Entering her flat, Calvin found herself face-to-face with a gun. Surprised but not fearful, she tilted her head to the side to see a man dressed in a fine suit and a fedora holding the gun.
"I get it." she exclaimed, delighted, into the barrel of the gun. "Oh that's interesting." The gun was fired.
But, as the recent murders frequently went, this wasn't a killing blow. This man's hand snapped to the right, and the bullet went through her shoulder. Calvin gasped in pain, her hand flying to the wound. She supposed she should feel frightened for her life, but the bounding of feet from 221B made her smile.
The man moved the gun up to her neck, the progress suggesting that the killing blow would be to her head. Calvin weaved to the right to dodge the next bullet, and it embedded itself in the wall behind her. Her back slammed against the kitchen counter, the corner digging into her back with the force of her dodge. Calvin grinned at the attacker, who seemed unnerved by her lack of screaming and crying.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as the attacker's eyes took on the fear that Calvin lacked. Orders to make it look like an amateur or no, this woman was too dangerously calm to be left alive any longer. The gun was aimed between her eyes, and Calvin had no where to go.
Click.
Calvin's eyes opened and she cocked her head at the gun still pointed at her. The gun had jammed. She straightened up, the pounding of the boys' feet down the stairs echoing through her apartment. The man was frozen in place.
She gripped the gun, twisting around to yank it from his hand. She turned on her heel, and with the force of her swivel she slammed the handle of the gun into the man's face, incapacitating him instantly. Blood spurted forth.
"Nine pounds of force is all you need to break a nose." Calvin informed him cheerily, unloading the gun and dropping the ammunition to the floor. Sherlock and John bounded into the apartment to find Calvin bleeding from the shoulder and a man bleeding on her floor.
"Oh my God are you okay?" John asked instantly, rushing to her side to inspect the wound that was currently soaking the shoulder of her grey hoodie with red. Sherlock went to the man on the floor, pulling his hands away from his bruised and bloodied face to inspect him.
"I have a hole in my shoulder, John, not in my head." Calvin dismissed easily, though she grimaced as she adjusted her shoulder. John rolled his eyes at her.
"Take off your sweatshirt, let me see." he commanded, and Calvin sighed as he helped her pull the ruined material over her head. He was only momentarily stunned that she was in a mere bra and shorts, but soon shook his head and looked at the wound.
"Okay you need to go to a hospital." John told her, taking the sweatshirt and pressing it into the wound to help staunch the bleeding. "Sherlock, are you coming?"
"No." Sherlock told him, texting someone on his phone. "Lestrade will be here soon."
"I know the connection, Sherlock." Calvin called as John forced her down the hall. Sherlock's head popped up and he immediately strode after them.
"What is it?" he demanded, putting a hand up to hail them a cab.
"We were all on the same tube at the same time." Calvin answered simply as she was put into the cab with John. Sherlock got in after them, finding this information more important than whatever he had been doing beforehand.
"So?"
"So, we all saw something that we shouldn't have." Calvin continued, hissing in displeasure as John adjusted the material on her shoulder.
"And that is?"
Calvin grinned at Sherlock. "I don't know." she admitted. "All I know is that the ass in my flat that tried to kill me with a cheap gun - insulting, really - was on the tube with me that night, along with six or seven others in the same outfit. The teachers were all in the same car as we were, they were headed for work that morning. It was early, so there weren't that many other people. Only a few business women and one or two college students."
"When was this?" Sherlock demanded, thrilled that there was a lead now.
Calvin thought for a moment. "A month ago, maybe?" Sherlock nodded, then yelled for the cabbie to pull over. He lept out of the cab and went galavanting down the street. He obviously thought of something that he wasn't sharing with the other two.
They all stared after him before Watson looked back at the befuddled cabbie. "Well, get a move on! There is a bleeding girl in your cab, idiot!" he yelled, shutting the door as the cab pealed away from the curb.
By the time that they got to the hospital, the bleeding had slowed significantly, but it still hurt a lot. Calvin insisted on walking on her own into the ER, however. John jumped to the front and told the desk that he had someone who had been shot. Two nurses almost immediately appeared to aid Calvin.
"John, come with me!" Calvin called as she was put into a wheelchair against her will and wheeled down the hallway.
"Wait, sir!" the lady at the front desk called. "I need the name. For the computer."
"Uh, Calvin Baker...?" John said, unable to answer completely truthfully. He didn't know her true first name.
"The woman's name, sir."
"That is her name!" John snapped, looking down the hallway as Calvin got further and further away. "Or... that's what she's called. I don't her 'real' first name... exactly." The woman looked at him skeptically and he shrugged and raced down the hallway after her. They put her into an operating room.
"I'm not in shock." John heard Calvin exclaim, exasperated at the thought. He couldn't help but smile, she sounded a lot like Sherlock did. "Oh good, John's here. Would you please explain to them that I am not in shock?"
John glanced at the nurses fawning over Calvin. "She's not in shock. She just needs the bullet taken out and the wound stitched." he explained. One of the two nurses went off to find a doctor to do the procedure. Calvin was holding a large bandage to her shoulder with her good arm.
The remaining nurse was sitting at the computer and was typing in profile information on Calvin. "I need your name, age, weight, height, and blood type." she told Calvin.
Calvin said all the needed information in a flurry. "And my name is... Calvin Baker." she said nonchalently, hoping that the nurse didn't question it.
"Is that the name on your birth certificate, miss?"
Calvin looked down, not wanting to answer. She glanced at John, then back at the nurse. She mumbled her name.
"Excuse me?"
Calvin huffed, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. "Diana. Baker." she ground out, ashamed. The nurse was satisfied, typing in a few more profile things into the computer before standing up.
"The doctor will be right in." the nurse said, striding out. Calvin huffed again, lifting her bandages slightly and checking the bleeding and trying to ignore the fact that John now knew her real name. Sherlock knew it already, of course, but he didn't care. She hoped that John would just... forget what he heard.
"John, what time is it?" she asked suddenly. He pulled out his phone and checked it.
"Almost eleven."
Calvin frowned. "Do me a favor and call the university. I don't think I'll be able to be there today... having a bullet lodged in my shoulder and all." she told him, then reciting the number for him slowly from memory.
OoOoOoOoOo
After another hour of the doctor dislodging the bullet in Calvin's shoulder, she was free to go. John had called her university and the class was cancelled. She assured them that she'd be there the next day for her class, however, though John advised against it.
"You need to rest for a day or two," he insisted, Calvin rolling her eyes. "You lost a lot of blood and you could be traumatized."
Calvin laughed as the two got into a cab to head back to the flat. "Me? Traumatized? Please." she said, shaking her head. "I like playing mind games with Sherlock Holmes, a man several hundred times more intelligent than I am. It takes a lot more than getting shot to traumatize me."
John couldn't help but chuckle. "I do want you to stay in the flat tonight, though. Actually, I want you to stay until we solve the case. The only reason that you're alive might be because you were with us this morning, not in your bed asleep... alone."
"Sherlock won't be happy." Calvin reminded him, stepping out of the cab as they arrived at 221B. "He doesn't like me."
"Sherlock doesn't anybody." John told her easily, holding the door for her as they entered the complex.
Calvin raised an eyebrow at him. "He likes you." she said slyly, obviously insinuating that there was more to the relationship between the doctor and the detective.
"I'm not gay, for Christ's sake!" John exclaimed, exasperated. Calvin giggled, heading for her apartment. "Where are you going?"
"To get some of my things to bring upstairs, is that alright with you?" Calvin teased, opening the door.
"What if another of those... guys are in there? Let me come with you." John insisted, stepping towards the dark haired woman. She shook her head, amused.
"I'll be fine. I broke the last guy's nose." she reminded him, winking at him as she disappeared into the darkness of her flat, flicking on the kitchen light.
"Yeah I saw that." John mumbled, leaning against the frame of the stairs. "How did you do that? Training? Military? Martial arts?"
Calvin came back out with an armfull of her belonging, unable to carry anything with her hurt shoulder. John grabbed most of it out of her hands and headed up the stairs. She started to protest, but it caught in her throat. There was no point.
She laughed sheepishly at his question. "Uh, no. Not exactly..." she said, following him up the stairs. He glanced at her questioningly. "I saw it in a movie, decided to try it out."
John laughed outright, setting her things on the table and couch. "I'm impressed." he said, collapsing on the armchair as Calvin sat on the couch. "So... your name is Di-"
"No." Calvin interrupted him, narrowing her eyes. She looked away and pulled out her laptop and began to type out an apology email to her students and to her administration. John accepted the refusal to elaborate on her name, and picked up the newspaper that he hadn't had time to read earlier that morning.
OoOoOoOo
Ugh kind of a sucky chapter. But you find out her name! YAY! NEXT chapter the case WILL be solved and we'll be closer to SENOR MORIARTY. WHOOOOO. You have no idea how much I loovee him.
Also, a very interesting scene will happen. I won't elaborate on what interesting in this case means, however. No romance, of course. That's going to be pretty slow-going because... I mean... It's Sherlock. But it will EVENTUALLY happen. Eventually. That means not soon. I hope you don't hate me for that but guess what? Sherlock doesn't really do relationships. Neither does Calvin.
OKAY I NEED TO GO WRITE OTHER THINGS AND GO ON TUMBLR.
Thank you SOOOOO much for your continued support! That means reviews, favorites, and alerts! You guys flatter me so much. I'm nawt that great. I'd like to send an extra-special shout-out to KittyNyan2012 because her review left me with the warm fuzzies. Hehe!
OTAY. Don't forget to review and let me know how I'm doing anddddddd have a fabulous night! Love ya'lls!
Jess