When you take your companion's phone to call her up-to-now kept-secret brother so as to annoy her so she stops insisting on you having a proper diet, you do not expect to be talking to someone who might just have the more in common with you than anyone else in the world.
Watson is still trying to retrieve her phone while I effortlessly hold her back as I listen to the unsteady breathing on the other side. Could it be? Could it really be him? The notorious #24? The only other left? I'm not supposed to contact him, but this was an accident, right? So I think this falls into the grey zone… There's only one way I can be sure that it is him though:
"So tell me, Mister Sherlock Holmes," I start. "What is your actual name?"
There is a short pause on the other end, but I can feel the excited realization with just a tiny hint of a smirk.
"They didn't give me a name. They gave me a number." I smile in satisfaction, though still shocked that this conversation is actually happening.
"Twenty-four," is all I say. I hear a very long inhalation on the other end and then:
"Twenty-five." That was the first time someone called me by the closest I have to a name.
No, I have to stop those thoughts. I gave the entire 25# business up when I got out of rehab. I am Sherlock Holmes, not because they said so, but because I want to be. But still, he's the only one out there that they did the same to…
"Where are you?" he asks.
"New York," I reply.
"Why did you call anyway?"
"What I told you. I want to annoy Watson."
"Watson?" He says pretty surprised. My eyes flash over to her. In the mean time she seems to have given up and is just sitting at the desk and carefully watching me, as if I was holding cocaine to my nose or something of the sort.
"Is there something wrong with that?" #24 takes a deep breath.
"You said you were with John Watson's sister, am I right?" In the background I can hear a man, presumably the named John Watson, starts talking in:
"Harry?" says he extremely loudly. At the name Watson looks up.
"What about her?" she asks. It would seem we are suddenly a conversation of four. I glare at her madly, as if this was my private conversation, and for some reason, she sits back down, defeated. I concentrate on the phone again.
"No, I am talking from Joan Watson's phone."
"J-Joan Watson?" he staggers. That's impossible. We were trained to talk as clearly and quickly as possible. Something must really put him off track. Oh, I understand, and oh, this is quite the coincidence isn't it?
