Calvin was finally able to fall asleep as the sun began to pour in through the windows, her mind relaxing once the room was better lit. Though she only slept three hours, from seven to ten, and she was awoken by her bad dreams again.
She accessed the room, pulse jolting before realizing where she was again. Sighing and putting her hand on her throbbing forehead, she turned to see Sherlock staring at her.
"Is this going to be a regular thing? You, brooding, whilst watching me sleep?" she asked, voice husky from sleep, or lackthereof.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly. "Yes. If you insist on staying in my flat, then I will do whatever I want while you're here. That includes observation." he told her, and she chuckled softly, sitting up.
"That doesn't make it sound any more creepy." she answered, clearing her throat and rising to pour herself a cup of coffee from the still-hot batch that John had brewed earlier that day. Believe it or not, they had more than just tea in the flat.
"Actually, it sounds like you're going to experiment on me." Calvin continued, sitting back down with her warm mug in her hands. Her left hand went to her eyes, rubbing out the sleep and pushing her mussed hair back before she took a long sip of her black coffee. The caffeine wouldn't help her anxiety in the least, but Calvin could handle it.
"You have trouble sleeping." Sherlock noted. "Bad dreams, as it seems. I heard you crying last night before John came home to wake you."
Calvin froze mid-sip, the liquid suddenly seeming like tar in her throat. She had forgotten that Sherlock was there. Of course, she couldn't stop herself crying in her sleep, but she didn't want Sherlock to overhear.
When she didn't answer straight away, he continued, "I suspect family issues, since you murmured 'mother' twice in the three-hour span that you slept. The death of your parents, perhaps?"
Calvin stared up at him over her mug. "I feel no love for my parents." she murmured in a tone that was solid and did not suggest even the slightest bit of falsehood. She was being straight with Sherlock for the first time. "Nor do I regret their deaths. I was not lying previously when you asked me if they were alive. I hated them." Her tone was more open than it had ever been with Sherlock, none of her usual flippant tone or evasive manuveurs in their conversation. Sherlock detected the change.
"Perhaps a flashback to your childhood, manifested in a dream?" he suggested, cocking an eyebrow at her. With that more personal question, Calvin's walls went right back up and her usual persona went back into place.
"Dreams are an incarnation of our deepest internal thoughts. You can't possibly expect me to answer that." she answered, leaning back and smirking at him. "That's much too easy." Sherlock's face flashed with frustration before standing up.
"John. We're going to the Yard." he called, and John appeared from his bedroom. He smiled and said 'good morning' to Calvin when he spotted her.
"I'm supposing you figure out the shoes, then?" she asked John as he put on his coat. The day had become grey and slightly chilly. Calvin had heard some of the conversation that night before, and knew that they had, but had missed the details.
"Yeah, there was poison laced in his medication, and traces of the poison was found in the shoes." he explained quickly, following the agitated Sherlock out the door. "Be safe, we'll be back later!" he called as he trumped down the stairs after the irritated man.
Calvin sighed, rubbing her pulsing forehead again. She wanted to go with them, but was currently much too tired to even try. It was taking a toll on her body. Getting up to brush her teeth, she saw dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. Wonderful.
After brushing her teeth and scrubbing her face, she put drops in her red eyes and covered her hellish face with concealor, lining her eyes and curling her hair to give herself a more put-together look, even though she was going nowhere. She desperately wanted to go to Scotland Yard and help with the case, but, of course, her anxiety whispered at the back of her mind about being wrong.
Sighing, she headed down the stairs to brave her apartment and paint. Taking several hundred deep breaths, she was able to get over the feeling of somebody watching her and was able to escape a panic attack to paint.
Calvin heard John and Sherlock arrive back home later that night.
"Calvin? Calvin!" she heard John yelled from the apartment once he'd gone upstairs and found her not there. She hurried to the foot of the steps and called up to him that she was alright. He appeared, looking incredibly relieved.
"Aren't you cute, Dr. Watson, worrying about me." Calvin teased, wiping her paint-smeared hands on her smock as Sherlock appeared as well.
"Oh, good, you're not dead." he said, beginning to descend the stairs.
"I suppose that's the best I'll get from you, Mr. Holmes." Calivn answered, amused. "Thanks for your radical concern about my well-being."
"More like I worry for Mrs. Hudson. She does have a hard time renting that flat." Sherlock replied.
Calvin rolled her eyes. "So, where are you gents running off to, now?"
"Bart's. We have four more hours to solve this one." John replied.
"How many did you have in the first place?"
"Eight."
"So he is just playing a game with you... seeing how much pressure he can place on your shoulders in a case. He's enjoying it." Calvin murmured, somewhat to the others but mostly to herself. "Can I come?"
Sherlock turned, irritated. "Why do I need you to come?" he demanded.
Calvin shrugged. "You probably don't. But I'm very interested in this man that takes such joy in playing god with you, Mr. Holmes." she answered.
Without a word, Sherlock headed for the cab. Calvin took that as a 'fine' and headed out with John, sitting in the back with them. Although Sherlock didn't verbalize his adversion about Calvin coming with them, he still was obviously not happy.
Arriving at Bart's, Sherlock immediately took a seat in his usual lab and Calvin and John were at the opposite end of the room as he worked. Neither of them were actually needed, except for people for Sherlock to voice his observations to, but Calvin was enjoying simply watching Sherlock in his element.
John, however, was not as patient. "I'm going to get a snack. Want anything?" he asked the two after an hour of basic silence. Calvin verbally declined, with a 'thank you', and Sherlock just ignored him.
When John left the room, Sherlock's pink phone almost immediately started to ring. Calvin was at his side in a second, wanting to hear what the man had to say. He shot her an irritated look before answering.
"The clue's in the name - Janus Cars." a newly male voice said at the other end. Calvin had not been present during the first call and was momentarily distracted by the new voice.
"Why would you be giving me a clue?" Sherlock asked, though Calvin noticed a very slight smile coming over his face.
"Why does anyone do anything? Because I'm bored." Calvin blinked. That sounded very much like something Sherlock would say. That he was bored. "We were made for each other, Sherlock."
"What are you bored of?" Calvin piped up, unable to control herself. This could possibly be her only chance to learn something from the man.
"Ah the girl is eavesdropping on us, Sherlock." the man replied, and though it was said in a shakey tone, it was as if the bomber was very familiar with Calvin. It unnerved her. "To answer your question, pretty lady, I am bored of the world."
"Talk to me in your own voice." Sherlock suddenly demanded, the fact that the focus had shifted off of him irritating the consulting detective.
"Patience."
Silence hit the other end, and Sherlock set the phone back down. "Did you have to interrupt?" he demanded, going back to his work.
"You learned something about him, didn't you? He's just playing with you because you're different. He's taken an interest in you because you're not the norm. He's psychotic and bored."
"All things I already know." Sherlock muttered and Calvin rolled her eyes behind his back, smirking as she returned to her seat.
"You can't blame me for being curious." Calvin said, going back to her psychology book and studying the text on psychopath behavior and trends. It was the book from her college course that she taught, but it had a lot of insightful information on psychology.
"I can when you involve yourself where you do not belong." Sherlock retorted, not even glancing up at her as the scorching words left his mouth.
"I don't belong here?"
"No." he responded, glancing up this time to gauge her reaction. There was not one, however, she was stil poring over the textbook on the table. She glanced sideways at him.
"Lestrade thinks I can help. I am a professor of psychology, you know. And my parents were psychiatrists. I know more than you think I do."
"I know more than you ever have." Sherlock retorted in that proud way that made most people want to deck him. "And ever will. Besides that, Lestrade is an idiot."
"He must be, to let you be involved."
The room was deadly silent as the two stared at each other out of the corner of their eyes. Calvin was looking sideways at him from her book and Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her as he lifted them from the microscope. She, for once, was not smirking. The eye contact was serious as death as the two geniuses sized each other up.
"If you're so damn amazing then why haven't you figured out my namesake?"
"If you are so damn mysterious then why do you want me to?"
The silence fell over the lab once more and Calvin prayed to ever deity that she knew of to keep John and Molly and whoever else away from the area right now. She was too interested in the scene unfolding.
"It hardly matters, anyway," Sherlock said, breaking the silence and allowing his eyes to return to the microscope slide he was currently studying. "I have not figured it out yet because I have not had the time nor the patience to play your mind games. It is not anything of consequence. If you haven't noticed, I have been spending my time doing important things, solving important cases."
"That's why you're shooting at a wall and whining that you're bored half the time." Calvin reminded him, shutting her textbook and approaching the desk that Sherlock was working on to lean in closer. Her smirk had returned. "You desperately want the answer but you just can't figure it out. Too many variables, not enough solid fact to go off of. If it were easy, then go ahead. Deduce me right now. Prove how smart you are."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "I don't have to prove anything." he snapped. "Least of all to a person like you."
"A person like me." Calvin repeated with amusement. "You're just angry that an ordinary person - a person like me - is able to keep something from the all-powerful Sherlock Holmes."
He said nothing.
"You have no problem with someone like the man on the phone being better than you. Because he's smart. He's like you. But me, because I'm not nearly as clever, not nearly as intelligent as you are and not nearly as significant, who can hold something as insignificant as my name out of your reach..." Calvin stopped talking, shrugging away her anger and her anxiety. It was letting her become too emotional. Her cool exterior came back into place.
"Good night, Mr. Holmes." she said, and walked to the door, textbook in hand. She had opened the door just a crack before it was slammed shut by a pale hand. Calvin turned to find herself almost trapped to the door by a very close in proximity Sherlock. His eyes were intense and angry, staring down at her from a half-foot above her.
"Give me something." he demanded, and Calvin knew exactly what he was talking about.
"A clue? That's hardly your style, Mr. Holmes."
He was silent, anxiously waiting an answer. Calvin thought for a moment. Shouldn she give him a clue? What could she say? Sherlock still had no idea that she had severe anxiety - she hoped. Anything she could say really wouldn't help him all that much, because her name was linked to her anxiety.
"My mother wore heels in our house every day of my sixteen years living there." Calvin answered finally. "We had hardwood floors."
Her eyes swept up to meet Sherlock's, smiling up at him with amusement. "Good night, Mr. Holmes." she repeated softly, reaching for his slim wrist to pull it gently from the door behind her and disappearing down the steps.
Sherlock stared after her, a mix of anger, exasperation, and appreciation swimming in his eyes. John appeared a few minutes later with a can of soda and a bag of crisps for himself.
"Where did Calvin go?" John demanded when he found only Sherlock in the darkened room.
"Home." Sherlock answered shortly, changing the slide in the microscope.
"Home? Wasn't she worried about being there alone?" John asked incredulously, cracking the can and taking a sip.
"She'll be fine, John, for god's sake she's a grown woman."
"A grown woman involved in a psycho's game. What if he targets her next?"
"He won't. And if he does, we'll get her out the same way we have for the others. Calm down and hand me that slide, will you?"
OoOoOoOoOoOo
CALVIN VS SHERLOCK HEAD TO HEAD MATCH. WHO WILL WIN WHO WILL LOSE WHO WILL CRY LIKE A BITCH
Oh god I have such a headache.
Oh, and Sherlock would win.
I'm soorrryyy it took so long for this to come out. I had it half finished for like three days. I'm reallllyyy excited for the next chapter, though. It's Moriarty. And it's gonna be good.
Yeah I'm skipping the rest of it because Calvin and Sherlock are kinda gonna be pissed at each other for a while. MORE DETAILS TO COME
Okay guys I need to sleep! Gimme some reviews to squeal at when I wake up! I love you all!
Jess