Fade Into You
Rating: R
Notes: I had meant to get this up a lot sooner. This chapter was fickle to write-one of those filler chapters that you kind of need, and are fun to read-but writing them is like pulling teeth. Hopefully it was worth the wait for you!
Chapter Three: Truce
"Wake up."
"Don't make me be mean to you. Wake up!"
"Fine."
There was silence for a moment. Sherlock had been awake for the last half hour, he had been laying in bed thinking about a recent experiment when he started to hear the noise from the air vent. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he did change his position in bed so he could hear better.
"One more chance to wake up the easy way Madeline."
The voice was crystal clear, a slight accent that had been subdued its best over time and training. He was mildly interested in what was going on downstairs. Madeline didn't seem like she had an early morning appointment (at least she hadn't been acting like it considering she was dancing like a fool with John in the middle of the night). He didn't think she had many friends here yet either. To be honest he wasn't paying that much attention to the girl, even last night after finding out she was a little smarter than he had originally deduced. Smart people existed, didn't mean he had to rush off to look into every aspect of her life.
He couldn't help but be curious though, with the voice. He craved a good mystery and there were no current cases to work on. Therefore his reasoning was sound, lay in bed and listen to the conversation, find out more about his neighbor, maybe have something to use against her in the future. Simple.
He regretted inching even closer to where he could hear better when there was a sudden splash of water followed by the shrek of someone being rudely awakened.
He would also deny if anyone asked, that he had to bite his lip in order to avoid laughing loudly at that noise. Well, that certainly was amusing. Close relationship he figured, between the voice and Madeline. Most people wouldn't douse just anyone with water in the morning. Impatient person, annoyed with Madeline not being awake at four in the morning-which lead him to wonder why she would have to be awake so early. On days that he had noticed her, he didn't seem to notice her leaving or coming back to her apartment in those early hours.
"You are so mean." He heard Madeline say, followed by a sigh and the sound of something wet hitting the floor (probably a blanket or pillow).
"I tried to do it the easy way first, but someone was dead to the world." There was a pause, noise of water dripping (Madeline ringing her long hair out?).
"Well I'm awake now, thank you."
"You're welcome, change into this. We're going to run to the gym."
"How far away is it?"
"Not far."
"Nat, how far away is it?"
"Four miles. Better hurry, we have a lot to work on…"
"Oh, just four miles-wonderful. That will be so much fun, I can't wait."
There was a huffy noise, stomping, and a door creaking shut. Sherlock strained his ears to listen, but it seemed as if both women had moved out of the bedroom. With silence falling, he grabbed his dressing gown, and headed out to the living room.
John was still sound asleep, and would be for another several hours. The sky was still dark, with only slivers of light on the horizon. He approached the window, watching and listening. Waiting to observe who would walk out with Madeline.
It didn't take long before he watched as Madeline jogged out with a woman who was a few inches taller (but in the end, everyone seemed taller than Madeline). The woman had red hair, darker and obviously dyed, pulled into a braid. An all black running suit clung to her body, shapely-not a waif, obviously muscular. A trainer? Madeline sported nearly the same outfit, only hers was a dark blue, and had full sleeves-the other woman had half sleeves. Even in the cold fall if they were really running four miles, it was practical to go sleeveless.
Sherlock realized he had never seen Madeline out of sleeves, everything from her overly large sweaters to the sweater dress the night before had sleeves.
Curious.
He stood at the window, watching them without a care. The flat was still dark, and they were moving away from Baker Street-unlikely to look back. Madeline was keeping time with the woman, although it looked like the woman was holding back her stride.
So, what did he know? Madeline, a twenty-something girl with a wealthy father, never out of sleeves, first time away from home, translation work with languages, very smart but not willing to always show it, and now a personal trainer?
Maybe it was time to do a little breaking and entering.
It was only eight AM and Madeline wanted to die. They were putting a weeks worth of self defense learning into one very early morning. Didn't help that she stayed up late, drinking and eating with John. She would admit, she didn't expect for Natasha to dump ice cold water all over her face in order to wake her up.
Her Tuesday morning so far consisted of running four miles, which took her more time than she would care to share. They did stretches at the gym for what seemed like hours, followed by falling exercises, mostly it was Natasha fake punching (and once accidentally hitting her due to a horribly timed sneeze on Maddie's part), and Maddie rolling to take the hit. It was easy to fall into the pattern. When eight AM rolled around they had a break.
The break was spent with Maddie holding an ice pack on her eye and Natasha taking a picture of her handy work (it WAS funny after the initial pain went away). They chatted and caught up with each other, Maddie still didn't know a lot about the women-she knew she was dangerous, knew she worked for SHIELD, and knew her Dad trusted her. She had came to work for him a few years previous, undercover.
Maddie liked the woman, she was a hard-ass while training, but was great for just talking to. Maddie figured most people didn't talk to Natasha like a normal person-she could be intimidating to say the least. Their conversation ranged, from work talk (at least what wasn't confidential), talk about her neighbors, to even the best kind of Vodka she should invest in.
"Hey, Nat-is there something I should be worried about?" She asked, as they were headed back to the main area of the gym to work on her punches. It was a question that had been lingering ever since finding out that she would be spending so much time on self defense, it seemed...extreme.
The woman looked at Madeline for a moment, a long hard stare before letting herself answer. "Tony just wanted to make sure you could take care of yourself. I know you've been training off and on over the years, but now that you're on your own, a significant jump in learning is a good idea. This is the only time he could reserve this gym for as well, I think he knew you wouldn't be pleased if he built a gym just for this."
"Really? That's all?"
"Look, Kid-bad things happen, you know that, I know that-you might not be known here, but you never know. Some asshole could find out who you are and decide to kidnap you for ransom or something. The more we train the more we can avoid that."
Maddie nodded with a deep breath in, her muscles were already sore, her eye felt too warm from where she did quite literally run into Natasha's fist. "Okay, fair enough."
She knew it was something for her own good, knew it was when she started to train in her late teens, and she supposed sometimes she still thought of herself as a normal girl. And normal girls didn't have to worry about being kidnapped, normal girls didn't have to worry about holding their own.
Normal girls didn't have to worry about how sore they were only a few hours into a six hour work out.
It took Sherlock less than five minutes to break into Maddie's flat. It was twenty-five minutes after she departed on her run with the other redhead. He had changed into his usual attire, not wanting to break and enter with a dressing gown billowing around him.
It was almost too easy to gain entrance. He closed and locked the door behind him, immediately hit with the smell of cinnamon. The night previous Italian herbs and garlic scented her flat, today it was cinnamon. As he made his way down the stairs, he turned on the nearest lamp illuminating the flat with dim light.
How tragic it was to live in a basement flat-hardly any natural light.
Now he could have a proper look around without her staring at him. In his mind this was perfectly acceptable behavior. He held a great responsibility for Baker Street and those that shared the space; Mrs. Hudson and John namely. A newcomer needed to be assessed, and since he wasn't busy with a case it was time to look.
Especially since there was more to this girl than he originally thought.
The flat was clean, not just because she had John over the night before. She was generally a clean person. There was no dust anywhere. Obsessive. Things were out of place here and there, so not compulsive.
He decided to start in the most obvious place, her bedroom.
Light switch on, he stood in the middle of the room. A glance up let him see the vent that allowed him to hear everything that went on in the room. There was a wet spot on her pillow, from where she was rudely awakened. Blankets were plush, high quality, everything in the flat was high quality so far. He was clearly right in the fact she came from wealth.
He took a moment to open and glance into her closet. It was a mess, a shoebox fell out onto the floor in front of him. Cared about appearances, but when it came to behind closed doors she didn't care-thus the disarray of her bedroom. Blue eyes scanned her clothes that were hanging up, sleeves, sleeves, more sleeves.
What was she hiding?
Outside of that, the clothes of lesser quality were worn the most. She had nice things, very nice tailor made shirts and slacks-but they were not worn much. Curious. Perhaps in her working from home she sometimes had to make trips into the home office, or be presentable for someone.
He returned the shoebox to the mess, and continued on with his looking.
Nothing of note in the bathroom, shampoos and bath products told him where the cinnamon scent came from. The bathroom was completely redone and nice-much nicer than the upstairs flat. Money went into this, and it certainly wasn't Mrs. Hudson's doing.
There was nothing in the medicine cabinet to tell him anything, no prescription pills (odd in the day of over prescribing). There was a bottle of perfume (Miss Cherie, Dior), a ridiculous amount of bobby pins and other hair clips, and one single bottle of gummy vitamins (childish).
Her kitchen was well used and organized for the short time she had lived there. She liked to cook, liked using fresh ingredients, and spent money on childish things like brightly colored ice cream, candies, and cereals. Her fridge was roomy, he could probably fit some thumbs in there without her noticing…
Sherlock shook his head, and moved away from the fridge. The only thing her kitchen told him, was that she liked to eat, and had a few childish addictions. Easily put away as being a spoiled child, never growing out of that. Sure there could be other reasons, but her being a wealthy child was the probable cause.
He should know.
The rest of the flat was all books, records, this and that. He went through everything, and all he came up with was:
She had no personal photos, strange for someone who had a seemingly close relationship with her father.
She loved her job, it was her life. Much like his life revolved around investigation and solving crimes, her life revolved around books and translating. Not only that, but she was good at it.
She played piano, but there was no telling how good or how bad she was at it. The keyboard was a new and expensive model, no wear or tear-bought specifically for the small space of the flat. She hadn't played it yet. There was no sheet music around, so she was either very good and memorized her material, or she wanted a new hobby and had yet to invest any time into it.
She had a television, it was small-when he turned it on it showed that her last choice in viewing was a twenty-four hour news station. Boring. Her DVR was filled with panel shows, an obvious new addiction since moving.
It was frustrating; looking around the flat of someone who had recently moved in. There was enough time for her to unpack everything, but there were obvious missing pieces.
His frustration wasn't helped by her locked laptop, he tried a few different passwords, anything he could think of from only knowing the girl very briefly-and nothing, absolutely nothing came of it.
By the time he was done looking around he came to the conclusion, that this girl would not be a threat to Baker Street, she was a well off person but didn't want to outwardly flaunt it (there were nice things in the flat, but she still lived in a basement flat instead of a penthouse somewhere). She loved her father but wanted to have her own life, and was struggling with putting away childish notions for a more grown-up agenda. Her job was her passion, and she was good at it. She liked to cook and he would put money on her at some point making biscuits for everyone at 221.
In short, she was a nice young wealthy American. She was smart, and that could be useful to him.
Therefore he decided, it would be appropriate to let her stay. (Because let's be completely honest, if he didn't want her there he could find a way to make sure she left).
Her legs were like jelly and she wanted to die. Maddie was smart, she could benefit more from short bursts of training instead of daily sessions-but this was ridiculous, even if she was being trained by the best of the best. Self defense was great, but she was pretty sure she'd wet herself before she would remember to go for the solar plexus.
There were some things to enjoy about the morning of course. She was able to see Natasha again and catch up, some of the training (namely learning how to fall) had been fun, and after the pain wore off it was actually really funny that she got a true punch to her eye from a badly timed sneeze.
Even in her workout gear, covered in sweat, and now sporting a blossoming black eye she stopped in Speedy's to get lunch. Her stomach was growling and all she wanted for the rest of the day was a gigantic sub, chips, maybe a batch of cookies. This would be followed up by a horribly long bubble bath with her laptop propped up on her toilet playing old episodes of QI. Oh, it sounded glorious.
By the time she unlocked the door to her flat, her mood was better. She felt less like dying, and more like stuffing herself silly. Maddie was halfway down the stairs when she noticed something was off, even in her preoccupied mind (singing a song to herself about how her sandwich was going to be wonderful) she knew something was wrong.
Her lights were on. Her lights were not on when she left. This was mildly concerning. She stood halfway down the stairs for a moment weighing her options. Probably, she didn't flip the switch hard enough and the lights stayed on. Worst case scenario is she was going to be throwing her sandwich at some intruder (what a waste).
So she walked down, as casually as possible. It was her own flat after all.
What she saw, was not what she had expected.
Sitting at her kitchen table, was the well dressed Sherlock Holmes with three different microscopes in front of him. He had a cup on his left hand side (not one of hers) with a tea string hanging out, looking as if it was cold and forgotten. How long had he been there?
"Sherlock?"
She didn't know if she should be worried, upset, or amused at finding him in her flat. No answer, his head was still bowed down with his attention on the center microscope.
"Sherlock?!" A bit louder this time.
No movement. He was gone. Just like her dad, when he was busy working on his own projects. She stomped the last few feet until she was at the table. His notebook was filled with a beautiful scrawl (more impressive than her own handwriting), and there were all different kinds of slides littering her table.
She set her bag of food down at the table, hoping the noise would bring him out of his thoughts.
No, of course it didn't.
She didn't feel comfortable touching him, shaking his shoulder, or prodding him. So, yet again. "Sherlock?"
"Sherlock?"
"Mr. Holmes!"
"Sherlock?"
Finally he looked up, blue eyes squinting at the change in light between her dim flat and the microscope. He looked more annoyed than she was at the fact he was in her home uninvited. His mouth was in a tight line, as if waiting for her to ask the magical question. She wasn't dumb after all.
"Why are you here?"
"Light sensitive project upstairs, all light must be kept out of the flat. Therefore leaving me with no place to continue my research. Mrs. Hudson's table is too small, last night I noted that yours is the perfect size. I noticed you were out, therefore I let myself in."
Her mouth hung open. Really? She did not know how to compute that in her brain. Here was a strange man (or was he? He wasn't overly pleasant, but he did work with the police and John after all) who let himself into her flat while she was gone. He was obviously in no hurry to hide the fact he was there, and she assumed if he had been called away on business she still would have came in to find that her table was covered in his science experiments.
"I really have no idea what to think." Was all she could muster.
Maddie, for all of her intelligence had a problem. This problem was simple; she had a heart. With her heart she could easily forgive, or easily forget hurts. She could see past the obvious annoyance of Sherlock breaking and entering her flat for the understanding that he wanted a place to work, and really it's not like there was any real harm done. He was just quietly sitting at her table, even if he did snoop around (which she figured he would-if she were him she would) it wasn't like he would find anything too interesting. So, instead of being peeved or upset she just shrugged. "Ok. Are you hungry?"
He looked a little shocked. She wasn't mad, she wasn't putting up a fight, she wasn't ordering him out of her flat. "No." Was the answer he gave, he wasn't hungry. Right now the only thing he felt was curiosity. He looked her up and down, and his eyes stayed on hers for a moment. "Your eye is discolored."
She moved around, on the half of the table that wasn't littered with his stuff she unpacked her food. Sandwich, check. Large bag of crisps, check. Container of soup, check. Large sugary soda, check. "Poorly timed sneeze." She told him simply as she headed to grab a plate and bowl.
"Have you put ice on it?" He asked, she refused to look at him because she knew exactly what he was doing, looking at her to see if her body language gave away anything else. Right now she figured all it gave away was exhaustion.
"Of course, and I'll put more on it later. Haven't even had a proper look at it, when I left the gym it wasn't that bad." She explained, unwrapping her sandwich and making her plate. She bought enough for at least three meals.. "What exactly are you working on right now?" She asked, curious.
"How the different blood types react to certain temperatures and other stimuli."
Weird. Okay, whatever. No weirder than her poring over ancient texts or the fact her dad was a man who flew around in a suit of armor.
"Well, okay then. Here's the thing: I would really appreciate it if you didn't just break into my flat without telling me. I really don't care that you are here. If this was some test to see how I'd react, there you go. If you're just really here to work, feel free-but I'm not going to adjust what I'm going to do the rest of the day because you are working."
"That sounds fair."
"Also you can't store stuff down here, when you're done you take it up to your flat. This also means no putting body parts in my fridge. John told me about your fridge-I don't want to have my lettuce mixing around with toes."
She glanced at him while she poured soup into her bowl, it was steaming, cheesy, and probably awful for her-but after the workout she had, she really didn't care. He looked pleased with himself. As if this was how it was supposed to go all along, he'd suddenly be tolerable and thus gain a workspace. Honestly she didn't care that much, it was nice to have someone around.
"What if I'm required to rush out, shall I still bring my projects upstairs and waste valuable time or shall I leave them here?"
He had thought this out. He knew she was going to be okay with it, and took advantage of it. She wondered if there really was an experiment upstairs or if SHE was the experiment. Either way, it would help John out too probably if Sherlock wasn't always doing his science projects in their flat.
She thought about this though, she didn't know a lot about him. She had him defaulted to "works with the police, so he must be good even if he was a bit...brash at first." but, she knew other people who worked for "good" but were really not that good at all. However, she felt as if she was making a decent choice. Mrs. Hudson loved him, John put up with him, and he worked for the cops-so all in all? Probably not a horrible idea to allow him to work there.
"Leave it, if it really is a pressing case-leave it. However, I reserve the right to move your things if they are in my way. Also, if you start being awful about this and taking advantage of it I will make it harder for you to break in."
"Is that a challenge?"
"If it needs to be." She countered. It would actually probably be fun to make it to where it was a challenge for him to enter her flat.
"I think this arrangement will be fine." He told her, and she nodded. Yeah, it wouldn't be that bad. If she was honest she was worried about how lonely she felt during the day alone in her flat-and having Sherlock around randomly (as well as John, as well as her training with Natasha) would help. Help keep her from feeling home sick or lonely.
"Well, I'm going to eat and sprawl out on the sofa." She said, a shrug.
He nodded.
And that was that.
For the next hour Sherlock had his head down at his microscope while she watched television and ate. By the time she felt full, and rested a full hour had went by. She could feel her muscles stiffening up and wondered how awkward it would be if she went to bathe with Sherlock in her flat.
He seemed deeply into his research. Giving her the time to fully look him over, he was intense. Her dad loved his research, loved keeping his mind going, but also loved his downtime. Sherlock had no downtime it seemed, and he also had a level of intensity that she had never found before.
She shrugged, he was completely unaware. Maddie took care of her dishes, placing them in her sink and wrapping up her left-overs. She thought to offer Sherlock food again, but decided against it. He was a grown man, he would eat when he was ready-and if not, if he was still there in a few hours? She'd put something in front of him.
She poured a little wine in a glass, grabbed her laptop, and headed to her bathroom. This was her home and she'd do what she want, regardless of Sherlock sitting at her kitchen table.
John had a busy day. If it wasn't one thing, it was another when it came to work. Thankfully, having an early shift meant he at least had a reasonable amount of afternoon left. He was looking forward to being home, maybe blogging a bit about their most recent case. Life was rather mundane when they weren't solving cases.
Once he arrived at his door, he realized that blogging that night would not be in the agenda. There was a note taped up to the door of their flat upstairs. It was on a piece of paper that had been torn in half, and upon closer inspection he realized it was the electric bill. Of course.
John: Downstairs at 221C. Flat is to remain dark until 8PM, DO NOT ENTER.
"Bloody ridiculous." He muttered to himself as he trudged back down the stairs to Maddie's flat. He wondered how awful it was for her to have Sherlock there for her. It wasn't like the man was warm and friendly, and John could only imagine what kind of motives Sherlock had for being downstairs.
When he knocked, there was no answer. He stood there for a moment, weighing his options. He wondered if this was all some elaborate trick of Sherlock's to make him look like a fool with Maddie. When he was about to rap at the door once more, his phone went off.
Do come in. -SH
Well, that answered that.
The door was unlocked, he could see light illuminating the stairway. There was very little noise, and he had to wonder if Maddie was even home, or at least aware Sherlock was in her flat. What he saw when he came down to the flat, wasn't something he was expecting.
Sherlock was at her table, microscopes and all. He was taking notes and moving his slides around. Maddie was in her kitchen, her hair was damp and pulled up. She was in pajamas (a tad early in the afternoon, but who was he to judge) that were dark black. Her hands were coated in cookie dough, which she was making and measuring out onto pans. That explained why she couldn't answer the door, explained why Sherlock simply texted.
"Good afternoon John! How was work?" She asked with a smile, as if this was not the weirdest situation to be in.
He stood, a bit flabbergasted at the moment. "It was okay…" He said, quite unsure of how to proceed.
"Make yourself at home, Sherlock told me about his experiment upstairs. You're both welcome to stay here. Are you hungry?"
He nodded, paused a moment, and then became suddenly aware with the light of the fridge that Maddie was sporting a black eye.
"Are you okay? What happened? Sherlock?" Everything seemed to come out at once, and he wasn't even sure what he meant. He was pretty sure he was inquiring about her black eye, and how Sherlock came to be in her flat all at the same time.
"I had a poorly timed sneeze in my self defense class this morning." She explained, a shrug. Maddie watched Sherlock for a moment and when he didn't seem interested in answering John she did for him, "I found him sitting at my kitchen table when I came home. Had a talk about breaking and entering and not putting any body parts in my fridge. I think we have an understanding...I think." It seemed like even she was confused by Sherlock.
She was popping the lids off containers from their left-overs that they had put away the previous night and placing them into the microwave for a fast warm up. Leaving traces of cookie dough here and there before realizing she needed to clean her hands.
John frowned at Sherlock and came into the kitchen with Maddie. Before she could say no, he had her chin in his hand, giving her eye a good hard look. He was a doctor after all. It probably felt worse than it looked, the area around her eye was discolored and dark but would quickly fade after the day to more interesting shades of purple and green. Her eye itself was bloodshot, but didn't look like it was damaged badly.
"Taken anything?"
"Pain meds at the gym, and I've had ice on and off of it today."
"You sneezed?" He wanted to clarify. Just to make sure, he hated the thought of a woman being hurt. Call it big brother instinct.
"It was meant to be a soft punch so I could lean back with the momentum and learn to recover. I sneezed and moved into the punch more than I should have."
"You need self defense?"
"I think every young girl on her own in a busy city needs it. I'll still probably wet myself, but at least I'll know what to do...eventually."
John nodded, laughed. Fair enough.
"Grab a drink, I'll get some plates made up. You'll have to sit on the sofa. Sherlock seems pretty...into it."
"He get's that way." He helped himself to a drink from her fridge, he would have preferred tea at the moment, but he didn't want to inconvenience her any farther. He opted for a juice box, he hadn't had one of those in ages. He took her advice and plopped down on the sofa.
She had a plate in front of him in moments, the same food from the night before with the addition of a side plate that had some fruit on it. "Healthy now, enjoy cookies later!"
He smiled, it was actually kind of nice to come home to something like this. He could get used to it. That was the problem, he could get used to it. Maddie was in no way a romantic interest, but she did remind him of how painfully lonely he was in that regard. Sherlock for adventure and friendship, Maddie for friendship and laughs, Mrs. Hudson for a mother figure, and...there it was, that missing peace. No worries though, he would find her. Chin up. Right?
It had been an hour since John had arrived. Her cookies had finished baking, and everyone (including Sherlock) had dinner. John had his feet up on her coffee table (shoes off after she scolded him) while he was watching the nightly news. Sherlock had continued to work, taking notes, mumbling to himself every now and again. Maddie had made herself a little area on the floor next to John, near the coffee table to do some work. She was sitting on a pillow, two books open in front of her, and a notebook in her lap that she was translating into-which would later be turned into a word document on her computer to send over to her boss.
It was all very, domestic. It reminded her of being home with dad and Pepper. Not that they always shared the same common space, but there was a comfort in knowing there were other people around. It was nice.
She had been so wrapped up enjoying working with people (friends?) around that she didn't realize her phone was going off. John nudged her with his foot, poking her in the ribs and causing her to jump quite a bit. "Okay, that was funny." He told her, smiling as her heart was racing a mile a minute from the sudden prodding. "Your phone was going off."
"Oh, thanks….jerk." She told him, playfully and he took it as such. She figured after being friends with Sherlock he could take a little bit of a joke.
She grabbed her phone and glanced through her messages. There were five, spaced out by two minutes even. Apparently she had been out of it to miss all of them.
Black Eye? -Dad
Is it bad, I want to see, are you okay? -Dad
Natasha said it was funny. -Dad
What are you doing? -Dad
Bored. -Dad
She checked the time on her phone, it was rapidly approaching evening hours so that meant that for her Dad it was either very early morning or early morning (depending if he was in Malibu or back in New York City again). Explained the boredom.
"John, can you take a picture for me?"
John looked up from the television, he looked sleepy. She barely slept the night before, her muscles were sore, and she still felt more awake than he looked. He nodded, "Sure what of?"
"My Dad heard about my eye and he wants to see it, y'know make sure it's not too bad. Probably feels guilty since he's the one that set up the training."
"Well it does look pretty awful, once I can get to the flat upstairs I have some cream we can put on that to help. Here give me your phone."
She moved into position, and did her best to smile for the camera. She was sure she looked awful, tired, messy damp-dried hair, pajamas. Last time she looked in the mirror her eye was quite black, and it certainly wasn't feeling good. He handed her phone back to her, "Thanks John, I can never take my own picture right."
Here, it's not that bad. -Mads
A sneeze did all that? Ouch. Who is the guy? -Dad
And that's when she looked back and realized that the picture she sent had Sherlock in the background, and he was in fact looking up at the camera. She looked back at him, his head was down now, but the picture had him staring at the back of her head as if trying to see through her. Great, another thing for her dad to constantly worry, ask, and complain about.
She thought about the best way to answer that, and frowned. She didn't have to answer to her dad anymore, that was one of the reasons she moved away after all. So it didn't matter how she answered it or who the guy was.
Upstairs neighbor, he has something going on in his apartment right now so he's doing some work down here. -Mads
Boyfriend already? -Dad
Funny, really. I gotta go, translation due tomorrow morning. -Mads
Love ya kiddo. -Dad
You too -Mads
And that was that. One of her weirdest days yet. She wondered if it would get any weirder or if this was it. Either way, she enjoyed it-her new life...it was nice-black eye and all.
End Note: Worth the wait? Review if you liked it!
Maddie is still growing, so it's interesting to see her interactions with her new friends. We'll see more of her history pop up here and there, but I don't want to give away too much right now. Let's just say one of her secrets is going to come back and bite her (and John) in the ass in the next few chapters. So we're going to see some action soon.
Hopefully the next chapter will come sooner! Thanks!