The next day Sherlock had a basic English composition class. He got to the lecture hall early and sat down, pulling out a notebook and his chemistry textbook to start getting ahead on the homework. He was blissfully immersed in the work when his classmates started filing in. It was because of this that he didn't notice right away when the girl from chemistry sat right next to him. After a moment he realized that she was staring at him with a rather amused smile, and he looked up to meet her stare confusedly.

"It's Holmes, right?" she asked as soon as their eyes met.

"Sherlock. Yes."

"I'm Dakota Stark."

"Mmm." He turned back to the chemistry book despite his brain screaming at him to continue the conversation. He did want to learn more about her, after all! What better way to do it than to talk to her? Or was he really such a coward that he wanted to... to what? Stalk her? The words in the textbook blurred as his thoughts started to whirl. What the hell was he doing?

"So," Dakota said slowly. She hadn't stopped staring at him. "What are you studying?"

"I don't know yet," Sherlock replied in a mumble, eyes still fixed on the textbook unseeingly. "It's just my first semester."

She looked surprised. "Really? I mean, you look young, but yesterday in chemistry..."

Sherlock found he really had no idea how to reply to that. So he stayed silent. Why was this chemistry suddenly making no sense?

He looked up suddenly, giving up on the chemistry, and looked around the lecture hall at all the students filing in. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Dakota still hadn't stopped staring at him. What the hell?

"How about you?" he asked suddenly, surprising himself with the question. Dakota grinned.

"What am I studying?" she clarified. "Is it pathetic that it's my fourth year and I still don't know?"

Sherlock frowned. "A little."

Dakota rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be nice. It's really pathetic."

Sherlock found himself thinking that she was anything but pathetic. No, she was intriguing and wonderful and beautiful and... Beautiful? What? No! No, she wasn't. She was entirely ordinary. Her hair was a rather bland shade of dark blonde, almost brown, her eyes were a perfectly dull grey, her smile boring. Boring. Boring, dammit.

"What are you doing Friday night?"

Sherlock blinked, pulled out of his thoughts, to see she was still-still-watching him with that small, amused, boring smile.

"Uh. I don't know. Homework?"

Her smile widened, showing her teeth. Sherlock let out a mental string of curses. There was no way he could convince himself that smile was boring now. That was Addy's smile.

"There's a little ice cream shop downtown. Wanna go? I'll pay."

"Like... a date?" Sherlock asked slowly. He'd never been on a date before...

"Yeah. Whaddya say?"

Sherlock stared at Dakota, her grin-Addy's grin-doing funny things to his insides. He didn't understand what was going on, he realized. He had no idea what was happening. ...This merited investigation.

"...Sure," he replied finally. Dakota looked thrilled.

"Awesome. Where do you live? I'll pick you up around eight."

A/N: If you haven't read The Suffocating Death yet, then you won't know that Addy is Adelaide Holmes: Sherlock and Mycroft's older sister who committed suicide when Sherlock was four. So. Yes. :)

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