She knew something was wrong the moment she opened her eyes. The rich aroma of coffee wafted through the flat. Coffee, she thought. I don't even drink coffee. Only one person would dare make themselves so at home in her flat, so left the gun on the side table and the knife in the case. She took her time making the bed, then wrapped a dark blue silk robe around her shorts and tank top and knotted the belt. She had one last look in the mirror, adjusted her hair, and finally went out to meet her visitor.
"Mr. Holmes," she started from the hallway, this time with a light Scottish accent. "You should have called – I would have made breakfast."
Sherlock turned from the window overlooking the Thames, and took another sip of the steaming coffee in a mug. "The first time we met, you were an American student. Then Mary, a Londoner with plenty of family in Europe. Jenna was an orphan and an Irish bomber. And now you're Scottish and you call yourself Amy."
She smiled with her back to him and reached into the fridge for the eggs. "I would expect you to see the reference in there, but you never were much a fan of pop culture, were you?" She didn't have to turn and look to know that he was racking his brain for the answer. "Don't trouble yourself over it; it's Doctor Who." She cracked two eggs into a bowl, added some milk, and started beating them. "I have a feeling you were trying to get at something else, though." The eggs sizzled as she poured them into a hot skillet on the stove.
"What am I supposed to call you?" The detective had made his way to the kitchen and was standing against the counter.
She didn't answer him at all until she'd scooped the scrambled eggs onto a plate and was poking at them with a fork. "Oh, I think we both know the answer to that." She took a bite of breakfast and nodded to herself in approval. "Sorry, did you want some?" she asked, holding the plate out to him.
He ignored her and closed his eyes, thinking. "Stupid," he finally muttered under his breath.
"Did you say something?"
"Moriarty." He sighed and opened his eyes. "You're his newest puppet."
She bit her lip to suppress a laugh. "Now, I could say yes," she answered in between bites, "but then you'd set the police on me, and I'm sure you'll understand how much of a nuisance that would be for both of us. So I could say no, but I think we're both past the point of petty lies. So I'll just say, no comment."
Sherlock set his half-full mug on the counter. "What could possibly be going on that he's using teenage girls? What, he's killed off everyone else? Or are they just refusing to work for him?" The questions went on and on in his head, and the flat was silent for a few minutes except for the sound of a fork scraping on a plate. It stopped, and then the girl put her plate in the sink. She did the same with Sherlock's cooling coffee.
"Dear Mr. Holmes," she said, shaking her head. "Won't you ever give up?" Before he could answer, she went on. "Go on back to John. Wait for someone to come to your door with some little problem they want you to solve, because really, Mr. Holmes, it's a matter of life and death and you just have to find our daughter for us." Her voice went up half an octave as she imitated the would-be client. "But, above all, forget me. Stop trying to stop me – stop thinking you can stop me. Because – let's face it – you can't. If you could, you would have by now. Moriarty is too good for you, but I'm sure there are plenty of other criminals in England just waiting for you to try and stop them." She took him by the arm and started leading him back to the front door. It was already open before he turned to her and responded.
"And I think we both know why I can't do that. So you tell him this for me, Amy. You tell your boss that as long as he's here to create problems, I will be here to solve them. Tell him that the only way I'm going to stop trying is if I'm lying dead six feet under." He practically spat the last sentence at her. Then he spun on his heel, slammed the door shut behind him, and ran down the six steps to the sidewalk.
Amy leaned back against the door. She twirled a finger in her hair and started laughing. "Oh, don't you worry, Mr. Holmes," she said to the empty flat. "I'll tell him." She pulled the curtain of the front window back and watched as he called a cab and drove off down the road. She sauntered across her flat and to the bathroom for a nice hot shower. After all, she deserved something for all her trouble with the detective.
Sherlock was silent the whole ride home except for the address he gave to the cabbie. When they pulled up to the building, he threw the fare at the man and rushed up the stairs. He didn't say a word when John looked up from the newspaper and asked where he'd been. He just changed out of his suit for the first time in two days, showered, put his robe on, and curled up on the couch on his side. It was hours before he moved again.
At noon, he finally looked up from the back of the sofa to see that John had gone off somewhere, but not before setting a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. It was cold now, of course, and Sherlock dumped it into the sink. He glanced at his table of experiments once on the way into the kitchen, and glared at it as if everything was its fault on the way out. Something was definitely wrong if his plethora of experiments and little works of research didn't even remotely interest him, but what? Then again, he had never actually liked psychology, nor did he actually care if something was wrong with him. He sighed heavily and crossed to the window. He drew back the curtain to see a grey sky, grey buildings, and an even greyer road. Thunder rumbled off in the distance somewhere. Another heavy sigh. He dropped the curtain and let it swing back into place. The rain started a minute later – just a few heavy drops at first, but it wasn't five minutes before Sherlock could hear the steady drumming of water on the rooftop. He heard a pounding on the door and ignored it to return to the couch. He picked up the rubber ball from the coffee table and started tossing it at the ceiling.
John walked in a minute later, soaked through to the bone, a bag of groceries in each hand. "Really?" he asked. "You couldn't be bothered to get up and let me in?" When Sherlock didn't answer, he gave up the line of questioning and put the food away. The spot usually occupied by the milk in the fridge, however, was now filled by a half-dissected frog. "Oh my god," John mumbled. "Sherlock? Why does the fridge look like a science classroom?" Again, no answer. "If you don't give me a really good reason for the presence of a frog in the fridge in the next thirty seconds, I'm dumping it outside." Sherlock just sighed – again – and kept tossing the ball in the air. John put the bread and biscuits away and then walked over to Sherlock. "Do you want the frog or not?" Sherlock caught the ball and put it in the pocket of his robe. "Sherlock, are you alright?"
Sherlock huffed and sat up on the couch with his knees tucked in to his chest. He leaned forward and put his head on his knees. "She's working for Moriarty."
"I thought you already decided she was Moriarty."
Sherlock shrugged. "Only in that they're both criminal masterminds who cause problems because they can. I didn't mean she was actually behind it all. And now she tells me she's working for him and – "
"So that's where you were?"
" – she says I should just give up because I'm not good enough to stop him."
John took this in. "Will you?" he asked after a moment.
Sherlock laughed. "How can I?"
"So why's it matter what she – or Moriarty – says?"
Sherlock looked up as if John had just suggested he become an astronaut. "What?"
"If you can't give it up, why's it matter what they say about it?" John repeated.
Sherlock dropped his feet to the floor and leaned back. "It matters because…" He paused to find the right words, but couldn't. "It just does, okay? I don't want the greatest criminal the world has ever seen to think I'm not worthy of being his competition, or that I'm not good enough for him to consider a threat." He stared at the dozens of pictures and articles and notecards he'd tacked up around the mirror over the fireplace. Pictures of her and her handiwork, articles about her crimes, colored notes all over and arrows connecting one thing to another. There had always been something missing, though, and now he knew what it was. Without another word to John, he leapt up and left the room for a minute. He returned with a box in his arms, used a foot to clear off the coffee table, and dropped the box. He tossed the lid to the side and started leafing through all the papers.
"What's this?" John asked, pointing to the box.
"Everything I've got on Moriarty. Now that he's in the picture…" His voice trailed off as he found one of many things he would add to the wall. He took the eight-by-ten of Jim from IT and tacked it up next to one of the girl. "Thanks for not getting rid of all my stuff, by the way," he added as he searched the bookcase for a box of thumbtacks.
"Yeah, no problem… I don't think I would've known what to do with all of it, anyway." John went back to the fridge and rearranged a few things to make room for the milk. "You're staying here for a while, then?"
Sherlock was still darting back and forth from the box to the wall, tacking more and more pages up. Every couple of trips, he'd step back and look at it all for a minute before deciding he needed another piece up there. "Umm… yeah," he said in response to John's question.
"Lunch?" John offered.
"Hmm?" Sherlock had picked up a marker and started drawing more arrows across the papers.
"Do you want lunch? No, let me rephrase that – what do you want for lunch?"
Sherlock picked up the marker for a minute and looked at John. "You know what? I could really go for some roast beef right about now." He smiled briefly and went back to the wall.
John looked at the ceiling and sighed. Of course Sherlock would want the one thing they didn't actually have. "Fine. I'll be back in a few minutes." He started down the stairs only to return a few seconds later. "Umbrella?"
"Behind the door," Sherlock answered without looking up.
He stepped through the door and let it swing shut behind him. Money in hand, he ordered two sandwiches and then stepped back to the wall to wait. A minute later, though, someone he hadn't actually seen in a while stepped in.
"Mycroft," John started, a bit surprised. The last time Sherlock's brother had been in the cafe, it was to say Irene Adler was dead.
"Good afternoon, Doctor Watson." He leaned slightly on his umbrella. "I understand my brother told you about Father?"
John thought back a few days. "Yeah. He just sort of blurted it all out. Said that was why he was detached or whatever… Come to think of it, he wasn't real clear on why he vanished for three years."
Mycroft sighed. "No, he never was very good at getting to the point, was he? The facts, yes. The emotions, not so much." He looked around for a minute, trying to decide where to start. "I think he felt betrayed, more than anything, though I'm sure I couldn't tell you who by. He was eight years old. Doesn't take much at that age for a boy to lose all faith in people. I don't think he ever trusted anyone again. Then when he jumped and faked his own death, he thought you'd be the same way. He didn't think you would take him back - don't tell him I said that, he'll never admit it."
John's order was ready then. He stepped up and took the bag. "I suppose he thought I'd make all those conclusions on my own, then?" he asked Mycroft, but when he turned back, the man had already gone.
"Goodbye to you, too," he muttered as he left the cafe.
Sherlock had kept at his work on the wall while John was out. By the time he returned, Sherlock had expanded the display to cover the entire wall from ceiling to mantle and was in the process of hanging things on the bookshelves. John resisted the urge to complain about the takeover of space – it wasn't as if he used the bookshelves much, anyway – and threw together some lunch for them. He brought a plate over to Sherlock to find the man standing in front of the coffee table, admiring his handiwork.
"All done?"
Sherlock nodded. "For now. Thanks." He took the plate from John and sat in a chair in front of the fireplace. John took a minute to look over the display, but he couldn't begin to follow the connections the detective had drawn between everything, so he went back to the kitchen for his own lunch.
"OH!" he heard from the living room, followed by a crash and a series of thuds. "Sorry!" Sherlock called out. John looked into the next room to see Sherlock standing with one foot on the arm of the chair and another on the back of it. His plate was in shards on the floor, along with two shelves' worth of books.
John turned around and took a deep breath. "Sherlock," he started. "What the hell were you doing to cause that?"
He heard Sherlock's feet hit the ground after he jumped off the chair. "I've got a book somewhere in here," he said as he started searching through the pile of books on the ground.
"Yes, I'm sure you've got a lot of books in there," John answered with as much sarcasm as he could muster. "Was there any one in particular you were looking for, or were you just hoping the right one would throw itself at you?"
Sherlock finished going through all the books at his feet. "Dammit," he muttered, throwing the last one to the side. He stepped back up on the chair and looked through the next shelf over. "There it is!" He pulled a heavy volume off the shelf, jumped off the chair, and stepped around the books now scattered across the carpet. Pacing the room, he flipped through the book until he found what he was apparently looking for. His eyes eagerly scanned the text. Then he grinned and snapped the book shut. "How do you feel about Cambridge?"
"I – what?"
"Cambridge University." Sherlock checked the clock. "I think we've got time for a quick visit."
"Why do want to go to Cambridge all of a sudden?"
Sherlock took a deep breath before launching into his explanation. "Those black cards with the "M" – at first I though maybe it stood for Mary or something, and then this morning after she said she was working for Moriarty I thought maybe that's what it stood for, but then I asked myself, "Why? Why send the cards? Why use such an impressive font?" This is one of the greatest minds of the world we're playing with, so there must be a reason for it. Then I realized I recognized the font from this book I've got on Medieval architecture, and it's got the M on the side, so I thought about Moriarty and the girl and the book and what on earth could they possibly all have in common? Cambridge. He once worked a heist or something there, one of those things he did just to show off, and the first time I met the girl she was here as an American looking to register for classes there because even if she did say it was for University of London she was on the page for Cambridge, and some of its buildings are considered to be among the best examples of Gothic architecture in England." He reached down and sorted through the shards of the broken plate to retrieve one of the black cards. "It was in my sandwich." Only then did he pause for breath.
John had listened to all this without interrupting, and he could understand almost everything, but he had one question: "What do you mean it was in your sandwich?"
Sherlock was just pinning the card up, front and center on the mantle. "I got halfway through the sandwich and this lovely little card fell out of it. So. How do you feel about Cambridge?"