Nine
Revelations

I trotted up the stairs to the flat, my legs feeling oddly heavy after the nine hours of continuous standing. I opened the door in front of me and let out a large breath in relief of being back again. The red jacket felt too bulky on my shoulders in this summer heat and I unwound it from my shoulders before placing it on the edge of the sofa.

"Hey." I greeted, not really expecting any response.

The couch beckoned my tired body, but something else nagged away inside my brain. I knew that I'd feel better after a sandwich and getting out of this horrible black attire.

The t-shirt clung in that way clothes only could after a long day of slight physical ardour and I found myself flicking the neckline in an attempt to get some fresh cool air on my skin as I wandered around the perhaps deadly concoctions on the kitchen table and over to the fridge.

Something smelt odd. I hoped it wasn't anything too scary in that Tupperware container on the bottom shelf. I picked up the loaf of bread from the middle shelf and pried into the plastic wrapper. I immediately pulled away in disgust, turning the loaf over and examining the small black stamp on the packaging.

25/06/10

"God, Sherlock," I called to the man sitting in the living room, whom was busy staring into space, "this bread is over a month past its use-by date."

"Yes, I know." The detective replied far quicker than I had expected.

I cringed. "Experiment?"

"No," Sherlock continued in the voice he used when he wasn't actually interested in a conversation, "John is just being petty and refusing to move it."

Refusing, no doubt, in an attempt to teach Sherlock some basic housekeeping skills. But, no, the mighty consulting detective could never lower himself to something as menial as throwing away a loaf of mouldy – and probably toxic – bread. Was John really the petty one here?

I sighed and shut my eyes for a few seconds, then, holding the chemical time-bomb at arm's length, dropped it into the nearby bin. Sometimes I felt truly sorry for Mrs Hudson.

I heard footsteps nearby and the door opening and closing.

"Hey, Melanie." I glanced up from my dangerous investigation of the other contents of the fridge and saw a clearly just-showered John collapse onto the sofa. He let the towel drop and drape around his shoulders as he reached for his laptop, pulling it onto his lap and lifting the screen. "How was work?"

"Dull." I told him plainly, not particularly wanting to linger on the memories of the past nine hours. The customers had been the same as always. The other waitresses had chattered when they felt like it as usual. Even the unexpected malfunction of the milk frother had been boring. "You?"

John raised his eyebrows in a meaningful way. "Oh, I had a very interesting day."

It worried me slightly that I didn't even hesitate in asking, "Dead bodies?"

"No," John said before swiftly correcting, "well, yes, but that wasn't the interesting bit."

I gave up on my exploration into the hazardous realm of 221B's fridge and turned, walking to the edge of the kitchen and leaning against the frame of the doorway. "Yeah?"

"John, we're out of milk." Sherlock suddenly interjected.

"No, you're not." I let him know with a frown, knowing that there was at least half a pint left of the stuff. "What happened?"

"Then we're out of tea." Sherlock again spoke up. "Go get some."

I was getting the funniest feeling that he was trying to get John out of the building. I decided that ignoring him was probably the best option.

John looked over the rim of his laptop, a smile tugging at his lips. "Oh, you're going to love this."

"John, I said we're out of tea."

I huffed and moved back into the kitchen, returning not two seconds later, and threw the almost full box of teabags into the unprepared arms of the genius. I didn't pay any notice to his expression of frustration and shifted my attention back onto the doctor. "Continue."

John let out a small titter of laughter before starting, "Sherlock-"

"This isn't the type of tea I like. Go buy more."

"-couldn't solve a case."

That stopped me.

Did he just say…

Huh?

"I could have." Sherlock declared. "I just didn't want to."

John rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Sherlock; you were completely stumped."

But…

My voice finally managed to return, coming out as a confused train of thought. "I'm sorry, what? Sherlock? Stumped? Sherlock Holmes? This Sherlock Holmes?"

I pointed at the aforementioned man, just to make sure that John understood which Sherlock Holmes I meant. Because there had to be a mix up somewhere, didn't there? Sherlock did not fail at cases. He either solved them or dismissed them within a minute as being too boring. Who on earth could fool him?

Sherlock flicked a hand through the air dismissively. "It's hardly that big of a thing."

John scoffed. "It's huge, Sherlock."

"No, it isn't."

"Uh, yeah it is." I contradicted, my initial shock beginning to fade and immense amusement taking its place. "What couldn't he solve?"

Sherlock's voice began to contain a fair amount of controlled anger. "I am still here. Isn't it the usual practice to gossip about someone behind their back and not while they're still in the room?"

"Shhh." I hushed him impatiently, raising my hand to emphasise the point. My eyes didn't shift from John's face. I seriously wanted to know just what could be so utterly difficult that the great detective himself couldn't work it out. It would have to be something big.

"Well," John began his explanation, "do you remember that plane crash in Germany last week?"

I let out a small grunt. "Far too well. We had the news channel on all day in the café. It was doing my head in by the end of my shift."

"Yeah, s-"

John didn't get the opportunity to finish his clarification. Sherlock abruptly interrupted with a growl, leaping to his feet. Without saying another word on the matter, he stormed his way over to the door, throwing it open and stamping out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

I stared at the still door for a moment, a twitch of guilt settling in my stomach. "Maybe that was a bit too harsh of us. It's got to be difficult for him – not knowing all the answers."

John looked back down at the computer screen on his knees. "Yeah, well, it's doing wonders for my blog. You should see the comments."

I shook my head, wandering over to Sherlock's recently vacated seat and slumping into it. "I can guess."

John gave me a telling stare. "No. No, you can't."

I let out a silent syllable of laughter. I was pretty certain that the folks down at New Scotland Yard would be having a field day with this. It wasn't every day that you got to poke fun at Sherlock – well, it wasn't every day that there was a fault line in his perfect persona to poke at anyway. It was almost definite that they'd try to laugh at him most days without it. A frown crept onto my forehead. "I've actually been meaning to ask you something about that blog of yours."

"Yeah?" John asked, his gaze now fixed on the screen before him, his fingers scrolling across the tracking pad.

"Yeah." I started, trying to keep my tone nonplussed. "It just occurred to me that there seems to be something a little bit significant that you've forgotten to mention."

John stopped typing and looked up.

"Ah." He said, clearly already knowing what I was getting at.

"I mean, I'm not complaining or anything, b-"

John sighed, cutting across my spiel. "That was Sherlock's order."

I raised a solitary eyebrow curiously. "Sherlock's?"

John nodded, giving a defeated half-smile as he did. "He thought it would be better that way for some reason."

"Oh. Ok." I agreed, leaving a long pause between the two words. I thought I was starting to understand now. Sherlock could be so vain when he wanted to be. "Better for me or for his image?"

John grinned slyly. "Probably a bit of both."

A short chuckle left my throat. Typical. He was always so typical. After knowing this man for nearly five months, I was seriously starting to get the hang of being around him. Namely, I knew to expect something completely unexpected to happen. But while the unexpected happened around him, his own actions were almost always predictable. And his commandment to John in this instance was proof of that.

"Do you want me to write about you?" John asked with a questioning look.

I laughed again. "Really, truly not."

Quite short today, but I thought there wasn't any more that needed to be said. I hope none of you were taken off guard by the sudden time jump. There'll be a couple more of them coming up, so be warned.

OMG Moffat has said he hopes series 3 will be aired before the year's out. I kind of doubt it, to be honest. Surely they haven't got time to shoot it all with everybody's busy schedule and do all the editing etc. before then?

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