- c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   t h r e e -

It was almost astonishing how quickly everyone turned on Sherlock. Just a matter of days after Anderson and Donovan revealed their inner thoughts to Lestrade, the story spread like wildfire. People truly believed it - it didn't take much for people's minds to be persuaded.

There were very few that weren't susceptible from the proposition. It was like a plague that went through the population before anyone could even blink. Emma had been on the forefront of these people who had been converted. Although she hated to agree with Anderson and Donovan, she couldn't help but see their logic.

Her life and the goings on around her all seemed to focus around this new realisation she had made. While normal life continued to move onwards, she found that everything else seemed to be an absolute frenzy - and for once, it had nothing to do with her.

Emma remembered the night the police came in for a "drugs bust" of 221B. She, for once in her life, had been attempting to sleep rather than do anything else. Just like every other day, work had been long and tiring. After she sketched a quick drawing and ate a snack, she went directly to bed. The night was still young, but she didn't care.

Then came the sound of sirens, blaring as if they were people in a horror movie, screaming at the top of their lungs. Footsteps echoed down from the flat above, along with the sound of voices. Emma slapped a pillow over her ears and hoped that she could just block it all out.

Although she was far from falling asleep, this helped for a while. That is, until the gunshot and the yelling from outside began. Everything erupted into absolute mayhem around Baker Street, and she was unable to get a wink of sleep that night. In order to give herself something to do, she headed up to find Mrs. Hudson and ask her about what happened.

As soon as she found her landlady, she realised that she wasn't going to be of any use. Mrs. Hudson was far too startled over the events of the night to speak coherently about what had occurred or anything else.

"Emma, is everything okay?" Mrs. Hudson asked, creasing her eyebrows in concern.

"No," Emma managed to push out. "Not at all."

"Sounds like everyone around here has been getting themselves into trouble lately!" Mrs. Hudson said. "I suppose it's not too strange, with Sherlock and all, but ... the police were here!"

"Mmhm," Emma replied, rubbing her temples. She found herself wrapped up in a conversation with her landlady - although it wasn't much of a conversation because she didn't speak herself. As soon as she could escape, she headed back home and tried to nap.

But the strange happenings around Baker Street didn't end with the "drugs bust." That night was still clear in her mind when Emma found a note sitting in the crack in the bottom of her front door. She couldn't help but think of this as strange - no one ever bothered to travel down the staircase and come to her flat for anything.

Of course, it ended up getting even stranger as soon as she picked up the letter and started to read through it. Her eyes flicked over each word several times, as if looking at it more would allow it to make more sense to her.

Once upon a time, there was a pretty princess who lived in a castle. She slept in the dungeon every night. Even though her face did not change, she became a horrible monster. She lied and cheated her way through life, but no one ever stopped her because she was a princess.

Nevertheless, people began to conspire against her. The royal advisor began to see her for what she really was and spread the word around. Finally, the news made it to the correct person. Now the princess would no longer have to worry about causing any sorts of problems. Any sort of conflict would be over, permanently.

Her beastly form would no longer have to haunt her. In the end, it truly was a happily ever after for everyone."

After she had glanced over it several times and found no real meaning within it, she had tossed it aside in order to pursue other more pressing business in her life.

Emma's choice to simply ignore the note came back to haunt her, just like many other decisions she made in the past. The difference with this one was that it only took several days for her to suffer the consequences - just enough time to forget about the note completely.

One day, Emma heard the sound of knocking at her door. She was very irritated by this fact, but she attempted to act polite as she opened it up. A rather sour and burly looking man was standing outside of her flat, completely silent.

"Oh, um ... what are you doing here?" Emma asked, pushing back her hair out of her face. "You know, I'm not exactly decent at the moment, I only just got up -" It was true - after she stayed up so late drinking out her feelings the previous night, she refused to roll out of bed for hours.

The man opened up his mouth to respond, but then Emma interrupted him and went on speaking herself. It seemed to her that the only way she could properly think was to talk at the same time the thought came into her mind.

"I know, I know, it's really late in the day, but never mind that. You must be one of those people helping Mrs. Hudson with the renovations! That must be it ... so what exactly are you doing down here?"

When he didn't respond, Emma decided it was a sign for her to keep talking. He wasn't really doing much of anything, so she had finally found someone who could just stand and listen to what she was saying.

"Of course I got the irritating one," the man sighed to himself as she babbled onwards. "Shut up."

"And then I - wait, what?" Now Emma's full attention was on him once again.

"I said, shut up," the man repeated.

"Well, that's not very nice," Emma replied, offended. "Did you honestly just come down here in order to tell me to shut up? You never even told me why you came to begin with, so ..."

"Shut. Up."

This time, the man pulled a handgun from his back pocket, aiming it towards her head. Now Emma felt as if she couldn't make a sound, except for maybe to shriek or scream.

"Don't make a single noise, or I'll shoot. I have a task for you - you do it, I let you go."

Emma stared blankly at him for a moment, paralysed by her fear. She nearly opened her mouth to comply, but then remembered what the man had said. She couldn't make a single noise, or he'd shoot. She was sure of it - somehow she didn't doubt the fact of the matter at all.

"Here's what you have to do. You get out your phone, you call up John Watson, you tell him to come here."

"But ..." Emma sputtered, before clamping her mouth shut.

"But what?"

"... he won't come just because I asked him to."

"Make something up," the man replied. "I've heard you're good at that."

Emma slowly slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out her mobile. She looked through the contacts until she found John's name. As she began to call him, she raised it up to her ear on the opposite side of her head from where the gun was being held.

"John? Is that you there?" she asked as soon as the call had connected. Emma's voice was wobbling and shaking like mad - which meant she could use it as her advantage.

"Yeah, speaking."

"You see ... you ..." She swallowed before continuing, trying to make up some sort of story. "Gun ... there's ... shooting here, you have to come here ..."

"Er, what?" John's voice was shocked, but confused.

"Mrs. Hudson," Emma finally said, an idea coming to her mind. "Mrs. Hudson's been shot, John."

"What happened? Is she okay?"

"No," Emma squeaked. "She's not - not good, she's ... please, she's dying. The paramedics are here, but ... come help, now."

"Oh my God. Right, yes, I'm coming."

The call ended, and Emma dropped her phone, listening to it clatter against the ground.

"Your friends will die if you don't." Jim Moriarty knew how to make fear come to Sherlock. He knew how to make the almost robotic man care. He watched in pleasure as Sherlock's eyes began to glimmer, showing signs of being afraid.

Emma was close to sobbing, but every time she took a gasping breath too loud the gun would get pushed further into her head. If she somehow made it out of the situation alive she was convinced that she would have an imprint of the gun barrel on her head in that perfect shape.

"John," Sherlock said, his voice shaking in the just the slightest.

Emma thought about how she had been forced to trick John into coming to Baker Street. She wasn't sure whether it was her fault or not. A gun had been pushed against her head, and it still was being pushed. But through the lies she had spoken to John, she might have been leading him into danger, just like the danger she was in.

"Not just John," Jim said happily. Then he added on in a whisper, "Everyone."

"Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said in a sudden realisation.

Jim Moriarty was delighted. He smiled once more as he whispered yet again, "Everyone."

"Lestrade." Sherlock took a moment and then added on one last name. "Emma."

"Four bullets, four gunmen, four victims." The images of the four people whose lives would soon end if Sherlock didn't jump flashed through the genius's head. "There's no stopping them now."

Now that Emma had made the call, she expected the pressing of the gun to go away, to leave her alone. But it didn't. The man continued pressing the barrel up against her skull as if nothing had happened.

"I did what you told me to, please," Emma cried. "Just ... leave me alone now? It'll be that much easier, I swear."

"I told you to shut up," the man replied. "You haven't been doing a very good job of it lately."

"But ... you haven't shot me yet," Emma realised, her voice tapering off at the end of her sentence. "You should have shot me already if you were going to shoot me because I'm talking!"

"Are you trying to tempt me?" the man grunted, pushing the gun harder into her head.

"No! No ..." she replied, squeezing her eyes shut in fear. She tried to ignore the feeling of the gun in order to allow herself to think. She didn't know what to think about - her mind had gone blank as soon as the cold metal had been pressed up against her.

What was happening to Mrs. Hudson, anyways? Emma wondered about this, her curiosity overpowering even in her moment of terror. She had an inkling of fear that her landlady was suffering the same fate as her and that was why she could not come to her aid.

But ... no. She should have been able to hear some sort of noise from Mrs. Hudson. Emma would have at least heard a scream - or worse, a gunshot. No, she was fairly sure that the woman was just fine and going about her daily business

Could no one hear her cries from downstairs? It wasn't so far away that no one could hear her in the end. It was just a few staircases up, after all. She could hear things from up there, so she couldn't understand why nothing had tipped them off upstairs. Something had to be happening that she didn't know about.

There was the sound of a door flying open upstairs, heavy footfalls as if someone had run in. In Emma's mind, that could only mean one thing - John was back. Her phone call had succeeded. She could hear muffled voices talking, just talking. But she was sure she had done it.

"John's here," she blubbered. "John's here, that means you can let me go! You can let me go now, everything worked, everything's fine."

"Oh, princess, you're not done yet," the man said.

"No!" Emma cried out, unable to contain herself. The feeling of a gun being ground into her skull made her rethink making any more sounds, though. She would just have to retreat to her thoughts and hope that it would be enough to keep her together.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could take it. Maybe she wouldn't have to take it any longer, if the man pulled the trigger and pushed a bullet into her brain. It would hurt, she thought. The more she thought about it, the more squeamish she got.

Now she couldn't help but think about those lucky people upstairs. Lucky John. Lucky Mrs. Hudson. The man put his other arm around her neck to prevent her from moving. She was paralysed to begin with - now she just couldn't breathe.

Time seemed to stretch out in an eternity as Emma waited for the end. She was sick and tired of feeling so terrified. She wanted it to end - death would be absolutely welcome by this point in time.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a phone going off. The gun released from her head as the man reached for his phone and took the call. But she still couldn't take in a breath.

"He's fallen?" the man asked. Emma began to loosen herself from his arms, but then he tightened his choke-hold around her. "You are completely and utterly sure of this? There haven't been any other orders, at all?"

Emma strained her ears, trying to hear whatever was happening on the other side of the phone call. But no matter what she did, she was unable to hear anything. Her only indicator what was going on was whatever the man restraining her said.

"Fine, fine," he sighed. "I'm going. There's nothing else for me to do here." With that, he ended the call.

"You're free to go, princess," the man said. He took his arm away from her neck and she immediately sucked in as much air as she could. It was absolutely useless, as she released most of it just a few seconds later.

The man began to walk out of the room, but Emma refused to watch him leave. She never wanted to see his face or any other part of him ever again. When she heard him slam the door shut behind him, she allowed herself to fall apart.

Emma collapsed on the floor, curling herself into the fetal position subconsciously. She found herself weeping from fear and relief, all sorts of conflicting emotions coming together to make her erupt in sobs.

She had thought about dying in the past, even going so far as to think about ending her life by her own means. But at least with suicide it would be her choice, she would be doing it to herself. There was something that made it so different.

Having a gun pushed against her head was nothing like that. There was absolutely nothing she could have done, at least not in the heat of the moment. Emma wasn't any sort of action hero by any means. She barely knew how to operate a gun to begin with, so trying to wrestle one out of man's hands and defend herself with one seemed unfathomable.

Emma slowly found herself losing consciousness. Even though she had rested for most of the day, the experience drained all the energy from her. Everything blurred together until her world was nothing more than a watery blob. Gradually, she fell asleep in a puddle of her own tears, wishing that she would never have to wake up.

A/N And there we all. That's all for now. Too lazy to write anything more.