Once you've eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
It's always so amusing to see John astounded by my deductions. His face shifts from confusion to admiration and it's that face that makes me feel unique and considered wanted, unlike the "Freak" or "Psychopath" which Donovan and Anderson call me. I guess that's one of the reasons I like to keep John close at hand. Also the fact that he's a doctor and a good friend, also he's addicted to the life that I love which makes him a fantastic companion.
"Sherlock?" Lestrade snaps me back to reality, both he and John looking at me with concern, "Who pushed her?"
I shake my head and stare down at the body that is lying on the table. The woman was in her 50s when she died, which was meant to look like suicide for she threw herself out of her flat window, but there are bruises on her back in the shape of two hands which meant she put up a fight to whoever pushed her. She has a black bob cut with white highlights and was apparently trying to be Goth because all of her clothes were black when they found her, she had black makeup on and her nails are painted black too. I take out my pocket magnifying glass and examine the face even though I've already figured it out. I find fingerprints along the cheeks that show another person had examined the body.
I frown and turn to Lestrade.
"Who else has looked at this body?" I ask.
Lestrade looks surprised.
"I don't know," he says. "You should ask Molly."
I groan. Molly has her uses but mostly is just an annoyance, like a fly that buzzes around your head but no matter how many times you swat it away it just comes back.
I huff and walk towards the door.
"MOLLY HOOPER," I call, "MOLLY!," again, just in case she didn't hear me the first time.
In about a minute, I see Molly scurrying down the hallway towards me.
"Yes?" she says breathless.
"Who else has looked at that body?" I point at the body lying on the table.
Molly hesitates.
"WHO," I demand.
"Just a girl and her friend," she squeaks.
"You let a random girl and her friend come and look at police property?" I spit.
Molly shakes her head frantically.
"No, no, she had a badge and…" Molly pauses and tilts her head to the side, "Looks almost exactly like you, now that I think about it."
I breathe out heavily.
"What was her name?" I ask.
Molly stares at me bewildered.
"I don't know," she says. "Do you have a sister?"
My face contorts.
"No,"
Molly shrugs and walks away. I groan and stomp back into the room. John looks at me calmly and Lestrade looks anxious.
"Someone else looked at the body?" he asks his voice strained.
I nod.
"But I'm always the one who gives access to these things."
I shrug.
"Molly said the girl had a badge," I say. "Maybe you should tell your staff to watch when someone pick-pockets them," I roll my eyes.
John still stands there gazing over the scene like this is completely normal. And it is, well as normal as it gets with our life. I turn to him.
"John, contact Mycroft, ask him who else was let in here, I want to talk to them."
John frowns for the first time today; he's been in a good mood.
"Why?" he asks.
"I want to know why she wanted to see the body."
A phone rings. Lestrade takes it out of his pocket and stares at the screen.
"It's Donovan," he says.
I see his face morph from tiredness to confusion as Donovan speaks, sounding worried.
John hangs up his conversation with Mycroft.
"He said he didn't know of anyone else allowed in the morgue," he says.
I frown at that news.
"Access granted, thank you Donovan," he says after Donovan's worried voice comes to a stop.
"What did she want?" I say, turning towards Lestrade with frustration.
"Two girls just showed up at the crime scene asking for access. It might be the same girls who came and looked at the body."
I straighten up and nod.
"Come along, John, we must catch up with these girls before they leave the scene."
At the crime scene, Donovan stops us.
"What d'you want freak?" she sneers.
I groan and push past her.
"Hey! You don't have right of entry!" she calls after us.
I don't answer her and look around for any unfamiliar faces. As I scan the crowd, John taps me on the shoulder.
"Who are those girls?" he points to two girls talking to one of the police men. One is taller than the other and I can tell why Molly thought she looks like me. The girl has a bob cut, curly, raven hair, high, well defined cheekbones, she has cold multicoloured eyes and she is very skinny. And she just happens to wear the same long black coat and blue scarf.
Her friend, on the other hand, resembles John. She is very short, her hair is around shoulder length, wavy, and dirty blond. Her face is slightly rounded, her eyes a faded blue but alert and she has a fit, healthy figure, given her small frame. The girl wears a red, plaid, button up shirt that she left unbuttoned with a white t-shirt underneath.
"Are they the girls Molly was talking about?" John asks. The shorter girl looks around as the taller one talks quickly with the police man. The blond girl spots us and tugs on her tall friend's coat. The tall girl turns around iterated and sees us as well. John starts walking towards them but the girls hastily thank the police man and sprint off in the other direction.
John glances at me confused. I share his confusion but we both hurry after the girls.
We follow the girls for about five minutes, full on sprint, until John has to take a rest. I impatiently bounce on the balls my feet as John leans against a building to catch his breath.
Once John is ready, we dash off in the direction I saw the two girls disappear down. It takes us about two minutes until we spot them catching their breaths in an alleyway. We hide behind a trash bin and I sneak peaks at them. John and I lean their way in order to hear their whispers.
"D'you think we lost them?" says one of them. The voice is a bit higher than what the tall girl would be capable of and higher voices do tend to come from smaller lungs so I'm guessing it's the smaller one speaking.
"I don't know," this voice is deeper, most likely this is the tall girl's voice. "We should get going again."
"Let me catch my breath for a second first," chuckles the blond girl. "Ugh, I knew we shouldn't have gone out for that case. Besides, Lestrade already said that it was solved, why did you want to go anyway?"
"We were cooped up in that dirty flat for too long, Jane, I was bored. I need a murder case once in a while," says the tall girl.
"Well that can't happen as much as it used to, Sherlock," John and I flinch at the name, 'Jane' continues, "you know that. Remember what the Doctor said about—"
John sneezes.
Both girls freeze. I look over at John and scold him with my eyes. He goes red in the face and looks down.
I hear a handgun being loaded with a loud click. I close my eyes and reach to take John's gun out of his jacket. He pushes my hand away and I see he already has it out. I slowly turn around the corner of the dumpster and am immediately greeted with the blond Jane pointing her gun at me. I swiftly stand with my hands in the air. John does not rise with me and stays hidden, that clever man.
"Who are you?" the girl called Jane demands. She looks exactly like John and has a very similar name to him, how ironic.
"You know who I am," I say calmly.
"And how would you know that?"
The tall girl, Sherlock, breathes in deeply.
"Oh, Jane, isn't it obvious? He must've saw you point at him, which shows palpable recognition and then we deliberately run away from him knowing who he is and what he does. Wouldn't you think someone knew you if they did that to you?" Sherlock says it with such defeat that I almost feel bad John and I followed them.
Jane flushes with anger.
"Fine then, what do you want?"
"I want to know who you are," I counter.
"Why?" Jane lowers her gun and points it at my stomach. I see John get restless in my peripheral vision. I roll my eyes.
"You bear the exact characteristics as my friend and I so pardon me for being curious," I snarl. Jane narrows her eyes at me. "Also," I add, "Were you the ones that looked at the body down at Bart's? Molly Hooper said that a girl that looked like me also got too see the body."
Jane turned around to look at Sherlock, who stared steely at me.
"Yes it was," says Sherlock, "Now; if that is all then we'll be on our way. Come along, Jane."
Jane gives me one last hard look and lowers her pistol. She starts to walk away and follow Sherlock but I try to grab her hand and turn her around. Unfortunately for me, this only resulted with her spinning towards me and pointing her gun at my chest. John rises quickly and threatens her with his sig.
"Come any closer and I will kill you both and you'll forget this whole thing," her voice goes low and menacing.
"If you shoot either of us anywhere then I'll shoot you," John growls.
If looks could kill then John would be dead by the glare Jane gives him.
I tilt my head and deduce her. The way her hair is growing out and the way she holds herself says military. Her face is tan but no tan above the wrists, so she's been abroad, but not sunbathing. She rolls her shoulder after too much movement which says that she was wounded there. Normally people only do that when their wounds are still healing but how much her hair has grown out says that she was injured awhile ago which means that the pain is at least partly psychosomatic. That must mean that the way she was hurt was traumatic—wounded in action. Wounded in action and a suntan—she must've fought in either Afghanistan or Iraq.
She has the exact same military history as John.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she is a doctor too.
I smile slightly. "You won't shoot us," I say. This girl might have been a soldier but she is not capable of killing in cold blood.
I take a step toward her, two shots ring out and searing pain shoots through my knee. I hear Jane yelp in pain; John must've hit her. I feel the bone shattering as I try to decide which direction to fall on. The bullet is still in my knee so I fall backward and try to stop more blood from flowing. I hear John yell and rush to my side. I try to sit up to see where Jane and Sherlock went but they have vanished.
"Sherlock, give me your scarf," John says, his voice quivering.
I cringe vaguely as I remove my scarf from my neck. I hand my beautiful dark blue scarf over to John, who carefully places it over my knee and gently applies pressure.
"Sherlock, you arse, you just had to take a step forward," John presses a little harder.
"I didn't think she would shoot," I say, "She's you, John."
He shakes his head.
"You're losing a lot of blood, Sherlock. I called an ambulance; they'll be here in a minute."
I groan, frustrated that John doesn't believe me.
"Did you shoot her?" I ask.
"Sherlock-"
"Did you shoot her?"
"I think I hit her hand. No more talking, Sherlock, I think she might've hit an artery."
"I'm afraid we are going to have to replace your knee, Mr. Holmes," the doctor at the hospital says.
John sighs and puts his head in his hands.
"But don't worry; we'll be able to get your knee fixed as good as new. If you have any questions, Doctor Watson, my name is Dr. Percy Slone."
Dr. Slone smiles and walks out of the room.
"This is going to cost a fortune," John says.
I shrug, "Mycroft will pay for this. Besides, he'll be fascinated about those girls."
"He's the bloody Mycroft Holmes, head of the British Government, knower of all the secrets and the world's number one stalker; I will rip out all my hair if he doesn't know those two girls," says John sullenly.
"Please do cheer up, John; it's just a replaced knee. It's not the end of the world. I don't like having to be alone in a room with a gloomy man and a money problem."
John rolls his eyes.
"I'm going to get some tea, care for some?"
"Please," I say. Count on John for using tea to cheer him up. Well, tea and jam.
When John leaves, Mycroft enters.
I grin sarcastically at him, "Why hello, brother mine, come to mourn?"
"I am internally crying for the loss of my dear brother's knee," Mycroft says as mockingly as I did.
"I hope so," I scoff, "This might cost me my career, who knows what London would do without me?"
"Oh I wouldn't be very full of yourself if I were you, brother dear," mocks Mycroft.
"Why not, it's true, isn't it?"
"Hardly," Mycroft frowns at my injured knee. "Who shot you anyways?" he asks.
"John," I say simply.
Mycroft looks up suddenly alarmed.
"John?" he repeats.
"Oh no, not that John, a different John, well technically her name is Jane but their so similar they might as well be the same person."
Mycroft frowns.
"Do try to make sense, Sherlock," he says.
I roll my eyes and tell Mycroft everything, from the morgue to the alleyway.
"Interesting," say Mycroft, "I've never heard of these girls. I shall look them up as soon as I get back."
"As soon as possible would be lovely," I say sardonically.
"Watch your tone, brother mine," says Mycroft, "Otherwise I may not help you."
"Like you wouldn't want to get involved in this," I say accusingly.
The surgery takes place the next day.
The nurses roll me to the operation room, tell me it will be over in a few hours and they inject me with an anesthesia and I fall straight asleep.
I wake up back in my hospital room and I see through bleary eyes that John has fallen asleep in one of the chairs by the bed. I try to fall back asleep but my body won't let me so I sit and wait for John to wake up. I also try to swallow but my throat is so dry that I can't seem to produce saliva. Perturbed by the lack of strength the operation has caused me, I sit in an uncomfortable stage while I wait for John to awaken.
John wakes up about thirty minutes later when he sneezes and almost goes back to sleep if I didn't try to say his name.
"Jawwwnn," I croak, "Jaaaaawwwnnn."
John jumps in his chair and realizes that I'm awake.
"Sherlock," he says groggily, "Sorry, how long have you been awake?"
"A half-hour," I wheeze. John swears.
"Jeez, sorry, Sherlock, I fell asleep and—" John starts.
"Water,"
"Right, sorry," he gets up and pours me a full glass of water, which I gulp down in seconds.
"Thanks," I say, glad that my throat is clear.
"Your wel—wait—did you just say thanks?" John stares at me disbelieving.
"I'm on drugs, don't start expecting it," I snap.
The doctors let me go home about a week after the surgery. I groan when Mycroft signs me up for physical therapy.
"You need to exercise it without damaging it again," he had said.
I can tell that John doesn't really like the idea either, he obviously went into physical therapy as well as mental therapy and didn't like it. I know why, he's a soldier and soldiers don't like to be weak—mentally and physically—which is exactly what physical therapy implies. But John doesn't say anything when Mycroft gives him the therapy calendar.
I immediately throw the calendar away when we get back to the flat.
"Sherlock—" John starts.
"Oh please, John, don't start. We both know I would never do it anyways."
John looks uncomfortable but doesn't respond.
"Now," I say, clapping my hands together, "Lets find out where those girls live."
"Sherlock," John counters, "You can't run yet, you need to let your knee heal. Besides, I think those girls wouldn't let us go as easily as they did last time."
"They shot my leg, John," I say.
"Be lucky it wasn't your stomach, where she was aiming," John attempts at ending the conversation, "Now I'll make you some tea while you rest yo—"
"No, John! Don't you understand? That Jane had the exact same military history as you! You both bear the same characteristics and even your names sound the same," I try to get John to understand but he still looks at me with confusion.
"Go to bed, Sherlock," John says tiredly and he walks up to his room.
I huff in annoyance and hop into my chair, flinching at my sore knee. I open my laptop and search female Sherlock Holmes as an experiment. I don't know what I expect to find and if I did I would be disappointed because all there is are drawings of John and I as girls that fans of John's blog made. They don't even look like Jane and Sherlock. I then try to search Jane Watson and a blog appears. I click on it and it brings me to the same website John's blog is one, further more supporting my theory of them being the same person. I was guessing on the last name and very surprised that I am correct.
I am extremely disappointed when Jane makes no effort to write more than a sentence.
"Starting a new life, wish us luck."
What does that even mean? That was written about two months ago, did they come here from a different country? Wait, what was Jane telling Sherlock earlier…?
"We were cooped up in that dirty flat for too long, Jane, I was bored. I need a murder case once in a while,"
"Well that can't happen as much as it used to, Sherlock, you know that. Remember what the Doctor said about—"
Why were they stuck in their flat? Who is the Doctor? Why can't Sherlock and Jane go on cases? Were they hiding? Too many unanswered questions! Why are those girls so confusing?
My thoughts are interrupted when there is a loud knock on the door. It's not a client, the knock much too long for someone random. It isn't Mycroft, he doesn't knock, Moriarty doesn't knock either if he doesn't blow up the flat so it's not him. I groan and just go down to answer the door, knowing that if I don't the knocker would wake Mrs. Hudson.
I gaze confused at the dirty blond head that pushes past me and up the stairs.
"Sherlock is missing," says Jane Watson as she continues up the stairs without looking at me.
"What?" I follow her up, not acknowledging the fact that she's breaking an entry.
"I'm not one that likes to repeat herself," she says still not even glancing at me when she enters my flat.
I guess I understand her pet peeve, "What do you mean she's missing?"
"What do you think, idiot, she goes to her room and I don't see her for three days."
"Well why would you wait three days to say she's missing?"
"It's a weird thing that she does, when she is pouting or thinking she goes to her room and doesn't come out for a day or two. But never more than two days," she groans and runs a hand through her hair.
"Why come to me?"
"Because I can't go to the police and say that the female version of Sherlock Holmes is missing!" Jane snaps.
So I was correct on the female Holmes..."Why? You went to the crime scene a week ago, don't they know you?"
"No, they don't, Sherlock hacked into their systems and forged a badge for us and they figured it out. Lestrade covered for us though, he's the only one we told."
"Then why was he confused when Molly Hooper said that two girls came in to look at the body? Why would you tell him?"
"Why do you have so many questions?" Jane counters.
I scowl at her and flop onto the couch, "You and Sherlock are the most intriguing girls I've met, pardon me, I have questions."
"Intriguing, huh?" I can hear Jane's smirk and I roll my eyes, "Well, if you were Sherlock, I mean, since you are her, where would you go and not tell John?"
"And why would I tell you?" I say trying to rile her up, "Shouldn't that be my business?"
Jane growled, "Look you stuck up arse, my best friend is missing and you're the only person that can help me find her. I would help you if John went missing." She crossed her arms and frowned at me.
I just stare at her. She makes a frustrated noise and goes upstairs to John's room.
"Whoa, wait," I say, "What are you doing?"
"John will help me even if you won't."
I jump up from the couch and hurry to follow her in my own flat. Jane reaches the top step and knocks hard on the door, there is no answer.
"John!" I yell up the stairs.
"John," Jane says, "John, my name is Jane, I have a case but Mr. Holmes won't help me with it." Still no answer.
"John," I yell a little louder, I try to hide the anxiety that I feel.
Despite my protests, Jane pushes the door open and enters.
"Oh. My. God," she whispers.
"What?" I push past her and stop dead in my tracks.
John is gone.
I roam around the room and try the windows. Locked, from the inside...? Everything neat and tidy, no sign that anyone had been here three minutes ago. John's coat is even hanging on the door handle, he never leaves the flat without his coat, even on sunny days which today is not.
"No...no...no..." Jane was pacing around John's room, rubbing her hands together nervously.
I study her and cold dread passes over me like I've been dipped in freezing water. "This is what Sherlock's room looked like," I'm not asking.
Jane nods sadly. "Her coat...her favourite coat...she left it hanging neatly in her closet. It looked like it wasn't touched for weeks...it even had specks of dust...how is that possible?"
I have no answers but I have millions and millions of thoughts and ideas popping here and there, though none of them fit together and it's the most frustrating thing in the world. Now what?
