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Hours after his short-lived exile, Sherlock Holmes is now back in 221B, sitting on his trusty old Le Corbusier and plucking his Stradivarius mindlessly. The whole ruse with that ominous thing on the telly all over England has finally subsided into a calmer atmosphere (albeit not without the underlying terror).
The Watsons, bless their souls, have agreed to give Sherlock some time alone to mull over their whole situation on the pretense of helping Mrs. Hudson cook something for supper. It was some time after the clanging of pans filled 221A that Sherlock heard a sound… a faint creak coming from the door further back, from the door beside the adjoining bathroom. The creaking noise was then followed by the sound of footsteps, the rhythm of it too unpredictable to be John’s… too light to be Mary’s. He tried to close his eyes for a second to further focus his senses to the sound—this is no burglar, he mused mentally, what kind of burglar would go and ambush a flat with its occupants still around? Homeless Network, perhaps… but I had explicitly ordered them never to contact me directly from here. Anthea? Why would she enter from the back when she could so easily enter from the door—
“How was the Eastern Europe? I thought you would’ve at least gotten a tan… who knows? It might suit you.”
Of course. It only took him a split second to recognize the owner of the voice. He’d recognize it anywhere. Blinking his eyes open, he continued plucking random notes on his violin. A few more seconds of mindless plucking commenced until the notes were slowly altered into a much more familiar symphony.
“Hmm. Haven’t had the pleasure. I’ve only been gone 12 minutes and 33 seconds… hardly enough time to get a proper tan”, he replied.
His retort earned a smirk from the Woman who was now quite comfortably sitting in John’s chair, cradling his Union Jack Pillow and wearing nothing but his second-best dressing gown. “So, where does that leave you now, then? Moriarty couldn’t possibly go back from the grave—he blew his own brains out, like you said.”
“Whoever is behind that video is without a doubt a force to be reckoned with. I already have a handful of suspects on my mind right now but I’m still gathering more data and waiting for his—her or their next move to narrow it down.”
The Woman takes leave of her seat and slowly took in the living room’s interior. With her back to him, she replies, “That leaves us plenty more time to celebrate you not being in exile, then. What do you say, Mr. Holmes?”
She takes the few steps towards his seat to lean into him and acquire a position reminiscent of the time before the Coventry conundrum, where he took her pulse and she quite ardently gazed at him like it’s the end of the world. With a voice barely above a whisper, she added, “Will you play for me?”
“Certainly”, he replied with a teasing smile. He then grabbed the bow of his violin lying unattended beneath his seat and started playing the first few notes of a composition so dear to him when—
Cherchez la femme. Cherchez la femme. Cherchez la femme.
The haunting voice of his brother knocked him into consciousness. He quickly scanned his surroundings—the carpet bore no other impressions aside from his footprints when he moved to his chair and the faint chatter coming from below Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen is still annoyingly audible from where he is seated.
No sign of the Woman. He felt a slight pang of sadness at the realization.
Moments later, his phone pinged with a notification. Still a bit jittery from everything that has unfolded that day, he quickly grabbed his phone from the mantelpiece without finesse. He opened his phone and was faced with an incoming message. A message bearing coordinates and a teasing invitation for dinner—and more.