Disclaimer: the characters and plot events mentioned within this story are the property of Laurie R. King with the exception of Sherlock Holmes, who was created by A. C. Doyle.

The mirror had a crack in it that ran in a diagonal line across the lower half. Whoever had broken it probably received the obligatory seven years of bad luck if they bothered to believe in such things. Holmes certainly would not have believed in a silly superstition, but I stared at the crack and wondered how the hell I was going to go through with this. In the end, it would all depend on the luck that no one would recognize me, or that Nesbit and I would be able to find where Holmes was kept, or that we'd be able to get him out of there. After having spent too much time in the company of the maharaja, I was quailing in the face of the dangers ahead of us.

My hand closed tighter around the pair of scissors; the metal was cold against my sweating palms. I could feel the sharpness of the point and the knife-like blade. Swallowing, my eyes met their reflection in the mirror. The hair that I had spent so long growing and maintaining fell to my waist. In order to make this disguise as real as possible, it would all have to go. Each strand would have to be sacrificed for the sake of rescuing my husband. Even after four years the word jarred in my mind, balancing between the familiar and the unknown.

The memory of feeling his fingers running through my hair forced me to bite my lip. It was as though I could sense him behind me, slowly untangling every stubborn knot, his breath warm on the back of my neck. The time had only been a few weeks before on the ship as we dressed for that ridiculous costume party, yet it was so far away from this moment. The scene flashed to years before when a girl cried herself to sleep as the man sat beside her, his hands gentle as they stroked her hair, once on a boat sailing into a spider's web and again on the cliffs high above the sea. Those were times I would never wish for again, but at least he had been there. If he could have been with me, hands guiding the scissors...

... he would have said that you were being completely illogical. The only way to truly subsume into a disguise was to become the person you were pretending to be. You cannot act as a male with hair like that. A vestige of femininity, indeed.

It was never a pleasant thing to have a bullying voice in one's head.

I looked down at the hand holding the scissors. It shook slightly; my knuckles were white from the tension. Tentatively, I opened and closed the scissors, listening to the sound the blades made as they sliced together. It was one of those sounds one hardly noticed unless one paid close attention. It would sound very different when there was an object between the blades. I raised the scissors to my hair, pulling taunt a few strands of hair with my free hand. The blades closed; the strands fell to the floor. Not daring to breathe, I continued to snip away at the yellow strands, allowing them to fall at my feet in an ever-growing pile.

He once asked Mrs. Hudson about why I kept my hair so long. He told me about it while lying on my bed at Oxford, his back ripped to shreds by a cleverly-placed bomb. One that was never meant to kill him, unlike the traps set for those he cared about... It was strange to think that Sherlock Holmes would ever care for another human being; he certainly did not care about himself, at least not to any recognizable degree. More often than not he would play the role of a beggar or some sort of societal outcast so that he could discover the means of solving a case. Most of these roles brought him into ill-conditions that threatened his life, but there was little that could replace the thrill of chasing a criminal through a labyrinth of London streets.

The scissors rapidly cut away at the hair; a fearfully large pile of yellow strands surrounded my feet. They were not a pleasant golden colour nor were they silky. The most appropriate simile I can think of is that of straw. I always found it curious that Holmes enjoyed touching it.

What would he have done if I had been the one kidnapped? That had been the maharaja's original idea, to hide me away in some mysterious place because I had dared to speak of leaving his palace. Somehow, I had escaped him, only to lose myself in this. And I knew what he would have done, what he would have gone through to find me. At least I could be sure of his location; he would have few clues to lead him to where I had been taken.

Just like he did before...

A painful sob wracked through my body. I bit my lip harder; the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, bitter and unpleasant. Four years was a fair period of time, just enough to put aside the past, but it all came back in a rush. The dark basement cell, smelling of refuse and unwashed body; the stone floor, cold against my bare skin; the red marks on my left arm that created the burning desire for more of what I should not have. When the door opened and he stood in the light, I–

One last snip. The final strands of hair fell on top of the pile.

I looked into the mirror, meeting the eyes of someone who was almost me. The simplest of disguises was usually the most successful, Holmes had told me.

What would he think of me now? The thought brought an unexpected grin to my face.

I couldn't wait to see his reaction.