Just a little oneshot for an inexplicably perfect xover pairing.
Sunflower Amy, she of the red hair and widest smile is back, buying pencils in the shop. He's noticed her sketches, he notices everything, and he has to admit, she has some talent.
Some, but not enough to ever make it as a professional artist.
He's almost certain she isn't one though. She's practical, direct, Scottish, and distinctly unsnobbish. The pencils she buys are of professional quality, but still only pencils, so they don't cost enough to justify the use of a credit card she uses. He identifies it as an extremely expensive one, yet she wears converse and clothes that, though new, are from cheap stores. She doesn't come from money, but she clearly has access to it. Yet he is fairly certain she is not someone's kept mistress or girlfriend, and she has no ring on her finger. He has deduced her approximate location in the city, and traced her back to a nice apartment.
She is aimless, and he cannot figure out what she's doing in London. She is a mystery that he hasn't yet solved, and he indulges his curiosity, knowing that he is a much nicer person (though the term itself offends him) when he has something to preoccupy him.
After all, John was mooning over a Mary, whose name he had been commanded to remember, and he didn't want to get in a fight while John was in a relationship. He was much more annoying than usual. And tending to go on and on about how Sherlock always ruined his relationships and it was just incredibly tedious. However Sherlock, despite what some people thought, did understand limits, the human kind, not the maths kind, though he knew those too, but since he usually ignored them, and anything else pertaining to idiotic social guidelines, they oftentimes missed that. But he really did understand that he could only push John so far without losing him. John was perhaps his only friend, and Sherlock had gotten used to having him around, and had absolutely no intention of pushing him away.
So whenever he found himself a mystery these days, he savored it.
Sherlock is buying paper, to burn, though he won't be telling the proprietor that. He normally doesn't repeat experiments, but for Amy Pond he will make an exception. As she finishes paying an turns around, he pretends to be engrossed in the description of the paper on the plastic its wrapped in. When his eyes flicker up she's standing right in front of him.
She knows how to use her height to an advantage, this woman. She is scant inches shorter, but has better than average posture and her head tilted back slightly, a single well-groomed eyebrow raised.
"I've seen you 3 or 4 times in the last month," she says archly.
"Have you?" he murmurs, in the way that indicates he is far, far more intelligent than she could ever hope to be, not to mention, above such petty things as stalking. Actually, there's not much he is above, few things he won't do to solve a puzzle once he's approached it.
"You're not exactly inconspicuous" she shoots back, Scottish accent more pronounced. He already know from her speech that though she was born in Scotland and spent some time there, she spent her later childhood in an English part of the country.
"Why are you following me," she drawls.
"I'm not!" he shoots back immediately, voice full of confusion, indignation, and utter sincerity.
She rolls her eyes, puts her hands on her hips, and stands there. He looks at her a moment, eyes still wide and offended, before dropping the act.
"Sherlock Holmes," he says, cultured tones daring her to take offense. She tosses her hair. He would never admit it, but he found it a bit…fascinating. It's natural, and she knows how to make the most of it. He's seen plenty of men distracted by the play of it in the wind, its flashy movement.
"Amy Pond," she replies, with a small hint of satisfaction. "Though I'm guessing you already knew that."
He inclined his head, a small smirk playing over his lips. Oh yes, she could make for a marvelous distraction.