Wednesday turned out rather oddly for Natalie. Had she been more experienced, she would have recognized the signs yesterday morning in Lestrade's office, something had grabbed Sherlock's interest. Instead, she continued on, oblivious to the adventure barreling towards her.
On Tuesday night she had slept on the couch again, agreeing with John to start switching off every few days. She'd had a really strange dream. For some reason she'd gone down to the street to buy something at the café, (probably because Sherlock had managed to rob her of a meal somehow,) and saw the TARDIS parked on the sidewalk. Except in her dream she hadn't recognized it as THE TARDIS, only a weird thing that maybe she should attach importance to. A boy leaned against it, looking impatient. Then the doors opened and a man in a bowtie and sports jacket leaned out, looking worried, "Omar, call for Rory as soon as you see the siblings. If they don't show up soon with a jar of maple syrup then Amy is definitely going to completely transform into a parakeet." Just then a female voice from inside screamed, "Doctor!" and the man closed the door. Natalie walked up to the Arabic looking teenager leaning against the blue box, "We might have some maple—" just then a young man and woman ran into her line of sight, each carrying a maple leaf shaped jar of what she assumed was maple syrup. Immediately the boy called Omar opened the TARDIS doors and yelled, "Rory!" Seconds later a guy Natalie recognized as the one called ran out to meet the brother and sister with a strange contraption decorated with flashing lights. Before she could understand what was happening, siblings, Omar, and Rory had all re-entered the TARDIS, which began to dematerialize before her eyes. "Hm, that was weird," Dream Natalie thought, turning back to Speedy's, where she saw a strange glowing crack appear in the front window. That was when she woke up. Maybe she shouldn't have watched so much Doctor Who before bedtime…
After the excitement, it was hard to settle down to her schoolwork, an unexpected side effect she had noticed on Monday and Tuesday as well. Finally however, it was finished, and she jumped online to tell her Nexus Route buddies about her awesome dream. It wasn't as exciting as the news from a few days ago, but they still seemed to like hearing about it. While reading through her Twitter stream, Natalie suddenly thought of what she considered to be a rather brilliant idea, what if she created a graphic novel about her time in England? Minutes later she had a piece of paper and a pencil on the coffee table before her, beginning to scribble out ideas for the execution of the thing.
An uncertain amount of time later, a shadow fell across her paper, where she was trying to figure out the best way to draw John. Glancing up, Natalie saw Sherlock standing over her. Scrutinizing his facial expression, she finally decided that he was excited about something. "Can I help you?" she asked, wondering vaguely if she sounded like a department store employee.
"I was wondering what you think of this?" Sherlock planted a newspaper across her page, pointing to an advertisement in the 'help wanted' section which he had circled.
Sighing, Natalie leaned forward, reading aloud, "Wanted, a girl to help with housework and childcare after school each day. Applicants should be of Latino decent, look no older than 15 and be prepared to make fashion concessions to suit my wife's tastes such as wearing a dress of a certain shade of blue—What is this?" the girl interrupted herself.
"An advertisement placed by a particularly dull former client. However, this promises to be of considerable interest."
"So," Natalie began to feel the direction this conversation was about to take, and she didn't care for it much, "What exactly are you telling me about this for?"
Sherlock answered as if it was the most obvious and normal thing in the world, "I want you to take the job."
"And how do I know that this is nothing more than a scheme to keep me out of your hair?" deep down Natalie suspected she would acquiesce to his request, but she wanted to give him a hard time first.
"You and I both know that lounging around a flat is boring, and I also know that you thoroughly enjoyed our adventure at Milverton's ball." Sherlock moved in for the kill, "I'm only offering you this opportunity because I believe from your performance there that you are up to the challenge."
Who was she kidding; Natalie had tasted adventure, and now found it surprisingly difficult to settle for anything less, "What does the job pay?" She could tell from the subtle change in Sherlock's face that he knew her question really voiced her acceptance.
"Thirty pounds a day."
"Is that a lot?" she inquired, instantly regretting it. Blast it all, she couldn't help but want to seem intelligent and knowledgeable around the detective.
"Yes," he replied.
"Well," she drew out the word, "I'll do it."
"Marvelous, you begin tomorrow if the Rucastles agree to hire you, and I'm sure they will," without another word Sherlock turned away, and Natalie returned to her drawing.