Chapter 1 - Favours
It was well after midnight, yet the tenant of apartment 3122 of the Park Avenue suites was wide-awake. Through the windows, the city of London glittered in the backdrop, the gentle pattering of rain filtering into the flat. The apartment was modernly furnished. When entering the flat, to the right was a spacious kitchen with top of the line appliances gleaming in the dim lighting. A breakfast bar divided the kitchen and the living room, where a comfortable sitting area lay beyond. The living room housed two plush black leather couches that met at a corner table adorned with a lamp. A coffee table sat in front of the couches littered with papers with various scribbles on them. On the right wall sat an entertainment unit, though a light film of dust suggested that it was hardly used. All about the walls were various pieces of art, all of them from local artists. To the left of the entryway was a closet to hang coats and jackets. Further along, there was a hall, which split off to the guest room and the master bedroom, each with their own bathrooms. In the center of the hall lay a closet and it was here that the owner of the apartment found herself, rummaging around the contents in the dark.
Muttering to herself, the woman attempted to clean out the contents of the closet she no longer had any use for. She was quite tall – around 5'8'' with a feminine, but trim physique. Her curly blonde hair was swept up into a ponytail, though her fringe had escaped, falling into her crystalline blue eyes. She swiped at her bangs, annoyed and accidentally knocked her black thick frame glasses askew. With a huff, she straightened them yet again upon her nose and looked up at the boxes on the top shelf of the closet wearily, hands on her hips. She had been at this all day, clearing out things from the apartment that she didn't need. Being a pack rat was something she tried to avoid. With a sigh, she summoned the will to keep going. She fumbled at the boxes on the shelf, and despite her height, stood on her toes to try and reach them. With her terrible eyesight, she was merely grappling around in the dark and knocking boxes around. 'Why don't I put the light on?' she mused. She pulled on the string to the light switch; nothing happened – bulb burnt out. 'Oh! That's why…' Sighing yet again, the woman continued to reach for the boxes with only the light from the entry hall as guidance.
Finally, she was able to firmly grasp one of the boxes and began sliding it to the edge. She didn't see the box perched precariously on top of the one she was holding until it was too late. It fell on her head with a resounding thump! and then to the floor where the contents spilled out.
"Mother of - ! Unhh, that hurt! Where the hell did that come from!?" she managed between clenched teeth, gripping her head in pain. She glanced at the papers that had fallen out of the box, and picking one up, saw that it was one of the cases that that consulting detective had solved – the late Sherlock Holmes. Frowning, yet intrigued, she took the box and its spewed contents with her to the living room.
She remembered that she had collected his cases because they had always fascinated her so. A small smile fell across her full lips as a cursory glance at the article – a blog entry to be more precise – she held reminded her of exactly why. Pulling a newspaper clipping out of the piles of papers at random, she saw it was a front page story: "The Reichenbach Hero." It was the case that officially put Sherlock Holmes on the map, so to speak. After that case, everyone wanted his help. Grinning, her eyes drank up the words on the page; she had read the article before, but it had been a while. Once she was finished, she pulled another newspaper clipping to her, and then frowned. It was the story by that wannabe journalist Kitty Riley that turned the great consulting detective into a fraud. Ms. Riley had found a source, a bloke named Rich Brook, who gave her Sherlock's life story and told her that he was an actor hired by Holmes to play a criminal mastermind for the detective to defeat. The story was a bit more complicated than that, but that was the general gist. The woman's eyes narrowed on reading Rich Brook's name, her brows puckered in thought. A memory was niggling at the back of her head and she struggled to remember what it was. After a moment of pondering, it came to her and her eyes widened in a sudden realization. It was then that a neat little idea popped into her head. Smirking, she reached for her landline that was nesting in its cradle on the coffee table and started dialing a number. It would be do-able, but she'd need help.
After the second ring, a tired male's voice answered. "Hello?"
"Arthur, hi!" the woman said pleasantly. "It's Elizabeth Warren. So sorry to disturb at this late hour, but I was wondering if you could do me a favour."
A/N: So that's the first chapter. To whoever may be reading this, I hope you enjoyed it. I realize this story is coming out right as season 3 is about to premier, so in a few hours, it will probably be non-canon to the show, but I've had this idea for a while and was suddenly struck by the inspiration to write it out.