The Sunday Morning Puzzle

Sherlock Holmes sat at his microscope in Bartholomew Hospital, staring intently into the eyepiece and warming his hand against a cup of coffee. An old Londoner had just died of Mad Cow disease and he'd managed to get a bit of nervous tissue from the body. Mad Cow disease! It was a rare treat. He surveyed the sample intently and entertained the abstract idea of weaponizing the genetic malady. Sure, it lay dormant and ineffective for years, but with a few batches of contaminated meat or a bad vaccine, one could wipe out a generation! It was all quite stimulating.

With a paper chucked under her arm, she followed Michelle Stanford, a friend from College who worked in Bartholomew's hospital. She opened a door to the old lab where they used to do practice on Wednesday mornings. When she came in, she looked around. "Different from my time." she cared to notice out loud. Then she noticed him. A pale bloke with curly brown hair who was concentrated on his work. He was quite handsome, she supposed... "Hi. I'm Jane Watson." She addressed to the man. She waited for a reply.

Sherlock heard someone enter the room. "Mad cow disease! Can you believe it? The chap who owned these synapses is just one of a dozen confirmed cases. Oh, is it my birthday?" He snapped out of his reverie as he heard the stranger introduce herself. "Oh, hello. Sherlock Holmes. Sorry about the breakup last night."

((I'm so sorry! I assumed that they knew each other already. I edited the post, so please do that to yours too ^^, good night!))

(Done! Oh, and a belated good night to you too!)

Jane was intrigued by this stranger, who was apparently very excited about... Mad Cows disease... Well, everybody his own fetish, she supposed.

She steeled her gaze and attitude when he mentioned the breakup. She looked away for a brief moment and sighed unconsciously. A
She frowned at him at last. "Oh, thanks. But erm, how do you-?"

((Thanks, going to bed now ^^))

Sherlock smirked. Ordinary people could be so adorable sometimes. He swiveled in his chair and looked at her. "Well, your haircut and the upright way you carry yourself scream military. You're obviously a doctor, too, judging by your comment about this place being 'different from your time.' Your hands are brown and dry, but your wrists are pale. You've just returned from desert combat. You've got markings on your wrists from where bracelets used to be and small abrasions at the base of your hands from where you pulled them off. If you were wearing bits of jewlery in combat, they must have meant a lot to you. Sentiment. From the emotionality of their removal, I'm guessing a romantic attachment gave them to you. I say boyfriend, of course, because there are no marks on your fingers suggesting the presence of a wedding ring. Obviously, he got tired of waiting for you to come home and just broke the news to you last night, which is why the markings are still fresh. That would also explain the small bulge in your abdomen. You're currently digesting a large quantity of comfort food. Stress eater, I see. Well, welcome back to the city."

Jane's mind was diverted in two parts:

One part of awe and astonishment that this stranger knew all what she'd like to hide by just one look.

The other part was of rage and fury. How dared he first apologise for what had happened last night and then comment on her weight! Had this man no feelings? Didn't a breakup recall a respectful and tactful treatise for the screwed?

The anger built up in her chest. She did not divert her gaze from his grey/blue eyes. She was so astonished and put off that she did not allow him to feel better than she. She clenched her hands into fists when he began talking about her jewelry. When he mentioned the abrasions, she rubbed them with her left hand. They still hurt, emotionally and physically.
But when he noticed her belly, she lost it. She just came back from combat! He doesn't know how stressful it had been and how unilateral the food had been. She had been shot, for God damn's sake! And can't a woman have some curves? Not all women have to be as thin as wooden planks as this Sherlock who stood before her.
Without thinking, she let the fury loose and slapped him on his left cheek with her right hand. Breathing heavily, she was still locked in his gaze, but her eyes spat fire.

((I do not regard John as fat or chubby, actually. I mean, he/she just came back from Afghanistan, got shot and endured a terrible fever and recovery. And she couldn't become fat from yesterday's breakup, couldn't she? Sorry if I make you feel uncomfortable!))

(Oh, no, I meant that her stomach was swollen, not that she had excess fat.)

Sherlock huffed at her slap. "How dare you? I simply observed you. You have no moral imperative to treat me like a child!" He stood up and looked down at her, making sure she was aware of the significant height difference between them. He entertained the thought of injecting his sample of Mad Cow disease directly into her bloodstream. The thought of her tantalizingly rare death relaxed and even cheered him, though, so that in a few moments he had calmed down. "Out of curiosity, which observation was the one that irritated you most? This is a good opportunity for psychological data."

"How dare I, no the right question is: how dare you?! Haven't you got a heart? Doesn't it strike you as obvious that a breakup might be hurtful for the dumped?" She looked up, aware of their height difference. Fuck it, I am from the Fifth Nortumberland Fusiliers, I am trained she thought. She resisted though, the interesting man interested her. He really didn't care. He only cared for data. How unusual. And how enraging. So enraging that she did not answer his second question and just looked up, blankly.

Sherlock awaited a response to his question for a few seconds, then broke their gaze and dashed around the room for more test kits. "Oh, yes, I get it. Ordinary people and their sentiments." He scooped his supplies under one arm and dumped them across an already busy table. "So, I take it you haven't found a flat yet."

She sighed. It was apparently no use to mediate with him. Apparently, she was ordinary. "Whatever" she breathed, almost not audible.

Her curiosity was sparked again when he mentioned the flat. How did he know? Was he a magician? She felt her anger and irritation flow away slowly when she answered him. "No, I haven't." She could not resist asking him. "How-?"

Sherlock couldn't help smiling. "Well, for one thing, you're just back from military service, which makes it unlikely you have stable housing. Your clothes are cheap and stiff with laundromat washing and bulk detergent. It's pretty safe to assume you're staying at the barracks." He clapped his hands. "Well. I play the violin during the early hours of the morning. Sometimes I don't speak for days on end. The good news is you don't have to feed me very often."

"Feed you-" She grumbled to herself. Did he think of her as his slave? She sighed again and pulled herself together. He offered to move in together. She frowned at this thought. A strange (good looking, though very unhuman) man wanted to share a flat with her, with no reason.

"No problem, I guess." she said. This man was interesting.

"You seem very begrudging about the whole matter. Ah well. I've found a nice place in Central London that should be big enough for the two of us. We'll meet there at seven. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a corpse to check up on." He pushed his supplies to the side and strode over to the door.

"Whoa, wait, clever boy. I don't even know who you are, in contrary to you, who appears to know everything about me. I don't even know where we'll meet." she paused. Was this a good idea? She just had slapped this man because he insulted her with the truth. Why did she want to live with this guy?

Because he was interesting and unusual and terribly handsome, that's why.

Sherlock reached the door and turned back to her. "The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street." With that, he slipped out and into the hallway. A newspaper spilled over the top of a wastebasket outside the lab. Even a few feet away, he could tell something was wrong. A headline of the paper read "Austerity Measures Called Into Question By Iq Mdq Oayuzs." Similar misprints were scattered throughout the newspaper. Sherlock's years of detective work had taught him to never ignore a coincidence. He tucked the paper under his arm, texted Molly Hooper to ask her to send him a picture of the body, and rushed back into the lab. "You! You've got a newspaper. Let me see the headline."

She was left alone, befuddled and baffled. That stranger really was very weird. She was not put off by it, no. She thought he was interesting and confusing. He didn't talk for days on end? What is that good for?

She was too surprised to tell him her name again and handed him the newspaper. She stepped beside him when he read the headline. "They can't print papers properly these days." she muttered.

Sherlock peered at it. "Interesting. Nonspecific message, then. The newspapers certainly didn't put this in, unless it was as some sort of joke, which is unlikely. We're probably dealing with a cipher, a message to the UK sent by someone who has the power to change the words on the press. I suppose a tour of the printing facilities is necessary. Of course, the police won't be paying this any attention, so I'll need an assistant..." He looked up and peered at the woman beside him. "Watson, are you free this afternoon? I could use a second opinion."

It took a few blinks to gasp what the man had asked her. "Eh... I am free this afternoon..." She frowned and selected one question of the many to ask.

"So, it is your job to change that then? I mean, the paper...?" She was confused. She did not know much about this Sherlock Holmes. Actually not more than his name, gender and plans to move into 221B Baker Street together. She had questions for him. A lot.

"Brilliant! And no, not really. I'm a consulting detective. I invented my job. Shall we?" He mentally triangulated the location of the facility he was looking for, then glanced at the door. "We've got to see if anyone at the printing press outside London knows anything about some last-minute modifications."

"Oh." She imagined the look on her face. "But, you are not part of Scotland Yard then? The police don't consult amateurs. And what do you mean 'I invented the job'?" Her brows knitted together.

This man had a strange influence on her. She wanted to follow this guy and to find out more about him and be part of his adventures. She didn't understand much of it now, though. "Er, al-right, I'll be right behind you."

"Of course the police don't consult amateurs. They consult me. I'm the only civilian in the world the police come to when they're out of their depth. Come on!" He turned on his heel and walked to the door.

"Oh, al-right then." She said still unsure. She was trying to sketch a profile of this Sherlock-I-am-the-consulting-detective-guy, but she was failing terribly.

She followed him on the heels out of the door into the hallway. She couldn't hold back her dumb questions, so she asked them anyway. "Where are we going? What's wrong with the paper? It is not a normal misprint, isn't it?"