Chapter 1

"Tori"

Sherlock looked back to the young girl, pulling off the latex gloves and re-tying his scarf. "Hurry along, we need to visit St Barts"

She sighed, turning from where she'd been standing. Avoiding the vastly spread blood from straining her shoes. Pulling her hair out of its long plait she addressed her best friend.
"You know I might just stick round for a bit. Check in with some of the family, I've a feeling I missed something"

The detective raised an eyebrow, the rest of his body stock still. He glanced over to her, excruciatingly thinner, skin ashen and pasty, shoulder still bandaged up and the scars on her face and skin inflamed and evident. A pang of remorse, sharp and unfamiliar, shot through his chest, settling restlessly in his stomach.

"Very well, I can examine the body later" he took the seat in the velvet armchair opposite her, eyes trained on her.

She watched him inquisitively, usually she'd be the one to follow or wait for him. "No, you go. I'll be fine on my own. It won't take long, I'm not gonna be in any danger"

He smirked, the look in his eyes demeaning. "As it were, I'd prefer to say"

Tori was reminded of Mycroft's blunt line of non-rhetorical questions.
"Right" she gritted her teeth, turning back to the fireplace she'd been studying. She was being suffocated, figuratively, both by the care workers and Sherlock. They'd seem to have forgotten she was okay, back to normal. Her shoulder was healing nicely, the scars settling from the harsh red to a softer pink, nearly on their way to the white dents in her skin she'd have to live with.

Her head was better too, no more voices or meltdowns. As opposed to a month ago, when she wept at the thought of being alone, all she wanted now was the relative peace and quiet of her not quite normal life.

She felt his gaze burning a hole in her back, silent as he watched. She was sick of constantly having him or John or Lestrade at her side, checking she wasn't straining herself, opening doors for her in case she was injured in any way.

Her fingers danced across the cool marble of the mantelpiece, collecting a sparse few partials of dust along the way. She was about to reach for the ornate gold statue of the globe, when the sensitive muscles in her arm tensed. She barely twitched her little finger as a burst of pain shot from her shoulder to her chest.
She dropped the hand as though it had been burnt, testing the skin tentatively.

"Tori! What happened?" Sherlock was at her side in an instant, taking hold of her hand and good elbow.

"N-nothing" she stammered, pushing through the pain and extracting herself from his grasp.
"Just please!" her sharp tone forced him to take a step back, busying himself by find a place to put his long arms. "Give me some space!"

Bashfully, he retreated to a safe distance, watching her hands shake and ball into fists. He settled back down in the armchair, placing his fingers below his chin as though in prayer.
He watched her closely, noticing how her fingers brushed the gawdy wall paper, bent in a claw like gesture, similar to his own. Grey eyes darting from her reflection of the mirror to the family portraits sitting on the mahogany side table next to her.

His usually fast paced thoughts were running at full force, racing through his mind like Olympic athletes. He was losing control, a higher percentage of his time, more than he would have liked, was taken up with looking out for her.

"Shut up"

The calm tone of voice brought out of his small trance, focussing on the back of her head.

"You're thinking too loudly"

He chuckled appreciatively at her impression/joke before getting up warily to stand behind her.

"You're straining yourself"

"I'm fine" she rolled her eyes, focussing on the dent in the wallpaper her thumb made as she dragged it along.

"Unearthed something?" the seemingly innocent question was betrayed by the demeaning smile she could hear on his lips.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she thought of what to do.
He was keeping something from her. She could see it in his eyes, the way he watched her, when she caught him sulking because she had to go home.
If he could keep secrets, so could she.

"Nope, just dust" she clapped her hands to hid them of the thin layer of dirt. "So, St Barts was it?"

A.N

Yay! The second story! I'm so excited!
Un fortunately there will be much longer waits for chapters because of Christmas and exam stuff. The first three chapters are completed but need some tweaking, to warn you, it's quite a short story, probably half the size of the first.

This one focuses more on the mystery than Tori herself. The murder will be explained in the next few chapters which will solve some loose ends.

Also, completely by accident, I found the perfect name for Sherlock and Cheryl Cole.
Cherlock.
This was 100% accidental, a typo mistake, but I kind of got it stuck in my head. In all honesty I'm no a big fan of hers.

Love Rosie.