Hi all! Sorry I've been MIA. I have deadlines left and right and I want to update many stories at once! I am planning on updating this and my others, but rotating which I update in the little time I have to work on these. I hope you guys enjoy! I love rewriting and setting up this story once more!

Kylie shifted the large boxed mattress she had just purchased in her hands, juggling it with the massive amount of shopping bags she was carrying as she tried to put her key in the lock of 221C.

She had spent the day running around London trying to get the bare essentials for a flat. A mattress, bedding, pillows, and a bunch of cleaning supplies later, she was finally back at Baker Street. If she was honest with herself, she was looking forward to setting up an actual home, despite the fact that the only furniture she now owned was a mattress.

A fresh start…

She smiled to herself as she finally got the door to her flat open, hauling in her new things through the small entry way. She struggled for a moment before setting things down, locking the door behind her. The flat was still dark, but a chill ran up her spine as she felt eyes on her. She stiffened, fear shooting through her as she sensed someone else's presence in the flat.

He found her…

Shit.

Slowly, she reached for the gun she had in her purse, hoping that the dark of the flat would distract from her actions as she bought herself time.

"Oh please," a voice drawled from across the room, "If I had wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have been so obvious, I assure you."

Kylie rolled her eyes as she recognized the voice, flicking the lights on to glare at the intruder. She pulled the gun out of her purse, keeping it at her side as the flat was bathed in light, illuminating a smug looking Sherlock Holmes, sitting ontop of her small suitcase.

"I should shoot you just on principle," she told the dark-haired detective, "Is this how you treat all of your neighbors? Steal their belongings and break into their flats?"

"Just the ones that interest me," he said as he stood up.

"Oh," Kylie said sarcastically, as she put her gun back in her bag setting it down and bending down to pick up her shopping, "Lucky me. What did I do to deserve that?"

"You're observant," Sherlock told her, "More observant than most."

"So that warrants breaking into my flat?" Kylie asked him as she began removing items from the bags and setting them on the counter of the small, run down kitchen.

"It does when you notice bullet holes in a wall in less than 3 seconds upon entering a flat when you had your back to said wall nearly the entire time you were in it, not to mention deducing that John was a solider based on posture, a handshake, and a hair cut."

"So?" Kylie asked, pulling a pillow out of the packaging, "I can use my eyes, logic, and basic reasoning skills."

"Exactly," he told her.

Kylie sighed in annoyance, setting the bottle of bleach she had purchased down a little too hard as she glared at him in annoyance.

"Its an annoyingly rare trait," he continued, "In fact, I have only seen one person render John as amazed."

Kylie stared up at him, "And who was that?"

"Me."

Kylie rolled her eyes, "I should have guessed. You have quite the ego, don't you?"

"So I've been told," Sherlock said simply as he watched her pull out the items.

"Okay," Kylie told as she sighed in annoyance once more at him, "Good conversation. How about you leave now?"

"No," he drawled quickly.

Kylie glared at him.

"Well then what in the hell do I have to do to get you to go away?" Kylie asked him.

A corner of Sherlock's mouth pulled up in a smile.

"I've been doing some research."

"Well congrats on that," Kylie said, fully annoyed as she picked up more bags, bringing them to the counter to go through.

"On you," he told her as he pulled an external hard-drive out of his coat pocket.

Kylie glowered at him as she recognized the external drive immediately.

Bastard must have taken it when he had stolen her case…

"Interesting how a woman who grabbed less than three days of mismatched clothing took the time to download research data before fleeing the country."

"Give me back my drive," Kylie told him menacingly as she took a step forward to grab it out of his hands.

He pulled it away from her, keeping his eyes locked on hers.

"You lied," he told her.

"About what?" Kylie asked him, nearly losing her temper completely, "I told you nothing. You took it upon yourself to snoop through my suitcase!"

"Your name," Sherlock told her, ignoring her previous remark, "again."

Kylie rolled her eyes.

"I didn't."

Sherlock smiled at her slightly before turning, tossing the drive in his hands as he paced her empty flat.

"You're Kyleigha Gibbs, PhD."

"Kylie is short for Kyleigha," she told him, brushing it off quickly, "Sorry I left out my last name, and social security number for you" she added sarcastically. "And how you decided to get that from my research data, is news to me."

"I…"

"Don't care," Kylie told him quickly, holding out her hand, "Give me back my drive."

Sherlock just stared at her. Kylie swore his blue eyes saw right through to her soul as he calculated and analyzed every single movement she made.

"Your research," Sherlock told her after a moment, still toying with the drive in his hands, "Its, interesting."

"Yeah, I think so too," she told him simply, "Give it back."

"You know what I think?" Sherlock asked her as he took a step forward, nearly a foot away from Kylie now.

"I have a feeling I'm going to hear it regardless of my response," Kylie told him as she ran a hand through her auburn locks.

"I think you miss your work," Sherlock told her, "You miss the chase. The puzzles. The hunt. You thrive off of it. Sitting around fixing up a flat while you write articles… I don't think you can bare that."

"I'm a scientist," she told him firmly, "Publishing research articles is essentially my livelihood."

"Yes, it would be, wouldn't it?" Sherlock told her with a smug grin.

Kylie growled and rolled her eyes, "Would be?"

"If you worked for a museum or university like nearly every other forensic anthropologist out there, yes, it would be," he told her, "Teaching, conducting research, attending digs, consulting on occasions… but you…" he said taking a step forward, inches away from her now, "You couldn't bare sitting around all day. You enjoy the thrill of the case. You became a full-agent when you didn't have to because you wanted to be in the field, not in a lab. You convinced the FBI that they needed a full-time Anthropologist on hand when nearly no other law-enforcement agency has one."

Kylie stared at him for a moment.

"I have a specialized skill set," she replied.

"Obviously."

Kylie was thrown off slightly by the man's response as his eyes analyzed her.

"So what?" Kylie asked again, "You figured me out. I like puzzles, mysteries and solving crimes. What's your point?"

"I could use another assistant," he told her, "John, well, he, himself may not be luminous, but he is a wonderful a conductor of light. He has a remarkable power of stimulating it. You, however," he continued, "Are observant. More than John and much less so than I…"

Kylie rolled her eyes once more.

The ego on this man…

"Observance is something I can use. Only if it will verify what I have already seen."

"So, you stole my external hard drive to try to recruit me to your fake little detective agency?" Kylie asked him.

"No," he responded simply, "I stole the drive to find out more about the man you are running from. A picture, a name… But since none of that was on there, I decided to make do."

Kylie glared at him.

"I told you I'd take you as a client," he told her.

"I'm not your client."

"Yes, you are."

"I don't want your help."

"You need it," Sherlock told her before he pulled a file folder out of his jacket, offering it to her, "However, we have a more pressing case, one that will interest you."

Kylie stared at the outstretched folder in his hand, before looking back at him and turning away.

"Uh, tempting offer," Kylie said sarcastically, ripping open the packaging on the bedding and tossing it in the washer under the sink, "But hard pass."

"What?" Sherlock asked, genuinely surprised, lowering the folder.

Kylie looked at him as if he had lost his mind, grabbing her pocket knife out of her pocket, opening up her new mattress.

"I gave that all up when I came to London," she told him, "All I want now is a quiet life, to fix up this flat, and keep you out of my life."

Sherlock scoffed at her.

"You don't want quiet or mundane."

Kylie looked at him, narrowing her eyes.

"I left my cases. I left my life. The only thing I have now is my research. My goal now, is to keep a low-profile, catch up on my publications, and stay out of that life."

"Except that's not what you want at all."

"You know, I'm getting real sick of you telling me what I do and don't want," Kylie told him furiously as she tossed her knife on the counter, leaning on it as she looked at the smug detective.

"You didn't leave your work," he told her, "You ran out of fear, not because of your work. You miss the work."

"I don't"

"You downloaded three unsolved homicides onto that drive from the FBI database before you fled the states based on the time stamps. That sound like someone who doesn't miss the work?"

Kylie glowered at the man. She had no come back. He was dead on, but she wasn't about to admit that to him out loud.

He smiled at her, knowing he was right.

"I'm living a quiet life here," Kylie told him firmly.

"You couldn't even leave the country without taking three cases to work on with you," Sherlock told her as he left the file on her counter as he turned to leave, "You are incapable of living a quiet life.

Kylie sighed in annoyance and leaned on the counter once more, causing Sherlock to chuckle at her as he turned his coat collar up and left the flat.

"Let me know your findings," he hollered at her as he climbed the small steps out of her flat, shutting the door behind him.

Kylie leaned on the counter, fully annoyed and angry with the man's words. She eyed the folder he had left on the counter, quickly picking it up and throwing it in the make shift trash bin she had made as if it had burned her.

She glared at the file for a moment longer, as if it had personally insulted her before she turned and went back to unpacking her shopping.

Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes. You are wrong.

*&#$() *#)(

Sherlock sat in his chair, his hands folded neatly in his thinking pose as he allowed his mind to wander towards the woman downstairs.

She was interesting. No more. No less. Just… interesting.

This woman had deduced the same thing he had upon meeting John without any suggestion. It was just observing, but he had never seen anyone other than himself and Mycroft deduce things like that. Granted, it was a simple deduction. It could have been luck, but then there was the wall. He had watched her in his periphery upon her entrance into the flat. She had not spent yet a moment in the flat before she was immediately focused on him and her case he had stolen, yet she had noticed the smiley face and bullet holes in the wall she had been facing away from.

She had been observant. Very observant…

The woman was intriguing. She was smart, trained as an FBI agent. A scientist, observant. Yet, she had run from an abusive lover. The woman didn't seem to back down from him, yet she fled a country from an abusive lover?

She was observant. The signs of abuse were extremely obvious, she wouldn't have missed them…

Love was an unimaginable weakness. The Woman had proved that.

He took a breath and sighed as he shifted in his chair. He heard her moving about in the basement flat below- cleaning no doubt.

What was wrong with him? He had a case… the most interesting case he had had in a while his thoughts were with the auburn-haired woman downstairs. He stood up from his chair, facing the photos he had put up above the fireplace once more.

A torso had washed ashore from the Thames earlier that morning. Nearly completely decomposed and no solid leads, Lestrade had called Sherlock. Alone, the case wouldn't have been too interesting- a simple body dump with the rest of the body floating around the Thames somewhere yet to be uncovered. However, an hour later, a large duffle bag had been pulled ashore nearly 20 miles away. In it, it had contained another torso and a right leg… both from two different individuals.

London had a serial killer. One who was cutting up their victims and dumping them in the river. And this one… this one was clever. The water destroyed nearly all forensic evidence. The duffle bag the second and likely third victims had been found in was cheap, generic, and could be purchased in a hundred different locations around London. The bodies were their best bet for a lead. However, there wasn't much he and John had found with the exception that they had been cut up with a surgical saw. Without clothes, the entire body, and forensic evidence it was hard to deduce an entire picture. There had been a part of a tattoo that remained on the little flesh that remained on one of the bodies. He had sent John to look into the tattoo earlier in the day.

As if on cue, the door to 221B opened and John's telltale steps began to thump up the stairs.

"Find it?" Sherlock asked as John strolled in to the flat.

"Uh, no," John said puzzled by his flatmates immediate questioning.

Sherlock looked at him accusingly.

"What?" John asked as he shrugged off his jacket, tossing it onto the back of the chair, "You think that taking a small bit of a tattoo to random shops on the off chance at that they'd recognize it and know exactly who they were would pan out?"

Sherlock kept staring at him.

John sighed and rolled his eyes at him.

"I was being factitious," John told him, "What have you been doing? While I've been running around London asking every tattoo artist in town about a small arbitrary part of a tattoo?"

"Investing," Sherlock told him as he stood up and walked over to his computer, opening it and beginning to type arbitrarily on it.

"Investing?" John asked as he plopped down in to his chair.

"Yes, investing," Sherlock confirmed quickly.

"What? The homeless network?"

"No," Sherlock said as he examined the photos on his laptop, "In the woman downstairs."

John looked at him in disbelief.

"Sorry?"

"The woman, downstairs," Sherlock told him as he turned to look at his flatmate as if he had lost his mind. "The one with the case."

"Kylie?" John clarified.

"Yes, Kyleigha," Sherlock said, still not following why John was reacting this way, "She's has an expertise in skeletal remains."

John leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, "Since when do you seek the expertise of others? I thought you knew everything," he added sarcastically.

Sherlock turned and glared at his flatmate, causing John to smile at him.

"You like her, don't you?" John asked him as he leaned back.

"What?" Sherlock asked him, taken aback, "No, of course not. I don't date John. I can always use another assistant. She seems competent and fitting that we have just skeletal remains."

"Hm," John said as he watched him.

"What?" Sherlock asked testily.

"Oh nothing. I just find it odd that you steal the case of a pretty woman, find out she's a mystery, immediately take her seemingly boring case that you have deemed a case, which isn't by the way…"

"It IS a case John!"

"Then you obsessively research her…"

"I did not!"

"You don't realize I'm in the room half the time," John told him, "I literally saw you googling her half the night."

Sherlock opened his mouth to argue with him, but he was cut off by John continuing.

"And now you invite her to work with you?" John asked, "Claiming you need another assistant?"

"I do."

"Since when?" John asked him.

"She could prove helpful," Sherlock said nonchalantly as he turned back to the computer.

John smiled at his flatmate.

"Uh-huh," John said, not buying it for a moment.

"Are you going to be this annoying from now on?" Sherlock asked him.

"Fine," John said, biting back a smile and an urge to tease the consulting detective further, "Let's work the case then."

"Finally," Sherlock muttered as he stood, "Some sensibility."

#(* ()#* )(

Kylie was lying on her newly made bed she had haphazardly laid in the middle of what was to be her bedroom floor. The new duvet cover was soft and warm, her pillows soft, and she felt more at home in this shabby little flat than she had in years, yet she was wide awake, her mind racing.

That file… what was in that file?

She shut her eyes and took a shaky breath. She was not going to fall into the trap the arrogant so-called detective upstairs was trying to set for her.

… he doesn't need to know that you actually looked at it. You could use the distraction…

NO! Go to sleep. You need sleep.

Fall asleep and succumb to the nightmares? You know you will have them. Distract your mind. Look at the file.

Kylie growled at herself and threw off the duvet. She paced through her flat, turning on the light as she walked into the kitchen.

She was just in her underwear and a camisole, but she pulled out the old kettle she had found in the flat, heating up water and making tea for herself as she lifted up her makeshift rubbish bin, staring at the folder in it.

Did she want that dick upstairs to win? Win over her curiosity?

…He doesn't have to know.

She took a breath and grabbed the file as the old kettle whistled. She threw the file on the counter and went about making a cup of tea in the single mug she owned, eyeing the folder as if it were about to attack her.

Putting the milk back into the fridge, she ran hand through her hair, leaning on the counter.

She told herself she was going to leave this life behind. She was going to live a quiet life, find a boring job… teach maybe. Yet, here she was, fighting the urge to open a case file she had been given. Was living a quiet life feasible for her? Was that asshole right?

…. Fuck, he was, wasn't he?

Kylie took a breath, feeling the self-hatred fill her body as she hopped up on the counter, pulling her tea and the file close to her before flipping it open and diving into what would become the first step of her future in London.

Review? Pretty please?