"Scuze me sir, but are you Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

A girl, no older than fourteen, bumped into Sherlock on his way downtown. His eyes quickly scanned the girl for anything odd saying that she'd give away his secret. After figuring she was harmless, he flashed a flat lipped smile.

"Yes. What do you want?"

The girl stuck her hand into her pocket and made a fist, indicating she had something in her hand.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, there's a man that told me to give these to you."

She pulled out a clenched fist and opened it slowly to reveal two polished white marbles. Sherlock examined the glass spheres in her palm and carefully took them into his, rolling the cool orbs around with his thumb. He pushed them into his pocket hastily and set an icy stare on the girl.

"American… interesting. Who sent you? What's your name?"

The girl pulled a scarf out of her jacket pocket and wrapped it around her neck tightly. She peered behind her to make sure nobody was looking and then began to speak.

"My name is Margaret, and you'll be seeing me again, Mr. Holmes. Bye."

And at that, Margaret left, leaving Sherlock to ponder who sent her to him.

xxxxx

"My dear, did you find Sherlock?"

"Yes sir, and I gave him the marbles."

"What'd you think of him?"

"He's kinda cute like you said, but he still scares me."

"Good, my darling. I knew he wasn't dead. Keep an eye out and report anything odd."

"Will do, sir."

xxxxx

Sherlock made his way to 221B and opened the door slowly. He couldn't let John know he was there yet. He knew that at that point, John would still be asleep, so Sherlock settled himself down on a large comfy armchair. Most of the flat was cleared out of anything that had belonged to him. He decided to surprise John. His violin was still resting by the window sill, so he picked it up and placed it under his chin. He brought the bow to the strings and had the instrument play note after sweet note, humming and reading the music he was composing still only days before he was to "die".

Sherlock was aware of the dangers of letting John become aware of his survival. He could be shot and killed quite easily. However, it had been several months and Sherlock was getting bored. Extremely bored. He also didn't want John to do something drastic and unchangeable like… no, he couldn't think about that. He would just be glad that John was still living there and didn't have the heart to throw out his precious violin.

John stumbled out of his bedroom sleepily, confused by the euphonious song of the violin wafting through the tiny apartment. He rubbed his eyes and froze in disbelief when he saw the tall, curly haired man standing before him.

"Sh-Sherlock? This can't be! You're dead! I saw you fall! I must be hallucinating or something!"

Sherlock set down his violin.

"I'm not dead, John. I'm alive and well. Call up Molly if you don't believe me. I've been staying with her."

John reached out to touch Sherlock. Once his hand met the sleeve of Sherlock's jacket, he gasped and whipped out his phone. Fingers flying, he dialed up Molly and held the device to his ear.

"Molly, is Sherlock alive?"

"What?"

"Sherlock is standing a meter away from me. Is he alive?"

"Come over to my flat."

John ended the call abruptly. He stuffed his phone into a jacket pocket and turned to face Sherlock, arms crossed.

"You will take me there. If you're real, we'll prove it."

Sherlock nodded and headed for the door. John ran to his room to replace his pajamas and dressing gown with a set of clean day clothes and followed his best friend to Molly's flat.

The two men soon arrived. Sherlock hung up his wet jacket (it had been raining) and motioned John to do the same on a coat rack by the door.

"Molly, I'm here, and I've brought John."

Molly rushed out from her room and went to welcome the pair.

"Hi Sherlock. Hi John. "

John's eyes widened.

"So he's alive?"

"Yes John, I am. You know me well enough to know that I wouldn't really die."

And at that, John wrapped his arms around Sherlock's neck. He pulled away and gave him a good whack to the face.

"Ow! What's wrong?"

John lifted his arms in hysteria.

"You-you pretended to kill yourself, and then you sneak into the flat and play the violin while I'm sleeping. What did you expect?"

"A warm welcome."

"Yeah, right. I almost broke my hand on your cheekbones!"

Molly giggled as John held out his hand, red and bruised. Sherlock ran to grab a cloth from the linen closet to clean the blood from the edge of his busted lip.

"John, would you like some tea?"

"Yes, thank you."

Molly raced to the kitchen to start making tea while Sherlock went to help her. Really, he needed to speak to her in private.

"Um, Sherlock, it may have been a bad idea to tell him about… you know. It could be dangerous."

Sherlock set the teacups aside.

"I'm aware, Molly. I just think he should know. I was bored, anyway."

Sherlock was sure that Molly didn't hear a word he said. She was just staring at him longingly. He worked on the tea until she snapped herself back together and began arranging chocolate biscuits on a dish. After a moment, Molly looked up confusedly. He turned his head and his icy blue eyes locked with her warm honey-brown ones.

"You did this because you were bored? Isn't that selfish?"

Sherlock whipped his head back into place.

"Ah, so you were listening. I assume, if you must know, this wasn't just because I was bored. I was worried. Worried about John. I knew he would become depressed and I was afraid he might do something like… well…"

Molly nodded slowly.

"I get it. My brother did the same thing. Except, he was too late, and well, you get the picture."

Sherlock took a few shaky breaths and felt his eyes fill up with heavy, salty tears. He kept his eyes open as long as possible to keep them from falling, but had to blink eventually, causing a fat drop to run down his cheek quickly, the warm bead spilling onto the breast pocket of his shirt.

"Yeah."

Molly stared at him, somberness taking over her face.

"You were just crying."

"No I wasn't. Anyway, I have emotions, you know."

"I know."

The duo finished putting the tea and biscuits together and brought them out to John. Little did they know, a pair of blue green eyes were staring into the room, with a cell phone pressed to an ear and a pair of red lips moving.

"Yes sir. He's staying with a woman named Molly Hooper."

A/N: Thanks for actually taking time to read this. I hope you enjoyed chapter one! Reviews keep me going! I love you all! I apologize for my American terminology, but it helps when it comes to synonyms and stuff.