- c h a p t e r   o n e -

Sherlock Holmes and John Waston were back in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a place where they tended to go often in order to solve a case. The two of them walked in to the lab, spotting Molly immediately. But there was also something new. Or rather, someone new.

There was a woman sitting on the side, furiously writing down something on a sheet of paper. She didn't look up at first, but when she did her eyes immediately flicked over to Sherlock and John.

"Molly," she said, "care to introduce me to these two?" 

"Yes, of course," Molly said, trying to smile slightly. "Sherlock, John, this is Emma. Emma, Sherlock and John."

Emma hopped off of her seat on the side and walked over to the two of them to shake their hands.

"I'm Emma Newman. I'm Molly's friend, back from our school days," she said with a smile. "She was the smart one, but I was the hot one." Emma let out a laugh that was a bit loud and obnoxious. There was definitely a hint of force behind it.

As soon as Sherlock had released his hand from Emma's he was already off doing something on his own.

"Don't let it bother you too much," Molly said, giving a sad sort of smile with the tips of her lips quirking up and down. "He does that to pretty much everybody."

"Sorry about that," John said, walking up to Emma. "I'm John Watson, and that's Sherlock Holmes." He stopped and looked at Emma for a minute. She was dressed to the nines, wearing a fancy probably designer dress and topped off with a scarf thrown around her neck. Emma was quite attractive. She was long and lean with facial features that were soft and sharp in all the right places. Her hair was long and thick, a brownish colour with highlights of blonde running through it. Standing there in front of John, he couldn't help but think that she could be a model.

"I think I've heard of you two before," Emma said. 

"You probably have," Molly said, piping up. "They solve crimes all over the place. They're really good at it." Her eyes flicked over to Sherlock, whose back was turned to her. She let out a little sigh and Emma raised her eyebrows, not picking up what was going on.

"Well, it's nice to meet you," Emma said with a bit of a smile. "It's nice to be out of Staffs for once. My father just was murdered, unfortunately, but I'm excited to be moving here to London."

"Your father was murdered? I'm sorry, John said."

"I don't really want to talk about it," Emma said, biting her lip.

"I understand," John replied. "So...you're from Staffs?" John said, changing the subject for Emma's sake.

"Well, of course she's from Staffs," Sherlock said, not looking up from his work over on the side. Emma opened up her mouth to say something, but her thoughts escaped her. There was a moment of awkward silence. 

"I'll just leave you three alone." Molly stared at them expectedly, hoping that someone would respond to her. Emma looked over to her and gave her a slight smile.

"What are you off to do, then?" Emma asked, leaning over.

"I'm going to go deliver some test results," Molly replied a bit too quickly. 

Sherlock finally raised his eyes up and noticed that there was nothing in Molly's hands. "I believe you need the test results before you can deliver them." He turned back to his work yet again.

"Oh, yes," Molly said, immediately getting flustered. She quickly grabbed a few papers off of the counter and rushed out of the room, her gaze right on the floor. Emma shook her head. Nope, even though it had been years since the two of them had spent time with one another, Molly was still the same old Molly. 

The awkward silence from before came back. Emma drifted around the room for a few seconds, tilting her head at just about everything. But when she turned around to face Sherlock and John again, she got a bit of a surprise.

She saw Sherlock staring at her, looking at her up and down. Emma pursed her lips, confused as to what was going on. She looked over at John and tilted her head yet again. Luckily, John got the message.

"He's making deductions," he explained. "Try not to get too offended."

Emma creased her eyebrows, unsure of how she should feel about all this. The fact that she had to try not to be offended scared her.

"So, you say you moved here from Staffordshire because your father was murdered," Sherlock said. 

"Yes," she said cautiously. John had given her a warning, and she planned to stand by that warning.

"Most people would assume that you came here because you were too traumatised to stay in the area," he continued, putting his hands together and raising them to his mouth. "But this isn't the case. You came here because with the inheritence from him dying you finally had enough money to escape. You had been wanting to come to London for a long time."

"Yes," Emma said again, this time with surprise leaking into her voice. Her shock was so great that the offensive part didn't go straight to her immediately. Sherlock was completely right. It was almost scary. How could he possibly know all of that, just by looking at her?

"Don't be too impressed," John said, trying to stop this from progressing into something terrible. "After a while it isn't as interesting."

Sherlock wasn't listening to the two of them. He had deductions to do, and he was finding that Emma was actually quite interesting. 

"You've got a bit of an alcohol problem. Whisky, I would guess."

Now Emma was starting to understand why John had given her that warning. But she was just so surprised by just how right Sherlock was.

"How did you..." she began. Sherlock cut her off by beginning to explain.

"Firstly, you're shaking slightly. It doesn't matter if you're sitting or standing, you're always slightly shaking. That's a sign that you haven't had a drink in a while and you're craving it. You're not fully focused on anything at once, your eyes tend to take a bit too long to change to anything new. It's like you're lagging behind because you haven't gotten the alcohol."

"But...how did you know it was whisky?"

"Well, I would assume that it would be something with a high alcohol content. That way it would be just that much easier to get the alcohol when it's needed. Of course, whisky would make the most sense because it burns on the way down."

Emma stared at him blankly for a moment. "What does that have to do with anything?" She looked down for a moment and snapped out of it to say, "Well, it is true, but I don't understand."

"Oh, the answer's simple," Sherlock replied. John heaved a sigh, as he had been hoping that this would not end up happening. But, of course, Sherlock had to be Sherlock and there was no way of avoiding it, especially when Emma was just provoking him into saying even more. "The burning in your throat is just another way to have self harm."

Emma's eyes widened in shock. "How could you possibly know that?" she said, a slight shake in her voice. When she asked the question, she hadn't meant it literally, of course. But Sherlock didn't take it that way. He brought up his explanations yet again, please that all of his deductions were turning out correctly.

"Self harm. It's easy to see because obviously once you used to cut. The way that you hold your arms partially behind your back by habit shows that you are trying to hide something on them. But when you held your hand out to shake it was evident that there was nothing on your arms."

Emma blinked her eyes a few times. She hadn't asked for any of this. But Sherlock did not seem like he was going to be stopping anytime soon.

"This means that there must have once been something on your arms that you wanted to hide. I have a feeling that it was your wrists you wanted to hide. You cut once, and you didn't want anyone to see. You tended to use your interests and your clothing to cover up all of your negative feelings. Although you tell people that you're long over this state of depression inside it's never really gone away." Sherlock took a step closer to her, his blue eyes boring into hers which had begun to tear up. He could see right through her defenses. Even in her full dress with a scarf and all, she felt completely naked. She felt emotionally bared to everyone around her. Was this how Sherlock made everyone feel, or was it just her? Emma wasn't quite sure that she wanted to know the answer. 

"You care too much about what people think. You want to control your image but the problem is that you were never happy with it to begin with. To this very moment, you have been living a life that you don't want." Emma's eyes bulged. He might as well have sucked the thoughts and feelings right out of her brain and then smacked her across the face with it.

"All right, all right Sherlock! She sees what you can do now. Just stop."

Sherlock sighed and seemed almost like he was about to roll his eyes at John. He had been finding a gold mine full of information about Emma and it was interesting to see the effects he had by explaining his deductions. But Sherlock listened to John and walked over to put his eye on a microscope and try to figure out some more information from the case at hand.

"Sorry about that," John said, coming over towards Emma who had pretty much frozen as she stared in shock at Sherlock who now had his back turned to the two of them. "He does it to everyone, and well, I frankly can't understand why."

Emma squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head out, sending a few tendrils of hair flying. 

"I'll be okay, I guess."

John nodded slightly and gave her a smile. "So, Emma, what was your job, back in Staffordshire?" John said, trying to make conversation.

"I was an artist," Emma immediately, almost too quickly. 

"Waitress," Sherlock said, not even looking up. 

Emma took in a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. She was already getting fed up with this Sherlock character. 

"Fine, waitress." She threw up her hands. "How did you know?"

"If I were you, I really wouldn't ask that-" John began, but he was cut off by Sherlock explaining his deductions again. He just loved to show off.

"Let's start off with your shoes. They are fashionable, high heels, not meant to be comfortable. The sole isn't worn down at all, nor does it have any dirt on it. This means they're new, you're putting a lot of care into keeping them nice. You've never worn them before. Normally you would have a pair of comfortable shoes that were all worn down from the constant walking that is a part of being a waitress. I can see from your legs that you have done quite a bit of walking around."

Emma wasn't sure what shocked her more, how Sherlock knew all that just by glancing at her or the fact that he had been looking at her legs. He continued onwards, there was still more to this.

"The same thing applies to your outfit. It's new, brand new, never been worn before. You want to flaunt it because you've recently come into a bit of money from your father's inheritence whereas normally you could not afford such clothes."

"Well, that's just a bit rude," Emma murmured. Sherlock wasn't paying attention to her yet again. John had his face in his hands, wondering when it would all end. 

"When we first came in you were writing notes down. Your handwriting is fast and just legible enough for someone to read it. Cooks would have needed to be able to read it. Besides, the shorthand you were using points to yet another indicator that you would need speed for your job. It all makes sense. You were a waitress."

Emma took a deep breath. She knew that it might be a terrible idea to keep Sherlock going on, but she was just so curious. "What else can you tell about me?" Emma's voice was quiet. As much as it hurt her to hear all of her secrets being spilled out all at once, it fascinated her that Sherlock was able to do so much so easily and quickly.

John shook his head. "I'm sure that Emma here doesn't actually want to know what you can figure out."

"No, I do," Emma said. 

Sherlock looked at her for a moment and then spoke again. "You play the cello. You have calluses on your fingers from holding down the frets."

"But how did you know it was the cello? It could have been any string instrument," Emma said, tilting her head.

"Your posture," he said. "When you're sitting down you bend over just the way a conditioned cello player would. But when you're standing up, it goes away. Therefore you could not be playing any other instrument other than the cello, which is the only one that just about requires you to sit down."

"I'm surprised," Emma said. "I thought you were going to tell me something else that was wrong about me and then explain how it's completely obvious and that everyone should be able to tell." She was getting a bit of attitude towards Sherlock. But before she could say anything else, she was distracted.

Molly came back into the room, but as soon as she saw that all three people were still there she began to turn back around. 

"Molly!" Emma said, stopping her before she could go anywhere. "Can we talk?" Emma asked. 

"I was going to..." Molly said, scrambling for an excuse. But she was not doing well at making up a lie on the spot, so Emma was able to reel her in. Emma leaned over and whispered in Molly's ear.

"You missed it," Emma said. "Sherlock was making deductions about me, and it was horrible. He knew everything about me at a glance, and he just wouldn't shut up about it."

"Well, that's kind of what he does," Molly said, starting to move away again. 

"No!" Emma said, pulling her back. The sudden movement made John look up and over at the two women. Emma gave him a smile, trying to say that nothing was wrong without saying anything at all.

"I still have more to talk about," Emma whispered.

"You always do," Molly said under her breath. "Okay, I'll stay. I do have things I need to do, though," Molly said.

"Don't worry, it'll be quick," Emma said. 

"If you say so," Molly replied, her voice low. Molly knew Emma quite well, and could guess easily what Sherlock had said about her. Emma's life had not been an easy one, that was for sure. But throughout easy times and hard times alike, Emma had never been able to shut her mouth. The two women were very different, and they always had been. But that hadn't stopped them from becoming friends. It was strange, the story of their past, but it was a story nevertheless. 

"Sherlock, he was making deductions about me."

Molly nodded, her eyes flitting down to the ground. "Yes, that's what he always does."

"He was right, about everything. He just looked at me and suddenly it was like he could write a whole book about my life. I don't know, though. He's interesting. Kind of hot, I think."

"...great," Molly replied, shaking her head slightly. 

Another silence fell over the room. It was welcomed by all.

A/N Oh wow, it's my first Sherlock fanfiction and I'm so excited! Of course, you'd think I would have written some already being that I'm running a Sherlock writing competition, but that's just not how things turned out. Oh well. Emma Newman is probably one of my favorite characters because she seems so simple but then you realize that she's really quite complicated on the inside. I have some interesting things planned for her that you'll see soon. Over on the side we have a picture of the lovely Charlotte Salt as Emma Newman! So, I hope I did well on my first Sherlock fanfiction! If you think I did, you can show it through votes, comments, and adding this to your library and reading lists! Thank you!