I Don't Like You Anymore - The Last Shadow Puppets

"I need you, in my bedroom, now." Ramona shouted to the closed door. She wasn't expecting him to answer, as it was two in the morning, and Sherlock had probably fallen asleep.

Sherlock enters, looks up, and then smirks at her. She looks terrified, as she grabs a pillow and hugs it tight to her chest with wide eyes.

Sherlock stands at the foot of Ramona's bed, as he takes his shoes off, never breaking eye contact.

She flinches as he steps forward, so that he's standing on her bed. She looks up in awe as he proceeds to trap a huge spider that had been on her ceiling in a drinking glass covered by his debit card.

He glances back at her as he steps back off, as if to point out how easy it was.

"Look, muggers are okay to approach in my book, but by no means are sp-" He brought it closer to her and her voice went higher into a scream as he grinned. "Don't bring it near me you dickhead! Take it away!" The panic in her tone made him chuckle. He lets it crawl into his palm and then shows it to her.

"It's just a spider, they're actually quite friendly." She shrieks and scuttles away, almost falling off her bed.

"No!" She almost wretches as he puts it near her face with a giggle. She clutches the pillow tighter. "Get rid of it! Dispose of it!" She shouts as he puts it back in the glass and steps back. She lets out a whimper and curls her toes as it crawls around in the glass. He then heads towards the bathroom. "Not down the toilet!" He rolls his eyes and walks back inside her bedroom, opening the window and dropping it onto her window box. As he looks out of her window momentarily, he sees a something dark and huge in the street under a lamp, before there were a few footsteps in that area, like something was running away.

"Did you see that?" He muttered, almost to himself, eyes fixed in place.

"Sorry?" He snaps out of it.

"Oh, nothing." Ramona shudders as she remembers the spider.

"That's the fourth this week!" He gives her a look of disdain. "Thanks for taking care of it."

Suddenly, he looks down into the corner of her bedroom and widens his eyes, walking towards the corner and crouching, placing his palm to it. She follows him timidly.

"W-what is it-" He spins around quickly and pushes his open palm right in her face with a loud 'argh!', causing her to scream and almost fall she scrambled back so quickly. She regained her breath and realised the detective was bent over laughing.

"That was-" He managed in between giggles.

"Get out!" She shouted, pointing to her door. "Get out, sadist!" He left, still chuckling to himself as he closed the door. She huffed with a ghost of a smile, jumping onto her bed, and cocooning herself in her duvet, before eventually grinning in the dark like a madman in memory of Sherlock's laugh.

Ramona was sat in the living room of 221B, with 'Hannah' sat at the desk on her laptop, editing Ramona's CV, Sherlock currently staring down a microscope at something or other in the kitchen in a red dressing gown.

"I really don't see the point in getting a job." Ramona stated. Hannah huffed.

"Where you work right now's never gonna get you anywhere." She finishes. "Hopefully your life'll get on track, God willing-"

"Don't think he'll have much involvement." Hannah turned around to face her.

"Can you have some ambition, please?"

"It's a perfect waste of my superior brain." She remarked, scrolling on her phone.

"Tell her she's lazy, Sherlock."

"You're lazy." Ramona narrowed her eyes and turned around to face him.

"Says the man who spends the majority of his time lazing about his flat." He shrugs.

"That's my job, I laze about and solve puzzles." Ramona pointed at Sherlock, turning back around to Hannah.

"I want that." Hannah gave her a look.

"You're getting blunt about it, aren't you?" Ramona's eyes widened and her cheeks flushed.

"Hannah!" She giggled and turned to the laptop.

"What do you do best?" Ramona thought.

"Everything."

"Don't be silly."

"Put it down. You're supposed to 'sell yourself', aren't you?"

"I'm not-" Hannah glared at her. "If you're not going to take this seriously, I'm going." Ramona sighed heavily through her nose and got up, leaning over her shoulder.

"Put that I have a really logical brain or something, and that I can work well with others-" Sherlock laughed.

"You don't work well with others." Hannah said. Ramona looked confused.

"Yes I do. I work well with Sherlock, and he's Sherlock."

"You compete, there's a difference." Ramona rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Put that I have a can-do attitude." Hannah turned around.

"I told you to take this seriously!" Ramona looked outraged.

"I am!"

"You're the biggest pessimist I've ever met!"

"I'm English, Hannah, what do you expect?"

"You're Irish."

"Put that I have the luck of the Irish, then."

"That's not even funny."

"Look Hannah, I don't want a proper career." She sits down next to her. Hannah looked disappointed.

"Why not? You seemed so driven in university." Ramona looked down, and realised she wasn't going to get anywhere.

"I need to tell you something. Come on." She walked out of the flat and upstairs, and Hannah followed, leaving a very curious Sherlock in the kitchen, who quickly decided it was just girl talk.

Sat at the dining table, Ramona felt nervous.

"W-what is it, Ramona?" Hannah looked anxious.

"I know, Mia." She stated. Hannah's eyes widened, as she slid into the chair opposite her. She was fully shocked, and looked paler than before.

"I-I-" She didn't have any words.

"You were training me all this time." Hannah's mouth dropped open.

"How?"

"Mycroft. He told me everything." She looked ashamed. "Tell me, did you ever even like me? Do you like me now?" Hannah paused for a second, and Ramona's heart sunk, trying not to start crying.

"At first, no." A pang went through her.

"How long is at first?"

"Three years." There was no describing the pain that she felt at that moment. If any person could be told by their best friend that they actually disliked them, the person they put all their trust in, the person they tell everything to, to be betrayed like that was too much for her. "But then, I started to like you. It's not an act anymore, Ramona." Ramona refused to look at her, tears brimming in her eyes.

"An act." She gets out. "This whole time. You were training me, spying on me." Hannah shook her head. "Why don't we try running? Let's take up self defence!" Ramona imitated her animated tones. "All this time. I'm nothing but a sacrifice. To save Sherlock Holmes. Nothing but a pawn on Mycroft's chess board."

"That's not true." Ramona brushed her cheeks, and then looked at Hannah. "You're his knight." She shook her head. "You're Sherlock's guardian angel, Ramona. I fully believe that that's what you were born to do."

"Oh, what, I was born to die for him?" She was getting herself worked up. "How is that fair?! What makes him more important than me?!" She knew what she was saying was selfish, but she sometimes thought this, after all, nobody was perfect and a person's raw state was one of self-preservation. Hannah was silent and guilty.

"That's why you don't want a career." She looked up. "Because you think you don't have a future."

"Not a long one, no." She gritted her teeth. "Hannah, does Harry know?" Hannah is still, and then nods. Her jaw drops.

"Are you fucking serious?!" There was silence after the thought.

"Look, Ramona-"

"I'm sorry, but I don't want you in my life anymore." Hannah swallowed, and her eyes began to mist over.

"You- you don't mean that-" Ramona stood up with conviction.

"Oh, I do! I never want to see you again!" She leaned in, and hissed at her. "And you can tell Mycroft one last piece of information, tell him I want every piece of surveillance off me, especially that freak that I've seen." Hannah started to cry.

"You're as much as my life as I am yours-"

"Then why didn't you tell me!" Hannah jumped up in shock of the shout and Ramona's fist coming down on the table, now terrified. The voice that she had just heard wasn't Ramona. It was a cry of malice and evil, and there was something in her blue eyes she'd never seen before. Hannah realised she was too scared to speak. Ramona took a few breaths, closed her eyes and then opened them again, and the sapphire fire in them was gone. What Hannah had just seen rocked her to the core.

"Goodbye, Mia Collins." She left the flat and walked out into the street, and left Hannah alone in her apartment, slamming the door behind her. Inside 221B, Sherlock raised his eyebrows at the raised voices.

Going out onto the street, all Ramona had was her debit and oyster card, and her phone. She quickly decided that she couldn't go back home tonight, and so made her way towards the Baker Street tube station, her destination Kain's flat.

She woke up in the morning feeling the most emptiest she could remember. It wasn't necessarily regret, well it was, but it was mixed with a strange sense of satisfaction, as she had rebelled against Mycroft's oppressive regime that was her life.

His flat was modern and the wall facing outwards was completely covered in glass, giving her a decent view of the London skyline.

"So what happened that you came here?" Kain asked, after getting out of the shower and getting dressed. Ramona had a spare set of underwear there at all times, for occasions such as these. She got changed into the different set of underwear and her outfit from the day before, which was black ripped skinny jeans, white trainers, and a white crop top. She shrugged as she made the bed.

"Just wanted to see you, I suppose." The truth was, she had wanted someone or something completely impartial, that had nothing to do with the Guardian Project, and had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. She cringed as she thought of him. It was strange, but the night before, she had found herself accidentally thinking about him instead of who she was actually with, which only made her even more confused.

"Well, I'm flattered." She goes to the living room, and pulls the blind up from the huge glass wall, flooding light into the open plan, modern flat.

"Don't be." She said bluntly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. It was only physical attraction that she felt towards him, and she wanted to make it clear.

"God, since when did you become so mean?" He asked playfully, but she took it seriously.

"Dunno." She wasn't in the mood to joke around, that was clear. He saw this and raised an eyebrow. She remembered Hannah's expression, and it rung a bell. It was like that time in Leeds with Sherlock, and Mycroft when she found out about the project. After she got angry, they looked shocked, but mostly, terrified. That was when her phone buzzed to life on the coffee table.

Message (3): Sherlock Holmes

Her eyes widened. Sherlock never sent texts in a row, especially not three. Panic rose in her throat, hoping nothing had happened. She unlocked her phone.

7:04pm : What just happened, and why did you walk off? Catfight, by any chance?

Her stomach tightened at the events that had transpired yesterday. There were no signatures sent to her phone from people she knew well, as she never sent them, and people were quick to align with her preferences.

10:27pm : Are you okay? Mrs Hudson's starting to worry.

She cringed and remembered that she had stormed out without any warning, and not contacted anyone as to where she was going.

"Breakfast?" Kain asked. She frowned for a second and then looked up, piecing together his sentence, before nodding absentmindedly.

1:52am : There's a mandatory 24 hour waiting period before I can file a missing persons case, but I'm sure Mycroft's name can open a few locked doors.

She imagined him in the dark of his room, lay in bed, not being able to sleep, and then picking up his phone from beside him, the bright light illuminating his face as he typed above him.

Not sure what to put, she hesitated for a second. Whatever she put would just add fuel to the fire, wouldn't it? But then again, why would he care?

8:29am : I'll be home today, don't worry.

She got a reply a few minutes later.

8:34am : No need to rush, and I wasn't worried.

She rolls her eyes and locks her phone, playing with it in her hands.

"Doing anything today?"

"Nope." Ramona answered.

"I'll take you out. You look a bit on the done side." She raised an eyebrow and then laughed, really hoping he wasn't getting attached.

The day was admittedly alright, as they went to the cinema to watch a lighthearted comedy about two partners in crime, pretending to go back to secondary school. After that they wandered aimlessly for a bit, before heading to Oxford Street, and Ramona was let loose in all of the shops, her bank account now burning a hole in her pocket after Mycroft's paid off debt.

After picking out a good bit of food for her and Sherlock, she was walking down a street, ten shopping bags in each hand, feeling content about her guardian project free day, and the amber glow and warmth of the setting sun that left everyone who saw it feeling reminiscent of summers past. That was when she realised she was walking down the wrong street. Embarrassed of herself, she quickly turned around on her heels, and saw a tall black thing at the end of the street, yet again.

Ramona almost dropped her bags at the sight, as she only got a glimpse, and then it was gone, the same circular flash with it. Her heart was beating a hundred miles a millisecond, and then she got a thought. Something like that must be apart of Mycroft's surveillance, but I told Hannah to call it off, didn't I? She quickly shook the thought, just the idea of the man in her mind making her feel sick in the pit of her stomach. She hurried home, and was more relieved than was healthy when she got sighed, back to the outside door, before walking up the stairs, trying to forget about it.

As she walked in the door, she started talking, wrapped up in what she had been planning to say.

"I went to that new Japanese shop today," She wriggled her leather jacket off. "It's really cool in there, got some food we could eat in celebration of me not conforming to the capitalist regime oppressing this country, how does that so-" She froze, as she saw Janine sat in the kitchen, Sherlock also quite still, doing some sort of experiment that included a finger bone. Ramona's eyes were wide as she giggled slightly, nervous and awkward. "I could always go get some more, of course." The thought of seeing whatever it was sent a shiver down her spine, like someone had walked over her grave. Seeing their expressions, they looked like they'd been caught red-handed doing something. "Or... not."

"Hello, Mona." Janine said, with a sweet smile that made Ramona feel like walking straight back out of the door.

"It's..." She was about to tell her to call her Ramona, but decided to keep her on a formal basis. "Janine, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Sherl was just telling me about how you're looking for a job, is that right?" Ramona's eyes widened slightly at the nickname, infuriated at the endearment. She decided to try and play off the initial awkwardness, and act casual.

"Actually, I'm being forced to by an inhumane capitalist system, as I said before." She got a bottle of pop out of the fridge, and sat down at the kitchen table, which was surprisingly clean. Has he cleaned? Has Sherlock Holmes, the man who describes dust as eloquent, cleaned? He's cleaned for this woman? "Anway, only work that's out for someone with no connections in London is menial."

"Well, I was thinking, there's actually an opening where I work." Sherlock looked up, giving Janine what looked to be a warning look.

"Oh, she doesn't care about newspapers." Ramona shot him a glare.

"It really hasn't got a lot to do with the actual newspaper," Janine looked amused. "I'm a PA for the owner of CAM Global News-"

"The one with the huge skyscraper?" Janine almost laughs.

"And one of his subordinates is looking for a new assistant, the last one resigned after being rejected when she made a pass at him." She raised an eyebrow.

"Is he hot?" Sherlock's eyes widened and he looked at her in disbelief.

"You get offered a job, and the first question you ask is if your boss'll be 'hot'?" Ramona chuckles.

"Quite frankly, all the ladies talk about is him."

"Oh?"

"Well you should know better than me. You did sleep with him at John and Mary's wedding." There is suddenly an atmosphere of pure hate radiating from Sherlock's smiling face, as Ramona sits there, stunned.

"I actually follow a very strict policy of keeping work and everything else very, very separate, so-"

"Stable, flexible hours, not a lot of actual work, meet a lot of celebrities, great social side to it, great pay." Her face was blank, as she debated it. Janine's happy and eager face, compared to Sherlock's foreboding and testing face was what she flicked between as she chose.

"I'll flip a coin." She stated. Janine frowned and Sherlock's expression incredulous.

"It's luck." She shrugged. When she thought about it, she really did have nothing left to lose.

"Why not?" She fished for a coin in her back pocket, and then brought out an old two pence piece. "I'm fifty fifty on the whole thing, and so is a coin flip." She looked at it in her palm, before looking back up at Sherlock. "D'you wanna call it?" Janine began to feel like she wasn't actually there. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If it lands on what you call, I don't take the job."

"Fine." Ramona grinned, his face telling her what she was thinking, and she placed it over her thumb, before flipping it high into the air. Time paused momentarily for Sherlock as the coin reached maximum height.

"Heads." He states, and bites his lip in anticipation as she catches it and slaps it onto the back of her other hand. As she reveals the coin to herself, she raises her eyebrows, before looking up, not sure how to feel.

"Heads it is!" She states, smiling and without turning it over, put the coin on the table and slid it over to Sherlock, so only he could see. Janine looks disappointed, and perhaps even scared for a second, before going back to her normal irritating casualness.

Sherlock looks down at the copper coin as she walks away, carrying her shopping bags into her room, and his eyes widen when he sees that the coin had been flipped to tails, not heads. A corner of his mouth turns up for a second, and he then puts it in his pocket. What was she trying to say?

You can probably tell, but this was a bit of a filler chapter

I know that she's sounding self-important and righteous in this chapter, whilst spending Mycroft's money, but I never intended to have a perfect oc, as that'd just be so dull

Thank you so so much for reading, even more gratitude to you if you review!