Posted by Bowen Cates on 3/10/2008, 12:23 pm, in reply to "Chapter xisteen part two"
24.207.121.197
Chapter 17: In Which Theodore Is Bombarded With New Information Concerning Inspector Lestrade
“Are we there yet?” Theodore grumbled.
“Shut up kid, you think I like this any more then you do then you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Ya, I know.”
The two of them had been driving for about an hour, for once Theodore had had the opportunity of sitting in the front seat, but now, in the company of Inspector Lestrade, and having seen what he had back in the Baker Street sitting room, well, all the enjoyment was being sucked out of it.
Moreover, the fact that Lestrade’s driving was comparable to a roller-coaster ride wasn’t helping much either.
“Let’s just get this over with, then we can get over to Hargreaves’” she assured him aggressively as she dodged one hover car after another.
“Why? So you can see Holmes again?”
The Inspector turned to look at Theodore with a strange expression on her face; he had never seen it before, disbelief? Hate? Caution? Apprehension?
“Okay, we’re landing.”
“What? why!”
“’Cause we both need to set some things strait.” and with a sudden glace out the window toward the ground, she pounded her foot into the brake, nearly rear-ending the vehicle behind her, and sending Theodore reeling forward an inch or so from the front window.
He couldn’t help being reminded of his two skydiving experiences, before now he had not thought anything could be worse.
There was a loud thump, as the cruiser catapulted its self down onto some red colored pavement in the middle of a park surrounded by trees. In front of them was a large grey concrete medium with streetlights reaching out of it toward the sky. A little farther away Theodore could see a large statue of Lord Nelson, which appeared to be missing half its hat.
Lestrade opened her door and stepped out onto the pavement; “come on kid, you too.”
“My name is not ‘kid’ it’s Theodore” he reminded her, crossing his arms.
“Get out of the cruiser.” she ordered again, crossing hers.
But Theodore wasn’t going down without a fight.
“I call you inspector, so you can call me Theodore, or I’m going to start calling you ‘woman’ and we’ll see how you like it!” he couldn’t believe how rude he was being, he could feel the hate pumping through his veins along with the blood.
Lestrade herself was looking a bit taken aback, but after standing for a moment in silence with a thoughtful expression on her face, she grinned.
“Okay, to tell the truth I can’t stand the name Theodore…” she winced “sounds wimpy to me, maybe Holmes can do it but I can’t, since you seem so stuck on it though, I don’t mind calling you Theo.”
“Theo?”
“Take it or leave it.”
“It’s my name, shouldn’t I get to pick?”
“Look, if you wanna be here all night…” she glowered.
“Okay, fine, Theo.” And with that, he stomped out of the car, over to the cement medium, and plunked himself down with his arms still crossed.
Lestrade followed and sat down beside him.
“Okay, kid, we need to talk, but we don’t have a lota time, so if you wanna hear what I have to say then good, listen real close, and if you don’t, lets get back in the cruiser and you and I can fight the whole way there, and I guarantee you, I’ll win.”
Theodore thought it over for a moment. He had to admit that he was curious, and, after all, it would be a shame to return to Baker Street with a grudge.
“Well…okay.” he shrugged, trying to look like he didn’t care either way.
“Alright then” she sighed, tired, yet satisfied. “So I guess I should start way back, I was your age once too you know.”
Theodore blinked, he had never thought about it that way.
“You’re thirteen right?” she asked.
“Fourteen, I spent my Birthday falling through Holmes’ roof in the 1800s.”
“Wow” it was Lestrade’s turn to blink. “Okay…well, when I was thirteen I was a lot like you, I had no friends; hey don’t get me wrong, I had a family that loved me, but my dad was away a lot and my mom worked.”
Theodore nodded to show he that understood.
“I was listing to you Theo, talking to Holmes.” he wondered which one she meant “we’re pretty alike.”
He wasn’t convinced.
“Hey, just listen for a minute, I spent all my time reading, you know I’m a descendent of the Lestrade from the stories. Well, after Holmes died of old age he asked in his will that no more stories about him be published, so all those papers just sat around. And when the original Watson knew he was gunna die soon he had no one to leave them to, his family, and Holmes’ brother Mycroft, had been dead for a while.
“So, he left them to my great, great, great…well you get the picture, and generation by generation they were passed down through our family, and I’m talking all of ‘em.”
Theodore had never been so envious of anyone in his entire life.
“So when I was old enough, cause they’re kinda a mature read, I spent hours in my room just reading one after the other, and when I finished them all, I read them over again, I was like you Theo, I could recite them, and I did, all the time.
“Well, things were the same for a long time, I grew up, went to school, worked for the Yard, - I always wanted to be a cop, but when I read those stories, even with what Holmes says about us Yardies…well it was like stepping into one of my books - made inspector…on and on…
“I was never really close to my family, I didn’t have friends till I was twenty, and I don’t think you will either - hey don’t look at me like that.”
Theodore was glaring at her, albeit it was a lot of effort on his part, he loved this story and found that she was redeeming herself in his eyes word by word.
“All I’m saying is that I was a tomboy who read old books, I was not popular as a kid, you have a similar problem in that you’re different, people are scared of different.”
He was still glaring.
“Well, anyway” she smiled, amused “so life kinda just went by, then one day I was with Watson – this is before he became so…Watson - chasing this idiot named Martin Fenwick an-”
“Fenwick!” Theodore choked.
“Breathe kid, breathe!” she laughed, thumping him on the back.
“Ya, Fenwick, he was a renegade geneticist, still is in fact, that’s why I brought you here.” She enlightened him, motioning at their surroundings “see lord N. over there?”
“Ya.” Theodore nodded, as he regained control of his breathing.
“I crashed into his hat while trying to nab Fenwick, that’s why half of it’s gone.”
Not knowing what to say when faced with this startling bit of new information, Theodore could only sit and gape.
“Ya, I chased him until he crashed here, and hit this spot, right where we’re sitting. It took them forever to fix all the damage, and, well, you know the rest from when Holmes and the irregulars told you.”
“Wow, that’s quite a story” it would have been immoral not to admit it.
“Now; the thing I wanted to talk to you about: what you said about Holmes…is true to tell the truth, I had kinda hoped you wouldn’t see that smile he gave me, I could hardly believe it myself.
“I’ve always liked him - ever since Hargreaves brought him back - you might say loved, but I never thought…I mean, you know…he’s supposed to hate women, but you also gotta remember that women were different in his time.”
Theodore groaned.
“Hey, when I was a kid I always wanted what you have - the chance to go back in time and be with the guys I was always reading about…I especially wanted to meet Watson…” Theodore couldn’t believe this; she would prefer Watson to Holmes?
“What?” she looked offended “I figured he’d be easier to get along with, I mean, women were more his thing, and I can’t help that I’m female.”
“Well you wouldn’t have liked the risk, I’ve done it twice and you have no idea how painful it is.”
“Ya, I can see how crashing into a roof would be painful.” she joked
“No, you don’t feel that, you’re knocked out too fast, it’s when you start to time travel that’s the problem.” it still made him shiver just to think about it. “it’s like being burned alive, you start twitching and every second feels like a year, you can’t think, voices you don’t know are yelling in your head, louder then any normal human ever could.”
Lestrade just looked at him.
Now that he had started, Theodore was finding it hard to stop.
“And you want to die, but then your body is screaming out with an instinct to live, you keep biting your tongue and you taste the blood, then you start falling, but you’re still hurting, only even more. And you can’t see around you ‘cause all these pictures of everything, even stuff you haven’t even set eyes on before - which I guess is stuff from times you’re passing through or something - are flashing in front of you so fast you can’t see them properly.
“And you can’t breathe and you can’t hear cause the wind is whistling all around you. And then, when you know your going to hit the roof, you think you’re going to die and you’re so happy, but then you wake up in another place…and you’re so scared…and just want to die again, and you can’t understand why you didn’t…cause you wanted to so badly.”
Lestrade said nothing for a while; clearly, she was trying to digest this tirade. She stared at him, her mouth opening and shutting as if she wanted to say something but the words were getting caught in her throat before they could reach her mouth.
“Wow, Theo, I…I never thought…I didn’t know it was like that…it’s one of the reasons I…I guess I was just angry that I didn’t get to do it…I never thought…that it was that bad, and that you might not wanna do it in the first place.”
“You were jealous; of me?”
“Well ya” she said, looking away, her cheeks glowing with embarrassment.
“Are you going to finish your story?” Theodore asked, taking pity on her.
“Oh ya, sorry” she seemed greatly relieved to have anything else to talk about besides time travel.
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