A/N: Hello all! Back again with another chapter! I tried to keep them in character, please, again, help me. Give me suggestions and tips on keeping them in character, especially Sherlock. He's a tough cookie (; Read, REVIEW (I beg you) and enjoy!

John walked up Baker Street after a short trip to the shops. Sherlock had asked him to pick up a few things for an experiment. He placed the bags on the ground and patted his coat pockets to find the one that housed his keys.

"Left pants pocket." John jumped at the voice, not knowing where it came from. He glanced around, only to find a young teen sitting on an old suitcase just before his stoop.

"What?" He asked her, assuming she was the one who spoke. She wasn't looking at him, rather, at the ground as if the pebbles that were scattered there held blueprints to her future.

"Your keys are in your left pants pocket. The back one," she said again, but this time she looked up at him. He was a bit startled by her eyes. They shone an intense green with flecks of brown and highlights of gold.

John let out a coherent, "Uh..." and moved his hand to the instructed pocket. Sure enough, his keys were there.

"How did you..." he trailed off, giving her a questioning look.

"You live here?" She asked, not answering his question. The girl looked about 16 or 17, in John's opinion, and she had bright red hair that waved around her face. It cascaded down over her shoulders, not stopping until it reached midway down her back. Light freckles dappled her nose and trickled down over its bridge. She wore a thin, gold band around her head. A white dress flowed over her thin frame, but by the way she folded her legs under her, John could tell she was fairly tall. To him, she looked like something out of a magazine or an ancient Greek goddess.

"Hm?" John realized that he was probably not making a great impression on this girl.

"Do you live here?" She said again, patiently. Her eyes flickered as if she already knew the answer, but was going to wait politely for him to solidify it.

"Yes. I live in 221B. Why?"

"Well, would you mind letting me in? My grandmother, Mrs. Mary Hudson, lives..."

"Oh!" John cut her off. He remembered what Mrs. Hudson had told them this morning. "Yes! She said you would be coming. Not much about you, just that her granddaughter would be arriving today. Mrs. Hudson is our landlady; she's such a sweetheart, you know," he rambled. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The girl was already behind him with her suitcase in one hand and John's bags in the other.

"Here you are, Mr..." she waited for him to fill in his name.

"Watson. Doctor Watson, actually, but you can just call me John. I've never been the formal type," he took his bags and shook her hand with a bright smile.

"Melody." She returned it with an equally dazzling one and they entered the flat. "I'm not quite sure where she is, though. I've been waiting for some time now." John now picked up traces of a Scottish accent, but it sounded watered down, more British. He couldn't exactly place its origin.

"I believe I heard her go out this morning. She's probably just gone out to get some needed things." John watched as the girl looked into the empty apartment. "You know, Melody, why don't you come up to our flat and wait. I'd hate for you to be alone."

She smiled. "I'd like that...but..."her smile faded. "Our?"

"Oh," John had forgot about Sherlock. He'd also forgotton he'd said that she wouldn't be allowed in their flat. He pondered for a quick second, and resolved that Sherlock would just have to get over himself; he wasn't about to revoke his invitation. "My flatmate, Sherlock."

John pushed open the door and called into the flat. "Sherlock!" At first, there was no response, but then sounds of shuffling papers and clinking glass attested to his presence. "Sherlock! I have your...um...stuff!" At that, the sounds stopped.

"John, I have to tell you, I found your-" Sherlock rounded the corner and stopped abruptly when he saw Melody standing in the doorway behind John. "Who's that?"

"This is Melody," he said, looking at her. "Mrs. Hudson's granddaughter."

"I thought I told you she-" he started.

"Sherlock," John warned with a stern look. Sherlock wanted to protest, he could see it, but he was trying to restrain himself.

"Pleasure to meet you," Melody spoke up from behind John. Sherlock looked at her with intent, about to make a full analysis, but found he couldn't "notice" anything. He was taken aback, and really could only deduce the basics. Age, weight, height, the easy things...but not much else.

"As to you..." He said in a somewhat dazed tone.

"So, John said you were doing an experiment about the rate of decay in human anatomy," she said nonchalantly.

"He did?" Sherlock questioned.

"I did?" John echoed.

"You could say he told me..." she said, holding her eyes firm to Sherlock's.

"What did he really tell you?"

"Nothing," she said shrugging.

"Then how did you know about my experiments?"

"I didn't," she said simply.

"You didn't know?"

"No. I noticed." At her last words, Sherlock couldn't help but smirk. He hadn't been ignoring Mrs. Hudson when she told them about her granddaughter. Her words "She's kind of like you, Sherlock" had been with him all morning. He wanted to see just how "like him" this girl was. Now he would get to see.

"Noticed? Noticed what?"

"I was sitting outside when John came, I asked him if he would open the door. As he did so, I took up his bag and perhaps have seen the ingredients on the top. Not your ordinary, run of the mill groceries, I'd say. We walked in, and I saw faded bloody spots on the floor and staircase, suggesting either a fight, murder, or perhaps a leaky shopping bag. I looked again, and realized it was, in fact, human blood because of the way it had stained and effected the wood. That ruled out shopping bags, unless you were a scientist of some kind and you like your 'meat', for lack of a nice term, fresh. Upon asking about you in the hall, or at least John's flatmate, he didn't seem too enthusiastic to let me in, futhering my suspicions that whoever it was up there must be up to something. That, or he was a complete jerk to visitors. On the way up, as well as inside your flat, I noticed the smell of rotting flesh- yes I do know what that smells like, and no I am not too young to know it- and formaldehyde. This solidifies the scientific suspicion and when I heard the papers rustling I knew it was an experiment. You'd need papers to record your findings as well as know all the information, off-hand, about what you were experimenting on. See? Noticed."

Sherlock was full fledged smiling, now, and John just stood aside, mouth agape.

"That was brilliant." John's chin just about hit the floor when he heard the words come in Sherlock's baritone voice. "You notice very well."

"Thank you," a small smile forming on her lips. "I tend to notice a lot of things."

"John! I must thank you for bringing Melody up here, she is not a child, nor anything like what I expected her to be. Please, will you two excuse me as I wrap up over here, it will only take a second, promise. John, make her some tea. Melody, make yourself at home, it will be a pleasure having you. I can't wait to talk to you a bit more," Sherlock turned and exited into his dining-room-turned-laboratory.

John stood staring at the spot where Sherlock had just been standing. "Something wrong?" Melody's voice broke his awed trance.

"Hm? Oh, no. It's just...he took that way better than I thought he would," he admitted.

"Took what?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yes, he told me this morning that he hated children. He didn't want you to come up to our flat."

"Oh. Well, I'm certainly not a child, so he should've had nothing to worry about." John smiled and showed her inside.