- c h a p t e r   s e v e n -

Another day was dragging its way past in New Scotland Yard. There hadn't been anything particularly interesting or out of the ordinary from the moment the lights flicked on. This meant that all of the inhabitants were having a rather lazy day, lounging around in their offices and at their desks.

But no one felt lazier than Emma Newman. She had gotten herself a spot, gotten herself a desk right in the front of the station. She had gotten a job, much to her surprise. With how her interview had gone, she had been surprised that she had even been allowed back into the place to begin with. But sure enough, she had gotten a call saying that she was going to be a station enquiry officer.

At first, Emma had been terrified. She didn't recall that this had been the job she had been interviewing for, and she thought she was going to have to undergo training and learn how to shoot a gun and have to be forced to go out.

But when Emma came to her job, she realised that she just had to sit at her desk up at the front of the station. Already she had strewn various items everywhere. She had wanted to put pictures around, but she had realised that there weren't any pictures for her to put up.

Of course, Emma actually had a fairly important job. She just didn't realise it, nor did she understand it. She did some of her duties, but for the most part she seemed to be blind to the true matter at hand. No one understood how she had managed to get the position in the first place, which led to lots of controversy throughout New Scotland Yard.

It didn't matter to Emma, after all. She was free to just sit around and text most of the time, or maybe go online sometimes. This was what she was getting paid for, in a way. It was all good to her. Occassionally she would shuffle around a few papers, or type something up on the computer.

Emma stared down at her phone again, a smile making its way across her face. Sure, this was a terrible way to make an impression in her first few days of a job, but she needed to text. After all, the two of them hadn't spoken in so long. That would be her excuse, and sure enough she needed to use it.

Sally Donovan, who had already taken a disliking to Emma, made her way over to the desk and saw the mobile still sitting in her hands, right in plain sight.

"Isn't there something you're supposed to be doing, Emma?"

"Actually, no," Emma said, knowing that she was probably lying. If she was going to be honest, she wasn't exactly sure what it was she was supposed to be doing. That meant she would just go ahead and assume there was nothing for her to be doing.

"You're the station enquiry officer," Sally replied. "There's always something for you to be doing, don't forget that."

Emma nodded, blinking a few times. Now she sort of wished she was back at home with her whisky and her cello, as everything would be less painful. Somehow her job was beginning to feel like the dark days of school.

As Emma began daydreaming of her flat despite the faulty lights and messy rooms, she allowed herself to drift away. If it hadn't been for her moblie buzzing against her side, she probably would have stayed that way for a good while.

But instead she was broken out of her daydreams and brought back to reality. She looked down at her new text, finding herself giggling slightly at what she had read. This smile faded away, though, as soon as she realised that Sally had snuck past her and to her desk.

Sally was snooping around on Emma's computer, which wasn't a very difficult task as she had left everything open and easy to see the moment someone would look at it.

"Oh, what's this?"

"Get off of my computer," Emma replied. "Isn't there something you're supposed to be doing, Sally?" she said, imitating Sally from the past.

"Who is Madison Coates?" Sally said. "And why are you instant messaging her when you're supposed to be working?"

Emma looked away, realising that she didn't have any decent comeback, any decent reason as to why she would be chatting. At least she had avoided trouble somewhat, as there wasn't anything dire to be done at the moment.

"Madison Coates is my friend," Emma said. "I'm just trying to keep in communication with her."

Sally rolled her eyes at this terrible excuse. "I have to ask, though. If she's your friend, why can't you just text her?"

Emma's mind started formulating all kinds of stupid lies about what she could say next. Everything from "Madison doesn't have a mobile" to "she's allergic to texting" flew through her mind. But with so many words, Emma found herself saying absolutely nothing and just standing there with her mouth open.

Sally smiled victoriously, knowing she had won this little battle with Emma at the very least. Now she had another hidden weapon up her sleeve. Spending so much time around Sherlock Holmes even if you despised him meant that you picked up a few skills, even if they were basic.

"Who were you texting, then? It must have been someone else."

"Oh," Emma said. "No one. No one at all."

"You're not even trying to hide that you're doing something wrong in the first place," Sally said. She shook her head. "It must be a boy, then."

Emma felt herself flushing. Right at that very moment, she ended up getting another text. Unable to resist the urge, she popped her mobile back into her hands. Her fingers flew even speedier than normal just because Sally was still watching her.

"So what if it is?" Emma said. "I'm allowed to talk to boys. Men. Whatever."

"Not at work, you're not," Sally said.

"What about Lestrade, though? Isn't he a boy? Am I not allowed to talk to him then?" Emma said.

Sally just stared at Emma blankly for a moment, wondering how a grown woman could act so much like a child. It just seemed to come naturally.

Emma wasn't going to wait for any sort of response. She was done with all of this for the moment. If she stayed put for much longer she would just end up exploding, and she had already embarrassed herself enough in front of Sally.

With a roll of her eyes, Emma made her way up and out of her seat. Her skirt had slid up several inches as she was sitting down, the pencil skirt revealing quite a bit of skin. With her nose now pointed up into the air, she yanked down the hem and then adjusted her shirt so that it was still properly tucked in.

"I'm going on a break," she announced. But as she walked out from behind the desk, she found herself tripping and nearly falling. Sally sniggered from behind her, and Emma resisted the urge to turn and glare at her. Sally was beginning to remind her of Sherlock in some ways, which was strange.

It had been several weeks since Emma had seen Sherlock and John the last time around. She didn't mind this for the former, but she hadn't kept in as good contact with the latter as she would have liked. Instead, she had been texting someone else. It was keeping her interested.

But just as thoughts of the pair came into her head, they walked through the doors of New Scotland Yard. There was a moment of surprise as John and Sherlock's eyes met Emma's and they just stared for a moment.

"You're here again?" Sherlock said, letting out a sigh.

"Yes, yes am. You two come here pretty often, don't you?"

"Apparently you do as well," John replied.

After sending a grin towards John, Emma crossed her arms defiantly and pointed her attention back to Sherlock. "I have a reason. Remember that job interview a few weeks ago? Well, I got accepted."

"Congratulations!" John said. "What are you, then?"

"Station enquiry officer," she replied. "Still not exactly sure what that means, but...you know." She shrugged and hid of her fears with a smile. She glanced behind her to see Sally staring at her. "I should probably be working," she said, now under the pressure of all of the people around her.

She parted from the group, but soon enough Sally Donovan made her way over to the detective and his blogger. Like a group of vultures forming, Anderson came along as well.

"I see you know Emma," Sally said.

"Yes," John replied. "Now, we needed to see the files on her father-" He was cut off as Sally continued the subject matter onwards.

"We're taking bets as to how she got the job," Sally said.

"I personally thing she's some long lost relative of Greg's," Anderson added in.

"Of course you would think that, Anderson. You're an idiot."

"And you're the freak who is supposed to know everything," Sally responded. "If you're such a genius, why don't you go ahead and tell us what you think the answer is? My bets are still on Emma sleeping with someone important."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, exasperated already. "The answer is so glaringly obvious that I can't even be bothered to explain it to you and your simple minds."

As they bickered among themselves, the subject matter herself was beginning to make her way over.

Emma was doing her very best to stay stable on her heels, and for the most part was doing a good job. There was still a bit of wobbling, but she was surviving. She had been wearing heels for years, but the longer ones were still quite an issue.

She must have looked a fool with her arms spread out slightly and her entire body occassionally pitching from side to side, but she decided to just carry on with it. Sure enough, she made it all the way over to the group.

"Oh, what are we talking about?" Emma said, putting on a smile and lifting her eyebrows. The work that had been given her had gotten boring so quickly that she had hardly spent ten minutes on it before she found her head hurting. She just allowed herself to get up and walk away from it all, knowing that she wouldn't be productive by forcing herself to do it.

Emma recognised the looks on the entire group's faces. It was something she had seen time and time before. They had been talking about her, and it hadn't been something good. Each person wore this expression different. Anderson and Donovan appeared to be trying to mask their laughs. Sherlock was just about ready to roll his eyes again. John looked a bit embarrassed and ashamed to find hmself caught in the situation.

But Emma wasn't going to let it get to her at the moment. Rather, she would let it soak in through her skin and then when she was back home and all alone she would allow it all to rush out in a frenzy of whisky and knives. She just tried to divert the subject in her mind.

"How is the case going?" she said, directing her attentions towards John. It seemed as if Emma was avoiding direct association with Sherlock. With how he had been acting towards her, it was fairly undestandable.

"Ahem," Sherlock said, clearing his throat from behind the two of them. With her high heels, Emma was only a few inches shorter than Sherlock and could look him pretty squarely in the eyes. But as soon as she did that to try to and give him a look in response she found herself nearly twisting her ankle.

After a wince that caused her to loose all of her stature, she began to speak. "Sherlock," she replied, unsure of what else she could say. Her ankle started to pang. That was just perfection there. As if making herself look like an idiot wasn't already bad enough, she would have to deal with her injury.

Emma was rather lucky that the pain was only temporary, she hadn't done anything of real damage to her ankle.

"How is the case going?" Emma said, this time towards Sherlock. Her words were forced and irritated, but they came out nevertheless. "Has that letter I found been of any use?"

After another brief moment of silence, he replied. "It's more likely that the paper or the ink is more important than the letter itself," Sherlock said.

"What?" Emma said. She looked rather shocked and afraid at this news. "So you're saying that the letter isn't important."

"Not the content, no. But the actual materials could be."

Emma had to think about this for a moment, as it was not processing in her head. But finally her thoughts meshed their way together to make something that made sense...to her, anyways.

"You're saying that my father got a paper cut, went with it without treatment, got an infection, kept it secret, and then died from it? And then as he fell he hit his spine, and that's where that whole blunt force trauma thing came from?"

Even John gave Emma a strange look at that. It was simply too strange and outlandish to make any bit of sense whatsoever.

"Where the hell did you get that from?" Sherlock said. "I didn't say anything like that."

"Well, you did said that-"

"No. What you just said was absolute rubbish."

"But I-"

"No."

Emma linked eyes with John, sighing. It was her way of silently telling him that she wanted his support on getting Sherlock to stop. After all, Sherlock didn't seem to listen to anyone else. It wasn't exactly like John had control over him, but if anyone came close it was him.

"Well, Sherlock, we should probably go ahead and get that information we came here for in the first place."

"I'll go get the information," Sherlock replied. A bit sourly, he continued with, "You can stay here with Emma."

Although it was fairly obvious that Sherlock was using John as a distraction so that Emma wouldn't pester him, she was glad to see that this was the case. She didn't have to deal with Sherlock putting her down or pretending like she wasn't really there. She wasn't sure which one was worse.

Emma was halfway tempted to thank Sherlock for leaving, but she kept it in. There were some things that would inevitably only cause more problems than they would solutions, and Emma was able to see that this was one of those times.

It was just that Sherlock consistently made her feel upset, just as she consistently annoyed him. His mere presence was enough to put her on edge, knowing that sometime soon he would open his mouth and make her feel like an idiot again.

"Thank you," Emma said, sending a gracious smile to John. "We need to talk some more, but I've just been so busy with this new job." This was only halfway true, of course. She had been at New Scotland Yard for several days, and getting it all set up had been very time consuming, but the amount of work she had actually accomplished was very low.

"Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, 221B is still open for you if you need a place to work in the light, you know."

"Thanks, but...I think I'll pass for now," Emma said, recalling the torso in the oven. Of course, there was also the risk that Sherlock would reveal some new and terrible secret about her, and there were aspects of herself that she needed to keep hidden as best as she could. Everything major had been revealed, but there were still finer details. There were still stories, experiences.

"Well, just call me up if you ever want to come," John said.

Emma was starting to become almost suspicious about how nice John was being. It felt like no one had been so genuine to her in years, and that made it feel fake simply because it was real. She wanted it to be real, but her mind wouldn't have her have that.

As Emma stood there, trying to think of what to say next, she found her eyes tracking over to Sherlock. He didn't seem to do much of anything important. As a matter of fact, it seemed more like he was going to sit down and fall asleep than do anything else.

Now she knew how she could continue the conversation. After a few more moments of her own observation, she turned back to John. "He's not taking this seriously, is he?" Emma hissed. "It's because of me. He doesn't like me, so he isn't actually working on the case."

"No," John replied. "It's a case, and he's working just as hard on it as he typically does. I just don't think he's made much progress yet, which is what is bothering him."

"Are you sure?" Emma said, her anger softening. This seemed like a fairly reasonable explanation to her.

"Well, I can't be sure," John admitted. "Sherlock isn't exactly a person you can easily figure out."

"I've found something!" Sherlock announced, walking back over to the two of them.

"So?" Emma said, crossing her arms and shrugging. It was a very defensive sort of body language, and Sherlock noted it.

"There's just been a murder and they figured out the culprit."

"Is this the guy that killed my father, then?"

"No," Sherlock said. "Your father was the one who committed the murder, after he was pronounced dead."

A/N And the plot thickens, hehe! I'm so excited for this new idea I've just had. I know this chapter feels a bit rushed and thrown together...which it kind of was, as I was trying my best to get it out ASAP after being late on doing so beforehand. But I hope it's still good, and if you think so votes and comments are always loved. Thanks!