"John?" Sherlock asked impatiently. He didn't like being ignored.
"For the last time Sherlock, I'm writing! Can't it wait?"
Sherlock paused for a moment and sighed. "Fine. I'll just work on the Jepson murder case by myself then." he snapped, then went back to his microscope at the kitchen table.
"I don't see how I'd be much help anyway, you know I'm no good with all that forensics malarky." said John. He sounded a tad disappointed at the fact that he wouldn't be much use to Sherlock, despite Sherlock sounding as if he desperately wanted John's help.
The two men had been flatmates for over three years now. To the unknowing passer by they were as different as chalk and cheese. But to anyone who knew them they were the perfect team. I believe the phrase 'opposites attract' is quite appropriate. They each gave the other something that they couldn't give themselves. Sherlock gave John a new lease of life, a fresh start and something to live for after being discharged from the army; and John gave Sherlock morals, a helping hand and the conscience he so desperately needed if Lestrade were to continue letting him help with cases. John grounded Sherlock, he kept him sane.
"POISON! I knew I was right!" Sherlock shouted, punching the table at his sudden realisation.
"Hey, watch it!" John shouted back. "That is mahogany!"
"Don't you see, John? ! It's in her blood sample!" Sherlock said as if expecting John to have read his mind. John shot him an extremely confused look.
Sherlock sighed. "Come on John! It's obvious!"
It was far from obvious to John.
"The nurse would have sneaked the TETS into Cathy Jepson's bloodstream via her drip! It would have been pumped into her system constantly and none of the other hospital staff would be any the wiser. It would have been virtually undetectable to any of them, almost invisible. Genius." A grin began to spread across his face. John seemed uneasy at this, he never understood how Sherlock could have absolutely no sympathy for any of the victims in the cases they solved.
"Come on, we're off to Scotland Yard. Text Lestrade and tell him to meet us there. My phone's on the coffee table"
Sherlock put on his coat in one clean sweep. John put down his laptop (leaving his most recent blog entry unfinished), scooped up Sherlock's mobile and began to text Lestrade as they bounded down the stairs.
Greg, it's John.
Sherlock wants you to meet us at Scotland Yard.
I think he might have solved the Jepson case.
Sherlock hailed a cab and they both jumped in the back. He was still grinning with delight. "What are you so happy about?" John asked, sounding annoyed. "This time yesterday you told me that you thought this case was boring. That 'Even the blokes in Lestrade's division can figure this one out.'"
It was true, Sherlock had never solved a case so quickly and easily, he had practically figured out the solution not one hour after Lestrade had given him the details. But they wouldn't have believed him until they had evidence of a foreign chemical in Cathy Jepson's body. That was the real challenge for Sherlock, given that was one of the most unrecognisable poisons in the world. The doctors at Bart's had decided that it must have been a morphine overdose, a mistake made by one of the rookie, newly trained nurses. But when Sherlock discovered a previous connection between Cathy Jepson and her nurse - which none of the hospital staff had known about - it took him less than thirty minutes to find the nurses motive for murdering her, and even less time to figure out how. So, of course Sherlock kept this information to himself until he had solid proof that Cathy Jepson had been intentionally killed.
This case was childs play for Sherlock. So it was no surprise that John, Lestrade and even Sally were shocked when he said he would help. Lestrade had almost not even offered it to him, assuming that he would turn it down immediately. He tried his best to save only the trickiest cases for Sherlock, the ones that he knew his men at Scotland Yard had no chance of solving by themselves. But none of those cases had come up over the last few months and Sherlock was becoming extremely bored. The walls of 221B had taken such a pounding that Mrs Hudson had to call God knows how many plasterers in to fix the damage inflicted by various different weapons that Sherlock kept under his bed and in his wardrobe.
"Boredom." Sherlock answered after a few minutes of silent thought. John suspected as much.
The two had been distant since Sherlock had come back 6 months earlier. John had lived thinking Sherlock was dead for over a year before he showed up unnanounced on the doorstep of their flat. There had been a lot of swearing, hugging, and tears of joy on John's part. Sherlock had just stood there in silence, staring into space. He did so for about fifteen minutes before making himself a cup of tea, and resigning to the sofa where he picked up a book off the arm that John had not moved since he had "died", and began to read from the exact word he left it at. This angered John. Sherlock acting as if nothing had happened whatsoever. Like he had just gotten back from the shop.
John knew that Sherlock felt exactly the same as he did. Guilty, relieved, sad and also overcome with absolute joy. But John also knew that Sherlock wasn't used to such overwhelming emotions, and could find no way to express them, so his anger quickly subsided after a few days.
Sherlock looked exactly the same to John as he did when he had last seen him. His thick, dark brown curls hadn't appeared to have grown a milimetre. His clothes looked as if they had just been cleaned, and there wasn't a single trace of stubble on his chiselled face. John had tried to not be too suspicious about this, and just relish in his happiness, and the knowledge that he had his best friend back, alive and well. Although John couldn't yet comment on Sherlock's psychological state.
John had been replaying that first moment he had seen Sherlock in more than a year over in his mind during the short cab ride to Scotland Yard.
When they arrived Sherlock leaped gracefully out of the taxi and glided into the giant glass building. John kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock and slipped a note of unknown value into the drivers hand almost automatically. The driver didn't say a word to John as he stepped out onto the pavement and followed Sherlock suit.