"So… he just fell?"

"Yes."

"You didn't throw him out of the window like you did with the American bloke. He just fell."

"Yes, John. He just fell." Sherlock gave an exasperated sigh, frustrated by the fact that his friend simply wasn't as gullible as he was five years ago. He heard a laugh from Mary who was sitting in the corner and shot her a dangerous look, "what?" He demanded, slightly embarrassed by just how transparent his lie was. Telling the truth would be backing down, though, and Sherlock never admitted defeat.

"Nothing! It's just… Oh, Sherlock, you are funny sometimes," she continued giggling at the detective as he glared at her, understanding he was too proud to withdraw from his lie. Both Mary and John Watson were completely aware that Sherlock threw the man out of the window, and Sherlock was equally aware that they knew this. Mary had occasionally been able to pry the truth from him – he "learnt it on YouTube," "saw Mycroft do it once," "got the idea from Blue Peter" – but those times were few and far between and it didn't seem as though now was one of them.

Sherlock jumped out of his armchair and stepped through the kitchen and into the hallway. He was bored. Stupendously bored. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy John and Mary's company; he appreciated their presence a great deal. It was more that nothing 'big' had happened, so to speak. Yes, Jim Moriarty had miraculously popped up from the dead thus preventing Sherlock from being dead in six months' time and he was grateful for that, but Moriarty had been completely quiet for weeks on end now. Sherlock had had very few interesting cases, a lot more death threats than usual (he supposed that that had something to do with shooting their favourite journalist in the head; never a good way to make friends), several "tuts" from Mrs Hudson for "treating poor Janine like that," (he had told her he was with Janine to gather information which would help him take down the most dangerous man he had ever met but, alas, Mrs Hudson nagged him that it was "no excuse" and threatened to speak with his mother again). Right now, he was desperate.

"They're not in there," John called from the living room, "or in that weird pointy slipper. I'm not stupid, you know."

"Do you get that impression?" Sherlock felt utterly furious that John had moved his cigarettes; they were his cigarettes, not John's cigarettes. He could almost taste the tobacco in his mouth and feel the smoke fill his lungs as he thought about them. Instead of arguing back, though, he continued on to his room. Sherlock was in an excessively defensive mood, obsessing over petty actions merely to prove a point. His only justification for this behaviour was that he was bored. Following slamming his door rather childishly, Sherlock threw himself onto his bed, burying his face deep into his pillow. His room was cold despite the fact that he was not one for opening windows and so he assumed that Mrs Hudson had opened it after tidying his room – she really was his housekeeper. After moving his head out of his pillow and turning over, however, he dropped this conclusion entirely.

On the pillow beside him lay a few sky blue flowers, joined at the stem. Myosotis arvensis, or 'forget-me-nots' as people more often called them. They were extremely small flowers, each with five-lobed petals and bright yellow centres. "Flowers?" Sherlock whispered, confused about the flowers' source. Sherlock picked up the little flowers and climbed off of his bed, walking back into the living room.

"Pleased to see you've finished your little strop now, Sherlock!" John mocked, smirking at genius' immaturity.

"Did either of you leave myosotis on my bed?" Sherlock enquired, frowning at the couple.

"Myo-what-is? Do you want to speak English now, mate?"

"Forget-me-nots. Did you leave little blue flowers on my pillow?"

"Who even uses the scientific names of plants?!" John laughed, shaking his head at Sherlock.

Sherlock opted to ignore John's remark, pushing again at his enquiry, "did you or didn't you?"

"Sherlock, why would we leave you a couple of flowers in your room?" Mary smiled at him as she went into the kitchen, flicking the kettle on, "perhaps it's Moriarty letting you know he's still here. He's a bit of a drama queen, after all, so sending you flowers to make sure you forget-him-not seems like his style."

"I couldn't forget him if I tried. Well," Sherlock raised his eyebrows in thought, "I could delete him. But that's not exactly safe. It's not Moriarty though, no. He'd go for something more in-your-face – a bomb with 'love from Jim' on a post-it-note or something."

John chuckled and rolled his eyes at this thought; a bomb in place of flowers was much more James Moriarty style. "I'll have a cup of tea if you're making yourself one, Mary," John folded his newspaper and placed it on the table next to him. Except for the sound of teaspoons clinking against the sides of mugs as Mary made tea, the flat had gone quickly silent, meaning each and every tiny sound was audible. Even from Sherlock's bedroom.

Almost imperceptibly, Sherlock's phone went off. Except this wasn't his usual text alert.

"What the fuck was that?" John uttered, slowly looking up at Sherlock who still stood clutching the forget-me-nots.

Sherlock felt his stomach turn and lost his breath for a second. Had John not have reacted, he might have thought he had imagined the sound. He knew he couldn't lie to John; such a noise was unmistakable and it was one which John had heard from his friend's phone many times. John knew exactly what "that" was. This wasn't something Sherlock could attempt to lie his way out of. Instead, he went with what he had said the first time: "it's a text alert. It means I've got a text."

As Sherlock began to walk to his room, John sprung from his seat and grabbed the detective, "don't you dare walk away from me. Care to bloody explain? She's dead. Mycroft told me she was dead. He checked. He was thorough. And now you want to tell me she's alive?" Sherlock opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by John, "no, you stay quiet just for a second, Sherlock Holmes. You let me believe she was dead. I had to hold that information from you, I had to lie to you and tell you she was on a witness protection scheme thinking that even that thought would break your heart, I had to worry about how you'd feel if you ever found out she was dead and you just let me? When were you gonna tell me, Sherlock? Were you ever gonna tell me? I'm your friend, your best friend, for fuck's sake, and you couldn't even trust me with that information." John shook his head and slumped back into his armchair, "how is she still alive?"

Sherlock sat opposite John, eager rush through the story in order to sooner fetch his phone. "I had been tracking her for a while to ensure her safety and when I realised she'd been captured I flew out to Karachi. I was only away for a few days and for those days you were visiting Harry. She has an entirely new identity which I set up for her and has been safe ever since. There's been no need to tell you, John, and I apologise that the secret offended you. It was vital that the information was kept off of your blog, though."

"You think I'd post that on my blog? Do you seriously not trust me at all?"

"It's not that I don't trust you," Sherlock stood up from his chair and unbuttoned his suit jacket, "you know that I trust you more than anyone. I just couldn't tell you."

"You'd rather let me believe she was dead?"

"Much less irritating that way; no unnecessary questions about the trip to Pakistan for me to answer and what not."

"So," John called as Sherlock walked into the kitchen, "you let me think she was dead so I didn't ask if you had sex with her? Nice one, Sherlock." He rolled his eyes and shook his head, vexed by his friend's lack of empathy.

"As it so happens, yes!" Sherlock smiled patronisingly before rushing into his bedroom. He threw the flowers back onto his bed and took his phone from his coat which hung on his door, just as it had the first time he'd heard that particular text alert.

Did you like the flowers? I thought they were appropriate. IA

For a mere second, Sherlock found himself to be absolutely livid with the Woman. Using this particular number could get her into a great deal of danger and, since it was him who had been so careful about ensuring her safety, this was the last thing he wanted to happen. She could be tracked down – there was always the chance that there were people keeping an eye out for her, even after her "death" – and perhaps even caught. She was foolish to have actually signed the text with her initials; even if somebody else was now using her mobile number, it was highly unlikely that they'd share her initials. She was practically giving herself up. Sherlock hoped, though, that nobody would be tracking the number as her fake-death had been extremely convincing.

Sherlock considered ignoring the text message but knew that not replying would simply provoke her to text him all the more. Instead, he replied:

An unnecessary pun. SH

He was aware that texting back would do nothing to improve the safety of her using the number but he supposed that nor would not texting back. He sat on his bed, suddenly nervous for her reply. Straight away he knew that these nerves were pointless as he read her more than predictable reply:

Just making sure you don't delete me in a hurry. Let's have dinner. IA

Sherlock smirked at her obviousness as he stood up from his bed and grabbed his coat. Walking into the kitchen, he saw a confused John Watson staring at him from his armchair.

"You're suddenly looking a bit confident. You might want to deflate your ego a bit in case you can't squeeze it out of the door!" John taunted, laughing to himself as he saw the detective frown.

"Off out, Sherlock?" Mary enquired, looking genuinely interested, "John tells me you're off to meet some dead woman… another Casper, then?"

"Ha! She's more of an over-friendly ghost if you ask me!" The doctor continued to mock Sherlock; he took great pleasure from seeing his friend's discomfort in regards to the Woman.

"Oh, John, stop it now! It's nice for Sherlock to take interest in someone for reasons other than getting information about her boss from her. How did you two meet? He says you've known her for a few years now."

John burst out laughing upon his wife's question about their first encounter and Sherlock shot him an angry glance. He knew it was probably best that Mary didn't find out that the woman in question was a former dominatrix who had introduced herself by straddling his thigh whilst stark naked (with the exception of her Louboutins and diamond earrings) as he attempted to retrieve compromising photographs of herself with a member of the royal family. Well, not for now, anyway. Instead, he chose to give her a censored version of the events, "I met her on a case." He heard John snigger and decided that this would be a good time to leave before the conversation got particularly complicated.

"Where are you off to?" John asked as Sherlock walked out of the door.

Poking his head back around, he replied "I'm off for dinner with Miss Irene Adler."