Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's Sherlock or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

Birdy's Flight

Birdy massaged her foot as she tiredly watched the other members of the company cross the studio floor, chattering excitedly about the new choreography. Some days she really questioned her sanity when she decided that she wanted to be a dancer (the bleeding sores on her feet attested to that) but at least she had a real job on the side.

"Hey, Birdy," Walter said, collapsing on the floor next to her. He pushed his sweaty blond curls off his forehead before he began to take off his dance shoes, his feet looking only a touch better than her own. "I heard you made understudy for Swanhilda?"

Birdy nodded, allowing a grin to spread across her face. Her role in the upcoming production of Coppélia had been a surprise, especially because she had been sleep deprived the day of the audition; not only had Sherlock set the fire alarm off twice in one night, but Birdy had already been exhausted from long days at work. Adding that she had been cleaning her new flat so that it was fit for human habitation, it was a wonder that she was still walking.

"It's unfortunate that you didn't actually get the part, though. You would have been fantastic," Walter handed her a large plaster for her foot from the depths of his dance bag. "Then we could have danced together. Who knows, maybe we will still get the chance, eh?"

"Grace will do beautifully," Birdy replied with a shrug. "I'm just lucky to be here." Though Birdy had to admit that whilst she never wanted to wish for another person's misfortune, it would be nice to be the lead. Plus, with Walter as Franz, the two of them would have had a lot of fun.

Birdy allowed herself a brief moment where she imagined dancing across the stage, all eyes trained on her. She could imagine the swell of the music, the heat of the stage lights, the smell of the rosin on her shoes, and the heavy makeup that covered her body, so that she looked nothing short of perfect as she made her entrance as the young Swanhilda. The audience clapped wildly as she completed her first— No, Birdy realised, jolting from her daydream. She wasn't sure she could handle the pressure of being the lead. She had a full time job before ballet, and Birdy wasn't sure she really enjoyed the idea of the audience focused solely on her. No, the corps was exactly where she needed to be.

"What are you doing tonight?" Walter asked, holding the door of the studio open for her. "Do you have anything fun planned?"

"You mean besides hoping my flatmate doesn't poison my fish?" Birdy responded with a laugh. "I'm heading to the market before I hopefully get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I might even take a shower and change out of my leotard."

Walter looked slightly put out by this answer. "On a Friday night?"

Birdy shrugged. "After the week I've had, I think I deserve it." They stopped on the pavement outside the dance centre, for what Birdy guessed was so that Walter could hail a taxi. He didn't really seem like the type for public transportation. "What about you?"

Birdy only half listened to Walter's plans to meeting up with a couple of friends at a pub, more interested in the traffic that whizzed past. Maybe she was paranoid, but hadn't she seen that same flashy red car twice since Walter and she had been outside?

"Birdy?"

Birdy turned her head back towards Walter, who was getting into a taxi. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I asked if you wanted a ride back to your flat," Walter said, looking worried. "Are you alright?"

Birdy waved away his concerns, forcing a grin on her face. "No, I'm fine. I was just thinking."

"Are you sure you don't want a ride? I don't mind sharing with you."

Birdy gave a breathy laugh and before assuring him that she would be just fine walking a few blocks to her flat. "It's not that far, really, Walter. Go have fun, and I'll see you Monday."

"Well, text me when you get back then, yeah?" He said, before sliding into the car and slamming the door behind him.

Birdy watched as the taxi pulled into oncoming traffic before setting herself on a course she knew would take her home, trying to put the red car out of her mind. It was probably lost. Or maybe it wasn't even the same car.

That car looked expensive. How many of those cars were statistically likely to be rolling around London? Her anxiety purred in her mind.

So maybe they got lost then. It happens all the time.

Car that expensive and the driver didn't have a GPS?

Okay, then the driver was looking for somebody to pick up.

Yeah, the anxiety said. They are looking for me. Probably want to take me to the docks where I will be thrown on a boat and be forced to become a slave on a pirate ship. Hope you like scrubbing decks, matey.

Birdy halted her steps at that thought. Did that even happen anymore?

Who knows? Do I really want to stick around long enough to find out?

Birdy knew that it was unreasonable to be so worried about such things. It was just her anxiety. Nothing bad was going to happen. She was on a well-lit street. Birdy craned her neck around, counting the amount of security cameras. Six cameras, all potentially watching her. She was not about to be shanghaied in the middle of London.

But it didn't hurt to walk a little faster, Birdy conceded.

Pulling her dance bag closer to herself, Birdy resumed her walking at a slightly faster pace. She took some deep breaths exactly as her therapist had suggested, filling her silly thoughts away. What was she supposed to label them as again? This was either jumping to conclusions or catastrophizing, right? Either way, Birdy just wished her heart would stop beating so painfully in her ribs.

She was so focused on her thoughts, she didn't notice the car pull up alongside of her, nor did she notice the sound of a car door open. Birdy did notice, however, the hand that clamped down on her shoulder.

"Bridget Mason," the man before her said. There was no question in his words, as if he knew exactly who she was, which prompted a small squeak of surprise from her as she spun around to face her possible kidnapper. He was well dressed in a smart suit, with neatly trimmed hair, and a slightly crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken a few times. "Please get in the car."

Birdy looked to where the man had indicated, and saw that it was not the same red car she had seen on the street in front of the dance studio, but a sleek black sedan with tinted windows.

"Why? Who are you?" Birdy asked as she slowly reached into her dance bag and fumbled around for her keys which had a small can of pepper spray attached to it. Her mother had given it to her when Birdy had announced that she was taking a job in London a few months prior, and Birdy was reluctant to go anywhere without it. Her therapist thought it wasn't healthy to be so paranoid, but Birdy felt that it was better safe than sorry.

"Please, just get in the car, Ms. Mason," the man repeated, looking bored.

"And if I refuse?" Birdy asked, hoping her voice didn't sound as shaky to him as it did to her.

The man sighed, as if she was a phone call that had pulled him away from his dinner. "Then I have been instructed to make you."

Birdy was surprised by how calm she felt, given her track record with panicking at the smallest thing. Just last night she had broken down into tears when she saw that Sherlock had not taken out the trash like she had asked— she had overreacted about rodents invading the flat because of the squalor, though it had gotten her irritable flatmate to clean up to stop her tears— so it was odd that the anxiety hadn't left her in a sobbing heap. Maybe it was because her brain had been preparing her for the worst case scenario for years. She would have to ask her therapist if she made it out of the situation alive.

Birdy surveyed the man, noting his long legs and big muscles that showed even under his dark suit jacket. There was no way she could ever hope to outrun him and even less of a chance she could fight him off herself if he tried to force her into the car.

The man sighed again, apparently impatient that she wasn't following orders. He took a step towards Birdy, who skittered away, blood rushing in her ears. The man looked more irritated, and followed after her, reaching a hand out and grabbing onto the sleeve of her jumper.

Birdy's mind went blank except for one thought: she was not getting in that car.

Birdy had never had the best of luck, though she wouldn't go as far as to say that she was unlucky; things just never really worked out the way she planned. So it really didn't surprise her when she tried to pull her hand out of her dance bag with the pepper spray, her fist got caught in the opening and she ended hitting the man in the head with her dance bag. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but she had not only two pairs of pointe shoes (which really wouldn't have felt good) but the added weight of an arch stretcher.

With the combined force of her swinging fist and the contents of her bag, the man let go of her arm and stumbled backwards, clutching his head, and swearing spectacularly. Birdy nearly apologised for this, but remembered that she had been intending to pepper spray him anyways. She fumbled with her bag and managed to extract the canister, just in time for the man who, looking now incredibly angry, lunged at her. Birdy pushed the button on her canister and, just as instructed, aimed the pepper spray at the man's eyes.

The effect was immediate. The man dropped to his knees in pain, rubbing at his eyes with one hand, and waving the other one wildly in her direction. Birdy jumped out of his way, and watched the man for a split second, to make sure that he was properly incapacitated. Seeing that he was, Birdy skirted around the man and took off in a sprint towards her flat. When she noticed that the sleek black car had pulled away from the curb and was following after her, Birdy veered off the pavement and into the nearest alley.

Birdy ran down the alleyway, dodging bins and glass bottles until she reached the back of it, where a tall metal fence was at the end, far too tall for her to climb over. She looked over her shoulder, only to see that the car had stopped, and another man was getting out of it. Birdy noticed a skip that was sitting under a fire escape and quickly heaved herself onto it. The man was entering the mouth of the alleyway just as she scrambled up the ladder of the fire escape and began to run up through the twisting sets of steps.

Birdy wasn't sure where the man was by the time she made it to the top of the escape and clambered onto the top of the building, but she wasn't going to stop and check. She ran across the rooftop, pulling her mobile out from her bag and dialling 999.

"Emergency," a cool female voice said. "Which service?"

"Police!" She shouted, nearing the end of the roof. Birdy thought she heard a click as the call was transferred but it could have easily been her shin as it hit an air-conditioning unit, which sent her sprawling onto the concrete rooftop. She threw out a hand to brace her fall, the other clutching her mobile tightly. Birdy felt her palm sting as it crashed into the concrete and her tongue erupt in pain as she bit into it.

"Where is your location and what is your emergency?"

She pushed herself to her feet, aware of the burning of her lungs and the ache in her knees. "A man tried to force me into his car and now I'm being followed by another man. I'm on the roof of a building on Baker's Street, please help."

"Is the man near you?"

Birdy looked over her shoulder and noticed that the pursuer was not on the roof with her. Maybe he had given up, but she wasn't about to go check. "I don't see him," Birdy replied.

The police officer instructed her to stay on the phone with him. Birdy described the first man to the officer as she waited, and relayed the dramatic events of the evening to him in fuller detail. Eventually, two women dressed in paramedic uniforms appeared on the roof top and Birdy allowed herself to be led to the back of an ambulance on the street below, the sleek black car nowhere in sight.

Eventually, she thought to text Sherlock, asking him to come walk her back to the flat, but when he didn't respond, she accepted a kind policewoman's offer to drive her. Birdy barely heard the woman's chatter as they drove the short distance to 221B Baker Street, exhausted from the night's excitement, and wanting nothing more than to curl up in her bed.

But life, Birdy realised, could never be that easy, especially one lived with Sherlock Holmes.

As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she saw Sherlock sitting in his armchair, glaring at something across from him. Birdy wondered if he got her text and chose to ignore it, or if this was a night he happened to be organising his mind palace and hadn't heard the alert. Either way, Birdy decided that she was too tired to care, and would deal with it in the morning, and continued on.

"Bridget," Sherlock said suddenly, which caused her to pause, foot frozen in the air. "Please come in here."

Birdy sighed and trudged into the sitting room, only to pause when she realised that Sherlock had not been glaring at something earlier, but rather someone.

"Ms. Mason," a well-dressed man said, sitting in John's usual chair. He was clean shaven, had slightly reddish hair, and a weak chin. "Please, sit. We have many things to discuss."

(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)