly again. Just as he began wondering if he had gotten off on the time, he heard footsteps on the stairs and then, very distantly, the sound of a clock striking.
A key turned in the lock and Phillips, the valet-butler, stepped in, followed by one of the maids with a tray. She set the tray on the small table next to Sherlock’s chair and knelt silently to light the fire.
“Brother Bathsheba,” Phillips said. Phillips was a hard read, even for Sherlock; he had more or less decided that Phillips had actually been a butler forever, and had not even noticed the dramatic social upheaval that had taken place around him. “Good morning.”
“Phillips.” Sherlock poured tea and added sugar. The sugar, he knew, was precious; a privilege of living in the Commander’s household. It was a privilege he would have happily foregone, but since that option was not available, he enjoyed the sugar. A full breakfast was laid out on the tray but he would eat only the toast; he would not let himself go soft and plump like so many of the omegas, their very flesh a visible sign of their ostensible good fortune.
The maid—Meg today, the pretty one—bobbed a curtsey and left. Phillips was in the bathroom, running the bath and preparing his shaving things. Sherlock found the whole valet rigmarole absurd, but then he certainly wouldn’t be allowed to wield a razor himself, so he went along.
Finished with his tea and toast, Sherlock suffered himself to be shaved and then took his bath, which he might have enjoyed more if he were not so aware of Phillips moving about in the bedroom. When he’d finished drying off, he towel-dried his hair as best he could, knowing it was hopeless, and then pulled on his fresh underthings and stepped out to where Phillips had laid out his clothes. The long white linen robe first, lined for winter, with a cowl that he pulled up over his damp hair. Over that the real mark of his status, the long red woolen surplice with its full sleeves and cord belt. The whole effect was reminiscent of a medieval monk, which was more or less the point. The cowl would cover his head at all times, even in his own room; when he left the house he would wear the full-length red cloak with its enormous stiffened hood, which shielded his face so effectively he could see (and be seen by) only someone standing directly in front of him.
When he was fully dressed Sherlock asked, “Time, Phillips?”
“I believe there are ten minutes until your companion is due to arrive, Brother Bathsheba.”
Sherlock nodded. “Very well then.”
Phillips withdrew with the tray. Sherlock sat in his chair, waiting for the time to pass until it was time for him to go downstairs. Waiting for something to happen, for something to change, for anything, anything at all to make this day different from those that came before it and those that would came after, until either he escaped or was driven slowly, inexorably mad.
Sherlock was surprised when he came downstairs to find Molly already waiting in the foyer. She was standing perfectly correctly: hands tucked inside her sleeves, head lowered so he could not see her face. Like him, Molly was wearing long red robes and cloak, but instead of a cowl and hood she wore a linen cap under a starched white headdress with sharply angled side panels, like an old-fashioned nun.
“Good morning, Brother Bathsheba,” Molly said brightly, tipping her head up to see him on the stairs. “It’s a lovely day.”
“Sister,” he acknowledged dryly. “Is it?”
Phillips held the door for them and closed it as they went out, setting off toward the Veilgarden District. “You’re early,” Sherlock said as soon as they were reasonably alone.
“Well, I know you like to get there early. And it is a lovely day for all it’s so cold—I feel I haven’t seen the sun in ages. I can’t wait to go to the park this afternoon. You should come as well,” she said, wheedling.
“It might just be cold enough for hell to freeze over, so perhaps I will.”
“Didn’t you ask your Commander?”
“He’s not my Commander,” Sherlock said through his teeth. “And I did ask. He said I was free to go walking whenever Mrs. Turner was at leisure to accompany me, which is never. Mrs. Turner doesn’t believe in either leisure or in doing anything which might make me happy.”
Molly walked on in silence for a moment. “There was a memorandum, from the Ministry of Health. We’re to be encouraged to continue to get fresh air and exercise during the winter months. Your—Commander Pitts must have seen it, so maybe if you ask again?”
“Perhaps.” Sherlock did not believe in irrational optimism. Still…once he returned he would be sitting in his room for the rest of the day, nothing to read, nothing to do, nothing but his mind place for distraction. It might be worth another attempt if there were any chance of success.
They were quiet the rest of the way. St. George’s Cathedral was the oldest and grandest of London’s high society churches and thus, since the Restoration, the centre of omega life. Traditionally it was open exclusively to omegas between noon and three, so the midday service was widely attended; for most of the handmaidens it was their only chance to get out of the house. In his past life Sherlock thought he might have been there once—dragged to a society wedding by his parents—but now, lifelong atheism notwithstanding, he went every day.
At the door of the church Sherlock handed Molly his prayer book and they separated, Molly going on to the sanctuary whilst Sherlock veered off to the small chapel on the side. St. Elizabeth was the traditional patron of barren omegas, so it was reasonable that Sherlock, after two unproductive heats, should visit her chapel. A Bonded in an enormous plumed hat was already kneeling at the altar rail, so Sherlock slid into a seat to wait his turn, head lowered as though in prayer. The Bonded swept out a moment later, long skirt swishing on the stone floor.
Sherlock got up and went to the altar, glancing over his shoulder to be sure he was alone. He knelt and swiftly ran his fingers along the underside of the rail. Nothing. He had expected this—it was too early--but still felt a small stab of disappointment; there was always the hope of something unexpected left for him.
Finished, Sherlock went back out into the nave. The front pews were filled with Bondeds in every shade of blue—from dark navy and deep sapphire to palest winter azure trimmed with ermine—mostly dresses, but a few suits mixed in; ninety percent of omegas were female, with the reverse true of alphas. A hundred years ago the blue would have been liberally interspersed with white, eligible young omegas who were “out”: presented but not yet bonded. Today Sherlock saw only three.
The ancillae sat toward the back. Sherlock spotted Molly in their usual place—amazing how quickly one learned to recognize acquaintances without being able see their faces--but to his surprise she seemed to be talking to someone, an ancillus whose face Sherlock couldn’t see. As he slid in beside her he saw that the omega was pregnant.
“Sherlock, look!” Molly said happily, tilting her head toward him. “It’s Henry!”
Sherlock leaned out so that they could see each other and saw that Molly was correct: the man was Henry Knight. He had overlapped briefly with Molly and Sherlock at Sarah House and Molly had always liked him; she had wondered a few times what had become of him after he failed to appear in London. “Brother…what did they call you. Hosea, wasn’t it? How was the country? You’ve clearly been covenanted for some time.”
Henry nodded. “I’ve been there since I left the convent. The Commander I got was in the Foreign Service and he goes abroad a lot, so he requested a honeymoon.”
“But that’s an old wives’ tale!” Molly said indignantly. “Surely they didn’t—“
“Worked, didn’t it?” Henry said wryly, gesturing toward his midsection.
“What are you talking about? What do you mean, a honeymoon?” Sherlock asked.
Molly’s eye roll was audible in her voice. “Back in the old days—the really old days, the ones we’re supposed to be trying to get back to—people courted under the watchful eyes of parents and chaperones who made sure no one got too frisky before the wedding. The honeymoon was the first time most couples spent any significant time together and the idea was that it brought on the bonding heat, but really that’s all bosh. There’s some biochemical evidence, but it was probably because the couples were attracted to each other in the first place and were sexually active on the honeymoon, and those hormone surges brought on the heat. And that sort of thing is supposed to be forbidden for us outside of--” Molly seemed to stumble over her words—Sherlock could hear her blushing--but then went on in a rush, voice growing stronger: “So the idea that just a few weeks together without, er, unless he broke the rules…”
“Definitely not,” Henry said, grimacing. “We went to his country place but I barely even saw him; he was shut up in his study the whole time working. I only saw him at dinner. It was almost like being back home, only without my mother, which honestly was an improvement. I really thought the whole thing was going to be a bit of a bust, to be honest, but we’d been there just over a week and all of a sudden…” he grimaced, gesturing toward his belly again. “Heat came on and there I was, up the pole.”
“But,” Molly began indignantly and then seemed to cut herself off again. The organ began to play softly, indicating the service would start in a few minutes.
“I assume you stayed in the country?” Sherlock asked. This was another resurrected Victorian custom; expectant omegas often spent most of their pregnancies away from the city on the theory that rural air was healthier.
“Yes. It was deadly dull. I’m quite glad to come here, even if I do have to sit in my room most of the time; at least there’s the chance to get out and talk to someone once a day.”
“Your Commander must have quite a bit of pull if he was able to request a honeymoon,” Molly said suddenly. “You said he was in the Foreign Ministry?”
Henry shrugged. “He might be the Minister for all I know. It’s not as though I greet him in the lounge every night with a cocktail and ask after his day.”
“What’s his name?”
“Moriarty,” Henry said. “James Moriarty.”
Molly changed the subject after that, telling Henry about the social hour after the service and the classes the Cathedral would be offering soon. During the tea and biscuits after she asked Henry about his pregnancy, which bored Sherlock so thoroughly he stopped listening altogether. He watched the others instead: who talked to whom, which Bondeds in particular seemed smug, or anxious, or distracted. He knew the others valued the social interaction but except for Molly that held little value for him. Sherlock needed the chance to observe, to deduce, to use his brain; like oxygen after holding his breath all day in the stultifying dullness of his room.
They said good bye to Henry and his walking companion at the high gates of the district and turned toward their own street, walking in silence for a few minutes until they were well clear of the guards. Sherlock was waiting for Molly to bring up Moriarty—bracing for it, really--when Molly suddenly burst out, “I can’t believe Henry actually fell for that honeymoon heat nonsense.”
“Are you on about that again?” Sherlock said, exasperated. “What does it matter?”
“Because it’s bollocks! There’s no way that actually worked, so that means Moriarty must have induced it.”
Sherlock was taken aback. “Is that even possible? How—“
“Of course it’s possible, it was quite common as a fertility treatment before. Totally illegal now though. The omega takes high dose hormones for seven days—you can take them orally; that’s probably what those dinners were really about, Moriarty slipping them into Henry’s food—and then stops. It’s the withdrawal brings on the heat. Usually happens within twenty-four hours. You heard what he said, right? Just over a week and bang. An induced heat comes on quite suddenly, not like they usually do, and they tend to be shorter but more intense, I think.”
Sherlock turned to look at her but of course all he saw was the stiff white panels of her headdress. “Moriarty was taking quite a risk, then.”
“Only if he was caught with the drugs. It’d be hard to prove otherwise.”
Sherlock opened his mouth to ask why but of course that was obvious: the whole point of the Order of Ancillae was to increase the secondaries’ birthrate; siring children was an enormous status boost for alphas. Still…
Molly turned her head and now he caught a glimpse of her worried eyes. “When you weren’t covenanted to him…”
“He gave up. Obviously. Chose the next high-status ancillus available and got him in the family way. Didn’t waste any time moving on, did he?”
“No. And he seems to be treating Henry all right, I suppose. It must be a relief to you?”
Sherlock did not want to admit, even to Molly, how much the thought of Moriarty had weighed on him, lessened though the weight had become with every month that he did not reappear. And he certainly did not want to admit that the thought of Moriarty using illegal methods to impregnate his handmaiden so quickly did not come as a relief. It did not come as a relief at all.
London
Before
“Are you a student of history, Sherlock?”
“Not particularly,” Sherlock said. It was a warm evening in June and the windows were open in his flat on Montague street, the sound of traffic and voices drifting up from outside. “I read chemistry at university.”
“I read history,” Gregson said. “Liked it rather well; thought about making a go of it as an academic, in fact, but.” He lifted one shoulder. “Seemed a bit dull. Ivory tower and all. Still, I keep my hand in a bit, read quite a lot, last century in particular. ”
“Mmm.” Sherlock had no interest in Gregson’s previous career aspirations, but he would get to his point in his own good time.
Gregson leaned back and touched his fingertips together. He was a slender man, elegant, with a thick head of silver hair and an air of vaguely professorial abstraction that masked an eye almost as sharp as Sherlock’s. “And here’s what I’ve learnt, old boy, reading history. When they want to put your name on a list, it’s time to get out.”
“Are you talking about the omega registry?” Sherlock said. “But that’s absurd. It’s the Ministry of Health, they’re concerned about the decline in the omega population. They certainly aren’t out to exterminate us; they want to protect us.”
“Which is exactly why you should be alarmed. Protection is never free, Sherlock, it always comes with a price: privacy, freedom, choice. I don’t know what the price will be, but I doubt it’s one I shall want to pay.”
“So what are you going to do? Leave?”
“Yes,” Gregson said simply.
Sherlock stared at him. “And go where?”
“Toronto. I’m almost retirement age anyway; I’ve a friend there who’s put me on to a private security firm. I’ll work for a few years and then see how things are. If I’m wrong, I’ll come back and retire to the country, come up to London and buy you a drink. If I’m right…then find me in Toronto, if you’re able to make it out. I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock said. “You’re the Met’s least stupid detective inspector; you’ll be bored senseless in private security. And what about what’s his name? Oliver. Olivier.”
“Oscar,” Gregson. “And of course he’s coming too. He doesn’t fancy the idea of this registry any more than I do and besides, he’s still young enough to be valuable. How long do you think they’ll let omega-omega couples stay together? What with all this new emphasis on the preservation of our cherished aristocracy? It’ll be Lebensborn all over again. Look that up if you deleted it.”
“That’s absurd,” Sherlock said again. “You’re overreacting. This is England, that can’t happen here; people won’t let it.”
“I do hope you’re right.” Gregson stood, straightening his jacket. “I anticipated you wouldn’t listen to me, so I’ve passed your name along to one of our new DIs, bright young chap name of Lestrade. Alpha, but not a bad sort. Clever enough to listen to his elders, unlike some, so he’ll be calling you.”
“I’m opposed to new people,” Sherlock said a bit sulkily. He’d rather liked Gregson, whose supreme self-confidence kept anyone from questioning Sherlock’s presence at crime scenes too forcefully; this Lestrade didn’t sound as though he carried the same authority.
“You’ll get on well enough.” Gregson held out his hand and Sherlock took it, still glowering. “And Sherlock…do a favor for an old friend? Read a bit of history. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich would be a fine start. Read about Lebensborn. Read about Sonderweg and look at where the policies of these NeoTories might be taking us. And if you read nothing else, read about the Reichstag fire. Because then you’ll recognize when the last possible moment to run comes.”
“Fine,” Sherlock said, giving his hand a final squeeze. “Enjoy Toronto. I hear the winters are lovely. And I’ll be looking forward to that drink when you come back.”
Gregson smiled. “I hope so.”
Sherlock meant to read about the Reichstag fire, he really did. (Not a whole book, obviously, that was asking a bit much.) Because it was so easy to get information back then: all you had to do was hit a few keys, on the internet, and anything you wanted to know was there for the taking; and because it was so easy, and so easy to take for granted, be put it off a bit, and then the clever-enough Lestrade called him for a case and he turned out to be not a bad sort at all. It didn’t seem very urgent, because after all, it couldn’t happen in England. Until it did.