He was kind of aware that he had followed her through the maze of corridors, past security and then reception and in to the car park, but he wasn't really sure that he'd done it of his own volition. It had just sort of... happened.

Faylinn didn't even stop to consult him when they emerged in to the open air. The pink and orange hues of sunrise were slowly beginning to penetrate the inky morning sky. She headed straight to his car without anything in the way of consultation. By the time he had shaken off the trance, she was stood impatiently holding the glossy red handle of the passenger door; he clicked it open and extended his gait to climb in next to her.

Fastening her seat belt, the younger woman began to look around her as if she didn't quite know how she had arrived there. Ollie knew the feeling. She prodded the empty food wrappers and screwed up receipts in the cup holders to her right. Her disapproval was clear - her love of order and dislike of clutter was reflected in everything she did, whereas Ollie simply seemed to endeavour to see through his mess. The horror did not go unnoticed, as Ollie smiled in to his rear view mirror and swung the hatchback out of the parking space. He sped out of the complex, heading down the drive at a speed way above the 5 miles per hour that was indicated by the signs. His passenger did not see it fit to complain, however, for she was known for her 'speed limits are a suggestion and not a requirement' mantra.

"I don't approve of your choice of vehicle." The clamours and growls of the engine had forced her to speak up, striving for the rhythm of the usual blunt comments that were common currency between them.

"That's not what they normally say." The accompanying raise of an eyebrow disgusted her more than the empty Snickers wrapper at her feet, but the remark was so ridiculous, so comparable to the catchphrase of a washed up American sitcom character, that she snorted nonetheless. He had considered adding a quip about the backseat, but his words hadn't quite found their order quickly enough. Plus, the warning look he was receiving was enough to seal his lips for good.

As they finally joined the main road, the driver glanced over to find that Faylinn's attention had now honed in on his music collection. He wasn't surprised to learn that she didn't approve of that, either.

"You could have walked, you know." He made an effort to paint his words with enough sarcasm to ensure that neither his ego nor his car were harmed further - he didn't need to take his eyes off the road to know that he was receiving a death stare. Heat could almost be felt from it, radiating on to his left arm. "Why aren't you driving anyway? Your Audi was on the car park wasn't it?"

Relenting her finessed and trademark scowl, Faylinn turned so that she could face him without craning her neck. She sprung in to action, as if he had finally been intelligent enough to justify speaking to. He was finally asking the right questions and her attention was a reward.

"I need to run something past you." she announced. Red traffic lights allowed Ollie to glance over at the papers that had now materialised on her lap.

"Holmes, isn't that the Moriarty case? The break ins?" The end of his sentences flicked up in pitch to ask a question, despite already knowing the answer. "You shouldn't be working on that - we were told not to touch it after the trial. Were you not reassigned?"

"I'm not working on it. Not officially, anyway." Faylinn replied. This time, it was the man who was wearing an expression of disbelief. In response, she quickly leapt to her own defence.

"You're not telling me that you didn't find it odd? That all of those people unanimously voted to set him free when he quite literally preformed daylight robbery? Surely it is obvious even to you that he rigged the jury."

Ollie decided not to take offense at the 'even to you' part of her statement (he had slowly been beaten in to submission by the younger woman - you had to pick your battles carefully). Instead, he nodded in concession to her point. She may have gone to the obsessive lengths of a dishevelled, retired police officer in a crime drama but she did at least have a point.

"Right. So, when he was found not guilty we had to suddenly step away, leaving a potentially lethal hole in the security of the whole bloody country. Again, odd - why were we never allowed to finish the job? There had to be a way of finding out how he did it. It never seemed to add up. He did it all from his iPhone with the touch of a button and yet it would have taken one of my lot a few hours to code anything that would even touch the protection on one of those places. Scotland Yard never released the phone to us, which I find frankly unbelievable; we could have been having this conversation weeks ago if they had. I've done a lot of modelling and again, nothing fits. To cut a long story short, there is no code. There can't be."

He turned to face her, somehow having forgotten about the road in front of him. She watched as the cogs turned behind his eyes and he fitted the pieces of the jigsaw back together.

"It's all here - read it if you must." she added, concerned that the driver had failed to face the direction of travel again, but equally anxious that her methodology was being questioned.

Watching the barrier to the car park rise in front of them, both seemed to decide that the conversation would not be revived. Joggers, clad in neon jackets, squinted at the tinted glass as the car and it's driver were unable to decide whether or not they would park by the curb. With her hand hovering over the door handle, Faylinn tried to inspire some urgency with in her colleague. Very little could be found, unfortunately.

"I... I'll have a look... You might well be on to something."

Content that she had dragged relative praise out of a man who was known for his inability to be complimentary unless a) under duress or b) trying to, in his own words, 'pull', she stepped on to the pavement. Slamming the door, she called out a thank you behind her.

The carriage was empty, allowing her free choice of the window seats. Carefully placed looks meant that the seat next to hers remained empty as more commuters and more emails flooded in (the 8am watershed had been passed). Whilst fending off a man in a cheap suit with a momentary scowl, Faylinn initially ignored the text that buzzed through.

Please call John. I need him to leave. Tell him to go to Baker Street. Urgent 9. NQA.

-SH

Her brother's text made her pause, picking at her thumb nail; his request sounded almost pleading. The final three letters of the message prevented her from asking why the task had been bestowed upon her. 'No Questions Asked' meant that it fitted somewhere in the matrix of complicated favours and services that had been mapped out between the three siblings over the years. She felt that after almost two years in South America, she had fallen behind.

A mobile number that she didn't recognise fell in quickly behind the first text, so after making her way to the end of the carriage, she called it. It rang three times, allowing enough time for the butterflies to rise in her stomach and for a slight shift in her tone of voice. Faylinn was fully confident in her ability to lie - after all, she had learnt from the very best.

"Hello, is that Mr John Watson?" She asked, smiling cordially as a lanky teenager emerged from the toilet, "Yes. This is Sarah. I'm a paramedic. I've been asked to inform you that there has been an incident involving your landlady, Martha Hudson."

He pressed her, squeezing out details that she had not prepared.

"Unfortunately, Ms Hudson has sustained a gunshot wound, sh-"

She could hear the panic rising in John's voice. It proved to be useful - it forced her to check the pitch of her own.

"Please do not panic, Mr Watson. My colleagues are attending to her now. Is there any way you could meet us here in the next say, fifteen minutes? Are you in London?"

John hung up directly after answering the question. His urgency confirmed that her hoax had passed the test, leaving her to breathe a sigh of relief. She checked her messages on the way back to her seat, but found nothing from Sherlock. Not for the first time in the last few days, she felt completely out of the loop; all she could do was sit and wait to be delivered in to London.

Later, the flotsam from former rush hours could still be seen as she stepped off the platform and in to the entrance hall of Paddington station. She did not pause to consult the map and darted around confused tourists, heading straight for the exit and the taxi rank.

It was then she saw it - on Twitter, of all places - a blurry, shaky video in which a figure, complete with an unmistakable cape-like black coat billowing out in the cold wind, fell from a rooftop. Falling, falling. It hit her like a midwife's slap. The amateur camerawoman had failed to capture the landing, but even someone with a lesser knowledge of physics than Faylinn could have guessed how the story ended. Despite the evidence in front of her eyes, she scrambled to find the equations, the numbers that would make it okay, that would tell her it was all stunt and that he had survived. Her head spun. No one, not even the indestructible Sherlock Holmes could survive a fall from that height. Allowing her phone on fall on to the seat next to her, she clamped her hand to her mouth, suppressing the sobs and the screams and the swear words that were climbing up her throat. Tears did not arrive, but her eyes screwed as if willing them to.

The cab continued on its chosen course towards Baker Street. It was only when the car had pulled over, with its driver staring at her expectantly from the front seat that Faylinn managed to speak.

"Er erm sorry yes, could you take me to this address? Sorry." A business card was retrieved from her handbag after a quick, frantic search. The cabbie studied the address before sighing and removing the hand break.

Her breath was ragged and short. She reminded herself that she was not allowed to do that - not allowed to descend in to a state that she could not climb back out of. Closing her eyes to remove the distractions of London clamour proved to be futile. Stubbornly, her mind's eye clung to the only image that had not been blanketed in a haze of confusion, the only thing that could be seen with any real clarity. Falling, plunging, plummeting. Sherlock was gone.

He had jumped. He hadn't been pushed. She hadn't spotted the signs. She hadn't been able to stop him. In its frenzy, her brain told her that Mycroft could have: Mycroft could have stopped him.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been following/favouriting! Please review to let me know what you think...