I have apologise for the lateness of this chapter. It has nothing to do with Rayne. Entirely my fault.
On Tuesday I saw a very dear little friend of mine get hit by bus and since then she has been, and still is, in a coma. Even though I have shown no apparent since of grief or struggle I have been unable to function correctly and therefore unable to write. I even made Rayne start a chapter before she was due because I couldn't even do it.
The worst is that I had to inform the mother about the accident and that is what I am trying to deal with.
Again, I apologise. Here it is anyway. Also, I'd just like to take this time to thank Rayne for dealing with me this week, supporting me and being patient.
"Time to go, Sherlock." John said, putting his laptop down and standing up. He turned around and saw Sherlock crouching in his own black chair. He was resting his elbows on his knees and had perched his nose on his clasped hands. He looked up at John and raised an eyebrow.
"Let's go then." He nodded. John stretched and felt his back click. Picking up his coat, he walked out of the room. Sherlock didn't follow.
John turned back and looked at Sherlock, who hadn't moved.
"Coming?"
"In a second." Sherlock said. He brushed his hair back from his face and looked at his feet. "John, do you think this is the right thing to do?"
Was this Sherlock Holmes showing doubt? Was he... human? John shook his head to dispel the thoughts.
"Yes, it is." He nodded. "It'll get you cases..."
"Cases!" Sherlock shouted, his old self coming back now, "I knew there was a reason I'd put up with this! Cases! I miss my cases, even the boring ones."
"Boring ones?"
"The simple ones. The big fancy crimes with the oddities that make them oh so simple to solve! I miss them, John! I really do! But I couldn't put up with the constant small cases, those rather singular crimes that have very little reason to have been committed."
"Ah... kay." John nodded. "Let's go get you some then?"
"Cases!" Sherlock grinned, his eyes sparkled. "Cases are good."
"I'll call the cab..." John sighed.
Walking into the hallway, John left out yet another sigh. Sherlock was acting rather childishly. Though John knew that a few days without sleep did that to Sherlock. He could account for two days but he was not sure before that. He had never got around to mentally scaling up a graph. The corner of John's lip slightly raised, he'd have to make one.
John wondered why they even bothered to use cabs any longer. Even after everything that had happened he still had faith in them. Those three years he had almost depended on them. Especially with his leg. That and they had reminded him of Sherlock. Now he thought about the serial killer cab driver he had shot and Moriarty. How delightful. That and London was always so bloody packed. Shaking the thoughts away in his head, John held the phone to his ear and spoke to the man on the other line.
Sherlock reached into the depths of his wardrobe. His fingers brushing against the silky sea beneath them. Moulding around his hand almost, as if they were him in some weird sense. It didn't take long before his fingers brushed up against the different material at the back. Using one hand he managed to unhook it from the hanger, he began to drag it through the depths of the underworld of clothes. Soon, in all it's glory, was a coat. His coat. Or well one of them. Of course he had more than one. Slowly putting one arm after another, it felt like home. He had put it off yesterday and it was for the best. This was the day Sherlock Holmes rose from the dead and he would return in the exact same way he had left it.
The black cab pulled up outside the front door, waiting for Sherlock and John. The driver hummed the last song he'd heard in the morning before he left for work and tapped on the steering wheel. His brown hair fell over his eyes. He rubbed his forehead and swept the hair out of the way. Suddenly there was a tall, thin man sitting in the back seat. Another man was climbing in. this one was shorter and more familiar to the cabbie. This was the man that he had carried around for the best part of three years. Always from this address to various others.
John nodded to the cabbie and turned to Sherlock.
"Remember-" John began.
"Yes." Sherlock nodded, looking out of the window.
"Remember-"
"Yes."
"Remember what they told you. Don't try to be clever. And please just keep it simple and brief."
Sherlock turned to John and tilted his head slightly. "I can't help but feel that you and I have done this before."
John smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He looked out of the window and watched the world fly past.
The driver was in his usual silence as was Sherlock, as the taxi took up towards the Yard. A little traffic on the roads but nothing that Bernard couldn't get them through, thought John. He liked Bernard whom had become a good person to talk to. The company John used only sent the one driver now. John didn't know why but at least the man had been at least another familiar face over the years.
Sherlock was unsurprisingly quiet in the taxi again, staring out of his window. This silence soon broke as the taxi drew up to outside Scotland yard. "Here, Bernard. Keep the change."
"You kno-"
"Obviously, John." John looked at him in disbelief and they jumped out of the taxi. Bernard driving away. "Same taxi driver for three years? Any simpleton could spot that."
"Yes but-"
"Stop talking, I need to think before the conference."
Sherlock stalked off, turning up his collar up to his cheekbones. John trailed after him, somewhat like a lost puppy. John's eyes followed the flow of Sherlock's coat, the sweep of his arms as he walked across the pavement. He realised, yet again, how much he missed Sherlock Holmes when he was gone.
Sherlock pushed open the doors of the large building in front of him. His sharp steps were followed by John's slightly scuffled ones. Sherlock's eyes took in the faces of everyone in the room. He walked past the receptionist's desk.
"Um... excuse me? Excuse me, Sir?" She called, trying to attract his attention. He walked past her, absent mindedly. John grabbed Sherlock's coat sleeve and dragged him back to the receptionist.
"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson." John said to her, trying to smooth out any problems Sherlock may have caused.
"Okay." She laughed softly.
"Well done, Vanessa." Sherlock said blankly as he stared in the direction of the conference room.
"What?" The receptionist looked at Sherlock and in some sort of silent conversation she understood what she was on about and swiftly nodded her head. "Thank you. Could you just wait over there please, Sirs?"
John dragged Sherlock off to the side, giving him a questioning glare. "Obvious, isn't it? She just left her partner."
"Go on. Amaze me." John groaned. He never did stop.
"Firstly on her cheek was dried tears. Her eyes, though not puffy, were red around the rims. Been crying during her lunch break, make-up retouched. Her hair had been re-fixed during lunch too.
"If you looked at her clothing, she was trying too hard for a secretary job. Though not to impress somebody. She would have looked differently otherwise. More presentable. No, that suit jacket she was wearing was covering something. If you noticed her wrist, which I don't think you did, you would have seen the edges of bruises. One she was trying to cover on her neck too. Some where old. Her ring finger had the outline of a ring that had been removed.
"So bruises? Can't have been an accident. Not with the locations. No, this was an attack. Not a one off. The old bruises said that. It linked in with the ring and the crying. Obviously an abusive partner.
"She has just left her abusive partner and is, by her standards and dress code, living with her mother for awhile. She still continues to work though but the timid voice shows how she feels reluctant to be there. Probably the situation."
"But how did yo-"
"How did I know her name was Vanessa? Her name tag, John." Sherlock coiled back onto a chair in the lobby. A smug look plastered to his face.
John tapped his knee, waiting for someone to collect them. Sherlock made not a sound, his eyes remained flickering back and forth across the room, taking everything in.
Sherlock watched everyone closely, noticing everything that they tried to hide. He noticed what the woman over there had for lunch, the last time that man had shaved, the type of dog that woman had, that man's wife was cheating on him with his friend. All these pointless bits of trivia, but he could grasp anything that he wanted. His eyes darted to John. He noticed the bags under John's eyes, the bitten nails, the shuffling, the sighing, but he could grasp why John was showing all these signs of fear, worry, anger and - oddly - excitement.
"Sirs?" Vanessa called, "Detective Inspector Lestrade will be here to take you to his office any minute."
Sherlock nodded and John thanked the woman.
"Annoying, aren't they?" Sherlock said quietly.
"Who?" John raised an eyebrow.
"Normal people."
"Because you insist on being abnormal." John rolled his eyes as a tapping sound echoed through the lobby. Turning around, John saw Lestrade approaching the both of them. An apparent look of sleep deprivation made up on his face. "Afternoon, Greg."
"Afternoon, John. Sherlock." Sherlock studied over Lestrade. Spotting the recently changed shirt and shaved face, stains on the hands from grease. He also noticed the crease in the trousers, still the same ones then from the day before, and the tie was the one he kept in his draw for best occasions.
"Inspector."
"Right, I don't think I need to tell you but don't get cocky. They don't know why they are bloody here yet and they haven't seen you yet. Hard I tell you after the last few days but myself and somebody else have been working on that." Lestrade let out a long sigh. "Not that you make that easy."
John couldn't resist a small chuckle. Indeed, Sherlock couldn't make anything easy. It wasn't in his nature. "No. He wouldn't, would he?"
"Hmm. Right, Sherlock, you are going to do this my way or no way at all. You're lucky you already have some people on your side. First I am going to talk to the press and then on my cue you will enter. You will not bloody stress enough the importance of you keeping your mouth shut at times. The Daily Mail and the Sun are here and you know what they are fucking like."
John choked on a sudden laugh. The Sun and The Daily Mail where here? Oh dear God, Sherlock was in trouble. But so was John, the "confirmed bachelor" that was constantly seen with Sherlock. What was he going to have to put up with?
"I can't promise anything." Sherlock muttered. John shot a look at Lestrade, a Sherlock-Will-Cause-Trouble-Today look. Lestrade sighed and spun on his heel.
"Come on, John. Sherlock."
John heaved himself up and walked swiftly after Greg. Sherlock followed slowly.
"Stay here." Lestrade smiled tensely. "You too, Sherlock."
Sherlock nodded as Lestrade walked into the room. There was a lull in the hushed murmurs from the room full of journalists. Soon there were a few loud voices calling out, but they were hushed by the replies from Lestrade.
They had been standing outside for about ten minutes when Sherlock looked at his watch.
"Shall we make an entrance?" He smiled.
"No, no... Sherlock!" John reached out and grabbed Sherlock's shirt cuffs. Too late.
"...Our investigation shows that Sherlock Holmes was innocent of all charges against him. Including that of the case of Richard Brooke who was indeed Moriaty and -" Lestrade was talking as the door swung open.
"And I'm not dead." Sherlock grinned, walking into the room. There was a sudden silence, no one spoke. Sherlock walked up to the table next to Lestrade. "Any questions?"
"Sherlock..." John groaned, awkwardly standing in the doorway.
Within seconds a sea of hands had shot up, straining. Ready to bombard the detective, and his companion, with questions. John saw a few eyes stare at him as he took the seat readily prepared for himself. Sherlock seated next to him.
"Let the grilling begin!" Sherlock beamed as he pointed to a very flustered brunette on the front row who was almost levitating out of her seat by the way her arm was up in the air.