[Author's Note: So, I was going to post earlier, but real life got in the way. This means that maybe only one chapter tonight and the other tomorrow. Spoilers for the third episode and a few tie-ins before I start to deviate from the story-line into more fictitious plots. Still, read and review, and tell me all about it. Next chapter will be a companion (you'll know it by the 'AND -' title) and finishes this train of thought into the spoilers for the fourth season. Bear with me, please. I own nothing but the OC's and my promise that Bart will figure prominently in the next chapter.]

"He's a coward, I tell you. Honestly, if he was just going to flake out after it happened he never should have kissed me in the first place!" Addie ranted, all the while flipping pancakes on the stove. "I mean, who the hell does that?" She growled deep in her throat. "I tell you who, Sherlock fucking Holmes!"

Bart, who had been dutifully listening to his best friend, tilted his head at the mention of Sherlock. Even he was aware that he had not been around for more than a month. Addie, just as stubborn as her good-for-nothing neighbor did not just go and confront him. Of course, it didn't mean that she was going to stop complaining about it, either. After all, it had been nearly perfect.

Sherlock and Addie had made it back to 219 after John and Mary's wedding, Bart barking up a storm as they crumpled into the sofa, not bearing another step forward. He had stretched himself out the length of the furniture, forcing Addie to stretch herself along with him and take refuge in the small space between him and the back of the sofa. It had been a natural position, and Sherlock had even wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pressing her to his chest while she mumbled something about her legs not being able to work until next Christmas. He grinned, stroking her hair free of the generously hair-sprayed curls and into its more natural waves, humming some nameless tune being concocted in his mind under his breath. Addie stared up, her green eyes barely peeking out of the mess that was now her hair, watching the detective while he so calmly lounged around the flat with her. She had never seen him so calm without having the luxury of a gun in his hand, murdering the wallpaper behind his own furniture. Yet, when he was in her flat, just talking to Addie about something unimportant or playing the cello or simply spoiling Bartholomew, he let go of the constant murmurs in his head that told him to be of use. The fact made her proud, and she smiled at him through the veil of brown hair, getting another in return. Slowly, far too slowly, in her opinion, she watched him push her hair away from her face and bend his neck. His face was merely centimeters from her own and closing when his phone trilled the most obnoxious song, signaling that Mycroft needed something.

"What do you want, Mycroft?" He growled, his hand still cupping Addie's pink cheeks. He waited for a reply, rolling his eyes at whatever trivial fact his brother was bothering him with at the time. A few impatient murmurs later, he interrupted his elder sibling. "Mycroft not that this isn't a scintillating tale," he drawled sarcastically , drawing nearer once more, lips brushing hers with every word he spoke, "but I have to kiss Adelaide now." He flung the phone away without noticing where it fell and crashed into her in a desperate lip-lock. That was a month ago. Addie had not seen him since. That was all going to change. RIGHT. NOW.

"Sherlock Holmes, I need a word with you!" She bellowed, flinging the door open and barging into the dark flat, only to stop short of the living room. On the sofa, beneath the smiley face painted in yellow, was Sherlock. It would be a fair moment to point out that he was not alone. Straddled a top of him in a fierce battle of control while they kissed was a woman. A very familiar woman. The couple was kind enough to stop their display to look at Addie, mouth agape and one leg in the air as if her brain had not told her to take that last step.

"Oh, hello, Addie! Sorry to find us in such a position. I was just going to work and I got distracted," Janine said with an awkward smile, getting off of Sherlock and collecting her things. "I'll see you later, Sherl."

"Adelaide, how very nice to see you," Sherlock casually remarked, wiping off the remnants of lipstick off of his face. His blue eyes followed his friend around the room where she stood next to John's old cricket bat. "Addie, please, I can explain."

"Oh, no need to explain, Sherlock. It's fine."

He sighed, standing up and approaching her, but keeping a safe distance from her threatening stance. "Adelaide, I'm working a case, Janine is a key to unlocking it. I swear, it's—"

"I really don't want to bloody hear it, Sherlock! A month! A bloody month, are you serious?!" She yelled, no furious, her fingers dancing on the handle of the bat.

Sherlock's eyes turned sad and wide, and he slumped his shoulders in a manner he knew would convince the woman of his words. "Addie, I—"

"Don't Addie me, Sherlock Holmes! You do not get to use those sad blue eyes against me. You do not get to be forgiven for this! Would it kill you to say anything? Anything at all. I've been worried you had receded into a turtle shell inside your room, and I come here to find out she's been able to coax it out just fine."

"It's not what you think!" He pleaded, putting a hand on her shoulder. The look he got in return was murderous, and he took a step back, his hands up in front of him in a protective stance. "I know that face. That's the I'm going to bloody hurt you face."

Her jaw tensed and she gripped the cricket bat in her hand with resolve. "Good deduction, Mr. Holmes."

When Sherlock came to, there was a mess of splinters on the floor around him, two pieces of cricket bat strewn beside his body and a fiery ache on his cheek bone. When he touched his fingers to the site, they came away red with blood. Surely Addie would have a little more sense about her. He hadn't exactly given her a reason to show any kind of leniency towards him, but he was certain that she had overreacted. Scrambling up from the floor with a little difficulty, he ran a hand down his clothes to straighten them, only to hear the crinkling of paper. There was a note attached to his shirt. Bart misses you. He smiled, which in itself hurt more than the blow to the head had. Maybe not all was lost.

"Everyone is overreacting! I'm on a case, John!" Sherlock bellowed from the back of the taxi on their way to St. Bart's Hospital.

"I don't bloody care what you have to say. We're going to Molly and you're going to pee in a bloody cup!"

"Why did you have to call Adelaide?" He growled back in the same acerbic tone, staring at the girl who was at John's other side, pointedly looking out of the window.

"I'm here to make sure that John doesn't kill you. I don't fancy having my best friend's baby having to visit his father at prison for such a person as you, Lock."

The consulting detective grinned. "You called me Lock. You're not all that mad at me, are you?"

"Nope, I'm being sarcastic. I only tolerate you because my dog loves you, and even then, you're only supposed to be there when I'm at work."

"Did you read my letters?"

"Nope," she replied, popping the 'p' sound and still looking out the window.

"Addie—"

"Sherlock Holmes, I will end you if you keep talking!" She yelled, startling everyone, including the taxi driver. John chuckled sarcastically and dragged Sherlock out of the back as soon as they arrived at the Hospital.

"Fuck!" Addie was looking at the small granules she had crystallized out of a blood sample from Sherlock. She rested her head against the lab table and groaned. Molly had just slapped Sherlock, putting him in his place for taking drugs when he had such an incredible gift. Addie would have done it herself had she any self-control and guarantee that she would not kill the consulting detective.

"I think you all want to listen to Adelaide for a minute," the tall man whispered, nursing the side of his face with a delicate touch.

"Trace amounts taken somewhere between one and two days ago. There's not even enough to properly recover a decent sample." John stared at her expectantly, as if waiting for the punch line. "He's not lying. He took enough to make the others trust him."

"I don't bloody care. How do we even know he'll stop there? What if that was the first taste?" John's tone was deadly, and Addie couldn't do anything but shrug. He knew that they had a falling out, she never told him why, just that she planned never to be in an empty room with him ever again. "We're going home. Did you call him?"

Letting her hair fall from the clamp where she had secured it, Addie nodded a little reluctantly. "Of course I did."

"Good. Let's go!"

In Baker Street, a smug Mycroft waited for them on the stairs. While everyone was expecting an overbearing sibling worried for the welfare of his brother, they instead received a sarcastic man who found it a little humorous that his brother was once again on the sauce, as he put it. It annoyed all the occupants all the same, but it was grating on the nerves of a high Sherlock.

"Mycroft, could you please lay off for a minute?" Addie asked through clenched teeth. Her eyes were following Anderson and his friend. She might have been thoroughly pissed at the detective, but she was sure that he was not into hard drugs. Sure, he looked rough, but it was not the sunken, dead look that a drug addict usually sports. That and she did not appreciate the embargo on his apartment. If it were her in that situation… well, she wouldn't be in that situation, but if it were, she wouldn't want them to break into her flat and search it. Plus, Sherlock was usually candid with his past vices and when he was falling off the wagons. It wouldn't make sense for him to start denying it now.

"I didn't know you were still fond of my brother. As I understood it, you were not on speaking terms for months. What gives you the authority to dictate what I should do for my brother."

"Because he doesn't lie to me. He'd rather avoid me for a month than lie to me. If he can tell me to my face that he's not hooked on anything, then I believe him."

"Oh, women are so sentimental about men and their lies. Sherlock plays you just as much as he plays everyone else."

"What reason would he have to lie to me? He has no attachment to me, he's not related, I don't work with him, and he doesn't owe me anything. It would be a waste of Mind Palace to fib to me and have to remember what he lied to me about!" She turned towards the two searching the flat and stared them down. "Out."

"Your door is closed. Your room is never closed. Would it be that you're hiding something inside?"

"Stay out of his room!" "Stay out of my room," Addie and Sherlock bellowed together. They stared at each other blankly for a moment before Sherlock remembered what was bothering him. The words Charles Augustus Magnussen were uttered, and apparently, it was rather a big deal. While Addie had not the smallest clue what that meant, Mycroft and Sherlock shared a small moment of veiled threats. That is, until the younger Holmes remembered really did not like to be messed with when he was high. It had been in a flash that he had Mycroft against the frame of the door with his arm wrenched against his back, causing the elder to hiss in pain.

"No, no. Stop it. Not the time, you tosspot, you," she groaned, while John eventually ripped them apart. Sherlock nipped away towards the bathroom, deciding it was time to start looking like a presentable human being, and John dismissed Mycroft from the flat. John and Addie stared at each other, each trying to figure out what to do and what was going on. It was impossible that two months away from John would drive Sherlock into drugs. Two months without Addie, as well, would certainly drive him up a wall, John thought.

"What happened to you two? I thought you were fine. You left the wedding together and you looked like you were pleased with yourselves and it seemed—it seemed like maybe someone had managed to put a bell on the cat." John argued, throwing himself in the armchair and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"We were. It was going great, actually. I mean, I thought—, well, it doesn't matter what I thought. It was wrong. I was wrong."

"What happened?" John asked again, pointedly staring at her.

"Well—"

"John. How are you doing? Addie, it's great seeing you again," a half-dressed Janine greeted cheerfully, coming out of Sherlock's bedroom, clearly having slept there.

"J-Janine, hi. Nice to see you, too," John stuttered out in surprise.

"Where's Sherlock?"

"Bathroom," Addie replied with a grin. As soon as the woman retreated into the hall, she turned to John. "Say hello to reason, John."

"He… she… he wouldn't!"

"He did. Very much so." Her feet scuffed the floor as she shuffled them awkwardly, eyes fixed on the coffee table further away.

"Bloody fuck."

"You've got a girlfriend?" John asked awkwardly, Janine just having exited the flat. Addie was standing at the window, looking at the gloomy day that was bound to come.

"Yes, I do."

"And it's not Adelaide?" John's question made Addie snort from her position, picking up the skull in the corner, but she said nothing more.

"I thought it would be obvious. Seeing as I was kissing Janine and not Addie." The sound of Addie dropping the skull made both men start and sidetrack the conversation. "Npw, Magnussen. He's like a shark, that's the best way to describe him. I've dealt with thieves, murderers and terrorists, but none make my stomach turn like Charles Magnussen."

"I'm sorry. Really, Sherlock, Janine?"

"Not that I don't absolutely adore her, but can we stop talking about Janine and more about the idiotic case this dumbass has been on about?" Adelaide's patience was wearing thin and she was a moment away from ducking out to her flat. This was asking far too much from her.

"Right, Magnussen is a newspaper owner, but he is so much more than that. He uses his power and wealth to gain information. He knows the pressure point of every person of influence of the Western world and beyond. He is the Napoleon of blackmail. He created an unassailable architecture of forbidden knowledge. It's name is Appledoor." He took a breath. "All of it is kept in hard copy. He's smart, computers can be hacked, and everything is kept in vaults under that house. As long as the information is there, the personal freedom of anyone you've ever met is a fantasy." His explanation was interrupted by Mrs. Hudson announcing a person intruding the sanctity of the flat, and Addie automatically moved by Sherlock, keeping herself as close to the wall as possible.

They were patted down by unknown persons in black before a self-important man, dressed in a suit entered the living room as if he owned it. Addie assumed it was this Magnussen fellow everyone was talking about, and the mere sight of him made her skin crawl uncomfortably. Sherlock was trying to negotiate the return of the letters of Lady Elizabeth Smallwood before this odd man said a single word that stopped Sherlock in his tracks. "Redbeard." Addie stared at the consulting detective, urging him onwards with a nod, but seeing that he had lost whatever confidence he had in himself for this meeting. Mangussen, making as little sense as a duck trying to tell them about evolution, paced around the room, peed in the fireplace and took his leave, before refusing the exchange of the letters.

"Did you notice the one remarkable thing he did?" Sherlock asked, still not moving.

"I can anme a few," replied John, looking at the fireplace.

"He showed us the letters, which means they are in London and he's willing to make a deal. HE only makes deals after he has taken all the pressure points of his adversaries. He thinks I'm a drug addict, and that's what he focuses on. I need you to meet me at seven. I'll text you the details."

"Well, I'm going home and never speaking of this again, " Addie remarked with a sarcastic smile, turning to the door at once.

The taller of the two men caught her by the wrist. "I need you there, too."

"Fat chance of that happening," she combatted, ripping her hand out of his grasp.

"Addie, please. I need an extra set of eyes for this, someone who doesn't think like a sociopath."

"Sherlock, I really don't think—"

"Please! If you do this for me I'll never ask you for anything again if you don't want to. Help me."

The girl sighed, shaking out her curls lazily, staring at the toes of her shoes. "Text me the details. "

"We're breaking in to his office? No, Sherlock, I did not sign up for this. This is the non-sociopath saying, you've gone too far," Adelaide hissed through her teeth, pulling the man away from the lift, John right behind them.

"But it won't read as the wrong card, haven't you been listening?"

She punched his shoulder as hard as she dared in the crowded lobby, and growled. "Don't treat me like an idiot, that gets you punched in the face. There's a bar code on the card. Who says it's not read simultaneously as a safeguard?"

"It's not."

"How do you know?"

"I just do, Adelaide. Will you listen to me? I'll get in. I went shopping."

"For what? A twelve digit, security scanner decoder? That's the only thing getting you there!"

With an impatient noise, Sherlock wrenched away from Addie, ignoring both of his friends' pleads and swiped the card. The scanner beeped and the display showed an error in the card. Sherlock, stepping to the right, smiled at the monitor where Janine's face had appeared on the small LCD.

"Human error," Addie mumbled, trying to reign in the desire to kick Sherlock in the shin. "Of course it's Janine. Because the Universe hasn't shit-kicked me enough today." John set a sympathetic arm on eher shoulder and smiled down at her.

"Sherlock, you loon. What are you doing?" Her voice whispered through the speakers.

"Come on, let me up," he smiled bashfully at her, Addie was immediately sick.

"I can't you know I can't."

"Don't make me do this out here. In front of all these people," he whined, watching the passerbys with a weary eye. Addie sucked in a breath. If this was goig where she thought this was going…

"Do what in front of everyone?" Sherlock reached into his pocket and drew out a box, he opened the top and revealed a diamond ring inside it and raised it to the camera. Addie doubled over, trying to quell the bile rising in her throat and the need to be violently sick in the lobby. The lift opened, and they all stepped inside. John rubbed Addie's back in circles while she tried to get her breathing under control.

"It took six months to kiss me, and two to propose to her?" She hissed through clenched teeth.

"Well, I needed her. She's Magnaussen's PA."

"You just got engaged to break into an office?" John asked, perplexed at his friend's new level of low.

"Yes."

"She's in love with you."

"Like I said, human error."

"What will you do?"

"Well, not actually marry her, obviously. There's only so much you can do. I'll just tell her our relationship was an elaborate ruse to break into her bosses' office. I imagine she won't want to see me at that point."

"You're an idiot," Addie growled, her eyebrows tightly furrowed and her hand clenching repeatedly, thirsty for blood. The lift opened, but Janine was nowhere in sight. At least not until John found her on the floor, out cold, along with a security guard. Sherlock sniffed, catching the whiff of a perfume he identified as Claire-de-la-lune, a favorite scent of lady Smallwood, and rushed upstairs to the private flat. Addie followed him upstairs, staling in the shadows of doorway and peeking in to a kneeling Magnussen being held at gun-point by someone all in black.

"Additionally, if you want to commit murder, you might want to consider changing your perfume, Lady Smallwood," Sherlock drawled, stepping into the room, despite Adelaide's protests.

"Sorry. That is not Lady Smallwood, Mr. Holmes," Magnussen whispered in a hoarse voice. Addie had found the courage to stand next to Sherlock, her mobile in her hand and poised on the Call button for 999. The figure in black turned around, gun and all.

Addie felt she was going to be sick again, and Sherlock had to grab her before her knees buckled and made her tumble to the ground. Finding her feet and voice, she managed to whisper, "Mary!"

"Oh, Addie," She said in a soft voice. "Damn. Is John here?" Sherlock tried to mumble a response. "Is John here with you?"

"He's downstairs with Janine," he managed to choke out, his lip trembling just as much as Addie's whole body was.

"So, what do you do now? Kill us all?" Magnussen asked, and Addie wished she could kick the man. This was not the moment for a mind game, her best friend had a gun trained at them.

"Mary, whatever he's got on you, I can help," Sherlock drawled slowly, like coaxing out a frightened animal.

"Sherlock, you take one more step, I swear I will kill you," she replied certainly.

Addie snorted reflexively. "I'm sorry. It's usually me saying that. Remind me to never say that again." Adelaide said, a little bashfully, holding the back of Sherlock's coat and trying to tug him back to her. "Sherlock, step back. Just, listen to Mary, please. For once, just listen."

He grinned smugly. "No, Mrs. Watson, you won't." As soon as his foot hit the ground, the gunshot sounded and Sherlock tumbled back. Addie shrieked, falling to her knees and looking up at Mary with pleading eyes before the latter knocked Magnussen out with the barrel of the gun and approached Addie.

"Mary! Please, Mary," she chanted blindly, tears inundating her vision, not even sure how to respond to the stressful situation she was in. Mary kneeled down next to her, stroking her hair and taking her mobile, pressing the Call button and telling the authorities of the accident.

"Shh. It's going to be fine. He'll be fine, I swear to you. Trust me."

"You put a bullet in him, Mary!" Addie shrieked the sentence, one she didn't think she would ever have to utter in her life.

"Please don't tell John. Addie, swear it!"

"Do you plan to shoot me if I do?"

"No. Never. Please, I need your word. Addie, I need your word. Sherlock will be ok. Please. Swear to me you won't tell John." Addie nodded, and Mary hugged her tightly, kissing her forehead and taking one last guilty glance at Sherlock before leaving the way she came. Addie sat there crying for a second or two before yelling for John at the top of her lungs. The doctor rushed in with fear in his eyes and called the authorities once more. When the ambulance came, they couldn't pull Adelaide off of Sherlock, seemingly in shock and transported her along with him to the Hospital.