Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's Sherlock or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes

Toast and Decapitations

For the occupants of 221B Baker Street, mornings entailed sitting in near silence around the kitchen table. The woman, Bridget Mason, though she preferred the moniker 'Birdy', could usually be found eating breakfast whilst reading the morning paper. Her flatmate, the consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, was more adverse to food than the average man, especially when he was working on a case. On this particular day, he was nibbling on a crumpet, though Birdy was positive he wasn't aware that he was even doing it, focused intently on what he considered to be a fascinating slice of sheep brain that had been infected by scrapie.

"According to The Sun, John's having an affair," Birdy noted while she flipped idly through the tabloid. The gossip rag was hardly her first choice of reading material, but Mrs Hudson had given it to the young woman, promising her that she would absolutely love the article on page nine.

"Still with me?" Sherlock asked without bothering to look up from his microscope.

"No, me."

"You will cease any further efforts at stealing my lover, Bridget," Sherlock snapped, glancing over at his flatmate. "Your toast is burning."

Birdy gave a yelp of surprise and dove for the toaster. "You did that on purpose," she accused, pulling the now black toast from the toaster, the dial on the device turned up suspiciously high. "Burning my toast won't stop me from leaving, Sherlock."

Her flatmate favoured looking into his microscope over answering her.

With a sigh, Birdy tossed the ruined food in the bin and started making new toast. It wasn't even a difficult task, but after the fourth assault on her food, Birdy was starting to get a little annoyed. If she didn't hurry, she would be late. And Birdy did not like to be late. But she also didn't like to eat too quickly, in case she choked and died, which was a fact that Sherlock seemed to be fully exploiting this morning.

"I'll be back Sunday evening, Sherlock. I'm hardly abandoning you," Birdy tried again to engage the man in a conversation. "I'm sure John would love to do something with you. What about the decapitation in Reading? That one looked interesting."

"So glaringly obvious; so incredibly dull. I'd much rather you tell me where you are going," Sherlock snapped, still looking down at his sheep brains.

"We've discussed this," Birdy replied. "If I told you, Mycroft would find out even faster. I just want one weekend away from your brother. Surly, you can't fault me for that."

Six months ago, Birdy had been offered a job working for the British government to strengthen national cyber security by Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft Holmes. Birdy was of course very proud that she could use her skills to serve her Queen and Country, but had she known that it translated into her becoming a 'valuable asset' to the British government, and therefore entailed Mycroft Holmes constantly breathing down her neck, she probably would have reconsidered taking the job. She rarely got much privacy these days, hence the need for so much secrecy. In fact, when her two friends, Victoria and Molly, had suggested that they take a weekend holiday in South Downs, she had purchased a train ticket to Aberystwyth and told Sherlock's older brother that she was going wild camping Wales. Of course, she had no doubt that it wouldn't take Mycroft too long to find her when he realised that she had lied, but hopefully by then the three of them would be far enough away from civilisation for him to harass her.

Sherlock scoffed in derision. "If you didn't want me to know where you were going, you shouldn't have invited Molly."

Birdy shook her head and began to butter her toast. She wanted to admonish him for manipulating the pathologist who was clearly in love with him, but Birdy knew that the consulting detective would merely shrug his shoulders and claim to be a 'high functioning sociopath.' "What do you want, Sherlock," Birdy asked with a small sigh.

Her words had him spinning around in his seat, microscope completely forgotten. "I want to go with you."

For a moment, Birdy thought that Sherlock was joking. Then she remembered that Sherlock wasn't the type to make jokes, which only confused her further. "You? Sherlock Holmes? You want to go on a camping trip?"

"Yes."

Birdy tried, and failed, to stifle a giggle into her toast. The idea of Sherlock sleeping in a tent or sitting around a campfire was too funny to imagine. "No."

"Why not?" Sherlock asked, jumping to his feet. He crossed the small kitchen towards his flatmate so that he was towering over her, trying to look intimidating.

"You wore a silk shirt yesterday," Birdy said. "Forgive me for not believing you to be a person who enjoys roughing it out in the wilderness."

Sherlock snorted in annoyance, "And you avoid going to visit your parents because the mobile phone reception is terrible at their house. So why are you willingly going to go camping in the wilderness?"

"First off, I'm not avoiding a visit to my parents," Birdy explained. "Secondly, you need to remember the concept of personal space." She pushed on his chest to prove her point. "And thirdly, low reception means less calls from Mycroft. This is supposed to be a fun holiday with my friends, and I don't want him interrupting it."

"I thought I was your friend," Sherlock said, though he allowed Birdy to slip by him.

Birdy turned to give him a smile. Whilst she knew he was only saying those words to manipulate her into allowing him to join the trip, she felt a warm feeling in her chest nonetheless. "You are, Sherlock." She pulled him into a hug, which she knew would make him feel uncomfortable, but Birdy decided that he would do well to remember that their friendship was not something to be used to his advantage. "But this is a girl's only trip, so unless you get a gender reassignment surgery in the next five minutes, I'm afraid you are out of luck."

Birdy released a stiff Sherlock from her grip before walking to the door to put on her shoes. She picked up her backpack and sleeping bag then turned to glance over her shoulder. "We can go play murder mystery next weekend, how does that sound?"

An alert on her mobile informed her that Molly was waiting outside in the car. With a little wave to her flatmate, Birdy thundered down the stairs, opened up the front door, and stepped outside into the early morning London air.

(A/N: Thanks so much for reading my first chapter of Early Birdy Catches the Worm. This is a sequel to my first story, A Little Birdy Told Me, so if you haven't read that yet, it might help! Anyway, I hope you the chapter. Let me know what you think, any predictions you have, or any critics you want to give in the review box down below! -CheckAlexa)