Posted by Bowen Cates on 3/27/2008, 1:04 pm, in reply to "Chapter 19 part one"
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“Now, I don’t have much of a choice so Bamfield you can go with Theo and Tennyson, I’ll stick with Powell.” she continued, motioning to the Doctor “and Deidre and Wiggins, you guys can work together, got it?”
“Uh…inspector?” Theodore asked, a bit embarrassed “I don’t mean to seem rude, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I can’t understand Tennyson’s way of talking,” and then looking over at Tennyson “I’m really sorry, I just don’t pick up on that stuff very fast.”
Tennyson patted him on the back with understanding “whir whir whir beep”
Deidre stepped forward, forever at the ready to translate “’e says that’s okay, Deidre doesn’t- ‘EY!”
Tennyson sniggered silently behind his kerchief.
“Okay, okay!” Lestrade was trying desperately to avoid an argument “alright already, Theo, that’s a good point, Tennyson, you go with Wiggins, Theo can go with Deidre and Bamfield and I’ll stick with Powell, okay?”
Everyone nodded “and if it turns out that nothing’s wrong anyway and Holmes is just having an off day or something, then do whatever you want.
“I’ll go in first with Powell, then I want Tennyson and Wiggins. Then Deidre, Bamfield and Theo” she seemed to have remembered Greg’s similar difficulty with Tennyson’s beeps.
“Everyone got that?”
“Why can’t Wiggins, Tennyson and I just go together like we always do?” asked Deidre, curiously, I like you and all Theodore, I’m just curious.” She assured him.
“We can’t do that because Holmes – or whoever it was that called – will know that you’re coming together, he’s expecting us to enter as a group, then you guys in another group, so it’s best to mix it up, try and surprise them, that make sense?” Lestrade was sounding very impatient, even for her.
Greg, Theodore and the irregulars nodded in unison, then began to separate into their assigned parties.
“You scared?” Theodore asked Deidre as Lestrade slowly mounted the steps to Hargreaves’ front door.
“I’m always scared when Mr. Holmes gets into trouble, and ‘e usually is. E’s bin really good to me, I don’t want anythin’ to ‘appen to ‘im or Watson.”
“Ya, I know what you mean” Theodore’s mouth was getting uncomfortably dry.
“The other Watson, you met im’ right?”
“Ya, I did” He acknowledged, surprised by the sudden question.
“Was ‘e the same as this one?”
He couldn’t help but smile “ya…exactly, he was so kind, but he didn’t cook”
“I knew it.” Deidre smiled back despite her fear.
Now Wiggins, nodding back at them cheerfully, and Tennyson, beeping out an encouraging string of beeps, began to mount the steps as well, trying to lighten the mood while at the same time glancing nervously about before the door closed behind them.
“That means ‘don’t look so scared Theodore, If I die, Wiggins’ll just drag me over to the reanimation room across the ‘all’” Deidre translated for the youngest irregular.
Theodore laughed, “He has a point.”
The whole time Theodore and Deidre had been talking, Greg had been standing silently beside the police cruiser, waiting for his turn to follow them inside. Now he approached the two, hands shaking a bit, but a look of resolve ftransfixed onto his boyish face.
“Well, you guys ready?” Deidre and Theodore looked at each other, both thinking the same thing, and nodded.
“Well then let’s go”
The three started ahead, as Greg piped up again “you know, this is just like that episode of Futurama when Fry…”
Deidre groaned, Theodore decided just to tune him out; he couldn’t have cared less about Frank if his life had depended on his loving the damn show.
As they walked up to the front steps, every sound seemed amplified, even the scuffing of his shoes upon the path was enough to make Theodore feel like he was listening to something explode.
The singing of the night birds echoed in his ears as the air grew suddenly colder, the stars were beginning to come out, and he craned his head upwards, wanting to see as much of their brilliance as possible, just in case this was the only chance he got.
He heard the door creak as Deidre opened it, he heard Greg clomp up the steps behind him, his clodhopper shoes making a noise that seemed to Theodore to be deafening.
Deidre swung the door open as far as it would go, slowly creaking on its hinges.
There was nothing there, the hall was lit brightly and sported numerous tasteful paintings on each whitewashed wall.
Everything was quiet…there was not a sound anywhere in the hole building besides the hesitant thuds of their own feet.
Theodore let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, as he heard his companions do the same.
“Well, so far so good” he whispered, trying to sound braver then he felt.
“Ya, lets just hope it stays that way” Deidre replied, walking rather closer to Theodore then she usually would.
He was too busy chanting ‘please let nothing be wrong, please let nothing me wrong, please let nothing be wrong’ in his head to answer.
Suddenly he heard a footstep behind him, and swerved around, every nerve on edge. But he saw only Greg, who seemed to have heard it as well and was glancing nervously over his shoulder.
“Greg” Theodore whispered nervously “try to walk a bit quieter, if I could hear that, anyone could”
“What…what do you mean?” he gulped.
“Just be quiet okay?”
The young scientist was looking very confused, but nonetheless nodded his head, a few seconds later they rounded a corner and the end of the hallway became visible.
“Right,” Deidre warned “lets go slow, I don’t like it in ‘ere.
Theodore nodded, just as he heard that fearfully enhanced step once more.
“Greg!” he whispered again, this time with more urgency “I said be quiet!” he hated himself for being so rude, but even he had limits.
“I didn’t do anything!” he whispered back.
Theodore could feel the blood leaving his face, he tapped Deidre on the shoulder, she turned her head to face him, knowing full well what was on his mind, she was thinking the same thing.
“On three” Theodore told her “we’ll turn around really fast.”
She nodded, fear and resolve mixing like paint behind her eyes. Theodore began to count under his breath as quietly as he could
“One…two…thr-”
All of a sudden he felt something cold being pressed against his back
“’ands up my leetle friends.” ordered a whiney voice Theodore would never forget until the day he died, a voice that was forever associated with the beginning of his peril.
No one, not even Greg, said anything, as stretched their fingers to the ceiling.
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