Chapter 14

"Ummm..." For once since my arrival, I was utterly speechless. No words came to my mind. I couldn't get myself out of this. No escape. He had me right where he wanted me. This time he had won. I had lost. Fuck, I lost. He had five questions and a favour. Shit shit shit.

"I hope this doesn't inconvenience you at all, but I'm going to ask for my favour now," he said, standing up. "Come with me." When I didn't move, still in shock, he rolled his eyes. "Move," he told me, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him. I let him take me meekly, too paralysed to move on my own. We made it back to their flat and went inside, finding John asleep in a chair. "Wake up," Sherlock said, nudging his friend. He opened his eyes sleepily and groaned. He took one look at us, and then was completely awake.

"Sherlock, what are you doing?" He stood up and gazed at both of us incredulously.

"As you know, Helen lost the bet. I've come to ask whether or not you think my favour to be reasonable, as those are the terms we agreed upon." Sherlock said this as casually as possible, but apparently he didn't get the mood across.

"Sherlock," John began warily. "Think about what you're saying. That is not a reasonable favour to ask of her, especially since you know so little about who she is."

"John, how can you possibly know what I want from her?" He asked.

"Sherlock, it's very obvious what it is you are after and it's a no." John looked at me in my confused state. "Just look at her. You must've shocked her senseless."

I was pulled out of my reverie. "Hey, I am a person who can hear you just perfectly-" I stopped myself. It took a moment to process the implications of the scene in front of John. My right hand flexed, and I realised Sherlock was still holding it. I looked down and let go, feeling how close Sherlock and I were standing. "John, stop right there. Nope, no way in hell." I shook my hand to let the tingling sensation that had permeated through my skin wear off.

"So he didn't..." John said, looking at me seriously.

"No," I repeated firmly. Then I began to laugh hysterically. There truly was no way to be sane around them. It was far easier just to give into the madness and go with the flow, so to speak. "The very idea John." I almost doubled over. "Oh God, that is rich. I've already told you, never in a million years would I do that. Certainly not with the likes of him. And your face!" I said, pointing to him. "I don't think I've ever seen you made that expression before. Hey, Sherlock," I elbowed him in the side, "I wonder if that's what Mycroft's face looks like when he's been told they've made the cake with no sugar!" I clutched at my side. "Again, that is the best joke I've ever heard. Even better then the one about the backfiring car and the boomerang."

"I don't miss things as a rule, but I feel distinctly excluded. Perhaps if either of you were to clue me in I also could revel in Helen's, well, whatever you call that." His inflection was directed at me.

"Dear God Sherlock, for being uncommonly intelligent you are also blitheringly stupid." I wiped away true tears of mirth from my eyes. "Let me give you some clues. You were holding my hand. You said you wanted to claim your favour from me. My face was utterly stuck in a state of shock. What conclusions is John supposed to draw? That you wanted me to scrub Mrs. Hudson's feet?" It was hard to laugh and talk at the same time.

When he said nothing, John sighed. "Sherlock, it looked like you had just asked her for her hand in marriage."

There was a pause following this.

"That is not what I had intended," Sherlock explained.

"No shit," I said. "But that doesn't matter, because even if it was I would have said no anyway. Like I'd ever marry you." I giggled again. "Sorry, it just sounds weird to even say out loud. Imagine it, Helen Holmes. As if."

"And why not?" He said, offended. "What's wrong with me?"

I took one look at John, and he looked at me, and we both laughed in unison.

"Not right now Sherlock, that's a conversation for another time," John said, patting his friend on the back. "But now that that's cleared up, what was it you wanted to ask?"

Sherlock looked at the both of us, debating his next course of action. "Right. The favour. As I already informed you, I did in fact win the bet against Helen, and as per our agreement she now owes me five questions and a favour. We both agreed that you would be best equipped morally as a third party to determine whether or not said favour is appropriate. So I, have come here with her, to call upon your principle. I believe what I ask to be perfectly reasonable to the best of my knowledge, and I foresee no hindrance it could cause, as I have mapped out all possible hiccups in it's implementation. Indeed, I have been very careful to word my favour so as to give as little cause for doubt and suspicion at it's intentions as humanly possible."

"You can tell he's been thinking about this quite seriously," I interrupted, directing my words at John. "This entire time it's almost sounded as if he's trying to avoid telling us what the bloody hell he wants me to do." John sniggered, then caught Sherlock's disapproving eye and cleared his throat to cover it up. "So, care to skip your monologue and get to the juicy bit? I'd rather get this over and done with if you know what I mean."

He looked at both of us, unamused. "My favour," he said, "is that you be forced to accompany John and I on all of our cases regardless of any previous engagements you might have, even if you are otherwise inclined to join."

I stared at him for a moment. "Wait, what?"

"Sounds fair to me," John said.

"Wait, what?" Now I stared at John.

"Thought so. Alright, then it's settled." Sherlock handed me a stack of books. "Get cracking, we've got to find out which books they have in common."

"John, you can't be serious." I walked over to him sternly.

"I don't see anything wrong with it."John shrugged his shoulders. "It's not like you dislike coming along anyway, I know you don't." He yawned. "Besides, if you're here then I'm gonna go get some shut eye. You can cover for me, right?" He smiled innocently, and walked away.

"You scheming bastards," I muttered under my breath, slamming the books down on the table. Opening them up I groaned inwardly, knowing that all this work was fruitless. It wouldn't matter in the end. Unless I decided to spoil the surprise, but I dismissed that possibility. If I tried to change the future, someone might end up dead, and it could be me. This way, at least I was sure of what would happen. "So, do you want to use your five questions now?" Maybe if I could get all of this done in one night/morning it would be easier then the protracted and painful process spread over a course of days.

"Do you swear that your answers will be wholly truthful, not in the slightest sense vague, and utterly serious?" Sherlock's voice was frightfully intense.

"I swear on the fact that I know John killed that cabbie to save you," I replied simply. Hopefully he would take my response as a testament to my attitude towards the subject. And hopefully he wouldn't ask how I knew that John did kill that cabbie. Shit, maybe I should've come up with something different to say. Too late now.

He paused, presumably to think over how I did know that.

I calmly looked through the books.

"Do you know who Moriarty is?"

Shit. My hands shook. Couldn't he ask something else?

"I'm gonna take a rain check on that." I nervously flipped through pages absentmindedly. I could practically feel his eyes on me as I internally freaked out. Oh my god, he's gonna think I'm one of the bad guys and throw me out the window repeatedly until I die and oh god he's right behind me, I can feel his breath on the back of my neck and this is totally not cool, oh my god I'm gonna faint. My head turned around imperceptibly and sure enough, he was right there. "Or I could not do that, you know, because I'm nice and stuff." And stuff? Did I really just say that?

"Correct answer," I heard him growl out behind me. Pure chills of terror coursed through my body. He spun the chair around until I faced him dead on, his nose inches from mine. "Now, what do you know of Moriarty?"

"Uh," I began, trying to suppress my body from shaking. I failed, just so you know. "Moriarty, well, he likes to dress nicely. Um, his ringtone is 'Stayin Alive'." Sherlock's eyes were not impressed. By this time he was nearly on top of me as I sank lower into the chair. "He's smart and resourceful. He's almost kinda like you, except instead of working for the police, he's a consulting criminal." My eyes flicked to either side, looking for an escape. "And uh, that's pretty much it."

He looked at me so closely I felt like all my secrets were being split open and hewn into his abductions. It was a rather disconcerting few moments.

"And how did you come to possess this knowledge?" Sherlock asked me.

"Hey now, that's a different question," I said quickly. "Do you really want that to be your second question, because I can tell you right now that you're going to meet eventually and you can ask him yourself." I was sweating so bad by this point I could've sworn someone turned the furnace on.

He looked me over, considering this. "I won't waste my second question, as you suggested. But, I will ask if you are leaving anything out that may be important in the near future that involves Moriarty. Because if you are, so help me I'll turn you out faster then my experiments mold, Mrs. Hudson be damned." At this point, our noses did touch, and I was shocked at how warm his face was compared to my icy exterior.

"Uh, well, this doesn't technically matter, but Moriarty is the one who managed to wrangle Zhi Zhu and his associates into England." I pressed myself further into the chair as he bore down upon me.

Suddenly he drew back, and I sighed in relief. "Very well, that will be all for now. Continue with your work." He returned to his side of the room and rooted around some more boxes.

"You know Sherlock, you can ask me more questions if you like," I offered up. "You'll only use up one of your five if I don't want to answer it. Just keep that in mind." My hands grabbed more books as I looked them all over.

"So if I was to ask you how you know my brother..."

"I don't, and he'll probably be the first to tell you that. Same with Moriarty."

Silence. "So you don't work for either of them?"

"Nah, I just know things." God there were so many books! And this journalist guy had those terribly cliche racy novels too. "I've never met Mycroft. Same with Moriarty." I shuddered. "And I hope I never meet him. Moriarty, not your brother. I'm sure you're brother is cool once you get past his umbrella fetish."

"What about your assertion that John killed a cabbie?" Shit, I'd hoped he had forgotten.

"Nope, that is a no-go. Unless you want to use up one of your questions..."

"No, I wouldn't waste one on that. I have a better question. Will you tell me why, after claiming your significant other recently perished in a automobile accident, you haven't shown one single sign of remorse at his death, or a desire to return back to your own home and life and instead seem entirely comfortable and at ease intruding in ours?"

Sherlock didn't forget anything did he?

What's up people? So here's your chapter, and another cliff-hangery type thing. Yeah, I didn't forget about her dead boyfriend. Neither did Sherlock. And believe it or not, there's an explanation, and a real one. I've had it planned this way since the start. Actually it's pretty funny, I know almost exactly how this story is gonna go, from the Great Game to Reichenbach.

Muahahahahaha!