Sorry for the wait, but as some of you know I've been catching up The Game That We Play to this fic.

Just to let you know there's a small chapter up there which comes in between this and the last one. It's not actually graphic and could easily get away with a T rating, but the voice has so much angst that it didn't fit with this. It's not crucial, but there may be a slight jump for those who haven't read it.

Twenty One
Inquiries

It was mid-morning by the time I woke up.

My eyes had creaked open, but I found they didn't have to adjust to the light. The curtains were still closed, as they always were in this apartment, and the hazy glow of whatever little sunlight peeked through the dull clouds was swallowed up, meaning that the entire room was oddly dark.

To be honest I probably could have slept longer – my bones certainly felt like it as I uncurled myself stiffly from the sofa – if it hadn't been for one important thing.

Or one important man.

Who was currently sitting in an armchair, scratching away at his violin causing sounds like bloody foxes rutting to swamp the entire flat.

Consideration was obviously not Sherlock Holmes' middle name.

"Sherlock, I thought I told you to let her sleep!"

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes dopily and swivelled around. John was standing at the bottom of the stairs, half-way through pulling a stripy jumper over his head, and definitely not looking amused. Sherlock continued in his experiment to see how long it would be before our ears started bleeding. I sighed and rubbed my head, trying to block out the god awful sound. He could play nicely. I had heard him. Then why, oh, why was he trying to kill all the poor dogs in the surrounding area?

"Sherlock!" John hissed as he stomped up to the armchair and attempted to grab the violin from Sherlock's grasp. Sherlock simply leaned out of the way, high screeching notes still echoing from the instrument. John tried to grab it again. Sherlock ducked. It would have actually been quite funny to watch, especially since John had yet to pull his other arm into the jumper, except for the noise.

"Quiet!" I finally yelled, not at all pleased about the migraine building in my left temple.

They both shut up.

I sighed and began tugging my hair out of the now extremely messy bun. "Thank you."

John whacked Sherlock on the arm. "I told you not to wake her."

"She's already slept for over six hours and eighteen minutes. That's plenty of rest."

John at last reached his other arm through the sleeve and pulled the jumper on properly. He gave Sherlock a patronizing glance before heading into the kitchen. "No, Sherlock, the recommended amount of sleep someone should get is eight hours."

Sherlock scoffed and thankfully placed his violin on the cluttered table beside his chair. "Exactly. She's already had over three quarters of that time and it's only Tuesday."

I heard the smash as John actually dropped the mug he was holding. "I meant per day!"

Sherlock frowned. "Don't be ridiculous. Why on earth would anyone need eight hours sleep in one night?"

I shut my eyes tightly. This was going to turn into another argument, wasn't it? And that would only lead to more dying cat noises and angry yelling. Oh, my poor head.

"Well, while you ma-"

"What's the time?" I interrupted, wanting desperately to change the subject and avoid having Sherlock start stabbing things with that sword still hidden behind the desk.

"Almost ten."

I nodded vaguely at John in recognition. Then I actually heard it.

"Oh my God, I'm meant to be at work, aren't I? Damn and I really could do with a day off and having work on top of everything just seems li-"

"Woah, there, Melanie." John stopped my ramblings. "I already rang them this morning for you – Sherlock gave me the number. Told them you've got a bad case of flu, so don't worry."

I blinked, bringing my head out of my hands. "Oh… Thanks."

"No problem. It was Sherlock who reminded me anyway."

"No, I told you we needed to wake her up or she'd be late for work."

"Because you're Mr. Caring are-" John paused as he looked down at the desk he was standing in front of. He flicked over a few papers. "Where's my laptop?"

Sherlock dug his phone out of his pocket and started typing away, replying casually as he did. "In the airing cupboard."

"Why is it in… What have you been doing to my…" It took several seconds for John to leap his way up the stairs again. When he did no one within a quarter mile perimeter could deny the annoyance in his cry. "Sherlock, why apple sauce?"

My chest shook with the shallow laugh that came forth. I eyed Sherlock curiously. "An experiment?"

Sherlock continued playing about on his phone. "Naturally."

I raised my eyebrows. "Involving apple sauce?"

A corner of his lips tugged upwards. "Certain substances were necessary."

Oh, goody. I supposed I had to be grateful that it was John's computer and not mine. Although, I guess that that was purely down to luck and the fact that John's was far closer than my flat. If it hadn't been I don't know what would have happened. I would have been seriously pissed off, that was for sure.

I slumped back into the couch and sighed. This was exactly what I needed.

A day of distractions.

And that was the moment when the doorbell rang repeatedly downstairs. I turned my head in surprise to look at the door to the stairway. Sherlock didn't even move.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he simply called, his voice portraying every part of his command. I shook my head. Mrs. Hudson was getting on a bit; the least Sherlock could do for her was answer the bloody door every now and then.

"Yes, yes, I know!" I heard the friendly old reply come from downstairs, even over the still ringing doorbell. Who the hell wanted to get into this apartment so badly? Lestrade, maybe? Or one of Sherlock's enemies wanting revenge?

God, my life was turning into a comic book.

And the scary thing was, I wasn't scared.

"Hel- Excuse me, young man! Wait one sec-" I stood up, not liking the rise in Mrs. Hudson's tone or the thudding hurried footsteps approaching us. I looked at Sherlock. He didn't seem worried at all. But then, he could have some crazy lady yelling in his face about killing him and he remained as cool as a penguin.

My hands subconsciously balled into fists as I stared at the door expectantly.

Finally, it burst open.

"Why the hell aren't you answering your phone?"

My eyes widened.

"Lu-" I began stammering out, "Lucas?"

"Yes, me!"

There, in the doorway, stood the tall, muscular figure of my brother. He was dressed for the weather, but I had an odd feeling that the red across the bridge of his nose was not solely down to the cold. Lucas was never one for controlling his temper.

Mrs. Hudson walked into the room behind him, a finger wagging in his direction. "Now, you look here-"

"Don't worry, Mrs. Hudson." I told her reassuringly, seeing how her eyes kept darting to the phone in her hand as if contemplating whether to call the police or not. "This is Lucas, my brother. Sorry about him being a jerk."

"I'm only being a jerk because someone hasn't answered any calls for over twenty four hours!"

"Your brother?" Mrs. Hudson ignored my raging sibling. I suddenly felt a broad admiration for her. She had put up with Sherlock's moods for so long now and she knew how to handle them. Mainly by paying them no attention whatsoever. "Well, now you mention it, I do see the family resemblance. Do you want me to go fetch you some tea and biscuits? Only this once mind. I'm not your housekeeper."

"I mean, seriously, Annie! I've been trying to contact you since yesterday morning!"

I choose to follow Mrs. Hudson's lead and take no notice of Lucas at all. "No, thanks, Mrs. Hudson. We're fine."

"Oh, are we now? Then I-"

"Ok, dear. Well, I'll be downstairs if you need anything."

"Right, Annie, you're going to-"

"Thanks." I grinned widely at Mrs. Hudson, who did the same before backing out of the door and returning downstairs. At last I looked at Lucas. One of his eyebrows was twitching dangerously. I crossed my arms. "What's wrong?"

He took a deep breath as if attempting to calm himself down. I thought that it must have worked a little bit since he wasn't actually yelling the next question. "Why aren't you answering your phone?"

I rolled my eyes. God, was he a drama queen or what. "I haven't turned it back on yet since I plugged it in to charge."

"Since yesterday morning?" he asked sceptically. I shrugged.

"Yeah. Well, I didn't actually get a chance to charge it until last night, so…" I stopped as I turned my head to look at the wall socket where I had plugged in my mobile yesterday evening. There was something odd about it. "Where's my phone?"

It had vanished. Sure, the orange scented cable was still there, and the switch was still showing the little red bar to say it was on, but there was nothing else.

What had Sherlock done to my phone?

Had it befallen the same fate as John's laptop? Or had it already been lost in this apartment of chaos? Anything you left here for more than an hour was quickly swallowed up by a bizarre myriad of clutter and knick-knacks. Maybe someone had just taken it out of the charger and left in on the table, where it was now hidden by books on guns and test tubes containing fibres and all sorts of rubbish. I hoped so. Otherwise Sherlock would pay.

"Why'd you get so worried about me not picking up?" I muttered as I scattered some of the objects on the desk nearest me, hoping to unearth my lovely phone.

A touch of anger returned to Lucas' voice. "Because when I rang your work they said you weren't there and hadn't been in contact with them, but you didn't answer your home phone either, so I thought you might be ill in bed or something, which was confirmed today by your office telling me you had the flu, but when I went around to your flat to make sure you were alright, the only person there was a damn police officer spouting some nonsense about making sure you didn't run off but that I could find you here!"

I immediately stopped rummaging and froze. "There's a police officer at my apartment?"

"Uh, yeah." Lucas made it perfectly clear that that point was not funny.

"And they knew I was here?"

"Yeah."

I spun around to face Sherlock, who by now seemed to be trying to balance a twenty pence coin on top of a pencil. "Sherlock, are the police following me?"

The twenty pence dropped off and rolled away under the other armchair.

"Don't be so naïve, Melanie. Of course the police are following you. Even they aren't ignorant enough to let a suspect run around care free." He told me while flicking the pencil into the air and catching it again. Lucas seemed to have only just noticed there was someone else in the room. He kept on glancing between me and Sherlock. "But I must say they've been far more conspicuous than the others. They should really improve their surveillance training."

One word of that stood out to me. "Others? You mean they are more people watching me? Who?"

"I suppose you'll find out soon enough."

Oh, you damn snotbucket of a man. Maybe for once you could actually answer one of my questions properly! Would that be too much to ask?

"Sherlock, who the hell is following me?"

"Hang on," Lucas spoke up, sounding rather confused. I couldn't blame him. "This is Sherlock?"

I sighed. "Yes, yes, this is Sherlock Holmes. I would introduce you but there's really no point." I slumped down on the sofa again, too tired to be bothered with my brother's protectiveness or Sherlock's annoying personality. I waved a hand through the air. "You'll see why in a minute."

"Huh?"

Sherlock answered his question with another. "Year Twelve or Thirteen?"

Well, that wasn't really much of an answer. Lucas stared at him oddly. "I'm sorry?"

"Your tutor group – Year Twelve or Thirteen?"

"How did…" he made out quietly, turning to me accusingly, "Did you tell…"

"Nope." I answered plainly, shaking my head once. "Never even told him your name."

"But then…"

Sherlock snorted and gave Lucas an almost pitying look. "Oh, please. It's painfully obvious you're a PE teacher. Your clothes are all reasonably stylish except for your trainers which are entirely practical. Your skin's well-worn suggesting you spend a lot of time outdoors, but there's a callous on the middle finger of your right hand meaning you write a lot. I already know from Melanie's habits that you're busy most of the time and work long hours. And yet you manage to have time off in the middle of a working week, that just so happens to be part of the Easter holidays. However, there's a stain on your jacket that is either caused by iodine monochloride or liquid bromine – not something the average PE teacher would handle, unless, of course, he spends time in one of the school laboratories. The only reason that could be is if he was a form tutor of a class whose room was a science lab, and the only years that usually are allowed to be in the laboratories without a science teacher present is those in the Sixth Form. So… Year Twelve or Thirteen?"

Lucas looked stunned.

He wasn't even blinking.

"Thir- Thirteen."

Sherlock turned and picked up his phone again. "Thought as much."

Lucas shook his head from side to side, presumably to clear his thoughts. He then stumbled over to the couch and collapsed next to me. I noticed that he still hadn't blinked. I patted him on the arm knowingly. Yeah, Sherlock tended to do that to you.

"Annie, your boyfriend's weird."

Weird wasn't the half of it.

"Not his girlfriend." I dismissed, perusing over the bookshelves on the other side of the room to see if I could spot my phone.

"Right." he drawled out. I turned back to my brother. He had cocked an eyebrow at me, his expression one of pure disbelief. "Even though you've obviously spent the night here, are perfectly happy with him seeing you without any makeup on and are currently dressed in his underwear. And that's not even mentioning how you spent an entire drunken night telling me how amazing he is in bed."

If I had been drinking anything I would have choked. I swear I heard a small bark of laughter come from Sherlock's direction. And when my head swept around to look at him there was a definite smirk plastered across his face.

"That, Melanie," he said calculatingly, "is an excellent observation."

I glared at him.

"Shut it."

"Exactly," Lucas added triumphantly, "and you're trying to tell me you're not his girlfriend? You're like an old married couple."

I actually laughed at this. "Lucas, Sherlock Holmes is a freakishly intelligent, murder obsessed, sociopathic genius, who can deduce anything about anyone just by looking at their fingernails! He would not make a good husband."

"I don't just look at their fingernails."

"Oh, yeah, sorry, you look at their watches too."

"No, I need t-"

"Wait!" Lucas shouted over us. "Did you say murder obsessed? Oh, my God, Annie, what are those photos on that wall?"

He stood up quickly, only just noticing the pictures of various corpses, crime scenes and maps over the fireplace. What could I say? My brother wasn't the most observant person in the world. But even he would eventually notice something like that.

He was starting to panic, I could see it on his face. He kept looking between me, Sherlock and the photographs, as if trying to come up with a conclusion that wasn't that his darling little sister had become a psychopathic serial killer with her boyfriend – or at least someone he was sure was her boyfriend, even if she denied it.

I was saved from explaining in the nick of time.

"Oh, don't worry. He's not a murderer." John had emerged from upstairs and was calmly standing beside Lucas, a hand patting his shoulder. "He's just some guy that runs around crimes scenes and solves them before the police do."

"Consulting detective." Sherlock popped in meaningfully.

Lucas still looked rather scared. John held out his hand. "I'm John Watson, by the way, Sherlock's flatmate."

Lucas ignored his hand, instead peering anxiously at the photographs on the wall. John frowned in concern. I just rolled my eyes. Lucas had a perfectly acceptable right to act this way. Heaven knows, I hadn't behaved much better on my first visit here. In fact, he was doing positively brilliantly compared to me. At least he hadn't thrown up yet.

John gave up trying to shake Lucas' hand and looked at Sherlock. "You're going to have to pay for a new computer, by the way."

It looked like Sherlock didn't hear him, but I saw the slight twitch of his fingers towards the violin.

"No, Sherlock." I told him as I would a small child. I did not want to have to buy earplugs. Sherlock grunted and lolled backwards, flinging an arm over his head as he stared at the ceiling in such a melodramatic pose that I almost confused him for a Wilde protagonist in his deepest fits of despair.

"What… Annie…" my brother began rambling slowly, his eyes fixed on a lovely shot of Samuel Peterson's dead hand, "How…"

John crossed the room and perched on the armrest of the other chair, the actual seat being too cluttered with all sorts of crap. "Who's Annie?"

Sherlock groaned, but otherwise didn't move. "Honestly, John, it might be useful once in a while to use those grey cells of yours. It's clearly Melanie's childhood nickname. I suppose because she couldn't pronounce her name properly when very young."

"So… she said Annie?"

"What are the last two syllables of her name, John?"

"…Oh."

"Congratulations."

I sighed, about to ask them not to talk about me as if I wasn't there, when the doorbell rang downstairs again, although this time far more politely and only once. I wondered who else I could deal with today of all days.

"It's Lestrade." Sherlock answered my thoughts again. "Come to get Melanie's statement."

I groaned loudly. I was so not in the mood for this. To be honest, I doubted I would ever be, but that was beside the point.

"Statement?" Lucas asked, finally waking up from his daze.

I really didn't want to have to go through last night's events quite yet. I still hadn't completely dealt with it in my head. Unhealthy, yes, but it was currently the more pleasant of the two options.

"Yes, for the shooting of a murderer yesterday evening."

Oh, thanks a lot, Sherlock. Now Lucas was going to start bombarding me with questions. I was hoping to tell my family when I was good and ready. Which may have been never. I hadn't quite decided yet.

"I'm sorry, what? Annie was there when a murderer was shot?"

Don't say it, Sherlock. Please don't say it. I stood up quickly and started pushing on Lucas' chest. "I'll explain later, sorry, so if you just g-"

"Melanie was the one who shot her."

Oh, shit.

Ok, that was long. And I'm not really sure if it was any good or not. I know I reread the last one recently and realised how crap it was. Sorry.

This one better? Yes? No?