Author's note: Decided to try something different, for a change. A multi-chap, though it's probably not going to have that many chapters (but, I think, it's going to be rather... intense, in what sense, you'll see presently); a different styles and not an AU per se. And, for once, Sherlock has already dealt with coming back from the dead. I know that all my stories are either Post-Reichenbach or Post-Reunion, but it would just feel wrong to ignore this episode.

Warnings: Crime. And angst. And dramatics.

I don't own anything, and please review.

And the wheel of fortune turned again.

Maybe that's how Sherlock would have described it, had he had any preference for corny poetry. But at the start, he didn't even know what was happening. All he knew was that things had finally come back to normal – normal for his life, that is. John had forgiven him – forgiven him rather quickly, too, though that was probably due to the fact that as soon as Sherlock reappeared in his life, the limp had decided to vanish for good – and they were back at 221B. Mrs. Hudson was still force-feeding him and, now and then, hugged him, "just because". Greg still called them in – even more often than before... everything, and spent quite a lot of his time at their flat when they didn't have a case, to "catch up" as he put it. Molly gave him body parts, Mike Stamford shoved picture of his little boy David Sherlock in his face whenever he could, and Mycroft was as arrogant and annoying as ever, though their bickering tended to be rather friendly these days.

All in all, life was good, especially since he'd talked to John about the things he'd seen and done in the three years of hiding. Ever since then, the nightmares had disappeared, and the memories didn't inset themselves anymore in his everyday life. Sherlock was rather... happy, to be honest.

And then Greg called them in on a crime scene in a part of town well-known for its clubs. The victim had most likely been killed the night before, but only been discovered at seven pm the following evening – today – because she had been hidden beneath the trash in a rather dark alleyway that not many people frequented.

Of course John came with him – he'd given up any work shortly after Sherlock reappeared, and decided that he'd be his "full-time PA" from now on. The consulting detective had nothing against it, really.
So they took a cab and arrived at the crime scene shortly thereafter.

The victim was a woman in her early thirties; she was bleached blonde and wore a far too short dress for early march. She had been strangled; there were ligature marks around her neck, but – she'd also been stabbed, and judging from the little amount of blood that was in the street, even though she'd clearly been killed here – no bloodspots little to or from the street, so she hadn't been carried – it had been post-mortem, almost as if the killer wanted to... penetrate her in some way. Her nails were painted in a rather bright shade of orange, which John instantly recognized. "Sherlock? Not many shops that sell these paint in London". Greg looked at John and raised an eyebrow. "Is there something you want to tell us, John?"

"Shut up, Greg" the doctor answered good-naturedly, "It's Harry's favourite nail polish. It's the best gift to get her when you don't know what to buy".

Harry had given up alcohol for good after Sherlock's supposed death, and John and her seemed to get on quite well nowadays. Sherlock had even met her, two months ago, but that hadn't ended to well.

He'd tried, he'd tried for John to be polite. He really had. All John had done was invite her to tea in their flat, and he could stay polite for a few hours. But – But – as soon as he saw her, he was aware that she was living far from monogamous, had obviously slept with another woman just the night before, in fact. A woman she most likely didn't know and couldn't remember the name off. Even if Sherlock understood what compelled people to have sex, he was rather certain he'd never just go out and have it with absolute strangers.

So, when the sister of his best friend started complaining about her newest ex-girlfriend, how she'd left her, he'd told her, because he couldn't hold it back, that she obviously wasn't angry that her girlfriend had left her, but that her lover had had enough of her polygamous lifestyle, because her girlfriend was working in a shop, but the necklace Harry was wearing was rather expensive, so the lover obviously had a far better-paid job. And when she'd started screaming, well, he'd shot back that it wasn't his problem if she had to sleep with any woman that she saw.

She'd left then, and John had barely spoken to Sherlock for three days, because – "She is my sister, Sherlock. And she was a great help to me when you were... gone. And she is off the booze. I know you couldn't help it, but – Sherlock, how about I tell you when she comes by the next time and you two never see each other again?" Sherlock had whole-heartedly agreed to that plan, as had Harry, apparently, because now and then, every two weeks or so, John told him she'd be coming for tea, and he'd go to St Bart's or to Greg's (who never complained, because, as he told John once, only half-joking, "You are aware that I get to see Sherlock far more seldom than you, right? That's not fair – We have shared custody, after all"). Of course, he could still tell by the traces she left – the smell of perfume, the marks of her shoes on the carpet – that she still slept with other women whenever she can, even though she apparently had a new girlfriend, or so John told him. But he kept his deductions to himself; John was too important to him to risk their friendship over his lesbian sister. If it made John happy to talk to her over a cup of tea, so be it. There was always Greg, there were always experiments.

But that wasn't important now. What was important was the case – and the victim.

Sherlock kneeled down next to her and scrutinized the victim. Unmarried – in fact... He slowly lifted her dress over her hip (and a disgusted sniff behind him told him that Anderson had arrived, most likely with Donavan trailing behind him, oh joy; but at least they never were that annoying these days – Greg tended to be... rather angry when they abused Sherlock in front of him, ever since the consulting detective "died").
He'd been right; her hips were sore, so she must have worn something that rubbed because it moved...

"She's a lesbian" he announced, "she seems to enjoy the more... active part of sexual intercourse. She wears a strap-on quite regularly."

He could hear Anderson starting to say something that sounded like "And how would you..." but then the forensic tech trailed off, most likely because Greg had given him a dangerous glare.

"Other than that... Well, her sex partners change quite frequently, she is a professional person, she is –"

He saw something on her neck. "She's most likely a lawyer – or has something else to do with the law".

"How do you know that? Do lawyers have any special feature?" John asked, rather astonished. "Do they dress differently when they go clubbing or what?"

"Her necklace" Sherlock said, slowly lifting it with his index finger. "Look at it".

Greg did so, frowning; one of these days, Sherlock would have to tell him that he needed glasses, but the DI would probably not appreciate that in front of his team, so he said nothing.

"Well, it's gold – " his DI said, while Sherlock waited patiently, and John, who'd of course realized that Greg's eyes weren't what they used to be, winked at his best friend behind Lestrade's back.

"Yes, Greg. Well done: Gold, and what else?"

He looked confused, and Sherlock rolled his eyes. "The pendant, Greg".

"Oh right" he answered and pretended to have seen it before this moment. "Mmh, looks like two S intertwined... Any chance her name starts with S?"

"No. That's a "Paragraph" – in German-speaking countries, like Austria for example, they are used to signify an article – article one of a law would be "Paragraph eins" in German. She probably has an LLM, acquired in one of those countries. Now, naturally, she could have gone on a holiday there, and just thought the symbol pretty, but that's not very likely – normally, you have to search for jewellery that shows which profession the wearer belongs to. So I think it's safe to say she has a job that requires a certain knowledge of law – and, let's face it, with this jewellery, lawyer is the most likely."

"Fantastic" John said, eyes sparkling, and Sherlock smiled at him.

"Good, then – so a lesbian, and a lawyer, and – " Greg stopped, suddenly.

"There's a lesbian bar not far from here".

"Really?" Sherlock asked, once again negatively surprised at the fact that London had changed during his absence. Though he had, by now, memorized most of the changes, sometimes he still had to rely on John and on Greg – which didn't seem as awful to him as it would have, once upon a time, but was rather annoying, when he wanted to figure something out as fast as possible. Which was always.

"Yes, I think – two streets from here? Let's go check it out – it should be open by now" Greg replied, looking at his watch. "It's past nine pm".

"I'll go with you. John?"

"Why do you even ask, Sherlock?" John answered, already turning in the direction Greg had indicated.

"Because someone is constantly pressing me to be polite" was all Sherlock said, as he followed Greg, John trailing behind him.

The lesbian bar was elegantly decorated; thankfully, there weren't many patrons around yet, so they could ask the barmaid a few questions without causing too much of a sensation.

She was a redhead, attractive judging by the way John and Greg looked at her. Sherlock let Greg ask the questions – people usually didn't appreciate him just shoving a picture of a dead person under their noses and demanding answers. And the DI knew by now what Sherlock wanted to know.

The barmaid was thankfully not prone to hysterics and immediately, as soon as she had seen the picture, said, "Yes, she was here, yesterday, until about... one o' clock I'd say, before she got chatted up by a brunette and left with her."

She didn't have much more to tell them, sadly, even though Greg tried his best. But then, just as they were preparing to leave, Sherlock had an idea. Or a hunch. Or both.

"Excuse me, but did you happen to see the victim's nails yesterday?"

"Her nails?" the barmaid answered, looking confused.

"Yes – was she wearing any nail polish?"

For a moment, he thought his hunch hadn't paid off, because she started shaking her head, but then she exclaimed – "Wait. Wait. I remember that she wasn't wearing any nail polish, and I realized that because I thought "She's so well groomed, weird that her nails shouldn't be painted in any way, especially because – " she stopped.

"Yes?" Sherlock prompted, excitement buzzing through him, but staying calm because he was really trying to be polite these days, even though it was difficult not to tell the barmaid that her partner was cheating on her with her best (male) friend.

"Because the brunette had her nails painted orange. Quite a weird colour, actually".

"This one?" Sherlock asked, showing her the photo he'd taken of the victim's nails.

"Yes, exactly!" she almost shouted, quite happy to help the police, apparently.

They thanked her and went out.

"Nothing more to do for us here... Greg, please get the forensic evidence to St Bart's as soon as possible".

"Of course" Greg answered, shooting Sherlock a worried look. "Everything alright?"

"Perfectly, thank you. Come, John".

In the cab, John asked him if he was alright too. "Just now, in the bar, you looked like you had found a lead – and then you turned silent. You never turn silent, the only case I ever – " he swallowed, and Sherlock knew he remembered Moriarty's last stand. "Anyway, that's over now. So, what's going on?"

"Nothing, John, I just have a headache – maybe I didn't eat enough in the last few days".

John still looked sceptical, and murmured "You never eat enough", but left it at that.

So Sherlock was left to his thoughts, and they were far from pleasant.

How he wished it wouldn't all fit so well.

The killer...

Polygamous.

Orange nail polish that didn't belong to her.

Killed by a woman.

That had chatted her up in a lesbian bar, apparently.

Harry Watson...

Polygamous.

Her favourite nail polish on the victim.

Lesbian.

Frequenting lesbian bars – John had told him about that ages ago.

So, all in all –

A very good suspect.

Author's note: So, yes, you can probably guess where this is going. Loyalty, Friendship, Family, all going against each other – God, I love being overdramatic. And I know that in the show, seeing as "they never got on", there would probably be no big problem, but – well, I'm a sister. Let's just say, you always care.

Btw, my mojo's back. Do I get a Yeah? Okay, I'll do it myself... later.

Also, I should probably point out that this case only exists because Harry is a lesbian – I have nothing against homosexuals. I have friends who are homosexual, and I wrote one Johnlockfanfiction, so...

Oh, and if anyone's interested, the story about the "Paragraph" is quite true. If it is actually used in the UK, I apologize. Tell me and I can change it. If not, it looks like this: §

I hope you liked it, please review.