She hadn't gotten the chance to talk to Molly again. It was a bit of a shame. Danielle had been wanted to make friends outside of Baker Street. She would have other chances, she was sure. Well, unless Sherlock never brought her back. He had left her downstairs...

A downside was that she had gotten lost while searching for Sherlock. She ended up missing him, so she had to call her own cab.

Danielle walked out onto the sidewalk. She should probably be heading back to Baker Street. It made sense that Sherlock would head back home after checking in with Molly.

That, and she would just like to go home and try to process how her day had gone.

She held out her hand, trying to hail a cab.

Her phone rang though. A small part of her thought it was Sherlock, calling to scold her about getting lost in the hospital. As if it were her fault that he had legs like a jaguar, and could easily outrun her. Shame on her for being so short.

"Danielle Nolan?" A male voice spoke.

"This is she."

"There's a camera on the hospital to your left. Look up at it." The man went on in a detached voice.

Danielle did so. She could easily spot the CCTV camera. It rotated away from her direction to her surprise. She didn't remember much from her maths classes, but she knew that angle wouldn't be able to spot her.

"And the building just beyond that."

Danielle, with hesitance, looked over at the other building. Again the camera moved so as to avoid seeing her. She felt her jaw go down.

"Go into the van." The voice asked with the bare minimum of politeness.

"What van?" Danielle asked. "And how did you do that?"

At that moment, a black van pulled up.

Danielle blinked. "Oh. That van." Danielle stared at the black SUV. "You've got good timing. That was a bit scary."

A brunette in a pretty black dress walked out, holding the door open for the redhead. She was texting on her phone, not looking up at Danielle. It took the landlady a moment to comprehend the man's request (okay overly polite demand).

"Nope. That is not a cab. My nan fell for this when I was a kid. I still don't know how we didn't get murdered." Danielle warned to the voice on the phone. She still teased her nan about it, over a decade after the joke had died.

"Get into the car, Miss Nolan." The man requested again. "You'll find you have no say about this."

She sighed. Of course this would happen today. She was just having the best luck today.

==NKMHLY==

Danielle Nolan idly wondered what music they would play at her funeral. She would like it if they played techno music, or maybe rock? She could see her mum's tense face as Prince played out at her funeral. Danielle thinks that would satisfy her, allow her spirit to rest.

She knew her imagination was running away with her. What more did she have to do? She was (not technically) dragged into a black van by a mysterious voice over a phone to an unknown location. She was gonna be murdered!

...maybe Sherlock would solve her murder and go 'oh that's where Danielle went'.

The brunette woman was on her phone. Danielle wondered who the woman must be taking.

"Am I about to be murdered?" Danielle asked, five minutes into the drive.

The woman didn't look up from the phone. If anything she seemed more focused on her phone.

"It's just...I saw the movie Hostel, where rich men kill tourists for fun. The movie sucked." Danielle groaned. She laid back out onto the seat she was in. This seat was comfortable. "Which means something from me, cause I've got no taste in movies and telly. But, but Hostel honestly was hell." Nothing from the brunette woman. She paused in her texting, though. "Can I at least get a reaction out of you?"

Oh look, she was texting again.

"Do you have a name?" Danielle asked. She should at least know the name of the last woman she'd ever speak with.

The woman paused in her texting. "...Frankie." She smiled thinly at Danielle.

"Are you being honest?" The redhead countered.

"No." The woman admitted. She never replied with her proper name.

"Alright." Danielle nodded. She turned to gaze out the window. "Then you can call me Rose Tyler. I know I look like Amy, and have the personality of Donna, but I took one of those online quizzes and it said I was 'Rose Tyler'."

Nothing.

Jokes would be wasted on this woman.

On the other hand...Danielle had a lot of bad jokes she'd been trying to find someone to tell. She wasn't about to die without telling these jokes.

"Why can't dogs dance?" Danielle asked. She was already laughing at her own joke. "Cause they got two left feet!"

'Frankie' gave a small laugh at the joke.

Oh, now the landlady was going to have fun.

==NKMHLY==

"Okay, okay." Danielle was red from laughter. The woman, Frankie, had tan skin so it was hard to tell if she was turning red. "I heard this one last week. A hamburger walks into a bar, it orders a drink. The bartender says 'sorry, we don't serve food here.'"

Frankie laughed that time. She'd been laughing for the past few miles with Danielle's jokes. None of them were funny, mostly puns and...more puns. It was just the constant stream of poor jokes got to the secretary of the British Government. Also, Danielle just endless supply. The woman had more bad jokes than Christmas crackers!

"Last one!" Danielle laughed. Frankie didn't know if she could take another bad joke. "Harry Potter can't tell the difference between his best friend and a cooking appliance. They're both cauldron."

The two women started letting out shouts of laughter. They laughed until the car pulled under the abandoned parking garage. Even when she went to open the door for Danielle, Frankie was still laughing.

Danielle climbed out of the car. The last of her laughs fading as Danielle observed the decrepit space.

"Wow. The Premier Inns have really let themselves go." She joked.

Frankie gave her a small smile as she texted away.

There was a man hiding in the shadows. He had ginger hair, though much darker than Danielle's soft orange. He was dressed in a tailored suit, making him look like one of those secret service agents.

The man was holding an umbrella. Even Danielle could guess why. You never know when it would start raining in London. There was a small chance that it was a weapon, but who would want an umbrella for a weapon?

Okay there was a pointy end. Not really pointy, but Danielle was sure it would do for a fast fight.

Danielle walked over towards him. She wasn't the brightest bulb out there, she could still figure out this was the man that called her and moved the cameras.

"Hello." Danielle greeted, giving a polite smile. "If only there was a way to communicate in private. Like...like some kind of telephone device, or something, so you could have called me. Like, maybe if you were already on the phone with me? Too bad."

"You seem tense." The umbrella man commented with a smug smile.

"Always knew I'd be murdered someday for my lip." Danielle explained. "Just though it'd be cause I told a stabber 'what're you gonna do, stab me?' then get stabbed a dozen times. Did not expect to be brought to an underground parking garage, by a man with an umbrella."

The strange man's lips twisted in a way Danielle could call a smile. It could have been a sneer? No, could this be the literal upside-down frown?

Her mind started running away from her again. Was she not going to be murdered?

"Is this about following Sherlock into the mortuary?" Danielle asked. "Because I swear, he said it was fine."

"No." The man's face scrunched up in annoyance. "That's not-"

Danielle let out a loud sigh of relief. "Good. That's been bugging me for a bit. Stopped for awhile, until I saw you and the black SUV. That'd make anyone nervous about anything. Cause now I'm thinking about any sort of bad thing I've done lately. Like when a copper starts driving behind you, even though you didn't do anything. You start worrying about the test you sorta cheated on in year nine. It's not my fault that Hugh was smarter than me. Or that he wasn't coverin' up his sheet." She babbled.

"Miss Nolan." The man spoke. Danielle clapped her lips shut.

Well, she hadn't been stabbed with an umbrella, so she assumed things were going well.

"You have gained the interest of Sherlock Holmes." The man began.

"I did?" Danielle asked in surprise. The man narrowed his eyes at being interrupted. "By giving him food? How does...okay, I see it now."

The man huffed. She felt bad...for a moment. "It has surprised us as well. He abhors neighbors, especially overly excitable ones like yourself."

"Oi! I don't laugh at you for carrying that umbrella!" She snapped. Over excitable? She had been taken into a parking garage. Danielle bought she was reacting quite normally. "As for Sherlock, I only met him this morning."

"And already, you're following him into hospitals." The man countered.

Danielle felt some heat go to her cheeks. "Who are you? What gives you any right to judge me, Umbrella Man?" She snapped. She felt a bit of false bravado.

"An interested party." The man answered after a pause.

"Right. Interested in who?" Danielle added. "It's not me. If it was, you wouldn't be talking to me. You don't ask the birthday girl to help plan her surprise party. It's not Sherlock. You don't really look like you and him would be pals."

"You've met him. How many 'friends' do you imagine he has?" The man countered. "I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having."

"And that is?" Danielle asked, harshly.

"An enemy." He answered easily.

"An enemy?" She scrunched up her nose. "That's a bit pessimistic, innit?"

"In his mind, we are." The man explained. He got this far off look. "If you were to ask him, he'd probably say his arch-enemy." He gave a small, bitter laugh. "He does love to be dramatic."

"Well thank God you're here to bring balance to the universe." Danielle snarked.

The man through her a withered stare. It was clear she was pushing the limits of his patience. That was Danielle's speciality. "Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?" He asked sternly.

"Forgive me for presuming, but I think that's none of your business." Danielle argued.

"It could be." The man countered with a smug eyebrow lift.

"It really couldn't." Danielle shook her head.

"If he does move into, um... two hundred and twenty-one B Baker Street, I'd be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way."

"Why?"

She wished she wore heels so she could slap this man with them. "Because you're not a wealthy woman."

That was a bit rude. Yes he was ginger but that did not mean he had to be the soulless stereotype Danielle had dealt with for most of her life. "What do you get out of this, then?"

"Information. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you'd feel... uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he's up to." He explained carefully.

"How do you know what makes me uncomfortable?" Danielle asked in disagreement. "'S a presuming a bit much." The man gave her a look. "Why should I?" She asked, humoring him.

"I worry about him. Constantly." The man answered. Danielle could understand that, being protective over someone. "But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a...difficult relationship."

She'd regret it later, but Danielle was considering the offer. Whoever this bloke was he had a point, she wasn't a wealthy woman. Danielle had been looking to fill 223b, maybe get a second job on the side to give her a little extra. Her share of her inheritance from her father was still there, but she didn't want to dig into that without an emergency.

What about Sherlock? A voice Danielle liked to think was her conscience asked.

Danielle'd only known him something close to three hours now, possibly four. The pale man had called her names to her face. Except he wasn't doing it to be mean. The man had yanked Erika's leash out of her hands. He hadn't hurt Erika, only annoyed her. He left her in the hospital basement. He brought her there, he didn't have to do that. Sherlock had left Danielle to be lost. He took her to meet his new flatmate. A man who didn't even know Sherlock's name. Would he do the same for us, probably not.

Her decision was made.

"It's a lovely offer, sir, but I'm afraid I have to say no." She glanced back the way she came, not surprised to see the car was gone. "Now, does that car come back or am I walking home?"

"But I haven't mentioned a figure." Great, she was dealing with a sore loser.

"Don't bother." Danielle asked, waving his offer away. She made her way towards the exit. If she got a cab now, she could get home in time to feed Erika and Nightwing before they wrecked the place in a hunger strike.

"You're very loyal, very quickly." The man commented with a knowing tune to his words.

"I must be an idiot to you, because what sane person accepts a deal made by a shady character with an umbrella in an abandoned parking garage?" Danielle countered. She was giving him a quirked eyebrow of disapproval, hand on her hip, all the pure elements of sass.

The man didn't even look angry. He looked resigned. He looked-oh Danielle wanted to whack him for this-pleased by the idea of Danielle's rejection. "I could advise you to stay away, or wait for him to be bored with you, but I can tell from your purse that it's unlikely."

"Sorry, you can what?" The hairs on Danielle's neck stood up at his words. They sounded vaguely similar to Sherlock when he was pointing facts out to her earlier.

Just like that, the man had power in the conversation again. His smirk proved that he knew it too. "Your purse. Most women tend to notice when they leave their purse in a stranger's car. You've been standing here for five minutes without it, along with your phone. Which means you must have left them behind in the car on purpose."

Danielle flinched to check. Sure enough, her purse and phone were nowhere on her person.

"You walked here expecting to face a battle." The man explained. "You didn't even think about the consequences, you ran in here prepared to die for whatever reasons you came up with in your silly little head."

She glared her soft blue eyes at him. Oddly it did nothing to stop him.

"It's best not to let yourself be carried away by the...adventure." Umbrella man's face crinkled at the word. "When running with Sherlock Holmes, you see war. A good proportion of London are inept at spotting the dangers until it's too late."

Danielle Nolan did not like this man, and hopefully it would be the last time they ever spoke.

Somehow, she knew it was only the beginning.

==NKMHLY==

When Frankie dropped her off at Baker Street, Danielle was actually eager to get away from the craziness. She would talk to Sherlock tomorrow. She'd spent too much time around people today. Plus there was the twenty minutes she thought she was going to die, then meeting a weird bloke in the dark.

Danielle went into her flat. The landlady felt like she was taking off a disguise as she stepped in the dark purples of her flat. The insane three hours felt like three months.

All this because she knew Sherlock was going to ask for a flatmate?

Whatever, Danielle was going to deal with it tomorrow. She had animals that needed attention tonight.

Erika came up first.

"Hello Erika." Danielle cheered. She knelt down, scratching behind Erika's ears. The puppy barked excitedly. Their peaceful walk was distracted "Let's get you fed, eh? Dinner time."

The puppy recognized the word. She dashed off to the kitchen.

"Nightwing." She regarded in what she thought was a posh voice. In reality she sounded like Aunt Petunia in Harry Potter.

The black cat didn't care. He walked on, caring more about his food.

Danielle felt herself laughing. She looked down at Erika, who was happily hopping behind her. "Okay. Quick dinner, then I've got things to do."

Erika yipped happily.

Ten minutes later, when the animals were fed, Danielle was sitting at her laptop in her room. "'Wait for him to get bored with you?'" Danielle spoke, trying to copy that man's baritone. It was horrid. She powered up the laptop, opening it up to Google. "'You see the battlefield with him.'...flogs a dead body for a police case...just who are you Sherlock Holmes?"

She spent the rest of the night on Science of Deduction.

...243 types of tobacco ash?

==NKMHLY==

AN: I AM NOT DEAD! Season Four just...just...I needed time to emotionally adjust. Me, a person who scored 15/80 on an empathy chart, needed time to correct myself emotionally.

It's been a weird couple of weeks. I've been going back to college too. There's also a summer vacation road trip I'm planning, and job hunting. Tell me what you all think! I love reading your reviews.

I was originally going to make this a chapter with Sherlock, but I moved it to the next chapter. Just...I started writing Danielle with Mycroft and I couldn't stop the sass. Danielle just felt the type to sass at people when stressed.

Thanks to lucie1411, , Ingridie, amatista1996, WingDings13, breaktheseodds, Dinosaur Imperial Soldier, IsouFF, AliceInTheCountryOfClover, Blackhooded001, and quilandbelleforever for favoriting

Thanks to lucie1411, , Gonzonimbus, sisencetoaha, Sunshine4545, Hipersomnia, WingDings13, AkiraTheDarkHuntress, Dinosaur Imperial Soldier, funkyauthor, IsouFF, Blackhooded001, and quilandbellaforever for following