Before you begin reading this chapter, I just want to let you all know that this chapter is sort of an experiment for me. I made this oc a while ago and thought she'd fit well in the Sherlock universe. If you guys think I should keep writing this story, favorite it, leave a comment, or try communicating with me telepathically. It may or may not turn into an oc x Sherlock story… we'll see how this all turns out. Thanks for reading!
"Alright, let's hear it," Sherlock said calmly, his eyes scanning the woman sitting before him.
"Well, first I should tell you a little bit about myself or this case won't make any sense," she said, her hands fidgeting nervously in her lap.
"I highly doubt that," Sherlock scoffed.
The woman's eyes flitted towards the tall man before they shot to the window as if she were a confused bird trapped indoors, searching for a way out.
"Please, continue miss," John said kindly.
She sent him a thankful look before her eyes fell towards her lap. With a deep breath, she began her story. "I was always a social butterfly when I was little. I made friends so easily. All through elementary school I was friends with everyone," a small smile graced the woman's face as she recalled the memory.
"Excuse me, but what does this have to do with the case?" Sherlock asked in irritation.
He was mildly surprised as the nervous woman ignored him and went on.
"Around middle school, things started to go wrong. I lost old friends, gained new ones, then by the time I reached high school, I was alone again. I was left with nobody. I stopped speaking, stopped making an effort to communicate with anyone. I had terrible social anxiety that seemed to ruin my mental health."
"All irrelevant," Sherlock huffed, "I do have other clients."
"No you don't," John scolded.
Sherlock shot his friend a look before turning back to the woman. "Are you quite finished?"
"Almost," she sniffled. "I left my home town and went to a large college where I wouldn't be noticed, where I could become another face in the crowd instead of Laura Tantrise. Surprisingly I took up acting at that college. I learned how to be other people instead of myself. I found that when I was acting I could be somebody else entirely. So, I stopped being myself and acted every day of my life. After graduating I took up two jobs. One was acting in big name theatre productions, the other was..." she paused for a moment in thought, searching for a name that described the other career.
"I guess you could call me a professional liar, or perhaps a magnificent impersonator," she grinned, her nervous demeanor vanishing completely.
"Not a real job," Sherlock interrupted, unfazed by the woman's change in attitude.
"Not really no, I invented it, sort of like your job as a consulting detective."
"How do I know you're telling the truth, Miss Professional Liar?" he challenged.
"Well I would hope you'd know whether or not I was lying Mr. Holmes, you're observations are supposed to be quite excellent."
Her statement seemed to pacify Holmes for the time being and he nodded for her to continue.
"Every now and again somebody would hear about my peculiar job and ask me to perform a task. These tasks ranged from "pretend to be my date at this dance" to "slip into this place unnoticed, do something, and get out". Now, this finally brings us to the case I need your help with. I came here to do a simple job for a wealthy Englishman. The job was easy, yes, but... how I got the job was curious to say the least. I received a mysterious phone call from out of the country as soon as I returned to my apartment after the last night of my show. The man who called me told me the task; get into some guys house while he was there, get some information from him, have a few drinks, then leave a purse at the house when I left. I thought it sounded simple enough, and I was used to weird calls like this, but I never had to leave the country to do a job. The man on the phone informed me that a ticket and some money would arrive at my house the next day and I would leave for the airport in the car that delivered these things to me. I did as I was told, flew here to London where I thought I'd meet my employer, or at least one of his employees, but all I got were more phone calls and rides from silent men from place to place. At this point I regretted taking the job and tried to back out, but they kept reassuring me through their phone calls that the job was simple and the next day I could fly back home with more tickets they'd provide," the woman paused and took a deep breath. She was very good at appearing calm, but Sherlock noticed that her shoulders had grown tense as she continued to explain.
"I was so stupid, I should've dropped out anyway, but when I noticed that every stoic driver was carrying a loaded pistol I just kept quiet about my doubts. So I did the job, and I expect tomorrow you'll hear about it. The men that hired me framed me for a murder they had committed."
"How do you know about it?" Sherlock inquired.
"When the car didn't arrive with the plane ticket and my pay this morning, I figured something was up. All the calls I had received were from blocked numbers so I couldn't contact my employer to ask any questions. Getting desperate, I tried calling the man I had visited the day before. He didn't answer so I stopped by his house only to find the door unlocked and the man dead."
"And you would like me to find the real murderer and prove your innocence," Sherlock stated.
Laura nodded, her focus drawn to a small thread hanging off of her sweater sleeve.
The room was quiet for a moment, Sherlock no doubt thinking about whether or not this case was worth taking while John just stared at the beautiful woman before him with mild surprise. He glanced at Sherlock and realized he wouldn't be speaking any time soon so he decided to take a shot at getting to know this woman.
"I'm just curious, but why did you include your life story in your description of the case?" he joked.
A shadow of a grin played at her lips, "I figured that would provide me with fewer questions to answer." She paused for a moment before continuing, "Aaaand it made my role as the desperate client more realistic."
"You were pretending to be nervous?" he asked.
"Of course. I try not to let anyone see what I'm really like," she shrugged.
"Is this what you're really like?" John asked.
"What do you think?" Laura grinned.
John just shrugged, his gaze falling back on Sherlock. The curly haired man still didn't seem like he would speak, so John asked another question that was nagging at him.
"You said that you're from out of the country but... you don't speak differently than any other person here in London."
"That, Mr. Watson, also comes from years of acting, or magnificent impersonation," she said with a proud smile on her face, an American accent breaking through her British façade.
"Please, call me John," he said.
She smiled, "I'm Laura."
"I'll take the case," Sherlock said suddenly, preventing John from saying anything else.
Laura sighed with relief, "Thank you Mr. Holmes."
Hm. Not exactly an exciting chapter… or an incredibly long one. But! I've got some ideas for future chapters that will be more action packed and thrilling! (If you guys think I should continue. .u.)