"Yeah, you said that already."

"I swear to God, if you interrupt her one more time right now, I'm going to throw that bloody notebook at your head," John hissed at Sherlock, who almost looked like he was about to stick his tongue out at him.

He looked back at Carrie, who was looking at him uncertainly.

"Your best friend?" he inquired.

She nodded hesitantly.

"Yes. Juliet. We met at college. University of London, to be exact."

University of London. Not bad.

"Okay, uh...tell us about her."

There was a suppressed groan from Sherlock but John just ignored him.

"So...Juliet and I have known each other for about three years," Carrie began.

"We met at a party and she also happens to be studying English. She's a year older than me.
I'm not really a fan of parties, but...Well, Juliet is quite...wild, you have to know. She loves to party and she knows like the whole college. Quite the opposite of me, actually, but since we met we've got on really well.
We've been through all sorts of stuff together..."

She smiled sadly.

"I know very little private about her, though. In fact, all I have of her is her mobile number. None from relatives, other friends, nothing."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Since she moved to England about four years ago, she has had no contact with her family. She never told me the reasons."

"So where was she from?" asked John.

"Oh, Juliet is originally from Chicago. Her family lives there."

"And she hasn't had any contact with them since then?"

Carrie shook her head.

"No. She never wanted to talk about it either.

Shortly after we met, I also asked her once why she moved away in the first place. Left her family. Whether she would like to go back later.
I remember she suddenly turned all weird and wasn't the happy Juliet I knew at all."

"What did she say?"

Carrie frowned as if trying to remember.

"She...she meant something like if I never asked her anything about her past, I'd spend my best years with her. At the time I was young and naive and I thought it would go away in time. But it didn't."

She lowered her eyes to her hands.

John fumbled for his pen and set about writing down what was important.

Carrie Patrick
-Mid-twenties???
-Problem: Best friend missing.
-Juliet Cubitt
-1 year older than Carrie
-Know from college, English
-Wild, party girl, opposite of Carrie
-Comes from Chicago, moved here about 4 years ago.
-No contact with family, why???
-Trying to hide past (or something of it).

Frowning, he looked at his handiwork. Hopefully he would be able to decipher this scrawl later.

"But something happened," Sherlock interrupted the silence after a few seconds.

Not a question, a statement. He hadn't said anything yet and John lifted his eyes from his notes in surprise. A brief expression of astonishment flitted across Carrie's face as well, but she quickly regained her composure.

"Yes," she replied then.

"Yes, something happened."

She clutched her knees and swallowed.

"A few days before she disappeared- that's when Juliet started acting all weird. She was unusually irritable, hardly said hello and even to me she didn't talk as much as usual. In the evenings she usually got drunk until she could only stagger and slept with a different guy every night."

Her cheeks flushed a little but she quickly shook her head to compose herself.

"I decided after a few days to put aside my dislike of parties for at least one night and hoped that maybe I could talk to her then, if she wasn't completely drunk and I was like watching her a bit. She was surprised but very pleased- she hugged me and asked if we should get ready in her room."

"I've only rarely been to Juliet's," she explained.

"She has a single room and is kind of...touchy about the subject. I don't know why. So the offer was kind of an apology and I agreed. So we went to her place that night and everything was back to normal - we laughed and made up. The usual stuff. I even started to look forward to the party a bit then. I thought maybe she'd just had a lousy week."

Carrie hesitated for a moment.

"Well, and then Juliet went to the bathroom."

She bit her lip and took a moment to continue.

"I was on my own and I tweaked my outfit a bit - Juliet had lent me some of her designer clothes. I have no idea where she gets the money for it. She doesn't even work!

But then her mobile vibrated. And again. I wanted to ignore it, but couldn't - I just knew if her phone gave me any clue as to whether something was wrong with her. Her pin is my birthday- it's like a friendship thing.
So I was immediately shown a chat history- with a strange number. However, the chat history was only texting from that number, Juliet hadn't texted anything- and it wasn't normal at all."

She exhaled shakily.

"The number was sending males, stick figures," she explained then, pure fear written in her eyes.

"I scrolled up a bit to see if this was supposed to be some kind of joke, but it wasn't- there were males all over the messages and they were never the same.
I was confused and instinctively wanted to take a picture of it when Juliet came back into the room.
The look on her face will stay with me forever- her smile instantly froze.
She angrily snatched her phone out of my hand and waved it around while yelling at me about what I was thinking and what an idiot I was. She called me a lot of other things too, but I don't want to say them now."

Carrie quickly lowered her eyes and fumbled with the handle of her bag.

"She ended up kicking me out and storming past me like a wild ox. I haven't seen her since that night."

At the end of the last sentence Carrie's voice broke and John drew his eyebrows together in pity.

He didn't know himself why he felt so sorry for Carrie - after all, this wasn't her first case involving a disappearance. Maybe it was because John could imagine exactly how Carrie felt - He had felt the same way during the time Sherlock was...away.

Unobtrusively, she wiped away some tears from her cheeks that had stolen from her eyes.

She tried to smile, but her voice sounded weak as she continued.

"The next morning, I wanted to talk to her, I truanted and went to her room-it was unlocked, but she wasn't in there. I didn't find her on campus either. I asked around if anyone had seen her and when everyone told me no, I asked others if Juliet had even been at the party yesterday. Everyone answered no as well.

You may think I'm being overbearing and paranoid, but by the end of the day I just couldn't take it anymore. I went to the secretary's office and asked for her- supposedly she was away for an indefinite period of time due to family problems."

Carrie smiled in anguish.

"Yet she doesn't even have any family here!"

When she still didn't show up the next day and the day after, I sort of terrorised her with calls- no answer, just voicemail. And she doesn't respond to my messages either."

"Were you able to take pictures?" Sherlock asked. It took John a moment to understand what he meant. He could already hear Sherlock's voice saying sentiment in his head.

Carrie sniffled.

"Yes. Yes, I was able to take three," she replied, then grabbed her mobile in her pocket to hand it to him.

When Sherlock saw the display, his eyes narrowed to narrow slits and John furrowed his brows.

"Sherlock?"

No response. Sighing, he got up to stand beside him and his eyes widened when he saw the display.

"What the...", he murmured.

The mobile showed the photos - and sure enough, from this strange number came these strange men. Stick figures. Just like Carrie said.

John leaned over and swiped to the side to see the other photos as well.

The stick figures almost always looked different. But always it looked like...they seemed to be dancing. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

He looked at Sherlock. He studied the photos intently and his expression, as usual, gave no indication of what he was thinking.

John couldn't even really rejoice that they now obviously had a case.

He raised his eyes and looked into Carrie's pale face.

They seemed to be thinking exactly the same thing.

・・・・・・・・・・・・

"Here you are."

John handed Carrie a cup of tea and sat down in his armchair with his.
She smiled gratefully at him.

Sherlock was still sitting silently in his armchair with Carrie's mobile in his hand and seemed oblivious to his surroundings.

John took a sip and leaned back.

The photos of the stick figures were buzzing around in his head. What the hell did they mean? Why would a total stranger send such messages to a normal college girl? Was it possibly just a stupid prank and Juliet was fine? Or was she not fine and it was a pretty serious prank?
All the questions were running through his mind and he didn't have a single answer to any of them.

He ran his hand over his forehead.

"That's exactly how I've been feeling the last few days."

Carrie's voice interrupted his train of thought and John straightened up. She smiled wistfully at him.

"Head feels like it's going to explode with questions, doesn't it?"

He sighed.

"Yeah," he replied, even though Carrie probably felt a thousand times worse than he did.

"Yeah, pretty much. I just don't understand...threats, threatening letters, any threatening voicemails. But stick figures?"

He raised his shoulders.

"Why?"

Carrie shrugged too and lowered her eyes to her cup.

John set his on the floor and glanced at the clock. By now it was a little after three. The sun had given way to a dark blanket of clouds, reflecting exactly the mood that was in the room. Dull and dark.

Actually, he would have to start waking Rosie up so she could still sleep tonight, but it looked like it was going to be pretty late for himself tonight. Sigh. Actually, he had wanted to go out with her - children and work were sometimes quite difficult to combine. At least he had had enough time for her lately, which made him feel less guilty. Hopefully she would only be able to fall asleep tonight - he already lacked the strength for a long night.

"Shoes."

Sherlock's voice broke his train of thought and confused, John averted his eyes from the window.

"Shoes?" he inquired.

Sherlock had taken his eyes off the display and was looking at him with a strangely alert expression.

"Yes, shoes!" he replied, jumping out of his chair.

"Shoes, dresses, t-shirts, jumpers! We need to see them!"

John hesitated for a moment.

"Um...I don't think this is the right moment for a shopping spree, Sherlock," he then replied and stood up as well.

Uncomprehendingly, Sherlock looked at him.

"What...? No!"

He groaned.

"Jesus Christ, I mean her clothes, her shoes! We need to see her to find out if she left willingly! Are you just pretending to be stupid to try my patience or are you like that too?"

Rolling his eyes, he grabbed his gloves off the desk, gave the mobile back to Carrie and headed for the door. John didn't even bother to answer.

"Carrie? Tell me Juliet's room number. You can go, we'll take the case."

"Wait, what?" John asked, and Carrie looked at him as puzzled as he did.

"Um...204. Did you get my-"

"Yes, I did. We'll call you as soon as we know anything," Sherlock interrupted her and opened the door.

She swallowed and gave John one last look before hastily getting up and stumbling to the front door.

"Bye," she muttered and stepped out.

With a loud bang, Sherlock closed it and returned to John in the living room. He looked at him, stunned.

"You're serious?", he asked.

"20 minutes ago, you -"

"Yeah, pretty much. No time for questions, we're going out," Sherlock replied, putting his scarf on.

John raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, are we?"

"Yes, we are," Sherlock replied, slipping into his coat.

"Come on!"

Cursing quietly, John turned away and hurried into Rosie's room to lift her out of bed. She was still fast asleep, so John decided not to take any toys for her, just her blanket. He hesitated for a moment before taking her out of the cradle and smiled. She looked so peaceful lying there, almost like an angel, with her little curls curling around her face. Flawless. Beautiful. She had so much of Mary.

John shook his head and took her gently in his arms.

When he returned, he threw his jacket over his arm and stepped out to Sherlock.

"And where to, if you don't mind me asking?" he asked when they had closed the door and were descending the steps.

"To the university of London, visiting Juliet's room," Sherlock replied.

"Where else?"

Yes, where else...

John snorted and stopped at Ms Hudson's door to knock.

"Change of plans," he explained apologetically as he placed Rosie in the arms of the surprised Ms. Hudson.

"Might be late."

He pressed another kiss to Rosie's forehead before hurriedly following his friend down the remaining steps.

"But...But...," she called after them.

"You mean her? Are you guys sure about this? She seemed so...weird."

"Sure? Sureness is for chickens!" shouted Sherlock, turning at the door again with a grin.

"The game, Ms. Hudson, is on!"