Six days passed.
I worked. Took fixer jobs. Maintained the information exchange with Jamie's organization. Avoided the precinct where Marcus worked. Built routines that filled the hours without requiring thought.
Vex watched me with those ancient eyes, saying little but seeing everything. Her wound had healed cleanly — a faint scar beneath her fur, barely visible unless you knew where to look. She moved without favoring her side now, agile and silent as she'd been before the attack.
"You're functioning," she observed on the morning of day ninety.
"That's the goal."
"Functioning isn't the same as living."
"It's enough for now."
I stood at the window of my room at Mrs. Petrova's, watching the Brooklyn street come alive below. The particular rhythm of neighborhood life continued regardless of my personal losses — children walking to school, delivery trucks making rounds, the elderly couple from down the block taking their morning constitutional.
Eighty-nine days since I'd woken in an alley without memories or context. Three months of building a life, a reputation, relationships that meant something.
One of those relationships was gone now. Another was fractured beyond easy repair. And the most dangerous one — with Jamie Moriarty herself — continued to function with the particular efficiency of transactions that had no emotional weight.
"The Maroni shipment information paid well," Vex said, joining me at the window. "Jamie's messenger delivered this morning while you were sleeping."
"I saw the envelope."
"Two thousand dollars. That's generous for intelligence work."
"Jamie rewards useful behavior." I turned away from the window. "She also sent a note."
"I noticed you didn't share what it said."
The note sat on my desk, beside Jamie's portrait. Your situation with Detective Bell was unfortunate. Attachments create vulnerabilities. Remember that.
"She's reminding me not to care about people," I said. "It's her version of advice."
"Is she wrong?"
The question hit harder than it should have. I thought about Marcus — the interview room, the broken voice, the door that wouldn't open again. If I'd never let myself care about him, I wouldn't be standing here feeling like something essential had been carved out of my chest.
"No," I admitted. "She's not wrong. But I'm not sure being right about that is worth anything."
Vex didn't respond, which was response enough.
---
The morning news played on the small television in Mrs. Petrova's common room while I ate breakfast. Most of it was typical city business — traffic, weather, political scandals, the constant hum of a metropolis too large to ever fully understand.
One item caught my attention.
"...and in philanthropy news, a large anonymous donation to the Watson Foundation has enabled the expansion of their addiction recovery programs to three additional boroughs. The foundation, which provides support services for those struggling with substance abuse, declined to comment on the source of the donation but expressed gratitude for the support..."
Watson Foundation. The name triggered something in the Memory Palace — not a full memory, but an association. Joan Watson. Sober companion work. Addiction recovery.
And Sherlock's father. Morland Holmes. A man who operated through grand gestures and strategic positioning, who would eventually insert himself into Sherlock's life through a crisis neither of them saw coming.
I filed the information away. The donation might be coincidental. New York had wealthy philanthropists who supported causes without ulterior motives. But the specificity — a foundation connected to Joan Watson's former profession, focused on addiction recovery relevant to Sherlock's history — suggested something more calculated.
Morland was positioning. Years before I expected him to.
Another timeline shift. Another divergence from the canon I thought I knew.
"Something interesting?" Vex asked, appearing beside my chair.
"Anonymous donor. Big money to an addiction recovery charity." I watched the news cycle to another story. "Probably nothing."
"But you're not sure."
"I'm never sure anymore." I finished my coffee. "The future I thought I knew keeps changing. My knowledge is less reliable than it used to be."
"Butterfly effect. Your presence altered trajectories."
"I know. I just thought I'd have more time before the changes became significant." I stood up from the table. "Come on. I have a meeting with Dmitri about the Kensington documents."
The day continued its ordinary rhythm. Work, planning, the constant small calculations of survival. The grief didn't fade, but it found a place to live alongside everything else — a hollow space where Marcus had been, present but not debilitating.
I ate dinner alone that evening. Vex sat on the table across from me, watching without commenting on the single portion, the mechanical consumption, the particular emptiness of solitary meals after weeks of shared ones.
Some silences said enough.
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