Trudging across the sopping wet sidewalk from his cab to the steps of 221 Baker street, John ignored formalities opening the front door and marching up the stairs to the flat he used to share with his best friend Sherlock Holmes. John had moved out of 221B after Sherlock's fall from atop St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Mrs. Hudson had been forced to get new tenants, but evicted them the moment Sherlock returned and for the past year and a half, it's been home to both Sherlock Holmes, and his wife; Brianna Turner.
The door to the flat at the top of the landing stood ajar. John stopped and forced himself to take a deep, calming breath before knocking firmly on the frame of the door.
"Sherlock, you let your charge run out again. I've been ringing." He said as calmly as he could manage, pushing open the door and letting himself in. "I've been worried…" The Doctor's thought trailed off as he starred at Sherlock's empty chair before the fireplace. He spun to face the kitchen and found the seat in front of the microscope vacant as well.
"Sherlock?" John wandered deeper into the flat toward his old room. "Brianna, what's he got himself into?" He asked pushing open the door. The room was no longer John's room. Now it was Brianna's study; her workroom. The walls and desk were covered in sketches and drawings; portraits, landscapes and bits of architecture and anatomy. Her sketch book lay open in the centre of the desk, surrounded by her favourite mediums; pencils, chalk and charcoal. Her chair, like Sherlock's, was empty. He turned from the empty room and called for Mrs. Hudson as a set of footsteps ascended the stairs.
The Doctor took a few steps into the hall as his tall, dark haired friend stepped into view dressed in his usual long coat and blue scarf. He stood in the front hall and looked around barely moving; figuring out some mystery only he could see. He looked through John as if he wasn't standing in front of him.
"Oy! I said you missed lunch. Isn't your phone working?" John barked. Sherlock didn't react to his outburst other than to move from the entrance into the living room. John sighed and followed him. He took a seat in his chair, across from Sherlock's; like old times and watched Sherlock as he stood thinking. Sherlock and Brianna still referred to this chair as John's seat. It was always reserved for him. Of course Brianna would use it on occasion, but preferred to lounge on the couch, or to lie on her stomach on the floor at the foot of Sherlock's chair; either to read, or finish up her latest drawing.
John watched silently as Sherlock's eyes darted around the room curiously. He hadn't even bothered to take off his coat or loosen his scarf.
"Something wrong?" John asked.
"Brianna?" Sherlock called down the hall to the bedrooms.
"I don't think she's in." John said. Sherlock looked confused. "Maybe she's down with Mrs. Hudson." John suggested as footsteps out in the hall made Sherlock's head whip around. "See Sherlock? There she is now."
"No," Sherlock said quietly. "That's Mrs. Hudson." He noted her slow progress up the stairs.
"Were you calling for your wife?" Mrs. Hudson called from the staircase. Sherlock waited for her at the door. Mrs. Hudson was old and frail; still sporting pastel colours and floral patterns. Lately her hip had been giving her more grief than normal and climbing the stairs of the house was getting harder. She held tight to the banister with one hand and held a vase containing a single blood red rose with the other.
"I thought I told you no flowers." Sherlock rolled his eyes. He had no feeling one way or the other about flowers, but Brianna always got upset when they start to wilt and die.
"Oh it's not mine dear, it's Brianna's." Mrs. Hudson said matter-of-factly as she sauntered into the flat. "After you left and she didn't come down for breakfast I came up to make sure she wasn't having difficulties." She looked to John who nodded sympathetically. 6 months previously they had discovered that Brianna had Multiple Sclerosis and although she was usually in very good health, it sometimes changed suddenly. Sherlock's eyes flicked toward their bedroom momentarily concerned. "When I got up here she was already gone and I found this," Mrs. Hudson held up the rose, "just sitting out, so I took it downstairs to put it in a vase." She looked accusingly at Sherlock. "I couldn't find a vase anywhere up here, and I wasn't about to put it in a beaker!"
"We don't have a vase because flowers are impractical, and Brianna gets upset when they die. So, that wouldn't be hers."
"Someone could have got it for her? Or for you?" John suggested with a slight smile on his face as he teased his friend.
"Don't be stupid John." Sherlock dismissed. John frowned and busied himself making tea as Sherlock pulled out his mobile.
No New Messages
"She won't be texting if she went to work." John tried to help. Sherlock looked like he was about to get agitated, but didn't know why he was upset; like he had woken from an upsetting dream, but couldn't remember what it had been about to put him on edge.
"She doesn't work on Sundays."
"She could be covering for a mate? Mary and I do it all the time."
"Unlikely." Sherlock whispered. His body stopped moving as his mind raced.
"Oh no." John sighed. He recognized the sight of Sherlock shutting himself off from the rest of the world as he tried to work something out. Sometimes he would warn John that he was retreating to his Mind Palace, other times he would just freeze and become completely unresponsive to everything around him. "Mrs. H, you might want to take a seat."
Gladly Mrs. Hudson sat down on the couch, the vase in her lap, watching Sherlock just as intently as John. The days of watching him with mixed thoughts of "This is odd" and "Is he broken?" far behind them. Now anything he did was just "good old Sherlock."
"John, you can sit down." Sherlock said eventually as he moved away into the bedrooms. John had barely bent his knees to recline in his sofa chair when Sherlock came stomping back into the living room calling for Mrs. Hudson.
"What did you hear this morning? Anything strange? Did anyone visit?" He bent down to her and stared her in the face. He was still calm, but spoke with the intensity of an experienced interrogator.
Mrs. Hudson's eyes widened nervously as she tried to remember.
"Sherlock, is something wrong?" John asked. The smile at the corner of his mouth had been replaced by the shadow of a frown as he wondered if he should be worried about something. Without looking up from Mrs. Hudson Sherlock threw a ratty, leather bound book at John who caught it in midair only to recognize it immediately as Brianna's sketchbook. Naturally John's the first to admit that Sherlock knows Brianna better than he does; rightly so, but even John knew her well enough to know that Brianna never leaves the house without her sketchbook. He spoke up anyway, trying to reassure Sherlock.
"She could have just forgotten it."
"You and I both know that Brianna leaving the flat without her sketchbook would be like you or I leaving the house without shoes." Sherlock's train of thought was derailed as his eyes focussed on Mrs. Hudson's hand; there was a fresh bandage on one of her fingers. His eyes flicked back to the rose, zooming in on a dozen sharp, little thorns; most commercially sold roses have the thorns removed so that the flowers are more delicate and less threatening. His eyes moved from the stem and focussed next on the petals; blood red.
The detective's eyes squinted as he analyzed it.
Across the room, still in his chair John stopped flipping through the pages of the sketchbook and called out,
"Sherlock?"
"Shut up John." The Detective dismissed. "Mrs. Hudson, where did you find that rose?"
"It was lying across the mantel piece." She pointed. Sherlock's brain quickly pulled out all the pieces of the puzzle, silently fitting all the clues together. The rose was left on the mantelpiece where Sherlock would look. It was left in an empty house. The rose still had thorns; meaning the person who left it is not frightened of a little pain. And then there was the colour; blood red, a conscious colour choice, but was it a threat or part of the clue to whoever left it. Brianna was gone, but where he could not tell. Her shoes were gone, but her sketchbook was left behind as a warning sign that she hadn't gone willingly.
"Sherlock, look!" John persisted.
"What?" Sherlock shouted as he spun to face John who was holding Brianna's sketchbook open to a page with the portrait of a woman. The drawing was of a thin woman with fierce eyes, dark hair, narrow lips and a harsh jawline. The woman in the drawing was gorgeous. Both John and Sherlock recognized her immediately as the person they used to know as The Woman; Irene Adler. Sherlock took the sketchbook from John and examined the drawing closely. It was remarkably accurate.
"I thought she was dead?" John asked. Sherlock remained silent. "Is she involved in… whatever this is?" John asked as a moaning sigh that hadn't sounded in the flat in nearly 5 years resonated from deep inside Sherlock's jacket pocket.
Mrs. Hudson looked affronted. "Not this again!"
"You never changed that?" John questioned. Sherlock ignored his companions and looked at the message.
I'm not alone.
Let's have dinner.
Another moaning sigh made John blush.
Should I take your silence as a yes?
Sherlock did not answer. He stood still in his living room starring at his mobile phone.
She's not quite my type, but I do like how she plays hard to get.
Might just have to punish her…
Where is she?
