"What?"

The words left John's mouth before he could do anything about it. He really didn't want to know how many times he' d asked that question since Carrie. However, Sherlock didn't really give him a choice either, as his moods were as changeable as the weather in Central Europe, so John was now frowning in confusion. Normally, Sherlock was sufficient to interview clients, and in the last few days he hadn't shown much interest in Carrie - at least not in her presence. That seemed to have changed abruptly now, though, as he jumped up out of his chair with a sudden burst of energy.

"Carrie's coming over," he repeated, and an illuminating smile was on his face as he whirled around and took large steps towards the kitchen. "That I hadn't thought of that before..."

He grabbed a rather shabby looking mobile phone, which was lying on the kitchen table, to switch it on and type in something. All the scratches on the sides were visible even from John's distance.

"Hey!" he shouted indignantly, roused from his stupor, and hurriedly set about rushing after Sherlock to snatch the phone from his hand. "That's my mobile phone!"

Sherlock didn't even dignify his reproachful look with a glance, just rolled his eyes and lowered his arms.

"Really, John?" His voice dripped with feigned amazement. "I'm impressed. Your powers of observation are even more mature than I thought."

John almost grimaced at him, but he wasn't about to give Sherlock that satisfaction.

"You can't just take it!" he said instead, almost laughing out loud when something else struck him. "Besides, I only changed the PIN yesterday! How the hell did you know it? Were you looking over my shoulder?!"

With a snide sideways glance, Sherlock turned away and pushed past John to stroll calmly back into the living room.

"Of course I can just take it," he replied simply, without turning around. "If you don't want it, don't just leave it anywhere either. And what do you think I want to do? Look at the same women as on your laptop? No, thank you. Not interested."

He bent back over the cluttered tabletop of his desk and picked up a pen to scribble something on one of the countless papers.

John puffed out his cheeks exasperatedly, but just as he was about to speak, he was interrupted by a loud exclamation.

"Daddy!" said Rosie, more emphatically this time, and with one look John could see that it didn't take much to start a several-hour escapade of hankies.

"Just a minute, love. Be right there," he said, forcing a smile onto his face before turning back to Sherlock, who was still scribbling something on paper with emphatic indifference. The euphoria of a moment ago seemed to have faded.

"I'm not looking at women on my laptop, you idiot!" John now defended himself and resolutely slid the mobile phone into his pocket.

When Sherlock didn't reply, he narrowed his eyes. If he thought that answer was enough for him, he was sorely mistaken.

"How do you know about my password?" he repeated his question. "Or should I say passwords? Apparently you've been at my laptop too."

When Sherlock removed his gaze from the mess to turn it to John, there was an almost...gentle expression in his eyes. He thought he heard something like a sigh of compassion pass his lips as he put down his pen and tilted his head in a way as if he wanted to teach Rosie a lesson.

"John, of course I know your passwords. I'm Sherlock Holmes."

Jesus bloody Christ.

John almost gave in to the impulse and pinched the bridge of his nose. If there was such a thing as a prize for testing his patience, he would have awarded him Sherlock now. With a high-five. With a chair. But there was no prize and he didn't feel like lugging the chair to the other end of the room. Moreover, he really shouldn't let himself be provoked by Sherlock's moods like that any more - they were almost an everyday occurrence. And there were more important things. Much more important things. Passwords could wait. After all, it wasn't the first time Sherlock had tampered with them. But it still took a few seconds for his tense jaw to loosen at least a little and for him to trust himself again enough that his voice didn't sound like it had just come out of a press machine.

"You wanted to call Carrie," he said, clearing his throat. "You have her number?"

Sherlock lowered his eyes to the paper in front of him again and took a moment with his answer.

"I thought you wanted to discuss-"

"Oh, shut up and answer what you're asked for once," John cut him off, not bothering to keep his voice under control this time. "Do you have her number or not?"

He thought he saw the corners of Sherlock's mouth twitch, but he couldn't really see it as the brief moment passed with Sherlock shaking his head.

John sighed.

"Of course not," he muttered as he dug his phone back out of his pocket and began searching for Carrie's number. Not particularly difficult - because of her daily calls, she was the most frequently contacted contact in his contact list. He clicked on the number that had last called him only yesterday and put the call on speaker. After just three rings, Carrie picked up and her voice, all too familiar to John by now, rang out.

"Hello?"

"Hey," John greeted her, trying not to sound too bad-tempered. It wasn't her fault that Sherlock acted like an annoying whirlwind some days.

"It's John. We uh..." he searched for the right words for a moment, "We found something out. Well, Sherlock has, but we're not getting anywhere. So would you mind coming over for a minute and we'll ask you a few questions?"

Although John didn't see Carrie, he could picture exactly the surprised expression on her face, which also resounded in her answer.

"Uh, yeah sure." She swallowed. "Did something happen?"

"Yes and no. Best you just come and Sherlock will explain it to you himself. When can you make it?"

"In..." she hesitated for a moment, "about ten minutes?"

"Perfect. Catch you soon."

"Bye."

He hung up and switched off the phone, sliding it back into his pocket.

"She'll be there in ten minutes," he informed, even though Sherlock had heard the conversation himself.

"Maybe sometime it would be quite useful if you saved the number of our clients as well, then next time you could just do it..."

John fell silent as he lifted his gaze and looked into the middle of a face that looked as if a UFO had just landed right behind him.

"What?" he asked, when after a few seconds Sherlock still made no move to say anything, but just continued to stare at him with his mouth slightly open. Did he have something stuck to his face?

"Are you serious?" asked Sherlock. There was the exact same incredulity in his voice that was written on his face.

John frowned.

"About what?"

"About Carrie!"

He straightened up so jerkily that his dark red dressing gown flew into the air, rustling the sheets.

"That I should explain to her what happened. We said we'd only ask her questions!"

"You said that," John corrected him, almost laughing as he slowly understood what seemed to be the reason for Sherlock's bewilderment.

"And what's the problem if you explain it to her? It can only be the short version, after all. She has the right to know where we're at. You figured it out, so you're the best person to explain it."

"But not to someone like her! My explanation is too good and all I'll get for it's another bunch of what's and how's."

Sherlock ran a hand through his shock of dark hair and shook his head, looking disgusted. John raised his eyebrows.

"Oh come on, don't tell me you don't like it."

Sherlock's gaze shot back to John and the reluctant expression gave way to a suspicious frown.

"That I don't like what?" he asked back.

"You know what I mean. The admiration."

"Oh, please."

With a dismissive wave, Sherlock averted his gaze and stalked over to his armchair to flop down. As he did so, he had a look of such disdain on his face that John would almost have believed his answer had he not known him so well and therefore known quite clearly that pretty much the opposite was true.

"Admiration from idiots is not what I need. I know my powers of observation are amazing."

John snorted. Sherlock's ego was sometimes higher than Mount Everest - though not entirely unfounded. But he didn't need to know that.

"I admired you at first, too," he said instead. "How bad for you. And now you're living with an idiot. I wonder what that says about you."

"That's right, how bad for me," Sherlock replied, not answering his last question. "But the difference is that all the other idiots are acting idiotic too. You are also an idiot, but you behave quite cleverly, relatively speaking. Except for judging moustaches, perhaps."

Unwillingly, John had to grin as he shook his head and then also went into the living room to sit down next to Rosie, who was already tapping impatiently on the floor with one of the tokens. At least she hadn't started crying.

"Hey," he said after sitting down next to her and taking the stone from her hand. "It's putting scratches in the floor."

Rosie just looked at him silently for a moment and then grabbed the next brick to continue tapping away at the floor with it. A half-started tower stood beside her, probably waiting for John to continue building it. He sighed and didn't bother to take the token from her hand again. There was a yellow smiley face and pistol shots on the wall, so a few scratches in the floor didn't matter now. Instead he reached over her for a building block and placed it on the building he had started, which elicited a smile from Rosie and she placed the block in her hand on top of Johns. John turned back to her and smiled too.

"So," he said. "What shall we build?"

But before Rosie could answer, a shrill noise broke the silence in the flat, causing all three of them to look towards the door. Faster than John could react, Sherlock was up and walking towards the door.

"I think a concept of how we explain her what happened would be quite good," he answered John's question as he rushed past them. Rosie looked after him questioningly.

"Who's that?" she asked then, turning her gaze back to John. Just as he was about to reply, the door could be heard opening and Sherlock took over answering for him.

"Carrie."