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Language:
English
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Published:
2020-03-06
Updated:
2020-07-03
Words:
21,694
Chapters:
9/?
Comments:
9
Kudos:
17
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607

The Mysterious and Baffling Case of the Girl

Summary:

She walked in and out of 221 B Baker Street in under five minutes. But it would take Sherlock far longer to solve her case. She may even solve it for him. See trailer on Youtube, entitled "The Girl a BBC Sherlock fanfiction"

Chapter 1: The Girl

Chapter Text

The Mysterious Case of The Girl

Sherlock was bored. Which meant he was bothering the hell out of me as I tried to concentrate on writing up the story of our latest case: The Actual Horse of a Different Colour. I sat there, typing furiously while he made a great deal of noise in the kitchen. I knew that I had very little time before Mrs. Hudson stormed up those stairs and scolded us both for the noise, so I kept my head down and stayed where I was rather than give Sherlock a piece of my mind. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. I had given him a piece of my mind of several occasions and he always threw it back in my face.

“Oh. Oh this is completely brilliant! John, come have a look!” Sherlock shouted to me. I debated ignoring him, then decided that would only cause him to come to my desk and read over my shoulder—which I absolutely despised.

So instead, I replied with as much patience as I could muster. “What have you done now? I swear I’m not cleaning up your messes anymore. You do know I don’t live here, anymore, right?”

“Oh don’t be difficult. Just come have a look.” Sherlock actually laughed. I wondered briefly if I had recently checked his hiding places. He had seemed perfectly sober when I had first entered 221B Baker Street earlier that morning. And he had sworn that he’d been clean for quite some time. Still, I knew better than to trust his word when he didn’t have the distraction of a case. Reluctantly, I stood and walked to the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. I saw before me my dear friend, Sherlock Holmes, grin manically at a three-foot tall purple flame blazing on the stove.

“Jesus! Sherlock!” I shouted, rushing to smother the flame. However, he grabbed my arm before I could reach a towel.

“But don’t you see?! This means I was correct to assume that the substance we lick on envelopes is in fact composed almost entirely of potassium!”

“What does that matter?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I just shook off his grip and grabbed the nearest towel to put out the flame, which was getting dangerously close to the wooden cabinets just above the stove. Completely unfazed that his flat nearly went up in flames, Sherlock just looked at me quizzically.

“Well of course it doesn’t matter. What matters is I was right.”

“Yes of course… why didn’t I guess….” I muttered sarcastically.

“You seem angry with me.” It wasn’t a question; as always, he was just observing.

“Frustrated, Sherlock. The word is frustrated.” And the more he stared at me, the more frustrated I became. “How did you even get the flames up that high? If you wanted to test something, couldn’t you have… I don’t know! Done something a little less pyrotechnic?”

“Well I did.” He said simply, “But once the liquidized glue from the envelopes caught the flame, it grew much more quickly than I had anticipated.” He looked so impressed with himself. “Didn’t I tell you it was brilliant?”

“Sherlock, I’m not a fan of the idea of you doing meaningless experiments like this when you seem to have absolutely no perception of your surroundings!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I have excellent perception of my surroundings! It’s part of what I do!”

“I don’t want to hear it!” I shouted. “I know what you do—I don’t care. You need to be more careful.”

“It could be worse.” He said shrugging, completely unaffected by my tone. He started out of the room. “I could be shooting up.”

“Sherlock, that’s not funny.” I warned.

“Oh please, John. Don’t get excited. I haven’t used anything since yesterday morning--.”

“Wait—Yesterday morning? Sherlock, when I came here this morning, you told me you had been clean for weeks!”

“Well, obviously, I was lying.” Perhaps it was because I was tired from the late night with Mary and the new baby; or perhaps I was ready for a reason to yell at him… but I started seeing red.

“Sherlock, are you serious? You can’t just lie about that! You swore, to me and Mycroft, you swore you’d tell us!” 

“You can stop your yelling. Molly already scolded me last night.”

“You told Molly the truth, but you lied to me—to my face.”

“Yes. Why?”

“You selfish bastard—!”

Suddenly there was a timid knock at the door. Mrs. Hudson stood in the doorway.

“Now really, boys! We have neighbors! And it breaks an old woman’s heart to see you two fighting like this.”

We were both silent. We muttered apologies, but didn’t look at each other.

“In any case, you have a client.” Mrs. Hudson stepped to the side to reveal a girl with startlingly blue eyes and curly black hair pulled up into a messy ponytail. She wore an overlarge emerald green sweater, with the collar of a white button down shirt sticking out. Her dark jeans were simple and straight and were met with a pair of black combat boots at her feet. I thought for a moment that I recognized her face, but I knew I had never seen her in my life. She couldn’t be more than 16 years old.

I pulled up a chair for her as Mrs. Hudson left us to our business. As I sat in my usual chair and Sherlock in his, I noticed she was staring quite intently at Sherlock. He, however, gave her a quick glance, and then made a face that I knew meant he wasn’t interested in taking her case. He grabbed the news paper from the table and began reading, his face completely covered by the paper. I didn’t care if Sherlock wasn’t interested; I knew the only way to be sure he wouldn’t do anymore dangerous, meaningless experiments or go off and get high was to get him a case to solve. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was silently praying that this girl was here to tell us of a murder. However she didn’t. In fact, she didn’t say anything. She just continued to stare at Sherlock.

“So…erm… How can we help you?” I asked, trying to get her attention.

Without even glancing in my direction, she asked quietly, “Are you Sherlock Holmes?”.

“No.” Sherlock said as I said, “Yes.”

The girl looked over at me, confused.

“Well, I mean, yes he is.” I explained.

She smiled at me and stared at me for a moment before rising to her feet. “Thank you,” she said, “you’ve been very helpful.” Then she strode from the room confidently.

“What was that?” I asked Sherlock, staring after the girl.

He turned the page of his paper and replied, “Boring.”