A/N: Quick oneshot since it's Halloween. Amy/Rory were never a couple, so don't worry about them. The Doctor dropped Amy off for a week home after a few months of travelling in the TARDIS. Probably between A Study in Pink and Blind Banker for Sherlock.

R&R and enjoy!

Even at the young age of 13, Sherlock Holmes had decided that Halloween was rubbish. Why was there an entire day devoted to taking candy from strangers? What was the fun in putting on itchy costumes and walking around in the cold for a few good chocolates mixed in a pile of cheap hard candies? Sherlock certainly didn't see the appeal, and he'd stayed in on Halloween for as many years as he could think of.

But his parents didn't quit agree with this logic. Every year, no matter where they were living at the time, which always happened to be someplace new, this year not exempt, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes would find an event to go to, though they never put on a costume. These parties were usually for a more elite group of people, so it seemed implied that they would never stoop to fancy dress and candy. Those traditions were for a more simple-minded folk, Mr. Holmes had put it at one time or another.

So, every year, Sherlock was forced to be babysat by his brother, Mycroft, five years his senior. Mycroft didn't see the point of Halloween either. Sherlock was absolutely dreading another year of lectures on the current political status of England, as the conversation would always progress to. Politics were never really an interest of Sherlock's, but his brother found them to be quite fascinating. Sherlock had been dragging his feet all day in gloomy anticipation of the 4 hours spent with his brother.

"Mummy, I'm going to a…social gathering for Halloween this evening, you wouldn't mind would you?" Sherlock heard his brother Mycroft ask in the room next to him.

"Yes, of course, but what about Sherly?" Mrs. Holmes countered.

"Well, I –"

"I can stay home alone!" Sherlock practically sprinted into the next room – he wasn't going to miss his opportunity to spend the entire night alone, blessedly away from Mycroft.

"Sherlock!" Mr. Holmes cut in. "You will do no such thing! You're far too young."

"Oh, come on, I'm not that young. I'm thirteen! Mycroft was babysitting me by the time he was 11!"

"It's true, I was," Mycroft added, hoping that his parents would let the little brat stay home so that he could get to his gathering.

"Well, that was a completely different situation, our careers were just taking off, and we were out unexpec—"

"Just let me stay home! I'm thirteen, I'm practically an adult." That warranted a hearty chuckle from his father and giggles from both Mummy and Mycroft.

"Well, I guess, when you put it that way…"

Yes! Sherlock thought. Finally, an evening all to himself, and no Mycroft in the way to put any dampers on it. He walked away triumphantly and shut the door of his bedroom behind him.

Knock, knock, knock. An insistent banging came from the front door, interrupting Sherlock's reading. He huffed, annoyed, looking up but seeing nothing outside the window. Remembering Mummy's words not to open to the door to any strangers, Sherlock looked back down at the page. He only read about 10 words before the sound came again. Knock, knock, knock. This time, it was louder and angrier. Sherlock looked up again, and saw a flash of red something at the bottom window pane. Must be a stupid trick-or-treater, he thought, going back to his book. But the knocking came again, and he was so annoyed, he just said bollocks to Mummy's rule and stomped angrily to the door.

He whipped it open as fervently as his little 13-year-old body would let him and was not surprised to find a little girl, probably about the age of 10, standing on his front stoop in a baggy shirt, too-large pants, and heinous tie.

"What do you want?" he asked through the screen door, hoping to convey his annoyance very pointedly. All the while, he was trying to use his newly-discovered powers of deduction to try to figure out this very small red-head standing outside his door. Sadly, and strangely, everything was coming up blank. He was so encompassed in his failing deductions that he had missed everything she had just said.

"Oi!" she said in a Scottish accent, which was strange in the small English town of Leadworth. "Did you even hear anything I just said?"

"No."

She gave a noise of exasperation. "I said, you're the only house on this entire street with its light out."

"And?" Sherlock seemed to be missing the point.

"And that means I have one less piece of candy in my bag."

"Well, I'm sorry, but that sounds like more a personal problem. Come back when you figure out how that directly affects me." Sherlock started to close the door, but the little Scottish girl was quicker. She had the screen door thrown open and her foot shoved into the frame faster than he could close it.

"It directly affects you," she said, forcing the door open with her hand, "because you are going to give me some candy."

"We don't have any candy."

"Fine. Then give me something else. Anything else." The little girl stepped into the house, something that Sherlock was not exactly okay with, but he didn't object. "I'll help you look. Where's the kitchen?" She shoved her way past Sherlock into the foyer.

"This way," he mumbled, and padded into the large kitchen, past a room full of empty boxes on the way.

"Did you just move here?" the girl asked, glancing around at the boxes stacked from floor to ceiling.

"Uh, yeah, and probably moving out soon, as well." Sherlock opened up the pantry to find it almost bare, aside from many, many boxes of tea and a few cans of soup.

"Shame, we could use more kids in this neighborhood. It's all old people," the girl said, picking up a can of Cream of Mushroom and placing it back in the pantry, a look of disgust on her face. Sherlock laughed. "This is all you've got?" she asked, pointing to the practically-bare pantry. Sherlock nodded, laughing more. "I'll take the tea, then."

He silently took out a box of tea and placed it into her open pillow case.

"What are you supposed to be anyway?" he asked, glancing her up and down, unable to place her character.

"The Raggedy Doctor," she smiled, as if at her own private joke. "You probably don't know him."

"Can't say I do," said Sherlock.

They walked together back to the front door, her fist closed around her pillowcase protectively. As the girl stepped onto the porch, a question came to Sherlock's mind.

"You know Halloween is stupid right?" Sherlock asked, and the little girl whipped her head around and glared at him.

"It is not."

"What's your name?"

"Amelia Pond," she said, looking proud.

"I'm Sh—"

"AMELIA!" a voice called from nearby.

"Oh, no, that's my aunt," Amelia said. "I'd better go. Thanks, um, for the tea."

"Yeah," Sherlock said. Amelia placed a quick kiss right on his mouth. She smiled immensly and turned quickly on her heel, running across his yard, red hair shimmering behind her. Sherlock watched until he couldn't see that brilliant apple-red hair anymore and then finally, he shut the door. That night, he dreamt of Amelia Pond, the girl who couldn't wait to get her treat.

.0.0

"Come on, Sherlock," John pleaded. He stood in the door way, face painted green, bolts sticking out of his neck.

"No, John. I will not go to this heinous Halloween party with you. I don't care if it is Lestrade's party." Sherlock was sprawled out on the couch, feet hanging over the sides, eyes closed, wearing a suit beneath his robe. He was holding out over his idea that Halloween was the most pointless holiday, aside from Easter. What did eggs and bunnies have to do with anything?

"Sherlock, he's your friend. The least you could do is go to his party. He gives you fantastic cases all the time. I think you owe him something."

"Hes' not my friend, John. Anyway, he gives me easy cases, something to pass the time when I'm bored. I owe him nothing." Sherlock twisted until his face was smashed into the sofa and his arms were buried somewhere beneath his chest.

"Fine," John said with a sigh. He sat in his chair and started to take out the fake nuts in his neck.

"John, it's a Halloween party, you're perfectly capable of going yourself."

"Yes, but see, I won't have any fun if I know you're sitting on this couch starving yourself and being absolutely bored. I'll be too worried you'd shot holes in our wall again."

"If I promise I won't shoot the wall, will you just go?"

"Why do you want me to go anyway? Planning on doing another experiment, blowing a hole in the kitchen wall again?"

"That was a mistake, I admit. But, no, it's just that I don't want you moaning around the flat all night. Very annoying when I'm trying to think."

"Oh, so is that what it is?" John sat silently for a moment before letting out an audible sigh.

"John, I know what you're trying to do. It's not going to work."

John sighed again. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just really sad I won't be going to that party."

Another moment and John sighed once more, this time much louder. Sherlock stood up abruptly. "Fine. We'll go."

One heated discussion over costumes later, Sherlock and John arrived at the Downtown Pub, John in his "Frankenstein" costume (Sherlock understood the reference, but still insisted that it was idiotic) and Sherlock in his normal black pants and grey button-down shirt.

"Ay mates!" Lestrade, wearing a black cape and white face paint, a pint of beer in his hand, welcomed them heartily into a throng of adults dressed up in various outfits, all a different level of intoxicated. "Glad you could make it!"

John was pulled in quite quickly, exchanging pleasantries with various people, being friendly, accepting drinks. Sherlock stood just on the brim of the group, trying to deduce each person John talked to: three recent divorcées; one used-car salesman; a large group of policeman, including Donovan and Anderson; and a struggling journalist. After a few minutes, he got extremely bored of the people surrounding him and headed over to the bar to sit, a few stools down from a red-headed policewoman in uniform.

"What're you supposed to be?" the bald bartender, a large man about three times the width of Sherlock and probably just as tall, asked, wiping off the space in front of him. "A well-dressed vampire?" Sherlock didn't respond. "Can I get you anything"

"No, nothing," Sherlock said. "But you might want to give that wife of yours a call. I'd suspect that right about now, she isn't alone in her hotel room."

"What're you talking about?" he snarled, a vein popping in his neck, revealing a tattoo just below his t-shirt.

"I mean, that at this moment, you're wife is staying in a hotel with another man."

"Why you little…" the bartender pounded his fist on the bar, rattling the bowl of nuts in front of Sherlock.

"Eh, Rufus," an older man called to him from down the bar. "Watch it."

Rufus slowly opened his fist and, with a final glare at Sherlock, walked into the back room of the bar, presumably to call his wife. Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pocket and was looking at John's most recent blog post when he heard Rufus bellowing from behind the closed door.

"YOU'RE WHERE?! WITH WHO?!"

The red-headed policewoman from down the bar looked up at Sherlock and started laughing. "How did you do that?"

Scottish, Sherlock thought, but moved to England when she was little, about 20 now. Had been recently travelling. She wasn't really a policewoman, it was her costume, but it looked like a very-well worn costume. Her smooth hands with unflawed nail polish wrapped around her drink told him that she didn't do dishes every day, or cook, for that matter. Perhaps she hadn't had a stove to cook on for a while, he thought. But beside that, he was drawing blanks. Couldn't place where she grew up, what she did for a living, who she'd been travelling with, why her green eyes were so smoldering when she looked at him, and why she looked so very familiar but so very new, and exciting. This has only ever happened to me once. His mind flashed to little Amelia Pond, standing on his front stoop 11 years ago. He had never really stopped thinking about her, and years later, went back to Leadworth to look for her. He was infatuated with the idea of finding her again, but knew he probably never would.

"That is called the power of deduction," Sherlock said, answering the girl's question and erasing all thoughts of Amelia from his mind.

"So you can deduce anyone in this room?" she asked, her right eyebrow raised as if she thought he was crazy.

"Easily," he said. He looked up into the crowd again, eyeing a small blond with black streaks through her hair wearing a quite close-fitting black dress talking to John. God knows what she's supposed to be. "For example, that blond over there? She's about 31, lives alone, recently divorced, with 3 cats and 1, no, 2 small dogs. She thinks that she could be pregnant with her ex-husbands child, but I doubt that she is. Works in a small office, at a computer most of the day, except when she's getting coffee for somebody. Probably a secretary. Oh, yes, and her younger half-sister was recently deceased."

The red-headed policewoman dropped her mouth wide open. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously," Sherlock said. He'd made these deductions about a half hour ago, so he wasn't too surprised about any of it.

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Would you like to go ask her yourself?"

The policewoman shrugged, hopped off her stool, and walked over to the short blond girl. A minute later, after giving her hug, she walked back to the bar, this time to the stool next to Sherlock.

"Well?" he asked.

"You were right," the girl said. "Her sister's name was Temperance."

Sherlock nodded and looked back at his phone, commenting on John's blog in response to Mrs. Hudson.

The girl tapped her fingers on the bar. "How'd you learn to do that?"

"Never learned, just came naturally." Sherlock looked up from his phone and locked eyes with the girl. "I observe, and then I deduce."

"Okay, so, deduce her," she said, pointing to a black woman yelling into her phone.

"Lawyer, happily married to her partner for about four years now. She is pregnant, hence no drink in her hand. This is her first time leaving her husband and their son alone, and she's very worried, that's who she's talking to."

"Good job," she said, tipping her wine glass back. "But it's not her son, it's her daughter. That's my friend. I came with her tonight."

"And why aren't you still with her?" he asked.

"For every reason you just said."

Sherlock lifted up the corner of his mouth in a half-smile.

"What about him? Do him," she said, pointing to a short, skinny Dracula.

"Doctor. 1 dog, 2 girlfriends, and a wife. Bad smoking habit. He used to be much fatter than he is now, but girlfriend #1 made him lose the weight."

"And him?"

Sherlock deduced yet another stranger. He had never usually told people his deductions just for the fun of it. To John, maybe, but other than that, it was purely for work. But something about this girl made him want to impress her, and so he kept it up. For the next hour and a half, he had deduced 17 strangers and had learned quite a lot about the girl sitting next to him.

Her name was Amy, she grew up in Leadworth. She had been travelling for a while, but she didn't tell him where. Before that, she was a Kissogram, which earned her a chuckle from Sherlock, which in turn earned him a slap on the shoulder. Aside from that, he knew next-to-nothing about her, which, though he wouldn't admit this to even himself, frightened him in a way. But she just felt so normal, so familiar. It was just like talking to John.

"Okay, so you've deduced every person in this bar. Deduce me," she said, nearly whispering. Sherlock opened his mouth to tell her some lie; anything to get out of the embarrassment of having to tell her that he couldn't, but just then, a drunken Lestrade lumbered over to them and slung his arms around their shoulders.

"Well," he said, slurring the word. His breath smelled like beer, and he stumbled over his next sentence. "D-don't you two make a lovely couple."

"You're drunk," Sherlock said, trying to extract the arm from around his neck, but failing as Lestrade stumbled into him, putting more weight onto his shoulders.

"And you're a prat," he spat the words in Sherlock's face and then turned to the policewoman. "You're not though. No, no, not Amy. Sweet as can be." He smiled and then hiccupped. Amy looked over at Sherlock and rolled her eyes.

"Greg," she said, taking his arm from around her neck. "Won't you please go hit on somebody else?"

"F-fine," he said. He took his arm from around Sherlock. "But I wasn't hitting on you. Or you, for that matter, Sherlock. You two should go out." He waved a finger sloppily at Amy and Sherlock. With that, he stumbled back into the crowd.

"How do you know the Detective Inspector?" Sherlock asked, straightening his collar.

Amy just smiled and shook her head. "Grew up with him. He was my best friend's older brother. I used to fancy him." Sherlock's ears turned half of a shade pinker. Was he jealous? "How d'you know him?"

"I work with him. When he's in over his head with a case, which is very often, he calls me."

"So you're like…a consulting detective?" Amy asked.

"Exactly. The first and only."

Conversation fell silent after that and the two sat in contented silence.

"This place is starting to feel a bit…stuffy. D'you…want to get out of here?" Amy asked, hazarding a glance over at Sherlock. She was feeling suddenly very shy, he could tell.

He looked over at John who was, at the moment, very drunk and very much making out with the little blond girl. Sherlock looked back at Amy. "Yes."

She smiled and laid a few dollars on the bar for her drink before grabbing her coat and walking out of the bar.

.0.0

Ever since she'd laid eyes on Sherlock in the bar, Amy knew that there was something quite different with him. Something different then all the other blokes in the bar, but something somehow…familiar. She couldn't quite place it, but it was as if she had seen him before. She shook the though away quickly, sure it was just from the wine she'd been drinking. But as the night went on, she couldn't help but keep feeling the same familiarity, like it was normal to just sit there and talk to him all night long. And, if she looked deep enough into his eyes, she thought she could see that he felt the same way, too. Of course, she couldn't say that out loud. Sherlock was a logical man. He'd dismiss it in a second.

Cold air blasted her as she walked onto the sidewalk, and she threw on coat, hugging it tight to her. Sherlock followed her out the door, a ridiculous coat billowing behind him, its collar popped up, and a blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

They walked side-by-side, arms touching in happy silence down the street for a while, hands occasionally bumping against each other. Sherlock's hands were surprisingly warm. They turned a corner into a neighborhood with bright orange lights hanging up, and jack-o-lanterns on every doorstep. Children were running around, dressed up in festive outfits, some better than others, ringing peoples' doorbells and asking for candy.

"I always loved Halloween when I was a little girl," Amy said, finally breaking the quiet between them. She thought back to all of the times she banged relentlessly on doors and how she was always heartbroken when she only got a few pieces of candy that she wanted. She usually gave the rest to Mels and Rory.

"I hated it," Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

"You hated Halloween? What kind of little kid hates Halloween? It's free candy!" Amy laughed. "I've only ever met one other person who hated Halloween as a kid. I was ten years old, and there was only one house in the neighborhood without its light on. I went pounding on the door until someone opened the door, and when they did, it turned out to be a little curly-headed boy, only a couple of years old than me." Sherlock tensed next to her, but she figured it was just from the cold, so she went on with her story. "I came barging into his house; I had to get away from my Aunt Sharon, she was probably looking for me. He took me to his kitchen and gave me—"

"A box of tea," Sherlock finished for her. She whirled around to face him.

"How did you know that?" Amy demanded, but she knew. She knew it was him.

"Because, you're Amelia Pond. You took my tea and left me with a kiss. How could I ever forget you?"

Amy looked up at Sherlock, placing her hands on his chest as he tilted his head slowly down until their mouths met, and warmth flooded through her body, banishing away the cold. A few seconds later, she pushed away from him.

"You're much better at kissing than I remembered."