"Bored!" Ryan said to no one in particular in the bakery. Leaning on her palms she noticed the lucky cat John had purchased for her. It's happy vacant face and weighed arm swaying back and forth. " I'm beginning to think that your not as lucky as some people may think you are." She stood up and stretched her back staring at the clock on the wall. " Come on Philippe..." she yawned. " It's almost four now."

It was a slow day to say the least. The trash was taken out, the oven's cleaned, the inventory checked, the counters, floors and windows spotless. Ryan was almost out of practical things to do, all besides scrub the grout but she thought that that type of boredom was meant for another time.

The bells that hung from the back door's knob rang while Philippe came waltzing into the shop.

" Who ever that may be better work here." Ryan yelled to the back in a annoyed tone of voice.

" Who else may it be?" Philippe said making a grand entrance though the archway to the front of the shop. " Ryan my dear how are you?"

" Glad you finally decided to show up." Ryan said on her way to the far side of the counter to grab her things. " Everything is done you just have to man the register for another two hours and close up shop."

" Ryan my dear you are a god send. Like an angel without wings."

" So.. like a person?" Ryan grabbed her bag from under the counter and set it between her knees as she put on her coat.

" Exactly." Philippe laughed. " Oh by the way I need you to close up tomorrow evening."

" ... And what shift will you be working?" Ryan questioned.

" Well you have the morning shift because you need to be here to bake my little biscuit." he explained. " Then you leave for two hours then come back for the night shift."

" You do realize that's a fourteen hour day since I'm here at four am everyday."

" Yes, I know you won't mind. You are the greatest baker in all the land and have the energy for this kind of thing. You would only be minding the evening shift for about a week." He tried to flatter her but Ryan stared to laugh.

" Oh no no no, I do mind. I mind very much." She said with anger as she slung the purse over her shoulder.

" Why is my money not good for you anymore?" Philippe said in a harsh tone changing face quickly. " Look if I could hire another person I would but that is something we can't afford right now."

" No, its not that." she sighed. "It's just your working me into the ground. Fourteen hour days? It's bad enough that I work ten hour shifts. " she had her hand on the handle of the front door. " Just cut me some slack once and a while. I mean imagine if you had to work my shift?"

" That my dear would be absolute torture..." Philippe said in a serious tone. " But I don't...Bye Bye now."

"Philippe.." Ryan started but he cut her off and waved his hand to shoo her.

" I said 'bye bye now.' I'll see your lovely face tomorrow." he said eyeing her to leave. Ryan put her hands up in surrender and left the shop and headed for Bakers street.

' Man, sometimes Philippe can give me such a headache. How he ever became a manager, the world may never know. Well maybe besides Sherlock.' Ryan thought this and it brought a smile to her face, '... maybe I should introduce them and watch Philippe cry. That should make me feel better, right?' But then her smile turned sour as she remembered that she was working a fourteen hour shift tomorrow.

Philippe trying to make Ryan feel guilty for not accepting the shift right away made Ryan clutched her fists tight. ' How dare he try to make me into the bad guy. If anything I should ask someone to help me file a case against him, like Lestrade or Mycroft...Wait did I just imagine myself asking Mycroft for help again?' The thought made shivers run down her spine but she would never do that. He was just a man trying to run a bakery. That should be punishment enough for him that he's running his business into the ground. ' Plus Mycroft would probably make me his personal baker or something. He may be a worse boss than Philippe.'

'At least I have the rest of the night off and hopefully I can grab a few naps along the way.' She thought, searching her bag for a lighter and a cigarette. She lit it and inhaled deeply enjoying the bitter taste rushing over her palette. Ryan started to head home at a rushed pace hoping for her headache to at least dull with the cigarette. ' Things with Philippe have gotten worse. I never thought that he would put me though this kind of stress.' she thought. 'I have to find a better job.'

She tried to keep her mind off her neglectful boss put out the cigarette before she got home and headed up the stairs. She heard the ringing from a gun resonate through the house. She waited at the bottom of the stairwell, hearing it come from 221B she covering her ears and headed up.

" Sherlock?!" Ryan yelled from his doorway. He stopped firing the gun and looked towards her.

" Oh, I thought you were John." He said, his body slumpt in the chair and he shot blindly towards the wall.

" Will you stop that?!" She yelled again.

" Why? Do you want a go at it?" he asked perking his head up.

" ...No thank you. " she crossed her arms.

" You hesitated. Hesitation to a question usually means that the person is lying."

" No, I don't want to fire your stupid gun, Sherlock." She walked in and sat in John's chair rubbing her temples.

" Whats wrong with you?"

" Do you even have to ask?" Ryan eyed him with a smirk.

" No, not really. I was only asking as a polite gesture, not as if I'm interested. "

" Oh I think I know that all to well Sherlock." she sighed. " So go on what's wrong with me."

Sherlock gave her a look over. Her sleeves are creased as if she had been waiting for a long while. The light bags under her eyes are not any different. The iron deficiency shown along her knuckles show that she was clenching her fists. He hasn't heard her foot steps creek the floorboards for the past ten or so hours, so she had been at work. ' So what ever's bugging her it happened at work' he thought. ' But my boredom is clouding my judgement as if I care enough to ask what happened between her and her boss... She looks like she needs release in some way though... could be fun.' He got up from his chair and brought her up by the arm to face the Damask wall.

" What are you doing Sherlock?"

" Helping you taking your mind off things." He said putting the gun in her hand and helping her aim it to the wall. " Plus I'm unbelievably bored."

" I don't want to do this Sherlock. Guns make me nervous." She worried.

" It helped relived about seventeen percent of my boredom by shooting. Imagine how much- " He said coming up behind her, his nose inhaling a whiff of her natural scent and a light tinge of tobacco. " Have you been smoking?" he said backing up from her a bit looking at her face blushing in slight embarrassment.

" I do only once in a blue moon, it was a stressful day." she sighed. " Look I'll shoot just this once to make you happy okay." Sherlock rolled his eyes and lifted his hand over hers making her hands clench the firearm. The scent from her hair was more than he could handle. Sherlock has been trying to quit smoking for quite sometime now and he was only inches away from a second hand contact high. ' What could it hurt?' he thought leaning in a tad closer to smell what brand it could have been. His hands guided her fingers into the proper way is to hold a gun.

" So you hold it like this but not too tightly." he said quietly as if not to speak loudly in her ear. " This button here is the safety and you know of the trigger. So press the safety off with your right thumb and point and shoot where you want. I prefer the smiley face."

Ryan could feel herself melting against Sherlock's chest. It was a strange sensation she could feel the safety and security in his hands and arms as they enveloped her, yet she was holding a dangerous firearm that made her uneasy. Ryan tried to shake off the feeling internally and aimed to the smiley face and pulled the trigger. Shooting the smiley face in the forehead.

" Good shot. Are you sure you haven't shot a gun before?" Sherlock asked slightly impressed.

" ... I was aiming for the mouth.." she confessed. Sherlock back up from her clearing his throat trying to mask the fact that he was smelling her at an alarming distance.

" Right then. Perhaps this isn't for you after all." he realized and took the gun away from her hands slowly. He then aimed and fired a few rounds into the wall shooting all along the face's mouth and eyes. Ryan's hands quickly covered her ears to the blasts. ' Does he want me to go deaf?!'

" WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" John yelled on his way into the flat.

"Bored." Sherlock replied to his room mate.

"What?" John asked not hearing him clearly from the ringing in his ears

"Bored!" Sherlock expressed and shot the wall again. "Bored bored bored bored!" John then rushed over and took the bullets out of the gun.

" I don't know what's gotten into the criminal classes. " Sherlock said calmly while going to inspect his fine work. " It's a good job I'm not one of them. "

" So you take it out on the wall then?" John said putting the gun and remaining bullets away.

" Oh, the wall had it coming."

" Repeatedly no less." Ryan joked and sat in John's chair bringing her knees up to her chest.

" How was that Russian case?" John asked removing his jacket.

" Belarus, open and shit domestic murder." he explained and laid upon the couch stretching his legs. " Not worth my time."

" Oh, shame." John said making his way to the kitchen.

" What is worth your time on the 'Sherlock actually giving a hoot' scale?" Ryan asked inspecting her nails.

" Depends on the case. I usually don't leave the flat unless it's a potential seven." he answered her. " This case turned out to be a bust."

" Well at least domestic murder is more than a seven to you." she said starting to chew on her index nail.

" Yes, when the killer practically gives himself away. You should have heard the state of his vocabulary." he answered again and looked to her. " Please don't chew your nails, its distracting."

" Sorry." she said stopping and held her hands to keep them away from her mouth.

" Anything in? I'm starving." John said going to open the fridge and was shocked by a decapitated head on the center rack. He shut it gasping and mentally preparing himself only to open it again to verify what he saw. " There's a head. A severed head!"

" I named him Headly." Ryan said with a smile. " Cause he's a head."

" Just tea for me thanks." Sherlock said comfortably from the couch.

" There's a bloody head in the fridge!" John yelled enough for Sherlock to hear again.

" Where else would I put it? You don't mind do you?" Sherlock said falsely concerned.

" I suggested a separate fridge for all of that stuff. When my oven wasn't working I almost put retina's in the choco cherries." she laughed. " Could you imagine Mycroft's face?" Sherlock gave a small chuckle to Ryan's almost mistake. "Still though, Board of Health would be all over this place in a heart beat... and probably find a heart."

" I got it from Barts morgue. I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death."

" Still?"Ryan questioned. " What happened to the last one?"

" Mrs. Hudson made me get rid of the last one again. Maybe she'll learn her lesson when she finds out that there's just an endless supply at the hospital." Sherlock changed subject and pointed to John's computer on the desk. " I've seen you've written up the taxi driver case."

" Yes." John seemed to calm down a bit and sat in Sherlock's chair taking in a deep breath.

" 'A Study in Pink' Nice.

" Well you know, pink lady, pink case, pink phone there was a lot of pink." John explained himself. " Did you like it?"

" Umm, no." Sherlock answered.

" Why not?" John said turning to Ryan. " You liked it right?"

" Umm... Yeees?" she put her feet on the ground and started to stand up." I think I hear Mrs. Hudson calling me."

" Ryan?" John said with confusion in his voice. " You didn't like it either?"

" Its not that I didn't like it. It's a great way for you to express yourself and all. Its just how I came across." Ryan sat back down letting out a regretful sigh that she could have been half way up the stairs by now. "' Enter Ryan a sweet girl dragged into the case, turned to the dark side.' Makes me seem like some kind of minion."

" I'm sorry for that. I'll fix it up for the next time." John apologized. " But Sherlock, I thought that you would be flattered"

" Flattered?! ' Sherlock sees though everything and everyone in seconds. What's incredible though is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things.'"

" Now hang on a minute, I didn't mean th-"

" Oh you meant spectacularly ignorant in a nice way? Look it doesn't matter to me who's prime minister or who's sleeping with who."

" Or the earth goes around the sun."

" Oh god, that again." Sherlock moaned. " It's not important."

" Not important?" John turned to Sherlock. " Its primary school stuff. How can you not know that?"

" I barely even passed high school," Ryan chimed in. "I bet I missed a bunch of stuff."

" You went to college though." John said. " You were telling me that you were living in dorms."

" Yeah, but I was never registered." She said leaning back in the chair. " Free classes, free meals from time to time. It's a wonder that more people don't do what I did." John continued to stare at her unbelieving.

Sherlock said rubbing his temples with his palms. "If I did know those things I've probably deleted it."

"Deleted it?" John asked turning back to him.

" Listen." Sherlock said sitting up from the couch placing his elbows on his knees. " This is my hard drive and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful, really useful. Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish ad that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters. Do you see?"

John bit his lip waiting and he couldn't hold it back. " But its the solar system." he laughed.

" OH HELL, what does it matter?" Sherlock groaned at his friend truly not getting his message. "So we go around the sun or around the moon, or round and round like a teddy bear, it wouldn't make any difference." John looked away and could feel a bubbling of annoyance. Sherlock was feeling the same only laced with anger. ' Are people really this idiotic?' he thought.

" All that matters to me is the work. Without that my brain rots." he continued and shuffled his hair. " Put that in your blog. Or better still, stop inflicting your opinions on the world." Sherlock flipped the magazine that was on the table over and turned his back to John and curled up on the couch. John took a deep breath in and got up from the chair grabbing his coat making Sherlock turn in notice.

" Where are you going?" Sherlock asked as if he didn't just insult his room mate.

" Out, I need some air." John said and rushed out the door in anger. The silence was deafening. Ryan eyed Sherlock from John's chair.

" I can feel you staring at the back of my head" Sherlock snapped. "What is it?"

"Teddy Bear?" she asked giggling.

" I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't understand all that."

" Well that's rude." She scoffed. " Do you really think of yourself as a computer?"

" It would be a better place if I were so I wouldn't have to muddy it up with bloody social interactions."

" Well, I would like to think of you as extremely dedicated to your work and you do need to erase some things for the bigger picture." she explained making him turn in interest. " But to deny yourself to be human all the time, I don't buy it." Sherlock roll his eyes and turned back over." Well what John wrote was poorly executed on his end but he still thinks highly of you. He even plugged your website."

Sherlock scoffed and tightened his robe around himself. " If he did think so highly of me, why would he write me as if I am a child?"

" Your sure acting like one right now about it." Ryan said under her breath but Sherlock shot her an evil look.

"...Well you are. It's just a blog. What do you care?"

" I don't."

" You could have fooled me." Ryan said in annoyance. Sherlock got up from the couch feeling like the world was against him. He knew he was in the right and wondered how hard it was for someone to understand how his mind works. Walking and stopping in front of the window Sherlock saw John walking down the street. Feeling Ryan's presence behind him he was growing more and more annoyed.

" What are you doing here in the first place. Aren't you too busy being taken advantage of by your boss to be hanging about?" Sherlock snapped. "Or are you so stupid that you got lost on the way up to your own flat?"

Ryan squinted her eyes and cocked her head to the side. 'And I thought that when I got home the rest of the day would turn out so pleasant.'

" Oh so that's how your gonna be huh? Call me stupid to make you feel better, real mature." She said getting up from the chair and crossing her arms.

" It's mature if it's a true statement." Sherlock shot back.

" Don't take your anger out on me. I'm not even sure why your yelling at me! "

" You hang around here more often than not and nothing would give me more pleasure than to see less of you. At least work would get done."

" You call shooting a gun at a wall 'Work'?!" Ryan shouted.

Mrs Hudson was on her way through the door and knocked hearing them fight and yell over one another. "You hoo."

" Not now Mrs Hudson!" The two yelled to the woman simultaneously at the door and continued to yell over one another as the woman scurried down the hall out of sight.

" You know what, I'm glad that John put all those things in his blog, maybe it'll help deflate your massive ego!" Ryan yelled walking up to him. "' I'm Sherlock, I yell and put people down for not being as smart to make up for my own insecurities. Like knowing about the stupid sun!'" Ryan mocked in a deeper voice.

" I may have an ego but at least I don't hang around people who remind me of my brother out of pathetic loneliness!" Sherlock shouted back. Their bodies growing closer to one another's in rage.

" What are you talking about?! Don't bring my brothers into this out of cruelty Sherlock." Ryan relied. " John, I may see as a brother because he at least treats me like a person but with you. You look at me like as if I'm your pet. Always leading me to one place or another, lying to me and telling me what to do."

"That's only because- " He stopped himself seeing how he was at a loss for words. In a strange way Sherlock realized that his body was physically betraying him in the past few months that they have known each other. He did find himself holding her hand or carrying her out of danger's way or his body involuntarily moving itself to be close to her like the situation before them. They drew together like magnets. ' What is this strange hold she has over me?' he asked himself. ' And what is this strange sensation in my stomach whenever she's around?'

"Because what Sherlock?" Ryan said seeing the worry in his face. They could feel the intensity radiating between each other and creating a bitter sweet friction in the air. Sherlock dwelled in her eyes, feeling her anger and aggression soften. Ryan looked at his partially open lips drawing closer. Her mind went blank as she found herself leaning in as well. Ryan lost herself in the moment and slowly closed her eyes to feel what would come next.

A loud earthly sound resonated from outside of the apartments making glass shattered from the strong force that of which shoved the two to the ground. Moments later as the dust settled around them, Ryan turned over onto her back slowly and laid there looking over at Sherlock turn over as well groaning along the way.

" You okay?" She asked seeing Sherlock nod his head coughing and shaking the debris off of himself.

Sherlock stumbled getting up to his feet and helped Ryan up as well as they carefully made their way to the window to see what may of caused their windows to explode. They saw immediately that the building across the street was completely blown out. Ryan's hand slowly found it's place in Sherlock's while they looked on the rubble across the way trying to remember that they would have to let go at some point, but for now they allowed to be human with one another.

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AN- Hello Lovelies! Whoa! Don't cha just love a cliffhanger? No? Me either! I'll try to have it out in say in a week and a half at most. Sorry that it's so short, this episode is just as challanging as the last. Please don't forget to Review to tell me how I'm doing! My heartbeat speeds up a little in excitement when ever I see new Reviews, Follows and Favorites! You guys are the best and I would really like to hear back from you in what your thinking so far! :D Until next time See you in the next Chapter!

Guest- Thank you so much for your support I'm glad that your enjoying it! :)

Lunaconspiracy365- All in due time. In sooner than later future chapters we'll see some Ryan and Moriarty interactions :D I'm excited to write for them too! Hope the ending of this chapter kept you on the edge as well! Thank you for the review! 3

Princess Mew Mew- As I write I can see her getting into an ordeal with Mycroft. He's too powerful in some cases and needs to be taken down a notch with Ryan's sassiness. I hope that Sherlock's cluelessness comes across in this chapter, if not it'll be more apparent in the next. Thank you for being for your continuous reviews for each chapter. It's always a pleasure to see your name come up princess. 3

Lucky D- Hecks yeah she's terrified! Ain't nobody but Sherlock and John got time for all of that Jazz! Haha, Ryan helps when she can and if things get too out of hand she knows that she has the power to say 'No, to all of that. I'm going home.' haha! Thank you for your Review! :D

LittleApollyon- Thank you for the lovely complement! I'm glad that your enjoying it ;D

Angel897- Thank you :) Glad that you find it interesting. See you in the next chapter hopefully. :D