Hearing a faint sound, Alice lazily dragged up her eyes glancing at the door.

Being locked up too long without a distraction her mind started to play tricks on her. It started with weird squeaking and scratching sounds at the door, like rats trying to get in. Then she imagined a sound like hoof clatter, until she realised it was real and coming from herself.

Next was the scraping of shoes over the floor slowly getting closer, someone picking the door lock, the door opening, and Sherlock coming in- Wait.

"Sherlock." Alice gasped at the person in front of her.

"Fancy meeting you here!" Alice snorted. What was meant to be casual sounded really weird coming from the detective- he was usually far too stiff for that. But sometimes he was lucky that the absurdity of the situation was working in his favour and elicited a smile from her. "Did you honestly think I wouldn't find you? Getting yourself kidnapped. What are you? Five? I expected more from you," he remarked playfully.

Sherlock was being playful? That was so out of character- or wasn't it? Alice was too out of it to remember or even distinguish dream and reality. She was pretty sure she was losing her mind.

"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy~" Alice started to sing under her breath, still not believing he was real.

Shaking his head at her, Sherlock entered the room. In the dim light he noticed that her left cheek was a little red and her right hand bent at a slightly unnatural angle. That bastard, he thought, cautiously trying to untie her hands.

Realising that he in fact was real, Alice sat up straight. "H-How did you find me?"

"That's a long story I wouldn't want to have to cut short in this situation. So let's get out of here before Hargrove-"

"-returns? Too bad, I'm already here." Trent stepped out of the shadows of the tunnel pointing a gun at Sherlock's head, motioning for him to step away from Alice. He had suspected that Sherlock would find him, but he had not expected this to happen so quickly. Pointing his gun on the consulting detective, Trent leaned way too comfortable in the doorway. "So you're that Sherlock guy.", he realised, tilting his head in an analysing manner. "I thought you'd be taller."

"And you're Trent Hargrove. Former lab technician at the New York City crime lab." Sighing Sherlock shook his head. "You're just like I thought you'd be."

Was she wrong or did Sherlock sound disappointed? Alice snorted. Yep, he was definitely disappointed.

Trent, on the other hand, looked excited. "How could you tell she was abducted? What gave me away?"

"There was some circumstantial evidence that something was wrong." Sticking his hands in his coat pockets, Sherlock slowly stepped into the farthest corner of the room, trying to keep Alice out of the line of fire. "Alice's scalpel wasn't in the right place, her voice recorder's missing- also she wasn't texting me back, and she always does.", he remarked smugly, before turning to Alice. "I sent you some puns." Turning his attention back to Trent, he continued. "I personally hate puns, but I know how much she loves those. So when she didn't at least send a smiley back, I knew something was wrong."

"Was it the in-vest-igator or the cat-ion?" Alice piped in.

"No, it was the chemist's laboratory retriever. Thought you'd like that one."

"Right, that one's cute-"

Alice was never one to make friends fast. She preferred to keep to herself and tended to be very uncomfortable with 'living' people, making people think she was antisocial. Therefore, most people didn't want to make the effort to really get to know her. Who wants to be friends with a pathologist after all? It took her almost a year to become friends with her colleagues at the New York lab. Whereas with Sherlock- they just clicked. Despite her reserved personality he befriended her right away. And not only to get information on the case he was working on at that time. Ever since he tried to make her as comfortable as possible- even if it meant he had to send her puns- for which she was incredibly grateful.

"So-" Trent drew the attention back to himself, he hated being ignored. "How did you find me?"

"It wasn't hard to figure out it was you. So I searched your place. From the dirt on your shoes I deducted that you were only recently in the sewerage. Since I have a map of the tunnels of the London Underground in my head, it wasn't hard to deduce where you would hide her.", he casually waved in Alice's direction without leaving Trent out of his eyes. "It would have to be not far from the hospital- seeing as nobody saw a man carrying an unconscious woman around- and within reach of your apartment, since you wouldn't want to leave her alone for too long in case you needed to change or shower."

"Clever." Trent mused impressed. He could see why Alice liked that guy. In his eyes Sherlock was a cheap imitation of himself though. But it seemed to be enough for her. If you can't have the original...

"More like show-off." Alice scoffed. She was more relaxed now that Sherlock was behaving more like himself again. She was used to this Sherlock and wasn't as easily impressed anymore. Besides, his deductions weren't as fascinating when you were trapped in a tiny room for days- or weeks. She lost her sense of time down here long ago.

"You don't want to be rescued anymore?" Sherlock asked irritated.

"If your plan was to get caught too, you succeeded." She rolled her eyes at him, adding, "My hero-"

"Would you two stop flirting?"

"Flirting?" Sherlock asked in confusion. He didn't understand how Trent could come to that conclusion.

"We're not flirting. He doesn't even know what that is." Alice rolled her eyes. "Sherlock's a big flirt." At that the consulting detective looked up grinning rather proud. "Most of the time he's flirting with Death though." She gave him a look, making him frown.

"I know what flirting is. It's to 'Behave as though sexually attracted to someone, but playfully rather than with serious intentions'.", he stated matter-of-factly.

"Did you get that from Wikipedia?"

"No, Oxford Dictionaries."

"Would you stop?" Trent flailed his gun around, having enough of being ignored. "If you knew where I hid her, why didn't you bring reinforcements?"

"Who said I was alone?" Sherlock deadpanned.

"Hello." John stepped out of the shadows.