Chapter 19: The Next Morning

The next morning, Alice was up early and dressed for her 9 o'clock class at 7.30. After what had happened only a few hours ago, she had only been turning, with her mind with the man upstairs. After an hour and a half, she had gotten up and dressed, knowing she would not sleep anymore. She put the kettle on and sat down with one of her books in her hand and sat down on her couch. After a while she stood up and when her kettle wanted to start whistling, she took it off and poured herself a large cup of tea. She read for a couple of pages before she picked up her bag, put the book in it and with bag, cup and all went out of her studio, she sneaked through Mrs. Hudson's kitchen and up the stairs. She puts her bag down softly and made her way to the door at the end of the hall. With great care she pushed down the door handle and opened it a crack. The bed was empty, but had been slept in. Alice smirked and opened the door wider, finding her father, buttoning up his white shirt, while looking in the mirror.

'Morning.'

He shifted his eyes and smirked.

'What is it with you and doorways.'

Alice took a sip from her tea and shrugged her shoulders.

'Who knows. Maybe just the fact that I am always there, but never really visible. On the threshold of visibility.'

Sherlock turned around, in the process he pulled his blazer from a hanger and put it on.

'Poetic. Is there anything you can't do?'

It was a question through which Alice could hear the attempt at being comical and she smiled slightly, and even though Sherlock wasn't waiting for an answer, she did give him one.

'Economics, those kinds of numbers are foreign to me.'

Sherlock looked up, only partially surprised that she talked back to him.

'Trust me, working in a bank is even more boring that those numbers.'

He smirked again.

'Says the person who has a degree in Finance.'

Alice smiled and took another sip of her tea. Sherlock passed her and his eye was caught by the bag lying next to the stairs.

'Criminal Law first, then Public Law, followed after lunch a physiology lecture, followed by an introduction to efficient report writing.'

Sherlock walked to the kitchen without saying a word after indicating Alice's schedule for the day. Alice followed with her cup of tea and sat down in the red chair. Sherlock entered the room again, he put a glass of water down on the table and then turned to a printer standing on one of the windowsills. He pulled the printed sheets out and picked up a roll of tape. Under the watchful eye of a tea sipping Alice, he walked towards her and put two sheets of paper in her hand. As he himself sat down on his own chair, with his own sheets of paper.

'This is what I found at a crime scene yesterday. Not a simple act of vandalism like they thought.'

Alice looked up, the snorting manner of talking, Sherlock thought not very highly of this "they". She looked back at the papers in her hand. A picture of a painting. A man in a suit, probably a boss of some sort. But the markings on the eyes, an odd yellow painting in certain figures.

'And the cypher? Some sort of code language.'

Sherlock nodded without looking up.

'Still trying to figure out which type.'

Alice looked back to the sheets, the second sheet was an enlargement of the figures, but even after taking a better look, Alice couldn't make anything of it.

'Sorry, no clue whatsoever.'

Sherlock shook his head.

'I don't like not knowing.'

He kept on staring at the sheets.

'I might need help.'

Alice looked up, but with only her eyes, she didn't want Sherlock to see that she had heard him murmur to himself. He looked normal enough, though she had the feeling that he had not really slept at all. He didn't look tired, but through his shirt sleeve she could see the shadow of two nicotine patches. He was still keeping away from the cigarettes, though she didn't know whether it was because he actually liked it this way, or because his daughter ordered him to. That and the fact that there had been sheets of paper in the printer that hadn't been there when she left and the three empty mugs on the kitchen counter she had fleetingly noticed when she had made her way to her chair. He was trying to pretend nothing happened, but she wasn't going to let it pass by so easily.

'Sherlock, what happened this morning...'

'Is no longer important. We should be focussing on the matter at hand Alice.'

Alice put the sheets in her lap.

'It is important though.'

Sherlock shook his head.

'The past is...'

'Not the past!'

Startled by the volume of her own voice, Alice quickly took a breath to calm herself down. Sherlock, just as startled by the outburst, looked up as well.

'You nearly injected yourself with cocaine only 2 hours ago if I am not mistaken. You cannot tell me that that is not important?'

Sherlock stared straight back but it took him a moment before he opened his mouth, laying out he perfectly thought out sentence.

'The fact that something happened only recently, doesn't mean that you need to keep thinking about it. There is no use in living in the past.'

His eyes got fiercer as he continued to talk.

'If I were to do that, you would have to stop me from doing things much worse than just picking up a 5% solution from my kitchen counter and hide it in your own little place.'

Alice stared straight back, not showing her fear for the green eyes that were now trying to pierce through her soul.

'You would have to pick the syringe out of me.'

Alice rose and threw the sheets of paper at her father, who now leaned back. He wasn't happy with the way he had to act, but there was no way he was going to talk to this 15-year-old about an something he had been doing for almost as long as she was alive. She was standing only inches away from him, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind that. Alice's face was red with anger.

'I know you have been doing this for a long time. I know it almost cost you your life a couple of times. Don't think I didn't see the little lists crumpled up in your Pall Mall flat. If you don't want to talk about it, fine, but don't you ever dare consider taking that stuff when you know I am in the same room again.'

Sherlock looked up, suddenly surprised by her response.

'What?'

Alice, not willing to sit down in the chair again, knelt down in front of Sherlock.

'I didn't come here to interfere in your life, just like you are not going to interfere in my life when you don't want to. I won't stop you with your ways of preventing boredom, even when they could possibly kill you.'

Aside from the smoking, she thought, but then again, she hadn't forced him to quit cold turkey, she had even given him the possibility to get more nicotine into his system than was even possible while smoking.

'All I ask is for you not to do such things when I am here. I don't want to be the one to take your syringes from you, or be the one to take them off you when it's already too late.'

She glanced at her watch. 8.08. She had to get going to be at university on time before her first class if she wanted to go by foot. She downed her tea, suddenly ending the conversation. Sherlock was still holding the sheets of paper, but now he leant forward to pick up Alice's copies, which she had thrown to the floor, breaking eye contact with her in the mean time. She wasn't stopping him. She wasn't going to stop him from being himself. When he looked up again, his surprise must have shown, since Alice was looking straight at him, now with her bag on her back.

'Think about that Sherlock. I am not your brother, whose only weakness is your way of life.'

Sherlock was getting to know her better every day. In his life he had confined himself to his brother and his parents. It was all he needed and especially in his youth he didn't want to explain himself to his friends every single moment. He didn't realise that Alice was leaning closer.

'John will not do that either.'

With that she turned around and walked out. Sherlock was left holding his papers. He remained in the same position for a while, before he stood up, put the sheets of paper on the table and walked back to the kitchen. He put the kettle on and stood there watching it as it slowly reached its boiling point. He didn't see the kettle though, he was looking at a wall with some rope tied between certain words, phrases and mental photographs. Who was Alice exactly? It had taken him many months already and he didn't figure it out yet. He was used to reading people in one glance, but he realised with her, that she wasn't such an easy nut to crack. The phrases kept piling up and they were slowly taking shape, and now he was adding something new to it. Somewhere else, another profile was being created, but he wasn't really that keen on developing it. Dr. John H. Watson. He took the kettle off at the exact moment when it wanted to start whistling and poured himself a mug which he had picked up from the small table next to the red chair. The tea was taken back to the living room, placed on the table and then forgotten.

Violin music played when John Watson came down the stairs, already dressed in his shirt and jeans, ready to go. It was 8.30 and he had an appointment at 9.15 with Sarah Sawyer, a general practitioner in a local clinic. He needed to find a job. Mrs. Hudson was a sweet lady, but he wasn't going to abuse her kindness by not paying the rent for the flat. He didn't expect Sherlock to get another job, he seemed to be fixed on the consulting detective job, even when it didn't bring any money in. The "genius" had even tried to decline a five figure cheque yesterday, which John had quickly taken before it was torn. He shook his head. Sherlock might be intelligent, but when it came to social interaction, he had so much to learn and he wasn't sure that he was ready for this interaction with him. He wasn't even sure whether he wanted John around. So why stick around? He had asked himself the question many times over the past month, but he didn't have anywhere else to go. Besides, it was quite interesting to hobble along with his flatmate with his head in the clouds, he could learn things that he never thought he'd learn. The violin music was something he could get used to, even when it woke him up in the middle of the night, the only thing that he wondered about was the voices he sometimes heard early in the morning. Sherlock had never mentioned a girlfriend, but John could swear he had heard a female voice. Without saying a word, he walked into the kitchen, observing the back of his flat mate, who was completely obliviate to the normal world around him, living somewhere completely different, though he didn't know where. He felt the kettle and poured himself a cup of tea. He didn't dare open the fridge door, and therefore just took a cracker from the cupboard and put it in his mouth. Sherlock didn't notice his flatmate coming down apparently and continued to play. After finishing his tea and his cracker, John picked up his bag which he had deposited on the kitchen floor the night before and grabbed his coat from a hanger. He glanced at Sherlock for one last time, but then went downstairs and closed the front door behind him without saying a word.

Not long after John had left, Sherlock put his violin down. He had heard the doctor come down, he wasn't completely deaf, but didn't notice the fact that he had also left, and that he was actually on his own in the flat, that even Mrs. Hudson had gone out to do some grocery shopping. He picked up the sheets of paper and a role of tape, pasting them to the mirror above the hearth. Then he sat down at the table and pulled his laptop towards him, looking for the news of the morning, hoping for something interesting that had found it's way through the usual hubbub of so-called news. It didn't take him long. "Ghostly Killer leaves a Mystery for Police". The killer who can pass through walls. Sherlock grinned, he pulled a stack of post-it's, hidden underneath all kinds of files, towards him and started looking for a pen, but couldn't find one at the moment. He read the article and then looked at the pictures on the mirror. Still no idea which code language. Then he turned back to the post-it's next to the laptop.

'John, could you pass me a pen?'