Madeline woke the next morning in a panic. She was in a bed she didn't recognise; the shadows playing across the walls were foreign and unnerving in the early -very early- morning light coming through the threadbare curtains. Then she remembered the previous night's events with a start.

She remembered Mrs Hudson's tea and biscuits, and crawling into bed after removing her clothes. She remembered falling asleep to the surprisingly quiet and soothing sound of Sherlock's violin.

Oh... Um what am I supposed to do now? She thought to herself, I can't go back to sleep.

The different-ness of it all had startled her semi-awake, just past sleeping but just before coherant thought patterns.

She threw the covers off her legs and squealed at the cold. Shivering a little, Madeline pulled on the pants of the police issue tracksuit and the singlet an officer by the name of Dunevon had given her. Her foot made contact with something warm and fuzzy as she moved to stand up. She remembered Munchkin, her fluffy, fierce, lovely protector, and wondered if he would need to pee this early in the morning. She nudged him awake, mashing her toes into his face fluff and wiggling them. His eyes opened slowly and Madeline thought she saw a glimmer of a laugh in his chocolate brown eyes before he yawned widely and licked her foot.

"Aw, yuck dog!" she exclaimed in a whisper, reaching down to pull on his ears gently. "Do you need to pee?"

He stood and walked to the door as if he completely understood the question, and wagged his tail lazily.

Madeline opened the door for him and dropped into a curtsey. "This way, Your Highness."

She giggled quietly to herself as she ninja'd her way through Mrs Hudson's flat and out the front door, only banging into three things in her barely awake state.

She was just functioning enough to fumble the lock of the outside door open and stumble down the stairs, Munchkin following behind, his tail waving like a banner.

Madeline plonked herself down on the cold concrete of the bottom step.

"Go on, go make a puddle somewhere.: She encouraged Munchkin with a uncoordinated flap of her hands.

He grinned at her, as much as a dog can grin, and snuck a sloppy kiss in under her chin. He then trotted down the road and into an alley.

"Not too far." She called after him, her voice carrying in the air of the time between four and six, when voices always seemed obscenely loud and yelling was unspeakable.

He stuck hia head back around the corner as if to reassure her, 'It's okay mum, I'm just here. Dont worry so much.'

Madeline pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. She rested her head on the resulting started to think about her situation.. It was a strange one to say the least, living the floor beneath the even more strange and wonderful man that was going to give her her life back. Mrs Hudson deserved a medal and an enormous paycheck, from what she had told Madeline the evening before, and she was an angel for taking her in like that. She wasn't sure where Sherlock had had thought she would sleep as, according to Mrs Hudson, he either slept on the couch or stayed up all night most nights.

Madeline had listened to tales of severed heads and bags of thumbs in the sink, bullet holes in the walls and the late night abuse of his violin with intense interest in the man she would be spending a decent amount of time with.

Madeline stayed lost in her thoughts, watching the sparse traffic pass the door of 221 Baker St until, almost as if summoned by her thoughts, Sherlock appeared next to her, fully dressed and looking as fresh as a daisy in May.

It's indecent to look that good this early. She thought as quietly as she could, remembering Mrs Hudson's insistance that he could read minds. His long legs stretched out halfway across the foot path, begging to tripp some one over.

"Where is the dog?" His voice was a pleasant hum in the morning air. Of course the quiet rule didn't apply to him.

He seemed far calmer than what Mrs Hudson had described as his normal state.

"Good morning to you too." Madeline replied, twisting so she could look into his eyes. And what eyes they were...

"I asked where the dog was. I did not enquire about how you were finding the morning." His tone was soft and distracted. Madeline got the feeling that he wasn't trying to be mean.

"He's taken a liking to that alley just down there. I really hope he doesn't roll in something nasty."

Sherlock seemed to be making a calculation in his head, "No, I don't think so. All should be completely decomposed."

"What!" She exclaimed, hopping it wasn't anything human like the stories.

"Relax it's just some rats I was trying out a new poison on."

Madeline visibly relaxed than tensed again.

"The level of toxin is not enough to do any damage to the dog." He explained further.

Back to relaxing. This woman changes her body language more often than normal. I wonder if it has to do with the dog's well-being? Is this what sentiment does to a person when the thing they care for can't look after itself?

"The dog has a name." Madeline said flatly, "It's Munchkin."

"That is a ridiculous name and I refuse to use it."

"Fine then, call him whatever you want. He just won't respond to it."

Sherlock scoffed. "I bet it responds to anything said in a pleasant tone."

Madeline smirked. "Did your policeman friend not tell you what happened?"

Sherlock shook his head slowly, "He's not my friend."

"An officer was trying to shut Munchkin outside while I was being interveiwed. He refused to call him Munchkin too. He tried to force him out. It would've been funny if there wasn't so much blood. Your policeman friend got Munchkin to leave first try. All he did different was use his name."

Sherlock cracked a smile. "Anderson? Was the one who got bit named Anderson?"

"Umm, yeah I think so. How did you know?"

"I didn't. I just really hoped it would be."

Madeline opened her mouth to laugh, when a horrible yelp of pain rang out in the quiet street.

Before she knew what she was doing, she was up and at the entrance to the alley staring down the man who had obviously just kicked her dog in the ribs and was about to do it again.

"Don't you fucking dare." She said, her voice colder than ice and dripping with venom. Her face was hard and murderous. Despite her small frame the large man with a buzz cut seemed intimidated for a second. Madeline stepped forward to check on Munchkin, but the attacker decided that it was an opportune moment to pull a knife on her.

Sherlock had followed her and was about to step in when Madeline grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife and brought the large man's elbow down on her knee. It snapped with a deafening scream from the man and a truly brutal crack.. She pulled him down, not letting go of the man's wrist, onto his stomach and bent his arm further the wrong way.

Sherlock decided to let this one play out on its own.

The man's eyes rolled back in his head, but Madeline slapped him hard across the face, using his bad arm to pull him up enough to look at her face. She kicked him hard in the ribs once, and Sherlock heard the crack. He hoped it wasn't her bare foot that had made the noise. Madeline rolled the man back onto his back and took the black-handled switchblade that was still clutched in his hand. She lent down and cut across his left cheekbone a deep slash that bled sluggishly.

Sherlock moved to step in, but Madeline shot him a look that said that if got involved, he would end up more involved than he wanted.

She leant down a little further and Sherlock caught her whisper "-ever, ever see you around here again, for whatever reason, you will die. If I see you out in the street, you will die. If you so much as look at my dog again, you will die and if you ever, ever hurt another animal," her voice dropped lower and Sherlock had to strain to listen. "I will hunt you down and kill everyone you have ever met and cared about. I will torture you until you beg for death to come to you and then I will leave you to your life, knowing that it was all your fault that the people you loved were killed in the most painful way I could come up with that day."

Madeline straightened and tucked the switchblade into her pocket. She brushed her singlet off and put a fake smile on her face.

"I'm glad we could come to this understanding."

The thoroughly beaten man pulled himself up from the ground with he assistance of a trashcan that nearly fell on him. He scrabbled down the wall opposite from Madeline and ran as fast as his cracked rib would let him.

Sherlock smirked. Curiouser and curiouser.