Ch. 1

When speaking with Kepler's family, no one could even think of a suspect worth interrogating for the stealing of Tony's now inanimate body. Everyone simply loved him. His family told about how he led a perfectly content life before his untimely death: nice house, good job, good pay, and perfectly sociable.

Although, there was one interesting piece of information. Cressie, Tony's sister, had decided to donate blood at St. Bart's after her dear brother's death. As he was said to have died of leukemia, she wanted to help prevent her family's tragedy from moving on to others.

As Cressie settled into a chair before the nurses, she noticed one particular nurse who remarkably resembled her newly deceased brother. Was he still alive somehow? Unlike the other nurses, the man didn't even have a name tag, so there was no way of confirming Cressie's growing curiosity.

The man started over to her as he focused, head downward, on jerking on his latex gloves. Upon looking up, the nurse briefly gazed at Cressie, wide-eyed. She did just the same. But he had acted almost horrified, as if he'd seen a ghost. As if he'd realized just who he was approaching. The strange man quickly spun around, and hurried toward a fellow nurse.

After exchanging a few private words, he nodded weakly and escorted himself - or rather, paced himself - out of the room.

What had she done to bother him out of no where? Why had he bared the same face as Tony? What if he really was Tony? If so, what was he doing working as a nurse at a blood drive? These are the trivial questions that spun through Cressie's mind as a different nurse took over, and punctured her forearm with the needle.

Sherlock would've simply dismissed this as another regular, boring grave-robbery incident and moved on, but obviously, there was more to it somehow. And this Cressie girl seemed to have a decent-enough mindset and tone as she told her story. Most certainly not delusional.

Needless to say, he accepted the case.

Once they were back in the flat, John called St. Bart's to ask if anybody by the name of Tony Kepler worked or had worked there.

Inevitably, the answer was yes. Although, he apparently hadn't shown up for work ever since a young lady at the blood drive startled him immensely.

"Between you and me," the lady on the other end said. "I think the boss'll just throw 'im if he doesn't come back to work soon. Kind of a good thing, too. He's quite an odd one."

"Yeah, I know the type," John glanced up at Sherlock, who was using his microscope in the kitchen. "Thanks for the help."

He pressed "End" and set the phone down on the side table. A brief silence followed as he relaxed in his chair a little.

"…Well?"

John sat upright again. "He works there, but hasn't been at work since he spotted Cressie and ran out."

"Interesting," Sherlock said, dilating the microscope's focus. "But don't get your hopes up."

"What would I be getting my hopes up for?" John questioned.

"Considering over half the others working on this case are predicting that this is some kind of supernatural dead-man walking, perhaps you could hope for something out-of-the-ordinary for once. People always long for something greater than their abilities allow at some point or another, after all."

John was about to make a comment about how ridiculous that idea was, and how he would never think such a thing, but he could clearly see Sherlock was busy with some kind of experiment. Besides, arguing over this wouldn't even be worth it - seeing as he was, actually, somewhat wishful