Holmes had been very bored, frighteningly bored, worryingly bored, and the wall had taken the brunt. John had been willing something to happen for days; usually it was Sherlock haunting St Bart's mortuary like some blood obsessed spectre. Recently it had been John, willing Lestrade or Molly to find something exciting, some mysterious case to occupy his friends mind, before he managed to damage anyone else's property.

So when he returned to the flat later than usual, dragging a Tesco bag for life filled with the essentials of life, it was to find an absorbed Holmes. A Holmes with the zeal of the chase on his face, in short the Holmes he was obsessed with. He didn't look up when John entered the room, just kept reading, what John suddenly realized was his own, laptop screen. John offered him a cup of tea, and received a halfhearted grunt in reply. In the next hour, the tea magically appeared, Sherlock drank it, then a pasta dish magically appeared, Sherlock didn't deem to eat it, then another cup of tea arrived, it went cold, Sherlock drank it. All this time he read the case notes of Nicola Hogg, the Dental Cadet in the Stairwell.

Sherlock read the brief case notes, acquired then e-mailed to him by Mycroft, MEN articles online, the original police reports, and finally re-read the email from Mrs O'Callaghan, Nicola's mother.

Normally this might have been an open and shut case, someone at the MDH killed her, dumped the body, but like the Police Sherlock couldn't see the answer.

John how do I get to Manchester?

John looked up from the evening paper he was vaguely reading, and gave a brief synopsis of Virgin West Coast, or M1/ M6. Then went back to his paper, he wearily looked up when Sherlock walked out of the room, he looked up again when ten minutes later Sherlock came back lugging his black hold-all.

We're going to Manchester then? John asked wearily

Only if you're ready?

Sherlock, I've been ready since I came in this afternoon, and saw you reading the Manchester Evening News.

The train was comfortable, and light in normal circumstances John would have liked the journey, but 2 hours of a silent Sherlock, and his mind was wandering. He suddenly looked up

Where will we stay?

Mrs O'Callaghan will put us up, somewhere called Fallowfields, I've told her to pick us up from Piccadilly.

Everytime John thought he'd got close to thinking like Sherlock, he did one of these amazing terrifying and odd things, and John realized he was still Sherlock's puppy.