"The one witness we've got isn't talking," said Lestraude, frowning.
"No, no, we need the witness," rambled Sherlock, shaking his head as he paced back and forth.
"Well she is in shock! People aren't like you, Sherlock, they- they..." Lestraude paused, at a loss for words.
"Go into some sort of state where they can no longer witness against serial killers? Is that what people do?" Then, when Watson gave him a look, "What? Okay, let me talk to her."
Watson gaped in alarm and Lestraude chuckled. "Ah, no."
"Let me talk to her this instant or I am off the case," demanded Sherlock, like a sassy toddler.
"God. Sherlock, you are so not the right person to deal with a post-trauma victim," reasoned Watson.
Sherlock said nothing, just stared evenly at Lestraude.
"John, go with him, don't let him... don't let him..." Lestraude sighed and walked out of the room.
"What? No, no!" said Watson, but Sherlock was already down the hall to the room where the witness sat.
"You, woman, tell us what you saw," he ordered.
She was in her early twenties, and had a head of beautiful strawberry-blonde hair. Her eyes were tired and she was wearing what looked like a pajama shirt over her jeans.
She looked up as Sherlock spoke. Sergeant Donnovan, who had been speaking to her, stood up. "No way," she said.
"Lestraude said yes," said Watson, scratching his neck uncomfortably.
"No way," she repeated, storming out of the room.
The blonde woman looked a little concerned with that train of events. She glanced at Sherlock, then Watson, then back at Sherlock.
"Are you Sherlock Holmes?" she asked, with an American. Her eyes were bright blue and grew very wide when she asked the question.
"You've read about me in the papers?" he asked dryly.
Her face cleared up and she smiled a little- a bit of a smirk. "No, actually. I heard about you from a friend."
"What friend?"
Her smirk widened. "A special friend. You, then, must be John Watson," she said, turning to him.
"Er, yes," he said. "And you are?"
"Justice Yates." Her face clouded a little as she returned to the matter at hand.
"Alright, I'll talk, but only if both of you do the same. And not here, with these people coddling me like I'm a strawberry shortcake."
"Wait, what?" said Watson.
"Quid pro quo, Clarisse. At your place. We can chat over dinner." She smiled again- this time the winning, charming smile of a woman intending to get her way.
"Why?" asked Sherlock.
"Because from what I hear, the two of you live in a magical world. And I'd like to see it."
Sherlock sighed condescendingly.
"I'm afraid not, Justice. As much as a woman like you thinks you would like to escape to our detective novel, we are not interesting in humoring you."
"A woman like me?"
"Yes. The woman pushed by her upbringing to succeed in a competitive world, but unable to find any joy in it, quickly realizing that life is hard and boring and superheroes don exist. A doctor, perhaps. Growing accustomed to death before your eyes every day. You still can't find a man who wants to settle down, you still can't find any part of your job that brings you passion, but you imagine that my job does, and you envy that, don't you?"
"More than anything," she smiled. There was a pause, as the three people in the room sized each other up.
"Fine, I've got to go, I suppose," she said. "You find passion in your work but only as long as the puzzle lasts, and it never lasts long enough. You are a junkie, addicted to the mystery of it, the mystery of the case, but not of the world, because the world outside of the case is meaningless to you, irrelevant data. Because of your disdain for reality you have a habit of driving away personal connection and fighting off love and other feelings, because they only throw you off the scent of what gives you the greatest thrill, the thrill of something that matters- the chase, the chase of that answer that you cannot think or feel beyond, because you are as stupid as anyone else.
"Let's get Chinese," she concluded. "You can drive, because I'm in shock."