"She's quite nice." John said to Sherlock as Amy walked away. He caught himself watching her hips swing back and forth as she walked past other tables. Sherlock nodded but didn't look away from 22 Northumberland Street. "She brought you a cup of tea."
"I didn't ask for tea." Sherlock quickly pointed out.
"But it was still nice of her to bring you some after hearing you haven't eaten for days." John replied and took a bite of his food. Sherlock remained silent and focused while John ate. After a while he took a sip of his lager then looked at Sherlock and said, "You could at least tell her thank you for bringing you tea."
Just as John spoke, something outside caught Sherlock's attention. John looked out the window without seeing anything then looked back at Sherlock for answers. "Look, a taxi stopped across the street. Nobody getting in, nobody getting out. Why a taxi?" he said half to John and half to himself, then nodded toward the cab that had parked right outside of 22 Northumberland St. He stared at the cab for a few seconds before something clicked. "Oh that's clever. Is it clever? Why is it clever?" He mumbled to himself.
"That's him?" John asked and looked over his shoulder at the cab and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The cabbie was probably just stopped to look for a fair, not to kill anyone and assumed Sherlock was jumping to conclusions.
"Don't stare." Sherlock told him, his eyes still fixed on the cab.
"What? You're staring." John reminded him.
"We can't both stare." Sherlock said and grabbed his coat.
John grabbed Sherlock's arm and stopped him, receiving a glare from the detective. "Wait, at least tip the girl or something before storming off! You ignored her and she still brought you a cup of tea," he said as if he was scolding a child.
"There's a murderer across the street and you're worried about tipping our waitress? It must be the hemline of her skirt." Sherlock scoffed and tried to push past him.
"No, it's the fact that she was nice. That cab isn't going anywhere so just do it." John said sternly. Sherlock glared at him for a moment before pulling a pen out of his pocket and quickly scribbling "Thank you" on to a napkin on the table then putting the cup of tea over it. Then both he and John threw their coats over themselves and headed after the cab. Sherlock archived Amy Pond in his mind for future reference in case he ever needed her. He doubted he would, seeing as she was obviously new in town judging by her accent and probably had nowhere near the intellect he possessed, not that many other people did anyway. There was something about her, he admitted, that interested him. When he locked eyes with her for a brief moment, he could see a spark. She was strong-willed and she was curious. But there was something else that he just couldn't place. Something about the way she was perpetually moving and how she moved was off. But he had a murdered to catch, so he pushed her out of the foreground of his mind and and focused on chasing down the runaway cab.
A couple weeks later, Sherlock and John were running through the streets again, this time chasing after a wayward suspect of their latest case. The two of them split up in an effort to corral the suspect to where they could capture him. But somehow he caught on and managed to evade Sherlock and John's plan. Sherlock stopped halfway through an alley and tried to figure out where the man could have gone. He closed his eyes and pressed is fingers in to his temples, quickly visualizing possible routes in his mind. When he realized he couldn't catch up he spat out a string of curse words then put his hands on his hips and tried to catch his breath.
"Hello, Mister Sherlock Holmes," a woman's voice rang out.
Sherlock made a quick deduction of who it could be and spun around to see if he was right. And he was. "Hello, Amy," he said with a smirk. She was leaning against doorframe of the back door at Angelo's smoking a cigarette.
"Fancy a smoke?" she asked. Pulling another cigarette from behind her ear, she held it out in his direction and waited for him to accept it.
"I'm a little busy." He replied.
"You don't look like it." She countered. "You were just standing here in the middle of the street."
"I'm on a case." He told her sternly.
"Do most of your cases involve you running through back alleys of central London or are you just making up excuses to say hello?" She winked at him then took a drag.
He walked over to her and took the cigarette from her and put it between his lips. She dug a lighter out of her pocket and flicked it on, then reached toward him. He bent down and dipped the end of his cigarette in to the flame then inhaled deeply.
"And why would I want to say hello to you? I barely know you." He mused. As he spoke, smoke melted out of his mouth and in to the brisk London air.
"You tell me." Amy replied and cocked her head. He laughed inhaled another lung full of smoke. "I hear you're good at that."
"Good at what?" He asked.
"Telling people things that you know about them." She said.
He rolled his eyes at and corrected her. "I don't know, I notice."
"Well, what do you notice about me then?" She asked, unfazed by his harshness. Sherlock was intrigued by her challenge. No one had ever asked him to tell them what he thought when he saw them. Admittedly, they didn't have to. Sherlock would be spouting off the things he noticed before anyone had the chance to give him an invitation or even tell him not to. But usually when he deduced things about people they brushed him off or complained to him about what a show off he was.
He took a few steps back from her and eyed her up and down, taking in every inch of what he saw and rattled off his deductions as he went. He can tell just by looking at her that she's young. Early twenties at the oldest. Her skirt was designer, but a few years old and looked as though she had tailored it herself recently to make it fit, so it was most likely from a charity shop. With the tips she's making due to her popularity with the men who come in to the restaurant, she should be able to afford at least a decent skirt that would fit her but all her money is probably going to pay the majority, if not all, of the rent for her flat that she shares with her boyfriend somewhere in nearby Central London. She smirked and flicked the ashes off the end of her cigarette. "Who said anything about a boyfriend?" She inquired.
Sherlock pointed out that while she was flirtatious with the men who came in to Angelo's, she never gave her number to them or kept their numbers when they gave them to her and there was an indent on her left ring finger where a ring has been. So clearly she was attached elsewhere and it was serious enough that she didn't wander off but she kept all of that to herself. And she had her fair share of secrets, like her arbitrary smoking habit.
"I'm smoking out in the open in broad daylight." Amy pointed out and took a drag to prove her point.
"You hide your cigarettes behind your ear. But you're clever. You know when and where you can smoke and get away with it. And you obviously don't do it often. No tobacco stains on your fingers, no rush to finish your cigarette. You smoke because you want to, not because you have to." He said.
"Is that it?" She asked. Sherlock was started by how unimpressed she sounded.
"What do you mean?" He sputtered out.
"Anyone could figure out that I have a boyfriend and flat in Central London. I expected more from you, Mr. Holmes." Her eyes met his and she dared him wordlessly to go farther. So he looked at her again. This time from the inside out. He held her gaze and found his way inside her mind.
"You're waiting for something." He told her. "You've been waiting for a while. I can see it in the way you stand."
"Explain." She demanded. She wasn't going to let him get away with making long shot guesses and having them proven right by her. But he had gotten her attention again and he was pleased about that, so he complied.
"You hold yourself with confidence but you're always jumping from one thing to another. You're never content sitting still. In fact, it's the one time you're scared and unsure because your mind can wander. You're never intimidated by anyone. Well, except for yourself. And you're always moving. You're waiting for something and you're bored of biding you time. You're ready to run at any moment. you're just waiting for the right thing to run after. Or from." He watched her eyes go wide as he spoke. He must have been dead on. "Was I right?" He asked her. Amy dropped her cigarette and ground it in to the concrete beneath them with the toe of her boot then nodded.
"You're absolutely right about me." Amy simply said without a hint of any emotion in her voice.
"I usually am right about people." Sherlock told her. "It is my job, after all."
"But you seem to know all about me from your own experiences." She noted.
Sherlock took one last drag from his cigarette before flicking it off in to the distance and turning back to Amy. "And what makes you think that?" He asked, seemingly unconvinced that she was doing much more than guessing.
"Because you can't say no to a challenge; anything to keep your mind busy. You don't like being bored just as much as me. We just have different reasons to want to be distracted." She said. Sherlock was listened to her with rapt attention. He had pinned her as clever but maybe he had underestimated her. He watched her take in his reaction and revel in it. "Was I right?" She purred and took a step toward him so they were almost touching. With her this close, he realized that she was almost level with him. At six feet tall, Sherlock normally had a few inches on those around him, especially women. But once again, Amy proved herself to be unlike any woman he had met before and she knew it. Sherlock smirked and spun around and started walking off.
"Get back to work, Ms. Pond." He called back to her as he walked away.
"Same to you, Mr. Holmes." She yelled back. He waited until he heard her walk inside and close the door behind her before he looked over his shoulder for a brief second. There was something about her that fascinated him. Most women either threw themselves at him or avoided him entirely but Amy looked at him like he looked at the evidence at a crime scene. She was curious, she wanted to figure him out. Her body language showed obvious signs of attraction toward him but her curiosity overpowered it. Interesting, he thought to himself. Just then his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw John's name flash across the screen.
"Where have you gone off to?" John asked in between gulps of air when Sherlock answered.
"Our suspect ran off so I stopped to have a chat with our friend, Amy." He said.
"Amy? The waitress from Angelo's?" John asked.
"Seeing as she is the only Amy we both know, that is an excellent deduction, John." Sherlock answered. John could almost hear him smirking through the phone. He tried not to roll his eyes and remember that in contras to what Sherlock normally said it could easily count as a compliment.
"Well, what about our suspect? I ran half of London to catch him!" John said, trying not to be annoyed.
"Oh, he'll be easy enough to catch. Might as well get some lunch in the mean time. How does Chinese sound to you?" Sherlock replied.
John sighed and said, "Fine, I'll meet you there in ten minutes," then ended the call. Sherlock stuffed his phone back in his pocket and started walking toward the Chinese place right around the corner from 221B Baker St.
Sherlock beat John there and sat down at a cozy table in the corner. A tiny Asian women scuttled over to him and placed a menu on his table. He slid it over to John's side and and busied himself by checking up on cases on his phone. John walked through the doors a few moments later and sat down across from Sherlock. He picked up the menu and began skimming through it without saying a word.
"I don't know why you look at the menu. You get the same thing here every time." Sherlock said without looking up from his phone.
Unperturbed, John shrugged and said, "You don't know that for sure."
"Yes I do." Sherlock said. John opened his mouth to protest but he realized it would be useless and he didn't want to be the demise of Sherlock not calling him an idiot for the past two days. John wasn't sure if he was getting better at being the detective's assistant or if he was just getting used to having John around. Either way, it was nice John decided. The pair sat in silence, absorbed in their own little worlds, until a waiter came around to take their orders. As Sherlock predicted, John had ordered the same thing he always did.
"Knew it," he said under his breath.
"Did you say something?" John asked.
"Not a word." Sherlock replied.
"Right. So what were chatting with Amy about?" John inquired. When they ate at Angelo's that night, he could tell that Amy was interested in Sherlock. Now he was starting to wonder if Sherlock was becoming interested in Amy, too. Just when John had started to believe Sherlock was oblivious to the fact that love existed, or even lust, he was proved wrong. There was just no being right when it came to Sherlock.
"She asked me to deduce some things about her, so I did." Sherlock said nonchalantly as if something like that happened all the time.
"She asked you to show off? No wonder you fancy her," John mumbled.
"You think I fancy her because she wanted me to 'show off'?" Sherlock asked, slightly annoyed. If anything, he thought, John should be thinking that Amy fancied him. She was the one that asked, after all. He was just doing the polite thing and fulfilling her request.
"No," John corrected. "I think you fancy her because she asked."
Still unamused Sherlock asked, "Why would that make me fancy her, John?"
"Because how often do people ask for you to look at them then repeat every one of their secrets and habits that you notice back to then noticing how badly they want to punch you in the face afterward?" John pointed out. "You can't tell me that doesn't make you like her just a little bit."
"She's interesting and clever, I'll give her that. But that isn't enough to insinuate that I'm interested in her romantically or attracted to her. Make sure you have sufficient evidence before you make a claim, John." Sherlock said, quite annoyed. He was Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective. He had more important things to worry about than a waitress and if she was attracted to him or him to her. He never saw the point in any of it. Why would anyone want to dedicate their time and emotions to someone who is bound to leave you one way or another? It was all so boring and mundane. He didn't bother with it and he wasn't about to start.
John rolled his eyes and said, "Forget I even mentioned it."
For the rest of the meal they focused on their latest case and what their next attempt at apprehending their suspect would be. John worried that he would be halfway across England by now but Sherlock quickly dismissed it and reminded him that they were chasing a drug dealer and that all his connections were here. He'd be in more danger if he left. When their food came John finally had an excuse to tune out and let Sherlock ramble on in between bites.
After their meal, they caught a cab and returned to 221B Baker Street. When they arrived home, Sherlock excused himself, telling John he needed to think for a bit. John nodded and went to fetch him some nicotine patches. He had started to hide them from Sherlock a few weeks after he moved in when he noticed Sherlock increasing his dosage drastically. John scolded him and told him that the patches were supposed to help him quit smoking, not give him something else to get addicted to in its place. Sherlock allowed John to "hide" them just to mollify his worries. Obviously Sherlock knew where John had stashed them and snuck a few out when John was preoccupied with other things.
Sherlock unwound his scarf and slid out of his coat while John got the patches. The frustration that bubbled up inside Sherlock only amplified his desire for the patches or better yet, an actual cigarette. He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers against his elbow while we waited to try to keep his urge to yell bottled up. When John returned, Sherlock hastily grabbed the patches from John's hands and headed for his room. Once inside, he sat at the edge of his bed, rolled up his sleeve then scattered the three patches John allotted him along his forearm. He then kicked off his shoes and reclined back on to the bed and waited for the buzz of the nicotine to spread through him. He closed his eyes, pressed his hands together and lightly touched both his pointer fingers to his lips. When the warmth of the nicotine buzz finally pulsed through his entire body, he closed his eyes and retreated in to his mind.
For most people thought takes some effort. You had to pick memories out of their hiding places or wait for something to remind you that some of your memories even existed. For Sherlock it was like watching someone else flip through channels on the telly. It was a never ending scrapbook of everything Sherlock had seen, read and heard that was still relevant, useful, or interesting. Everything was organized in to categories for easy access and storage. Sherlock knew how powerful his mind was and he'd gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure he could use it properly. When things in his head became boring or had lost their purpose for being there, he deleted them and made room for new and exciting things.
He began to flip through the information for his current case, trying to formulate a plan to recapture their suspect. He went over what the man had been wearing, his crimes, his pattern of behavior and linked things together. He predicted where he would go, who he would see, what he would do and made a map of it in his mind. Catching him was just a matter of picking a point on that map and planning his own route that would converge on to that point when his suspect would be there. Doing so took much less time than he expected but he didn't feel like interacting with John or giving up the warming buzz of the patches. But even three patches couldn't substitute how wonderful the cigarette Amy had given him earlier was. That combined with being to use his mind on someone who was receptive was a kind of high he hadn't felt since his days of being strung out in the streets with a needle still stuck in his arm. Suddenly his mind veered away from Amy leaning in against the frame of the back door at Angelo's to himself stumbling down dark and narrow alleyways in search for his next fix. Anything to get himself out of his mind or at least to quiet it down for a little while. These were memories he couldn't delete, no matter how hard he tried. So he locked them away and ignored them. But they never failed to come back and haunt him. Sherlock was his very own ghost. These memories were the reason he didn't let his mind wander much. He knew he could never escape himself, but he could do his best to out run his demons. Suddenly John's voice jarred him back in to reality.
"Sherlock, Lestrade in on the phone." John said. One hand was holding the phone out to him, the other was wrapped around his shoulder. He must have tried to shake Sherlock awake. "It's about the case."
Sherlock nodded and took the phone from his hands. John gave him a concerned once over then turned around and left the detective's room. Sherlock's conversation with Lestrade was borderline ordinary compared to their usual. Lestrade asked how it was going with he and John being flatmates and Mrs. Hudson then told Sherlock that he and his wife were going to couple's counseling to reconcile. Sherlock listed off everything he knew about the suspect and how to get to him. Together they organized a clever plan to distract and capture him and Lestrade began organizing his men to get it all accomplished. Sherlock told him to call if he needed anything then hung up and went to the living room to give John his phone back. John sat in his chair hunched over his computer when Sherlock walked in and handed him his phone.
"Thank you," John said and tucked it in to his pocket. Sherlock nodded and crossed the room to take his seat. He looked back over to John and was met with worried eyes. "Is everything all right?" John asked tentatively.
"I'm fine," Sherlock said. "Why do you ask?"
"When I came in to give you the phone, you looked upset." John said and looked back down at his computer screen.
"I was just thinking. And now that's I'm not, I'm bored. Why is there never anything to do?" Sherlock complained and slid farther down in to the chair hoping to avoid talking to John about the skeletons in his closet.
"We could play Cluedo," John suggested.
"What the hell is Cluedo?" Sherlock asked. John explained and Sherlock delightfully agreed knowing that his intellect would give him the upper advantage. As John went to look for the game, Amy's words rang through Sherlock head; Anything to keep your mind busy. You don't like being bored just as much as me. Sherlock chuckled. There was some comfort in knowing that he wasn't the only one doing whatever he could to keep himself distracted. A few blocks away, she was probably bringing food to tables or sitting in her apartment blazing through a book. Maybe someday he would figure out a way to use Amy's cleverness to his advantage. Until then, he would tuck her away somewhere in his mind and Cluedo would have to suffice in taking the edge off.