A little Sherlock ficlet for my poor friend whose flight got cancelled:
She was sitting in the airport and it was into the fourth hour. She checked her watch and sighed as she watched the setting sun in the large windows. Lexi desperately wanted to get up and stretch her legs, but the ever present reality that someone would steal her seat if she did kept her bum firmly planted to her precious find.
After her second round of “give a backstory to a random stranger”, she was loosing all hope of her flight to Florida following through. Sure enough, within a few minutes there was the call that her flight had been cancelled.
Groaning and rubbing her tired eyes, Lexi hauled her tired body out of the uncomfortable airport seats and dragged her bags from under them. She started the long walk back to the car.
She was almost out of the airport doors when she heard a familiar voice from behind.
“No! It can’t be cancelled! What are we supposed to do for another eight hours?!”
“It’s not my fault that you got a warning from the security guards about yelling peoples vices out loud! For goodness sakes, did you even bring any money for a hotel?!”
Lexi spun on her heels, dropping her bags at her feet. She looked around frantically, and within seconds saw a dark mop of curly hair over the crowd. A flash of a purple scarf and a retreating black trench coat was all she needed to go running.
She was being ridiculous, she knew. But something was buzzing inside her, and that buzzing wasn’t going to be ignored.
Lexi weaved in and out of the crowd, keeping an eye on the pair of English men, but kept her distance, waiting until she was sure.
“I can not believe you, Sherlock! I simply can’t believe it! This is the third time this month that I have had to pay for our hotel fare! That’s it! When we get home you are going to empty the fridge of all severed limbs and use that money that the one girl from the last case gave you for the shopping!”
“It’s not as if I have room to remember things like hotel fares for if by some chance our flight is cancelled! If we could just figure out who it was that planted the-”
Lexi hadn’t realized how she’d been drifting towards the two men until the one man stopped and stared at her. She started to blush.
“Oh! Um… I…. Um…” The words that she wanted to say weren’t making their way out of her mouth.
“You recognize me, don’t you?” the taller man said.
“You’re… You’re Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.” Lexi managed to spit out.
The shorter man interjected. “Wait, wait wait. You’re american. How in the world do you know Sherlock? And what are you? 15?”
Lexi nodded. “Are you John?”
He laughed incredulously, but responded, “Yes. Yes I am.”
Sherlock wasn’t fazed at all by the girl’s age or recognition. He simply slipped his hands into his pockets and looked at her with inspection.
“You’ve been here for hours. You have bags under your eyes and your hair’s messed from leaning against a chair for too long. Your flight’s been cancelled as well, hasn’t it?”
Lexi opened her mouth to say something, but could only nod.
“You wouldn’t happen to want to help us investigate the covered up murder of a college sophomore, now would you?”
Hours later the airport security found a set of abandoned luggage and a dropped flight ticket. Little did they know that their owner couldn’t care less about their whereabouts. She was off somewhere far more exciting than Florida.
