Bright light flooded through the gap between the dark curtains on John's face. An irregular murmur could be heard and muffled sounds came through the half-open window to his ears.

He yawned, stretched and rubbed his face as he slowly opened his eyes.

Bright light blinded him and he squeezed his eyes together.

Sunshine in London in mid-October?

John stretched his tense muscles and then slammed the blanket aside to sit up.

Despite the sun it was quite cool in the room and John shivered briefly as his feet touched the cool laminate and quickly slipped into a pair of thick socks.
They were the ones Ms Hudson had given him for Christmas last year - they were embroidered with little hearts.

He shuffled to the door and as soon as he stepped into the floor he heard Sherlock's voice.

"Rosie, if you want to keep the rattle, don't throw the rattle away, OK?"

A moment later there was a dull thump and then a frustrated moan.

John entered the living room.

Sherlock sat in his lap with the rattle on his lap, looking frustrated in his armchair and Rosie in front of him, busy with her dolls again.

He had to grin involuntarily.

Sherlock had been trying to teach her to rattle for two years. Unsuccessfully.
When Sherlock raised his eyes and saw John's face, he rolled his eyes and threw the rattle to the floor.

"Don't smile at me like that," he murmured.

"You're making me sick."

Lovely.

John turned away, still amused, to make his morning coffee.

While waiting for it, he walked over to Rosie and ran his fingers through her hair before sitting down in his chair as well.

The room was as bright as his and you could see the individual particles of dust dancing.
The light broke at the window and made Rosie's hair look like liquid honey.
Sherlock had the laptop on his lap and seemed already completely engrossed in his work.
John had a strong hunch which one it was.

"Still nothing found?" he asked after a few seconds of silence and Sherlock shook his head absently.

He sighed.

No interesting enough case had caught his attention for weeks and so the two of them sat here now, bored to death. At least Sherlock. Literally. He was even more insufferable in the last weeks than usual. John wasn't quite as disgusted by the free time - but Sherlock's moods were.

And unfortunately the rent didn't pay for itself.

"And yet you'd think there'd be enough crime in the capital of England."

The coffee machine beeped and John got up to get his cup.

When the hot liquid touched his lips, he decided to give his best friend a hand and stood behind him. Actually, John had set clear rules - nothing about any cases or clients over the weekend. But Sherlock - surprisingly - didn't stick to them any more than he stuck to a regular mealtime.

His tart, fresh scent struck him.

"What about that?" John now asked, pointing to the screen.

Since he and Sherlock had become known in England as the brilliant duo, the two of them had their own e-mail inbox.
Of course, clients came to them as well - but since then many of them have often written an e-mail first, probably out of comfort.

And neither one nor the other has been able to make Sherlock's brain work sufficiently lately.

Only yesterday, Sherlock explained to a 50-year-old woman, annoyed, that her brother had not disappeared, but had simply lost the desire to visit him all the time and had therefore moved to Scotland before he threw her out of her flat on her head. And that hadn't been the only case.

But now the constant scrolling stopped and Sherlock paused to read the mail.

Dear Mr Holmes and Dr Watson,
A few days ago I noticed something very strange - I know you don't believe in such things, but I think the ghost of my dead husband has returned.
It started out like this...

WHOOSH!

"Hey!" John complained and looked at him reproachfully.

This didn't sound very convincing but he strongly suspected that Sherlock had done something like this not only with this mail.

Sherlock ignored him.
John narrowed his eyes.

"If you want to make even the slightest progress in your research within the next few hours," he hissed.
"...then maybe you should use your eyes and your brain instead of just your hands."

"This case, John, is for psychiatry, not for me," he replied with a quick sideways glance and continued scrolling.

"And I've used my eyes and my brain more than the whole street has ever used in her life."

He closed the laptop and stood up abruptly before turning to John and smiling cynically at him.

"If someone's going to lie to me, then please be a little smarter. My intelligence feels fooled."

Then he turned away and walked into the kitchen.
Probably to cut open some frozen brains.
Maybe John should throw the entire laptop after him.

"Moron," he murmured and let himself fall onto her blanket next to Rosie, shaking his head.

She didn't seem to notice any of the trouble and continued to play calmly with her dolls.
Her curls swayed up and down while she told some exciting story in her fantasy language.

John sighed.

At least, Rosie had her case. Sort of.