"Some tea would be lovely, thank you."
"Sher..." John squeaked out.
"No sugar." he stepped over the threshold, nudging John against the doorframe.
"Sherlock, what are you doing here?" John said, finally finding his voice as Sherlock swept through the room's tiny entrance hall like a great black bird.
"You weren't answering my texts."
John raised his eyebrows so high they almost disappeared into his hair.
"What?" He said slowly.
"I texted you. Several times. You weren't responding. I realized that if I was going to talk to you, we might as well do it face to face."
"So you hopped on a bloody plane to America?"
"Yes. It was horrible. The captain was an idiot with an inferiority complex."
"Never mind that. Why do you need to talk to me? What's wrong?"
Sherlock looked down his nose at him.
"There aren't any new cases. Mrs. Hudson's visiting her sister in Bristol. It was getting so dull wandering back and forth across the lot."
Unbelievable.
"You-you spent thousands of pounds to crash my family holiday because you we're bored? You-" John's would-be rant was cut off by a second crash in the other room, jerking him abruptly back to reality.
Oh dear God Ginny was in the other room.
"Sherlock, how about we take a walk?" He blurted out. Sherlock's eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
He looked over John.
Hasn't been sleeping
Wore that shirt yesterday
Feet pointing away
Hand fidgets-Nervous?
"What are you hiding? What was that noise?"
"Molly. She's cooking. Everything's fine. All right Mol?" John forced out in what he hoped sounded calm and normal.
Sherlock swept past him into the main room. John thought he was going to vomit.
"We're alright love!" Molly called from the little kitchenette. "Just had another little spill."
"Honestly, this is why I never bother with cooking." Ginny popped up from behind the counter, hastily rearranging cups.
"Take away is so much..." She faded off as she looked up, her hands tightening around the edges of the tea tray.
Sherlock was not a man who could be surprised easily. And even on the rare occasions he was, a casual onlooker could hardly tell by looking at him.
But, now, his breath hitched.
And the tiny movement of his throat let John know he could've been knocked over with a feather.
Molly too resurfaced, took one look at the players around her, and froze. Her grip tightened around Martha's stomach. Nobody in the hotel room breathed.
Sherlock stared at Ginny.
Ginny stared at Sherlock.
And then, after a second, or maybe a millennium, the world started moving again.
Martha began wailing for no particular reason. The sound seemed to break everyone from their freezes. John sputtered.
"Sherlock, I-"
Sherlock made to take a step towards Ginny, but as soon as he moved, she dropped the tray and bolted, sending the tea cups crashing to the ground and shattering into a million pieces.
"Ginny!" John called after her.
But his cry rang hollow in the silence as she ran from the room, slamming the front door behind her.
Molly had clapped her hand over her mouth while Martha whimpered on, oblivious.
John turned to look at Sherlock, whose face was blank as he stared at the closed door.
"Sherlock-" He started again, but Sherlock just straightened up and twisted his body around, coat swinging behind him.
"She's got a case." he said.
The Watsons exchanged a look.
"What?" Molly asked in a small voice.
"Tweezed eyebrows. Expensive shoes. Outfit changed twice, no, three times today. Most people don't change that much unless they model clothes or are extremely uncoordinated and spill on themselves a lot. Ginny isn't a klutz. She also wouldn't work as a model. That kind of monotony? She'd stab herself in the neck first. Ergo, she's working on a case, probably in the garment district."
Silence fell at the end of his monologue, and John rubbed his temples. What a mess this was turning out to be.
"Where did she go?" Sherlock piped up again.
John'a hand froze in confusion. "What?"
"She didn't just show up on your doorstep. You found her somewhere else and coerced her into coming back to this hotel. So tell me: Where did she go?"
John crossed his arms over his jumper and looked down.
"34th and 5th." He mumbled. "Ovilin Matthews' studio."
"Thank you." Sherlock swept towards the door. Molly looked at John helplessly.
"Sherlock! I'm sorry I didn't-"
SLAM.
She had made it two blocks away when he found her.
She was sitting on the bottom level of a rickety old fire escape, her legs dangling over the edge, ten feet off the ground. A can of soda was cupped in her hands, though Sherlock could tell by the smell it was more whiskey than Coke.
Her head snapped to attention as his footsteps softly clicked into the alley. Her eyes were wild, like a caged animal. When she realized who it was she softened, marginally, and avoided Sherlock's eyes. He drew close to the fire escape and tilted his head back, looking up at her.
"I thought you would be going back to your fashion studio."
"I was thirsty." She told a spot just above his head.
"You're nineteen now."
For a split second, Ginny looked mildly surprised. Then her face fell back into it's usual scowl.
"You're thirty eight." She fired back.
He took a tiny step forward.
"You've grown. Seven inches since we last saw each other."
Ginny wrapped her arms more tightly around the bars of the fire escape.
"I thought you would've deleted something as insignificant as my height."
"Well, I didn't."
They were quiet for a moment. Sherlock took another step forward.
"Tell me about this case."
"Nothing to tell." Ginny said. "It's finished. I figured out whose been killing the models."
Sherlock laughed, rolling his eyes with such conviction his whole head turned with them.
"No you haven't."
Ginny drew back.
"Yes I have."
"No, you haven't." Sherlock repeated, putting more emphasis on the first word. "You've just got your best possible theory. You told the Watsons it was the answer to get them off your back. In reality, something doesn't fit right. You can't figure out what it is, and it's driving you mad."
"Oh? And how do you know that?" Ginny asked, standing suddenly.
"Because I know you."
"No you don't."
The words came out a bit louder and more forcefully than Ginny probably would've liked. She swallowed and turned away, leaning on the other end of the tiny, suspended platform.
Sherlock opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. He seemed to be working his jaw.
"And I know murderers."
There was another pause. Then-
"And I know I can help."
Ginny whipped back around.
"Oh my God." She groaned.
"That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? Help your kids with their projects?" He half-muttered, looking at the ground.
"This isn't a baking soda volcano!" Ginny snapped. "I am more than capable of handling this myself, just go back to the airport and forget you ever saw-"
She dropped her can. The brown liquid splattered all over the fire escape.
"Shit!" Her voice rose too loudly as she fell to her knees to pick it up. She pressed her hands into the liquid with panic in her eyes. She started scooping at the spill, trying to collect any last drop she could, reaching, desperate-
"Stop it."
She looked up. Sherlock was standing right underneath her. His hands were in fists, arms clenched straight by his sides like ramrods.
"Ginny, stop trying to salvage the whiskey and let me do my job."
"When did this become your job?" She asked. The knees of her jeans were turning brown as they absorbed the soda.
"When I realized someone other than a photographer must have had access to those deadly chemicals."
Ginny finally abandoned her drink and looked at him.
"How did you know about-"
"Because photographers don't kill models. They need models. What else are they going to take pictures of, white sheets? Someone else must have gotten access to the poison. Teaon is one of the most common untraceable chemicals on the market, everyone knows that."
"Well, I didn't." Ginny stood up, bracing herself on the bars once more. With what looked like great hesitation, she grumbled,
"However, I'm not entirely sure it's the photographer."
"Then we need to find out if we can take him off our list."
"You keep saying we and our."
"I suggest we go down to Ovilin Matthews headquarters."
Ginny looked at him for a long time, saying nothing. Then she crossed her arms looked at the dirty brick wall next to her.
"I'm not talking about this. Whatever's happening here with us. You can't make me talk about it."
"I'm not a ventriloquist, so no." Sherlock replied.
Ginny curled her hands around the top bar on the platform and slipped the rest of her body through the space, letting go and dropping to the ground. She landed lightly.
Sherlock raised his eyebrows.
"Impressive."
"I've broken my ankle four times doing that." She addressed a spot near his shoes.
Then she crossed her arms and looked up at her father, squinting.
Whatever she saw, though, was apparentally unimportant enough to go unsaid.
"The F Train will get us to the studio the fastest." She said. "And I want another soda."
Sherlock said nothing, but pulled his coat more tightly around him. The heat of summer didn't seem to effect him.
And the two set off.
{A/N: How good was The Empty Hearse/Sign of Three? Also, to the anon who asked me what music I listened to when writing this, I find "You're Gonna Go Far Kid" by Offspring and "It's a Funny Way (To Make Ends Meet)" by Gossip get me into Ginny's state-of-mind.}