A/N: Hi. Sorry I'm late (what an understatement). Slightly different chapter for I had to set the plot's drive. Still playing with Octie, the octopus.


5ft.

Sherlock wouldn't say it straight to me. His green eyes were sombre and streaked with worry, caution, even guilt, in ways I would have never wished on the brilliant man that is my best friend. He just couldn't put it to words. As if in doing so he was sealing an ill fate over me. And he couldn't bear that. He felt responsible, somehow.

Yet, in unspoken loyalty, he could not leave me without knowing. And, as often is the case with Sherlock, it was a matter of keeping my eyes open to the little gifted easy deductions and observations left out for me to find. Sherlock often plants them about.

I get this sense that I only grasp a small portion of his little hints, that he man who society views as enigmatic and cunning is so often open and extroverted, he just has a different language from all of us. He won't speak overtly of his feelings, he despises his vulnerability, but lets his actions betray him near me. He refuses to tell me how his day has been, but indulges me with sufficient clues left about in 221B (in his mind he does, at least) for me deduce it. He won't talk about feelings but let's his actions speak volumes about his preoccupation over this army veteran.

Sherlock has not told me a thing about his findings over the octopus' attack on me.

He has not kept me from any of his findings and deductions either.

The first clue Sherlock left me was the microscope. He knows I'm a man of science too. I came round his room to check up on him, but he just wasn't there. Only the set up microscope. As I leaned over the objective I was sure nothing new could be found at the bottom of the lenses. I was wrong. Very wrong.

Iridescent, translucent animal cells smeared on a glass slide, tucked under a thin glass cover. I adjust the magnification, bringing the image into sharper focus. There is a plain but deep eerie beauty to their multifaceted hues. So alien, so intangible.

Octie might have acted unexplainably as a fierce adversary, but there is something about this magical, impossible creature that keeps luring me in. As if it held all the secrets of the universe in itself. As if she were a cryptic expression of an evolved life form warning mankind to carefully select and edit its path.

I remove Sherlock's unmarked slide from the microscope – unlabelled as the genius wasn't bothered, or anonymous as a careful measure to keep our favourite eight limbed criminal unknown to others? – and find the next slide. Oh, grim. This one's marked carefully: JHW.

I don't remember giving my mad friend a sample for him to study.

Scrap that; multiple samples. Several on the table.

There are at least half a dozen JHW microscope slides. A little bit obsessive, no? That's Sherlock alright...

I adjust the focus and pierce down the eye piece in the absence of my mad friend. Just some skin swab, nothing painful on harvest.

Well, then.

The great detective has got unscrupulous scientific habits, he really must be off his game if he's done a basic mistake like this. Iridescence. There's contamination on this sample.

Smirking at how annoyingly easy it us to throw the greatest mind of our time into a tailspin – i.e. every time I get hurt on a case – I grab the next sample. This one's marked; saliva. Was I drooling in my sleep? Never mind. Sherlock will be Sherlock. The ground rule is No Pain Involved, and that was respected.

I slide on the microscope with practised ease.

Ugh, contaminated too. Was Sherlock doing this on purpose? Was he rubbing samples together in the hopes on learning something catastrophically new?

I toss the slide aside, it clicks against the table's wooden surface. I grab the next sample a prolific, overprotective genius had to collect as a pacifying ritual.

This one says blood sample. Good grief. Sherlock's a ruddy vampire.

I gaze at the slide with suspicion. It really seems untampered with. I decide to trust it, in the conspicuous absence of the detective. Mount the slide on the microscope...

It's lit up more than a Christmas tree, reflecting and expanding the light from the microscope. Iridescent. Healthy blood cells mingled with slick colourful hues.

Right. I'm turning into a mermaid.

Merman, my distracted mind supplies.

What the hell is bloody going on here?

.

I received Sherlock's first text not even twenty minutes ago.

Your services are required. Morgue. -SH

I'm terribly sorry. I'm a bit busy. Freaking out because my blood is a multicoloured teenager's dream right now.

I've bit my lip and smeared a red, harmless looking sample on a free slide. Place it on the stage and look down on it.

Okay. My blood cells never looked like that before. Or anyone else's.

Maybe it's not that bad.

Okay, it is.

Procedural error. Something's wrong with the microscope.

Empty slide. Clean. See through. Nothing special.

My lip is bruising. Never mind. Try the slide again.

I'm a freaking mermaid.

It's true. My blood has changed.

A cold clammy fear washes over me, and I don't believe it's the manifestation of sea life in me just yet.

With trembling hands I pick up my phone.

Hands, not gills. Calm down.

John, you are inexcusably late. -SH

The inspector is here already. -SH

If we end up barred from this morgue I'm holding you responsible, not my actions. -SH

John, I will not be ignored like this! -SH

Please answer me. -SH

Please talk to me. -SH

You've seen the samples, I presume.

Let's talk, John. -SH

I nod to myself, take up the phone to my ear and wait with held breath as I hear the calling monotone rhythm on the line.

.

It's a cold, austere building, ringing of governmental regulations and the unhurried lifestyle of those associated with small towns and death. A sobering combination that a fat, old aged pathologist with a chronic cough and a smoking addiction veering on emphysema oversees with pragmatic detachment.

As I arrive, the local inspector is staring on with shock and revulsion barely concealed in his features. Greg is displaying his best "nothing to see here, move along" tight smile, also surveying the frantic consultant's activity. Sherlock is the epicentre of their attention. A mayhem flurry of investigative activity, manhandling the dead body on the cold slab to view him from all angles.

'Ah, John! At last!' he projects his warm voice as soon as I make my appearance but remains stoically engaged in research without even glancing my way.

It's Greg who comes over, with a worried fatherly glance over on me.

Do I detect a bit if tension in Sherlock's tight pale features before Greg pats me in the back and reels me in with a customary familiarity?

I see Sherlock's gloved fingers, nimbly studying tension and consistency, relax somewhat; but he still reminds me of a bird of prey, pecking and piercing his prize.

Sherlock's mind is in overdrive, determined as he is to solve this mystery of Octie's methods and goals. Determined to put me right.

I don't know what is going on, but don't expect to turn into a were-octopus every full moon either.

'John.'

I glance at the detective again. He's all sharp contrasts of pale face, gaunt lines and sharp cheekbones, looming over the corpse.

'Yes, Sherlock?'

'Do call ahead to the client awaiting us somewhere. I've found a better case, one I fully intend to solve before long.'

You're my case now, John, and I'm solving this.

.

TBC