A/N: Hello everybody! This is my first Sherlock fanfic, I hope you'll like it. English is not my first language so I'm sorry for any mistake you could find.

Disclaimer: Sherlock & co obviously don't belong to me, I just borrowed them for a little while, and for some characters which we don't really know anything about, I tried to make my imagination work.

He was not dead after all.

After all this mess Moriarty had created, Sherlock Holmes was not dead. And that infuriated John Watson to the highest possible level.

Oh, of course he was happy. His best friend was alive. He could understand why he had chosen to fake his suicide. Well, he could almost understand. But the lie… Deep inside, he couldn't stand the lie. The hurt it had caused. Not only to him, but to all those people who cared about him: Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and even Mycroft. And to his mother.

He had never met Sherlock's mother before the funeral. It was even hard to believe that the great detective could have one. He never talked about her. And this day, John understood why.

Physically, she looked a lot like her son (or was it the contrary?), and yet they couldn't have been more different: certainly they had the same dark curled hair, the same features, cheekbones, and above all the same piercing blue eyes, but the emotion on Helen Holmes' face was something he never had seen on Sherlock's. She hadn't cried, she had been dignified, and he had realized that she was not only grieving for her son, but she was a broken woman. And suddenly she had approached him.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Holmes. Sherlock was like a brother to me and…" he had said, but couldn't finish.

"Thank you Mr. Watson."

"Please, call me John."

"Well John, I heard a lot about you."

"Oh... Really?" he was genuinely surprised.

"I'm sure you can't say the same." She stated like she was reading his mind. "Mycroft talked to me about what you did for Sherlock. I know my son was not really easy to live. He was not easy for anything. He was… Well, you know how he was." She sighed.

"Mrs. Holmes, I hope you don't believe stories the newspapers are telling. Sherlock has never been a fake and a criminal! He would never have done such things." He wasn't sure who he wanted to convince.

"Don't worry John. I know Sh… I mean I knew Sherlock and, no offense, even surely better than you did, and even though I didn't understand him most of times and wished somehow that he had been more emotional and a lot less like… himself, he was still my beloved son. Nobody will ever make me believe that he was something else than the great, annoying, egocentric and brilliant man that he truly was."

That was how his first encounter with Helen Holmes took place.

And now Sherlock was back from the dead. Moriarty's men were all out of order, passed out or in prison, and everything was almost back to the normal. That's what infuriated John the most: his friend didn't seem to realize how much it had been hard for everybody to cope with his absence during all these months.

They needed a case, and they needed it now. John was on his nerves and Sherlock was unbearable. He was doing many weird experiences that the doctor didn't want to know exactly what it was about, but yet it was not enough for him.

"I'm bored!" Sherlock said for the twentieth time in fifteen minutes. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon and he was still in his dressing gown.

"For God 'sake Sherlock! Won't you just shut the hell up?"

"But I am bored! My mind will die if I don't find something to solve." He shook his head with a desperate look on his face.

"Well then do look for it and stop talking."

"Aren't you bored too?"

John sighed, but didn't raise his eyes from his newspaper. "No, I'm not."

"Sometimes I'd like to be just like you. Ordinary people. You don't need to think."

This time he looked up. "Hey! I'm right here you know? I can hear you."

"Of course you can!" He got up and started to pace around the living-room. "Maybe I could call Lestrade. Someone has necessarily been murdered in this bloody city, and this idiot must need my help!"

There was suddenly a light voice behind them: "Would a disappearance be enough to begin with, Mr. Holmes?"

They both turned around to see a young woman, leaning against the doorframe. She was on her late twenties or early thirties, tall, with long brown hair and green eyes. She was wearing slim jeans, a white V-neck t-shirt, a fitted black jacket and high heels.

"Hello Sherlock." She said with a smile.

He stiffened and didn't answer. He didn't make a single move and just stared at her. She stared back at him. It lasted for a few seconds and then John, who was watching the scene, had a little cough. She then looked at him and he moved towards her to shake her hand.

"Hmm… I'm Doctor John Watson, nice to meet you."

But before she could reply, Sherlock opened his mouth and said very seriously: "Not interested. We're busy. Goodbye."

"What?" John almost choked. "You were complaining you were bored only two minutes ago!"

"Changed my mind." He said, not looking at him, but his eyes on the young woman. "You know the way out. Goodbye."

She was still smiling, and ignored him.

"It's my pleasure Dr. Watson." She told him as if she hadn't heard a word of Sherlock. "My name is Kate Reed."

"Oh come on! He doesn't care what your name is, because you're going away. I told you we're not interested." His tone was cold.

"Sherlock! What's going on with you?" John asked. He knew his friend didn't care about social rules, but that was beyond impoliteness. He was surprised though when he saw a sigh of relief on her face.

"That's okay, don't worry." Kate told John, and then she looked at Sherlock. "I can't say that I was expecting an emotional reunion, but you know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't really important Sherlock."

He didn't say anything. John was more and more puzzled. Those two obviously knew each other for a long time.

"Oh God you're so childish sometimes. Don't you think it's time to grow up?" she tried again, but she didn't get him to speak.

"Oh mostly don't feel you have to tell me what this is all about, do you?" John finally asked with a bit of feigned indifference.

"I'm sorry John. I can call you John, right?" she answered.

He nodded. "Sure, but…"

"But you don't have to call him at all, since you're leaving." Sherlock cut her off.

Once more, she chose to ignore him and continued as if nothing.

"As I said, I'm sorry. I think you guessed that the so-called genius but clever dick present here and I used to be… friends, in a way. But I've probably made a mistake. I should go. Thank you for your welcome, John. Goodbye."

She went towards the door but turned to look at Sherlock and added with something in her eyes that John couldn't identify: "Oh, and by the way Mr. Holmes… I'm happy you're not dead finally."

She was already going down the stairs when they heard her voice a last time. "Call me when you want a mystery!"

And then she was gone.

She was barely out of the room that Sherlock was pacing again.

"What's wrong with you Sherlock Holmes?" John growled. "You'd better have a good explanation: what was that?"

"Nothing." He shrugged.

"You think I'm going to take a 'nothing' as a sufficient explanation? Why did you refuse to listen to her? And how do you know her by the way?"

"Shut up, I have to think!"

His brain was racing. He put his fingers on his temples and finally took a decision. He couldn't stay like that. Not knowing, or his head would explode. He ran to the window and opened it, looking for her in the street. He caught sight of her on the sidewalk, she was hailing a cab.

"Who is it?" he yelled.

The brown-haired woman stopped her move and looked up.

"Whose disappearance is it about?" he yelled louder.

She closed the car's door and said something to the driver who left. She grinned before saying the only thing he was not expecting to hear.

"Mine."