- c h a p t e r   t h i r t e e n -

Emma laid down on the couch. She had just made it through an entire exhausting day of work just to get that restless feeling that she was supposed to be doing something more. It was like something very important was missing from her day, and she couldn't figure it out.

Her first instinct was to go to her mobile to see if anything new had appeared on her screen. Much to her disappointment, nothing had. But nevertheless, she scrolled through the texts she still had. This was a good a time as any to delete some of the earlier messages. She hadn't cleaned the phone out in months. There was a time frame where she could simply blame it on moving and getting a new job and being too preoccupied, but in reality it was because she had been too lazy to sort through it all.

Up at the top she could still see texts from Leon. Almost immediately the words made her stomach start to churn. Holding her mobile above her face, she could easily see everything at once. It was insane how quickly the conversations had gone to happy, sweet things, to the threat of revealing her secret. He had power over her.

But of course, this also brought up the problem that Sherlock knew her "secret" as well. He wasn't threatening her with anything, but it didn't matter. Emma was going to have to attempt not to make him upset in any way. This was a problem. No matter what she did, it seemed to put him off. It was as if her very existence made him irritated.

These thoughts weren't getting her anywhere, and she knew it. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do to push them out of her head. Emma wasn't sure she even could push them out of her head. Everything she had tried so far had been an utter failure.

At least the whisky made her forget for a while. As long as it continued to have that effect, she would continue going back to it. Her recent attempts to go sober had been sketchy at best. She would be trying, but it just wasn't enough. Trying to fight the urge to grab her alcohol, Emma forced herself to think of some other way to get rid of her nasty feelings.

Finally something of use popped into her head. Her laptop sat over to the side, plugged crookedly into the wall. Emma yanked the computer off its charging cord, assuming that by this point it would be charged enough.

After logging in, she realised that her previous session had been saved. Emma kept on forgetting that she did that, but it was actually quite useful for all of the same programs and windows to be up every time she went on her computer.

She made her way to Madison's name on the instant messaging program, She gave a sigh when she saw a red dot next to it. Of course she wasn't on, she was probably eating dinner or doing something else that normal people did.

Madison had been her salvation in these past weeks. Never had Emma thought to consider that she was spending more time ranting towards her Internet friend than carrying on actual conversations. But since her friend always allowed her to keep complaining about everything happening in her real life, she had kept on doing it.

Emma sat there for a minute, trying to psychically will Madison to get on her computer and talk to her. Her eyes started to ache from the glow. No matter how much she thought and hoped for her friend to log on, she wasn't able to make any change.

Suddenly her phone began to buzz. Against the hard surface of a wooden table, it sounded like a monster had invaded 221C. Emma let out a yelp as she tore her attentions away from the computer screen. Her heart was palpitating from the shock she had gotten, but she was more focused on getting the message on her phone than whatever her body was doing.

Her hope that it was somehow some sort of good news faded away when she saw that the message was from Sherlock. She very nearly threw the mobile back down on the table, but instead she decided to give it a try. With a sigh, she viewed the text.

"News on my father's case, of course," she murmured to herself. "What else could it possibly be?"

Looking at the text, Emma felt as if she could easily just toss her phone aside and pretend she had never gotten the message. She could just take a nap on the couch or something. There were half a million lies she could formulate. But the problem with all of them was that Sherlock would easily be able to see through every last one.

With a sigh, she decided to make her way up to 221B. On the staircase she had the idea to trip and fall and claim that she had gotten some sort of ankle injury. Then she could get attention from John while avoiding some of the inevitable at the same time. But at the same time, Sherlock would probably proclaim that he saw it coming and he knew that she had done it on purpose.

It turned out that Emma's best option was just to get it over with straight on. Every step upwards, she couldn't help but feel like there was a heavier and heavier weight being pushed down on her shoulders. She felt the need to turn back, but she knew that she couldn't. This case was important to her, it was true. That was the only thing that kept her going along with it. Well, that and the fact that she found it a bit interesting that her father had popped up from the grave and started killing people.

"Ah, Emma," John said, greeting her at the door. As always, Sherlock had been too busy thinking to himself to get up and get the door. The blogger looked a bit surprised to see Emma at the door.

"Were you not expecting me?" Emma asked, noticing the surprise in John's eyes.

"No, actually," John answered. "I'm guessing you were the one Sherlock was sending a text to?" Emma nodded in response, and John gave her a look that told her this sort of thing was common in 221B.

"So!" Emma said. She clapped her hands together as she stepped into the flat. "New information on the case. What is it that's going on?"

"We have more information on Francesca Sutton," Sherlock began. But he was almost immediately interrupted by Emma.

"Information on Francesca Sutton? I thought it was going to have to do with my father directly, but I suppose this still does make sense. I mean, he did murder her, after all." She let out a nervous laugh as she spoke. The more words that spilled out of her mouth, the faster and higher pitched the next one went.

"Emma," Sherlock said, keeping his voice steady and calm. "Please shut up before I gag you."

John blinked several times, knowing that his flatmate was not exaggerating on his possible actions. After all, he had already gagged her in the past as well as tied her up. He was still having trouble figuring out why exactly that had happened.

"Carry on," Emma squeaked, clearing her throat. But she kept her gaze above the floor, trying to hide her nerves.

"In Francesca's household was a stack of paper with the same components as the paper used for your father's letter," Sherlock said, pleased to know that he was going to get proper silence for his words.

Emma was beginning to fidget quite a bit, squeezing her eyes shut and then popping them right back open again. Sherlock continued talking, but John noticed her strange behavior. "Is everything okay?"

Finally she just had to burst out with what had been bothering her. "It's a forgery," Emma admitted. "The letter from a father is a fake. I made it up because I knew you wouldn't take the case without it."

"Is this supposed to be news?" Sherlock said, letting out a scoff."I knew that it was a forgery from the first time I had read through it."

"What?" Emma and John exclaimed simultaneously.

"It was completely obvious that the letter was no real piece of evidence," Sherlock said, turning the piece of paper over in his hand. "It's very, very simple. All you really have to do is look at the handwriting. It's exactly the same as what we've seen from Emma on several occassions."

"How come neither of you ever bothered to mention this fact to me?" John said, feeling a bit insulted. Emma turned away for a moment, unable to produce a decent answer. Sherlock, on the other hand, had his response all lined up.

"I was waiting for you to figure it out yourself," Sherlock responded. "Of course, you were so quick to join Emma's side that I found you were too biased to look at the situation rationally and determine the truth."

Before he could allow himself to boil over and explode on his flatmate, he decided to attempt to have this make sense. "Explain," John said, moving his focus back to Emma. "Sherlock might already know everything that's going on, but I don't."

"I took the piece of paper from my dad's old office," Emma replied, giving a shrug as her anxiety began to wear off. "He was a bookbinder, there's always been far too much paper sitting around. Thought it would make the letter a bit more realistic. But I guess that failed, didn't it? Obviously the letter isn't evidence and I've just been leading you on."

"I never said that the letter wasn't evidence," Sherlock sighed as he got involved in the conversation. "I just said that the message written on it wasn't."

"I forged it," Emma said, shaking her head. She just wasn't following what he was saying, as usual.

"This has nothing to do with forging the words," Sherlock countered. "The letter is evidence. The physical letter is the evidence, the materials. Do you see now?"

"I suppose," Emma said. "I don't understand what the evidence part of it is, though..."

"I was just about to explain that," Sherlock replied, clearing his throat before proceeding.

"You're saying that the paper is actually a clue?" John questioned.

"Oh, John, we've been over this, days ago!" Sherlock complained. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." Disappointed by the lack of mental ability in the room, he decided to just carry forwards before something else popped up.

"I tested the paper," Sherlock explained. "There's an abnormally high concentration of lye."

"Lye?" Emma said, her eyes bugging. "Lye, all of that poison, in paper?"

"Yes, lye in paper. It's used in papermaking," Sherlock said, closing his eyes. "Typically you only find small traces of lye but this paper was different."

"But...lye!"

"A trace of lye, even if it's more than normal, won't kill you," John explained. "It couldn't possibly cause that much damage."

"You're missing the point," Sherlock said. "I never said one piece of paper was going to cause a problem. Just think for a moment."

"Russell Newman was a bookbinder," John said, everything finally connecting in his head.

"Exactly. In book form, there could be potentially enough lye to kill," Sherlock said. "It would seem like random deaths related to lye poisoning, but it would be very difficult to trace."

"I still don't get it," Emma sighed. "Do we think this is how my father died?"

"No," Sherlock replied. "I think it might be why your father died."

"So you think he was involved in the process?" John asked.

"There's something missing," Sherlock sighed, placing his hands underneath his chin. "We need more evidence, more information." Before he could elaborate, the buzzing noise of a mobile going off came from Emma's direction. She quickly picked it out of her pocket and looked at the message.

"Oh, would you look at that," Emma murmured under her breath. "Another text from Leon."

John noticed how her face had fallen, so despite not hearing her words he still could tell that something was amiss. "Emma, is something wrong?"

"Yeah," she replied. She was going to try to keep it simple and not dig into the dirtier details of the situation. Emma felt like she had been exposed enough with the previous situations she had gotten herself into.

Even as John came over, Emma's gaze stayed focused down on her phone. The text message was very similar to the last one Leon had sent. It was him threatening her to be kinder to him or else he would reveal her big bad secret. With Sherlock sitting a few footsteps away, it was hard to feel like her secret hadn't already been revealed.

"What, exactly, is going on?" John said, letting out a slight cough.

"Doesn't matter," Emma said far too quickly, snapping her phone shut and placing it back in her pocket. John wanted to press forwards for more, but unlike Sherlock he could tell when a person had been pushed to their edge and needed space.

"As I was saying," Sherlock said, taking control of the situation again now that the distraction had taken care of itself. "We need more evidence. I believe we can find what we're looking for in Staffordshire."

"Staffordshire?" Emma repeated, sounding like a parrot. "What do you mean, Staffordshire?"

"I mean the place where you grew up and your father was murdered," Sherlock sighed. "Obviously we can't get much evidence on him sitting here in London, so we're going out to find it ourselves."

"Oh, no. No, no. We're not going back there."

"I never said you were coming," Sherlock replied, leaning back in his chair.

"Sherlock," John protested. "It's her old home. She probably has friends and family there."

"Which is exactly why I don't want to go back," Emma chimed in, a grimace across her face.

Sherlock took this time to think about the situation. It only took a few moments for him to reach a new conclusion. "Perhaps Emma should come along. She knows her way around, after all." It was almost as if he was ignoring her presence in the room.

"You've got to be kidding me," Emma said. "You have to be kidding me!" She turned to John, crossing her arms before she complained. "He didn't want me to come along until he realised that I didn't want to go, he's doing this just to irritate me."

"I don't think that's the case," John replied. "I mean, he's irritating, that much is true. But this is a case on your father, after all."

She might as well not have even been listening to him. "I'm not going," Emma decided. "You two have fun on your own. I'll be here in London."

"Emma," John protested. "I think you should come along. You want to know what's going

"I can't miss any work," she countered, but it as clear her guard was being let down. She was starting to bend to the idea now that John was pushing her towards it. "I can't afford it.."

"Lestrade has authority over at Scotland Yard," Sherlock noted. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind letting you go for a couple of days."

Emma, unable to figure anything out by the tone of his voice, said, "Is that supposed to be sarcasm, or...?"

"Not at all," Sherlock said, finally bothering to turn his gaze over to Emma and John. "Two reasons. You don't do much of any work, at least nothing of importance. Then, of course, the second reason is why you got your job there to begin with and why you haven't been fired yet."

"Which is?" Emma said, placing her hands on her hips.

"You remind him of his wife, back in the days before everything went inevitably wrong."

Emma wasn't able to figure out a way to respond to this. At first she felt like Sherlock was just kidding, but he wasn't the type to joke around. She just stood there with her mouth hanging partially open.

John, anticipating a new conflict, decided to break into the tense air with "So, what's the weather like in Staffs?"

A/N This chapter, though. I don't know, heh. Sorry for not getting this out sooner! I'm going to be working a lot harder to get everything done on time. I've just been all over the place lately and I think that I'm finally getting everything together. Phew. I hope you enjoyed!