To: A Nonny Mouse

Hello! First off, if you'd rather not read my explanation for a few choice characteristics of Anna Watson, please continue onto the new chapter and enjoy! Sorry if this bothers anyone.

Anyway, Mouse - I would have appreciated it if you had signed in so I could really reply to your review! But you seemed very upset in your review, so I thought that I'd post my response as an author's note here on a new chapter. You said you wouldn't be reading my story anymore, but I do hope that you come back so you can see this. First of all, thank you for complimenting my story. I've worked hard to come up with it. That being said, I really wanted to make my Watson my own. It wasn't as simple as slapping a pair of breasts on John Watson and calling it a done deal. There were complexities that I wanted to highlight that a female Watson would have dealt with. Yes, in my story, Anna Watson is currently a nurse and not a doctor. Why? For personal reasons entirely her own. It has nothing at all to do with sexism. I've known plenty of male nurses and female doctors who were fantastic at their jobs. I fully support gender equal professions.

Anna Watson in my story isn't going to be exactly like John Watson. She is her own character - she's not a mirror image of John with breasts and long hair. She has her own unique past that is almost entirely different from John's. I will not be making everything in this story entirely like the John from the TV show. That's not how I picture Anna. My Anna is a person entirely new to Sherlock, who will share some of John's qualities, but will not be exactly like him because she's not him. I'm sorry if that offended you in some way, Nonny Mouse. I hope that you give this story a chance, but if you can't look past my character's profession, then I want to say thanks for giving my story a shot and have a good day.

Okay, enough of that! Onto the story. Thanks to anyone reading this and I hope you enjoy!

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

- William James

I turned back to Angelo. "Er, thank you. Thank you." I took the cane from him and came back in and closed the door just as Mrs Hudson came out of her flat and hurried over to us. She sounded upset and tearful as she spoke.

"Sherlock, what have you done?"

"Mrs. Hudson?" Sherlock asked, the barest, smallest hint of concern in his voice.

"Upstairs," the tearful woman said, raising a shaking hand to point up the stairs.

Sherlock turned and hurried up the stairs. After checking to make sure Mrs. Hudson would be all right, I followed him. Sherlock opened the living room door and went inside, where Lestrade was sitting casually in the armchair facing the door. Other police officers were going through Sherlock's possessions. Sherlock stormed over to Lestrade.

"What are you doing?" He exclaimed angrily.

Lestrade remained very calm. "Well, I knew you'd find the case. I'm not stupid."

"You can't just break into my flat," Sherlock said with a glare.

"And you can't withhold evidence," Lestrade retorted. "And I didn't break into your flat."

"Well, what do you call this then?" Sherlock asked, gesturing at all the officers going through his things.

Lestrade looked round at his officers before looking back to Sherlock innocently. "It's a drugs bust."

I scoffed. "Seriously?! This guy, a junkie?! Have you met him?!" That sounded ridiculous even to me. Sherlock turned and walked closer to me, biting his lip nervously. I didn't notice.

"Anna ..."

"I'm pretty sure you could search this flat all day, you wouldn't find anything you could call recreational."

"Anna, you probably want to shut up now."

I looked up at him, frowning. "Yeah, but come on ..." Sherlock held my gaze for a long moment and I suddenly realized how serious he looked. "No," I said warily.

"What?"

"You?"

"Shut up!" Sherlock hissed angrily. He turned to look at Lestrade angrily. "I'm not your sniffer dog."

"No, Anderson's my sniffer dog," Lestrade said, obviously enjoying himself. He nodded towards the kitchen

Sherlock frowned in confusion. "What, An..."

The closed doors to the kitchen slid open and revealed several more officers searching through the room. Anderson turns towards the living room and raised his hand in sarcastic greeting.

"Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?" Sherlock asked angrily.

"Oh, I volunteered," Anderson said venomously.

Sherlock turned away, biting his lip angrily. I looked up at him in concern. He looked like he was about to snap.

"They all did," Lestrade said casually. "They're not strictly speaking on the drugs squad, but they're very keen."

Sergeant Donovan came into view from the kitchen, holding a small glass jar with some white round objects in it. "Are these human eyes?" She asked in disgust.

"Put those back!" Sherlock yelped angrily.

"They were in the microwave!" Exclaimed Donovan.

"It's an experiment," Sherlock replied tersely.

"Keep looking, guys," Lestrade said easily. He stood up and turned to Sherlock. "Or you could help us properly and I'll stand them down."

Sherlock began to pace angrily. "This is childish."

"Well, I'm dealing with a child," Lestrade snipped. "Sherlock, this is our case. I'm letting you in, but you do not go off on your own. Clear?"

Sherlock stopped pacing and glared at him. "Oh, what, so-so-so you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?"

"It stops being pretend if they find anything."

Sherlock loudly exclaimed, "I am clean!"

"Is your flat? All of it?"

"I don't even smoke." He unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve and pulled it up to show the nicotine patch on his lower arm.

"Neither do I," Lestrade said almost challengingly as he pulled up the right sleeve of his own shirt to show a similar patch on his arm. Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned away as they both pulled their sleeves back down again, putting an end to their mine's-bigger-than-yours match.

"So let's work together," Lestrade offered. "We've found Rachel." That was totally bait.

I was right. Sherlock spun around, showing interest. "Who is she?"

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter," Lestrade said. I noticed a look of satisfaction in his eyes. He knew he was drawing Sherlock in with his one temptation.

Sherlock frowned. "Her daughter? Why would she write her daughter's name? Why?"

"Never mind that," Anderson called. "We found the case." He pointed to the pink case in the living room and I winced. "According to someone, the murderer has the case, and we found it in the hands of our favorite psychopath."

Sherlock looked at Anderson disparagingly. "I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research." He quickly turned back to Lestrade, ignoring Anderson's outraged look.

"You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her." Sherlock said quickly.

"She's dead," Lestrade said in disappointment.

"Excellent!" Sherlock cheered. I blinked, startled. "How, when and why? Is there a connection? There has to be." He was rambling again...

"Well, I doubt it, since she's been dead for fourteen years." Sherlock looked at him still, waiting. "Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson's stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago."

I grimaced sadly and turned away. Sherlock, on the other hand, just looked confused.

"No, that's... that's not right. How... Why would she do that? Why?"

"Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments?" Anderson asked rhetorically, as though it was obvious. "Yup – sociopath; I'm seeing it now."

Sherlock turned to him with an exasperated look on his face. "She didn't think about her daughter. She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have hurt." He began to pace back and forth across the room again.

"You said that the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it. Well, maybe he... I don't know, talks to them? Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow." I supplied helpfully.

Sherlock stopped and turned to look at me. "Yeah, but that was ages ago. Why would she still be upset?"

I stared at him. Sherlock hesitated as he realized that everyone in the flat had stopped what they were doing and had fallen silent. He glanced around the room and then looked awkwardly at me. "Not good?" He asked hesitantly.

I glanced around at the others before turning back to Sherlock and gave him a half-smile. "Bit not good, yeah."

Sherlock shook it off and stepped closer to me, looking at me intently. I felt my heart stutter again and winced.

"Yeah, but if you were dying... if you'd been murdered; in your very last few seconds what would you say?"

Suddenly flashes of memories blinked before my eyes. Blood, screams, and dirt streaked faces. Without even thinking about it, I thought back to those moments when I'd been shot and the fear that had coursed through my whole body and reach a hand up to rub at the circular scar at my collarbone. Then, a rapid flash of startling green eyes, wide and bloodshot. I winced, bile rising in my throat. "Please, let me live."

Sherlock looked at me in exasperation. "Oh, use your imagination!"

I stared up at him evenly. "I don't have to."

Sherlock seemed to recognize the look of pain on my face. He paused momentarily and blinked a couple of times, shifting his feet awkwardly. His fingers closed into fists once, twice, before he looked at me in what he must have thought was a sort of apologetic face. I decided to take what I could get and gave him a half-hearted smile.

Deciding that I was okay, Sherlock continued on. "Yeah, but if you were clever, really clever... Jennifer Wilson running all those lovers; she was clever." He started to pace across the floor again and I wasn't sure if he had just insulted me by not calling me clever. "She's trying to tell us something."

Mrs. Hudson came into the living, much calmer now that she knew that Sherlock was not being arrested. "Isn't the doorbell working? Your taxi's here, Sherlock."

Sherlock didn't even look at her before he responded. "I didn't order a taxi. Go away." I watched his feet walk, wondering if he would actually be able to wear a hole in the boards if he paced as often as he did.

"Oh, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, surveying the mayhem in the room, not even slightly put off by Sherlock's rudeness. "They're making such a mess. What are they looking for?"

"It's a drugs bust, Mrs Hudson," I told her.

Mrs. Hudson suddenly looked very anxious and nervous. "But they're just for my hip. They're herbal soothers."

Facing away from everyone, Sherlock suddenly exploded, bringing his hands up to claw at the air around his face. "Shut up, everybody, shut up! Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe. I'm trying to think." Taking a deep, calming breath, Sherlock continued. "Anderson, face the other way. You're putting me off."

"What?" Anderson yelped in outrage. "My face is?!"

"Everybody quiet and still," Lestrade ordered, his officers immediately setting everything down and standing still. "Anderson, turn your back."

"Oh, for God's sake..."

"Your back, now, please!"

Sherlock began to speak to himself again as Anderson turned his back and crossed his arms. "Come on, think. Quick!"

"What about your taxi?" Mrs. Hudson asked in concern.

Sherlock turned Mrs. Hudson suddenly and shouted furiously, "MRS. HUDSON!"

She jumped and hurried away down the stairs. I winced as I watched her go. I understood why Sherlock had been so upset, it had been rather loud in the room, but I still felt bad that Mrs. Hudson got the worst end of his anger. Sherlock stopped suddenly and looked around as he seemed to finally realize something.

"Oh," he whispered in understanding awe. He smiled in delight as he turned around. "Ah! She was clever, clever, yes!" He walked across the room and then turned to face all of us again. "She's cleverer than you lot and she's dead. Do you see, do you get it? She didn't lose her phone, she never lost it. She planted it on him." He started pacing again. "When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death. She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer."

"But how?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock stopped and stared at him. "Wha...? What do you mean, how?" He sounded annoyed that we didn't understand what he did.

Lestrade shrugged.

"Rachel!" Sherlock exclaims, as though that is all we need to know to fit the pieces together. We stared at him blankly.

"Don't you see? Rachel!" I thought about what he was saying and looked to where Sherlock kept glancing. It was at the case. What about it was special, though? Sherlock noticed me looking and surged towards me, looking at me intently. "You're getting it. You can see. Rachel!" As he waited for me to piece it together, he looked over my head at the others behind me. His face slipped into one of curiosity. "Oh, look at you lot. You're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing."

"It's not a name," I said in surprise. I looked up at Sherlock and he was smiling at me, almost proudly. He patted me on the head and walked around me. "Very good, Anna." I frowned after him.

"I'm not a dog," I grumbled, following him as I patted my hair down.

"Then what is it?" Lestrade asked sternly.

"Anna, on the luggage, there's a label. E-mail address."

I snatched up the case and read off the e-mail address. "Jennie dot pink at mephone dot org dot uk."

Sherlock sat down at the dining table and was starting up his laptop computer.

"Oh, I've been too slow," Sherlock admonished himself as I joined him at his shoulder. "She didn't have a laptop, which means she did her business on her phone, so it's a smartphone, it's e-mail enabled." He pulled up Mephone's website and typed the email address into the 'User name' box. "So there was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address ..." He began to type into the 'Password' box. " ... and all together now, the password is?"

"Rachel," I answered, staring as Sherlock typed in the words.

"So we can read her e-mails," Anderson asked, shrugging his shoulders with his arms crossed. "So what?"

"Anderson, don't talk out loud. You lower the I.Q. of the whole street." Anderson's face puffed up in agitation but Lestrade hushed him. I fought a smirk. "We can do much more than just read her e-mails. It's a smartphone, it's got GPS, which means if you lose it you can locate it online. She's leading us directly to the man who killed her."

"Unless he got rid of it," Lestrade said as though it would be an obvious thing to do.

"We know he didn't," I told him.

Sherlock looked at the screen impatiently, waiting for the screen to load. "Come on, come on. Quickly!"

Mrs. Hudson came up the stairs again and came to the door again. "Sherlock, dear. This taxi driver..."

Sherlock got to his feet and walked over towards her. "Mrs Hudson, isn't it time for your evening soother?"

Ignoring the two as they started to squabble, I sat down in the chair Sherlock left and watched the spinning clock. The website said it would be able to locate the phone in under three minutes. Behind me, I heard Sherlock start talking again. "We need to get vehicles, get a helicopter. We're gonna have to move fast. This phone battery won't last for ever.

"We'll just have a map reference, not a name."

"It's a start!"

A map suddenly appeared and was zooming in on the location of the phone. Slightly startled, I didn't take my eyes off the screen as I quietly called to Sherlock. "Sherlock..."

He didn't even hear me. "It narrows it down from just anyone in London. It's the first proper lead that we've had."

"Sherlock," I said, louder.

Sherlock hurried across the room to look over my shoulder. "What is it? Quickly, where?"

The map was indicating the precise location of the phone. I frowned, double checking the location at least four times. "It's here. It's in two two one Baker Street."

Sherlock straightened up. "How can it be here? How?"

"Well, maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it fell out somewhere," Lestrade said, unsure.

"What, and I didn't notice it? Me? I didn't notice?" Sherlock was getting frazzled by then.

"Anyway, we texted him and he responded," I told Lestrade. "He has the phone."

Ignoring my words, Lestrade turned to his men. "Guys, we're also looking for a mobile somewhere here, belonged to the victim..."

I frowned at the screen, unsure of how to piece it together. Sherlock was always telling me to look at the bigger picture. How was it that he could so an entire landmass when all I could see was a small village. His mind worked in a way unknown to me and everyone else around him. He must have been a truly unique person to have been able to just know all of this stuff. Yet he always looks so pleasantly surprised and even proud whenever I told him something he already knew without having to be given hints. I noticed that Sherlock wasn't talking anymore and turned to look at him.

He stood in the middle of the flat, staring at the door. I couldn't see around him. "Sherlock, are you all right?" I asked.

"What? Yeah, yeah, I-I'm fine," he said vaguely.

"So, how can the phone be here?" I asked, hoping he would tell me and stop looking so spacey. It was strange and disconcerting on his face somehow.

"Dunno," Sherlock said quietly.

I stood up to fish my phone out of my jean pocket. "I'll try it again."

"Good idea," Sherlock said softly, walking towards the door."

"Where are you going?" I asked, concerned as I looked through my recent dials, looking up at him occasionally.

"Fresh air. Just popping outside for a moment. Won't be long." He spoke in a far away voice. Even his walking seemed otherwise occupied.

I frowned after him. "Are you sure you're all right, Sherlock?"

Already halfway down the stairs, I barely heard him respond. "I'm fine."