- c h a p t e r   f o u r -

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock said. He had just walked into the main room of 221B Baker Street to find John, as usual. But then, a flick of his eyes to the side told him that it was not just him and his flatmate there. Emma Newman was sitting there as well.

"The lights went out in my flat," Emma said, pasting a smile on her face. "Hasn't been on for hours now, so I called up John and asked if I could come here!"

John looked over at her for a moment and then back at Sherlock, with a shrug as an apology. "I didn't have any reason to refuse," John explained.

Sherlock let out a sigh, realising that for the moment John would be rather adamant in keeping Emma in 221B. Besides, she would hopefully be gone soon enough. Maybe if she were working hard enough she wouldn't speak at all. But Sherlock knew that wasn't the case at all, it was fairly obvious that Emma would talk until the sun set and then rose up again.

"If you two could try to be quiet," Sherlock said. "I'm trying to think. We've got a case to work on."

"Emma's case, of course," John replied. "I wouldn't want to mess any of that up." But had it had been for any other reason, John would not have agreed so easily.

"So," John said, coming over to Emma. He glanced over her shoulder, trying to give her a bit more room. "What are you working on?"

"Oh, you know," Emma said, looking up to smile at John. Her eyelashes fluttered a few times before she carried on with her explanation. "It's just my resume."

"Ah, I see," John said. The two of them kept on smiling at one another while Sherlock let out a sigh in the other side of the room. They were too busy with one another to notice the genius in the room. "How is the job search going, anyways?"

"Well," Emma said. She pursed her lips slightly, her smile turning into a pitiful look. "Not very well, if I'm going to be honest."

"Oh, spare me the pain," Sherlock groaned. These two were worse than the people on the television. The worst part about it was that they were real, and Sherlock couldn't just pick up a remote and turn their voices off. Neither of them paid him a bit of attention, they just went on chattering on with one another. For whatever reason, they were fascinated in one another.

"Oh, that's not good," John said. "Do you know what the problem is?"

"Anything that I want to do I'm not qualified for, and everything I would hate doing is what I'm qualified to do," Emma said with an eye roll. "Seriously, it's like the world is trying to get me a job I hate."

"I doubt that," John said. "I'm sure you'll be able to find some sort of job that you'll enjoy, somewhere."

Emma pursed her lips at that. "Because we can take a look around our world today and see everyone enjoying the work they're doing, the job they're in." Her voice was drenched with sarcasm and bitterness. Emma had been trying to stay positive during this conversation, but then her true thoughts leaked out.

There was a moment of silence, John taken quite aback by Emma's words. They were true, very true, but just moments ago she had been smiling and laughing. Sherlock would have pointed out that she had been flirting as well.

Emma, not surprisingly, ended up being the one to break the quiet phase. Her mouth could not stay shut for very long. She knew that it was yet another one of her seemingly unshakable bad habits, but at least her words didn't often cause physical damage that stayed. Only other people's words could do that, even if it wasn't directly. Sherlock Holmes was a prime example of this effect.

"Well, I do need a job, so I guess I'll just have to take what I can get. The money from my inheritence from my father ran out so quickly, it's sort of shocking."

Sherlock took this as his opportunity to jump into the conversation before John and Emma started flirting with one another again. Already it had been unbearable and kept him from thinking, he wasn't going to let that go on any longer.

"It's not shocking at all, not in the ways you're trying to make it seem. I highly doubt that you actually find it shocking."

"Oh no," John said with a sigh. As much of a good friend John considered Sherlock, the man just didn't seem to understand human boundaries in all sorts of ways, especially emotional. Of course, that led many people to believe that the famous consulting detective was secretly some sort of alien. But, for the most part, John knew better than that. For the moment, Sherlock could not be stopped. He was making deductions, and like a wild animal eating it was better not to try to pull him away.

"You spent all of your money on clothing. Every designer whatever that you've ever had your eye on was now within your reach, and you simply could not resist the urge."

Emma tried to think of a way to retaliate, but her mind completely blanked out. This was almost as bad as when she had alcohol in her system, except for now she didn't have any sort of excuse.

"I...I didn't use all of the money," Emma finally said, her words shaky. It was not at all the furious and confident reply that she had been aiming for.

"No, of course not," Sherlock said. Just as Emma was soaking in the shock that Sherlock had actually agreed on something with her, he spoke up again. "After you spent your money on all of the clothing, you then found that you had just barely enough money left to get the cheapest possible flat in London, no matter how terrible it was."

Emma let out an irritated sigh. As much as Sherlock's deductions hurt her emotionally, they were already starting to annoy her. She supposed that John had been right. It really was something that you had to get used to.

"Right again," Emma said. "I'd personally rather look good and give a good impression than spend all of my money on a posh flat and look like I came off of the streets. Besides, I didn't get that much money."

"That's your problem," Sherlock said. "You've got your priorities all messed up. No wonder you're so unhappy."

"I'm not unhappy," Emma said back. But even as she spat out her words, there was a hint of doubt in it. She wasn't fully convinced herself. John saw that there was about to be another terrible conflict and immediately jumped in to save it.

"That's enough, the two of you."

Emma was very glad for John's presence. Not only was he always there to cut in before things went too far, Emma found him very interesting by himself. Of course, a bit of this intrigue came from the fact he was somehow able to live with Sherlock and not become completely mad or extremely strange. That in of itself was a real feat to Emma who had only barely met the two of them.

But now everything had faded into silence. Everyone had things they were aching to say, but they still stayed quiet.

"Okay," Emma said, out of nowhere, breaking the quiet spell. "I've worked on this resume for far too long, I'm switching to something else."

"Thank you for announcing it to the entire household," Sherlock said.

"Sherlock, don't be rude," John said. "I, on the other hand, am interested. So, Emma, what are you working on now?"

"Oh," Emma said, blinking and turning her head to the side and then to the ground. "Well, I'm going to work on a sketch. I haven't made a sketch good enough to make into a painting for months. I'm hoping that it's all going to change now."

"Do you mind if I watch?" John asked, coming another step towards Emma. She raised her eyes all the way to him and gave him a sweet little smile.

"Well," she said, her tone suddenly filled to the brim with air, "you've been watching me write my resume this whole time, which was probably the most boring thing that's happened all day. I suppose letting you watch me draw is a good way for me to make up for it." Emma let out a little laugh that sounded like a bird chirping along.

"Sounds great to me."

"Hopefully drawing is a quieter passtime than writing a resume," Sherlock murmured to himself. He hadn't been able to create one clear line of thought because of the constant noise coming from John and Emma.

Of course, this was nothing more than wishful thinking. After a few precious moments of silence, a discussion popped up again. It was more spread out over time as Emma sketched along, but it was still there nevertheless.

"That's amazing," John said. Sherlock had only heard him say things like that in such a tone when he had made particularly impressive deductions. Sherlock didn't need to see Emma's drawing to know that whatever it was couldn't possibly be that impressive.

"No, it's not," Emma said, letting out a breathy sort of laugh as she shook her head, twiddling the pencil back and forth in her fingers. "Something about the petals on the flower just seem off. I could never make this into a painting," she continued with a sigh. "Looks like my unlucky streak will be continuing on!"

"But that's incredible!" John said, pressing on. "I could never draw like that. It's got its own sort of unique style, and that's important."

"If you could never draw like that how could you possibly know that's important?" Emma said, the tone of laughing threaded throughout her words.

"Well, I could guess."

The two of them carried on like that for quite a while, and Sherlock could do nothing but sigh. They were lucky to have such simple minds, to not have to think deeply about everything. But as the two of them continued to chatter over the sound of pencil scraping against paper, Emma's tone suddenly changed.

"You know, sometimes I wonder if my father was hiding weapons in the house. I never looked for them, but I feel like they were there. Why do you think he would have those?"

But just as Emma had asked the question absentmindedly, she began answering it herself.

"I don't know, they must have been there. He must have needed them for protection. I remember when I was a little girl and sometimes strange men would come to our house and talk to my father all locked up in his office. I tried to get in sometimes, couldn't. That was strange," she said with a laugh. But as soon as she had said that, she had shrugged her shoulders and carried on as if her train of thought had never even happened. It just sort of slipped out.

"I think I need to head out," Emma said, cutting off her story. Without waiting for a response, she carried on. "Well, goodbye now!" she said, getting up.

"Can't you stay any longer?" John said, hardly realising what words were coming out of his mouth.

"No, sorry, I've got to go now. But I'll be back," she said, walking over to John. "I swear."

After a moment of contemplation, Emma pushed away her more logical thoughts and dived forwards to gently peck John on the cheek. With that, she turned herself away and skittered out the door.

It took John a moment to recollect himself, but then some of Emma's words about strange men echoed through his head.

"Sherlock, you just heard what I heard, right?"

As John looked over to Sherlock, he saw his strange friend wildly shuffling through a stack of papers like he was trying to find something quickly. But even though it seemed like Sherlock was fairly focused on this task, he still spoke out."Of course I heard it. Just because I'm trying to work doesn't mean I'm not always paying attention."

"Always observing," John said quietly.

"Yes," Sherlock said, his voice clipped as he finally seemed to have found the paper he had been looking for.

"That wasn't meant-never mind," John replied. He walked over to Sherlock to find what this mysterious paper was all about.

Sherlock had pulled out the letter that Emma had given him in order to get the case. It certainly was a strange letter, but Sherlock had been fairly sure that it wasn't all that big of a deal. That is, until Emma had spoken out.

Sherlock's eyes flicked over the letter again, trying to see if he had missed anything the first times he had read it. He would pay more attention to strange phrases or markings. There was always the opportunity for a hidden message of some sort, if not a clue in general.

"This is all too much for me, these things that I've been holding back. If I let it stay in for much longer I might actually burst.

There are some secrets that I can't allow to come out, even after my death. I would just end up endangering those who would take in those secrets. I don't want to force my fate on anyone else if I don't have to. Perhaps when my time comes and I'm forced to leave this world people will wonder why I had to die.

But yes, there is a reason why someone would kill me. Since I don't know who's reading this, I can't help but keep this secret as well. I know things I'm not supposed to know. I'm lucky to be alive at this very moment, to be writing this letter. These are the clues that I can give, and only this.

I apologise to you if you were looking for answers, but I can only push you in the right direction." There were quite a few more paragraphs consisting of the same sort of content.

"Oh, so now you think the letter is important?" John said, sounding amused that Sherlock was rethinking himself. Something about Sherlock being wrong had become fascinating to everyone who knew him. It hardly ever seemed to happen, but when it did everyone would be talking about it. For once, the genius himself had been wrong.

But as Sherlock scanned over the letter several more times, looking for anything that could possibly be a clue, he shook his head. Nothing. "It's just as useless as ever, John," he said.

John didn't want to believe him, so he just shook his head and walked away. He had been looking forward to something that only happened every once in a while, Sherlock being wrong and having nothing to answer for it.

John wanted Sherlock to admit that he was flat out wrong instead of flaunting over his victories, all the times that he was right. That was something that happened every single day, and had gotten old quickly.

"You seem rather interested in this case," Sherlock said, turning around to face John. John was immediately put on edge. Typically Sherlock wouldn't even look up from whatever he was doing unless it was something rather important.

"Well, not really," John said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's just another case and so far nothing very out of the ordinary has happened. No serial killers have broken into the flat, we haven't found sniper lasers focused on Emma's forehead, you know."

"Let me rephrase that," Sherlock said. "You seem rather interested in Emma."

John let out a little laugh, but his face started to turn red. If Sherlock hadn't already been sure of his observations, then this would have been the final answer. "No, no I'm not."

"You two obviously fancy one another," Sherlock said. "You might as well ask her out now, that way you can get your realtionship over sooner rather than later."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," John said, shaking his head.

"There's no need to lie or be embarrassed about it, John."

"Like I said, I have no idea what you're talking about," John said, starting to walk away. Sherlock would leave him alone for the moment. Eventually, Sherlock knew that John would come around and admit that he had been right.

A/N Ah, John and Emma. I'm going to make a ship name now, don't kill me. I'm going with Jemma for now, hehe. Well, anyways, I realized just how much of a filler sort of chapter this is reading over it before posting. Oh well. I like it. Kill me. Even after I said don't kill me. Actually, just vote and comment. Much better than killing, I think.