In response to Anonymous reviewer for Chapter 6: I know your review was intended to be helpful but I REPEAT for the sake of your eyesight that I'm behind on my stories and that there ARE ERRORS. On top of that, I'm British, so I haven't got a blazing clue what "periods" translates as... When I speak to my best friend again (who happens to be American) I'll ask her to clarify, until then, I won't be changing anything :p


I'd also like to point out I wrote this at 2.51am, so I may be more than a little irritated at the moment due to lack of sleep... *grumbles* everyone has bad days.

Love & Hugs, Ari x


On the seventh day of Christmas, My true love sent to me

Seven Swans a Swimming, Six geese a laying

Five gold rings

Four calling birds, Three French hens

Two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

It was bloody freezing. John shivered, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He sent a sideways glance at Sherlock and scowled. The taller man was perfectly fine, long warm coat, scarf, leather gloves, and the freezing temperature combined with their languid stroll round the park had given the consulting detective's pale features a bright red flush to his face that lead John's mind back to the events of the morning; Warm, and in bed, and a delightful way to wake up his partner.

He checked his sudden grin, and glanced at Sherlock again before sighing. He needn't have worried, the taller man was so deep in thought, John could have walked them into the pond and he wouldn't notice.

When he'd suggested that a walk might help Sherlock think, he honestly hadn't been expecting Sherlock to take him up on the idea. It was barely above freezing and he'd not really wanted to leave the warm central heated flat, but it was walking or listening to another hour of that violin.

The violin wouldn't have lasted another hour, so when Sherlock had agreed to his desperate snap of "For gods' sake! Let's get out of this flat before one of us dies!" John had jumped at the chance. The temperature not being ideal for a walk hadn't really occurred to him until his fingers started turning numb.


Onto his second cup of coffee from the small stand situated near the middle of the park, john was starting to wonder if Sherlock's brain had simply frozen in the frigid temperatures. The man didn't seem to be reacting to everything, merely keeping his eyes to the ground and following John silently, with the tiny frown between his eyebrows that showed he wasn't really present. John could ask him anything now and get a truthful answer, but really the doctor would rather Sherlock solve the damn case.

Although, that wasn't entirely true. As they started their fourth circuit round an impromptu football match that was now coming to an end John went over the case in his own mind for lack of anything better to do.

It had seemed relatively straight forward, Sherlock had flown though his deductions, almost faster than his usual babble of information, not even wasting breath to berate Donovan and Anderson, but Lestrade asked him for a motive, and it had stopped the genius in his tracks.

Sherlock couldn't find a motive for Mr Osman to murder his wife. It was clear that they'd loved each other, that they'd been married many years, from their possessions and photographs happily, and it had stumped Sherlock. He'd, reluctantly, told Lestrade he'd have to think about it, and the inspector told him he'd need an answer within 48 hours.

John sighed when he saw Sherlock was still out for the count and checked his watch. He'd finished his last coffee nearly half an hour ago, and his fingers were starting to loose feeling again. Time for another one then.


With a new cup of coffee and a couple of bacon sandwiches, John had found an empty bench by the large pond to sit at while he ate. He'd not even bothered asking Sherlock if he wanted to eat, they had a case so he already knew the answer.

The park was very quiet, the cold keeping most sensible people inside, and John relished the quiet. At was never actually quiet back at Baker Street, and as much as he loved Sherlock, sometimes he just wanted that little bit of peace

"Facts, John..."

The doctor blinked and turned to stare at Sherlock, his deep voice having shattered the silence more effectively than a shotgun. He swallowed the last piece of bacon sandwich before answering,

"What?"

"Facts, give me facts, there must be something I'm missing..."

"Umm... well, you said... Happily married"

"Yes, keep going"

"Wife was murdered in their home, in the living room..."

"Next...?"

"Bludgeoned over the back of the head with the fire poker"

"..."

"Uh... You said, personal, but didn't want to face her... He'd cleaned up though..."

"Keep going..."

"Anderson suggested he was hiding the evidence, but you said it was-"

"To clean the house, yes, yes, yes, anything else, anything new, anything you noticed yourself, something that might trigger something I missed, come on John! The motive! It has to be there, in his actions!"

They fell into silence again, as both men scoured their memory of the arrest and the crime scene, but john was distracted by a teenage couple sitting right on the bank of the river, playfully dropping things in the water and watching the ripples.

He could almost heard Sherlock's teeth gritting together as the young girl giggled and gazed at where her boyfriend was pointing

"Did you know, swan's mate for life Sarah?" the young lad whispered in what John assumed was supposed to be some sort of flirt. The girl clearly fell for it as she gasped at the small group of swans that her boyfriend had pointed out swam lazily near the bank they were sitting on.

While the youngsters clearly had their adult white plumes, John could see that five of the swans were this years young, and he watched the seven stunning birds drift past as he tried tor refocus on the case over the girl's gushing and the young mans attempts at being romantic

"Want to be like swans, Sarah?" John barely smothered a laugh as he half watched the boy's fumbling hands but his laugh would have been better than what happened next

"Rubbish" came Sherlock's deep voice, shattering the teenager's whispers and drawing their unwavering gazes to his

"Swans do not always mate for life; it has been proven through recent studies into genetics that quite often the creatures will divorce from their partners, or even mate with other swans while maintaining their main partnership, some swans have even been known to shown homosexual and transsexual tendencies... "

Silence reigned as Sherlock stopped his rant short, and john frowned. Surely the man hadn't actually realised, on his own, that his comments were inappropriate?

It took one look into pale grey eyes fro john to know that, no, that w3asn't what had stopped the consulting detective

"That's it! John! Mrs Osman was in a relationship with another woman! He was ashamed of her! That's it, that's the motive! Oh how did I miss it!"

The taller man leapt from the bench and marched out of the park, shouting a "come along John! Lestrade will want to know everything as quickly as possible!"

John merely sighed and stood slowly, glancing at the teenagers and murmuring a soft "sorry". The girl was sobbing and throwing her coat on, and John thought it was probably lucky Sherlock had stopped talking and left when he did, or the young lad might have ended up getting hurt.

"Ah well" he muttered, as he jogged after his partner, "at least that's another case solved, maybe I can hide the violin with the skull..."