"Sherlock, this is Bridge Grayson. Ex-RAF, and a good friend of mine," John introduced, a hand on my shoulder.

This was a peculiar creature indeed. All cheekbones, curly black hair and those eyes. He wore a loose purple button-down and slacks, his forehead shining in the heat. So this was the Sherlock Holmes that amazed John. I kept up with their blogs and Leo and I had both written to John, so I'd read about their adventures together solving crimes. He seemed ordinary, Sherlock.

"Bridge, Sherlock Holmes."

That was until he opened his mouth. His deep voice was almost insulting in tone. "Pleasure."

"I think her problem's worthy of your time." John added as if reading the other man's thoughts, before going into the kitchen and leaving me in the sitting room with him. I kept standing, staring at Sherlock.

"Do you now?" Sherlock mused, a corner of his mouth curling. "And what is your problem?"

I only kept his gaze. When all he got was silence for a few minutes, he huffed and I noted an impatience to put Leo to shame. "Well, out with it! Or are you a-Oh." His thick eyebrows lifted. "You're a mute."

John returned then with a cup of tea for me, and he gave me a knowing smile. "Don't mind him. Please, sit."

I nodded in thanks, as he gestured towards a leather armchair and I slowly sat in it, careful not to spill the tea. John scolded his flat mate, "Knock it off. She's not a mute."

"Selective mute, then," Sherlock waved him off, glaring at me as I drank. "I fail to see how this is worth my time."

I bit the inside of my mouth. This is odd. My silence has never been tested like this before. Sure there were bullies when I was young, testosterone-filled men in the military and I was required to speak to perform my duties as an airman, but….this was something else entirely. I glanced around the desk by the windows and grabbed a notepad, fishing out a pen from my pocket. Taking it in my left hand, I scrawled a few words and held them up to Sherlock, along with my middle finger.

Moriarty. That worth your time?

Sherlock's eyes darkened. "Tell me what happened."

But when I started writing again, he scowled. "That's too slow, take this."

He went to lean over his laptop, opening a document before he thrust the computer onto my lap. I nearly spilled my tea and John gave Sherlock a cold look despite the heat.

I typed every detail in my mind from the moment I got home from the grocery store. The glass on the porch. The mangled door. Holding my gun with steady hands but shaking breaths. What it looked like inside, like a bloody whirlwind. I typed the note the madman'd left verbatim. How could I forget? It's been the solitary thing running through my head since I'd read it for the first time through tears. I stopped typing.

Sherlock got his laptop back and began reading. I caught John's eye and he grasped my limp hand. The consulting detective said lowly, "John, we are conducting work. I can't think with sentiment in the room."

"I think you'll have to get over it," John barked back, growing annoyed with his friend's constant jabs at me.

I wrote him a quick note on the notepad. You needn't scold him, I'm quite adept at tuning people out.

"Doesn't make it right," He reminded me. I shrugged.

I wasn't here for Sherlock's insults or John's comfort, despite how much I appreciated the latter. I was here to find my brother. That's all I cared about at that moment. I drank more tea and closed my eyes, swilling the warm liquid in my mouth.

"This is incomplete."

I opened them again to find Sherlock laying the laptop down on my thighs. His eyes were accusatory and his tone suspicious. "There's something missing from your tale. Why would someone like Moriarty just kidnap your brother seemingly at random? Why would he be interested in an elective mute's twin brother?"

I narrowed my eyes and I didn't need a note to convey the message.

I don't need to tell you everything. I just need you to find him from what I gave you.

"She doesn't need your badgering, Sherlock," John chided, his eyebrows furrowing. "Please, it's the last time I'll ask. Leave her alone."

"My job is to find the truth at any cost," Sherlock stated flatly, exchanging nonverbal communication to John through their eyes. Communication even I couldn't read. "Not to cater to the emotions of the client. That's what therapists and psychologists are for."

His eyes went to mine now and I held his gaze defiantly. He spoke very quickly then. "The pen you're using came from City Hotel London and by your complexion, bone structure and jaw line, I'd say you were raised in Scotland. Go to your suite and get some rest. Our car will be there for you at 7AM. We leave for Kings Cross in the morning."

I haven't a clue how John puts up with him.

PRIVATE BLOG – THE GEMINI PARABLE

9th, July

The quick ride to the station the next morning was uncomfortably quiet; I was driving, Sherlock in the passenger's side and Bridge took the seat behind me in the back. Sherlock was staring at her through the rear view, calculating and loathing. It was almost a relief that she listened to an iPod on the way, so that she could ignore the discussion occurring in the front of the car. While she stared fixatedly out of the window, my flatmate was trying to…it burdens me to even think he'd pull this on a friend of mine…deduce her. Like she was some sort of guinea pig he could test his skills out on, now that she posed a particular challenge as a mute. He refers to speaking by suspect or client as "hints". And now that he didn't get any guidance, she was just another puzzle to him.

It was cruel, and so as he kept deducing, I refuted the particularly insulting ones. Ones that I'm sure he'd thrown in just to annoy me. Things like "not a virgin" and "anarchist". There's no possible way he could know the first, and what anarchist would join the RAF? He and I both knew it was because we hadn't had a case in a good two months before this, and he was bored. He knew I was protective of her, and so he'd busy himself with annoying me until this case was furthered. The time it took to travel was just a limbo that he hated.

Thankfully, we got to Kings Cross quicker than I'd thought we would, and soon the noise and confusion of the station compelled the use of Sherlock's concentration more than Bridge. She looked over my shoulder to see the number on our tickets for the correct train, and her keen airman's eyes went to searching. Suddenly and seemingly without warning, she took off into the mass of people. Sherlock and I didn't have a chance to follow, and I was the one with the ten-pound bag of "equipment" he insisted was absolutely essential.

"Perhaps a leash…or at least a bell, John?" He lamented, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"She is a woman, not a retriever," I was growing tired of this, narrowing my eyes at him. As I did, I saw a little sliver of liquid fall from above into his curly black hair and he stiffened automatically, glaring straight up. I looked and saw Bridge leaning over the railing on the catwalk above us, her cheeks like a chipmunk's. As she held up a soft drink cup, she quirked a smile and held up two fingers to her eyes, then pointing them out to her left. I matched her gaze, checked our tickets again. She'd found us our train. I grinned up at her and she winked in a rare show of playfulness, throwing her cup away in a waste bin beside her.

"Good work, Bridge," I called up to her, and together – her above and us below- we made our way over to it. I'd opened the door for her, and Sherlock gave her another harsh glare as we came aboard.

But once we found a compartment to ourselves, the game changed drastically. This time, Bridge left her earbuds out and Sherlock looked like he was ready to interrogate her again. Five hours we were riding in this thing together. Lord have mercy. He had that expression on his face, like a cat about to tear into an unsuspecting mouse. And I'm guessing she sensed the oncoming storm too, because she opened her duffle bag as soon as she'd sat down and took out a mechanical pencil and a yellow notepad.

After our tickets were punched and the train pulled out, Sherlock shifted in his single seat to lie on his back, his eyes on the ceiling where his equipment bag was and his hands up under his chin. The storm wasn't starting now, I suppose, just picking up wind and warning everyone with its passive-aggressiveness before it blew everything right to hell. How very like him.

Lowly, though I knew Sherlock could hear, I said to her, "Nicely done there with the drink."

With a careful hand, she wrote in the top right margin of her notepad and tilted it so I could see.

He shouldn't have called me an anarchist in the car. Revenge is in human nature, is it not?

My eyebrows picked up, and because I didn't want him hearing me, I replied with her pencil. You weren't listening to your music, were you?

Flicking a quick glance at him to make sure he didn't see her, she shook her head no with a half-smile. She clicked the top of her pencil to get more graphite and wrote me again.

It was an experiment to see what he would say if he thought I wasn't listening. He's a piece of work, I'll admit. Any family?

"Both parents, an older brother," I informed her, curious.

Her reply made me burst out laughing. They have my utmost pity.

I forgot how much I missed her sort of humor. It was the sort that was said with absolute clarity, and the facial expression made it ten times better because Bridge was the unparalleled queen of straight faces. Then again, I wondered if this was because she wasn't actually saying the words.

"Don't worry, I won't tell him," I teased, my eyes on him to draw out my satisfaction. "Our secret."

To be honest, it felt wonderful to have Bridge around to torture Sherlock. For a while, I'd merely tolerated his antics and his kind of abuse that wore on the mind. It was kind of nice to get some payback. I agreed with her. Revenge is in human nature.

"If you two are quite done," Said a condescending drawl from the other side of the compartment, "I have a couple of questions for Miss Grayson."

He sat up again, crossing his legs and focusing his clear blue eyes on Bridge. "What are the arrangements for the house since you've been gone? Have the police been watching it?"

She scrawled for a moment and then handed him the notepad, eyeing him like a student does a disliked teacher that inspects her work over her shoulder. Sherlock seemed amused. "'Countryside,' you say? 'No neighbors.' Good. No interference."

"The second?" I asked.

"I noticed a smoking-friendly car before we came in," He said, as if what he was saying was truly trivial and he motioned to get up. He cast a pointed look at me, "And if I must be polite…" Sherlock turned his gaze to Bridge and then said, as if it caused him physical pain to do so. "Care to join me?"

Apparently not caring whether he got an answer, he left the compartment. To my surprise, she stood and produced a noticeably old golden square lighter along with a pack of Marlboros. I knew that Leonard sometimes lit up a smoke when he was antsy, but I can't recall when ever she had. My eyebrows knit together. "I didn't know you smoked."

She scribbled a note. Started shortly after I left the RAF. Not entirely sure why. Is it alright that I smoke?

"Nah, I don't mind," I waved her off and offered a reassuring smile, "I live with a smoker…Do you want me to come with you?" She knew what the rest of it was. So Sherlock doesn't harass you as much.

She tucked her notepad under her arm and held the side of her jacket away to show me the little can of pepper spray attached underneath. I grinned. "Never mind."

As she patted her jeans for her phone and wallet, I laid down flat in the seat. "I'm going to take a nap, he had me up all night buzzing about this case and I didn't get any real sleep. Wake me up when we get there?"

She gave me a thumbs-up and followed the consulting detective, having the mind to close the door quietly. I closed my eyes, and let the drowsiness that'd been building since I started the car this morning take me prisoner.

I hadn't been lying to John when I said I had no clue why I'd started smoking to start with. Leonard had been smoking since we were nineteen, but it wasn't that I had no idea how the cigarettes got into my hands. One night, Leo and I were thinking about Afghanistan. We always thought about things like that at the same time, like a symphony of bad memories. And he just caught my eye. He'd already been smoking, and for the first time in years since he'd finished his first one…he offered the pack to me.

And for reasons I still don't know, I took one between my teeth. Since then, I smoked sparingly. A few moments to wait for the metro, caught under an awning during a rain shower, stepping out onto the front porch after a date with a good book. I knew it was bad for my health, I'd done my research on the subject.

But I knew there were worse things than tar in my lungs.

I ghosted on Sherlock's heels until we were three cars down the train from our compartment, and it seemed like a dining section. One side was devoted to a bar and the other was entirely windows, tables with wrought-iron seating. For once, it was sunny outside and golden light streamed through to set the beige curtains to a cream color. Sherlock chose a lonely table away from the two occupied ones, one by a couple – another by a businessman, and sat.

He seemed indifferent upon seeing that I had came, and once I got into my seat, he avoided my eyes. Setting my notepad and pencil on the table, I threw a Marlboro between my teeth and offered the pack to him, his slender fingers sliding a smoke out. I had noticed a violin sitting in the corner of their flat when I'd been there yesterday, but I knew now that it was likely to be him who played it. John wasn't musical. Or at least nothing I'd seen in Afghanistan made me think him to be.

I lit mine and drew in a breath through it. He set the end of his ablaze, speaking through smoke after his first drag. "I typically use nicotine patches, but I promised John I'd be civil."

Being blatantly rude when he thought I wasn't listening was 'civil'? I switched hands with my cigarette, and wrote him, my fingers going faster than normal in jitters.

If I were really an anarchist, civility would be wasted.

As much as I would've loved to stretch out John and I's taunts, his reaction made this worth it. His eyes widened and he stopped in his motion of flicking ash into a black tray in the center of the table. I added a footnote.

You would've noticed my iPod was off if you'd stopped talking long enough.

He was silent for several moments, re-reading my words. Eventually, after what I'd say was ten minutes, he returned his smoke to his mouth and stared me fully in the eyes. He was pensive, as if working out a huge conundrum in his head. I didn't see why, it was rather simple. I fooled the great Sherlock Holmes John told me about in his letters and in his blog.

He was such a strange man, even to just observe. His eyes were bluer as the sunlight hit them, and the sleepless purple shadows under them almost disappeared in the golden rays. The grayish snakes of smoke were blown to the side before he spoke again, "It seems I have underestimated you…Bridge."

I realized that this was the first time he'd ever said my name. It sounded odd coming from him, like hearing it crystal clear though he sounded so far away. And though he didn't say the words, I could hear the apology in his voice. I had to think to make sure I heard it correctly, but it was unmistakable. I masked my hesitation by holding my cigarette between my teeth and tugging my notepad closer to myself again, writing.

You needn't apologize. Everyone does at first. I've grown quite used to it.

He read my lettering upside-down as I wrote it, and before I could turn the notepad around, Sherlock asked, "Did you ever run into any grief with that in the military?"

I thought of older times, when I first started as an ordinary whelp and before I'd earned my wings. Drill sergeants during PT demanding to know if I was dense or deaf, having to hold Leo back from men who'd try to pick a fight with the girl who doesn't talk back. I thought to my first mission in a command position, when I'd been promoted on skill alone. I answered him.

Much. Only spoke when duty mandated it. Some of my wingmen heard me speak for the first time giving them orders. They didn't know it was me talking until after I'd repeated myself.

I turned the notepad around and watched his face as he read. He nodded, and then inquired with a hint of genuine curiosity in his tone. "How'd you meet our friend Dr. Watson, then?"

That was an easy one.

A particularly nasty assignment ended with a broken wrist and bones sticking out where they shouldn't. I went to the infirmary on the base and lo and behold, Dr. John Watson was tending to me. Ended up with two screws in my right wrist and airport security's had a beef with me ever since.

His mouth fought a smile at my idle joke at the end, and when his eyes darted to my right hand, I bared my blue-veined wrist. I stuck my cigarette in the ash tray for a moment, and I traced two parallel lines of scar tissue.

"Ah, I see," Sherlock met my eyes again. He leaned forward, tapping his cigarette to get rid of the excess ash.

I was always on edge when he did that. That stare that always seemed to indicate he knew something I didn't, and I always panicked a little inside. I'm always so careful, so precise and withholding with everything I said. I was my own editor, and I couldn't afford to slip. Not around someone like Sherlock Holmes.

"I don't mean to alarm you," He started, smoke circling his head like a gray-blue halo. "But my investigations and methods of deduction are as extensive and intricate as performing a surgery. I have to peel away the possibilities until the fruit of truth is all that remains, and…like this cigarette…it may do more harm than good along the way. Most criminals are cancerous."

Despite his eloquence, there was one fact I was quite quick and adamant to point out. I wrote the name over three times until it was bolded like on the computer.

Most criminals aren't Moriarty.

"True, though are you prepared to see this through to the end?" Sherlock fidgeted under the glare I speared through him that followed this question. "Your brother may already be lost to us, and it may take longer than a month to locate him."

I felt like I'd been slapped and my teeth grit. It took a great effort to maintain composure as I wrote a paragraph and I noticed that my anger had made my lettering more jagged, sharp but I barely cared. I tore the page off and almost threw it at him. I crammed my cigarette out in the tray and left him in the bar. I watched him as he read what I'd written with blank, unreadable eyes.

I'd know if my brother is dead. I would know and I would feel it. And worry not, Sherlock Holmes. I'm fully prepared to see this through to the end. I don't care if I have to sit through fifty car rides of you insulting me, or play Twenty Tedious Questions with you until the end of time, or watch you ridicule John for all eternity before I get my twin back. Even if it kills me. In the future, keep your mind on business and find me my brother.

John could tell I was frazzled when I woke him up, but was probably too sleep-deprived at first to really dig into it. Grabbing my duffle and shoving past Sherlock on my way out of the compartment, I came off the train and dashed ahead of the men to locate my car in the parking lot outside of the station.

It was a mint green Volkswagen Bug that was old enough to be John's car's grandfather. My brother was a grease monkey at heart, and loved to tinker with old cars, such as this ancient Bug that he brought back from extinction. I fished for my keys in my duffle while Sherlock and John caught up. The doctor threw the equipment bag in the back, and then occupied shotgun, leaving the detective to sit in the back.

I started the car and thus placed the hustle and bustle of Edinburgh behind us.

I put on my usual mix CD of instrumental music. No words, just like me. Nothing for sure, nothing for certain…just…emotion suspended in sound. Violins, cellos, piano. It was the sort of music you would play to sleep to, but me, I use it to think. John fell asleep again, but it wasn't as heavy as the one he'd fallen into on the train. This sleep was gentler on his face, and I found myself glancing over to him. His peaceful face made me smile. And I could use more of those, going back to the house.

As I glimpsed the white face of Sherlock directly behind me through the rear view, I noticed that he had dozed off too. My stomach twisted. Your brother may already be lost to us. He'd said it like it wasn't a matter of 'may' but 'is.' I stood by my rebuttal. I would be able to feel it if he were dead; I would feel it in my soul. I was Leo's twin. I tossed the thought to the side.

We were in the hills now. These days in the highlands, the gentle July showers were moving in and roughly twenty minutes into the drive, slow fat drops of rain were rolling down the glass to the windows. I turned the music down slightly to let them sleep, but heard a grumbling beside me after I did.

"'ey, was listening to that." Came John's voice, thick with sleep, from the passenger's side. He straightened in his seat, readjusting the seatbelt from where he'd pushed it out of the way so he could get comfortable. "Where're we?"

I tapped the GPS attached to the windshield. He squinted at it, and pointed to a town on the digital map in front of us. "There's Peebles…"

I slowed, seeing the familiar turnoff dirt road on the right leading right into the forest.

"I guess we're not going that far," John said, before reaching from his seat to nudge Sherlock awake as I wheeled the Bug in. It was a slow incline, and as it came into view, a lump formed in my throat.

The house was a two-story abode, red with eggshell-colored window shutters although most of the paint was chipped and the white underneath was showing through. The recently painted white porch, and I could see the brown paper shopping bag still in the mud where I'd dropped it, untouched and soiled. The blood smeared on the top step was visible even at thirty yards where the driveway ended. I shut the Bug off, clicked my seatbelt off and my hands fell limply in my lap.

My eyes wouldn't move from that trail of blood, even as John and Sherlock got out and rounded up the equipment in the back. Eventually, as time seemed to be in slow-motion, I slid out of my car and opened my duffle bag in the driver's seat. I dove my hand in the pile of clothes and belongings I couldn't leave in that house when I'd left…and my fingers curled around my gun. I unzipped my jacket and patted my pepper spray inside. I double-checked my pistol.

When John came up to me and eyed the gun, his blonde eyebrows came together. "Expecting trouble?"

I didn't answer, as per usual, but when I pushed it into my belt, he had a hand on my forearm. I could feel his heat through the leather. I looked from his gentle hand to him.

"Are you good to be in there again?" He asked me, cautious and steady in his tone.

I faced my shoulders to him, hoping my expression would carry my message. I'm okay. Or at least I think I am. But just in case, I want you at my side.

"Only if you're sure, Bridge."

There was a throat clearing from behind him, and my face hardened again. Focus. You're here to help. I plucked my notepad and pencil from my duffle and closed the car door. Sherlock came around the Bug holding a pocketknife, several vials, latex gloves on his spidery hands, and a satchel on his shoulders that he passed to John as soon as he got close enough. I led them to the house, ignoring the detective when he scraped off some of the dried blood on the top step into one of his vials.

I also tried to ignore the flashbacks of two nights past. I gnashed my nails into my palms, holding my fists so hard the knuckles appeared like the bones might burst under the skin. Sherlock knelt by sets of blood footprints, one with comparatively larger feet, in the foyer. They ranged all over, disappearing into the bar that separated the kitchen from the sitting room and appearing again on the other side.

He cocked his head to the side, his black curls jostling. "Measuring tape."

John strode over and handed him what he asked from the satchel. The taller man meticulously measured the boot prints and the distance between each one. He started with the noticeably larger set.

"Does a six-one male with longer legs fit your brother?" I nodded.

"He was winning this fight," He informed, before moving onto the smaller set. "The smaller man was losing."

"He's a Marine," John commented, nodding. "That makes sense."

Of course he was, I thought, crossing my arms and watching as Sherlock followed the prints around the coffee table. He sampled the glass on the futon beside it and glanced to the windows and elsewhere, checking in all the bathrooms and even climbing the stairs. After a few moments, he returned. "The glass on the floor came from a vase upstairs, I can see the dust differences. But the blood spatter all over the place is wrong from an assault from a vase. It was about to be used as a weapon, but either your brother caught the attack or the intruder subdued him."

"And what does the blood on the floor indicate?" John demanded, and I pointed my back to them, not wanting them to see my face when I hear the words.

"The intruder," My breath came out in a sigh of relief as Sherlock spoke, "was stabbed by a serrated field knife and as the struggle is throughout the residence, I'd say the intruder was injured very sev-"

His voice stopped and suddenly, he crossed the room over to me. I got out of his way and he leaned quite close to the windowsill. He pushed them open, and his eyes widened as a revelation hit him. I panicked under my surface of calm, my heart pounding.

"More men came in through the window."

"How do you know?" John came over, and I felt his breath brush my ear as he peered over my shoulder.

"Faint boot tread, thin layer of mud," Sherlock's tone was superior, "Obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes and a few neurons."

The three of us swayed back so he could shut the windows, but the moment we did, I saw four faces in the reflection of the mirror. I whirled around and saw, through the weeds in the glass window above my sink, a pair of eyes. John did too, but I was already in motion, yanking my pistol out of my belt and taking the safety off.

I sprinted out the door to John shouting my name, and found a man all in black gear still half-crouched on the ground, fumbling for a gun larger than mine from his boot. Red exploded across my vision, throwing mine away and tackling him to the ground. At first he tried to use some Brazilian jiu-jitsu on the ground game, but I'd done enough sparring in the military – he wasn't getting away that easily.

I shoved one of my thumbs in his eyes, disorienting him while I landed a punch squarely in his nose. I heard a savagely satisfying crack beneath my knuckles, and the man swore, loudly, "You little b-"

I felt John's arms coming under mine, dragging me away from him, but the second the man got any room, he landed a punch of his own into my cheek – the metal coverings on his gloves cutting the skin. One of them stuck into my flesh as he pulled away, barbs in the sides of the plate driving deeper and lighting sprays of pain radiated along my nerves in my face.

I grunted, and threw John off with a wild shake of my torso. The man was trying to get away, but I caught his ankle, maneuvering my body to wrap my legs around one of his. His foot in my hands, I used my arms and with a sharp twist, the bones in the ankle shattered between my fingers. He screamed in agony, and I let him go, the man thumping the ground beside him with his pain. He wasn't going anywhere.

With blood running down the left side of my face from the gash, I got to my feet. Almost going to have another go and break his other ankle, a hand at my collarbone forced me back. John. "That's enough, Bridge."

I stormed past him. No. It wasn't enough. Sherlock came out of the house at last, and said lowly to me so that John wouldn't hear, "We'll interrogate him. Find out what he knows."

Yes. Let's find out what the man knows…But I had better ideas of how to get it out of him than what those two could come up with, I bet.

I glared over my shoulder. John was gauging the damage to the man's ankle as Sherlock cuffed him with a pair of handcuffs he'd taken out of that satchel, I guessed. I rolled my eyes and slammed the door behind me as I got inside.

I went up to the kitchen sink, and covered my mouth against any noise. I pinched the metal still lodged in my cheekbone, and grit my teeth against the barbs. Shutting my eyes tight, I tugged.