Chapter Four

Sherlock was anxious to open the files Mycroft had sent to him. When he wasn't looking, Sherlock took John's laptop and hid himself in the bathroom. He transferred the files from his phone to the computer, and waited for them to download properly.

"Sherlock, did you take my laptop?" John called from the other side of the door.

"No, I have no need for it."

"I'll look again then," John answered with a sigh.

Sherlock listened to him walk away, then heard Emilia still working around in the kitchen.

The files finally unzipped and Sherlock looked over the files. There were documents and images. The first image was a newspaper scan. The headline read, HAYES DAUGHTER COMMITED TO INSANE ASYLUM. Hayes daughter? Was her family famous?

The article continues to read, in summary, that Emilia's parents were famous actors years ago, murdered. The charges lay on Emilia, at the time thirteen. The details were short and nothing seemed to really steer the reader away from Emilia's innocence. She was just a child! Sherlock shook his head. There was another newspaper scan.

E. HAYES AQUITTED, SO WHO DID IT? Emilia was obviously cleared, but no actual murderer caught. Sherlock looked at the photos carefully that were included in the newspaper articles, but they certainly were censored enough to not give him much information. The other images however gave way to the real information he needed.

Photos of the dead bodies, they matched the current case's bodies. The wounds, the method of murder, everything. There was to be something more than coincidence. This is a bit absurd.

A thought sparked in the back of Sherlock's head. Emilia was accused before for the very acts that are happening now. Is this a relapse and she's doing it again? How did she clear herself before? Such a young age, too.

Scanning the rest of the files, there was a note on one of the photos. It was of a younger Emilia in a straight jacket. Attempted self-murder countless times. Needs constant care when (if) ever released. The next photo had pictures of blood all over Emilia's arms. Sherlock's phone rang.

"How did you take the news?"

"I'm sure you can see me, take a guess."

"All of this information was removed from Scotland Yard's database."

"What for?"

"Don't know. Should you perhaps bring all of this to Lestrade's attention?"

"How can I be sure these documents aren't doctored? They couldn't have just been removed, unless…" Sherlock trailed off at his mind processed all kinds of possibilities at once. Sherlock hung up and removed all traces of the files from John's laptop. He burst out of the bathroom and handed John his laptop.

"You were using this in the loo? And were you talking on the phone?"

Sherlock turned to Emilia and looked at her so abruptly that it startled her. She seemed to tremble.

"I know that look," she whispered out hoarsely. "You know now, don't you?"

"What exactly do I know?"

"What am I missing here? How come you didn't tell me you could talk again?" John asked, as it always seems to be, out of the loop again.

Sherlock took one large stride toward Emilia and she took off for John's room. She made it there before Sherlock, but as she slammed the door, she encountered Sherlock's foot. His response was an agitated grunt.

"Just tell me one thing and one thing only," he called through the crack in the door.

Emilia pushed her back up against the door, yet waited for the question.

"Was it you?"

"Which part?"

"The murders."

"… No," she answered back after a long pause.

"So which part was yours?"

Emilia threw her hands up and sighed heavily. "You're just as I thought you would be… Once I heard the recent murders happening… I had a friend remove my history… I didn't want to go back to that asylum. That's all I did. I want to know who's doing this…"

Sherlock removed his foot from the door and it closed underneath Emilia's weight, but she turned and opened it to find him still standing there. He had the look on his face still, the one that judged her. She stared into his eyes with her misty ones, then wrapped her arms around his torso and wept. Sherlock looked to John who witnessed everything, expectantly. John nodded his head, and Sherlock awkwardly put his hands on Emilia's shoulders.

"Everything will be alright," John said to them.

After Emilia calmed down, John changed her bandage on her thigh. She was healing quite well. He even took a look at the rest of her injuries and all the cuts and bruises seemed to be healing without a hint of scarring. Emilia was lucky.

Sherlock left later that afternoon.

"How is your voice?" John asked her after folding the newspaper and putting it in his lap.

"Getting there," Emilia answered with a scratchy sound.

"Good, good," John answered with a prolonged nod.

Emilia turned back to her laptop and kept at work at whatever she was doing. John knew Sherlock by now knew everything about her, while John sat there and knew nothing.

"There's a typo on your most recent blog post, John."

John jumped up and went to his laptop. He fixed it instantly. "I thought I heard somewhere along the way that you read it. Maybe you should proofread it for me," he concluded with a smile.

Emilia smiled in return. Okay, his attempts at flirting weren't getting anywhere. It was probably for the best, seeing as how she is involved with a job he has with the police. No matter how cute he may think she is.

Hours passed, and Emilia invited Mrs. Hudson up for dinner, and the two women got to work.

"The boys tend to think I'm their housekeeper and make me do the house duties all the time! Now that you're staying here it's a bit relaxing. It's nice to have another female on Baker Street that can handle these two boys."

Emilia still wasn't comfortable with speaking so she listened, finding Mrs. Hudson did in fact have a lot to talk about.

Dinner went smoothly, and John was almost convinced he was back to life before Sherlock. Life before bodies and police and intellect to rival a master computer and a consulting criminal. Why did that man's visage come to mind? Not to worry. Everything was well, right now. And there was no reason for John to let the idea of that man ruin his dinner with his little awkward family. One thing that did bug him, though, is; Where was Sherlock?

John made up the bed for Emilia while she was in the shower to return the favor for all the things she had done so far. Just to anger him, and to be a bit more comfortable, John lay up in Sherlock's bed for the night. God knows when he'll be home, so why not? Sherlock seemed to barely sleep anyway. Why did he even have a bed?

As soon as his head hit the pillow he was asleep.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was out tracing lines of leads and crossing out roads of dead ends. He researched all of the previously convicted men blamed for the crimes Emilia was victim to, and found no real physical or seemingly mental connection. If Emilia could only project her thoughts to him. He would have had this all done already. If only someone in this world would understand like him, then he just might have faith in this humanity he puts so little in to. Sherlock was not one for being human. If anything, humanity sickened him, and he was happy to have a higher function among them with his greater brain power and skills. Oh, what it was like to be Sherlock.

Phone numbers, friends, family; no real connections. He guessed the best he could do was wait for another attack. Should he bait Emilia? The killer would always come after his unfinished business, wouldn't he?

Is Emilia even safe right now? Wanting to bash his head into a wall for always seeming to think one hundred miles a minute, he headed home. When Sherlock got to the outside air from Bart's, he then realized what time it was. After midnight. He missed Emilia's dinner. Surely there would be some lef—

"Can I not just keep a single thought process tonight?" Sherlock yelled and scolded himself.

It was true he kept reverting everything back to Emilia unconsciously. Perhaps because she was the root of all his thinking patterns lately. Maybe it was he was actually a bit upset he missed dinner. With John it had always been take-out or easy to prepare meals. With Emilia around it was more cleaner, better, healthier meals.

"And there I go again…"

Sherlock hailed a cab and went home. The whole ride home he processed Emilia out of his head so that he could focus on reviewing everything he gathered today.

Successful; Emilia who?

Sherlock went right back to John's laptop when he got home and looked up more information until he couldn't find anything else new. Still no ties. When his stomach growled in protest of hunger a few hours later, he moved to the fridge where he found leftover food from something. Maybe Mrs. Hudson made extra food and brought some up?

At that point Sherlock heard a funny noise coming from his room. The possibilities rose in his mind and he worked through them like a hand leafing through a dictionary for the words beginning with the letter 'q.'

Either someone was sawing a hole in a wall, or John was sleeping in there.

So, John was definitely sleeping in his room, in his bed. Must have gotten too tired to realize he walked into Sherlock's room. Fine, two can play that game. Sherlock decided he would just sleep in John's bed in revenge. He headed to John's room to begin the revenge process when he then discovered Emilia. He forgotten he forgot about her. To Sherlock it looked like she was in another nightmare again. Again, possibilities of outcomes to this scenario. She could A) kick and punch as he woke her, or B) wake him up later with another screaming wake up call.

He grabbed John's old cane and poked her sides from a distance. She moaned and turned, but didn't wake. Sherlock jabbed harder.

Emilia woke with a gasp and sat upright. Reflexively, she grabbed a giant kitchen knife from the bedside table and flailed it around.

"Good thing I did use an object other than myself to pull you from that."

"Oh, god, Sherlock Holmes!" Emilia moaned out with a scratchy voice. She sounded like there were a lot of bubbles of air in her throat that caused her voice to cut out.

"Are you better now?"

Emilia caught her breath. "I guess so. Did you just come back?"

"I've been here a while. I forgot you were here. Well now that I have saved you I will be leaving."

Sherlock made it to the doorframe before she stopped him.

"Will you stay in here with me tonight?"

Sherlock froze there and thought. He wasn't going to sleep on the floor, that's for damn sure. "Dibs on the bed, then."

"I meant, on the bed. With me. You… You don't have to, but I would kind of like it, really."

Sherlock turned to lock eyes with Emilia, then glanced around the room, still unsure of what she meant.

"Okay."

When Sherlock finally changed for bed, Emilia made room for the tall, lengthy and awkward man. She faced away from the spot she made for him and almost drifted back to sleep. Sherlock laid down faced away from her.

Emilia giggled. "Roll over, you idiot."

"Who are you calling an idiot, idiot? You asked me to stay in here so I am. What more would you like because I am certainly no servant."

Instead, Emilia rolled to face Sherlock and snaked an arm around him and lay against him. "I just want someone to keep me company through the night, alright? You can leave once I fall asleep; I would just feel safer this way."

Sherlock grumbled at her arm, and began to pout like a child. The things that humans come up with disturb and confuse him. He'd gotten by just fine without other humans acting this way toward him, so why is she changing him so much?

Sherlock snuck out before the sun broke the horizon. He couldn't stand laying in there anymore, so his couch became his friend. John came out into the sitting room and saw him there, and felt accomplished in his idea to sleep in Sherlock's bed. It didn't matter though, as a nagging thirst required quenching. Thinking they only had water, he checked the fridge and was quite happy with what he saw.

Sherlock spied on John after hearing the fridge open up. He wasn't going to make breakfast, was he? That was Emilia's job now. Instead, he found John seemingly absentmindedly staring into the fridge.

"Please tell me you're not having a blinking contest with that severed head, John."

John turned to the voice of Sherlock, then back to the refrigerator. "No. Look at this," he pointed. "It's amazing. It's beautiful."

Sherlock joined John and tried to discover what he thought was so great. His eyebrows rose while his head gave a nod. "We have milk. Did you get it?"

"No, and it certainly wasn't you as you never seem to do that. I like Emilia being here."

"Can she be our maid?"

John chuckled and closed the fridge after grabbing the milk. He poured himself a short glass, then one for Sherlock. "She has her own job and home to attend to. You take that up with her."

Sherlock lavished in the glass of milk like a purring kitten as he sat in his chair. "Why can't you ask her?"

"Surely you know how to talk to a girl, Sherlock?"

"I do know how to talk to a girl, and don't call me Sherly."

The boys laughed at Sherlock's joke and Emilia came into the room then. She looked so much more rested than she had since the first day she stayed here. But to her dismay, her hair was a fluffy mess and her eyes were still halfway closed. Her dressing gown was hanging off her shoulder in a sloppy manner.

"Good morning, Emilia," John told her as he was turned around in his chair. "There's milk in the fridge," he said still in disbelief with the fact, "go ahead and pour yourself some."

"It's okay," she replied with a yawn. "I actually don't really like milk."

John looked at Sherlock with a dropped jaw. In response, Sherlock had a disgusted look on his face.

"Don't like milk?" Sherlock echoed. "How do you live, creature?"

Emilia smiled down at what she was doing with her hands; preparing omelets for breakfast. The boys shared their doubt while Emilia watched Sherlock with an amused glint in her eyes. He caught her gaze while John went to fetch the morning paper.

They shared a smile together with each other before returning to their morning habits.

Sorry about the somewhat late update, I no longer have internet at home and I'm using it at a friend's house right now. I hope you all are enjoying the story, although it seems slow and kind of lame, but bear with me! It's taking a while to develop correct character personalities and I want to give so much more background on Emilia before the real fluffy stuff happens… Which I've already written… Hm, oneshot anyone?