A/n: First of all I'd like to apologize for the time i took to update, I had to rewrite this chapter two times before I was fully satisfied with it and personal life got in the way. Thank you all so much for the follows, favourites and reviews, they are what keep me going!
Disclaimer: Unfortunately I do not own Sherlock.
It was a cold Tuesday morning, and two days had passed since Athena had appeared behind the door of 221B. John was sitting in his armchair, deep in thought, when Sherlock walked in, in the middle of writing a text.
"Alright, you probably have some questions by now." he noted, not raising his eyes from the phone screen.
"Hm?" John asked, he hadn't even noticed Sherlock walking in.
"I said you must have some questions now, about Athena and the cases." Sherlock said, raising his eyes and looking down at John.
"Oh, yes, actually i do have a couple of questions." John admitted, "first of all, who is she?"
"She is a client, John, i thought it was obvious." Sherlock put the phone in his suit pocket and sat down in his own armchair.
"Yeah, I was hoping you'd go deeper on that. How do you know her?"
Sherlock sighed, "I've known her since university years, she was a good acquaintance of mine and she has a brain that in some ways is even better than mine. Not in everything, though." Sherlock defended himself, deeply regretting the last two sentences.
"All right, but why does she need our help?"
"She has been getting death threats, some very important files are missing and her sister has been kidnapped."
John nodded and took all the new information in, "and how come she was so cheerful when she first came here?" he asked after figuring that her happy behaviour didn't quite match the whole situation.
"She is an incredible actress, John, even I can not see through her mask of faked emotions. If she doesn't want you to know how she feels, you won't." Sherlock sighed, admitting his failure in trying to get rid of the mask.
"So how can you be sure she's not lying about the threats?" John asked, still unsure how to feel towards Athena.
"Because she proved it to me." Sherlock stood up, went to the small table that stood between the two windows and took a folder from a pile of paperwork that had been sitting there since their last case was solved.
"This file contains extremely delicate information on her life that has been used against her in threats and blackmail. John, she would definetely not come to me unless it was extremely serious."
John nodded and stood up, too. "What are we going to do, then?"
"First of all, we will find out who the threatener is, eliminate them and then we shall go on to the second case." Sherlock smiled, happy to have so much thinking material.
"No, no, no." Athena shouted into her phone, "I need you to get rid of the damp, I'm not offering you a free weekend at a camp." The old man on the phone was nearly deaf, which made communicating with him very difficult. Athena ran her free hand hand through her hair, frustrated. The man was apparently the only one in the office, and talking to him was driving her insane.
"The damp, sir!" She hissed, now completely pissed off. "Don't you honestly have anyone with better ear conditions there?"
Athena was walking down the street and already nearing Baker street, wrapped in her own thoughts, when someone aggressively shoved past her. The stranger continued walking on, only leaving an envelope on the ground. Athena growled a couple of rather colourful swear words at the impolite man and picked the envelope up. She already knew what the situation had been about. It was another threat delivery.
Athena didn't even bother to open the envelope, she simply sighed, tucked it into her messenger bag and stood up. She brushed the small amount of dirt off her clothes and carried on walking. She remembered the deaf man on the phone merely seconds later and after decided to hang up, it was pointless trying to explain the man exactly what she needed so she planned to call someone else later.
When she arrived to the small flat she was forced to call her home for at least a year, she dumped her bag on one of the many boxes sitting on the floor and collapsed on one herself.
The day had been very tiring for her and getting another threat wasn't making it better. Athena let out a heavy sigh and got the loathsome letter out of her purse. She ripped it open and took out an old photograph of her sister. She was still a teenager there, sitting in the armchair at their childhood home. The only thing wrong about the photo was her face. It had been crossed out with a red pen.
"Oh, God, no. This cannot be happening, it's way too soon." Athena muttered, a really hollow feeling filling her stomach as she turned the photograph over in her hand. There was a short handwritten message on the other side, and it was all she needed to run out of her basement flat and abruptly burst into the flat upstairs. She found Sherlock and John, reading the daily papers peacefully. Their heads jerked up as soon as she stepped in the flat, her face white as paper.
"What happened?" Sherlock asked, lowering the paper and looking at Athena with concern.
"My sister, Sherlock. They sent me a photo of her, and on the backside of it is a date." She explained, handing the photo to Sherlock, who took it from her shaking hands and quickly read it through.
"John, would you please put the kettle on. It seems we will have a rather long day today." Sherlock said. He motioned Athena to go and sit on the sofa while John went to the kitchen. Then he threw on his coat and went out of the door, announcing that he would be back soon. Athena nervously bit her lower lip, clutching the photo of her sister with trembling hands.
"Oh, and Athena?" Sherlock yelled from the staircase.
"Yeah?" She shouted in response, her voice a bit shaky. Her mask had completely fallen off by now and she wasn't even trying to rebuild it.
"Mycroft will be here soon, better prepare yourself." He shouted, his amused grin nearly audible.
It took an hour for Sherlock to return, and during that time Mycroft had popped in, asked a few questions from Athena about her intentions, and left with a frown after being called Microsoft (twice) and given some diet tips.
For the remaining time, John and Athena had a light chat, Athena sharing a few embarrasing stories of Sherlock and Mycroft and John talking about their cases with Sherlock. He was in the middle of explaining Athena the case of the Geek Interpreter when Sherlock returned, carrying a box with him.
He placed the box on the floor, took off his coat, threw it on the sofa, and knelt down next to the box. He opened it and revealed a pile of maps, books, folders, files and all other kinds of paperwork.
"I'm going to need your help with this Athena. Remember your training. I need you to focus on the current moment and put aside the feelings. We will save your sister, and for that we need to make good use of the little time we have." Sherlock instructed, already taking out the papers and sorting out the most important ones. He found a little box with pins and some thread and started attaching the papers to the wall above the sofa.
Athena rose from Sherlock's armchair she'd been occupying and joined Sherlock, sorting out the paperwork and occasionally taking out her phone to send a text.
They worked on the papers and books until late night. People from Sherlock's homeless network came by with information during the day and guys from Athena's small group of hackers sent e-mails containing passwords and codes to all the needed places. John did a lot of internet research and printed out new information about the possible kidnappers.
It was one in the morning when John announced that he was too tired to google and went to bed. Two hours later Athena yawned and decided to call it a day. And since she was sleeping on the couch until her flat was getting fixed, Sherlock was forced to leave the wall and go work on his small experiments in the kitchen.
A/n: Reviews are what keep me writing!
