Disclaimer: Holmes and Co. are not mine, even though, technically speaking, they have outlived their copyrights and are in public domain, mwahahaha, suckas. Ada Cooper's mine, though I see no reason why you would want her in the first place.

Summary: Romance/Mystery/Angst. Holmes/OFC. A typical romance of a 21st century young woman, Ada Cooper, who goes back in time to the 19th century and meets up with Holmes. But wait, all is not what it seems. Ada's POV.

HEADLIGHTS
By Hallospacegirl

Chapter One

They don't believe me. Nobody does. The short skinny detective sitting at the desk opposite me has been pounding the same questions into my ears for the last hour, as though he hasn't understood a single word I've said since they took me in here.
The crude yellow light bulb crackles noisily above me as the rain outside splashes furiously into the dark empty streets, and a clock is ticking from a bookshelf nearby. The three young policemen in short black capes and round helmets who are standing beside the detective are swaying tiredly on their feet and stifling yawns behind gloved fists.
"Now, madam, let us go through this again," the detective says to me, ignoring the restlessness of the policemen. He speaks in the condescending way a person would speak to a child, and dissects me with those beady black eyes like he's observing not a twenty three year old woman, but an unknown insect. "Where do you last remember being?"
"I already told you." My throat is hoarse from the talking, but he doesn't offer me the pitcher of water on the desk. "I last remember being in San Francisco."
"Three months ago."
"No. More like three hours ago. Ten or eleven o'clock, I think it was. My band Durvasula and I were done playing our set at Joe's Club, and I was walking out of the club to my car, which was parked across the street. Then suddenly this other car with the bright white headlights came down the road and hit me. And I guess I was knocked unconscious, because the next thing I knew the driver with the horse and buggy was picking me off of the street and asking if I was all right. Look," I sigh, reaching for the pitcher and refilling my glass, "I already told you."
"And yet what you say does not make the least bit of sense," he responds tightly. "For instance, you keep mentioning the word 'car.' I want you to describe this vehicle that hit you. Is it a landau? A hansom? A newfangled horseless road machine? Is there anything more you can tell us so that we can identify your assailant?"
"A car! An automobile! It has four wheels and headlights and a windshield!" I snap after taking a long swig of the stale, lukewarm water. "I don't know what color it was because the headlights were too bright, and I don't know what type it was. A Lexus, a Toyota, a Ford. I don't know. I couldn't see clearly. But listen, I really don't care at this point as long as you tell me where I am and how to get home."
The detective exhales thinly, and glances wearily down at the lines of writing he has jotted into his notebook. "This I already told you, madam, four times, I believe. We are in London, England on the evening of November 8, 1888."
"Bullshit."
He snaps his head back up sharply and frowns at me for a moment. "Madam, I do not jest."
"And neither do I. I know where I was and what time it was when I had the accident. I was in San Francisco on the 8th of November, 2003. Now, I'm willing to believe I got hurt so badly you needed to transfer me to a hospital in England, and I'm willing to believe I slept through a couple of months of my life in a coma, but right now you're telling me that I'm a hundred years before my current time. This I can't believe."
"Yes, and rightly so. I'm not asking you to believe such preposterous notions. I'm asking you take into account the possibility that the accident has perhaps damaged your brain and made your memories slightly... unstable for the moment."
I let out a short, bitter snort at the detective's words as I take in the sight of his parted black hair and dark three-piece suit and overcoat. He's so far from the ripped baggy jeans and tee shirts I know so well that for the briefest of seconds I wonder if jeans and tee shirts are figments from my imagination that have been created in my brain by the crash with the horse and buggy.
No, it was a car that hit me, not a horse and buggy. Joe's Club is real. Mudd jeans are real, and so are Hot Topic tee shirts, and so are electric guitars, and so is my band Durvasula, and so is Mark and James and Tony. I can still smell his cigarette traces clinging to the black lace of my blouse.
I slap my palm down on the table. "Stop trying to mess with me!" I explode at the skinny little man. "I know where I am! I'm in San Francisco, California, on November 8, 2003! And I'm not insane!"
"Madam, please. I did not say you are," he replies hastily, "but it is God's truth when I say you are in London in the year 1888."
"You expect me to think that I made up the next hundred years in my mind? You expect me to think that a crash with a horse and buggy made me invent cars and CD players and the Internet?"
"I'm simply telling you the truth, madam."
I screw my eyes shut and feel tears, thickened by the layers of ruined makeup and mascara, slide down my face. "This is a sick joke, isn't it? You must be one of Tony's friends, and this place must be some studio back lot in Los Angeles. Any minute now the lights are going to come back on, and everything's going to be normal again."
"We are in London in the year 1888."
"Look at me!" I snarl, pointing to myself. "Do I look like I come from 1888?"
The detective blinks once. "Yes. You are wearing a black silk dress and a corset. The neckline of your dress is quite... daring... but I suppose this particular cut is the trend among the fashionable young women of this time. Am I right, Sergeant?"
The bleary eyed man standing beside the detective lowers his chin in a drowsy nod. "I've seen similar."
"Thank you, Sergeant." The detective turns back to me.
"I'm in a Goth rock band! I've already told you ten times! The band is called Durvasula, and these are our performance costumes, which are copied from nineteenth century Victorian dresses! This is a modern dress, made with modern materials!"
"Yes, quite right."
I stare at him lamely. "You don't believe me."
"In all honesty you leave me at a loss, madam. You've told me tales and used vocabulary that are altogether fantastic to my humble ears."
"No, I think you're telling me that I'm either insane, or that I traveled back in time from the twenty first century, detective," I whisper, holding my damp, smeared face in my hands. The heavy foundation, powder, lipstick, and eye shadow have certainly been spoiled by the rain and my intermittent fits of crying, and I'm glad that there's no mirror in sight. "God, I'm not insane, all right?"
"Madam, please calm yourself."
"I don't know what's happening to me. I was there at Joe's Club and suddenly I'm here in London a hundred twenty years ago. Listen, I know this is impossible, and I would believe that I had a brain injury if I could, but I can't. Because it's not true. Everything in my memory is real, all right? And no one believes me! If you would, or at least someone would only believe me a little bit, or at least pretend to, maybe I won't be so fucking scared!"
For a suspended moment, the detective is silent, and I can hear his shallow breathing, mingling with the quiet, impatient rustles of the policemen next to him, the flat ticking of the clock, and the muted splattering of the rain outside.
When the skinny man speaks again his voice is resigned and tired. "You want to appeal your case to someone else?"
"Yes."
"Then I think, madam," he resumes carefully, "that I might know just the man whom you seek."

..........

The ride in the carriage through the rainy London streets scares me with its reality. The flickering flames of the gaslights illuminate the wet black cobblestone lanes in a blotchy, inconsistent light.
The windows of the buildings crammed to either side of the street are dark. I long to hear muffled sounds of late night television coming through the rooms, or maybe see a fierce beam of modern electric lighting seep through the curtains, but all I can find is the occasional candlelit window mottled with blurry silhouettes of the inhabitants within.
The carriage passes by several drunks and women in shabby gowns, and I stare at them, hoping to catch a glimpse of sneakers or jeans or parkas or anything that would stick out of their costumes to reveal to me the fakeness of this London world.
All I see is the yellow, feverish eyes of a bearded man who smiles gapingly at me as we fly by in our carriage.
I lean back in the leather seat and let the tears tumble silently down my face. San Francisco, I think. Damn you, Tony, and damn me too, for drinking the wine that he offered in his hands as I finished the last song and stepped from the tiny stage. And damn me for letting his mouth linger there on my cheek, my chin, my neck.
"Drink from this, my poet, and you won't regret it," I remember him whispering as a wisp of cigarette smoke escaped from the corners of his lips.
And then I must have said, "I'm sorry, Tony, but you're no vampire," because the last distinct words I remember him saying to me were, "I know." And I drank his wine until my mind reeled with oblivion.
As we danced together, the music from the next upcoming underground band filling the club with dissonant static, he whispered to me words upon words that seemed to meld with the music, and I giggled, laughed, nodded wildly. When the song ended I said to him, "Yes, of course."
Yes, of course. And then there was the car, and then the blinding headlights more glaring than anything I have ever seen before. And then the cold, midnight London streets. I frown through my tears.
What was it that I said yes to?
I can remember nothing past his simple declaration of "I know." My mind must have been changed and lost in the wine.
"We are here, madam." The clear voice of the detective cuts through the monotony of the carriage wheels rattling against the cobblestones.
I look at him to see that he is pointing at a nondescript house on the side of the street, with the numbers 221b inscribed over a low, dark doorway.
"Who is it that you're taking me to see?" I ask as the carriage slows and jerks to a stop. My own voice rasps and grates out of my mouth. "Is he a psychiatrist? I don't need to speak to any psychiatrists."
"He is a detective of sorts."
"Like you?"
The skinny man regards me with an expression I can't read. "No. No, Sherlock Holmes is nothing like me. Now come along." He flings open the door of the carriage, steps to the curb, and holds up his whitely gloved hand to me. I stand unsteadily and stumble out of the carriage without taking it.
"I don't need help," I say. "I need answers."
"Then you will undoubtedly be delighted," he replies, "to find that Sherlock Holmes is a man of little help and plenty of answers, however accurate or far fetched they may be."
We pass through the doorway and up a short flight of narrow stairs, to a single door lit orange by a small gaslight in the wall. The thin man brings his sharp knuckles to the door and raps three times. When there is no answer the man calls, "Holmes? Holmes, this is urgent."
The door opens after a brief moment, and I'm engulfed in choking, sweet tobacco fumes. The man who stands in the doorway is tall and gaunt, his distinct features draped in sleepiness and the edges of his dark uncombed hair almost red from the light of a fireplace behind him. He wears a deep purple robe, and holds the end of a curved clay pipe between his teeth.
"So, Lestrade," he says curtly around the pipe, "have you come to relay the wishes of the Scotland Yard for my assistance in deciphering the Whitechapel..." He sees me and stops. His deep-set gray eyes widen almost imperceptibly beneath arched eyebrows as he pivots away from the door and gestures with an elegant pale hand to the inside of his room. "Do come in, madam. You are tired and have traveled very far. We will talk by the fire over a cup of tea. I gather that there are many things you wish to tell me."
I peer at this man called Holmes narrowly. "How do you know this?"
"Your foreign attire, and the manner you unconsciously swallow as though there is something in your throat reveal many things to me. But never mind. Do come into the study."
I gingerly step into the smoky warmth of the small, closely furnished room. Directly in front of me is a small dining table before of a velvet- curtained window, and further ahead, three or four armchairs around a blazing fireplace. Countless books, newspaper clippings, photographs, and papers are scattered among the odd decorations on the desk to the left of me. The sweetly pungent pipe smoke curls about the crimson, patterned wallpaper and ceiling like fog.
"This way." The man Holmes takes me by the elbow and leads me into the study to a large beige armchair. "Please, sit."
I do. The skinny detective named Lestrade, who has invited himself in after us, lowers himself now into a wicker chair beside me, and glances expectantly at Holmes with beady black pupils. "Well?"
"Yes, Mr. Lestrade?"
"What do you make of her?" He speaks as though I've stopped being an alien insect specimen and ceased to exist altogether. "What does your famed powers of deduction tell you? I am burning with curiosity, Mr. Holmes, because ever since Davenport the cabman found her lying prostrate in the street two hours ago, I have yet to make sense as to what has befallen her."
"Perhaps the young lady will explain to you after a brief moment of rest from her trying ordeal, detective," Holmes says, walking to the dining table and picking up a tray of tea, some cups, and a platter of small cookies. He returns to the armchairs with his steely eyes pinning Lestrade in a thinly veiled accusatory glare, then lays the tray on the coffee table before me.
I watch his gracefully shaped fingers pour the tea into two small cups and set the cookies onto matching saucers. "I urge you to refresh yourself before we begin our conversation," he says to me, handing me a teacup and a saucer of cookies. He folds his tall frame into the red armchair opposite me, then steeples his fingertips to his pipe and silently exhales a series of smoke rings.
Under the quiet scrutiny of both men I devour a buttery cookie, rinsing it down with a mouthful of strong herbal tea, and wipe my lips with the lacy frills of my concert costume dress. I realize that not only was I parched in the bare interrogation room with Lestrade and the policemen, I was famished. I eat another cookie and finish off the dregs of my tea.
"Thank you," I rasp, setting the empty dishes back on the tray.
"More?" Holmes asks.
"No, I'm fine now. Thanks."
Lestrade clears his throat pointedly. "Can we begin? Holmes, listen with extra care to what this woman has to say."
I rub my sore, reddened eyelids with my knuckles, no longer caring about the state of my makeup. "Look, Mr. Holmes, I'm not asking you to immediately believe what I'm going to tell you. I'm just asking you to listen the first time around with an open mind."
"Why, of course," the man murmurs through his pipe and a cloud of smoke. "Listening is a basic skill of any competent detective." His steely gaze darts to Lestrade for a split second, who in turn stares at the ceiling in an open expression of exasperation.
"For the love of God, Holmes."
"Help yourself to some tea, Lestrade. Madam," he says to me, "you may begin when you feel ready."
I nod shortly. "I guess I'll begin now. I might as well tell you the basics about myself. My name's Adeleine Cooper, but everyone calls me Ada. I work at a cafe in San Francisco and sing in an underground Goth rock band. I dropped out of the University of San Francisco in my junior year three years ago, and for that my parents and I don't talk much anymore. For that and a lot of other things too numerous to list." I lick my parched lips. "Anyway, I had a boyfriend named Tony, and he was the one who introduced me to the world of Goth rock, dark poetry, and self torture. He said it eased the pain of life. It didn't. I broke up with him, but I could never really leave. I was the singer of his band, singing all of his songs, and the more I sang them the more I realized no one else outside my dark shell could ever want and accept me. Tony and I... I hated him, but I couldn't leave him. It was like as if we were stuck together with superglue. But I'm not making any sense to you with my words, am I?"
Holmes is staring back at me with a faraway, yet intense expression, and when I lapse into silence he vaguely waves a hand in the air for me to continue.
"I don't even know why I'm telling you all this, Mr. Holmes. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that earlier tonight I drank some wine that Tony offered me that may or may not have been drugged, and I got drunk and walked in front of a car. It hit me and I was knocked unconscious. Now, I know you're going to ask me a thousand questions about what a car is and what a rock band is, so I'll just put it this way. When that car, that vehicle or horseless carriage or whatever you want to call it hit me, I was in San Francisco in the year 2003. Two hours later I woke up here, in London, in the year 1888."
Holmes chews thoughtfully at the end of his pipe, frowning slightly but not speaking.
"You're going to say I'm crazy," I offer.
"No, no, no, Miss Cooper. Your account is truly... interesting."
"You don't believe me."
"At this moment I cannot say."
A slow panic is gathering in my chest as I let my own words sink into my ears, and I choke out, "Look, Mr. Holmes, I don't know anything anymore. I don't know if you're real or if all this is real, or if the past twenty three years of my life was all a dream, or if we're like those people in that movie, The Matrix, and we're all living in tanks, but, oh God, I don't even know if I'm real anymore!"
My tears fall into my lap, leaving black spots on the dark silk of my gown.
"If you please, madam," Lestrade begins uncomfortably.
Holmes motions for him to be silent, and the next thing I know Holmes's dry, warm hands are clasped over mine. My panic falls at the touch, and my crying trickles to a quiet sniffle as I feel the firm and undeniably real pressure of his hands. I look into the serene aquiline features of his face, and quickly look to the mousy, slightly frazzled Lestrade, and then at the intricate expanse of the study.
I can feel in my heart that all is real. As real as Tony and Durvasula and my two and a half years of study at the University of San Francisco.
And I turn back to Holmes and almost laugh in relief. "This is all insane, but it's all real, isn't it? For some reason I was in the year 2003, and now I'm in 1888. I don't know how it happened, but it did."
"Now is hardly the time to think of scientific explanations, Miss Cooper," Holmes replies gently. "You are tired, and need to sleep. I do not mind if you lodge in my good colleague Dr. Watson's room for the night, and we can resume our conversation tomorrow." He removes his hand from mine with a pat and leans back into his armchair. "What say you, Lestrade?" he asks the man beside me. "Care to join Miss Cooper, Dr. Watson and I tomorrow morning over Mrs. Hudson's breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage?"
Lestrade appears distinctly disgusted. "I will have to kindly decline, detective," he answers in a clipped tone, and rises to his feet stiffly. "Good evening, Mr. Holmes. Good evening, Miss Cooper." He nods to Holmes and me in turn, marches to the door, and exits the study with a sharp slam of the door behind him.

..........

To be continued. In the meantime, please review!