Hey there! Okay so it's time for the next chapter...a lot more of John and Sherlock in this one, so it should be vastly more fun to write (and hopefully for you to read). I'll try to make it as long as possible, but it nearly killed me to write the other one. I might just try and upload a quick succession of small chapters.
Hope you enjoy reading!
Previously: "Mrs Hudson?" an unfamiliar male voice called out and then a short haired, clearly military man entered the room, "Who are you talking - oh. Uhm, yeh, hello."
Alex gave an awkward wave before looking down at her scantily clad body and blushing. She reached for a jacket to cover herself with before she introduced herself. "Uhm hi, I'm Alex Bardsley. I'm guessing you live upstairs?"
"John..." He said coming in and shaking her hand. "John Watson. I live upstairs with my flat mate, how did you?"
"Mrs Hudson told me," Alex said smiling. "Nice to meet you John, I would love to chat, but I'll probably have to be up early tomorrow and I really should get some sleep."
"Goodnight," he said, leaving the flat with Mrs Hudson trailing behind. Alex sighed. If John's flatmate was as lovely as him Alex would deem herself the luckiest person alive.
Alex woke up to the sound of commotion in the hallway outside of her flat. It took a moment for her to remember that she was not in her house in the suburbs; she had flatmates now (well, sort of). From what she could tell they were arguing; John and her other flatmate and a third man. Bleary eyed, she grabbed her jacket, putting it on over her pajamas and glancing at the clock. It was too early for this. As she got closer to the door she heard more distinct voices, Mrs Hudson seemed to have joined in the argument, clearly trying to tone it down. Alex heard her mention that she was sleeping and smiled sardonically, not anymore.
They all fell silent as Alex opened the door, John shifted his gaze clearly looking uncomfortable while the two other men; one with a shock of silver hair and tanned skin, clearly a high ranking police officer going by the cut of his suit, but worn shoes, and the other tall and slim with a mass of dark curls that made his bright blue eyes stand out in contrast. It was clear that the dark haired man was her other sort-of-flatmate, he was clearly a lot more comfortable in the building that the police officer. Mrs Hudson looked flustered, as if she thought that Alex may not want to stay if the others were causing trouble.
"Uhm...good morning...ah..." John said, seeming to have difficulty navigating this awkward social situation, which Alex found fascinating. "This is my flat mate Sher-"
"Sherlock Holmes," the dark haired man said, looking at her as if he were trying to pinpoint something. Alex knew that look in his eyes, it was calculating, he was trying to figure her out. She held his gaze, so he was a detective? Or just very clever? "Your name?"
Alex hesitated a second, unsure if he would recognise her by name if not by face.
"Alex Bardsley," she replied, holding her hand out. Sherlock shook it briefly, his eyes still scanning her face before taking hold of her wrist and twisting it behind her back. Alex let out a cry of surprise, that was slightly unexpected.
"Sherlock!" John, Mrs Hudson and the grey haired police officer shouted unanimously. Alex however remained deadly still. Sherlock held her hand behind her back at just the right angle to hurt her if she moved, but that was fine, provided that she didn't move an inch. Alex sighed, definitely a detective.
"Lestrade I suggest you phone for back up, we seem to have a dangerous criminal on our hands," Sherlock said, his grip tightening on my wrist. Alex remained still and tried to relax my arm to keep it from cramping.
There was a moment of silence before they realised that Sherlock was serious.
John was in total disbelief; "You can't be serious...her, a criminal mastermind?" Lestrade, however, seemed more willing to believe that the girl Sherlock was keeping hold of was in fact a dangerous criminal. "But she's just a kid." Sherlock rolled his eyes and made it quite clear that Alex's age was not relevant to her being a criminal genius.
"Alexis Bardsley, thief extraordinaire, at least until a year and around seven months ago," Sherlock explained and Lestrade looked up sharply, while listening to his phone.
"Can I interject?" Alex asked, trying to remain as calm as possible. This guy was good. No attempt was made to interrupt her so she continued. "I suggest that you speak with Detective inspector Mitchel Johnson, about the terms of my release from house arrest," Alex stated. "And if you would be so kind as to relax your grip Mr Holmes, it's quite unsavoury to harm a woman."
Sherlock released her arm and Alex stepped back, putting a safe three feet between them. John looked back and forth between the young woman and his flat mate in bewilderment. Meanwhile Lestrade was now in heated discussion with, who Alex assumed to be, Mitchel. It took several minutes, but the event was quickly resolved.
"She's telling the truth," Lestrade said, putting his phone in his pocket. "She's being released to help them on a case. Seems they're taking a leaf out of my book."
Alex quirked her eyebrow; so Lestrade used Sherlock on cases? Not that she blamed him, Sherlock did seem highly competent when it came to solving things. He had clearly only needed slight confirmation of her name to know who she was and what she had done. Obviously he hadn't know about her release as it hadn't be publicly stated.
Coughing awkwardly John said, "Right, well...uhm...good?"
"Sorry, for the misunderstanding Mrs Hudson. I probably should have mentioned this earlier," Alex apologised, truly feeling bad for keeping such a big secret from her landlady. "I totally understand if you don't want me to live here."
"Oh nonsense," she said, with a light chuckle. "If I can cope with these two, then you'll be just fine here."
Alex smiled and then turned to Sherlock before she continued speaking; "I'm impressed. Not many people remember me now. It must have taken you less than a minute to figure out who I was."
Sherlock's eyes brightened slightly at Alex's compliment, he seemed pleased with this flattery on his genius. Alex felt the exact same way right after she managed to steal an expensive item. She held out her hand and this time Sherlock accepted.
"Well it was nice to meet you, Mr Holmes."
"Sherlock please," he said, his tone sounding slightly mocking.
"Nice to meet you Sherlock," Alex replied, her tone tart. "And you Detective inspector."
Lestrade looked at her, still unable to contemplate everything that had just happened. John was also looking dumb struck. Mrs Hudson was already making her way back into her own flat. Alex gave a final smile to John before walking back into her flat and closing the door.
Alex held in her laughter at the men's surprised faces, and she could hear them talking about her. She felt much more relieved now that her secret was out in the open; she was surprisingly unashamed of her criminal behavior. It wasn't as if she could change it now.
Once the topic of the three men's conversation no longer entertained Alex's curiosity, she crossed the floor and jumped onto her mattress. Pulling the duvet around her legs, Alex reached for her laptop, it's shiny silver exterior immediately catching her eye. It took a few seconds for it to load, what with it being rather cold in her new flat, but then it was functioning fully. On a whim, Alex allowed herself to browse through the news websites. Nothing had been said on the latest murders, so she decided to changer her hunting ground for information and went stright to . Scrolling through her notifications, Alex made note to humiliate some people later for disagreeing with her, when she was clearly right and then began to search through the true crime news-feed.
It didn't take her very long to find a post on the subject, though most of the information was completely inaccurate and merely speculation. She composed a small comment in the section at the bottom of the page: There have been six murders as far as I am aware, though the sixth happened yesterday and has not been broadcast on the news yet. The police are working with a private source and the investigation is running much smoother. They have sent off for DNA testing. Hopefully they'll do it before someone else is killed. (P.S As you can all tell, I have my laptop back and I am no longer 'grounded').
Alex laughed as she typed the last line. 'Grounded' was her code word for violating the terms of her house arrest and getting her laptop confiscated. It was, technically, a correct statement. She had been grounded, it was just very high security.
For a good two and a half hours Alex sat on her bed, furiously typing and hacking (only where necessary) into the private files in her new employers police department. Of course her activites didn't go unnoticed, she recieved several calls from Mitchel telling her to stop her hacking tyrade. After the fifth call Alex decided that it was time for a break. She skipped over to the other room, and pulled a few chocolate bars out of the fridge before bringing them back to her bed. Closing her hacking browser, she moved onto something more pleasant, a tv adaptation of a book about two brothers who hunt deamons. Alex mimed along with the actors, she knew the entire dialogue for the episode and made little internal spasms of joy whenever something adorable happened between one of the brothers and the angel who was their co-star. In her head Alex had always pictured the characters differently, these actors were too different from the descriptions in the books. They both had short hair for one, which totally went against the gradual growth of the younger brothers hair throughout the books.
After the episode was over, and Alex was just about to start another, her phone rang again. Picking it up she answered; "What? I stopped hacking your files fourty-seven minutes ago."
"Oh dear me," a female voice said with a soft chuckle. "You've only just got out of house arrest and you're already hacking into top-secret data?"
Alex's blood ran cold. "Jessica."
"Yes, well done," the young woman replied and Alex could imagine the smug smile on her face. "Don't worry, I'm not here to snitch on you. Just checking in."
Alex gritted her teeth, "How did you even get this number?"
"You're not the only one with hacking skills, darling."
"So, how is freedom? I hear you're living with a Mr Sherlock Holmes and a Dr John Watson. Do they know? Did he figure you out?" Jessica was taunting, but her tone was dark and it made Alex shiver. She had become vary weary of Jessica's true motives. This clearly wasn't a glory call. "How long did it take him? Oh, come on Alexis, I'm curious."
"Why should I tell you anything?" Alex asked, her brow furrowing in thought, what could Jessica possible want with information about her new sort-of flatmates? "
There was a long pause, before Jessica answered; "I never said you should," and then hung up. Alex sat back, holding her phone in her hands, shaking slightly. Worry and fear crept up one her and she dropped the phone looking at it in disgust. She felt sick, and the horrible feeling that Jessica was planning something a lot more than dropping a call to gloat.
The phone rang again, startling her and she let out a small scream. The caller ID came up at Mitchel so she answered it quickly.
"I told you to stop hacking the system," he said angrily down the phone. Alex's brain stoped working for a milisecond before she picked up her laptop, wedging her phone between her shoulder and ear.
"It's not me," she replied, bring up her hacking tab. "I'm going to try and set up a somewhat decent security by-pass system on the important files, but I can't promise that she won't be able to get through it."
Alex started to type, her fingers moving almost to fast for her brain to comprehend what she was typing. She prayed to whoever the fuck was watching overher that it would be just enough to keep Jessica out until she could get in contact with someone who could actually keep her out for good.
"She? You know who is is?" Mitchel asked sounding exasperated.
"I have a hunch."
Numbers and letters filled the black screen using small variations of code that she knew were only specific to her and one other person to create a virus that would hopefully damage the hackers hardware as soon as they typed the wrong number. Alex created layers on layers of work, some of it virus, some of it to create loopholes that would mean that the hacker would have to repeat certain sections of hacking code. Of course, she commited each line of code to her memory and created cheat codes that she could access if she really needed to hack. When she was done, the tips of her fingers were numb with pressing on keys, but she pushed her laptop away.
"Did it work?" Alex asked, finally replying to Mitchel. She could hear him clicking away on his computer and then after a few moment her replied; "Yes. Yes it worked."
"I'm a genius, I know," Alex said dryly. "That should keep her out for now, though I might have to call in some help to keep her out permanently."
"Criminal help?" Mitchel asked, sounding disaproving.
"You hired me didn't you?" Alex retorted. "I can probably figure it out on my own, but it will take a few days. She already knows everything anyway. I recieved a call."
"A call?" Mitchel asked, seeming confused.
"The woman who got me arrested. Jessica Cartnam, though I don't suppose she still uses that name. She knows exactly where I live, and who I live with. I think she's going to try something," Alex said, and MItchel then proceeded to lecture her that she shouldn't be bitter that the woman got her arrested and that it was quite silly to be making assumptions. "I'm telling you, she is a dangerous criminal!" Mitchel wouldn't believe her. Alex sighed in frustration and hung up on him mid-lecture.
Deciding that it was probably time that she got dressed, Alex picked out a pair of faded grey skinny jeans and a t-shirt, getting changer into them quickly because she was freezing. After dressing she pulled on her doc martens and her coat before leaving her flat and exiting through the front door of the building. She needed to be outside.
It was around lunchtime, and the number of people on the streets were almost alarming, but Alex slipped into the crowd and began to walk aimlessly around the streets around Baker Street. If she was honest, she didn't know what to do with herself. Though her paranoia rose each time she saw a flash of blonde hair. The fear that Jessica was planning something big was suffocating. Why else would she be inquiring about Sherlock, who Alex had only just met?
Someone knocked into her, and she turned quickly, just in time to see a flash of red fabric and blonde hair disapear down a side street. Alex darted after, fighting her way through the current of bodies that was moving at a right angle to her. She dodged, ducked and pushed her way through until she was standing at the entrance to the empty side street.
Cautiously Alex made her way down the street, her heart pounding. Again the flash of red fabric caught her eye and she ran forwards, only to discover a red coat that lay discarded at the dead end of the street. Attatched to it were a few strands of long blonde hair. Alex searched the pockets of the coat, but they were empty. Cursing, she threw the coat down again and leaned against the wall.
Jessica was playing with her.
So that's that for this chapter. It's shorter, but I really couldn't write another 3000+ word chaper. Hope you liked it, more of John and Sherlock in the next chapter, which I will try to write in the next couple of days! Comment/fan/vote whatever!
