The Great Game: Chapter 1

                                    

                                          
You spent another late night at 221B, discussing current cases of yours with Sherlock. Since you'd had to get rid of an intern at work, every case file was going directly through you. You needed all the help you could get. Even if it meant fighting Sherlock over conclusions based on the limited evidence you had, which was all basically invaluable.
                          
Right now, you were trying to decide if the wife or the nanny killed a poor, not so innocent man. It was a cut and dry case in your opinion. The wife killed her husband because he was having an affair with their hired nanny, that's all there was to it. But Sherlock had to make it complicated as always. He'd started off with all these theories about the nanny before you grew tired of it and finally got him on the right track.
                          
"No, no! It's clearly the wife. Look at the man's shoe colour!" Sherlock debated, pointing his hands at the crime scene photos.
                          
"That's what I've been telling you for the past 10 minutes while you blabbed about how the nanny had a string of lovers and was scamming the people she worked for! Which is not relevant, by the way. I know it's the wife! She was jealous, the nanny was clearly screwing the husband. I mean you can visibly see the lipstick smears on his temple trailing down to his clavicle. The wife was not cheap, there is no way she'd buy lipstick that waxy." You agreed, flipping through more pages of the file, writing down your report. You were glad to be done with that one.
                          
"Next!" You sighed opening another case file labeled 'The Russian Case'. "Twenty eight year old woman supposedly killed by her husband. Multiple stab wounds to the chest from a butcher's knife... ohhh, this is interesting!" You tapped the case file suddenly becoming interested. Sherlock leaned forward, trying to read the file. "The husband claims he didn't do it. He remembers stabbing her, but says he doesn't know how it happened. Claims it was mind control or something, I don't know. That could be something to look into." You passed the file to Sherlock, letting him read over it as you went to start making a bed on the couch so you could stay over.
                          
"Or he could be lying," Sherlock paused, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Is this suspect available for questioning?"
                          
"Yup, you could meet with him in the morning." You offered, studying Sherlock's shelves for a book you haven't yet read after you finished your little makeshift bed. There must at least be one! You already knew there wasn't one, but you might as well look anyway.
                          
"You won't come?" Sherlock questioned, scanning your features. You looked at him a moment, wondering why he'd ask.
                          
"No, you can take that one. I'm swamped in finishing up these cases for my assistant Emma, the transition to Bart's has me exhausted. I didn't even know that was possible." You bit your lip, looking over at Sherlock. You finally decided to "re-read" an anthropology book since you couldn't find a single book you hadn't read. Sometimes looking at the actual images rather than the ones in your head felt more real. You preferred it more at times.
                          
"How has that been? Bart's?" You heard John's voice call out, as he entered the flat. You looked over at him as he walked through the door. He'd been referring to your slow transition over to Bart's Hospital.
                          
"Work has been fine. Molly has been great too!" You plopped onto the couch opening the book and shoving your face into its yellowing pages, ready to be done with small talk. You never did like small talk, you weren't very good at it.
                          
"I detect hesitation." Sherlock rang out, coming closer to deduce you. You rolled your eyes, pulling a blanket over your legs and looking over a human skeleton diagram you already had memorized. "It's a man." Sherlock deduced and you turned to John, ignoring Sherlock.
                          
"John, did you know that the average adult human skeleton contains 206 bones?" John wasn't having any of your distraction and was grinning widely at you. Great. Now Sherlock dragged John into his false deductions.
                          
"A man?" He looked over at Sherlock, telling Sherlock to deduce more from you. You outwardly groaned, you hated it when Sherlock deduced you. He could just ask instead of reading it from you. On his defense, you often did the same to him.
                          
"Yes, she's been with Molly a lot. I can clearly tell that from your perfume, it is the same kind Molly uses, so you must have hugged her and picked up the scent at work. Now, hugging doesn't sound too much like you, so she hugged you. But why? Sure, Molly is a kind spirit, but she knows better than to run around hugging people, especially you, so you told her about something. Something that would have made her feel bad or happy for you, I know most of your personal life, so nothing tragic has happened to you, so that leads me to believe there is a man at work. You've been almost.... cheery the past week, wearing nice clothes and excessive makeup. So, a man at work seems to be the most reasonable answer." Sherlock finished, almost looking upset. You looked up from your book at him and set it down calmly.
                          
"Actually Sherlock, you're wrong. A man just seems the most reasonable answer without the facts. There is no man at work. I'd expect you from all people to know relationships don't interest me. I just told Molly about me buying 221C to renovate and she was excited for me, oh surprise by the way. I'm moving in right below you." You stated, picking your book back up.
                          
"Y/n!" John yelled as he hugged you. "That's awesome!"
                          
"Oh." Sherlock frowned, upset he deduced wrong and went to drown his sorrow in his chair. You glanced over at him and he held the case file from earlier, deeply studying it. You watched him a while, thoughts bouncing through your head, before you caught John grinning at you and you quickly darted your eyes away.
                          
"Anyways, night you two." You placed your book on Sherlock's desk before curling into the couch and drifting off. Your dreams were full of anxiety, as always. Ever since the night they started, they hadn't stopped. Everything in your past just flowed back to your mind, and it honestly scared you in your sleep.
                          
The main event of this dream was another appointment with Dr. McClendon. You kept getting frequent scans to determine the activity levels in your temporal lobe. The last one took a drastic change, lowering almost to normal. You weren't sure what it meant, but Mark was determined to find out. You couldn't help but think about it nonstop, and now it even haunted your dreams.