My original plan was to post this on Friday but I didn't expect to finish this chapter today. I suppose it is for the better, I mean, I do have assignments due on Friday that I have put off, so might as well finish it, eh? Thank you to everyone for the amazing response I have received these last couple of weeks! I want to apologize for the lateness of this chapter, and I won't waste your time reading with excuses. Enjoy!

Chapter Eleven: Heavens to Betsy!

"It's lovely to see you, Helen." I shake the hand of the sister upon entering the house. Helen has a small smile on her face, but it is still too soon for the smile to be a real and happy one. Her grip on my hand is gentle and I notice how her tired brown eyes have dark circles around the both of them. They are also sunken in like she hasn't slept in days. "If you don't mind me asking, have you been sleeping? You look tired."

She tries to suppress a yawn as she tells me, "I've been doing more than my share of sleeping. I feel so run down and I don't know why. This has been happening for a couple of days now." It doesn't sound right to me at all and before I can even say anything, I have to step aside to allow Sherlock and John to walk inside.

"Hello Helen," John greets her with a small, half-smile.

"John," She acknowledges him with a small nod. John had told me about when they met, saying that it was sort of awkward. I cannot remember why he thought it was awkward, but her demure face, I think, just brightened up a little bit upon seeing the good doctor. She then looks over at Sherlock who has his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Mr. Holmes."

"We are going to need you to take us through Julia's night." Sherlock goes straight to it, wasting no time. I notice now there is a slight smirk on his face as he glances over at John. John doesn't seem to know exactly why the smirk is thrown at him, and I'm trying to figure out why a smirk is being thrown his way. But the rare occurrence disappears as he turns back to Helen. "From the moment she arrived home to the moment she went to bed would be great. We don't need to be going through what she did at the bar if she didn't drink."

"Yes… yes, of course." Helen nods her head at him. I make sure to step aside as Helen gestures us to follow her. Sherlock takes the lead and we all follow behind. My eyes carefully look around as I allow John to go ahead of me. Someone is missing from the house and… it's late at night for a man like Dr. Stoner to not be at home.

I ask Helen curiously, my hand skimming the railing. "Helen, where is your step-father? It's late."

"He had this to-do in his office," Helen answers, now allowing herself to yawn in front of us. I furrow my brow at that, glancing down at the bottom of the stairs.

"Does he know of our little sleepover tonight?" Maybe it's just me, but I think he would still be here. Not really to babysit us, but to just watch over us to see if we are doing the right thing under his roof. Helen glances behind her shoulder to look at me and I notice the slight shake of her head. Why wouldn't she tell him that we were going to be here? It doesn't really matter anyhow, as long as we get what we need.

Helen takes us down the pastel-colored hallway and to the room on the end. I haven't been in Helen's room since the day of the crime scene. When I brought Sherlock here a few days ago, I sat with Helen and her father in the sitting room. We enter the room. Helen stays by the door while I look around it with a slight perk to my brow. Before this, I have never been back to the crime scene without its tape, prompting others to stay away from it. My eyes scan the room as I walk slowly inside, dropping my purse onto the ground.

"I need you to be concise." Sherlock states, holding his hands behind his back as he strolls around the room. His blue eyes are scanning the plush carpeting and he soon looks up at the bed Julia was found in. "Give me her nightly routine, step by step. What did she do when she entered the door? Did she call anyone? Did she have a bite to eat? No detail can really be forgotten."

I hear a sharp breath being taken in behind me before Helen speaks, "She got in that night around two in the morning." I nod my head at that, my eyes seeing the room just as pristine as we had seen it the first day. "We talked a little bit about the fight she had with Percy in my room… she… she stood by the door." I turn my head and to see Helen trying to breathe evenly. I swallow before I walk over there, noticing how she is taking a pause.

My hand goes on her shoulder, making her jump slightly—I guess she didn't expect me. "Keep going," I urge her quietly. "You are doing great so far, and this will be a big help for the case." Helen's large brown eyes look over to me before I see her nod her head. I give her a small smile to encourage her.

John's voice asks her, "Now, what happened after she talked to you? Did she take a shower, go straight to bed?"

"She was tired… she had been tired for weeks." Helen answers John. I drop my hand from her shoulder but stay at her side. I glance over at Sherlock, who leaned back against the dresser. His hand is fisted and he is focusing his eyes blankly in front of him. He has his hand by his mouth as his brow is furrowed in concentration. "She decided… to go to bed after talking to me and I wasn't going to argue with that because she did have a rough day. I suggested that she take a bath, which she did. I think the bath lasted an hour as usual and then she went to sleep."

"You didn't notice anything unusual at all that night?" John asks her, his eyebrow raising. My eyes are still on the quiet Sherlock. He doesn't seem to be listening to what is being said.

Helen says to him, "I know what you are thinking, Dr. Watson, but I know when…" a yawn escapes her. Sherlock finally glances up at me as if he feels that I am staring at him. I look away slightly to look at John who is looking at Helen confused. Helen continues her sentence, "… When something that isn't supposed to be in my house is in my house. My stepfather and I would have notice—.

"You said before that she had been tired for weeks?" Sherlock suddenly interrupts her. Helen looks away from John to look over at him. She nods her head, recalling saying that her sister has been tired for weeks. "Do you know how many weeks ago she started complaining?"

"Two weeks… maybe even three."

"Think about two to three weeks ago, has anything happened that she would have gotten so tired from… two to three weeks ago?" Sherlock then asks her. I look away from him and part my mouth, now trying to wrap this around my head. There is no window for poisoning; the poisoning would have been set for her for days at a time. The snake is hardly any use now. For one thing, when could Percy actually place the snake without being noticed? He also has a rock-solid alibi that I couldn't even find a hole in. Another thing, a snakebite would have caused drowsiness the moment it bit her… not for weeks at a time. And Percy didn't have a motive until the night of his fiancé's murder. It is easy to believe that Percy has committed the murder, but if you look at the details, Percy really has nothing to do with it.

Helen doesn't answer him right away and I see Sherlock's jaw actually clench as he looks away from her. His arms cross over her chest and he looks down at the carpet again. He says to Helen, "You're doing this case no good if you are going to remain silent, you're our only—."

"I'm trying to remember, okay?" Helen nearly snaps at him. Sherlock barely even looks up at her and a sudden feeling of tension cuts through the air. I glance over at her to see her eyebrows pull together in concentration, her mouth is pursed tightly, and she has her arms crossed. Her head is bowed in thought. "Two weeks ago… nothing really strange happened then. Dad brought us some new shampoo his company made, not on the markets yet. Julia got a promotion in her job… and I just always thought that she was tired from that, from her new promotion."

"Your father, did he give you both this new shampoo?" I ask her curiously. A sudden thought occurs to me. I didn't want to say anything or imply anything, but I find… strange, almost. She opens her mouth to answer before we hear footsteps toward the bathroom. I turn my head to see that Sherlock has disappeared out of the room. John is looking questionably toward the bathroom where Sherlock had left and before we know it, he steps out of the room with a bottle in his hand.

"Are you saying that my step-father has anything to do this?" Helen asks me.

I over at her, unsure of how to really respond. She gives me an accusing glare and I am only forced to deny that I am. I shake my head no, "That is just a routine question, Helen. We have to consider all the possibilities."

"So you are implying that my father poisoned my sister?"

"I'm not implying any—."

"Yes, she is," Sherlock states, cutting me off in the middle of my sentence. I look over at him abruptly and see him open the top of the shampoo, giving it a whiff. I wasn't implying anything. her step-father does not have a clear motive for me to imply anything. I don't correct Sherlock, I just watch him with narrowed eyes as he moves the bottle of shampoo away from him. "We are going to need to run some tests on this bottle."

"You can't be serious." Helen says with a shake of her head. "He wouldn't have given us something with poison in it, Mr. Holmes. He has no reason to!" Helen clearly sounds offended by what we think about her stepfather.

John decides to step in, "We are taking it just so we can eliminate it." Thank you, John. He has always been the smarter one, it seems. Sherlock sometimes lacked the empathy to deal with someone whose sister died and whose stepfather is suddenly being accused of poisoning that sister and maybe… her. "We're not saying that anyone did anything." Helen stares at him for a moment, as if she is considering his words.

I turn my head towards her to see that she eventually nods her head to us. "Take it then." With that, she slips out of the room, leaving the three of us inside.

"John, you certainly have a way with words." I tell him with a nod. Before he could reply though, I look over at Sherlock, who is still looking over the back of the shampoo bottle. His eyebrows knit together. "So… what do you think of this?" I inquire to him.

"The stepfather could have made this with poison, given it to them, and is waiting for them to die out. A slow-acting poison, so it could look like it was done naturally or when the time is right, he would be able to frame someone." Sherlock states to me, as if he already has the situation lined out in his head. We are away from the brick wall now.

"You really think that her father would do this?" John asks the both of us. I look down at that. For someone like Dr. Stoner to actually do this, sounds so strange. We don't even know why he would do it. For money, maybe? He has a lot of that already. Maybe he is angry? About what though? It… it just is hard to understand, but if this shampoo bottle has anything to do with the murder of Julia… Stoner is our man. A part of me doesn't want to believe it, but this is the only evidence to go by. "But why though?"

"We aren't entirely sure that this is poison, John." I tell him, glancing over to Sherlock. Sherlock looks over at me incredulously. He knows very well that I know what I just said is not true. There is a huge chance that that bottle contains our murder weapon. "Let's not go straight to conclusions."

"Well, it is the only way to get a poison within her without any wound marks. We know that it's not the snakebites that caused her death. So there is a 99.9 percent chance that this is what caused the death of Ms. Stoner. As you know, Meredith." Sherlock says flatly to us both before pocketing the bottle of shampoo inside his coat. I give him a slight reprimanding look that he chooses to ignore. "We'll just have to get over to St. Bart's and have this tested."

We all sat around the lab, watching Sherlock begin his tests on the shampoo bottle. My hand is holding up my head and my eyelids begin to fall. My head leans slightly over and it becomes a little heavy for my hand to even hold. "Meredith," John's voice comes to me and I feel his hand on my shoulder. My eyes flutter open to see him looking down at me. The doctor advises me, "Why don't you go home? It's getting late."

I give him a slight smile before I shake my head at that. I straighten my back, roll my shoulders and hear them give a slight crack. "I'm fine. I'd rather stay anyway."

"And I rather you not," John says to me, remaining persistent. I take a deep breath as I resist the urge to actually yawn. "You spent the whole day with us. I don't think you want to spend the whole night, too. You're tired."

I chuckle at him, "I am, but I'd rather stay. Thank you though, John."

"Then in that case, maybe I can get us some coffee." John says, rubbing the back of his head. I nod my head at that and he takes a few steps away from me. He points his finger at me, "Black, right?" I nod my head slowly before I watch him leave the room. I turn my head to watch Sherlock whose complete focus is on a small sample of the shampoo. I stand up from my chair and walk over to the lab table as he uses an eyedropper to put some liquid in there.

In high school, I failed chemistry. The tests he is doing are something that I have no knowledge about. I lean my elbows onto the table, moving my face as I see steam stream out of the small tube he is holding. "Stop thinking," Sherlock says to me suddenly, bringing me to actually look up at him. "It's distracting and it's annoying."

"How is it annoying when I am only admiring the way you are testing a bottle of shampoo?" I didn't realize how flirty that might have sounded until I say it out loud. He looks over at me, annoyed, judging how his grip tightened before on the test tube. I swallow thickly before asking him, "What are you doing anyway… with that?"

"Nothing that you would be interested in, I'm sure." Sherlock tells me, walking away from the table to go to this machine in the corner of the room. My eyebrow rises at that, but I follow him to the machine curiously. I glance as I pass the eyedropper he placed down before going over to the corner. Sherlock hunches his back over the machine, clearly not noticing me yet. Or… I think it's clear that he doesn't notice me yet. "Is there something that you want, Meredith?"

"I want to know what you're doing with that." I reply to him with a small smile on my face.

"I think I just told you that you would not be interested to even know." Sherlock tells me as I approach his side. He merely glances up at me.

I decide to challenge him, "Try me."

A curious expression comes on Sherlock's face and he glances between the machine and I. He pinches the skin in between his eyebrows and closes his eyes, as if he is gathering the patience to explain this to me. I wait for him patiently as he concentrates setting up the machine that he is about to use. "I am extracting the different components of the shampoo with a centrifuge and check the solubility—."

"You know what, you're right, I don't even think what you told me was English." I say, interrupting him. He looks at me carefully before going back to what he does best. His science. He lets a scoff escape from him. Instead of walking away from him, I stay by his side and watch him over his shoulder. He doesn't seem to be annoyed with it. If he is annoyed with it, he definitely doesn't show it. I watch what he called a centrifuge; we both watch it actually, as it extracts the different components before our very eyes. It actually is quite remarkable.

I start to him, still watching as the centrifuge is separating this by the liquid's solubility and whatever else it separates it by, "After this," he glances up at me briefly, "you test each component separately and figure out if one of them is poisonous." Sherlock stares at me for a moment before he tilts his chin up at me.

"That is what I'm planning on doing when I'm done with it, yes."

I admit to him, "That sounds tedious."

"It isn't if you know what you are doing." The centrifuge begins to slow down; my eyes look over at it with an eyebrow raised. "Where has John gone?" Sherlock asks me, finally looking around himself as if realizing John has gone. I look up from the centrifuge to see that he is genuinely confused about this. I keep forgetting that sometimes he doesn't even acknowledge the absence of John.

"To get coffee." I say to him slowly. "He left ten minutes ago, at most."

"Coffee would be great right now. Tell him that I'd like a cup. Black with two—."

"I'm sure he's going to get you a cup of coffee, Sherlock, and I'm sure he knows how you take it." I tell him cutting him off. "And now that he isn't here," it takes me a moment; it really is a split second decision. I don't even know why I am bringing this up again because last time I did, I just regretted it immediately after. This may be something that I will regret doing… again. But I'm curious. "Have you discovered anything new about me?"

"You are bringing this up now?" Sherlock asks me, focusing his attention on the machine that has just stopped. He takes the tube from the middle of the centrifuge, taps it a few times, before he moves away from there. My eyes follow him, but my feet don't. "Last time I believe I actually offended you when I have told you what I have deduced."

"By now, I think now though that I'm used to you." I say to him, as if to urge him to go forth and unleash all that he knows about me, every single detail that he has found out. Sherlock doesn't even glance over at me. "Did you at least figure out my real name or my actual age, anything like that? We don't have to go deep into what I did then. You obviously deduced several things since the last time…"

"Your name isn't exactly hard to find if someone just looks up your hacking job on the Internet, Anne Taylor." Sherlock doesn't even look over to me. My eyes practically widen and I feel my grip tighten on the table by me. I wish I had that cup of coffee now to hide my face. I feel heat rise up to my cheeks and the cup would've been perfect to cover it. "Don't act so surprised." Sherlock says to me after a moment as he examines the test tube.

Reluctantly, I ask, "How long have you known?"

"I was bored one day."

"You always end up bored at least once a day."

"I've known about you for a week or so, Anne." How he says my name sends chills up my spine, but it is refreshing to be called Anne rather than Meredith. Meredith can be an old woman's name, or a stiff… politician's name. Anne… is my grandmother's name and… I actually like how Sherlock says it. He doesn't say it like his brother does. His brother holds an intimidating, almost threatening tone whenever I speak with him and he mentions my name. Like if I mess up, he'll use my name not only toward me. Sherlock… doesn't hold the intimidation in his tone. I am… comfortable with it. And that says a lot because the only person who calls me…

"Don't… don't call me that." I say to him quickly, bringing myself out of what I was thinking before. No, I'm not comfortable with him like that. The only person I am… was… comfortable with saying that is my ex-fiancé… was my ex-fiancé. Sherlock is not he. Sherlock Holmes will never be an equivalent to him to me. I ask him, "Why haven't you said anything to me? You don't usually keep quiet about stuff like that?"

"You never asked." Sherlock gives me an elementary answer. He taps on the test tube before holding it up to the light. I cannot stop my jaw from shifting at that. "If it does help your wounded ego, I do not know as much as Mycroft seems to know."

"Mycroft knows everything about it, you're telling me that you aren't tempted to even know everything there is?"

"I refuse any attempt there is to try and reach Mycroft." He replies to me flatly. "Besides, if I want to know the truth of you, I would go about it on my own. I will not go through him, I thought you were smart enough to actually know that."

"Well… if I had him as a resource, I'll sure as hell use him." I mutter to myself. If I had Mycroft as a brother, I would have been out of so much shit that I have been through. "But… I—."

"Meredith?" John opens the door to the lab, carrying three coffees in a carton. I stop in the middle of my sentence to look over at him. He regards us with a look, almost seeming apologetic as if he has walked in on something that he shouldn't have walked in on. I step away from the centrifuge as I regard him with a slight nod. "Someone is looking for you outside." He says to me carefully. I tilt my head up at him curiously.

What? "Someone from Scotland Yard?" I ask him. It's obviously isn't someone that is from my team. Lestrade is at home, most likely arguing with his wife… or ex-wife and Donovan has the night off. Anderson doesn't give me the time of day. And if it were any of them, John would have stated it flat out. I know a couple of officers and I have made friends with DI Dimmock. But I don't think any of them would really look for me. I barely have any friends outside of work.

He shakes his head no. "Says she knows you before you moved to New York." That is impossible. It leaves me confused. Really confused. I feel Sherlock's eyes on me as I look at John. My eyebrows pinch together. "She's a nurse here. Her name is Betsy." Oh no…

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Not.

Her.

I stare at him, forgetting for a moment that if I gape at him long enough I might as well be frozen like that. No, not… not… Betsy. I try to discredit myself, but how many people are really named Betsy? The case is really off of my mind right now. Of course, I talk about my past and she has to bloody come up. "Does Betsy have a last name, John?"

"I'm sure you know her last name already, Meredith, she is someone that you already know judging how you practically gaping at the name."

I nearly snap at him, "Shut up, Sherlock." I don't even look over at him, but I attempt at closing my mouth so I stop gaping at him.

"Hawkins?" John says, sounding unsure. I take a deep breath. Betsy Hawkins… I know exactly who Betsy Hawkins is. I spare a glance over at Sherlock, who has a smug look on his face. A smirk crept its way onto his features. "Do… do you know her?" John asks me reluctantly. I close my eyes before nodding my head at him.

"If you both excuse me." I say to them both, not really caring if they minded my absence.

"Oh, take as long as you need, Meredith." Sherlock says my name—my fake name with so much mockery that it makes my stomach churn. I grit my teeth behind my sudden, close-mouthed smile and walk away in a hurry. John holds my coffee out to me, which I take in my hand.

Betsy Hawkins… bloody hell, Betsy Hawkins is outside in the hallway. How in the world did she find me?

It doesn't matter now though. The door to the lab closes behind me, John enters it. I look down the hallway to see the woman who calls herself Betsy leaning against the wall. "Betsy…" I start to her slowly, my back hunching forward slightly as I dare myself to actually walk toward her. Her head slowly picks up. I take a deep breath through my nose when I realize it actually is Betsy Hawkins.

Betsy with her brown hair that is usually pulled in a tight bun and light blue eyes that make her look so innocent. Betsy with almost the same exact scrubs she wore while we were in uni. Her small, thin face has little makeup and a bright smile comes onto it. She doesn't look as young and innocent as she did during uni, but hell, her bright, perky little smile is still something that plagues my every being. How can someone be as perky as she can be all the time?

We have met while I was in uni. A friend of mine dared me to make friends with the freshman, sitting in our politics class. I didn't know what I was getting into then. "Anne… is that really you?" And I still don't know what I am getting into now. I stop in my place, turn my head around, and grip my cup tightly. I thank God in heaven that no one is in the hallway with us.

Betsy Hawkins… still is the naïve thing that has helped me after the hack job… She… out of everyone that was a part of it, knows my alias, knows my looks, and basically the details of the fake life I lived. The government never caught her—she never really had a part in it other than me giving her a story that I needed a new look. She helped me get my new look.

I didn't expect her to come… to actually come looking for me, nor did I expect to really run into her. But… as I take a sip of my coffee and brace myself for the massive amount of questions that may be pondered by her, I nod my head slowly at her. I swallow nervously as she suddenly lets out an excited squeal.

I feel almost numb as I accept a hug from her, trying to move my coffee away from her so it wouldn't spill.

I honestly just skimmed it while proofreading it; I'll most likely give it a better look-over in the morning. I want to apologize again for the lateness of the update. Not only have I had classes taking over my life, I also had trifling plot bunnies, trying to ruin my life. One of them I actually published… and if you want to check out that you can, it's a Loki/OC fic called Running Up a Hill. Thank you to everyone who has given me a review or even a favorite/follow. It means so much to me to see people are enjoying the story so far!

Hopefully, the next chapter won't be so long of a wait. Especially with how I ended it with Betsy at the end! See you next time ;)

~Tiana xoxo