Sherlock 1. Chapter 1

**((First of all, the disclaimer. **

**I do not own Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, or any other character mentioned in the story that follows the Author's Note. The script of "A Study in Pink" belongs to BBC one, written by Steven Moffat. Most of the dialogue you will see in this story is a carbon copy from the original episode. While I did manipulate it to accommodate Johnna Watson in place of John Watson, I still fork over all credit to Mr. Moffat.**

**Borrowed lines from the script "A Study in Pink" from this facebook page: BbcsSherlockAStudyInPinkFullScript**

**Another thing I should point out is that I am an American and I have very little of not any knowledge of British slang or terminology for certain objects. I tried to stick to what I knew. Crisps = chips, etc. If anyone has any pointers on handling the difference between British and American terminology, I'd be happy to hear you out.))**

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><p>Johnna gave a small smile at the tiny pile of envelopes on her desk she had just set down. The post had arrived before she had returned from picking up a coffee down the block from her hotel, the deck clerk polite when she handed the little stack to her but her gaze was sympathetic once Johnna glanced up to give her thanks. It was the sympathy that burned more intensely than the recovery pains. She never asked to be pitied by others. It was her choice to ignore her own injuries to tend to another wounded soldier; the results of her actions had mangled the muscle in her thigh from the prolonged presence of the bullet, combined with her stubborn use of her limbs in trying to move him to safety. The surgery had been long and tedious thanks to her efforts working the bullet further in but at least she was better off than the soldier she had tried to save.<p>

Pushing aside the envelopes, she spread them across the polished surface of the desk, reading over the addresses to determine what she would find inside of each one. A late birthday card from Harry (no chance of reading it anytime soon), a subscription renewal request from an age-old magazine she never wanted to begin with, the credit card bill. It was all mundane until she noticed a familiar, handwritten address. She always recognized the sender of those letters and gave a soft sigh as she picked it up. Sliding her finger under the flap, Johnna opened the letter and withdrew the folded notebook paper always found within. Bradley's letters were always handwritten on whatever paper he had in reach, mostly ripped from a notebook. He was old fashioned and preferred traditional post compared to the more commonly used electronic method. They had a few chats on the internet in the past but after he started pointing out the rather stoic nature of her expressions she always made, she ended them in favor of the written word. This way she could conceal the sad truth much easier.

Johnna shifted her weight upon her cane, maneuvering herself about and approaching the bed where she propped it against the night stand and stretched herself out upon the mattress, unfolding the letter in her hands. Settling her head into the pillow, she began to read.

_Hey, Doc, how's the leg?_

_I know you hate it when I ask about it but I'm allowed some concern for your well-being. You did save my life after all. Don't deny it, I know you will but it's true and I'll keep reminding you of that whether you like it or not._

_Anyway, things are getting a little quiet back home. I haven't found a job yet but no one is complaining yet. Donna says she wants to move in together but I'm pretty sure once she moves in, I'll have less time to write and that means more short-hand emails. Donna is mostly okay with me writing to you but she does get a little pissy sometimes when I spend too long at the desk. But since I mentioned moving, I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask if you're still bunking at that hotel in London. You mentioned last time that the pension was shit for keeping a roof over your head and that room's got to be wearing a hole in your savings by now. Did you get an apartment yet? Or do you guys call them "flats" there? Whatever, you know what I mean. _

_Write me and let me know what you're up to, John_

_(Some advice about how to handle Donna wouldn't be too bad either.)_

_Bradley_

"John, huh?" Johnna mused, laying the letter upon her stomach and folding her hands over it while she observed the ceiling. "That's not very romantic, is it?"

Bradley started calling her John for short back when they were still bandaged up in their make-shift hospital back in Afghanistan. Mostly he did it because that was where her name was derived from, a feminine version of John that her mother plucked from a newspaper article, thinking it was a charming way to comfort her father's disappointment in not having a son. The American soldier never showed any romantic interest in her but it would be rather disappointing to his girlfriend's suspicions to see that her boyfriend was nicknaming his female penpal a masculine name of all things. Their friendship was formed over recovery time before they were both given honorable discharge for their injuries. A dismissal neither of them liked. Since he returned to America, he insisted they stay in touch and it led to the letters and minute internet chats. Once he invited her to come to the states and stay with him for a while after her army pension began and the low numbers became a threat to her ability to live in London but she refused. London was home and since she was robbed of the soldier's life she wasn't ready to leave, she couldn't be anywhere else.

The contents of the letter brought back the ongoing threat of the truth though. She would have to find a permanent place to stay and soon. The hotel fees were draining her account and there were no friends to stay with thanks to her stubbornness to not live off of the generosity of others. Too much time had passed since she last talked to some of them, making the rifts formidable to bridge. Family, well, family was out of the question. She would have to go out and look some more, money willing or not. Something had to change and soon.

She picked up the letter again, re-reading the contents and lingering on his last lines.

_Write me and let me know what you are up to, John._

"That would be a short letter, indeed." She scoffed, wincing as she pushed herself to sit upright. The scar pulls a bit when she's not careful and it's an uncomfortable feeling. Pulling herself back to lean against the headboard of the bed, her eyes lowered to her leg. The wound itself was mostly healed in the months since its infliction but there was still muscle damage, slowly repairing itself within. Resting her hand over her thigh, she could just feel the ridges of the scar tissue through her trouser leg. "Nothing ever happens to me."

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><p>Even with the letter waiting on the desk to be replied to, Johnna hadn't taken the time to sit down and write Bradley back yet. There was nothing to write about, really. She wasn't kidding when she mused it would be a short letter. She needed to find something to write about before putting pen to paper. Something better than regaling him of her sitting about the hotel room with nothing to mention but the slow progress of her leg's healing—hardly a cheery message to be mailing off to America. Bradley had enough misery with his own lot after the war. Scooting the chair away from the unanswered letter, Johnna stood herself up, grasping her cane and putting some distance between herself and the desk. She crossed the room to the small closet where her coat was hanging. Dark brown pea coat with scuffed buttons from a nasty fall she took weeks into her return from London. The bruises healed, the pride didn't. Pulling it free from the hanger and propping her cane against the wall, she slung the coat on in a practiced motion, maintaining her balance until she had it buttoned and could retrieve her cane from its resting place.<p>

While she might have been ready to head out the door, Johnna paused, glancing about the empty hotel room. She hadn't considered where she would go and the room had no suggestions to offer aside from the single newspaper add listing rentals in the area she had already crossed out two times over. The red marks laughed at her from across the room, much to her distaste. She tapped the foot of the cane a few times on the floor, debating over options on where to head out to. She didn't need to eat, that cost money. Already had a coffee, and hardly had money to shop like her past friends would have suggested. Perhaps there was only one option left in the end and that was the ongoing house hunt. Turning about, she opened up the door and headed into the hallway.

As always, the third floor passage was empty of other hotel inhabitants and it was a straight stretch to the lift where the first sign of life was already waiting. It was a young girl, a teenager no doubt, staring at the illuminated down arrow above the door and shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. She was near Johnna's height, dark hair pulled in a tail that she had draped over her shoulder. Her head lolled from side to side until she noticed Johnna's presence and stilled herself.

She stood beside her, keeping a respectable distance while observing their vague reflections in the chrome of the lift doors. The girl eyed her cane; she could see from the corner of her eye and glanced her way. She hastily averted her gaze the moment their eyes met. As the lift doors opened, they both stepped inside, putting their backs to opposite ends of the little box. Johnna lifted her cane, hitching it up in her hand and extending it to tap the Lobby button. It must have been the one the girl also needed for she made no move to select another floor, merely stood still and kept her eyes averted. The doors closed and Johnna expected a silent ride down but the girl looked to her again, obviously curious but Johnna didn't want to explain herself. She chose to be polite in any case.

"Are you visiting London?" she asked, interrupting the silence.

"Yeah, my dad's here on a business trip and invited me along." The girl confirmed.

"How do you like it?" Johnna asked.

"It's okay. It's colder than I thought it would be." The teen patted her heavy down coat with a coy smile.

"You'll get used to it." She murmured as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened to release them. The teen nodded her head to her before hurrying out of the elevator, Johnna following afterward. She headed out of the elevator and made her way through the lobby of the hotel. It was quiet and only a few people were in front of the desk, Johnna passing them and heading out the glass doors where the cool air chilled her nose as a reminder of the statement the teen had made about the city's cooler temperature. Turning herself about, Johnna began down the sidewalk.

One always gets used to a chilly London afternoon.

There was a small park between the hotel and a housing district, if she crossed through there, she could browse through and look for advertisements posted along the street. Surely she could look through there again. Maybe this time she would get lucky? Johnna took her time in making the decision to cross the street to reach the park, checking for automobiles and trying to usher herself across the street as quickly as she could before reaching the safety of the curb. A man had offered to help her up onto the curb but she declined the offer, flashing a slight smile at him in gratitude for the gesture. Johnna soldiered on to the park, entering through the open gateway and following the walkway that cut a serpentine path through the dead grass.

A few people lingered in the park, familiar with the climate enough to tolerate it on the gray but rainless afternoon. She could feel a finger of the cold try to creep down the collar of her coat, resisting the urge to shiver and keeping a brisk walk to hurry through the open space. Tack it on paranoia from years in an environment where open spaces were unsafe, parks just made her feel exposed. Glancing around she could see some of the benches occupied, a few meandering citizens, and a woman with a buggy walking in the opposite direction of her. All of them were simply strangers in passing. Faces she would never see again thanks to the sheer scale and population of the city of London. She continued on until she passed another bench where a man was seated, observing a document in his hands. His fingers adjusted the position of his glasses briefly, eyes flicked up momentarily as she passed before he hurriedly set his papers aside and rose from the bench. "Johnna?"

She hesitated, glancing back at him as he approached her. The familiarity in his voice marked recognition but she failed to summon a name to the face until he held his hand out to her. "Mike, Mike Stamford. Do you remember me? We were at Bart's together"

"Oh!" It dawned on her the moment she heard his name and quickly accepted the hand. "Mike, yes! Um, how are you?"

"Overworked and underpaid," he chuckled, shaking her hand. His grip lingered a little longer as he stared into her face. Johnna swallowed, easing her hand away and placing it in her coat pocket while he braced his upon his hip. "What have you been up to, Johnna? The last I heard, you were in the Middle East, right?"

"Yes," she nodded, glancing down at her leg. He followed her gaze and his expression turned uncomfortable. "Yes, I was, but I'm on leave now."

"Well, come, come, have a seat!" He stepped closer to her, slipping a hand about and placing it against her back, urging her to sit down. She lowered herself upon the bench and Mike cleared his things away, inserting it all into a briefcase. "Are you staying here in London?"

Johnna nodded, crinkling her nose as a cold breeze stirred her hair and whipped it into her face. She brushed it aside to clear away the obscurity it had become. It was times like this when she missed her shorter hair but didn't take the time to try and get it cut since she came home. It was a hassle but not so much of one she wanted to pay for a trim.

"Where?"

"Oh, lodging at a hotel at the moment." Johnna explained; nodding in the direction she had come from. "I couldn't afford a flat, not with army pension, anyway."

"Couldn't Harry help?"

Johnna remained silent as she peered down at the cane laying it across her lap. "That's not going to happen."

"Well, you could always get a flatshare." He suggested, "That should help with expenses."

"Come on," she scoffed, "You know how I am, Mike. Who would want me for a flatmate?"

Mike shrugged his shoulders, leaning back against the bench. "You're not unbearable company, Johnna. I remember us having a good chat or two in the past. However, I suppose it is not unheard of, people believing they aren't the sort to live with others." A slight smile flicked across his lips as he chuckled to himself. "Come to think of it, I have heard someone say the same thing recently."

"Then it is not unusual." She pointed out.

"No, I suppose not." He mused. "By the way, I don't suppose you have an hour free at the moment?"

Johnna raised an eyebrow at him. "Nothing planned, why?"

"Why don't I take you to lunch and we'll continue our chat?" he offered with an encouraging smile that Johnna averted her eyes from. He checked his watch, "I just started my lunch so I have plenty of time." She wrapped her fingers around her cane, debating over the offer. In the past, Mike had always been friendly and open with her while she interned in her short-lived employment at Bart's so she knew he meant no harm by inviting her to lunch. Her inner debate triggered him to shift his position, nudging her arm lightly. "It would be my treat, of course."

Johnna smiled, tucking a little more hair behind her ear and giving him a small nod. "How could I say no?"

Mike chuckled, reaching over and picking up his suitcase. He heaved himself up off of the bench and offered a hand to her to help her up but she politely declined the offer. Setting her cane down, she slowly rose up to her feet, keeping her injured leg straight in front of her as she rose up, correcting her stance with a slight shift of her shoulders. Mike pocketed the hand he had offered her with an understanding smile.

"One more thing." He indicated the way they would walk with a slight gesture of his hand. "We need to stop by Bart's. I left my wallet behind and I need it if I am going to pay for a meal."

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><p>The morgue smelled the same as always, full of the sterile scent of bleach with a mixture of other chemicals he didn't care to list as he crossed the room and stood over the first autopsy table where a sleek, black body bag was waiting for him. Molly stepped carefully around him, keeping a distant orbit about him as she always did whenever he came to conduct an experiment. Bending over the head of the bag he seized the zipper and wrenched it open with a quick jerk, parting the flaps aside and staring into the face of the deceased, twitching his nose at the ripening smell of the unpreserved body. It was only a matter of time before he would start to stink.<p>

"How fresh?" he inquired as Molly made another circle around him.

"Just in." her wry laugh signaled some anxiety but Sherlock ignored it, observing the cadaver as she continued to rattle off information of little use to him. "Sixty seven, natural causes. He used to work here. I knew him, he was nice."

Zipping up the bag again, Sherlock turned to the lingering examiner. "Right. We'll start with the riding crop."

He gave a quick smile her way, turning around on his heel to retrieve the whip while Molly left the room to get back to work. With the riding crop in hand, he unfastened the bag again, pushing it open and exposing the body for his use, completely undisturbed by the naked state of the corpse when he eyed the area of the body in question where the bruising of the murder victim had been found. Making a mental note of the exact range on where he could strike, Sherlock proceeded without hesitation, whipping the cold flesh repeatedly and at different variations of angle and intensity. One positive thing about this experiment was that he could unleash some frustrations at the same time and struck harder until he finally reached a satisfactory number of blows.

Turning away from the body, he caught his breath as he tossed the riding crop to the stainless steel table, catching a glimpse of Molly out of the corner of his eye as she approached the table, eyeing the body with a touch of concern in her expression. With a breathless laugh, she smiled up at him, recovering from her discomfort and smiling coyly up at him. "So, bad day, was it?"

He ignored the attempt she made at conversation, pulling a notebook from his pocket and jotting down a few notes about the pattern and number of whips. "I need to know what bruises form in the next 20 minutes. A man's alibi depends on it. Text me." He instructed as he wrote, only this time Molly seemed to ignore his direction and began to speak about something else entirely.

"Listen, I was wondering…" she began but Sherlock's casual glance in her direction turned into another observation.

"You're wearing lipstick. You weren't wearing lipstick before." He noted, eyeing the light pink shade.

"I, er, I refreshed it a bit." She quipped with a smile.

Clearly she was lying but since it wasn't a major one, Sherlock wrote it off and returned to his notes. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"I was wondering if you would like to have coffee." Molly's posture tensed when she asked the question, anxious but satisfied in herself that she had made the offer, judging by the slight smile she made to herself afterward.

Coffee did sound lovely.

Finishing off his notes he shut the notebook and stashed it away back into his pocket, giving her what he assumed would be a friendly demeanor as he accepted her offer. "Black, two sugars, please. I'll be upstairs." Before she could respond, he turned away, making a hasty exit from the room. He didn't want to give her an opportunity to attempt to clear up his assumed misunderstanding of her meaning so he hurried away. He was already through the doors when he heard her speak up one last time with a dejected but attempted cheery tone.

"Okay…"

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><p>Maintaining a steady hand, Sherlock managed to measure out a few drops of the chemical mixture upon the blood sample he had prepared for testing. He managed to have the lab to himself again, Molly still missing to retrieve the coffee for him. So far the reaction in the blood was promising, the expected result playing out when he heard footsteps approaching the laboratory. Was she coming back already? No, the pacing was all wrong.<p>

"…you'll see that things have changed since our day back here."

That was Stamford's voice, he knew it well by this point but the gate accompanying his own weighted lope was unfamiliar. It was hitched, accompanied by the metallic clack of a cane. Soon Mike appeared through the door, glancing his way and flashing a knowing smile with a low chuckle at him before he turned and held the door open for his unexpected companion. The uneven footsteps entered the room and Sherlock spared the stranger a glance, hardly raising his head in the slightest as his eyes darted to the doorway.

A woman entered the lab, not Molly, obviously. This woman was unfamiliar to him. She was in her mid thirties at least, hair uneven and roughly shoulder length, must have meant she let it grow out from a shorter style and neglected a routine trim judging by the lack of uniform to it. Her face was tanned, not falsely; otherwise she wouldn't have had a tan line partially sheltered by the fall of her hair just beneath her hairline. She was just below average in height but her posture was erect in spite of her hand upon the cane when she came to a halt in the lab.

"You're right. They picked up a new incubator, I see." The woman pointed out with a slight smile, her attention more on Mike than on him. Brilliant, he didn't want to deal with another woman anyway.

"Yeah, the old one has been moved upstairs." Mike contributed. His attention towards the woman was very focused aside from the secretive smile he passed towards him while the woman was observing the chemical cabinet, her back to him so the notion went unnoticed. Clearly the man was congratulating himself for something he had accomplished with the woman in the room and was attempting to silently share that victory with him. He dropped his eyes back to the slide, interest lost on Mike's little accomplishments. Inserting the slide under the microscope, he peered through the eyepiece.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine." He requested, still observing the blood sample as he heard the two shuffle about the room.

"What's wrong with the landline?" Stamford asked, the tone of his voice slightly exasperated.

"I prefer to text."

"Sorry, it's in my other coat." He dismissed, turning his attention to the woman. "Have a look around, I'm just going to pop by the office and get the wallet, won't be long."

"Alright," she confirmed, her attention finally shifting to Sherlock.

Stanford left the laboratory right after she had spoken and Sherlock expected an unnatural silence to form between them while they waited for him to return. Most women would glance at him, watch, or just stare like he was some rare animal spotted in the wild. This one, however, reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone, holding it aloft.

"Here," she angled it toward him, raising an eyebrow when he glanced at her. "You wanted to text, right? Use mine."

"Oh." He paused, a little surprised. "Thank you."

He left his sample, crossing the lab and taking the phone from her. When he plucked it from her fingers he caught sight of her wrist where the sleeve had crept down from her extended arm, gaining the proof he hardly needed that her tan was, indeed, natural thanks to the paleness above her wrist. Flipping the phone about in his hand, he unlocked the screen and began typing out the number and text he intended to send. He barely got the numbers down when the curiosity of which would make his inner deduction correct bubbled up past his lips. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

There as a brief silence in the room before the woman spoke up. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?" he repeated, sending the text.

"Afghanistan—how did you—" her inquiry he expected to come forth was cut short by the door opening, catching his attention.

Molly appeared at last, keeping a careful pace as she brought him the coffee he had previously asked for. He ignored the other woman in favor of the hot beverage. "Ah, Molly. Coffee. Thank you." He extended his hand and she passed it to him. He returned the phone to its owner, keeping his attention on the medical examiner. "What happened to the lipstick?"

Her expression deflated a little as she started to twist her hands together briefly. "It wasn't working for me."

"Really? I thought it was a great improvement. Your mouth's too…small now." He stated, turning away to return to his spot.

The weary, "Okay" returned and he saw Molly turn to leave, her attention focusing on the other woman in the room with curiosity blooming in her features at first. After a beat, however, she ducked her head and left the lab again without another word. The woman watched her leave, eyes darting back to Sherlock while he sipped at the cup of coffee.

"Are you a medical student?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

"Mike lets me use the lab whenever I need to conduct an experiment. Microscope is of better quality." Sherlock set the coffee aside, wrinkling his nose briefly at the bitter taste of it in spite of the two sugars he had requested. "Speaking of whom, you might as well know: he intends to get off with you later."

A strangled noise rose from the woman's throat as she fumbled for words, choking on them in her shock. He nearly smiled at the comical nature of the sound but kept himself stoic as he observed the sample under the microscope. "What on earth would give you that idea?"

"A middle-aged man, no wife, not girlfriend, works most of the week with little social time—suddenly runs into a woman whom he had prior acquaintance with and intends to take her out to lunch. Cleary, he plans to tap into your previous experience with him and build up from there until—if everything proceeds as he hoped—you bed him."

The woman shook her head but he could see the thought dawning on her. Of course, she would grow angry next and undoubtedly begin to throw a fit once Mike returned but she remained silent when the door swung open again and Mike appeared, holding his wallet aloft and giving it a victorious shake as he smiled at her. The woman turned to him, her gaze alert but her smile almost completely masking her previous shock. Even he had to admit, the performance was convincing.

"What did you two chat about while I was out?" Mike asked, pocketing his wallet as he looked between the two of them.

"Nothing important," the woman supplied, "I merely asked him if he was a medical student here."

"No, Holmes only comes here to play around with the equipment every now and then. Since he never causes too much damage, I never saw much harm in letting him linger. We chat every now and then. In fact, this is the fellow I mentioned earlier when we spoke about difficult flatmates."

Sherlock perked at the mention of a flatmate and glanced back to the unlikely couple with a quirk of his eyebrow. He barely paid attention to the fact they were talking about him while he was in the same room before but now there was something promising. For weeks he had been looking for a place, even invested a chance at a property owned by Mrs. Hudson, a former client of his. He checked into it alone on a previous occasion and while he did find the residence preferable, he couldn't afford it alone. Even with the diluted rent Mrs. Hudson offered to him, other expenses made the full charge undesirable.

"Been talking about me again, I see." He chimed in, the two turning to him. "What brought this on?"

"I am looking for a flat at a reasonable price, but, with this being London, the results are not promising." The woman explained, her tone trying to write it off as nothing. She turned to Mike afterward. "If you have your funds in order, I believe we can go."

"Of course," he indicated the way out; stepping forward to open the door for her while she maneuvered herself to leave.

The idea came slow at first as he watched them depart but then it cemented itself as he made a brief calculation of what a former soldier earned from an army pension combined with his own funds. The results were promising and spurred him into speaking up before they barely even stepped out of the doorway. "How do you feel about the violin?"

The woman hesitated just in the doorframe. "Sorry, what?"

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other." He cracked a smile at her while she stared at him, a hand reaching out to push the door further open as she turned, leaning her shoulder into it to hold it open even though Mike had been holding it already.

"Who said anything about becoming flatmates?" she raised an eyebrow.

"I did." He stated, "You are looking for a flat with a low rental fee. I happen to know of one. Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening, 7 o'clock." Sherlock pulled his phone from his pocket, checking the time as it was useless for anything else before dropping it back into place. He abandoned the project, grabbing up his coat from where it had been draped over a chair and slinging it on. "Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."

"Riding crop?" Mike asked as he fetched his scarf, securing it about his neck while he moved across the room, abandoning the coffee where it sat. He brushed off the question without gracing it with an answer and passed Mike. The woman shuffled herself out of the way just as he swept past her into the hallway. He was only a few strides down the passage when he heard her speak up again.

"Is that it, then?"

Sherlock turned about. "Is that what?"

"We've just met and now we're going to look at a flat?"

"Problem?"

"We don't know a thing about each other, I don't know where we're meeting—I don't even know your name." She rattled.

He chuckled at her concern even though there was no cause for it, considering he wasn't the one who wanted to bed her unlike the man standing behind her, still partially concealed within the lab. Still, she had pointed out how they knew nothing about one another and that was not entirely true. It was a one-sided miscomprehension, of course, always was. He took a quick breath as he narrowed his eyes a little upon her person, re-gathering the traits he had fished from her demeanor as he had upon her first arrival.

"I know that you're an army doctor and that you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help, because you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. That's, enough to being going on, don't you think?" Her baffled expression was all the clarification he needed that the discussion was over since she would be too stunned to argue as most other people would be. He turned to leave but neglected two more points of her protest, stilling his departure and glancing back over his shoulder at her. "The name, ma'am, is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street."

He spun about to finally take his leave but once again, this woman seemed to want to have the last word. "My name," she struck her cane upon the floor, stilling his feet one last time "is Johnna Watson."

Peeking back over his shoulder again, Sherlock saw the same glare any other person he encountered shot his way. Amused by her frustration at being addressed with something reserved for older women, Sherlock smirked. He knew that 85 % of women responded in negative whenever they were addressed as 'ma'am' and she was no exception. The resulting frustration thus spurred her into stating her own name to prevent him calling her that again. She neglected to notice she never introduced herself when she spoke to him and this was a more entertaining means. He met her challenging glower with a wink. "Afternoon."

The last word was his.


	2. Chapter 2

**((Chapter two, yay!**

**Here a little of "A Study in Scarlett" comes into play but not too much. Chapter could have been longer but I decided to keep this one a little short. Once again, I do not own Sherlock Homes or the original character of John Watson in the BBC television series. Original Script of "A Study in Pink" is not mine either. I merely borrowed an extensive amount of its dialogue and plot.))**

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><p>The lunch with Mike had been brief but pleasant enough. Johnna took precautions in how she talked with him so that he would not misunderstand anything between them like Mr. Holmes previously implied. She managed a few more questions about the strange man using the lab that afternoon but didn't let it carry over too long since Mike's lunch hour had become pressed for time. He managed to tell her that the idea of her becoming flatmates with Mr. Holmes was not far-fetched. From what Mike understood of him, he was a man that took no interest in women, even described him as "asexual" at one point in the conversation. It didn't mean she would lower her guard anytime soon but it was somewhat of a relief to hear. They moved on to other subjects after that while she picked at her chips, mostly pleasantries and some of Mike's teaching occupation back at Bart's.<p>

By the time Johnna returned to her room at the hotel, her leg burned from the amount of walking she had managed that afternoon. It was a good stretch but she would be sure to apply a hot pad to it soon to soothe the recovering muscle. Stretching out her leg, she huffed a sigh, hobbling over to the desk where she sat herself down, the familiar pile of envelopes in front of her along with Bradley's unanswered letter still folded in the center. She slid it aside and retrieved her laptop from the drawer of the desk, ignoring the handgun resting at the base of it and shutting the drawer again. Positioning the computer where the letter once sat, Johnna opened it up and pressed the power button, waiting for the machine to come alive as her eyes drifted to her lap, realizing she had forgotten to remove her coat.

Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew her phone, turning it about in her fingers and unlocking the screen. So far there were no replies so whoever received it must have been aware it was someone else's phone in use by the man in the laboratory. She selected the sent messages folder, hesitating to read the most recent one. Well, considering it was her phone to begin with and not his, she surely had the right to check. He couldn't have sent anything worrisome like some childish prankster, could he? Her thumb hastily moved to select the folder, opening up the contents onto the screen.

**If brother has green ladder****  
><strong>**arrest brother.**

**SH**

What on earth would prompt a text like that?

She shook her head at the message, closing out the folder and switching the phone back into stasis in favor of the now illuminated screen of the laptop. Running her finger over the touchpad and selecting the internet browser, she watched the window appear. The first thing she did was select the search bar, watching the cursor blink patiently while it waited for her textual input. Her hands drifted away from the keys, fingers lacing together while she braced her elbows upon the table and stared at the screen.

This morning she had read a letter and found herself with no reply to give. She opted to go house hunting and it turned into a reunion followed by a lunch date with an old friend. This, in turn, led to St. Bart's where she roamed the distant memories of the hallways, trying to imagine the old layout against the new one Mike led her down during the brief walkthrough. He had taken her to the lab where they studied samples once upon a time only to find Holmes sitting inside, looking like he belonged there. Johnna hadn't spared him much attention at first, assuming he was a medical student or a lab technician who neglected their coat before they started working. Once Mike left for his wallet, she finally took the time to absorb the appearance of the man she was left in the company of.

He was pale and very thin. His person looked a little _too_ lithe to be healthy in fact. Johnna wondered if this was due to lack of nutrition on his part. He was dressed well enough, dark fitted jacket over a stark white shirt with equally neutral trousers that all seemed to match the color of his dark mop of hair. She wasn't sure if she could call it curly or wavy. It almost seemed like a mixture of the two when she squinted at the memory of it hard enough. His face was the real mystery. She couldn't make up her mind if it was handsome or tolerable. It was angled with sharp cheekbones but gaunt, the pallor of his skin accompanied by the cold grey eyes made him look nearly washed out. Dare she even say reptilian in the harsh light of the fluorescents of the lab. One thing was certain, however, she hadn't expected such a deep voice coming from such a slight man when they first entered the room and it still baffled when he spoke afterward. It wasn't until he came to her for the phone that she discovered he was taller than she expected, his leanness only making his height more exaggerated.

She made up her mind on whether or not she could consider him attractive when he remarked on Mike's objective for asking her to lunch. Decidedly _not_ handsome, thanks to his blunt revelation, even if it was accurate. At lunch, Mike took her refusal to his original intentions well, explaining he expected Sherlock to expose him to her once he wasn't around but thought he would have a shot at it anyway. They parted still on good terms but Johnna didn't entertain the idea of visiting with him again directly. She needed a little time to let it sink in that she would not be interested in romantic attachments. However, Mike was the least of her worries at the moment. The main problem was in the form of Sherlock Holmes and the fact he had to be absolutely bonkers. They only met this afternoon and he told her to meet her at a residence on Baker Street to look at a flat together. The man rattled off most of her history in one broken paragraph without even asking her any questions. Some of the facts, she assumed, were tell-tale somehow but how on earth did he know about Harry's drinking habit?

Pressing her lips into her folded fingers, she shook her head a little, uncertain. It was unfair that he knew so much when all she could gather of him was an outward appearance and a damned good ability to piss her off. Calling her "ma'am" of all things. He didn't even seem the type to use titles with others but he made a point to call her that almost as if he wanted to rile her up on purpose. While she admitted she wasn't as young as she used to be, she still had plenty of time before people could get away with calling her "ma'am" or anything similar. He challenged her with seeing how she would respond to the aging title and then delivered another blow by ensuring he had the last word on the matter, leaving her curious. Curiosity would lead to the need to find answers and he wanted her to come find them at 221b Baker Street. Bastard. He had it all mapped out, didn't he?

Eyes darting to the search bar again, she straightened in her chair. Pressing her lips together tersely, she lowered her hands to the keys.

**Sherlock Holmes**

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><p><em>Well, it's too late now<em>, Johnna thought to herself as she made her way down Baker Street, eyes trailing along the numbers to narrow down her search for the expected 221b. She had come to the conclusion only a few hours prior to her long walk to the location that she would pull through and go to the meeting. A long night of internet searching and a morning of imagining every possible outcome and counter method to face it should she need one left her looking a little less than presentable for looking into a flatshare. It wasn't some sort of formal affair she was traipsing off to, but a woman could feel a little self conscious standing around in a pair of dark jeans and a oatmeal jumper with only the top of a pale blue collar sheltering her neck underneath. Her clothing was unisex at best, not much different from what she wore when she bumped into Mike the day before. Anything more feminine would have just made her feel like she was trying too hard. She feared her face faired no better. Johnna didn't own a scrap of make-up to conceal the shadows beneath her eyes she discovered that morning in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes themselves felt dry and weary from staring into the computer screen all night. At least she managed to shower and brush her hair and teeth to make some sort of an effort to look human.

Johnna mentally steeled herself for a look at 221b Baker Street with a man she knew no better in the twenty-odd hours since meeting him. There was no guarantee this would work. The place could be a wreck, the man more unsavory than he already appeared to be, the location could be rubbish, there were plenty of opportunities for this to unfold into a waste of a late afternoon. Honestly, there was nothing to worry about, she wasn't signing her soul away to the devil. All possible scenarios on how the meeting could go wrong or turn out more dangerous than expect aside, she was sure she was simply going to stand in a flat, have a look around, then decide if it was worth living in or not.

Eventually she came upon a building adjoined to a café with a faded red canvas awning above the doorway and picture window facing the street. The door itself was dark green in color with golden numbers and a doorknocker with a long, drooping handle. Johnna avoided the steps, reaching up and giving it a knock to see if Mr. Holmes would already be inside or if she would be early for the meeting. She only accomplished two rapid knocks before her question was answered.

"Hello."

Turning around, she spotted him standing on the sidewalk behind her, his back facing her way while he was paying off a cab driver. Once that was sorted, he spun on his heel, leaving the side of the cab in favor of approaching her, accepting the hand she automatically offered in a friendly greeting.

"Mr. Holmes." He shook it firmly with more strength she expected in the thin fingered hand, releasing abruptly even though his demeanor was friendly enough.

"Sherlock, please." He insisted, stepping around her in spite of the claim that she address him by his first name. For trying to reduce formality, the man chose not to humor a friendly façade for long. He proceeded to stand in front of the stairs to the entrance, Johnna observing the building and its surroundings further while he rapped the knocker again. So far it looked like a decent location and the building itself wasn't decrepit. Her eyes wondered to the windows above Speedy's sandwich shop, concealed partially behind a decorative wrought-iron balcony and noticed they were curtained in sheer but obscuring fabrics, preventing a view inside.

"This is going to be expensive." She murmured, tilting her head back to count the number of floors.

"Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, she's given me a special deal." Johnna dropped her attention back to her tall companion as Sherlock explained the situation of place and nodded to the door. "Owes me a favor."

"A favor?" Johnna quirked an eyebrow.

"Yes, a few years back, her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out."

"You stopped her husband from being put to death?" Sounded amiable enough.

"Oh no, I ensured it," He smiled.

Johnna's respect dropped away, replaced by mild dismay at his revelation and mildly baffled at the smile he flashed after stating so matter-of-factly that he ensured a man was put to death. The door opened before Johnna could ask anything further, both parties turning toward the movement inside. An older woman appeared in the doorway, short curling hair, dressed in purple from her head to her foot and a wide, warm grin on her face that bloomed at the sight of the tall man standing there. She immediately opened her arms to him. "Sherlock!"

He stepped into her embrace, Johnna unable to catch his expression as he greeted her.

"Mrs. Hudson." He almost sounded affectionate for a split second before he was out of her arms and waving one to her. "This is Dr. Johnna Watson."

Johnna offered up a smile, though she was sure it didn't muster as friendly of a glow in comparison to the older woman's as she eagerly invited her inside. "Hello, dear, come in! Come in."

"Thank you," she managed to utter.

"Shall we?" She didn't expect Sherlock suddenly crowding her up the two steps by maneuvering himself behind her and practically herding her to the first step while she struggled to climb up them quickly enough. Mrs. Hudson put a hand to her back to help her in the doorway, ushering her into the passageway just as Sherlock spun about, shutting the door after them. Johnna tried not to let the shut-in feeling worry her. No turning back now.

The entryway to 221b was narrow in typical cramped London fashion, Sherlock ushering her to the stairwell straight ahead where he brushed by and climbed up ahead, Mrs. Hudson lingering behind and keeping an eye on her as she made her own ascent upstairs, taking the steps one at a time. Her slow climb made her feel positively ancient with Mrs. Hudson at her heels while she maneuvered her leg and cane with an irritated press of her lips. Reaching the landing, she spotted Sherlock waiting for them, eyes staring down at her expectantly before he opened the door, smoothly swinging himself into the room beyond the threshold. Johnna followed after him, leaning slightly into the room with a peek before moving forward, turning herself about slowly to take in the sitting room.

There were variations of wall paper on all of the walls, none quite matching but somehow creating a more inviting layout in comparison to the stark white walls of the hotel she had been staying in. The wooden floorboards were scarred with age and wear, half-concealed by a large red rug that needed vacuuming and various bits of furniture were already placed through the room. It was hard to get a good view of the room's original layout though, considering the odd number of boxes, papers, files, and other odds and ends scattered throughout. There were diagrams, insect specimens, and animal bones randomly placed on shelves alongside books of various makes and ages. She paled at the sight of a human skull sitting on the mantle, empty sockets blankly staring into the kitchen. Turning her eyes away while she trailed into the next room she took in the appliances and a layout exposing a small passage beyond the refrigerator to, presumably, a bedroom and a bathroom in the back.

Coming full circle, she turned about, noticing Sherlock taking off his gloves, waiting for her expectantly. Johnna glanced at the horned skull hanging on the wall between the two windows facing the street. Animal at least but there was a pair of headphones braced where the ears would have been. Peculiar interests the previous tenant had…

"This could be nice." She conceded, nodding her head.

"Yes, I think so." Sherlock agreed, shoving his gloves into the pocket of his coat.

"Which is why I already moved in—"

"As soon as we clear all of this rubbish-oh."

They both paused in the middle of their words, looking at one another for an awkward beat. Well, she had no idea that everything in the room was his. Now she had insulted him. Perfect way to begin a flatshare with someone, Johnna Watson. Well done. She cleared her throat, dropping her gaze to the floor then looking back up at him as he nearly danced in one spot before striding about the room and proceeded to gather up papers. "Well, obviously, I could straighten things up a bit." He stated, tossing the papers into an open box.

He removed his coat, tossing it onto the couch without considering he was supposed to be picking up the place, fingers sorting and shuffling while Johnna silently observed. She thought about helping him, of course, but considering she had no idea of the system he had in keeping his things in order, she remained still, glancing back to the mantelpiece and staring at the skull. Approaching it, she squinted at the fine lines sectioning off the plates of the cranium and after a few ticks of observation, she realized the bone was, indeed, real. Johnna looked to Sherlock just as he placed a few notes on the other end of the mantle and stabbed a knife through them to hold them in place.

"This is a skull." She stated, nodding her head to it. "A real one."

"A friend of mine." Sherlock dismissed, beginning to turn away but glancing back at the skull again with a slight smirk. "Well, when I say friend…"

Johnna opened her mouth to comment but Mrs. Hudson spoke first, distracting her from her original reply. "There's another bedroom upstairs if you'll need two bedrooms." The woman pointed back slightly behind her into the stairwell they had come through. Johnna's eyebrows rose and she looked to Sherlock but he offered no protest, moving to the other side of the room again and flicking a few more papers aside, exposing a laptop buried beneath. With no help from him, she looked to Mrs. Hudson.

"Of course we'll need two." Johnna stated, "I'm not-"

"Oh, don't worry; I understand how the younger generations work. So eager to be around one another." She smiled, walking past her and into the kitchen but hesitating in the doorway, making a disappointed noise in her throat. "Sherlock, the mess you've made."

She moved about, setting a few things straight but avoiding the table full of beakers, flasks, and other various chemistry equipment in the center of the kitchen. If he had such equipment of his own, why did he have to use the lab at Bart's? Johnna shook her head, debating on looking through the rest of the flat and checking the room upstairs. The flaring up in her leg answered it for her, sending her down into the nearest chair where she set the cane between her feet, resting her hands upon the grip. She assumed a placid expression in spite of the bite of pain in her limb, focusing on the man in the room. He opened his laptop and switched it on, the illuminating screen revealing the last web page he had been on and reminding her of her own searching the night prior.

"I looked you up last night."

Sherlock glanced her way, bemused. "Anything interesting?"

"I found your website." She leaned back into the chair a little more, pleased by how comfy it was beginning to feel. It was firm enough to support the weight without making the sitter sink completely into the springs, soft enough to be comfortable for a long period of time. Johnna could make a habit out of sitting in this chair if she decided to stay here. "The Science of Deduction."

"What do you think?" There was a glimmer of intrigue in his eyes when he faced her but it was gone quick enough for her to wonder if she ever really saw it at all. Maybe a bit of pride was in there as well. Clearly he wanted an opinion. Perhaps because he didn't meet many people that read through it; otherwise he probably would have dismissed her statement entirely.

"Well, while it's grammatically sound and well-written, I can't help but think it's a little…off." She murmured, "You're saying you can identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by his left thumb. It's not practical. In another post you described not even leaving your room and you managed to solve a case that had the police baffled for weeks and they had a crime scene, witnesses, and evidence in their possession while you just sat there on your rump and worked it all in your head. What can you learn of someone from the type of tie they wear?"

Sherlock slid his hands into his trouser pockets; his expression was listless as he watched her. "I can read your military career in your face and your leg and your brother's drinking habits in your mobile phone." He stated, reminding her of how he had broken her apart in the lab the previous afternoon. He knew too much about her at the time and Mike hadn't confessed to telling him anything about her. Even now she felt like he was learning even more about her as he watched her while he remained as enigmatic as ever.

"How did you do it?" she asked, frowning.

"The same way I do all of my work, Dr. Watson." He stated, "I observe."


	3. Chapter 3

**((The same disclaimers apply. Still no pairings in this story. Hope you like the tiny alterations in the story line. I tried to follow "A Study in Scarlett" a little with the idea Johnna lives with Sherlock for some time before she is actually brought on a case.))**

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><p>One could claim they were still in the process of getting used to sharing living quarters with Sherlock Holmes but then one would be lying.<p>

There was no "getting used to" Sherlock Holmes. He wasn't a man that kept routines like most people could concoct within three days of living a new lifestyle. Johnna learned very quickly from the first night that she moved in with the man that he would never have habits she could work around with good timing. Needing a bite out of the kitchen resulted in finding him boiling hydrochloric acid. Wanting to watch a little television on a Saturday afternoon was interrupted by him mocking the program when he wasn't even watching it. When she needed to use the bath on one occurrence, Sherlock had the tub filled with ice among which lounged the carcass of a dead pig. Yes, it truly happened. Mrs. Hudson nearly fainted at the sight of it and Johnna was left with clean-up duty after making sure Mrs. Hudson was able to speak coherently while sitting her down in the next room with a cup of tea. She was also left trying to find a means of removing the carcass while Sherlock simply disappeared from the flat without a word.

He kept odd, unpredictable hours. One night he would go to bed no later than ten. The next, he never slept at all. It was no wonder he looked as thin and pallid as he did, the lack of sleep did nothing to help, and neither did his dietary habits. She had been correct in assuming he lacked proper nutrition. By her second week of living within 221B, Johnna noticed that she had yet to see Sherlock eat. He never mentioned having eaten throughout the day and the minute contents of their fridge were hardly touched whenever she checked. So far it seemed as if the man didn't eat at all, unless he wasted money for take away or dining out during one of his many abrupt outings.

Even more bewildering was the fact that there was no shortage of visitors to their home for a man who claimed he had no friends. (Well, apart from his skull that is.) It was a small variety of individuals, ranging from lawyers to bag ladies from the market, all coming suddenly and without warning. Sometimes the strangers would be led up by Mrs. Hudson; sometimes they burst through their door unannounced, begging for help. The first time that had happened, Johnna asked if they should phone the police but Sherlock dismissed it, calmly stating the individual was there for him and he would handle it. It was then that he suggested she leave the room. This would be the first of the many occasions she would be asked to leave while her awkward flatmate would meet with the strangers in their sitting room.

Occasionally the visits would be brief and she would come down to find him alone again, no explanations offered up to satisfy her curiosity. Other times she crept through the side door into the kitchen from the second landing to have a glass of water or use the bathroom. Most of the time when she came down with a guest still lingering, she could see Sherlock pacing about, his lips pressed together with hands folded behind him or his fingers brushing impatiently through his hair. There were also days when she could hear raised voices, an angry woman's shriek, a man's outraged bellowing, or Sherlock himself making accusations that she could never quite hear properly from her room upstairs. It was after these arguments she would later find him sitting in his chair with a fine red mark on his face, at least when it involved women anyway. Clearly he had been slapped after upsetting his female guest but it was by no means a romantic confrontation. Not unless the man maintained a string of short-term lovers, which was easy to imagine, considering the frequency of his outings but it also contradicted Mike's intel on his lack of interest in women. So what did the people want from him and what would upset them enough to physically strike him?

By the fifth occurrence, Johnna came downstairs from her room just in time to see a weeping older woman hurry from the landing, making a hasty exit down the stairs. She entered the kitchen to have some water, only to bin an apple core that had been left sitting on the counter when Sherlock briskly walked into the room with a hand to his face. Johnna raised an eyebrow at him as he made a beeline to the freezer, grabbing an ice cube from the tray. He shut the door again and spun about, glancing at her as if he had just noticed her presence in the room while rubbing the ice against his cheek.

"Ambidextrous, caught me by surprise." He explained when he saw her still watching. He crossed the short distance and stood over the sink as the melting ice dripped down his fingers.

So far he managed to predict where he would be slapped it seemed thanks to how frequently it occurred but this time she caught him off guard and must have really hit him sufficiently on a less practiced cheek. Without a word, Johnna searched through the drawers under the counter, removing a washrag. She went to the freezer and retrieved a few more ice cubes, laying them in the open cloth across her palm. Bringing him the cloth, she held it out to him, waiting while he looked from her face to the cloth, slowly lowering his own ice cube into the collection. Johnna wrapped the small bundle, taking his wrist and setting the compress into his hand.

"Don't put ice directly on your skin." She instructed, the doctor in her unable to watch him circulate ice directly upon his flesh as he had done in the past any longer. There was a risk of frostbite if held in place too long and while his skin mostly remained unblemished so far, she felt the need to direct a more appropriate method. "Always wrap it in a cloth first and do not keep it there longer than ten minutes."

Sherlock looked to the cloth and after a pause, finally set it to his cheek, his eyes lingering on her a moment before he retreated to his bedroom. No gratitude in exchange but she didn't expect it. They were still practically strangers after all and he probably didn't want a woman trying to treat him like a child. A fact she felt was accurate on most men in the world. She wasn't sure if he used it as she recommended, it was just a slap after all that probably didn't need cooling for long, but he did take it along with him so she had that in her favor at least.

Not all visits ended up with slaps to his face. The only reoccurring visitor was a middle-aged man with graying hair and dark, desperate eyes that looked to Sherlock as if her were the life raft in a sea he found himself drowning in. Johnna always knew she had to leave once he came, even without Sherlock waving his hands and practically shooing her from the room when she didn't move fast enough. In time she asked him who the man was and he finally explained that the man was Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Sherlock explained little else after that but Johnna recognized the name from several newspaper articles she had read over the months of being back home.

Even without a routine, Johnna managed to form a sort of cohabitation with Sherlock Holmes.

She took the room upstairs after discovering Sherlock had already laid claim on the one adjacent to the bathroom. It would have been more convenient for her leg to have the room but she didn't want to argue over something as minute as another flight of stairs. The exercise would only help her in the end. Sherlock didn't help her move anything into the room, not that it mattered, she didn't have much. Her clothes were stored away on hangers in the closet space and Mrs. Hudson let her have an old end table she didn't want cluttering her own space anymore. She managed to afford a bed but didn't feel the need to splurge and only paid enough for a full size mattress and frame but no headboard as of yet. She paid the store to deliver it and two workers carried it up for her, setting it with the head to the same wall as the door. Johnna had bought a small desk as well where she kept her letters from Bradley, the most recent one still unanswered and laying on top of the desk, waiting for her reply. The room was simply furnished and as mundane as the hotel room she left behind but at least Sherlock was willing to share the sitting room, bathroom, and kitchen with her, for the most part.

They had only stayed together for a few weeks by now, Sherlock ignoring her during some of the time and his previous warning of not talking for days on end finally coming to light, especially on that afternoon.

Johnna had assumed the seat she had come to favor, Sherlock paying no mind to her use of it since he mainly kept to the leather couch—a piece of furniture that undiscernibly tan or green, she still couldn't agree on which—or the Grand Confort, a cube-shaped black leather chair that was positioned across from hers before she even laid silent claim on the faded red, antiquated armchair. She also secured a copy of the paper and once again a familiar headline was printed across the front page that she read over with dread growing in her stomach. This was the third article she had read about a suicide by poisoning, this time the victim was a woman and links between her situation along with two others were being formed by the police.

Mrs. Hudson was in their kitchen, offering to make tea. She frequented their flat often, always remarking that she was not their housekeeper and yet she tidied up the place constantly without them even asking her to. Sometimes Johnna wondered if she was just lonely and wanted to be with others whenever she appeared in their flat but she never dared to ask. Johnna enjoyed Mrs. Hudson's company since it was the only she really received and appreciated the amount of cleaning she did about the place, some of it hard for her to do herself whenever the leg wound flared up.

"Where's Sherlock run off to?" Mrs. Hudson asked, poking her head out of the kitchen. "I thought I heard him earlier."

"He's in his room. Been in there since he turned off the telly this morning."

"Odd." Mrs. Hudson mused.

"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Hudson, but Sherlock Holmes _is_ odd." Johnna reminded her with a smile, the older woman nodding in agreement before returning to the tea.

_The morning had started out innocently enough when Johnna first woke up to hearing Sherlock moving about downstairs. He took no care in being quiet whenever he was awake but by now it was a decent enough hour to rise out of bed. Johnna dressed herself, not comfortable yet with the idea of traipsing around in her nightwear with a man about, and descended down to the kitchen, taking the door leading directly inside of it rather than the route through the sitting room. She was in the process of preparing coffee when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye._

_Sherlock was already up but he was sporting a dressing gown and his pajamas, the ties unfastened, leaving the robe to flap about as he paced in the other room. Why he was pacing might have had something to do with the television she could hear murmuring in the background above the gurgle of the coffee machine. Abandoning her morning dose of caffeine, Johnna eased into the doorway between the two rooms, glancing at the television and spotting a press conference with news feed scrolling lazily across the bottom of the screen. Her presence barely caught his attention but he spun about, creating one more line on the floorboards before slumping into his chair, glaring at the screen._

_His phone was in his hands in seconds, quick enough to leave her wondering where he had even pulled it from in the first place. One moment he was checking it then setting it on the chair's armrest and bouncing his leg up and down on the ball of his foot. She watched him practically squirm where he sat, eyes on the television and fingers twitching over the phone. The way he was behaving, she wanted to compare him to someone impatiently waiting for a text from their girlfriend/boyfriend, dread increasing with every second the message wasn't received. At least that was what he reminded her of until he startled her out of her skin with a sudden shout._

"_Wrong!" he snapped at the television, picking up the phone, his thumbs flying over the buttons again then setting it back down, drumming his fingers over his legs. Johnna heard a chorus of ringtones coming from the television and leaned further into the room, curious of the coincidence._

"_If you've all got texts, please, ignore them." The woman beside what appeared to be D.I. Lestrade on the television screen announced into her microphone._

"_It just says: 'Wrong'." A reporter stated._

_Johnna looked to Sherlock and then the screen, shocked by the similar words that had just occurred. Was he behind the text messages in the press conference? He looked too miffed by the contents of the television to be in a mood to tolerate her asking about it. Swiping his phone from the chair again, he heaved a sigh, calming himself but still looking disgruntled when he rose to his feet and typed another message. The chorus of rings poured from the television again and Johnna retreated back to the coffee machine, leaning into the counter and folding her arms._

_How did he do that?_

_The sounds occurred a third time and Sherlock abruptly shut off the telly, cutting off the chorus of cellphones. In a moment he was striding through the kitchen with his phone grasped in his hand. Johnna watched him breeze through, his passage slowing just short of the small hallway past the fridge and his eyes darted to her where she stood. Why glare at her, she had done nothing wrong. Still leaning against the counter, Johnna raised an eyebrow at him, reaching behind her and resting a hand upon the top of the coffee maker._

"_Coffee?"_

_His lips pressed together while he debated over it briefly, eyes darting to the pot as it filled. His expression remained irritable but he spoke up at last. "Yes."_

_Johnna waited for the pot to fill completely before removing it and pouring him a mug. She held it up for him to take it, not crossing the room to hand it to him even though his hand shot out expectantly. Once he saw she was not bringing it to him, he huffed a sigh and closed the distance, stopping near the sink where he flipped the lid off of the sugar cup and plucked two cubes free. Without replacing the lid, he took the coffee with his hand dropping down like a claw in a crane game, grasping the brim like the handle had been contaminated by her fingers and dropping the sugar cubes into the dark liquid. He offered no thanks before he disappeared back into his bedroom and that was the last she had seen of him through the remainder of the morning._

Folding the paper back together, Johnna lowered it into her lap, lightly massaging her temples. Sherlock suddenly appeared from behind her, his silent approach startling her in a jolt when she found him leaning over the back of her chair while glancing at the headline in the paper. He sniffed at it before stepping around her in favor of the window. It looked like it was going to become a silent day with Sherlock Holmes. His lips unmoving and eyes distant but his movements were as impatient as they had been earlier that morning. He had the air of someone wanting to do something and badly but his expression betrayed the impatience, masked with a neutral expression. He scooped up his violin from the floor, sliding the bow off of the sill where he had placed it last. Johnna braced herself, worried about his choice of notes this afternoon.

When Sherlock played the violin, he didn't always play sweetly. Of course, he knew how to and could bow out a masterpiece from the great names of classical music without batting an eye. However, he also had days when he would pick up the violin and abuse the strings with the bow, scraping it roughly across and creating shrill, shrieking pitches that were more like nails on glass than music. There was no rhythm, no melody, just grating and a pounding headache for her.

He played a few short notes, not grating ones but it sounded like he was testing them, another experiment that he carried on while Mrs. Hudson returned to the room, handing Johnna a cup of tea. She accepted it but her eyes returned to Sherlock as he moved across the room, stringing in more notes as he went. Mrs. Hudson retrieved the paper from her lap, her face turning discomforted as she read the contents.

"What do you think of these suicides then, Sherlock?" she asked, interrupting his playing. "I thought that'd be right up your street. Three, exactly the same."

Now what exactly was 'up his street' anyway? That was one thing Johnna never found out about. He never explained what he did for a living and yet Mrs. Hudson seemed to know all about it. With his deductive skills, she assumed that he was a detective of some sort but why would Lestrade come to him so frequently if he was just a private detective? Police and detectives worked in different circles from what she understood. He paused at the far window. Johnna could see him staring down into the street. Something had caught his eye and he was slowly lowering the instrument, letting it dangle in his fingers. Then Johnna noticed the flicker of blue through the glass, measured flashes like the lights of a police car.

"Four." He corrected Mrs. Hudson. "There's been a fourth and something's different this time."

"A fourth?" Mrs. Hudson sounded puzzled.

"How do you—" Johnna was interrupted when footsteps rushed up the stairs and Detective Inspector Lestrade appeared, winded in the doorway.

Sherlock's posture was stiff, alert as he eyed the inspector. "Where?"

"Brixton, Lauriston Gardens." Lestrade answered, huffing a short breath afterward.

"What's new about this one? You wouldn't have come to get me otherwise." He tilted his head to the left, surveying Lestrade's face through a narrowed gaze. "Something's different."

Johnna and Mrs. Hudson watched the exchange completely unnoticed by the men while they bounced questions and answers back and forth like a tennis ball across a net without giving it time to bounce. Normally this would have been her cue to quietly leave the room but this time Sherlock was engrossed with whatever Lestrade was talking about. Maybe he simply forgot they were even there. Lestrade certainly didn't notice, considering his eyes didn't even glance their way. He was fixed on Sherlock with the same desperation Johnna always saw in his face on his visits.

"You know how none of them left notes?"

"Yeah."

"Well, this one did." He seemed to have almost gotten his breath back but his expression went from winded to the familiar desperation Johnna had become familiar with on every visit he made. "Will you come?"

He didn't answer the immediate question, submitting one of his own instead. "Who's on forensics?"

"Anderson." Lestrade stated impatiently.

Sherlock frowned at the name, clearly displeased. "Anderson won't work with me."

"He won't be your assistant," Lestrade urged, backtracking a little into the hall. The man was clearly in a hurry to get back to whatever it was he had left and there stood Sherlock, stalling him out.

"I need an assistant!" Sherlock insisted.

"Will you come?" he asked again, exasperated and ready to dash back down the stairs once he had Sherlock's answer.

Sherlock's previous distaste at the name 'Anderson' disappeared as he resumed his former stoicism. "Not in the police car, I'll be right behind."

"Thank you," Lestrade heaved out in relief and disappeared out the door without another word, his progress thudding heavily down the stairs until he was gone. Sherlock deposited the violin upon the couch, turning himself about casually until his limbs began to tense up and he did something Johnna had never seen him do.

He coiled down and leapt for joy, clenching his fists and tilting his head back to the ceiling as he exclaimed, "Brilliant!" The formerly collected demeanor vanished faster than his feet had hit the floor, the man moving about the room almost as if he were dancing with himself as he spoke animatedly aloud. "Oh! Four serial suicides and now a note! Oh, it's Christmas!"

He clapped his hands together, breaking up his dancing steps as he turned to his chair and retrieved his coat from where it was slung over the back of it. He shrugged himself into it while Johnna scooted herself to the edge of her seat, amazed by how quickly his mood had shifted. He was as giddy as a schoolboy, dashing about the flat and gathering his dark scarf from the door knob, wrapping it about his neck and retrieving one glove from the floor and the from the edge of the couch. "Mrs. Hudson! I'll be late, might need some food."

Mrs. Hudson pressed her lips together. "I'm your landlady dear, not your housekeeper." She reminded, Johnna nearly cracking a smile at the recurrent statement. Well, there was no problem in her not making a meal, Sherlock barely ate anything anyway, this was the first he had mentioned eating since she had known him as a matter of fact. Her remark fell upon deaf ears, unfortunately, for Sherlock was already heading for the door.

"Watson, don't wait up!" he called over his shoulder and disappeared.

"I never do." She quipped to herself, taking a sip of the tea Mrs. Hudson had made.

Mrs. Hudson mused over his behavior, shaking her head. "My husband was just like that." She sighed, resting a hand upon her shoulder. "Are you alright dear?"

"Fine." Johnna stated, though she certainly didn't feel fine. Whatever she did feel had obviously made it to her face though because she triggered the maternal instinct within her landlady. She needed to conceal it, quickly. "Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Hudson."

"Don't worry, love, he won't be gone long." Mrs. Hudson comforted, though it wasn't necessary. Now she thought Johnna missed him whenever he went out. She reminded her plenty of times that Sherlock was in no way her boyfriend but the woman always called her the opposite of what she insisted until she finally stopped trying. Sherlock never tried to clear the air; he only ignored it, so why bother? "I'll just go downstairs then; you relax and enjoy that tea."

Johnna nodded relieved when she left her alone. Leaning forward, she set the tea down upon the little table beside her chair, bracing her hands upon the top of her cane as she stared at the empty seat across from her. As long as she was in the room, he never occupied the seat directly across from her. He disliked the presence of a woman, even she could see that, but if that was the case, why invite her into sharing the rent in the first place? The empty cushion glared at her, a reminder of the empty chair, the empty flat, the empty life as a while. Sherlock ran off, Mrs. Hudson left; she was on her own again, as always. That was what her life had become, hadn't it? Balling up inside of herself and rarely going out. Sometimes she wondered if that was what made her a suitable flatmate for Sherlock, she was as isolated as he was in the end. What was his excuse though? She knew hers. She didn't like the stares of strangers as they watched her limp on by, sympathetic or uncomfortable with the sight of a woman on a cane before she was even forty. The stares made her feel broken. Like she had nothing left to contribute. It felt like the dismissal from the army all over again, casting her out as if she had nothing else to contribute when she knew she still had plenty in her to give to the cause.

"You're a doctor." She jolted at the sound of Sherlock's voice. Again he managed to startle her! He was supposed to have been long gone by now. Glancing toward the doorway, she spotted him wriggling his hand into one of his gloves, filling the frame but not completely entering the room. "In fact, you're an army doctor."

Moody from her previous inner musings, Johnna gave a slow nod in response but little else.

"Any good?" he raised an eyebrow.

Frowning at the insinuation that he assumed she would be anything less offended her and she rose from the seat, not willing to take that sitting down. "Very good." She stated firmly.

"Seen a lot of injuries then. Violent deaths…" Sherlock slowly entered the room, approaching her while she leaned partially upon her cane.

"Well, yes." Johnna swallowed as he stopped, nearly toe to toe with her. She disliked having to tilt her head back to keep eye contact now but stubbornly raised her chin and met his gaze head on. He was studying her again, watching her expression as he spoke.

"Bit of trouble too, I bet." He mused.

"Too much," she frowned, images of the past flickering through her mind as she recalled the chaos of the battlefield, the explosions and the gunfire. "Enough for a lifetime."

Sherlock stared her down but she maintained her resilience until his lip gave a twitch into something almost akin to a smile. "Want to see some more?"

That was unexpected. Asking her to go to what was no doubt a crime scene! However, he was asking, which would mean he needed her, right? The prospect of seeing something, of being useful and not just some NEET sparked anticipation, the first she had felt in nearly a year.

"Oh, God, yes!" Her words were breathless when she spoke before even rethinking her own eagerness.

Within moments Sherlock spun on his heel and led the way out of the flat, Johnna scrambling to fetch her coat where it hung beside the door and maintain her own balance with her cane in the process. She nearly descended the stares without the aid of it while following Sherlock but the aching reminder she needed it spurred her back into its use as they reached the floor. Mrs. Hudson peeked out of her door as they walked past.

"What—both of you are going now?" She called, Johnna heading for the door but waiting once she noticed Sherlock was approaching Mrs. Hudson as she came out into the passage.

"Impossible suicides? Four of them? No point in sitting at home when there's finally something _fun_ going on!" He grinned, grasping the elder woman's shoulders and planting a quick kiss upon her cheek. Johnna could have sworn she saw a blush bloom in its wake when he withdrew.

She lightly swatted at him, "Look at you being all happy, it's not decent."

Sherlock left her with a scoff, "Who cares about decency? The Game, Mrs. Hudson, is on!"

With that finally said, he opened the door wide and Sherlock Holmes led Johnna Watson out into the streets of London.

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><p><strong>((The Game is on! Hope those of you still reading are enjoying the story!))<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**((Same Disclaimers apply. No pairings in this story. A short chapter today.))**

* * *

><p>Normally Sherlock preferred the mouths of the mundane to stay shut but Dr. Watson was practically radiating curiosity. She had questions but she wasn't asking them <em>very<em> loudly. Sherlock watched the cab's progress, mapping out the distance they had left before their destination at Lauriston Gardens. Calculating the time in between point A and point B, there was plenty of time to humor his flatmate and let her ask what was on her mind. He glanced her way, the doctor meeting his gaze before turning her head away again. She was going to keep avoiding it until he said something first.

"Okay, you've got questions." He stated, returning his attention out the window.

"Where are we going?" Must have been holding onto that one for a while, judging by how rapidly it came out.

"Crime scene." He stated matter-of-factly, withdrawing his mobile from his pocket to check through his messages. The device had sounded earlier but he ignored it at the time. "Next?" He prompted. There were more questions. There were always more.

"What do you do?" She laid her cane against the seat beside her, "We've lived together for weeks and I still don't know what it is you do for a living."

"What do you think?" Sherlock checked two new texts but neither of them were very intriguing, leaving him to look out the window again.

"I would say Private Detective…" she began, already second guessing herself rather than letting herself be wrong by giving a definite guess to his profession. That kind of hesitation was always dull, it prolonged the inevitable as if the individual never wanted to face the fact that their own idiocy would come to light. The doctor was no exception. As always, his flatmate was careful and guarded when it came to how she spoke with him. Evidence of lack of trust, something he picked up on when they first spoke even though she proceeded to run off with Mike after he had so graciously warned her of the man's intentions. Since their meeting they had only spoken a handful of times, some of her statements proving insightful enough to show she had a brain in that head on her shoulders but not one redeemable enough to make conversation worthwhile. However, this was still a Q&A in the back of the cab, he may as well continue on.

"But?"

"The police don't go to private detectives."

So she knew that much at least. Good, he hadn't selected a complete idiot to share his rent after all. Sherlock smiled to himself briefly. "I'm a consulting detective." He stated, sparing her the opportunity to ask about the profession by continuing without prompt. "Only one in the world, I invented the job. It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me."

To his surprise he heard a snicker at his side and turned to the doctor, raising an eyebrow as she held up a hand to her mouth to subdue the scoff. Her eyes flicked up to him, apologetic for laughing but still bemused as she lowered her hand with a smile spread across her lips. It was the first real one he had seen on the otherwise subdued woman since their meeting. More important, however, was the reason why she was having a giggle at his expense. A little stab of offense drew his lips into a line as he watched her.

"The police don't consult amateurs."

He continued to stare at her and the smile faded as the realization began to dawn on her face. Shame replaced her features, she was worried she had offended him and while that was, indeed, true, he wasn't that wounded by it. Being a woman, she was prone to worry about the feelings of others, all of them were whether they acknowledged it or not.

"When we first met, I asked you Afghanistan or Iraq." It was time correct her in her assumption that he was some amateur detective, doing this as some offhand recreation. This was his job, his life, and not something worth snickering at.

Perhaps he was a little miffed after all.

"Yes, you never explained how you knew about that." Watson reminded him and it was his turn to scoff at her.

"I didn't know, I saw. Your haircut, while grown out, the style was once much shorter and by the hang of it now it was uniform. Short enough to not be stifling in a helmet or in desert climate. The way you hold yourself, says military. However, your conversation as you entered the room when Mike brought you in, said trained at Barts, so army doctor, obviously. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists or near your hair line, the helmet prevented that. You've been abroad, but not sunbathing. The cane and the limp when you walk reveal trauma in the right leg, likely by a bullet. Wounded in action, suntan, Afghanistan or Iraq."

A cloud passed across her face when he mentioned the bullet wound but she gave a slow nod, confirming his deduction. With her still following along he decided to keep playing the game and moved on to the next bit. He inclined his head toward her, glancing down at her pocket as he continued. "Then there's your brother." She followed his gaze, withdrawing the phone from her pocket and holding it in the palm of her hand. "Your phone, it's expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player—you were looking for a flatshare. You wouldn't waste money on this—it's a gift, then. Scratches. Not one, but many over time. It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. You wouldn't treat your one luxury item like this, so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy. You know it already."

She turned it over in her fingers, re-reading the inscription that he already knew would by waiting there. "The engraving." She sighed, nodding her head. Her eyes will still on it when he plucked the phone away and looked it over again, already knowing the outcome of the exploration as he turned it about in his hand. Perhaps he was just showing off now but she wanted to test his competence, therefore she would hear it all.

"Harry Watson, clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father. This is a young man's gadget. _Could_ be a cousin, but you're a war hero who can't find a place to live. Unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so brother it is. Now, _Clara_—who's Clara?" He waved the phone at her. "Three kisses says romantic attachment. Expensive phone says wife, not girlfriend. Must've given it to him recently, this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble, then—six months on and already he's giving it away? If she'd left him, he would've kept it. People do. Sentiment. But no, he wanted to be rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you, that says he wants you to stay in touch." Sherlock shifted to look at her again, narrowing his eyes at the woman. "You were looking for cheap accommodation and you didn't go to your brother for help? That says you've got problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife; maybe you don't like his drinking."

Watson sighed, tilting her head back to the ceiling of the car. "How—could you _possibly _know about the drinking?"

He smirked to himself, admitting that he leaned more towards assumption than definite thought on that part. "Shot in the dark. Good one, though." Sherlock congratulated himself, smile increasing for a moment before he rotated the phone, tilting the charger end towards her. "Power connection—tiny little scuff marks round the edges. Every night he goes to plug it in and charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man's phone, never seen a drunk's without them. There you go, you see? You were right."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "I was right?" She angled herself toward him now as he passed the phone back to her. "Right about what?"

"The police don't consult amateurs."

Taking the phone back, she returned it to her pocket, pushing herself about to look out the window on her side of the car. He waited for the inevitable swear aimed his way, the jab at him being a horrible man or some other nonsense that mattered little to him but nothing came. She looked bemused when she glanced this way and that, finally lacing her fingers together in her lap and keeping her eyes to the buildings crawling by. Perhaps she wasn't going to say anything at all and it would just be silent treatment that he would endure without much hardship on his side.

"That was…amazing." It came suddenly; the pause marking a debate in choice of words to describe it but nothing he predicted came forth. The simple statement would be all he received as long as he said nothing else and this puzzled him. A quick glance her way revealed no evidence of her intending to elaborate and her attention was fixed out the window, avoiding looking back to him.

"You think so?" he finally inquired.

"Yes," she gave a stiff nod. "It was extraordinary."

Another adjective he didn't expect to hear. The surprise barely stirred his façade but he managed to feel a little pleased in himself to be praised for once. "That's not what people normally say." He reflected.

"And what do people normally say?"

The corner of his mouth twitched up in amusement. "Piss off."

Silence stretched until muffled giggles steadily filled the cab.

* * *

><p>"Was I right about everything?" Sherlock asked once they managed to arrive at their destination. The two of them scrounged through their pockets for cab fair, neither of them remembering wallets before they had dashed off from 221B but Watson managed to have a handful of notes as leftover change from a previous purchase she had forgotten about. He contributed a bit of change that rested in the pocket of his coat before they were both clambering out into the street.<p>

He started walking before she had time to collect herself and her cane made an angry click against the stones when she hurried herself along to catch up with his pace. He didn't think to adjust his gate for her, it wasn't his fault his legs were longer and he had no injuries to hinder his movements. She would just have to do her best to keep up for now and by the rate she finally appeared at his side, she was well on her way to making the adjustment on her own.

"Harry and I don't get on." She explained, not scolding him for heading off without her. "Never have. Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they're getting a divorce. Harry…is a drinker."

Sherlock gave a slight nod, impressed with his work. "Spot on, then. I didn't expect to be right about everything."

Watson didn't even look at him, simply maintained following him as they approached the flashing lights of the police cars framing the area in front of the crime scene. After a few more steps, she finally gave him a smile. It was one of those secretive smiles mainly seen on a woman's face. Sherlock didn't like the presence of it on hers. She found something wrong after all and seemed to take pleasure in pointing it out though he had to grace her with some respect since she didn't rub it in when she said, "Harry is short for Harriet."

The statement was abrupt and to the point, knocking him completely off of his inner victory lap and forcing him to freeze in the middle of his walk as he faced the one fact he hadn't deduced on his own. "Harry is your sister."

"What am I doing here?" she ignored him but he returned the favor by lingering on his mistake.

"Sister," he hissed, continuing to walk again. "It's always something."

"Seriously, Sherlock, what am I doing here?" Watson pressed, looking to him then the police tape as they closed in on the scene.

Sherlock's attention drifted to Sergeant Donovan standing on the other side, speaking with another officer until she spotted his approach. The instant disapproval in her expression was a common occurrence whenever he entered a crime scene. Sally never approved of him and he never sought it out from her. Most of the time he liked to feign courtesy towards her only to give her a reminder of why she hated him as much as she did later on. This time the method came much quicker as he stood on one side of the caution tape while she barred him off on the other, crossing her arms in a typical stance of superiority above him. She was ready to verbally spar with him once again and he always knew how to disarm her before the very end.

"Hello, freak." It wasn't a warm greeting, as usual.

He parried the derogatory title. "I'm here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade."

"Why?" She jabbed.

"I was invited." He dodged.

"Why?" Donovan blocked.

"I think he wants me to take a look." Sherlock said, delivering a blow. It was clear by the firm press of her lips together.

"You know what I think don't you?" she challenged, readying a strike.

"Always, Sally." Sherlock lifted the tape and stepped beneath it, straightening up on the other end and abandoning the strip. Now standing beside her, he caught a whiff of the strong smell of masculine deodorant. With it coming from her and not reeking of her usual choice of toiletries, he targeted the secret and made one last lunge. "I even know you didn't make it home last night."

Her gaze dropped. A clear sign of masked guilt.

Match.

"Er, who is this?" She quickly pointed out Watson as she came to a stop just beside the tape.

"Colleague of mine, Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan. Old friend." He made the introductions brief, growing impatient with the woman for stalling him. He eyed the entrance to the building in question, growing eager to move on but Sally was persistent.

"A colleague? How do you get a colleague?" Donovan was unconvinced by his title for Watson but that was none of his concern. She turned to the woman on the other side of the tape, surveying her and pointing at him even though she was speaking to her. "Did he follow you home?"

Sherlock noticed Watson beginning to look uncomfortable now, she wasn't shying away but she certainly looked uncertain from how quickly her gaze shifted from him to Sally before she finally backed off a step, angling herself away. "Would it be better if I just waited over there?"

"No." He seized the tape again and lifted it up for her, inviting her in even though he could hear Sally's eyes rolling about in her head at this.

Dr. Watson finally limped through and he dropped the tape, walking ahead again but Sally strode past him, sighing as she announced through the line, "Freak's here. Bringing him in."

Sherlock began to observe the street before the place, eyeing everything from the cracks between the stone to the curbside. He was approaching the front of the building when he noticed the plastic booted feet of one of the examiners, raising his eyes to find Anderson walking away from the scene, removing his gloves and barring his way. People liked to do that, especially when he was in a hurry. It was just as entertaining to irk Anderson as it was Donovan but tonight would be even more so now that he smelled the same deodorant on the other man's person matching the male brand Donovan wore. If they had the same deodorizer, they were within the same vicinity as one another, his place since it was the same stick, meaning Anderson's wife couldn't have been in town. Anderson was too cowardly to have an affair with his wife in the immediate London area.

"Ah, Anderson. Here we are again." He smiled.

"It's a crime scene. I don't want it contaminated. Are we clear on that?" The nasally tone of his voice grated on his ears but Sherlock maintained his patience.

"Quite clear." He stated crisply. "And is your wife away for long?"

"Oh, don't pretend you worked that out, somebody told you that." Anderson spat out, his face twisting in disgust at his observation. Probably because he was correct.

"No, your deodorant told me that."

"My deodorant?"

"It's for men." Sherlock stated, enunciating men to really highlight the meaning of it. Maybe if he made that one word stand out, Anderson would catch on and spare himself the embarrassment he was about to put him through.

"Well of course it's for men! I'm wearing it!"

Sherlock nodded behind him, "So is Sergeant Donovan."

Anderson whipped about, spotting her where she stood and Sherlock wrinkled his nose as he caught another, more unpleasant smell off of him. "Oo, and I think it just vaporized—may I go in?"

He moved to step around him but Anderson held out a hand to stop him, nearly pushing against his chest but not having the brass to actually touch him. "Whatever you are trying to imply—"

"I'm not implying anything." Feigning innocence he stepped around Anderson and waved Johnna forward to follow after him, approaching the doorway to the apartment building. "I'm sure Sally came around for a nice little chat and just _happened_ to stay over." He could have ended it there but the temptation was too great. He saw what Donovan's skirt revealed when they first arrived and with the amount of time they made him wait before finally being able to enter the crime scene, he demanded justice. Turning about on his heel, he offered a sly grin to the officers. "And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees."

Eyes flicking down to her legs, he chuckled to himself, spotting the number of eyes that all looked to the area in question to see what it was he saw. They wanted to know what gave it all away. Even Watson looked down when she passed Sergeant Donovan, her eyes dropping to them then back up to her face briefly. He half expected her to be disapproving in her stare but she looked more apologetic than anything before she was trailing after him into the building. There was no need for her sympathy. Not for a woman as crass as Sergeant Sally Donovan.

In any case, where was Lestrade? More importantly, where was the body?


	5. Chapter 5

**((Same disclaimers.**

**Time to check out the murder scene.))**

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><p><em>What the hell am I doing here?<em>

That seemed to be the theme of the night since she agreed to following Sherlock to the crime scene. The original idea was inspiring enough but now that she was actually standing there in the old apartment building, Johnna was questioning her decision every time one of the officers glanced at her with clear puzzlement on her presence. Sherlock led her through the first floor until they reached the stairwell where they came across Lestrade as he was fastening himself within a protective suit to prevent contamination of any potential evidence. Sherlock pointed to the stack of similar coveralls on a narrow table pushed up against the wall.

"You'll have to wear one of those." He stated, removing his gloves in exchange for rubber ones that Lestrade indicated on the table as well. Once again she saw curiosity when she saw the man looking at her and busied herself with stepping into the plastic, trying to keep her balance.

"Who is this?" Lestrade asked. Johnna wondered if he didn't remember her presence at 221B in the past.

"She's with me." Sherlock brushed off the question, tugging on the other glove.

Apparently she wasn't mistaken when she assumed that Lestrade never really noticed her presence in the flat. He scarcely looked at her whenever he showed up, all attention was on Sherlock the minute he came through the doorway and nothing else was spared another glance until he calmed down. Judging by his current puzzlement, Lestrade was not so desperate now that he had the consulting detective in the building and that left an opening for other observations, such as the woman following him around. Johnna was tempted to explain who she was but Sherlock's abrupt statement, however vague, seemed to be all the detective inspector would receive.

"But who is she?" The detective insisted, earning a cold glare from Sherlock.

He stated a little more firmly this time, "I said she is with me."

Somehow that shut him up, for he didn't ask again and moved past Sherlock to lead the way upstairs. Johnna finished covering herself and followed, noticing both men were keeping their pace slow as they ascended to the upper levels. Whether it was to accommodate her or because Lestrade was filling Sherlock in was uncertain. She didn't want to flatter herself by thinking they were doing it for her.

"Her name's Jennifer Wilson, according to her credit cards. We're running them now for contact details. Hasn't been here long. Some kids found her." Lestrade explained, climbing up ahead of them. "I can give you two minutes."

Johnna was mostly ignored through the walkthrough of the crime scene and she felt a sense of dread settle over her once they reached the top of the stairs and one by one they entered through a decrepit open door. The room itself bore peeling wallpaper decorated by printed pale trees that might have been lovely once but what was more important was the body lying prone on the floor. A woman dressed in pink, not only in her coat but her clothing as well, all the way down to her shoes.

While she had seen worse in Afghanistan, it didn't feel any less morbid seeing the lifeless body before her. Uncomfortable grief settled in her chest, a silent tribute to the woman lying on the floor. Even if it was a stranger, she could still feel regret over the unexpected end of a life. It was never something easy to get used to.

Sherlock stood very still in the room, Johnna noticing he was staring directly at the body along with Lestrade, not unexpected since that was the reason they were all present but then Sherlock spoke up, interrupting the silence.

"Shut up."

Lestrade looked at her as if she had spoken up but she shook her head, the detective inspector turning his attention back on Sherlock. "I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking. It's annoying." Holmes accused, leaving them at the doorway and approaching the body. He poured over it, leaning over her and tilting his head this way and that at first. He performed a general survey of her and the scratch marks clearly gouged into the floor. He then moved in closer to the body, lowering himself to a knee and running a hand over the back of her coat. He checked her pockets, withdrawing an umbrella but returning it soon afterward, removing a sliding magnifying glass from his own pocket, checking over small spots, some of it was focused on her jewelry but Johnna was at a loss in what he would gain from that. He even removed her wedding band at one point, observing the ring then replacing it on her finger before long. Within the seconds that had passed, he was pushing himself off of the floor and removing the gloves.

"Have you got anything?" Lestrade asked.

"Not much."

Johnna felt someone moving behind her, shuffling herself aside as the man known as Anderson leaned in the doorway in her place. "She's German." He announced, Johnna raising an eyebrow at the statement while Sherlock was checking his phone. The more Anderson spoke, the closer Sherlock came to him until he was nearly at the door. "'Rache,' German for revenge. She could be trying to tell us something-"

"Yes, thank you for your input." He shut the door on the other man without giving him a chance to finish. Johnna raised an eyebrow, surprised Anderson didn't burst back inside to confront him over it. Maybe he was still smarting from Sherlock insinuating he was having an affair. Whatever it was, Sherlock was still eyeing his phone as he walked full circle back to the body.

"So, she's German?" Lestrade asked, building up on the theory of Anderson.

"Of course she's not." Holmes scoffed, Johnna could hear the tiny beeps emanating from the device while Sherlock played around on it. Eventually he slipped it back into his inner pocket. "She's from out of town though, intending to stay in London for one night, before returning home to Cardiff, so far, so obvious."

"Obvious?" Johnna hardly saw how such information was obvious. Not to her anyway.

"But the message—" Lestrade pressed, Johnna could see he was befuddled but once again, Sherlock interrupted.

"Dr. Watson, what do you think?"

She found him staring at her rather intently, waiting for her to provide insight but she had none. "Do you mean the message?"

"The body. You're a doctor."

"We have a whole medical team outside." Lestrade insisted.

"They won't work with me."

Once again, anything that Lestrade said seemed to just be shot down by the consulting detective. It looked more like Sherlock was the superior in this scenario than Detective Inspector Lestrade. He was looking at her again, silently urging her to look upon the body, dogging her with his eyes but she remained rooted to the floor. Lestrade wasn't giving up either, at least he wasn't going to give up resisting Sherlock's want for another doctor poking around the crime scene.

"I'm breaking every rule just letting you in here!" he indicated the room around them and Sherlock merely tilted his head to the side.

"Yes, because you need me."

Lestrade's desperate eyes turned cold. "Yes, I do." He lowered his gaze to the floorboards, "God, help me." He didn't like admitting to it. Even she could see that.

"Dr. Watson." Sherlock pressed a little more firmly.

Torn between permission and persuasion, she turned to Lestrade once more, expecting him to shoot down the order again in spite of his reluctant admission to needing Sherlock's information. He caught her eye and frowned, moving around her as he spoke. "Oh, do as he says. Help yourself." She waited for him to leave the room, the disgruntled man ordering everyone to keep away from the room for a few minutes. Once alone, Johnna approached the body, Sherlock tailing after her and crouching down on the other side of the woman while she slowly eased herself upon the floor, her leg burning from the uncomfortable position. Subduing her reaction to the injury, she laid the cane aside but rather than examine the corpse, she turned her attention to Sherlock, frowning up at him.

He raised an eyebrow her way when he saw her staring at him. "Well?"

"What am I doing here?" she asked, flatly.

"Helping me make a point."

"I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent." She pointed back the way they came with a flick of her finger, "This is something else entirely."

"Well, this is more fun." The hidden excitement in his voice disturbed her.

"Fun?" she leveled her hand, waving it over the body. "There is a woman lying here dead. How is that fun?"

"Perfectly sound analysis, doctor, but I was hoping you would go deeper." Now he was egging her on, was that it?

Huffing a sigh that puffed her bangs from her eyes, Johnna bent over the body and began her examination. She peered into her face, noticing the vague traces of bile that had spilled from between her lips and dried down her chin. Leaning in closer, she took a brief sniff near her mouth, catching the scent of the vomit but no traces of alcohol to bring about the emesis. Leaning away from her, head, Johnna carefully slipped her fingers beneath the woman's hand, she checked her fingers, feeling fine ridges in the digits from gripping something small. Like twisting the cap off of something and the skin had not replenished itself from the indents completely. Replacing her hand to the floor, she retrieved her cane and leaned her weight upon it.

"Asphyxiation." She stated, peering from Sherlock to Lestrade as he reentered the room, coming to stand near the body as well, folding his arms. "She passed out then choked on her own vomit." A slow smile crept across Sherlock's face as she made her explanation, the pride was unsettling and she focused more upon Lestrade the longer she broke down her theory. "There is no alcohol on her breath so she wasn't drinking. Possibly a seizure…maybe even drugs—"

"You know what it was, you read the paper just this afternoon." Sherlock insisted, reminding her of the newspaper article she had read back at the flat.

"Well, she's one of the suicide victims." Johnna pushed herself back into standing, struggling to get her leg to support her when she rose but managing to hold herself erect afterward.

"Sherlock, two minutes, I need to know anything you got."

Sherlock straightened up, fixing his coat. "Victim is in her late 30's. Professional person, going by her clothes. I'm guessing the media going by the frankly _alarming_ shade of pink." His eyes widened a little upon mentioning the shade of her clothing and Johnna had to agree that the color was, indeed, alarming. "Traveled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night, judging by the size of her suitcase."

"Suitcase?" Lestrade exclaimed, appearing even more puzzled.

"Yes. She's been married at least ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers but none of them knew she was married." Sherlock's words would have sounded like he was just rambling by now if Johnna hadn't heard him break down some of her own history several minutes prior to now. It was actually very fascinating to hear, having never seen anyone do anything of the like before.

Lestrade wasn't impressed, however, he rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Oh, for God's sake, if you're just making this up—"

His threat was cut short as Sherlock jabbed a finger at the left hand of the woman on the floor. "Her wedding ring! Ten years old, at least. The rest of her jewelry's been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there." He insisted, retracting his hand again. "The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside, so it's regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It's not for work, look at her nails, she doesn't work with her hands. So, what, or rather, _who_ does she remove her rings for? Not one lover, she'd never sustain the fiction of being single for that amount of time, so more likely a string of lovers. Simple."

"That's brilliant." The words spilled out before she realized she thought of them and her fingers flew to her lips when Sherlock shot her a look, not an angry one but he almost seemed puzzled by her comment. "Sorry."

His eyes returned to Lestrade again and the look disappeared.

"Cardiff?" the older man asked, his brow furrowing even more, the wrinkles in his forehead looked permanently set that way at this point.

"It's obvious, isn't it?"

No, it wasn't. It wasn't obvious at all! He was the one with the blasted mind powers! "It's not obvious to me." She chimed in, revealing how lost she really felt.

"Dear God." Sherlock's expression was incredulous as he looked between Lestrade and herself as if they were creatures he had never seen before. "What is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring." A little shake of his head followed his statement, Johnna couldn't help but feel the jab at her own intelligence but stifled the desire to voice any counteractive measures, focusing on listening instead when he continued on without missing a beat. Did he even draw breath before he began again? "Her coat-it's slightly damp, she's been in heavy rain for the last few hours and there's no rain anywhere in London in that time frame. Under her coat collar is damp, too. She's turned it up, against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left hand pocket, but it's dry and unused. Not just wind, strong wind, too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to stay overnight, so she must have come a decent distance but she can't have traveled for more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn't dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time?" He retrieved his phone, illuminating the screen and showing them the last thing he had checked before pocketing it before. The weather information was displayed. "Cardiff."

Well, at least he used something practical for finding out such information and not something ridiculous like going off of the type of mud on the woman's heels or something. Still, he noted small details and threaded them together into a scenario of what the woman had been like and where she had been before she died and the whole ordeal left Johnna impressed and a little silly in the mind from the nonsense she spouted after he finished. "Fantastic."

"Do you know you do that out loud?" Holmes asked her, quietly.

"Sorry, I'll shut up." She muttered hastily, pressing her lips together.

"No it's…fine." It certainly didn't sound like it irritated him. He almost sounded flattered by the praise she had spewed more than a couple times by now.

"Why do you keep saying suitcase?" Lestrade asked, drawing the attention back to the case rather than Sherlock's praise.  
>Turning away from her, Sherlock began to search about the floor, burying his hands in his pockets. "Yes, where is it?" He rotated in a circle, scanning the room for the suitcase he was so certain she had brought along with her but even when Johnna glanced about, there was no sign of a suitcase in the room. "She must have had a phone or an organizer. Find out who Rachel is."<br>"She was writing Rachel?"  
>"No, she was writing an angry note in German!" He began sarcastically, "Of course she was writing Rachel, no other word it can be, but why would she wait until she was dying to write it?"<br>Lestrade held out a hand, trying to signal him to stop. "How do you know she had a suitcase?"

Sherlock pointed a finger at her legs, "Back of the right leg, tiny splash marks on her right heel and calf not present on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don't get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, going by the spread. Case that size—woman this clothes-conscious—could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was only staying one night. Now where is it? What have you done with it?"

Even though he had already looked around once, he began looking again, moving past Lestrade to look behind the door then through a hole in the opposite wall. Johnna was wondering if there would be a suitcase in the building at all, especially since Lestrade continuously asked why Sherlock mentioned a case to begin with.  
>"There wasn't a case." Lestrade stated, crossing his arms over his chest.<p>

Pausing in his search, Sherlock tensed, peering toward him. "Say that again."  
>"There wasn't a case." He insisted, "There was never any suitcase."<p>

"Suitcase!" Sherlock bolted out of the room, crying out to the rest of the team still examining the rest of the building for evidence. Johnna watched him practically fling himself into the banister to lean over and shout downstairs. "Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?"  
>"Sherlock, there was no case!" Lestrade shouted after him, dropping his arms and following him out into the passage.<p>

"But they take the poison themselves, they chew, swallow the pills, themselves. There are clear signs, even you lot couldn't miss them."  
>Johnna made her way out of the room, standing just behind Lestrade and catching the muttered response to Sherlock's outer musing. "Right, yeah, thanks. And?"<br>"It's murder. All of them. I don't know how, but they're not suicides, they're serial killings." Holmes was looking more and more excited as he spoke, repeating something similar to the dance he had made in the flat when he first received the invitation to the scene. "We've got ourselves a serial killer. Love those. There's always something to look forward to."

Look forward to? What was he going on about now?  
>"Why are you saying that?"<p>

"Her case! Come on, where is her case, did she eat it?" He indicated the room with an impatient wave of his hand. "Someone else was here, and they took her case. So the killer must have driven her here. Forgot the case was in the car."  
>"She could have checked into a hotel, left her case there." Johnna contributed, though the moment she said it, she glanced back at the body in the other room. Sherlock made sure she was wrong and pointed out just how wrong she had been even though she second-guessed herself, it didn't save her from looking like a complete idiot in front of him and Detective Inspector Lestrade, not that he seemed to notice. The man was watching Sherlock with the expression of someone well and truly lost.<br>"No, she never got to the hotel. Look at her hair!" He waved his hands around his head. "She color-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes! She'd never leave any hotel with her hair still looking…Oh…Oh!" Something dawned on him, illuminating his face as he grinned.  
>"Sherlock, what is it, what?"<p>

"Serial killers, always hard. Have to wait for them to make a mistake."  
>"We can't just wait!"<br>Without warning, Sherlock dashed down the stairs, rounding about to the next landing without sparing them another glance but he certainly had plenty more to say. He fired it all off almost as quickly as his feet hit the stairs. "Oh, were done waiting. Look at her, really look! Get on to Cardiff. Find out who Jennifer Wilson's family and friends were. Find Rachel!  
>Lestrade went to the railing, leaning over it. "Of course, yeah… but what mistake?!" He finished off with a shout after him, Johnna peered over the edge as well in time to see Sherlock pop back into sight, grasping the rail and glaring back up at them.<p>

"PINK!" he snapped back up the stairs then dashed off again.

Johnna opened and closed her mouth, wanting to call him back to wait for her but the words died in her mouth. He wasn't coming back, not for her anyway. Pressing her lips together, she glanced to Lestrade as shook his head after Sherlock's disappearance, turning and catching her eye. He shrugged his shoulders, running a hand over his short-cropped hair while Anderson reappeared. Shuffling past them and calling the other medical examiners back into the room they had all just vacated.

Without Sherlock, her purpose for being there vanished and from the way people angled themselves to get around her, she was just in the way. The previous excitement that had spurred her on without pain was gone and she found herself accompanied by nothing but the ache in her left leg. Staggering aside to get out of the way of a passing officer, she made her way back downstairs, steeling herself for questions but received none. Once back at the bottom floor, she removed the plastic coverings and deposited them in a bin beside the table, She pulled her coat back on, shrugging it over her shoulders and smoothing it down, leaning her hip into the wall to keep herself steady while propping the cane against the table.

Once she was back in order, Johnna left the crime scene, limping into the street where the police cars were still stationed, lights flickering over the empty road, caressing the stone in cold, gloomy strokes of light. Seargent Donovan was speaking to an officer that was lingering beside one of the cars, the only person to notice her standing there in the street. "He's gone." She called over.

"Sherlock?" She asked with a grim smile.

"Yeah, he just took off." Sally explained, approaching her. "He does that."

"Is he coming back?"

"Didn't look like it." She shook her head.

"Right," she glanced about the street, some small part of her hoping the area would be familiar but nothing presented itself to her memory. Sherlock had left her abandoned at a crime scene of all places. She fished through her pocket and felt the last remaining notes from her change from the cab. Only one way of knowing whether or not she would be able to afford a ride back home. "Sorry, but where am I?"

"Brixton." Sally stated.

"Alright," She removed the money and counted through it. It might be possible. "Yeah, um, do you know where I can get a cab? It's just…my leg."

"Uh," Sergeant Donovan's eyes trailed to her limb in question before she moved to the police tape, lifting it up for her. "Try the main road."

Nodding, Johnna knew she outstayed her welcome. She tried to move quickly to pass under the tape, stepping out from under it and making a few paces away when Donovan spoke to her again.

"You're not his friend. He doesn't have friends." Her eyes were curious as she looked her up and down, "So who are you? Did he bring you over, thought he'd make a date out of it?"

"No," she shook her head. "I'm…nobody."

It was the truth. She really was nobody to Sherlock. While she was still getting used to him and was fascinated by his deductive skills, she really was a stranger living under the same roof as him. He knew everything about her and she knew nothing aside from a profession he, himself made up. They weren't friends, relatives, or dating, so what were they? What was she? Well, that was where the truth was. She was nobody, nobody to Sherlock, nobody to the army, nobody at all.

"Well, whoever you are—a bit of advice? Stay away from that guy."

"Why?"

Sergeant Sally Donovan was giving her a warning, that much was clear. It felt a little late to be warned about him, however, as she had already begun sharing the responsibility of rent for 221B with him. Apparently none of these people knew she was merely sharing a flat with him, nothing more. Maybe this one outing was a fluke and wouldn't happen again, then it wouldn't matter at all, would it? Johnna felt like the warning was misplaced but she had already asked for the reason behind the caution.

"You know why he's here?" Sally asked, crossing her arms. Johnna shook her head. "He's not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it! The weirder the crime, the more he gets off—and you know what? One day just showing up won't be enough. One day we'll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes'll be the one who put it there."

"Why would he do that?" In the days she stayed with him, he hardly seemed like the type of man to murder anyone, but she couldn't make any defense for him when she barely knew him.

"Because he's a psychopath." She stated, raising her eyebrows at her. "Psychopaths get bored."

Johnna let the words sink in, growing uncomfortable with the case Sally Donovan made against her flatmate. She couldn't argue or agree with her, only stand there in silence as Lestrade popped out of the front door, calling Sergeant Donovan inside. Sally uncrossed her arms and began to retreat back to the crime scene but she spun about, walking backwards slowly as she faced Johnna one more time. "Stay away from Sherlock Holmes."

If Sherlock had been any other man and they had spoken in any other way then the verbal sparring match Johnna witnessed before, she might have taken the warning more like Sally trying to fend her off from being near Sherlock like a jealous girlfriend. That, however, was unlikely. There was no hiding the distaste Seargent Donovan felt toward the man and Johnna was beginning to understand why so many people tried to strike him during his meetings with them. It was also clear that Sally was more disgusted by him than attracted so there was no misinterpreting her warning. She was genuinely being cautioned against being near Sherlock. His influence would not be a good one.

There's no use in worrying over closeness to him. You needed to interact with someone to be close to them and a few chats in passing hardly counted as something to form any kind of bond to Sherlock. He kept his distance from her in the flat and while he might have been an inconvenience sometimes, he mostly kept out of her way and she did her best to keep out of his. Of course, his experiments were ridiculous, she couldn't always avoid finding those laying around. The pig was the worst offender to date.

Johnna brought herself about, retracing her steps from where they had come through before. She passed a phone booth, the phone inside of it ringing even though no one was inside of it but Johnna ignored it, continuing on her way. The ringing stopped abruptly.

It took her some time before she managed to make it to a more public walkway, strangers passing her one way or another. Life had returned to London again now that she had left the crime scene behind. There was an odd comfort in the number of people walking about the sidewalks, cars sliding by, the glow of the windows where restaurants were still in full swing with the early evening dinner rush. Johnna attempted to hail a cab but failed to catch the driver's attention, leaving her wandering even further up the street until she could spot another one. She kept an eye out for another cabbie, maintaining a steady pace but as she passed another phone booth, the telephone began ringing. It rung the entirety she was within range of it until she walked past and the phone rang out. Puzzled by the recurrent ringing, she pushed herself onward, another phone rung and she jerked her head about, spotting a telephone in a restaurant. When someone rushed to answer, however, the phone fell silent before their hand even touched the receiver.

Growing concerned about all phones ringing about her except for her own cell, she tried to pick up her pace but her leg slowed her down with the increasing sting spreading up through her, nearly dragging her to another halt. This time another phone began to ring beside her and she narrowed her eyes upon the phonebox, eyeing the dark receiver while it continued to ring away. All this time the bells kept following her, stopping once she was out of range. It reminded her of the mass texts Sherlock seemed to be sending to the press conference that morning. Was it Sherlock trying to get a hold of her? A little extreme of him if it was, she had a cell phone after all and he already stated in the past that he preferred to text. Whoever was calling, whether or not it was for her wouldn't be discovered unless she answered it. Johnna steered herself into the box and snatched the phone from the line, pressing it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"There is a security camera on the building to your left. Do you see it?"

The voice on the other end of the line sounded haughty and cold, one she didn't recognize even though they did not tell her she had been the wrong person to answer the phone. Ignoring his mentioning of a security camera, she shifted her weight to her good leg, tucking the receiver into her shoulder. "Who is this?"

"Do you see the camera, Dr. Watson?"

She frowned, sensing another enigma forming in the stranger on the other end. Turning to the left, she sought out the camera he had mentioned, spotting one and it was pointing directly at her. Security cameras were common in London, there was nothing wrong with one being directed to a phonebox, however, having it pointed out to her by a cold, cryptic voice on the telephone made it feel just a tad bit more disturbing. She licked her lower lip, trying not to worry it between her teeth. It was a bad habit she didn't want to fall back into.

"Yes, I see it."

"Watch." Just after he prompted, the camera in question slowly angled itself away from her until she saw it point in a completely different direction. "There is another camera on the building opposite to you. Do you see it?"

Facing the building in question, she nodded once she saw the camera. She didn't respond verbally but the camera turned away in any case, just as the one from before. "And finally, at the top of the building to your right." The voice indicated and she turned about one last time to find the camera, watching that one move away as well. She was growing frustrated with the mystery man on the line but there was also a feeling of discomfort, knowing all of the cameras that would have recorded her if anything happened at this point were now all facing elsewhere.

"How are you doing this?" She demanded.

"Get into the car, Dr. Watson." The voice commanded back coolly. In that moment, she had to admit he had impeccable timing, for there was a black car pulling alongside the curb in front of the box. A man wearing a suit and a very severe expression exited from the driver's side and opened up the back door, standing ready even though she hadn't moved an inch. The man on the other end of the line must have noticed this because his voice came back again into her ear. "I would make some sort of threat, but I'm sure your situation is quite clear to you."

The line went dead as the man hung up the phone and Johnna replaced the receiver in its cradle, easing her way out of the phone box. Her fingers lingered on the handle while she surveyed the car and the man waiting for her beside the open door. It wasn't too late to try to run but with a gimp leg, she wasn't sure how far she would get. That man looked to be in peak condition. Huffing a sigh, she moved toward the car. Tilting her head back a little, she eyed the man waiting but he continued to stare ahead like she wasn't even there. Johnna gave up on him and ducked her head, climbing into the car only to find herself sitting beside a young woman. Yet another unfamiliar face for the evening. The door shut after her and the driver resumed his seat, pulling the car away from the curb smoothly and melting into the flow of traffic like the other cars had been timing themselves around this one particular vehicle. With the car already moving and no one speaking to her, Johnna felt as if she had just gotten into someone's car, mistaking it for a cab and looked like a complete fool to the woman sitting beside her.

The woman hardly batted an eye at her though, she was engrossed in her phone, her expression bemused and thumbs occasionally moving about but nothing tell-tale of what she was working on. Johnna twisted her cane about in her hands, rotating it on its foot upon the floor of the car, trying to find something to say to the woman but coming up short. There was nothing she could really do but just aim for the basics. She already felt that the answers would all turn up the same.

"Hello." She greeted the woman.

"Hi." The smile she passed her was friendly enough but her eyes returned to the phone straight afterward.

"Who are you?"

She thought about it a moment. "Anthea."

Well, at least she was speaking to her.

"Is that your real name?" Johnna couldn't hide her skepticism.

"No." She smiled again, probably seeing right through her suspicions. It seemed like she had gone through most of her life avoiding all of the bloody know-it-alls until this particular month of her life. Suddenly everyone seemed to know something that she didn't and they all seemed to get off on rubbing this in her face. She was beginning to think that Donovan's warning was sound after all. Since Sherlock Holmes, nothing ever seemed to play out normal anymore. Crime scenes, odd experiments, mysterious voices on phones, security cameras manipulated by unseen forces, and random cars picking her up with no hint of where she was being driven off to...it was all too strange.

Moments earlier she had herself convinced that she was unimportant, hours ago she considered herself useless, now here she was being driven to God knows where and not an explanation in sight. Why would someone call her in the street when they could have just used her own phone to do the job? Hell, anyone could have used her phone!

Growing torn between feeling angry or concerned, she forced it all down deep to prevent herself from letting the woman, Anthea as she called herself, from seeing how lost she truly was.

"I'm…Johnna." She introduced herself to be polite but felt foolish again and diverted her attention out the window abruptly afterward.

"Yes, I know."

"Any point on asking where I'm going?"

There was a quick pause between them and she glanced back at Anthea, noticing another smile, this time it was almost sympathetic toward her ignorance. "None at all, Johnna."

The rest of the car ride happened in silence, Anthea keeping to her phone and Johnna staring through the tinted windows, watching London slip away into unfamiliar territory. She tried to straighten out her bad leg a few times but ended up curling back into herself, attempting to mimic Anthea's rather ladylike posture aside from how the woman slouched partially in the seat with her back fully rested against the cushion. Her alertness prevented her from completely relaxing and it only got worse when the car pulled into a darkened parking lot belonging to a warehouse. A rather vacant warehouse. A warehouse where there was one occupant standing in the dim lighting, accompanied by a chair and an umbrella, upon which he was leaning with one leg crossed behind the other. The car stopped several yards away from the man, giving him plenty of breathing room but also a lot of ground for her to cover once the driver opened the door for her and she hauled herself out, using the doorframe as leverage to right herself on the cement flooring. The driver offered no assistance but she wouldn't have wanted it anyway, grasping her cane tightly in her hand, she approached the man, only making it a few steps before he corrected his weight to both feet, pointing at the chair with the umbrella.

"Have a seat, Johnna." He smiled, though his voice was the same as the one she heard on the phone. His attempt at friendliness left much to be desired and she ignored his offer. She hadn't even gotten close enough to sit down anyway.

"You know, I've got a phone." Every click of her cane upon the floor echoed through the empty warehouse, seeming to punctuate every phrase she spoke as she neared the man. "I mean, very clever and all that, but…you could just—phone me…on my _phone_."

The man made something like a chuckle in his throat, "When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence this place." He peered about the room when he mentioned where they were. It really did have something to do with Sherlock after all. Who the hell else was she expected to meet because of him? His eyes landed on her with an oddly familiar piercing stare but the gaze was cold in spite of the smile he plastered on his face. "Your leg must be hurting you. Sit down."

"No, I want to stand." She frowned, ignoring the stinging protest in her muscles.

"You're don't seem afraid." He mused.

"You don't seem very frightening." What did he expect? She would quake in her shoes at the sight of him? The man himself hardly looked intimidating, he was just a smidge taller than Sherlock with a receding hairline and dressed in a black suit, pressed and professional in appearance. While his gaze was cold, he was trying to sound friendly when he spoke to her at first but it almost sounded condescending, like an adult trying to talk to a child.

The man chuckled again, tapping the tip of the umbrella upon the ground. "Yes…the bravery of the soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?" His smile waned a little now, the mock politeness fading as he observed her with the same calculating stare she remembered Sherlock giving her in the past. "What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?"

"I don't have one." Johnna insisted, "I barely know him."

Like everyone else she had spoken to, this man was unconvinced. "Mmm, and yet you've moved in with him and now you're solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?"

Johnna's face burned at the insinuation that they were together. Again. Another thing that was happening too frequently for her taste. They were going to have to have a talk whenever she found him. "Who are you?" She demanded, growing tired of the damned enigma he made himself out to be.

"An interested party."

"Interested in Sherlock?" Her eyebrow shot up. "Why? I'm guessing you're not friends since you're trying to avoid catching his attention."

"You've met him." The man smiled wryly. "How many friends do you imagine he has?"

Point taken.

Lifting up the umbrella, he flipped the tip upward, glancing at the silvery end as if checking it for scuffmarks or something from having it rest on the ground."I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having."

"And what is that?"

"An enemy." He set the umbrella back down with a clack.

"An enemy?" She suppressed a snicker at the title.

"In his mind, certainly. If you were to ask him, he'd probably say his arch-enemy. He does love to be dramatic." This man wasn't earning any points in subtlety himself.

"Well, thank God you're above all of that." She muttered.

The man smiled, amused by her quip but remained silent just as the lifeless phone in her pocket suddenly chimed with a message notification. Oh, so someone did remember she had a phone after all. She reached into her pocket, keeping an eye on the man while she unlocked the screen.

**Baker Street.****  
><strong>**Come at once****  
><strong>**if convenient.**

**SH**

SH…Sherlock Holmes. When the hell did he get a hold of her phone number?

"I hope I'm not distracting you," he chimed in, his tone saying otherwise.

"No, you're not." She shoved the phone into her pocket.

"Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock?"

This bastard. "I may be wrong, but I think that is none of your business."

"It could be."

"No, it really couldn't."She shook her head.

He tucked the umbrella under his arm, reaching into the pocket of his coat. Johnna stiffened as he fished around until he withdrew a pocket notebook, flipping it open and turning a few pages. The sight of the harmless pad of paper permitted her to take a breath but she refused to ease up completely in this man's presence. The man ran a finger down the page, "Well, if you do stay in…221b Baker Street, I'd be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way."

"Why on earth would you pay me?" Johnna shifted her hold on her cane, her leg growing tired from supporting herself and the palm of her hand burned from the weight she leaned on the narrow cane handle.

"Because you are not a wealthy woman, Dr. Watson. Your funds are nearly empty and you are a month from receiving any aid from your army pension. Paying you seems to be the right course."

"Not for nothing," She glared at him, "You want something in exchange. What is it?"

"Information." He observed her stare and gave a slight smile, keeping his tone innocent when he spoke again. "Nothing indiscreet, of course. Nothing you'd feel…uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he's up to."

"Why?" Question of the year, wasn't it Johnna?

The repeated inquiry didn't amuse him and his face fell. "I worry about him, _constantly_."

Johnna snickered, "Well, that's nice of you."

Ignoring her comment, he returned to inspecting his umbrella. "But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a… difficult relationship."

"I suspect being someone's enemy does make it difficult." Johnna grumbled as her phone went off again in her pocket. She fished it out once more, checking the message only to see that it was Sherlock again.

**If inconvenient,****  
><strong>**come anyway.**

**SH**

Dropping the phone back in her pocket, Johnna shifted her weight, repositioning her cane. "No."

"No?" He didn't sound surprised. "I haven't even mentioned a figure."

"Don't bother."

The cold chuckle returned again as he revealed a catlike grin, "You're very loyal_ very_ quickly, doctor."

"No—I' m just not interested in your offer."

The man's emotions shifted again, his face neutral as he held up the notebook again, flipping a page. "Trust issues…it says here."

Johnna's blood ran cold as he read through the new page. "What is that?" she demanded.

There was a glimmer of amusement in his eye when he glanced over the book at her. The note he read, while it was not particularly damning to anyone, was still supposed to be privileged information. The therapist swore her to doctor/patient confidentiality. No one was supposed to know she had gone to her in the past. Ever since she cancelled the sessions, they were supposed to be locked away where no curious eyes could read into her personal information that dealt deeper into herself than even Sherlock Holmes could have read, at least, that's what she hoped.

Lowering the book, he tucked it back into his breast pocket. "Could it be that you have decided to trust Sherlock Holmes?"

"I never said I trusted him." She said quickly.

"You aren't the kind of person who makes friends easily." He stated. It was another line that she had read the therapist writing down during one of their few sessions. The man was playing an unfair game with her now.

"Are we done?" She rolled her shoulders, trying to assume her stance properly again.

"You tell me." His voice was low when he spoke but she stood her ground. "I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him, but I can see from your left hand that's not going to happen."

No. He had that written in his little notebook too? She squeezed the handle of her cane a little tighter.

"Show me." He nodded to her hand.

Sighing, she balanced herself, raising her hand up eve level. The man approached her, reaching out to take it but she pulled it away from his reach abruptly, "Don't—"

He raised an eyebrow, "Now, now. None of that." She raised her hand back up and he took it, holding it level, the cool touch of his fingers steadying it before releasing her and watching her digits. "Remarkable."

"What's wrong with my hand?" Johnna asked tersely.

"You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand. Your therapist thought it was post-traumatic stress disorder. She believed you were haunted by memories of your military service."

"Who the hell are you?" She hissed but he didn't stop.

"It was wise of you to fire her. She got it the wrong way." He smirked. "You're under stress right now and your hand is perfectly steady."

Johnna looked to her hand but she already knew he was correct. The occasional quiver in her fingers, the shaking hand that couldn't hold a cup of tea still until she took the time to hold it steady with the other, it had stopped and she hadn't eve realized it until this stranger pointed it out to her. She clenched her fingers, lifting her eyes up to him again as he stepped a little closer. "You're not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson… you miss it." She held her ground as he came even closer, leaning in until he was nearly to her ear. "Welcome back."

The whisper sent another quake through her as he walked past, swinging the umbrella absently about in circles. "Time to choose a side, Dr. Watson." He called back at her, not turning around again and disappearing out the way the car had come in.

Johnna stepped toward the chair, gripping the back of it as her legs nearly gave out from under her. The man himself didn't intimidate her but the fact he was carrying around her therapy sessions in his pocket left her rattled, not wanting to think back on the expensive hours she spent sitting across from the therapist, dealing with a coddling tone of voice and questions she didn't want to answer. The therapist didn't help, that was why she quit her sessions. A part of her wished the records would be destroyed but the mann managed to get his hands on them and read them aloud like lines from a newspaper article. Only one thing was still in her favor that neither he nor Sherlock mentioned. Her fingers twitched, gripping at her coat just beside her shoulder. Her phone chimed again, Johnna steeling herself and straightening back upright. Dropping her hand to her pocket, she brought it back out, opening up the screen and seeing three simple words glowing on the display.

**Could be dangerous.**

**SH**

A car door shut, the echo through the warehouse catching her attention, Anthea appearing in front of it with the phone in her hands just as it had be before. She glanced up at her, "I'm to take you home."

Johnna dropped her eyes to the message again until the screen went dark.

"Address?"

Johnna closed her fingers around the device and turned herself to face the car. "Baker Street. 221b."


	6. Chapter 6

**((Mostly Johnna's point of view through the rest of the story since we all know how "A Study in Pink" unfolded. It was a little difficult getting into Sherlock's head while writing this story since I'm still new at Sherlock fics.**

**I hope you enjoy the story.))**

* * *

><p>Johnna lingered at the front door of 221b, watching the black car slip away just around the corner, carrying off another awkward encounter along with it and leaving her back in familiar territory. Still, she couldn't help but feel that nothing beyond the front door would be the same flat she had left this afternoon. Nestling near the door, she felt through her pockets for her keys, letting herself in and shutting out the cold with a firm press of the door behind her. Once she passed through the glass door separating the entryway from the interior hall, she found the short passage silent. The door to Mrs. Hudson's flat was dark and only a vague glow illuminated the upper stairwell when she peeked up past the first step. He must have left the door to their flat open again.<p>

Climbing upstairs, she hesitated at the top of the landing, the open door invited her inside the sitting room with the warm glow of the lamps. Her chair called to her with silent promise of comfort after a shaken afternoon but the occurrences of the day pulled her to turn, climbing up the next stairwell to go to her bedroom instead. She let herself in, eyes falling upon the narrow table beside her bed. She felt the tiny knob and pulled the drawer free, eyeing the pistol nestled between a few cast-off pocket items she had tossed in over the last few weeks. Withdrawing the gun, she checked it to see if she had left it loaded, counting through the rounds then striking the magazine back into place with a satisfying click. The weight of the weapon in her hand was heavier than she remembered and she wondered if she was capable of the commendable aim she was known for back in the day. Only one way to find out and that was only if the situation called for it.

Reassuring herself the safety was on, she wriggled up her coat and jumper and tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans. The cold touch of metal against her skin made her shudder at first, shaking it off while she pulled her clothing over it to conceal the weapon before leaving her room again and returning downstairs. Sherlock must have heard her thudding around on the stairs but if he had, he gave no sign of acknowledging her presence. Once she neared the door, however, she heard a peculiar gasp from the room. Johnna leaned through the doorway, poking her head inside and finding Sherlock lying on the couch. His feet were pointed to the door, head cradled by the mismatched pillow with one hand gripping his opposing arm, eyes closed and breathing slowly through his nose. She eyed where his hand was, seeming to conceal something and she felt a hitch in her chest. It rang of drug use but this was Sherlock…he couldn't be.

"What are you doing?" She strode into the room, pausing at the other side of the coffee table.

"Nicotine patch." Sherlock stated flatly, pushing his sleeve down further and revealing patches across his skin. "Helps me think." He pressed his hands together, "It's_ impossible_ to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work."

Johnna sighed in relief, thankful it wasn't drugs after all. That was the last 'surprise' she needed this evening. Still, his concerned seemed misplaced, rousing the doctor in her again. "Good news for breathing though."

Sherlock huffed a frustrated sigh. "Breathing. Breathing's boring."

"Wait, are you wearing_ three_ patches?" She pointed at his arm.

Sherlock pressed his hands together and raised the tips to his lips. "It's a three patch problem."

"Oh, that bad, huh?" She spotted the newspaper on the table where Mrs. Hudson had left it. The headline mentioning the three suicides was now obsolete with the newest victim Jennifer added to the numbers. Johnna didn't receive any feedback from her comment and moved to the window instead, peering out of it into the street below.

"Well," She turned around again, surveying the empty room and a thoroughly tranquil Sherlock still lying upon the couch. "You wanted me to come back to the flat. I'm assuming it's important."

His eyes popped open and recollection dawned on his face. "Oh, of course, can I borrow your phone?"

"My phone?"

"Don't want to use mine. Always a chance that my number will be recognized. It's on the website."

"Why didn't you ask Mrs. Hudson? She's just downstairs—"

"I tried shouting for her, she didn't hear me."

"Sherlock, I was on the other side of London!" She jabbed a finger toward the windows but he didn't look at her, keeping himself stationary on the sofa, hands still serenely braced just over his lips.

"There was no hurry."

"You—" Johnna gave up before the words could come forth and dropped her arm to her side, staring down at him and resisting the urge to smack him with her cane. Jamming her hand into her pocket, she brought out her phone again. "Here."

She held it out to him but he didn't look at her, his eyes were closed now but he extended a hand out for her to give it to him rather than sit himself up and take it himself. Wriggling it down in her fingers, she slapped it into his palm, returning to the window and resuming her previous lookout. After encountering the strange man, she didn't want to be caught off guard by anything else that evening. So far the street seemed no more unusual than it had before. There were still people walking down the sidewalks, a few couples leaving Speedy's, one or two cars crawling by. Everything was quiet on Baker Street.

"So, you wanted my phone, I'm assuming this has something to do with your case."

"Her case…" he whispered.

"Her case?"

"Her suitcase, yes, obviously. The murderer took it with him, first big mistake."

"Okay, he took her case. Is this the mistake you were going on about back at the crime scene?"

"It's no use. There's no other way. We'll have to risk it." He muttered to himself, ignoring her again.

"God…where's that skull, I might as well talk to that now." Johnna huffed, noticing its absence from the mantle.

"On my desk, there's a number." Sherlock stated, sitting up and tossing her the phone back. Johnna fumbled with the phone trying to slip from her hands before she managed to get a grip on it. "I want you to send a text."

"You brought me here," Johnna stared at the phone in her hand, "to send a text."

"A text, yes." He stated shortly, shooting her a glare from the corner of his eye as he laid himself back down. He was looking at her as if she were the one being unreasonable! "The number on my desk."

Johnna left the window, approaching the small table between Sherlock's chair and her own, eyeing a card on the surface. She avoided picking it up, bouncing her phone in her hand and glancing at the windows again. Maybe she was over-thinking everything and it would just be a one-time visit from the strange man interested in Sherlock. She didn't fancy the idea of running into him again when he clearly had resources enough to control local cameras and had a staff willing to pick up strangers off the street in sleek, obviously expensive cars. The clear display of wealth he presented in the car, the offer to pay her for spying on Sherlock, even the tone of his voice was enough to prove he had money to burn in keeping an eye on Sherlock and in turn, her as well. She grimaced at the idea and shuddered.

"What's wrong?" Sherlock's voice was curious, drawing her out of her inner concerns. When she turned to him, he was looking at her with raised eyebrows. At least he wasn't insisting she text the number at the moment.

"I met a friend of yours…after you disappeared." She had to fit that last little fact in, still a little sore at his carelessness for leaving someone he invited along alone at a crime scene.

"A friend?" The title seemed unfamiliar to him and he appeared bewildered.

Johnna thought back to what the man claimed to be and corrected herself. "Well, an enemy, actually."

"Oh," He relaxed back into neutrality. "Which one?"

The fact that he was asking 'which one' so lightly and so comfortably in comparison to the bafflement at her mentioning of a 'friend' left her giving him a riled stare.

"Your arch-enemy, according to him." She grumbled, retreating to her chair and sitting herself down. She leaned the cane against the arm, stretching her leg out in front of her. The elongation of the muscles in her leg burned sweetly compared to the jabbing pain she previously endured and she rubbed at the muscle thoughtfully, contemplating on turning to pain killers to help relieve the burn. Sherlock was unfazed by the talk of his 'Arch Enemy.' He lingered on the sofa without a hitch in his breathing or even the bat of an eyelash at the title and it left her wondering how he could look so calm about it. Enemies were typically a bad thing. Arch Enemies were ever worse…and something reserved for heroes in comic books more than 'consulting detectives.' Jerking her head back up, she cast another glance back at him. "Do people even have arch-enemies?"

"Did he offer you money to spy on me?"

Oh, apparently that happened before. "Yes."

"Did you take it?" He sounded wary, much better compared to his previous blasé attitude.

"No."

"Pity. We could have split the fee. Think it through next time." He shot back at her, disenchanted.

Most people would be grateful for not being sold out to some mystery man in an empty warehouse but not Sherlock Holmes, apparently. He turned good will into a thoughtlessness.

Johnna dropped her head against the back of the chair with a groan, staring at the ceiling. "Who _is_ he, Sherlock?"

"The most dangerous man you've ever met and not my problem right now." He wrote it off, his tone hardening when he spoke again. "On my desk, the number!"

Picking her head up, she glowered his direction. Leaning forward, she slapped her hand over the card, dragging it off of the table. Flipping the card about in her fingers and reading over the handwritten contents until she realized the name on the card. Jennifer Wilson. "Jennifer Wilson? Isn't that the victim?"

"Yes! That's not important!" Crying out in frustration, Sherlock sat upright again, swinging his long frame off of the couch. Johnna balked as the man proceeded to step onto the coffee table then back down again, crossing the room without missing a beat in his pace. "Just enter the number."

She opened up her phone, preparing a new message and began to enter the number into the recipient bar.

"Are you doing it?"

"Yes."

"Have you done it?"

"Hang on!" she snapped over, punching out the digits with her thumbs and selecting the message box.

"These words, exactly. 'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. 22 Northumberland Street, please come.'"

Sherlock goaded her about her slow progress in entering the message, moving about the room while she typed. He pulled a chair from the table he had arranged as a desk against the wall and flipped it about, setting it in front of his chair. In a flash of pink, Johnna spotted him resting a suitcase in the seat, unzipping it and throwing the lid open with a flick of his hand. Sherlock sank down onto the edge of his seat, bracing his elbows upon his knees and fisting one hand in the other, pressing them beneath his chin.

"That's…the pink lady's case." Johnna stared at the gaudy pink overnight bag.

"Yes, obviously." He stared into the contents and Johnna waited for him to explain how he had it in the first place. However, he misinterpreted her stare. His eyes rested on her then rolled, "Oh, perhaps I should mention, I didn't kill her."

"I never said you did."

"Why not? Given the text I just had you send and the fact that I have her case, it's a perfectly logical assumption."

"Logical yes, but you've been here at the flat since the day before. Detective Lestrade's arrival was the first you stepped out in some time."

"Been paying attention to my habits, have you?" He smirked.

"No, you're just noisy when you move about. I can hear you coming and going all the time." She waved it off, settling back into her chair again. "Do people normally suspect you of being the murderer?"

"Now and then, yes." Grinning, he pushed himself up by the arms of the chair, hoisting himself up and stepping onto the cushion, finding another spot to sit on the top of the chair with his feet planted in the original seat.

"Well, suspecting you being the murderer aside, how did you find her case?"

"By looking."

"Already figured that out." Johnna was growing more irate. "I meant where did you find it?"

"The killer must have driven her to Lauriston Gardens. He could only keep her case by accident if it was in a car. Nobody could be seen with this case without drawing attention to themselves, particularly a man, which is statistically more likely. So obviously he'd feel compelled to get rid of it the moment he noticed he still had it. Wouldn't have taken him more than five minutes to realize his mistake. I checked every backstreet wide enough for a car five minutes from Lauriston Gardens, and anywhere you could dispose of a bulky object without being observed. It took me less than an hour to find the right skip."

"You know…all you had to say was 'in a dumpster five minutes from Lauriston Gardens.'" Johnna stated. His eyes jumped up to her from the case and she flashed him a smug smile of her own. "You like to show off, don't you?"

He cleared his throat, nodding to the case. "Do you see what's missing?"

"No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me." She sighed, massaging her temples. "How could I know?"

"Her phone. Where's her mobile phone?" He spread his hands toward the case. "There was no phone on the body, there was no phone in the case. We know she had one. You just texted it."

"Maybe she…left it at home?"

"She has a string of lovers and she's careful about it. She never leaves her phone at home." He shot down the idea.

"She could have lost it."

"Yes, or?"

So now he wanted her to play the guessing game? She thought about it, trying to keep it quick since he was waiting for an answer and wanted one now. He said the phone wasn't on the body, it wasn't in the case, and it wasn't found anywhere at the crime scene. She wouldn't leave it at home and Sherlock cleared up that she didn't check into wherever she was staying so, there was another option that neither of them had spoken aloud but she grew hesitant. Sounding wrong all the time was really damaging to her already meager ego.

"The murderer. You think the murderer has the phone?"

Sherlock nodded. "Maybe she left it when she left her case. Maybe he took it from her for some reason. Either way, the balance of probability is the murderer has her phone."

Johnna's throat felt dry as she eyed her phone still on the armrest while Sherlock thumbed his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyeing the device as well. "Did I just text a murderer?" She tapped her phone with her finger, clearing her throat when she heard it rise a little higher than expected. The corner of his mouth lifted as if to smile but she shot him a warning look, stilling its process.

The phone came to life under her finger and she jumped, holding her hand aloft over the phone. It rang on, the caller id revealing nothing, as it only said the number was withheld. She left the phone where it sat, not wanting to be near it but Sherlock was staring at it with a look of pure fascination with every ring. Then he began to look pleased.

"A few hours after the last victim, and now he receives a text that can only be from her. If somebody had just found that phone, they'd ignore a text like that. But the murderer…would panic." Swatting the suitcase lid shut, Sherlock left his chair abruptly.

Sherlock retrieved his coat from the back of another chair. He never hung it up on the hook like one would have expected but always on a piece of furniture. Slinging it about himself, he fixed his collar, turning it down to make way for his scarf. The scarf itself had been the one thing he actually hung on the hook since his return to the flat.

"Have you told the police you found the case?"

"Four people are dead. There isn't time to go to the police."

"Oh, but there's time to sit around and wait for me to get back to the flat—why did you tell me all of this?" she demanded, interrupting her own grumbling in favor of getting her question through.

He nodded to the fireplace. "Mrs. Hudson took my skull."

_Ah, that's where it went._ Johnna gave a short, humorless laugh. "So, I'm basically filling in for your skull?"

"Relax, you're doing fine." He draped the scarf about his neck, pulling the tails through a loop he had made by folding it in half first. Johnna noticed his eyes were lingering on her. "Well?"

"Well what?" The expectant look on his face insinuated the answer.

"Well, you could just sit there and watch telly." He suggested but his expression betrayed his true opinion on what a ghastly idea that would be.

"You want me to come with you?" Even though that was what he seemed to be aiming at, she doubted he actually wanted the social benefit of her coming along.

"I like company when I go out." Oh, maybe he did after all. He shrugged a shoulder. "I think better when I talk aloud and the skull just attracts attention." He pulled the gloves from his pockets, wriggling his hands into them and casting one more glance her way when he saw she wasn't standing yet. "Problem?"

"Yes, Sergeant Donovan."

His face fell a little. "What about her?"

"She said you enjoy this sort of thing, strange crimes and the like."

"And I said 'dangerous' yet here you are." He smirked, turning about and disappearing out the door.

For a moment she thought about letting him go ahead. It would have been easy to retreat upstairs and lie down for a few hours. Perhaps fall asleep staring at the ceiling and wondering what this odd man was getting himself into out there. Take the pain killers, rest her leg. Then what? Sleep the night away then wake up to another day of deploring herself because she still hadn't found a life to live?

"Damn it." She hissed, seizing her cane and jumping out of the chair to follow after him again.

Hurrying down the stairs, she nearly ran into him where he stood waiting for her. He didn't try to steady her but she managed to grasp the railing, recovering and glancing up into his face in time to see that know-it-all smile once more. He turned and descended the stairwell with her bringing up the rear all the way out into the street. She was getting the hang of his long stride, managing to quicken her own pace to match his after a few steps, letting her walk alongside him now rather than trail behind. They followed the sidewalk across from 221b and turned the corner onto the next road over.

"Where are we going?"

"Northumberland Street's a five minute walk from here."

"Do you think he's stupid enough to go there?"

"No, I think he's brilliant enough." The pure excitement when he said it was something she found herself growing more and more used to, accepting his unusual pleasure in the weirder aspects of life. This was the man who preserved a pig carcass in their bathtub after all. "I love the brilliant ones. They're always so desperate to get caught. Appreciation! Applause! At long last the spotlight. That's the frailty of genius, Johnna, it needs an audience."

He explained though his nose wrinkled after he finished, looking at her inquiringly. "Do you honestly go by Johnna? It feels like such a mouthful."

"Bring it up with my mum if you have an issue with it." Johnna huffed.

"I feel like it takes ages to speak it." He griped. "Why not just call yourself John? Much easier."

"It's just an extra N and an A, Sherlock." She argued, though it wasn't entirely the fact he wanted to shorten her name that made her feel so cross with him. John was Bradley's name for her. She didn't expect anyone else would want to call her the traditional masculine title without feeling as if it would offend her. Then again, Sherlock wasn't one to worry about propriety it seemed.

"Nope, John it will be." He declared. "See? Much easier."

Sherlock's attention roamed all about the streets as they walked, taking in the people passing them, the cars in the street, breathing it all in. Johnna allowed herself to bristle while he took it all in, knowing she would be ignored until something interrupted his train of thought again. Sooner or later he would start his ramblings and that would be the time to pay attention. Whenever he was on a roll with his theory and breaking it all down, she was certain she would be pulled in as quickly as she had been the last several times. Even if she observed he liked to show off his skills, she admitted that they fascinated her and it wasn't growing tiresome anytime soon.

"This is his hunting ground. Right here in the heart of the city." Sherlock turned in a quick circle, hardly breaking pace. "Now that we know his victims were abducted, that changes everything. All of them disappeared from busy streets, crowded places, but _nobody_ saw them go."

He clutched the sides of his head briefly, "Think! Who do we trust, even though we don't know them? Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?"

"Got any ideas?"

He thought for a tick. "Haven't the faintest." He shrugged, "Hungry?"

With him leading the way all over again, Sherlock indirectly steered her to a restaurant at the end of the street, opening the door and letting himself inside. They didn't go far, the host standing just beside the door indicated a table in the window alcove where Sherlock sat himself and removed a reserved plaque, tossing it to another table. Johnna watched its flight until it bounced across the tablecloth, nearly sliding off the other end to the floor. No point in scolding him over it as the host said nothing about his actions and Sherlock was already engrossed by the scenery beyond the windows.

"22 Northumberland Street, keep your eyes on it." Holmes instructed, focused on the address in question while Johnna slid herself into the booth.

Sherlock stripped away his coat, pushing it against the wall as well as his scarf. Johnna began unbuttoning her own coat and laid it beside her. Lacing her fingers together, she rest her arms upon the table, following his gaze outside but couldn't pick out what he was looking for. Did the man even know what he was looking for himself?

"Do you know what you're looking for? Half of London is walking through that street. How will you know?"

"I know what to look for."

"Of course you do, why ask?" Johnna grumbled, pulling her arms off of the table and dropping them into her lap as a man came towards them.

"Sherlock!" He caught his attention long enough for him to turn about and give his hand to the other man's expectant one, shaking it with a polite smile before he was twisting back to the window again. "Anything on the menu, whatever you want, free. On the house, for you and for your date."

He placed menus upon the table, one in front of the other.

Sherlock cast her a cursory glance. "Do you want to eat?"

"I'm not his date." She said quickly, staring at the man who assumed so.

Once again, her claims of no attachment to Sherlock fell upon deaf ears. Was it really so hard for people to believe the man could have someone beside him without them being his romantic interest? The man pointed eagerly to Sherlock with a grin that shone wide even through his excessive facial hair. "This man got me off a murder charge!" His husky tone was respectful towards the dark-haired man he indicated, eyes alight with pride even though Sherlock didn't even spare him a look.

"This is Angelo." He finally introduced with a wave of his hand before twisting himself to properly face her as he spoke. "Three years ago, I successfully proved to Lestrade at the time of a particularly vicious triple murder that Angelo was in a different part of town, car-jacking."

So he alibied out of one crime with another? Johnna's brow furrowed, uncertain of why the man suddenly shaking Sherlock's shoulders affectionately was so grateful to him.

"He cleared my name." Angelo insisted.

"Cleared it a bit." Sherlock corrected. "You still ended up in prison."

Nothing would wipe the smile off of Angelo's face. He glanced down at the table then up into Johnna's face. "I'll get a candle for the table. It's more romantic."

"I said I'm not his date!" Johnna persisted but Angelo was already walking away from their table. She dropped her head down a little, heaving a sigh.

"You may as well eat, John. We may be a while." Holmes uttered, leaning into the booth but still staring out the window.

"And what about you?" She pulled the menu a little closer. "I haven't seen you eat yet today."

"No need."

"Sherlock—"she was interrupted by Angelo returning and setting a candle down in the center of the table. He gave her a wink before leaving them alone again and Johnna lowered her eyes to the flame while Sherlock picked up his menu and slapped it down further away from him.

They waited in silence for a time, Johnna surveying her menu while her company remained vigilant over his task of watching over Northumberland street. She stole a glance over her menu at him, surveying his face. So many people assumed that she was his date or a girlfriend, maybe it was a mistake because of his lack of company prior to tonight? He never said anything about having someone but he did run off from the flat at peculiar hours. Were those all for his occupation of consulting detective? Maybe that was why people assumed she was a date or a girlfriend because he _was_ seen with a variety of people?

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

She could see him look at her from the corner of his eye. "Girlfriend?"

"A girlfriend, you know, someone to talk to, spend time with, have around to feed you up whenever you forget—since you seem to do that a lot."

"Is that what girlfriends do?" The tone in his voice sent an uncomfortable chill through her. He turned his head just as she met his eyes and he smirked. Clearing her throat, she picked up her menu again.

"I'll take that as a no." she muttered, scanning over the pasta options.

"No, not really my area." Sherlock dismissed, the teasing tone gone and back to its usual timber.

Oh, well, she wasn't expecting that. Sherlock Holmes was gay then? What a disappointment it must have been for the young girl at Bart's. She saw the way she looked at him, lovestruck and dying for attention. One would have had to have been blind to not see she clearly fancied him back there but if he wasn't interested in women, poor thing didn't stand a chance. Johnna silently offered her sympathies.

"Do you have a boyfriend then? Which, is fine, by the way." She tacked on the last bit quickly enough before she risked being offensive.

"I know its fine." Sherlock's eyes darted to her. "You have a sister who was married to another woman, clearly you wouldn't be bothered by it."

"Then you _do_ have a boyfriend." She pressed.

"No."

"Alright then." She dropped the menu back onto the table. "Unattached, just like me. At least we have that in common."

Johnna marked her choice with the tip of her finger, expecting Sherlock to continue staring out the front window like before but instead she was under the impression she was still being watched. Glancing up at him, her instinct was correct and she could see the pale eyes narrowing a little upon her.

"John," his tone was abrupt but uncomfortable. "I should let you know now that I consider myself married to my work. It is my one and only priority. While, I am flattered by your interest, I'm really not—"

"No!" she interrupted, holding up a hand. "No, no. I wasn't asking you about those things out of interest, Sherlock. I was simply trying to make conversation. We are, after all, flatmates and I thought I would take a shot at getting to know at least _something_ about you before we continue sharing the same roof over our heads. Took me this long to find out what you do, for God's sake. I wonder what else you're going to surprise me with."

"Ah," he wasn't paying attention anymore, his attention back out the window.

Johnna huffed an exasperated breath once she saw he was tuning her out again. "I may as well talk to this candle."

Angelo returned in time and took her order, taking away the menus even though Sherlock never looked at his and left them alone to keep watch. Growing bored with the lack of conversation and no food to keep her occupied, she looked about the restaurant, taking in the theme of it along with how intently the host was also watching the street. The low music was hard to identify and the handful of people scattered about all seemed to be in the midst of conversation on some topic she could not make out from their little nook. It looked easy from here, talking to someone else, getting to know them, finding out what they liked, what they did, and so on in a few moments. With Sherlock, he learned her in seconds while she only found out a handful of facts in a long stretch of weeks. It was an extreme disadvantage on her end.

Eventually Angelo brought out her food and she worked at it in silence, trying to find solace in it as she had before. She was supposed to be alright with the unfamiliar behavior of her flatmate but that was before, when he didn't try to bring her around with him in public. When they barely saw one another, it was much easier to get away with the belief she didn't need to really know and get along with him. However, here he was inviting her out places without prompting. Didn't that mean she was expected to do something? He certainly made her feel like she had to.

"Look across the street. Taxi. It's stopped. Nobody getting in, nobody getting out." He nodded out the window and Johnna set down her cutlery, peering out into the night where he was still looking. A cab pulled up alongside the curb, the dark head of a passenger in the back window. No one got out to approach the address in question. "Why a taxi? Oh, that's clever. Is it clever? Why is it clever?

"What, you don't know?" Color her shocked.

"Don't stare." The abrupt order caught her off guard but now she couldn't look away. He was so fixed on it, she wanted to find out what made a taxi so interesting. Unless that taxi concealed the murderer they were looking for. Wait. 'They?' When did she become a 'they' with _him_?

"_You're_ staring." She shot back.

"Well we can't both stare."

"Then you look away and I'll stare for a change."

Sherlock snatched up his coat and scooted out of his side of the booth. Johnna hastily followed, noticing he left his scarf on the bench. Exasperated, she leaned over and picked it up, shuffling out of her own booth and hastily following him outside with her coat clutched in one hand, the scarf in the other. Sherlock stopped short on the sidewalk, putting his coat on and Johnna slung the scarf over his shoulder.

"You forgot this." She huffed, trying to put her coat on once she returned it to him.

He didn't thank her but he tied it about his neck, fixing his collar so that it stood up in its usual upright position. Johnna scarcely had her coat buttoned when she noticed the cab started to drive away and Sherlock shot off after it. In his eagerness, however, the man ran right out into traffic and a car screeched to a halt but not before striking him. He rolled off of the hood of the car and—to her amazement—he kept running. Johnna followed, briefly touching the front of the car as she passed and shouted out a quick apology in Sherlock's stead, scrambling to catch up with him. The cab putted ahead without them and Sherlock slowed his chase down to a stop, Johnna following the cab with her eyes as she stumbled up behind him, nearly running into him before she halted.

"I've got the cab number!" It felt like a small victory. With the number they could track it down if they called the police right?

"Good for you." Sherlock hissed before his hands pressed into his temples and he suddenly burst into a flurry of words mentioning traffic lights, signs, pedestrian crossings, all sounding like nonsense until he suddenly dashed off again and Johnna gave chase. Of all places to run, he went for a building, shoving a man aside to enter while Johnna shot out another hasty apology at the stranger, keeping up with Sherlock before she was left behind again.

Whatever it was that spurred this, she just didn't want to be left behind again. Not this time.

Endless stairs stretched before her, regular stairs, a spiral staircase, fire exits and then rooftops that they hopped across in a scramble to get to wherever Sherlock was going. She nearly stumbled countless times when they clambered from one roof to another, jumping gaps and dodging structures. Johnna skidded to a halt when they came across another, larger gap, the alley stretching out below. She heaved, gasping for breath while Sherlock alighted over it as if it were nothing, dashing on ahead.

"Come on, John!" He shouted over his shoulder. "We're losing him!"

Gritting her teeth, she backtracked a few steps and forced herself to run and jump the break. Her feet connected with solid purchase on the other side but she barely had time to savor the small victory when resumed the running after Holmes again, as he was nearly out of sight. The chase went on, her face growing cold from the wind rushing into it but she managed to catch up to him, the two of them descending down from the rooftops and back to the street by climbing and jumping down from another fire escape, Sherlock blindly running into the street with a cry.

"Police!" He held out his hands and slammed them upon the cab hood as it came to a screeching halt. "Open her up!"

Johnna staggered over to the taxi, nearly colliding with it before she could stop her own feet. Sherlock wrenched the back door open and leaned inside while she shuffled around him and stood on the other side of the door to see who they were dealing with. In an instant, however, he was shaking his head and dismissing the occupant. He breathlessly regarded the man inside and retreated out of the doorway.

"Teeth, tan-Californian." He gulped down air, "LA, just arrived."

"How—How do you—know that?" She panted and he pointed into the cab.

"The luggage!" He braced a hand against the roof of the cab. "Probably your first trip to London, right? Going by your final destination and the route the cabbie was taking you."

"Sorry, are you guys the police?"

Sherlock flashed a badge that Johnna never seen him holding before. "Yeah. Everything alright?"

The man in the cab appeared utterly befuddled by them, eyes darting from one to the other. "Yeah."

Sherlock faltered, stepping back from the car. It was the first time he didn't look particularly cold or excited as he offered a hasty and quite random: "Welcome to London." He then slammed the door shut and walked away from it. Johnna gulped down another breath, turning her own back on the car and tailing Sherlock down the street.

"Basically, that was a cab that just happened to slow down." Johnna sighed, bracing her hands upon her knees when they paused again.

"Basically." He confirmed, "Not the murderer."

"Wrong country. Good alibi." Johnna glanced over at his hand and the badge he still held in it. "What is this?" Reaching over, she took it from him, flipping it open and reading the identity. "Detective Inspector Lestrade…this is Lestrade's badge?"

"Yeah. I pickpocket him when he's annoying. You can keep that one. I've got plenty at the flat."

"I hardly think they would buy it if I held onto it." She smiled, shaking her head but pocketed it to return it to him later. She glanced after the cab and remembered the expression on the Californian man's face when Sherlock talked to him. Then there was the face Sherlock made as he greeted the tourist. The expression was unexpected and…well, it was amusing after weeks of seeing very little variety of emotions on it before. She snickered to herself but Sherlock heard her.

"What?"

"Nothing," she giggled now, waving him off. "Nothing, just…'Welcome to London'."

The man thought a moment and a smile spread across his lips, gradually turning into a quiet snicker of his own. Their shared laugh was a first and she admitted it felt good to do it. Laughing, just genuinely laughing about something at last and what's more was that he was laughing too. Johnna recovered when she saw the Californian man get out of the car, Sherlock noticing as well while the tourist went to a passing officer and pointed after them.

"Got your breath back?" Sherlock inquired, the smile was still on his lips. Oddly enough, so was hers.

"Ready when you are."


	7. Chapter 7

**((The same disclaimers apply. I hope you enjoy the update.**

**Only one chapter left after this.))**

* * *

><p>"Ridiculous!" Johnna gasped as she stumbled into the entryway, Sherlock breathless but with a far less drunken step, slinging his coat upon the railing while she slumped against the wall. Her lungs burned from gulping down the cold night air and every new breathe ached in her chest. A soft thud beside her marked the presence of Sherlock leaning against the wall as well; his head down as he tried to regain his own breath but most of him was still mostly upright. "That was the most ridiculous thing…I have ever done…in my life!"<p>

"You invaded Afghanistan." Holmes reminded dauntingly.

She laughed breathlessly, hearing his low chuckle at her side. Twice in one night now, they laughed together. Tilting her head back, she pressed it into the wall, huffing another breath. "That wasn't just me."

Both of them caught their breaths, Sherlock glancing over at her, his eyes flicking down to her leg then back to her face. "I proved my point then."

"Point?"

He didn't explain, smiling knowingly down at her when there was a knock at the door. She turned to the sound, puzzled by the sudden guest. Did Sherlock expect someone? Did the police catch up to them? Swallowing, Johnna pushed herself away from the wall and went to the door, opening it up and finding the man from the restaurant, Angelo, standing on the front steps.

"Sherlock texted me." Angelo informed, a secretive smile on his lips as he hitched up her cane in his hand and held it out to her. "He said you forgot this."

"Oh—" Johnna accepted it, holding it in her hands as she stared down at the aluminum rod. "Th-Thank you."

"Nothing to thank me about." He waved it off. "You two go about your business then. I'm off."

He winked at her but she was too preoccupied with the returned cane to notice. Retreating back into the warmth of the passage, she swung the door shut, her fingers tightening on the cold metal in her hands. She honestly forgot all about it for once. Abandoned her own cane and dashed off through the streets of London with a bad leg but hadn't felt a twinge in it throughout the entire endeavor. Looking to Sherlock, she saw that he was still smiling with the familiar all-knowing grin. She lowered the cane, letting it slide through her hand and rest the end upon the floor, gripping the handle and supporting herself with it but the gesture felt almost as foreign as it had when she first had to use it. Just before they left the flat she had been in pain from standing, walking, and trying to keep up with Sherlock and desired pain meds to ease it off. Who would have thought a night in the life of Sherlock Holmes would be the most unexpected but utterly perfect pain killer.

Johnna looked to her flatmate, beginning to smile at him in earnest. A sob on the stairwell caught both of their attention, knocking their smiles astray and Sherlock whipped around as Mrs. Hudson came downstairs looking upset.

"Sherlock, what have you done?" she sobbed. Indicating back up the flight of stairs with a wave of her hand before turning about and beginning to climb back up.

Johnna and Sherlock both followed her upstairs. They were clattering up the stairwell when Johnna first felt the return of the sting in her leg, it shot up and down the limb, halting her climb and forcing her to grip the railing but she pushed through it, keeping up with Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson. They emerged on the landing, entering the flat and finding Lestrade sitting in Sherlock's chair as comfortably as if he were in his own place. A few other people were milling about, sifting through Sherlock's belongings, one of them shaking the contents of a box out onto the sofa. Johnna didn't have much in the flat so she could honestly say; most of the things being searched were Sherlock's.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock demanded, the outrage a sharp contrast to the deep chuckles he made in the hallway just moments ago, his attention fixed on Lestrade in his chair.

"Well, I knew you'd find the case. I'm not stupid." The detective inspector smiled, nodding to the pink case still sitting in the chair where they had left it.

"Unlikely." Sherlock spouted, turning about and surveying the damage so far. "You can't just break into my flat!"

"You can't withhold evidence." Lestrade shot back, folding his arms. "And I didn't break into your flat."

Holding his hands out to indicate his surroundings, Sherlock was incredulous. "What do you call this then?"

"Drug bust."

Johnna snickered. "A drug bust? _This _guy?"

She pointed at Sherlock in her humor, hardly believing their excuse. Weeks of living here and Sherlock never gave a sign of being high on anything, not even on caffeine. The closest thing she's seen were the nicotine patches. This guy didn't need drugs when he apparently got enough excitement from these cases of his. She had a laugh to herself but found Sherlock coming in closer to her, leaning down with a warning look in his eye.

"John, shut up."

Her eyes jumped up and met his as he continued to glare down at her. The guarded expression revealed tension and it slowly dawned on her that apparently drugs in the possession of this man were not as far-fetched as she believed. Once it clicked, she gave a minute shake of her head. "No."

"What?"

"You?"

"Shut up!" he hissed.

Touching her fingers to her temple, Johnna used her cane to support herself as she took it in. Clearing her throat, she ducked past an officer to go to her chair, sinking down into it and laying her cane across her legs as Sherlock rounded about on Lestrade again. He was clearly upset from the people touching his things like a spoiled child being forced to share. As far as she learned, he didn't seem particularly possessive of his things around her unless it came to his experiments. She wasn't able to touch those and quite honestly, she didn't want to. In the kitchen she heard clinking and rattling from things being shuffled about, twisting in her chair and raising an eyebrow at the number of people fussing with the scientific equipment.

"I'm not your sniffer dog!"

"No, Anderson's my sniffer dog." Lestrade smiled, nodding into the kitchen.

The pale man from the crime scene appeared, giving Sherlock a mockish wave with his fingers. "Anderson, what are you doing here on a drug bust?" If he sounded upset before, the sight of this man pushed him over to furious.

"Oh, I volunteered." He looked as if he could hardly contain himself, traces of a smile twitching at his lips.

"They all did." Lestrade indicated around the room with a wave of his hand. "They're not—strictly speaking—on the drug squad, but they're _very_ keen."

"Are these human eyes?" Sergeant Donovan appeared in the kitchen now and Johnna tilted her head back, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. It looked like every officer Sherlock took the liberty of insulting was now present. No wonder there were so many people poking around. Johnna had to do a double take, her neck aching from the strain of trying to see what Sally held in her hand. It looked like a mason jar and she could see why the other woman was asking about them.

"Put those back!" Sherlock snapped, jerking a finger toward the kitchen.

"They were in the microwave." Donovan pointed out uncomfortably. What was he doing with eyes in the microwave when there was metal holding the lid of the jar back down?

"It's an experiment."

"You could just help us properly and I'll stand them down." Lestrade goaded, rising from his chair.

Turning about in a full circle, expressing every unpleasant emotion Johnna thought he was capable of on his face, Sherlock eventually folded his arms, watching perturbed while the papers previously dumped over the sofa were being pushed about. "This is childish."

"Well, I'm dealing with a child."

Johnna flinched as an officer came to her chair and urged her out of it. She scooted forward and nearly snapped when a hand slid down the back of the sofa, probing between the cushion and grazing her back in the process. Standing upright, she used the cane and limped across the room back to the door again where Mrs. Hudson was hesitant in the doorway. She passed the two men as Lestrade took on a gentler tone, trying to deal with Sherlock exactly how an adult would deal with a child. He spoke softly and coaxed him with reason, almost sounding like he was going to reward him with a lolly for it later or something.

"Sherlock, this is our case. I'm letting you in, but you do not go off on your own. Clear?"

"You're setting up a pretend drugs bust to bully me!" Sherlock protested.

"Well, it will stop being pretend if we find anything."

"I am clean!" The words were abrupt but firm and Johnna felt slightly relieved even though there was no guarantee he was being completely truthful. He looked to his wrist, wrenching the button undone on his sleeve and jerking it up his arm to reveal the patches still plastered in place. "I don't even smoke."

"Neither do I." Lestrade shrugged, pushing his own sleeve down and exposing a similar patch.

Mrs. Hudson fretted a little, Johnna reaching out and grasping her wrist to keep her from wringing her hands together again as she had been doing. Their landlady was clearly distressed by the number of policemen in the room. Johnna tried to console her, letting the woman hold onto her arm while they lingered by the doorway.

Personally, Johnna wondered if Lestrade did something like this before to Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson was clearly rattled. She wasn't hysterical but even for someone seeing a room being sifted through, she looked edgy. The assumptions began playing through her mind when she felt the hand on her arm quiver, fingers of her other hand curling near her lips and eyes on the men in the room more than the actual mess in their wake. It really was the police that upset her. She normally handled Lestrade without any change but the numbers clearly disturbed her. Did she see something like this happen before?

"We know who Rachel is." Detective Inspector Lestrade finally told Sherlock while he stood with his hands on his hips, petulantly drumming his fingers upon his pelvis. The mention of the case seemed to snap him from his tantrum, for he immediately turned to Lestrade and his fingers fell still.

"Who is she?"

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter."

"Daughter? Why would she write her daughter's name?" The utter puzzlement in his expression was genuine and Johnna was once again reminded of his incompetence when it came to human relationships.

"Never mind that, we found the case." Anderson called over, pointing out the case. "According to_ someone_, the murderer has the case and we found it in the hands of our favorite psychopath."

Sherlock whipped around without missing a beat. "I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research." He sneered at the other man, turning back to Lestrade. "You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her._ I_ need to question her!"

"She's dead." Lestrade deadpanned.

"Excellent. How, when, and why? Is there a connection? There has to be."

"Sherlock!" Johnna scolded, surprised at herself for shouting at him. Still, she felt like she had to remind him that he couldn't be excited about another woman being dead. It wasn't decent. Regardless of her snap, Sherlock was mostly occupied with staring down Lestrade.

Lestrade pressed his lips together. "Well, I doubt it since she's been dead for 14 years. Technically, she was never alive." Sherlock's brow furrowed at the news. "Rachel was Jennifer Wilson's stillborn daughter, 14 years ago.

"Why would she think of her?"

"Why would anyone think about their daughter as they were dying?" Anderson stated sarcastically, leaning against the frosted glass of the kitchen door. "Sociopath, I see it now."

Again Sherlock rounded on him. "She didn't think about her daughter. She scratched the name on the floor with her fingernails. She was _dying_. It took effort!"

Johnna looked to Mrs. Hudson, silently checking on her state and the older woman nodded, releasing her arm. Moving into the room further, Johnna approached Sherlock, his eyes on her limp but then on her face, a flicker of confusion there and gone in the blink of an eye. "You said that the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it. Well, maybe he talks to them? Maybe he used the death of her daughter to spur her into taking it?"

He shook his head, growing frustrated again. "That was ages ago! Why would she still be upset?"

A silence spread through the room and he froze, eyes darting about before he inclined his head toward her a little. "Not good?"

"A bit, yeah." She confirmed with an abrupt nod.

He waved it off, stepping closer to her. "But if you were dying, in your very last few seconds, what would you say?"

There was no hesitation when she gave her answer. "Please, God, let me live."

"Use your imagination!" He urged.

Squeezing the handle of her cane, she tapped it once upon the floor and his eyes shot down to it. His face grew slack for a moment as she whispered, "I don't have to."

For a moment he looked as if he would apologize but shook his head, keeping inclined toward her. "If you were clever, really clever, Jennifer Wilson—running all those lovers—she was _clever_. She's trying to tell us something by leaving the name in the floor."

Mrs. Hudson turned and left for downstairs suddenly, Johnna surprised to see hear leave so abruptly but Sherlock was still trying to think. He turned himself about this way and that, touching his temples, rotating, frowning at one direction then facing another, his fingers up and down, splayed then together. It looked almost as if he was preparing to combust there on the spot if he kept fidgeting the way he did. Within a few seconds, Mrs. Hudson came back up the stairs a little breathless when she came into the doorway.

"Your taxi is here, Sherlock." She called over; the previous anxiety was much more subtle now.

"I didn't order a taxi." He dismissed sharply, "Go away!"

"For God's sake, Sherlock," Johnna muttered, returning to Mrs. Hudson's side.

"What are they looking for?" Mrs. Hudson asked, "They've been here almost an hour."

"It's a drug bust, Mrs. Hudson." Johnna sighed.

"Oh—they're just for my hip!" Their landlady gasped, putting a hand to her hip. "They're herbal soothers."

Even though she hadn't been loud, Sherlock finally burst out, throwing his hands out with a frustrated cry.

"Shut up, everybody! Shut up! Don't move, don't speak, don't _breathe_! I'm trying to think! Anderson, face the other way. You're putting me off."

His rapid fire orders startled the room into silence again and Mrs. Hudson put her fingers to her lips, trying to silence herself while Johnna imagined several different ways he could have handled quietening the room without his outburst for the sake of their poor landlady's nerves. She had just been recovering from whatever discomfort she had been in and then he sent her right back into a fit that had her look worried all over again. Even with that in mind, Johnna found that she nearly smiled when he singled out Anderson's face for putting him off of all things.

Lestrade snapped into his role and began shouting out orders for the officers to be still and silent, singling out Anderson again to make sure he also did as Sherlock said. He had to flex his superiority for a moment, raising his voice when the other man protested until he finally turned his back to Sherlock. By the look Donovan gave him signaling agreement, he must have been making faces over the situation. Silence was slowly becoming possible when Mrs. Hudson spoke up again.

"But—your taxi, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson piped up, nearly dancing on the floor as she debated on going back downstairs or staying.

"MRS. HUDSON!" he shouted and she dashed off downstairs again.

"You—" Johnna was losing patience with his behavior but clarity suddenly burst across his face and he gasped, staring ahead at nothing.

"Oh! She was clever. Clever…clever, yes! She's cleverer than you lot and she's _dead._ Do you see? Do you get it? She didn't _lose_ her phone, she never lost it! She _planted it_ on him! When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death. She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer!" Sherlock rapidly spoke again, his words nearly running together as he spewed them, turning about and looking at his audience.

"How would the phone lead us to her killer?" Lestrade asked, his arms folded tight across his chest again.

"What, what do you mean, how? Rachel! Don't you see? Rachel!" Sherlock was grinning from ear to ear as he tried to help the others catch on two what Rachel meant but everyone in the room was silent, staring at him as if he were a madman in the middle of the room. The lack of response from anyone slowly dulled his smile until there was nothing left. He turned to Johnna as if expecting her to be his last hope but she knew she probably looked just as vacant as the rest of them had. Leaving the phone in the back of the car to trace the killer was one thing but how could they trace it? They had no idea what kind of a phone she had, the make, model, even if it was a smart phone or basic. Sherlock finally gave up, appearing disappointed as he shook his head. "Oh, look at you lot. You're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing—Rachel is not a name."

The final bit got Lestrade's attention but Johnna let herself stew over being indirectly called stupid by the man a little longer. "What is Rachel then?" She asked.

"John, on the luggage, there's a label. E-mail address!" he pointed at the case even though he was standing closer to it.

"But you're right—oh forget it." She heaved a sigh and crossed over to the suitcase, checking the tab while Sherlock seemed to move in the opposite direction, pulling out his laptop, sending dozens of already discarded papers fluttering to the floor in its wake and hastily opening it up. Once she saw the email address, Johnna read it aloud. " .uk"

The woman did love her pink. As a woman herself however, Johnna always thought there had to be a limit to the amount of pink in a girl's life but apparently no one told this woman that. Quite a large variety of equally enthralling colors involved in the color wheel, she was a fan of dark green herself, not that it was important to this case in any way, shape, or form.

Sherlock entered the e-mail address into a log-in bar on a website she hadn't even seen him draw up to the screen. "She didn't have a laptop, would have been in the case, which means she did her business on her phone. So, it's a smartphone. It's e-mail enabled. So there was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address, and all together now, the password is…?"

"Rachel," Johnna finished for him, approaching the chair where he sat and peering over his shoulder just as he finished entering the password.

A loading page filled the screen.

"So we can read her e-mails, so what?"

Sherlock didn't even look up from the screen. "Anderson, don't talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the whole street." Johnna repressed the desire to smile again. "We can do much more than just read her e-mails. It's a smartphone, it's got GPS. Which means if you lose it, you can locate it online. She's leading us directly to the man who killed her." He narrowed his eyes at the screen, frowning and slamming his hands upon the table, pushing himself up out of the chair. "This is taking too long!" He turned to Johnna, grasping her shoulders and steering her around the chair, shoving her down until she sitting in his place. "John, keep an eye on it!"

"Johnna." She muttered the correction. With how frantic the night turned since they went to the restaurant she didn't have time to correct him before and let it slide but now when he had her monitoring a loading screen of all things, she felt it a decent enough time to remind him. Still held no effect, he wasn't even listening to her now.

Lestrade came to the desk, his hands braced upon his hips as he squinted down toward the screen. "He could have gotten rid of it."

"No, he didn't." She shook her head. "We texted it earlier and he rang back."

"Come on, come on!" Sherlock hissed. She could hear him pacing the room again.

"Sherlock, dear, this taxi driver…"

Mrs. Hudson had come back it seemed and she sounded only partially concerned, related only to dealing with the adamant taxi cab driver. Why a cabbie wanted Sherlock to begin with, however, did beg the question. She jumped when the screen finally loaded, revealing a map of London, the streets and passageways highlighted with variant colors of red, green, blue, and yellow but there was one street that the program narrowed down upon, a pulsing blue dot marking the location of the phone. Johnna searched for the name of the street on the otherwise landmark vacant map.

Baker Street.

Behind her Sherlock was ranting, shouting out instructions even though he lacked the authority to Lestrade, who walked off from her to talk back to him but all the while she was staring at the location of the dot, pointing at the screen. Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to find her voice, turning slightly in her chair but not wanting to take her eyes from the screen.

"Sherlock," she called over, squinting at the screen one more time. Sherlock was still talking to Lestrade, arguing with him over the measures he needed to go through to find the phone. The man hadn't heard her and the dot was still blinking in their location. Johnna cried out louder and more impatient, "Sherlock!"

"Did you find it? Where is it?" Sherlock's hands grasped the back of the chair and she pointed at the screen again. "It's here; it's in 221b, Baker Street."

"Here? How?" Sherlock leaned over her shoulder to check it again. In normal situations she probably would have leaned away to put some distance between them but it was hard to worry about personal space when the phone they were looking for—a phone that was in the possession of a serial killer—was in their building somehow. Lestrade instructed the officers still pillaging the flat to also look for a phone, believing Sherlock to have dropped it but both of them knew it wasn't possible, even with her telling Lestrade they already called it.

Johnna felt him move away, turning in her chair and watching him while he peered about the room, his face suddenly vacant for a man so irritated before. Mrs. Hudson lingered in the doorway, officers still shuffled about, the screen still notified them of the presence of the phone but Sherlock was completely tuned out. She turned back to the narrow laptop screen, wondering if she should refresh the page, maybe it would sort it out for them. Moving the pointer to the button, she nearly clicked it when she heard a notification nearby. Rotating in her chair, Sherlock checked his phone, revealing whose had gone off.

"Sherlock," she noticed that his already pallid face looked even more sallow. "Are you okay?"  
>"What?" His eyes flicked to the door, barely registering her presence. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."<br>"So, how can the phone be here?"  
>"Don't know."<br>The man didn't know? Well, she would have to remember that moment. "I'll try it again." She offered.  
>"Good idea…" his words trailed off as he suddenly began to head for the door, brushing past Mrs. Hudson on the way out.<br>Pushing the chair back, she rose out of it to follow. "Where are you going?

"Fresh air, just popping outside for a moment. Won't be long."  
>He was avoiding something. Odd for the show-off he made himself out to be. "Are you sure you're all right?<br>Sherlock descended the stairs almost at a run, calling back over his shoulder: "I'm fine" before he disappeared to the lower level. Johnna looked to Mrs. Hudson but she waved her hands, clearly uncertain herself. Johnna glanced about the other people in the flat, hoping someone else would notice his off behavior but no one seemed to even pick up that he left the room aside from Lestrade, who shrugged it off and went back to sitting in Sherlock's chair.

Johnna didn't want to let him walk off like that. Something was wrong. She went to the window to see if she could catch him standing outside but instead spotted a cab alongside the curb with the driver leaning against the door. For a moment she thought he spotted her but the hat dipped down again as his attention drifted to the front door and she leaned in closer to the window, noticing Sherlock come out in his coat, wrapping his scarf about his neck.

The men spoke. Not loud enough for her to catch the exchange with the rattling and banging about still going on in the flat but Sherlock didn't seem distracted when he was face to face with the man below. In fact, he was calm again and that little all-knowing smile returned, she might have barely been able to see it but it was definitely there. He twisted and glanced up towards the windows, the look brief but she thought he saw where she stood.

"Sherlock's talking to a cabbie." She murmured, glancing at Lestrade where he still sat.

He shrugged his shoulders. "He's probably running off again. Does that, we told you he does it."

"No, he's actually _talking _to him." Johnna focused back out the window. "He avoids talking this long to anyone."

"How would you know that?"

"Because I've lived with him for weeks and he's never had that long of a chat." She said, intolerant while watching as the cabbie entered the car. Sherlock slowly approached it, glancing at the windows again but leaned his head toward the open passenger window, still speaking with the cabbie. Was he trying to signal something? He looked twice now and there she stood feeling like she was missing something.

"Wait—you're _living _with him?" Lestrade's confusion made sense but even he shouldn't have sounded that shocked by the news.

"I'm his flatmate." She muttered, seeing Sherlock enter the cab. Johnna's shoulders tensed as the cab began to pull away from the curb. "He just got in the cab, it's driving off."

"We're wasting our time." Donovan called to the others.

Searching her pockets, she tried to retrieve her phone, searching through for the number Sherlock once had her dial. The murderer has the phone and if Sherlock was with him...

She pressed send.

Johnna held it to her ear, waiting for an answer but from the window the cab disappeared and the phone rung out without any sign of connecting. Ending the call with a firm press of the button, she shoved the phone back into her pocket. "I tried the phone, it rung out."

"If it's ringing, it's not here." Lestrade frowned.

Johnna dropped her cane to the floor and went back to the computer, "I'll try the search again."

"Does it matter? Does any of it?" Sergeant Donovan approached Lestrade as he slowly pushed himself out of the chair again, slipping his hands into his pockets and patiently listening to her while she ranted. "He's… he's just a lunatic and he'll _always_ let you down. And you're wasting your time. All our time."

Lestrade sighed, lowering his head and shaking it while Donovan returned to the kitchen. He called a halt for the search and the others dropped what they were digging through, following Lestrade's orders as he began directing them to leave. As the others shuffled about to get ready to go, he paced back and forth, putting his hands on his hips. "Why did he do that? Why did he have to leave?"  
>Johnna shrugged minutely, "You know him better than I do."<br>"I've known him for five years and, no, I don't." he shook his head, picking up his coat from where he had hung it. The man didn't even live in the place and he hung his coat on the hook.

"I live with him, so I have to endure how he behaves. You don't pay him, he's not with the police, so, why do you put up with him?"  
>"Because I'm desperate, that's why. And because Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and I think one day, if we're very, very lucky, he might even be a good one."<p>

Lestrade was fed up but he clearly still believed in the man known as Sherlock Holmes. He left with something in mind and even he knew that but apparently he had grown weary of Holmes' antics over the time he knew him. Johnna could only imagine the kind of ridicule he received from his fellow staff over using a consulting detective with deplorable social skills. Johnna was surprised he confessed his desperation so willingly, ashamed for admitting it but still saying it out loud.

Mrs. Hudson disappeared downstairs and the drug bust filtered out one after another. Johnna silently watched them go; flexing her fingers and balling them into fists the longer she felt curious eyes on her. Their interest had been peaked once they heard of her situation with Sherlock and who knew what they thought of her now. Lestrade bustled out of the room looking in a foul mood and Sergeant Donovan lingered near the door, glancing back at her with a look of thinly veiled amusement.

"His flatmate then?"

"Yeah," she picked her head up, rolling her shoulders back. "His flatmate."

She nodded a little, "Good luck to you on that." She turned and walked out without another word, her condescending tone making her squeeze her fist just a little tighter.

As soon as the last cop left the building, Johnna was holding the computer in her hands again, refreshing the page and spotting the phone in motion. Without another thought, about her cane, Mrs. Hudson, the ache in her leg, anything, she charged out of the sitting room and down the stairs. She rushed through the hallway, wrenching the door open and nearly tripping over her own feet when she cast herself into the street, maintaining her hold on the computer in one hand and waving about for a cab with the other.


	8. Chapter 8

**((So, here we are, the final chapter of the re-write. Same disclaimers, etc.))**

* * *

><p>"You sure you're alright back there?" The cabbie sounded concerned when he twisted his head slightly around but not letting his gaze trail far from the road. Johnna was grateful she had chosen one of the more considerate cabbies in London when she scrambled for a car earlier. Now she just wished she had taken the pain killers back at the flat before she had charged off into the night while she hissed between her teeth, grasping at her leg but maintaining her gaze on the laptop screen.<p>

"I'm fine! T-Take the next right!" she ordered quickly, huffing out a breath and forcing her leg to tuck in while she leaned toward the front of the cab. Once again she took her phone in her other hand, dialing the police on one screen while following the blinking dot on the other. It had grown still by now and the longer it was stationary, the more worried she became. The phone was stationary and no return calls from Sherlock. The line to the police connected and she hastily asked for Lestrade but the woman on the other line started to explain she could not directly connect her to him. In spite of the polite tone on the other end, Johnna ignored some of the spiel in favor of directing the cabbie on another turn, eyes on the dot's location. She had no idea if the dot lead to Sherlock, the murderer, or if she would just find the phone and be left without anything to go on, but she clung to her only lead in any case. The woman was still talking about the proper use of the police line when Johnna interrupted her, provoked by the pain in her leg to push past eloquence. "Look, I need to talk to Detective Inspector Lestrade! It's an _emergency_!"

The woman on the other end huffed into the receiver but began to put her through.

Even in frenzied state of her mind, there seemed to be enough space where a part of her sat back and marveled at the events unfolding before her. A few weeks ago, Johnna Watson was no one. An invalid, former army doctor with a small pension and a stale hotel room with nothing more to do than just breathe. Every breath was a painful reminder of the life she was left to face, empty, dull, and alone. Then she ran into Mike. Mike led her to Sherlock Holmes and within a few days it all turned around. She had a flatmate and a landlady who fussed over them like a mother. Johnna was no longer alone but left with the curiosity that was cohabiting with Mr. Holmes. Still no job, a meager social life…there was only a peculiar man with whom she shared the rent with who spoke little, moved around a lot, and performed strange experiments in their kitchen.

Then the murder came.

The murder came and something changed. Something got the gears moving and blended her life with Sherlock's. The coffee, the violin, the short conversation turning into the sudden invite to a crime scene she had no business being at. It was the switch turned on the light in her head after wondering around in darkness. The mystery man in the warehouse was right, she missed the war. She missed having a purpose. Before, no one needed her. She was just occupying space and consuming air. In the war she could help, there was no peace, no quiet, just the constant necessity of a doctor for the wounded or a solider for the battlefield. Sherlock offered her a chance to put her medical expertise to use then ran off but he came back again, egging her on until she followed after him again and again.

Nothing hurt in that time, there was no pain, no feelings of being useless even in the face of countless wrongs he kept reminding her she made. That was why she was doing this, wasn't she? The glances up at the windows he made as he spoke to the cabbie while she stood there watching him through the glass…he wasn't just looking for the hell of it, he was making sure she was paying attention. He knew she would follow him because the cab, the one he climbed into, was the key to it all. The cabbie, the cabbie was the murderer!

"Miss Watson, what is it?" Lestrade's rough voice finally spoke up in the phone, vague with the puzzlement behind her call.

"Detective Inspector!" She gasped, relieved to hear his voice. "Sherlock, he's at the Roland-Kerr Further Education College! You need to get down there!"

"What's he doing down there?"

"I don't know—Left here, please!" she made sure to cover the receiver of the phone to block out the fact she was pursuing him on her own when she uttered out the direction to the cabbie quickly. Removing her hand and bringing the phone back to her ear once she finished. "The cab, the one he climbed into, it's the murder's car! The murderer is a cabbie!"

"How do you know?"

"Just—trust me!" she hissed into the mouthpiece, "Send someone over there, now!"

The cab finally pulled up before the college as she ended the call and Johnna passed the driver what money she had left in her pocket and thanking him breathlessly, begging that he drop the computer off at 221b Baker Street and dashing off before the man could even answer her. It was Sherlock's laptop and she didn't care if he delivered it or not, she was already running towards the college but was faced by two buildings. Both of them had lights on within and the abandoned cab was parked perfectly just between the two, favoring neither side. The number on the cab was the same she spotted when they chased it down earlier that evening. So Sherlock had the right cab after all…just the wrong suspect.

Her eyes darted back and forth between the buildings before she finally darted for one, clambering up the steps and yanking open the door to let herself in. Another searing pain arched up her leg and she faltered in her run, angling a little too close to the wall, throwing her hands out and pushing off of it, forcing herself back into a dead run again. She passed darkened rooms, pausing for brief intervals to jerk at each door, the locked ones she left immediately, the unlocked she swung open only to find empty. Wherever Sherlock and this cabbie were, there would be lights on, wouldn't there?

The entire building was a blur, every room empty, every hallway dim, her footsteps were chaotic, slapping on linoleum, echoes erratic, clattering in her ears. Doors creaked and squealed on their hinges, signs labeling classrooms and stairwells were nothing more than a haze. Every now and then she staggered into something, pushing herself off of it, using the momentum to urge her into running again in spite of the bum leg. Even if she had been healthy, her legs would have ached with the amount of work she put into them tonight. Running all over London for four victims to a serial killer, four people whom she had never met in her life, people needing justice and more people needing saved from the whim of a murderer. Was this the life Sherlock lived?

She burst into another room, the doors swinging open and swallowing her up as she stumbled inside. The lights were out, the chamber empty, but the darkness of her room only highlighted the illuminated room in the building across the way. Gasping for air, she hurried to the window, stopping herself at the sill and staring through, seeing two people in the other room. Johnna frantically looked for a door to the exterior in her room but found none, her attention back on the other two. Sherlock stood stark still, his back to the window and the cabbie stood in front of him. Both of them bore something in their hands, one speaking while the other inspected a tiny object between his fingers. Sherlock held it up to the light, the cabbie still speaking and slowly raising something to his lips.

"SHERLOCK!" she shrieked at the windows, hoping he would hear her.

Neither of the men even flinched.

Johnna panted, raking her hair from her face with her fingers, clawing for knowledge of what to do. He didn't hear her, wouldn't answer his phone when she tried it before, there was no direct route to him. What could she do? There was no time to turn around and run back to the other building. She was trying to think of how to reach him when she felt the weight of her gun shift against her spine as she heaved to catch her breath and calm the building anxiety. Dropping her hands, she frantically pushed up her shirt and pulled the gun from her waistband. Cocking it, Johnna tried to ease her breathing further but it was hard when she saw the tiny object nearly to the cabbie's mouth. From the angle of Sherlock's arm and how in sync it was to the other man's, he was hoisting something of his own as well. Johnna raised the gun, squaring herself and cupping a hand about her hold, bracing for the recoil. She took aim, staring down the cabbie with the object almost past his lips and timing a countdown with the frantic beating of her heart before pulling the trigger.

The crack of the gun echoed through the building accompanied by the tinkle of broken glass, the cabbie dropped and Sherlock jumped in alarm. Johnna lowered the weapon, ducking down out of sight should he turn to look for where the shot came from. The last thing she needed was Sherlock to find out it was her that had done it. She slumped to the ground, containing the urge to groan as she clung to her thigh, the release of the tension after seeing the man drop exposing the crippling pain once more. Pressing her back to the wall, she tucked the weapon away, letting herself heave for air a few more moments. The sound of sirens shrieking through the night drew a wry smile to her lips. The police were finally showing up. Lestrade took her seriously after all. Relief ran through her but she stayed still, waiting, hoping that she could find a window to leave without being found.

* * *

><p>Johnna was careful in taking a round-about way to get to the crowd of police cars and the ambulance parked outside of the college, the whole area covered in flickering lights. Her leg still ached but Johnna masked it with the act of worry, she jogged toward the cars with her hands in her coat pockets to mock needing the warmth. An officer attempted to stop her and she began the act with a frantic sob. "Please, my flatmate's in there—"<p>

"I'm sorry, miss but this is a crime scene."

"It's alright, Briggs, let her in!" Sergeant Donovan had noticed her and waved her over. She ducked the tape as the officer held it aloft for her and hurried to the other woman standing beside another car across from where the ambulance stood. There was no sign of Sherlock or the cabbie inside of it.

"You got here rather quick." Donovan observed, leaning against the car. Johnna stood beside the vehicle, facing the ambulance while trying to keep up the appearance of 'concerned flatmate.'

"Where is he?" She looked about the scene.

"He's fine. Still alive and ready to smart off another day." She insisted, Johnna sighing in relief and letting herself relax visibly even though she already knew he'd be fine in the end. "They're bringing him out soon to look him over."

"What happened in there?" Johnna asked, "I knew something was wrong but—"

"Turns out it was a cabbie that done it after all." Sally explained, indicating the cab where it still sat. "Been picking up people and forcing 'em to play a sick game of chance with some pills."

"Oh, that's horrible." She gasped, shaking her head. "That's how he poisoned them? By making them take a pill?"

"They took one, he'd take the other." Sally nodded. "Whoever lived won the game."

"Did Sherlock win?"

"No, cabbie was shot by someone. We're still looking into it."

The fact that she didn't know where the bullet had come from amused Johnna but she had to play a part at the moment. Keeping her face wrought with concern, she kept it up a bit longer, fidgeting while Sergeant Donovan continued to tell her of the whole experience from what they had gathered in passing from Sherlock and the evidence in the area. Johnna tried to be attentive but a small group of people caught her eye and she saw Sherlock being led to the ambulance. They urged him to sit down, which he protested against but they continued to insist until eventually sagged down and sat on the floor of the ambulance with an utterly displeased look on his face. A paramedic tried to check him, prodding and asking questions, Sherlock dismissing all of them and refusing to remove his coat stubbornly until they finally gave up. The paramedic draped a bright orange shock blanket about his shoulders, to which Sherlock plucked at, puzzled and shrugged it off. He replaced the blanket again, Sherlock trying to remove it once more but the other man laid it over him one last time, squeezing his shoulders with a firmness that stilled Sherlock's immediate removal again before moving into the back of the ambulance. Detective Inspector Lestrade approached as he indicated it, complaining.

"Why have I got this blanket? They keep putting this blanket on me." He carped.

"Yeah, it's for shock." Lestrade didn't hide the grin he bore.  
>"I'm not in shock!" Sherlock protested, offended by the idea.<br>"Yeah, but some of the guys want to take photographs."

Johnna smiled to herself, glancing over as Sergeant Donovan excused herself and walked off. She eyed the two while they talked, settling her face to be placid now that everything seemed to be alright. She rubbed at her cheeks to keep from smiling again, tucking her fingers back into her pockets quickly enough. The boys continued to talk. Lestrade was clearly enjoying the sight of Sherlock sitting there with a shock blanket around his person and she couldn't blame him. Sherlock's pride was certainly dented by now.

"So the shooter…no sign?"  
>"Cleared off before we got here. But a guy like that would have had enemies, I suppose. One of them could have been following him, but we've got nothing to go on." Lestrade's smile waned now, confronted with another person to track down. She wouldn't have much to worry about if it was just Lestrade looking for the shooter but Sherlock was smiling now, slight but still a smile and her blood ran cold when he stood up.<br>"Oh, I wouldn't say that."  
>"Okay. Give it to me." Lestrade turned in a listening ear, fetching a notebook from his pocket.<p>

Sherlock switched into deductive mode, that didn't make her feel any more comfortable. "The bullet they've just dug out of the wall's from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance from that kind of a weapon, that's a crack shot. But not just a marksman, a fighter. His hands couldn't have shaken at all, so clearly he's acclimatized to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger though, so strong moral principle." He began to look around and Johnna knew it would only be a matter of time before he spotted her. So far he was describing a man, so he wasn't as spot-on as he imagined himself to be. That put her at ease enough to maintain her stoicism. She raised her eyes level to his just as he caught her gaze. "You're looking for a man with a history of military service and…" He slowed to a stop, staring at her. She continued to watch him until she nonchalantly looked away. His next words brought her the reprieve she had been holding her breath for. "Actually, you know what? Ignore me."  
>"Sorry?"<br>"Ignore all of that." Sherlock waved his hand. "It's just the, er…the shock talking."

Johnna shifted her weight from one leg to the other, observing the two while Sherlock started to walk away from the ambulance and toward her. Lestrade hurried to his side, trying to catch his arm and stop him. "Where are you going?"

"I just need to… talk about the… the rent." His eyes were fixed on her but she held her ground.  
>"But I've still got questions for you!"<br>"Oh, what now?!" Sherlock rounded on the detective inspector. "Look, I'm in shock—I've got a blanket."

"Sherlock!" Lestrade was growing irate at his avoidance and Holmes knew it.

"And I just caught you a serial killer." He reminded, pausing and thinking a moment. " More or less."  
>Lestrade stared him down for a few ticks, his eyes searching his face until he finally gave a slow nod. "Okay. We'll put you in tomorrow. Off you go." He indicated the line and Sherlock moved on without another word. He walked toward her, removing the blanket and wadding it up as he made his way. He reached the police car she stood beside, tossing it into the open window, ducking the line and straightening up directly in front of her.<p>

They stared one another down, Sherlock's eyes piercing, reading through her mask and she cleared her throat, averting her eyes a moment. Wasn't that one thing a liar should be wary of? Keeping eye contact for too long? Normally one thought it was the other way around but fixing your eyes too long can look like one is trying too hard. Shuffling her position again, she took a breath. "Sergeant Donovan's just been explaining everything to me. The two pills, dreadful business, isn't it? Dreadful."

Even though she tried to dismiss it, Sherlock smiled down at her almost as if he were proud. "Good shot."

"Yeah, it must have been." She agreed passively. "I heard it was from one building to the next."

"Well, you'd know." He smirked. Flicking his eyes down to her hands, he moved on. "Need to get the powder burns out of your fingers. I don't suppose you'd serve time for this, but let's avoid the court case."

Beginning to walk forward, Sherlock started his usual pace but Johnna met it the moment he took his first step, keeping beside him this time, which he seemed to notice because he looked at her again while they walked. Johnna smiled to herself, pleased she had caught on but she did strain a little as the pain radiated in her muscles, reminding her she still had a gimp leg to take care of later.

"Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright." She raised an eyebrow at him.  
>"Well, you have just killed a man."<br>Johnna hesitated, slowing to a stop while Sherlock turned about, facing her again but standing ahead this time. "Yes, that's true, isn't it?" She lightly bit her lower lip, thinking back to the gun in her hands and the sight of the cabbie dropping out of sight. It was not an unfamiliar one but there would always be that lingering weight on her shoulders, no matter how she tried to justify it. She concealed it, reapplying her façade with a slight smile. "But he wasn't a very nice man."

"No." Even responding in negative, he was agreeing with her. "No, he wasn't, really, was he?"  
>"Frankly, a bloody awful cabbie." Over all…<br>Sherlock chuckled, tilting his head down as he mused over the comment. "That's true, he was a bad cabbie." They began walking again, Johnna in step and Sherlock letting her meet it. "You should have seen the route he took us to get here."

The comment on his poor route choice drew forth a giggle that both startled and eased her at the same time. Both of them started to snicker, grinning even though she fought against the grin. Three times on the same night now. She tried to stifle it, unable to stop smiling while she reprimanded him. "Stop it! We can't giggle, it's a crime scene. Stop it!"

There was no stopping though. He was still enjoying a chuckle when he caught her on her reprimanding. "_You're _the one who shot him.  
>"Keep your voice down!" She hissed, swatting his arm before they both choked on their giggles and straightened up at the sight of Sergeant Donovan. Both of them murmured excuses, quickening their pace just a little more around her before they finally came to another stop near the street to collect themselves.<p>

Johnna sighed off the giddiness at their little laugh and eyed him, the ghost of the smile still plaguing her lips. It felt good to finally get along with him, if that's what this was anyway. Whatever it was, they made eye contact, they spoke, they laughed, and she even found it in her to swat at him, that was a step towards friendliness, wasn't it? She wriggled her hand back into her pocket from when she smacked his arm, glancing his way to see if he had recovered well enough. Still, seeing him smiling and chuckling now compared to watching his back through a set of windows in a room where he was facing his own death, it was an odd contrast and left her wandering.  
>"You were going to take that pill, weren't you?" She asked at last.<br>"Course I wasn't. I was biding my time." Scoffing at the idea, Sherlock turned a little, eyeing her. There was that odd look of pride in his eye again. "Knew you'd turn up."  
>" No, you didn't." It was her turn to ridicule him. "That's how you get your kicks, isn't it? You risk your life to prove you're clever."<br>"Why would I do that?"  
>He was being ridiculous, but ridiculous worked. "Because you're an idiot."<br>Staring down at her, a new sort of smile began to curl his lip. He tilted his head to the side a little, studying her and pressing his lips together. It wasn't the dissecting stare or a stare of interest, just mild curiosity like he was marveling something. Releasing his lips from the pressure, he straightened his head up again. "Dinner?"  
>"Starving." No argument there. She barely touched the food at Angelo's after all.<p>

"End of Baker Street, there's a good Chinese—stays open till two." Sherlock suggested while they walked on. "You can always tell a good Chinese by the bottom third of the door handle."

"How—" she wanted to ask how he could tell but the question was broken upon her noticing a familiar black car pulling up in the street. It hugged the curb, the lights dying and the doors of the car opened simultaneously as Anthea emerged from within, still on her phone as always. She walked around the car without looking up to check her route and the strange man from the warehouse appeared from the other door, still bearing that umbrella of his. He barely shut his car door when Johnna glanced to Sherlock. He hadn't noticed the car it seemed.

"Sherlock," She kept her voice down but urgent and he glanced her way. "That's him. That's the man I told you about." She nodded her head his way, seeing the stranger approaching, swinging the umbrella rhythmically back and forth at his side.

"I know exactly who that is." He said, the smile gone now as they rerouted and met the man in the street.

The mystery man's smile was as lofty as his voice as he spoke once they were close enough, setting the tip of his umbrella upon the stones of the street. "So, another case cracked. How very public spirited. Though that's never really your motivation, is it?" His attention was more on Sherlock than her, probably what she should have expected by now since the man he was actually interested in was in person.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asked, agitated.

"As ever, I'm concerned about you." Hardly sounded like concern in her opinion when he sounded as haughty as ever.  
>"Yes, I've been hearing about your 'concern'." He glanced down at her in a brief exchange then back to the other man.<p>

The cold eyes of the taller man surveyed her when they noticed Holmes' attention on her and she felt the scrutiny of that oddly familiar pale stare it until he faced Sherlock again. Johnna still couldn't place how she recognized his eyes when no one she really knew had pale eyes like that, aside from Sherlock but that man's gaze was like a bloody mood ring. "Always so aggressive. Did it never occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?"  
>"Oddly enough, no." The mocking expression set a firm line across the other man's mouth.<br>"We have more in common than you'd like to believe. This petty feud between us is simply childish. People will suffer." Discomfort trickled into Johnna's stomach at the statement. Maybe he was an enemy after all and it wasn't just an exaggeration? "And you know how it always upset Mummy."

Wait, what was that? Johnna balked, gawking between the two.  
>"<em>I <em>upset her? _Me_? It wasn't me that upset her, Mycroft." Sherlock put off.  
>Johnna held her hands up, keeping them low enough so she didn't broadcast them to the others but enough to try and halt the conversation. "Hang on, Mummy? Who's Mummy?"<br>" Mother. Our mother. This is my brother, Mycroft." Sherlock revealed the identity of the other man pointedly. "Putting on weight again?"  
>Mycroft's face fell flat. "Losing it, in fact."<br>"He's your brother?" Johnna pointed at Mycroft. Sherlock had a brother?  
>"Course he's my brother."<p>

It wasn't something she could guess immediately when the man himself claimed to be an enemy! Johnna resisted the urge to strangle him for the sake of their newborn tolerance of one another and kept her hands fisted in her pockets. So, Sherlock had a brother who hardly resembled him but at least now she could pinpoint why the eyes seemed so damn familiar. The brothers both had a rather cold look to their eyes whether they meant it or not but Sherlock's were little deviants that liked to trick a person's perception on what their true color could be. One moment grey, the next blue, sometimes there were even traces of green and it was infuriating whenever she noticed the changes in their brief interactions through the days. Mycroft's seemed as grey and calculating as when she met him hours ago. Still…Sherlock Holmes had a brother?  
>"So he's not-"<br>"Not what?" He interrupted.  
>"Oh, I don't know…criminal mastermind?" He certainly made the impression of one when they talked last.<br>Sherlock smirked briefly. "Close enough."  
>"For goodness sake, I occupy a <em>minor<em> position in the British government." Mycroft insisted with a minute shrug of a shoulder.  
>"He <em>is <em>the British government, when he's not too busy being the British Secret Service, or the CIA on a freelance basis." Sherlock prattled on, trying to speed things up. Johnna wanted to count the occupations on her fingers, curious how one man could handle so many in one lifetime. No wonder he looked the way he did, the man was secret service incarnate. "Good evening, Mycroft. Try not to start a war until I get home, you know what it does for the traffic."  
>This time Johnna let him walk on without her, lingering with Mycroft and Anthea still standing in the street. The woman looked as elegant and professional as ever but her attention span was that of a goldfish, all the world was oblivion past the screen of that blackberry in her hands. Johnna didn't see Mycroft wielding a phone so maybe she did that part of his job for him. Slipping her hands into her pockets again, she eyed him warily as he settled his gaze on her with a dry smile. "So…when you say you're concerned about him, you actually are concerned?"<br>The question appeared to puzzle him. Like he thought his intensions would have been obvious. "Yes, of course."  
>"This is just a childish feud?" All the sneaking around, the cameras, the meetings in warehouses, it was all just because two brothers didn't get along? If she thought her problems with Harriet were bad, they paled in comparison to the Holmes brothers' situation if this was the case.<br>Mycroft appeared something that resembled forlorn but not quite as emotive as he watched Sherlock walk on. "He's always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners."

No, no she couldn't imagine them. Seeing those two sitting in a room with Christmas décor all about with a roaring fire…no, she couldn't imagine it after all. Shaking her head, she shuddered. "No, God no…excuse me."

Before she had to deal with him further, she hurried off to rejoin Sherlock, finding him waiting for her at the other end of the street. She met up with him and they set off at a pace together again. Johnna wasn't sure what it was that made him smile again when she checked. Maybe he was entertained by her little jog to catch up to him or the uncomfortable conversation with his brother, but she felt that these little grins here and there tonight were a kind of foreshadowing of many more to come.

"So, is this how it's always going to be?" she asked, catching his eye. "Crime scenes, murderers, visits from the British government…or do we just go back to how things were?"

"Well that all depends…"

"Depends on what?"

Smirking, he nodded to her, "Depends on you."

* * *

><p>It was late by the time Johnna found herself back in the walls of 221b, helping Sherlock find order in their flat by gathering up the spilled papers and relocating floored books to their shelves. Her flatmate grumbled incoherently over the condition of his experiments, letting Johnna stack the test tubes in their rack with careful fingers while he returned the human eyes to the microwave. Sherlock lingered over his lab equipment while Johnna returned dishes to cabinets, re-folded hastily pulled out flannels, and re-assembled the coffee pot that had been dismantled down to the next filter before going to the bathroom and returning everything to the medicine cabinet from where it had been emptied into the sink. Not without taking a moment to swallow down a couple pain killers, however. Her leg was murder.<p>

By the time it resembled the organized chaos Sherlock typically left it in, she came into the sitting room, finding Sherlock facing the windows and holding her cane, lightly tapping the handle into his palm. Once she was within a few feet of him, he turned about and held it out to her. She accepted it, sighing at the weight of it in her hands again. Even though she had stretches of freedom from the aid, the good doctor still needed the device. For now, anyway. Johnna glanced up at Sherlock, the man's lips twitching before he moved around her and disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Until tomorrow, John."

That was as close to "good night" she felt like she had ever gotten before and smiled to herself, leaving the sitting room and making her way up to her bedroom. She had to use her cane when she reached the stairs, her leg refusing to move another step without aid after the strain she had put it through that night and the chemical aid of the pills still hadn't taken effect. Johnna cringed while she made the climb but even with the pain, she felt remarkably satisfied. Her day had taken such a dramatic turn, leaving her facing a decision that she felt like she had already made before she even stepped into her bedroom.

Shutting the door after her, Johnna switched on her table-side lamp, peering about the room now basking in its pale light. Her attention fall upon the desk, to which she manipulated herself over to, leaning over the back of the chair and eying Bradley's letter still laying solitary on the wooden surface. Hooking the cane upon the edge of the desk, Johnna pulled the chair out and seated herself, ignoring the siren call of her own bed in favor of the task she had been putting off for weeks.

Retrieving a pen from the far corner of the desk, she found a piece of paper, opening Bradley's letter to lay alongside her own to refer to if she needed reminders on things she needed to include in her reply to her old friend. Her eyes felt heavy and her body ached from the physical trials of the day, but the letter took priority to her weariness. She had put it off long enough.

_Bradley,_

_I'm sorry. I know I'm several weeks behind on writing back to you. To be honest, I didn't have much to write about even if I tried. If I wrote this yesterday, you would have heard news that I have a flat (apartment as you call it) and a flatmate (a roommate) to share it with. His name is Sherlock Holmes. We are living in the center of London, ideally located and at a good price thanks to Sherlock's connections with the landlady, Mrs. Hudson. If I wrote this yesterday, aside from mentioning my new flatmate's odd habits, I'm afraid you would have found my letter exceedingly dull. My life hadn't changed much up to then, after all. However, today, I find I finally have something to write about…_

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><p><strong>((So, how was it? Feel free to leave a review to let me know if you enjoyed the FemJohn re-write of <em>A Study in Pink<em>. Let me know if you want to see more episode re-writes with Johnna in the future and feel free to mention any pairings you would have liked to see if you feel like seeing more of Johnna around. No pressure, I just like to hear from you.**

**Thank you for reading my fic and I hope you find more!))**_  
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