I really like Sherlock Holmes, let's be honest. And I love the idea of Johnlock (random fact) and I want to try my hand at writing a believable type of Holmes novel so here goes nothing! I hope you like it!
It was around midnight when she heard the sirens. They started fairly loud but quickly faded, moving away from the campus. She sighed with relief and rolled over to stare at her roommate's empty loft. Jessica had gone out with some friends and had left Iz behind at the dorm.
It was part of Iz's nature to worry. Her legal guardian, Will, had taught her to always be cautious. She had learned to recognize different sirens and how to respond to different situations. She'd never known why Will was so careful, just that he was. And that she should be too.
The sirens belonged to squad cars and an ambulance. It was most likely a car wreck except there was no sound belonging to a fire truck. Someone was injured but was no fire and no chance of one starting. Given the time, it was entirely possible it was a murder. Iz shuddered and wished she could speak to Will but he had expressly forbade any contact between them once she was at college. Will was cautious to the point of being paranoid. Sometimes Iz would question how cautious he was though she had learned, over time, not to. The lecture that accompanied any little rebellions wasn't worth the trouble.
As she thought about the possible wreck, she grew more and more uncomfortable. When she had been much younger, her parents had been killed in a car accident. A man, entirely drunken, had crossed over into oncoming traffic and hit the car her parents were in head on. She had been seven years old at the time and one fact regarding the deaths of her parents had always stood out vividly in her mind; the morning they died, three dead birds had appeared on their front step, two adults and a fledgling and beside their still bodies was a single stone. Sometimes when Will was acting particularly paranoid, Iz would consider the possibility that her parents were murdered and the birds were left as a warning.
And usually, when she started thinking like a conspiracy theorist, she went to talk to Will. Talking herself into being frightened and going to Will for comfort was also a good excuse to check on him and be sure he really was all right. Which she had an intense desire to do, despite the time.
Throwing the covers off, she rushed around her room, snatching up her shoes and a light jacket before rushing to the door. It would only take her at most twenty minutes to walk to Will's apartment so the external temperature wasn't a huge factor to her.
Especially since she ran the entire way there.
She let herself into the building and raced up to the third floor where Will's very familiar door was. And sitting outside the door was a sight that made her blood turn cold.
A single dead bird, wings crumpled uselessly beside its body, and a highly polished stone were waiting for her on the doormat. Terror gripped her as she let herself into the apartment.
"Will?" she called, flipping on the lights.
No answer.
She ran into his bedroom where his bed was perfectly made, obviously untouched. Resting on the pillow was a folded sheet of paper with her name, her real name, not "Isabelle" like the world believed but "Isadora," printed on it in Will's familiar hand.
Trembling, she unfolded the paper and quickly read the hastily scrawled message.
221B Baker Street, London. SH will help you. I can't.
He resituated the cap on his head as he scanned the crowd at the airport. With only one strand left in Moriarty's web, Sherlock was risking being in London for the first time in three years since his faked death. The consulting detective was hunting Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's top gun.
But he was taking a brief break from his pursuit. He had found himself in London, his beloved city, just one week prior and in the past week he had discovered himself outside the door to 221B at least twice a day. He needed to see John, to know that he was all right. Of course he knew John was alive and healthy but he needed more than just the brief glances he'd stolen from underneath different disguises. And so he'd taken up the position of a cabby in order to have an excuse to loiter near the flat he had once lived in.
But John was visiting his sister for a few days and so Sherlock had to find another form of occupation to keep himself busy, hence the airport. He was analyzing the crowd as he watched people hurrying by. With a mere glance he knew where they were going or had been and why they were coming or leaving. All of them were in a hurry, rushing to nowhere. He allowed himself a tiny smile, thinking of the many travelers who would see his empty cab, devoid of a driver, and their invariable anger and frustration. If he chanced upon someone worth transporting, then he would make use of his disguise. So far he had not had any luck of the sort.
That was when he saw something quite odd. A lone girl, carrying nothing more than a backpack though obviously on a long journey judging by the state of her clothes and the scuff marks on the insoles of her shoes, was walking slowly and patiently through the airport. She didn't turn towards baggage claim like Sherlock had anticipated, but instead made her way towards the exit. She passed rather close to him and he was intrigued by what he saw.
Making a quick decision, he slipped out of another set of doors and went to his cab. Knowing exactly where the girl would be waiting – having known she would go to the bus stop – he pulled around to where she stood.
She looked surprised when he pulled the cab up to the curb just in front of her but also relieved. She pulled the door open and slid into the backseat of the cab.
Her movements were extraordinarily deliberate and her façade of patience was much less convincing at close quarters. She was anxious, new to the city and on her way to see someone. She would also, no doubt, be new to the country and since she was travelling alone the address she would give him when he asked would be memorized out of anxiety.
"Where to?" he asked, doing his best to read her from the glimpse he could see in the mirror. Everything about her seemed muddled. She was a frequent traveler, not suffering from jet lag. Her anxieties could not be stemmed from a fear of flying or fear of the city. He was intrigued.
And her next sentence made her that much more intriguing. "221B Baker Street."
After Sherlock's death, a small handful of clients still trickled into the rooms at 221B Baker Street. John hadn't listened to a single one of them and had sent more than a few stumbling back down the stairs in confusion. They had only been painful reminders of a wound that was much too fresh.
But they'd also brought him hope. Could they possibly be sent from Sherlock as a sign that he had survived the fall? Some of them, most of them, had heard about the consulting detective's death and had decided to disregard the news. They believed in Sherlock.
Was there anything to believe in? Hadn't Moriarty won?
And now three years had passed and clients had finally stopped trickling in. John had refused to move out of the flat, despite its being depressingly empty. Sherlock's possessions still littered every room, mixed among John's things as though he had just stepped out to visit Mycroft. Mrs. Hudson came in every day to "clean" but the flat, though being dust free, was just as cluttered as ever.
John didn't work that day and he was in one of his moods. He was supposed to be at Harry's still but had come home early and was now instead sitting in his chair, facing his empty flatmate's, reading the newspaper. At moments, he half imagined he could hear Sherlock's step in the hall but he ignored it moodily. He'd cut his visit with Harry short because he couldn't stand being with people. Ordinary people lacked the spark that only Sherlock Holmes held.
Had held, he mentally corrected himself.
So when someone rang the bell at the door, he naturally ignored it. Lestrade had stopped attempting to visit after two years. John refused to see him or anyone else connected with Sherlock. He couldn't bear it. No one would be coming to visit him so he left it for Mrs. Hudson.
"John, dear!" her voice called as she climbed the stairs. A second set of footsteps, unfamiliar ones, told John the visitor wasn't for her. "You've got another one!"
He froze halfway in the act of turning towards the door. Another what?
His question was soon answered when Mrs. Hudson showed a girl in her twenties into the room. "I'll just make some tea then," Mrs. Hudson said and left with a smile.
A client.
John quickly glanced at her, trying to copy Sherlock's methods and deduce something about her. She looked exhausted, he noted, and she had a certain flightiness about her but then again, all of their old clients had had that look. Over one shoulder she had a ragged looking backpack with a small tear in the outer mesh compartment which could honestly be from anything, in his opinion. Judging by the size of the bag, it would only really hold enough for an overnight trip so she wasn't planning on staying in London for very long. He thought. Maybe.
After much too long, he finally spoke. "Um, hello."
"Hello," she answered, griping her bag tightly. "I'm not entirely sure why I'm here."
