Look out for the <>!

I felt the wind in my hair as I ran through alley ways as I chased after Fredrick. He had gotten out of the building that we surrounded without almost anyone seeing him, except me and Sherlock. Sherlock was on my heels until he took a different turn. Now I was alone, and I knew I wouldn't get any back up because Lestrade was leading the case and he was the most clueless man in Scotland Yard that somehow got the title of inspector. Sometimes I found myself asking, why was he my boss?

Now I could see fredrick just about 30 yards away. If I just had a little longer of legs I could catch him, but he was gaining more distance between us. "Fredrick!" I shouted at him as a distraction.

He looked back at me and tripped on some rock, falling to the ground. I smiled, happy, but I didn't think that would work. I ran up to him and pulled him up by his mop of hair, hoping it hurt, since he deserved that for making me run and getting my shoes wet. "I know you did it."

"So what? You don't have any proof. I'm safe," he said confidently.

"Yeah, but just you wait for me and Sherlock to break you down until we have proof. Why did you do it?" I kicked him hard in the ribs and he cried out in pain. "Tell me!"

"Because I was told too, they paid me a good amount of cash, too. I had fun with it. Tell me, did you enjoy my photos?" he asked with a smile.

I hated creeps like him. They made my skin craw, and it was times like this when I was glad I was working for the police, to stop men like him. "I'll show you how much I enjoyed your photos" Just as I was about to punch him, I stopped as I thought about what he just said. "Who paid you?"

"Do you want to know where the boy is?"

To me the priority was finding out who the payer was and I needed to know why. "WHO PAID YOU?" I shouted as I tried to act intimidating. My selfishness was pushing above the mission that I was doing and at this moment I didn't care if the boy was alive or not, I just wanted to know who paid him.

"He's underground. I think he has about enough oxygen to live another hour. You better find him soon," he said, referring to the boy, not answering my question.

"Why you," I said through clenched teeth as I smashed his head on the pavement. I brought him up, his nose wasn't even bleeding. He smiled at me as if he was just here to tease me. He liked this.

"Cool it down, my girl," he chuckled, though it was forced. "I think you know. You've been looking for them for a while now." He was referring to the group that paid him.

"The group that has kale." I felt excitement rise, I had my first genuine lead.

"Yeah, and I'm going to tell you what to do. Let me go and I'll show you where their base is. You can get Kale back."

For a moment, I almost let myself believe he was telling the truth. But then, why would he want to help? Fredrick always hated me. He promised before that he would get even with me at some point. He got paid from the group to get my attention. They wanted me and I'm sure Fredrick's plan was to bring me there. He would get paid more if he lead me into the trap. My grip tightened on his hair. "You're lying."

"Do I look like I'm lying?" he said with a smirk.

"Yes," I said as I punched him in the face, causing him to fall to the ground, out cold.

Within about five minutes, Sherlock came running over to us. "Rori, are you ok?"

"I'm fine." I said and looked at Fredrick, who was lying on the dirty ground.

"You got him. Good job," he said and gave me a smirk. I watched as his smirk fell as he looked at my bloody knuckles. "Did you do that?" he was referring to he being knocked out.

"He deserved it," I said stubbornly as I crossed my arms over my chest, unwilling to feel guilty for what I just did.

He frowned. He had never seen me react this way. "What did he say to you?"

"The boy, Nathanael, is underground somewhere in London. Has only about an hour of oxygen. We need to find him."

"Lestrade is coming to get him and from there we can get the boy."

"We don't have that kind of time," I said as I got frustrated and paced around the alley as I thought about where the boy was at. It had to be quiet, no people. But where was a spot like that in loud busy London of all places?

I took me a good 20 minutes to think of a place that had a lack of airflow and quiet. As soon as I realized where he most likely was, I told Sherlock the location. He said he would come find me after Lestrade took his sweet time to pick up Fredrick.

I found myself not even taking the Tube as I ran through the empty alley ways and main streets until I found the one bit of collapse tube tunnels that hadn't been demolished.

There was a small man crawling in the corner of an old, dilapidated building to get into it. I knew where to go only because the drug dealers would go there to deal. I would often steal from them when I was in a pinch for cash.

I crawled through the spider filled crawlspace. "Eww," I said to myself as I cleared out some cobwebs, causing me to shutter. I hated spiders.

<>

"Is someone here?" I yelled once I could stand up in the collapsed tunnel. It was dark and cold and there were a couple of short passages that jetted off from the main tunnel. The tunnel was fairly big, bigger then I remembered it being. I waited a minute but I didn't hear anything back.

"Nathanael!" I yelled louder. I waited for another minute, fearing the silence. "Gosh dang it Nathanael, I'm here to help you!" I stomped my foot on the ground out of frustration. If he didn't come within another minute, I was going to look for the body. I hated thinking that I might have failed. I couldn't save him.

After a couple seconds a voice came out of the darkness, it was soft and light but I still heard it loud and clear. "I'm here."

In a minute Nathanael came out of the darkness, his dark hair was a mess on top of his head with bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep in this dreary place. I saw his hands were chained together and there was a chain running into the darkness.

"I'm here to help you," I said calmly as I held my hands up in the air to show I would not hurt him.

His eyes filled up with tears but didn't spill over. "I thought I was going to die here," he said then let out a cough.

I shook my head, then I ran my hands through my hair to get a bobby pin and walked over to him. Silently, I dropped to my knees to pick the locks that bound him. "I wouldn't let that happen."

"How did you get down here?" he said weakly, the lack of air was getting to him. I had to get him out.

Within a minute, I freed his hands. As I took away the restraints, I saw his wrists were bloodied. I frowned, knowing he had been trying to get out of these himself. "I'll show you." I said as I led him by the hand through the tunnel.

As soon as we got out of the tunnel and into fresh air, Nathanael hugged me tightly like a little kid would do to his parents.

"Thank you so much."

I patted him on the back awkwardly, hoping he would let go of me quickly. "Are you feeling ok?" I asked as I pushed him back. Too much contact.

"I'm feeling better than I have in a day or two," he said and smiled lightly at me.

"You should sit down," I said and gently pushed him down on a bench. "You've been through a lot." I looked around this empty old building waiting for Lestrade to get here, since I didn't want to talk to this kid any longer. He was annoying me as he asked too many questions.

"You know, you look really young."

"Thanks." Although I wasn't sure if that was a compliment.

"I want to be a police officer. What is it like?"

I rolled my eyes at him. If only he knew who he was talking to. "I'm not a police officer and trust me, I'm the last person you want to talk about this to."

"Then what are you?"

I frowned. What was I? I wasn't a cop, hell no, I wasn't a PI either. I worked for Scotland Yard but under Sherlock. How did that work out? He's not under pay role for them so how did I manage to be with him out every one Lestrade knew, why him? "It's complicated," I said, sighed and I sat down next to him.

"How is it complicated? Have you never thought about it?"

"No, I mean, yeah I have thought about. It's just complicated," I said, not looking at him, waiting for someone to come.

"So that's it? You're going to leave it with that?"

"Why are you even asking me this kind of stuff? I don't even know you."

"I don't know. Just trying to make conversation," he shrugged.

I was about to say, 'well stop it' but I saw a car pull up close to us. "They found us, it's about time." I said as I waited for the car doors to fly open. Within a second Lestrade came running out of his car. Within another minute other cars came up to us. I was guessing filled with more of his men.

"No need to fear, Rori is here. I found him," I said confidently as I got up from my seat with a small smirk.

"Well done Rori," Lestrade said as he walked up to us. "Are you ok?" Lestrade asked the boy.

With tears in his eyes again, he said, "Yes I'm fine. I just want to go home."

Lestrade called someone over that I didn't know and took the kid under his arms away from us.

"Good job Rori."

"Thanks sir." I said, I couldn't hold back a small smile of proudness I had. It felt good to save a life.

"Holmes said that he didn't need to come for this, so if you would like, I could get one of my men to take you home."

I shook my head and said, "That's not necessary. I'll take the Tube. I like the ride."

"Ok then. You did well again, thank you for your help Anderson."

<><>

"John and I are going for dinner. You're welcome to come," Sherlock said as he looked up from his newspaper he was reading in the flat.

"Is that an invite? From you, of all people?" I looked up and faked a shocked face.

"Yes."

"In that case, no," I said bluntly as John walked into the flat. I kind of did want to go for food but then again I would have to be with John and Sherlock for the whole time. Plus I didn't feel so good. I couldn't be getting sick. I didn't get sick. I don't even remember the last time I got sick was.

"So are you ready?" John said to Sherlock.

"Yes."

"And Rori, do you want to come with us?"

I bit my lip and thought about it. I wanted to see what Sherlock would do if I said yes. Just to make Sherlock mad, I looked up from my book and said, "sure, I'll come."

"Great," John said and smiled at me as I smiled pleasantly at him, then at Sherlock. Sadly, his face was unreadable, and I didn't get as much joy out of this as I would have liked too.

<><>

"Can this Irish music get any more cheerful?" I asked as I downed my drink that the local pub down the street from where we lived. I was not in a mood for happy music at this time. The loud music was making me feel almost light-headed.

"No, it's not only cheerful but triumphant." John added.

"That's why I don't like it," I stated.

"Well then, what type of music do you like?"

I sat there for a second thinking about if I should really tell them or lie like I always did. Something rushed over me and as I opened my mouth names just started to flood out, "it changes day to-day but right now I like Mumford and Sons, the script, Coldplay, and Florence and the Machine."

"Wow, that's an impressive list," John stated, and then turned to Sherlock. "I don't believe I know what you listen to."

"We have never talked about this, nor do I find sense in doing so. But I do like my classical music."

"Figures, boring as ever," I said and gave a little chuckle.

"I do like my occasional Adel," Sherlock stated nonchalantly.

John and I looked at each other and cracked up. I never thought in a million years he would listen to that kind of music.

"Well, I'm ready to leave," Sherlock said bluntly and got up from his seat. He did not like us laughing at him.

"Oh stop being a spoil sport," John said to his friend.

"It's late and I do plan on going to bed at a decent hour."

"Since when do you sleep?" John asked incredulously.

He did say anything back because he knew John was right. I smiled at him and mentally gave John a high five. That was awesome, good job, John. "You just got burned," I smiled at Sherlock.

"Are you coming?" Sherlock said as he put on coat. Oh, clearly his feelings got hurt, poor baby.

"It has been nice, John. Goodbye," I said politely and got my coat on and followed Sherlock out of the pub into the night.