Back in 221B, John, his breath ragged, hang his jacket on a hook while Sherlock simply put his coat on the stair's handrail.
"That was ridiculous," the doctor panted. They were both leaning on the wall, side by side, their breath slowly going back to normal. "That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done."
"You invaded Afghanistan," Sherlock corrected him, making them both laugh.
"That wasn't just me," John remarked. "Why aren't we back at the restaurant?"
"Oh, they can keep an eye out," Sherlock dismissed. "It was a long shot anyway."
"So what were we doing there?" John inquired. There had to be another reason.
Sherlock cleared his throat. "Oh, just passing the time… and proving a point."
"What point?"
"You," Sherlock simply answered. " !" he called. "Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs." He looked at John, as if to playfully dare him to say otherwise.
"Says who?" John asked.
"Says the man at the door," Sherlock said, looking at it. Indeed, someone knocked at this very moment, making his lips curve into a smile. As John went to open it, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It had been…wonderful. It had been his best night since a long, very long, time. It felt like a dream. Unbelievable.
John frowned when he saw Angelo behind the door.
"Sherlock texted me," he answered John's silent question. He held out the medical stick. "He said you forgot this."
"Oh." John took it and looked at Sherlock, inside. The clever bastard was grinning at him. "Thank you. Thank you," he told Angelo before going back inside. He was about to say something to Sherlock when Mrs. Hudson walked in the entrance, looking all worried and upset.
"Sherlock, what have you done?" she asked them.
"Mrs. Hudson?"
"Upstairs," she indicated. Not waiting any longer, Sherlock and John rushed to see what was happening.
Sherlock opened the door on Lestrade, comfortably installed in his armchair, the pink suitcase jut next to him. He had something to control the genius and he was going to enjoy it. Other officers were looking through the books and other items, searching for something. "What are you doing?" Sherlock asked angrily, standing right before him. It had been such a wonderful evening…
"Well, I knew you'd find the case, I'm not stupid," Lestrade answered.
"You can't just break into my flat!" Sherlock replied.
"You can't withhold evidence," Lestrade retorted. "And I didn't break in your flat."
"Well, what do you call this, then?" Sherlock half-shouted. Lestrade looked around.
"It's a drug bust!" he exclaimed.
John chuckled behind Sherlock. "Seriously?" he asked. "This guy? A junky? Have you met him?" Lestrade didn't loose his smile but Sherlock spun around and walked closer to him.
"John."
"I'm pretty sure you could search this flat all day, you wouldn't find anything you could call recreational," John continued. The man he had met wasn't the kind to use those things. Why would he need it?
"John, you probably want to shut up now," Sherlock insisted.
"Yeah but, come on…" His eyes met Sherlock's. Not him!
"No," John said out loud, disbelieving. "You?"
"Shut up!" Sherlock said angrily. He couldn't help it. This night, with John, had been great. Really great. Especially since, not less than a week ago, he was still… Anyway. Let's say that the roof scene with Lestrade was still cleat in his head. He didn't want to lose John. To lose John? What was happening? And since when did he care about what people thought about him? "I'm not your sniffer-dog," he told Lestrade, trying to chase those thoughts.
"No, Anderson's my sniffer-dog," Lestrade said, tilting his head toward the kitchen.
"What? And—" Sherlock stopped as Anderson made himself visible and waved at him with his latex-covered hand with a small smug look. "Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?" Sherlock exclaimed, feeling utterly violated.
"Oh, I volunteered," Anderson answered, raising his eyebrow. Was he trying to look menacing? Sherlock started to pace angrily like a lion in cage.
"They all did," Lestrade continued. "They're not strictly speaking on the drugs squad, but they're very keen."
As if it wasn't enough, Donovan had to be here too. "Are these human eyes?" she asked, coming from the kitchen with a glass jar.
"Put those back!" Sherlock told her, making wide gestures with his arms and hands. He felt trapped in his own place.
"They were in the microwave!"
"It's an experiment," Sherlock told her bitterly.
"Keep looking guys," Lestrade called out. The more they found, the more Sherlock would be agreeable. "Or you could help us properly and I'll stand them down," he told Sherlock who was still pacing like a wild animal.
"This is childish," he said.
"Well, I'm dealing with a child," Lestrade observed. "Sherlock, this is our case. I'm letting you in but you do not go off on your own. Clear?" He was really trying to make the younger man understand his point. It wasn't a game. There were real people out there, who could hurt or killed. Sherlock could be hurt or killed, and Lestrade had sworn he wouldn't let this happen. Not on his watch. And if he needed to organise drug bust to make this thick head understand, then be it.
"Oh, so what? So-so-so you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?" Sherlock was loosing it. He had left bullies behind him when he had left college. And t here were too many people who shouldn't be here. This wasn't right. This was… This was…
"It stops being pretend if they find anything," Lestrade threatened.
"I am clean!" Sherlock shouted.
"Is your flat?" Lestrade asked smugly. "All of it?"
"I don't even smoke." Sherlock unbuttoned and rolled-up his sleeve to show the nicotine patch on his arm.
"Neither do I." Lestrade did the same with his right arm. "So let's work together." Sherlock rolled his eyes and put his sleeve back down. "We found Rachel," Lestrade offered. Maybe he'll be more successful if he made the first step. Sherlock turned to look at him.
"Rachel? Who is she?"
"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter," Lestrade answered.
"Her daughter?" Sherlock said, frowning. It didn't make any sens. "Why would she write her daughter's name? Why?"
"Never mind that," Anderson exclaimed from the kitchen, pointing at the pink suitcase. "We found the case! According to someone, the murderer has the case, and we found it in the hands of our favourite psychopath."
"I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research," Sherlock snapped before looking back at Lestrade. "You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her."
"She's dead," Lestrade told him.
"Excellent!" Sherlock exclaimed. John wouldn't have chose this word exactly. Yesterday, he would probably have punched Sherlock right in the face for saying that. "How, when and why? Is there a connection? There has to be."
"Well, I doubt it since she's been dead for fourteen years," Lestrade calmed him down. "Technically, she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago."
"No, it's… That's not right…How…" Sherlock mumbled. "Why would she do that? Why?"
"Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments," Anderson said. "Yep, sociopath. I'm seeing it now." John resisted the urge to shut him down. Sherlock didn't need him to. Exasperated, he turned toward the idiot.
"She didn't think about her daughter," he told the scientist. "She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have hurt." He went back to pacing, thoughts circling in his mind.
"You said the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it," John remembered. "Well, maybe, he… I don't know… Talks to them… Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow.."
"Yes but that was ages ago," Sherlock told him. "Why would she still be upset?" The flat fell silent. John stared at him. Sherlock, realising he had said something to… sociopathic, fidgeted awkwardly. It was like a child who had made a mistake and was afraid of being punished. "Not good?" he asked John lowly, glancing at the silent people around him.
John looked around as well. "Bit not good, yeah," he answered. Sherlock shook and stepped closer to John, the flat still silent around them.
"Yeah but if you were dying, if you had been murdered, in your very last few seconds, what would you say?" he asked the army doctor. John's guts tightened. He looked down.
"Please, god. Let me live."
"Oh, use your imagination!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"I don't have to." Sherlock blinked, remembering who was before him. John could see the apologise and confusion in his blue eyes, even though he didn't express them out loud.
Sherlock didn't have time for… sentiments. He chase the disgusting word away. Back to the case. "Yeah but if you were clever, really clever… Jennifer Wilson, running all those lovers, she was clever. She's trying to tell us something!" He started to walk back and forth between Lestrade and John.
Mrs. Hudson chose this moment to enter. "Isn't the doorbell working? Your taxi's here, Sherlock," she said, looking at the messy living room.
"I didn't order a taxi, go away!" Sherlock shooed her. John was… startled. It didn't seem right for Sherlock to talk like this to Mrs. Hudson. He was really preoccupied then.
"Oh, dear. They're making such a mess," Mrs. Hudson said, not hurt by Sherlock's words. "What are they looking for?" Sherlock was still pacing, each time faster, having more and more difficulties to concentrate.
"It's a drug bust, Mrs. Hudson," he heard John answer. The answer was just there. He just had to…
"But they're just for my hip. They're herbal soothers," Mrs. Hudson said. Back to the door, Sherlock stopped.
"Shut up, everybody, shut up!" he shouted. They all, looked at him, a bit surprised. "Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe! I'm trying to think! Anderson, face the other way, you're putting me off!"
"What?" Anderson exclaimed. "My face is?"
"Everybody, quiet and still," Lestrade ordered. "Anderson, turn your back." If Sherlock needed it to solve the case, Lestrade was ready to personally escort Anderson outside, no matter how many shouts and kicks he would receive.
"Oh for god's sake!"
"Get back! Now! Please," Lestrade insisted. Anderson eventually complied. John scratched his head and sat in his armchair, waiting for Sherlock to have a revelation.
"Come on, think, quick!" the genius was muttering to himself as he paced between the furnitures.
"What about your taxi?" Mrs. Hudson dared to ask.
"Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock shouted. She went back and hurried downstairs. Sherlock froze.
"Oh! Oh… She was clever, clever, yes," he exclaimed with a huge smile. He started to walk again. "She's cleverer than you lot and she's dead. Do you see, do you get it? She didn't lose her phone, she never lost it. She planted it on him. When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death. She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer."
"But how?" Lestrade asked.
"What do you mean 'how'?" Sherlock stopped. The Detective-Inspector shrugged.
"Rachel!" Sherlock said as if it was the answer to everything. He received empty looks. "Don't you see? Rachel! Oh, look at you lot. You're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing," he added condescendingly when he realised no one was getting his point. John shook his head slightly as his friend insulted the whole of Scotland Yard. "Rachel is not a name!"
"Then what is it?" John asked harshly before Sherlock could say anything worst.
"John, on the luggage, there's a label. Email address." Sherlock sat before his laptop, ready to type.
"Er, .uk." John read.
"Oh, I've been too slow," Sherlock muttered as he started to type on the Metaphone website. "She didn't have a laptop, which means she did her business on her phone, so it's a smartphone, it's e-mail enabled. So there was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address and all together now, the password is?"
"Rachel," John said as he paused behind Sherlock, eyes on the screen.
"So we can read her e-mails. So what?" Anderson said in the kitchen. Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"Anderson, don't talk out loud," he told the man. "You lower the I.Q. of the whole street. We can do much more than just read her e-mails. It's a smartphone, it's got GPS, which means if you lose it you can locate it online. She's leading us directly to the man who killed her."
"Unless he got rid of it," Lestrade objected.
"We know he didn't," John assured him. That was why he had sent the text earlier, wasn't it?
"Come on, come on! Quickly!" Sherlock shouted at the charging window. Mrs. Hudson was coming back upstairs, slightly worried.
"Sherlock, dear," she said, "This taxi driver…" Before she could finish, Sherlock stood up and turned to face her. John took his place before the laptop.
"Mrs Hudson, isn't it time for your evening soother?" He asked her before turning to Lestrade. "We need to get vehicles, get a helicopter. We're gonna have to move fast. This phone battery won't last for ever."
"We'll just have a map reference, not a name," Lestrade calmed him down.
"It's a start!"
On the laptop, the map was zooming on the phone's location. "Sherlock?" John called.
"It narrows it down from just anyone in London," Sherlock continued. "It's the first proper lead that we've had."
"Sherlock?" John repeated worriedly.
"What is it? Quickly, where?" The consultive detective bent next to John to get a closer look. The blue dot was on Baker Street.
"It's here," John said. "It's in 221 Baker Street." Sherlock rose his head and tensed.
"How can it be here?" he murmured. "How?"
"Well, maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it… Fell out, somewhere," Lestrade supplied, not really believing it.
"What, and I didn't notice it?" Sherlock said, confused, looking at the flat around him. "Me? I didn't notice?"
"Anyway, we texted him and he called back," John told Lestrade. The Detective sighed.
"Guys, we're also looking for a mobile somewhere here, belonged to the victim …" he shouted to his colleagues.
Sherlock focused. How could the phone be here? Why? How? Who do we trust, even if we don't know them? His eyes fell on the man who had stopped behind Mrs. Hudson. A cap was hiding his face and he was wearing a grey cardigan. Around his neck, a badge was reading London Cab Driver. Sherlock frowned.
Who passed, unnoticed, wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of the crowd? Of course. Just as he reached his conclusion, his phone beeped.
Come with me.
The stranger turned around and started to walk downstairs slowly.
"Sherlock, you're okay?" John said behind him.
"What? Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," Sherlock answered, distractedly.
"So, how can the phone be here?" John asked him.
"Don't know," he lied, eyes still on the empty spot where the driver had been just seconds before.
"I'll try it again," John announced, grabbing his own phone.
"Good idea," Sherlock said, calmly heading to the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Fresh air. Just popping outside for a moment. Won't be long." John frowned. He could feel that something was off.
"You're sure you're alright?
"I'm fine," he answered from the staircase where he disappeared.