Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter XCVII - Sociopathy

I look down at the illicit information.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you give it to me?"

Sherlock blinks. "It's your birthday, isn't it? I'm giving you a gift. Isn't that what people do?"

I am stunned into silence. Sherlock continues, nonplussed by my reaction.

"I never did see the point in birthdays. I certainly don't want a yearly reminder of the day I fell out of my mother – although I suppose the world is significantly better for it."

I give him no warning: I abandon my duvet protection and lean across the sofa, pushing Sherlock's hand away from his face and kissing his pale cheek.

Sherlock's speech halts abruptly. He gapes at me, horrified, and holds a hand up to his cheek as if grazed.

"You infected me."

"How did you know?"

"You could have the bubonic plague. I'm going to die, and I never published my ash chronicles–"

"Sherlock." He looks at me, unimpressed. "How did you know it was my birthday? No one knows that."

"Your records do. You never told me that your mother tried to sell you to a Chinese labour farm when you were eleven. I found the photos and everything."

"Sherlock, I swear to god–"

He waves off my protests with a hand and says, "Oh come on, the papers were just sitting on Mycroft's desk. They were asking to be read."

"Don't ruin it."

"Ruin what?"

I open my mouth to speak, but am given no chance to vocalise an explanation.

"It's strange," continues Sherlock, "how you don't mention your upbringing. I don't just mean in casual conversation. I read your file – your sentence in Bronzefield, all those interrogations. You were asked about it. You never responded. At first I presumed trauma suppression – common in adults with violent childhoods – but I don't think that's it, not anymore. It can't be. You remember everything, don't you?"

"It's not something you forget."

"No," he says, thoughtfully. "I don't suppose it is. How many of you were there? I counted sixteen in the footage."

"What footage?"

"Video evidence. Propaganda. Your mother sold us the disc when you were gallivanting around as Moriarty's pocket weapon."

I laugh, bitterly. "I'm not surprised."

"No disrespect, but your mother is quite possibly the most repugnant, money-grabbing, sickening manifestation of human greed I've ever had the displeasure of encountering."

"None taken. You're being lenient."

Sherlock cracks his knuckles. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong. You were born Emily Schott on the thirteenth of January, the first of two children."

"Yes. I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Your sister is deceased. You were expelled twice from two separate institutions for violent behaviour towards classmates, the latter of which resulted in the hospitalisation of–"

"He tried to take my lunch," I say. "Little bastard had it coming."

"Don't interrupt, I haven't finished." He begins again. "Your father got in contact with your mother days before you were meant to be collected by social services. He offered to take you off her hands on the condition she told anyone who asked her to lie about your whereabouts."

"She used to tell people I'd been drafted into an academy funded by the police." I turn over the memory stick. "Ironic, isn't it? Wrong side of the law."

"But you served in the police force after your escape?"

"Briefly. I needed cash. And access to a decent hard drive."

"You were trained as a suicide bomber by your father, yes?"

"Not quite. We were the disposable pack fighters. Like pawns. We'd take down anyone who tried to stop us from travelling to the border – airport security, public, guards. It didn't matter if we were caught or killed. That was the point. We were deadly, but replaceable. They tried to drill religion into our heads – it rarely stuck, because some of those kids had been abducted and just went along with it to spare themselves the alternative. You learnt to parrot their spiel with conviction."

"I see. And you taught yourself to hack in this period?"

"I stole a book from HQ. They were trying to learn how to breach American cyber security, spread propaganda, that type of thing. I used to practice when they were asleep."

"And you were never caught?"

"Oh, I was. Still have the scars to show for it."

"You escaped four days after your eighteenth birthday. How?"

I shrug. "I got into a fight. Took out one of our own. I figured they would kill me for it, so all was fair game – I broke into the training facility and stole a crowbar, knocked out the guy at the entrance, hotwired the truck. It wasn't graceful."

Sherlock leans back into his seat, palms together and fingertips touching. "Fascinating."

I sniff, reach for a tissue, and then look up at Sherlock.

"You know, you could have just asked me upfront."

He frowns. "Upfront?"

"Yes." I smile, a little sadly, and wave the memory stick. "You didn't have to bribe me. I would have told you. The whole birthday guise, it was a bit unnecessary."

Sherlock says nothing; a silent confirmation. I place the plastic on the table.

"You keep it."

Without saying a word, he stands and picks up his memory stick. I watch him leave, listen to his bedroom door close. I sigh and close my eyes. Outside, the traffic purrs. I must fall asleep, because when I next open my eyes I'm lying on my side, half-covered by the blanket, and the apartment is very dark and very quiet.

I sit up, stretching, and then I stop. I do a double take.

On the table, there is a boxed cake – red velvet, the transparent window smudged with icing and packaging dented at the corners – and an envelope. I pick up the latter and tear it open. The memory stick falls into my lap. I turn over the card: it's cheap, the sort you pick up for a pound at a corner shop, and the age emblazoned on the front is off the mark by a good five years, but when I open it and read the contents, I find myself smiling in the evening light.

Dear Emily,

This isn't a bribe. The memory stick is yours. I asked Mrs Hudson and she said cake was an acceptable offering, so take the diabetes and enjoy your birthday.

Sherlock.

P.S. If Mycroft asks, John stole the memory stick. And the biscuits.

~~~~~~