Nobody Knows My Heart Like You

Connie Prince: The Third Pip

Danielle blinked then suddenly it was morning. John invited her to a café, saying that Sherlock would come along. Danielle just wanted to stop moving for five minutes. She'd been so worked up last night that she hardly got any rest.

At the café, Danielle ordered herself a nice warm cup of cocoa. She just wanted sugar right now. Sugar would help her. Well sugar or maybe going out for a drink with Felix, that could work too.

"Feeling better?" Sherlock asked them.

"No." Danielle grumbled.

"You realize we've hardly stopped for breath since this thing started?" John asked Sherlock.

"I can feel it." Danielle sighed. She lowered her head to the table. She felt like her gym teacher had made her run extra laps. She took another gulp of cocoa. Already it was going cold. "Everything is falling apart."

"Ah. Lestrade called you too." Sherlock reasoned.

Danielle glared at him. On a better day, she would play along with his behavior. Not today.

"Why? What happened?" John asked.

"The latest hostage is another former antagonist of Danielle's." Sherlock explained.

John turned his head to Danielle. His eyebrows were scrunched up in confusion. Danielle sighed, lowering her drink. "Matthew Drummonds. A friend of Carl's. He at least had the decency not to know my name, or accuse me of murder." She looked at Sherlock. "You said they weren't meant to matter. They shouldn't matter. What is happening."

Sherlock could find her no answers. He was turning it over in his head, again and again. The emotional connection between them all was so long ago, it shouldn't even matter. Sherlock checked- the two current hostages weren't in contact with each other after finishing their A levels. Aldernay had no memory of Powers, and Drummonds held no more affection for his fallen friend.

None of it mattered. Sherlock deduced that the connection was only meant to cast doubt, to distract everyone from the Game. Perhaps to encourage Sherlock to stay away from the police, who loved this connection and thought it meant something. The voice over the phone wanted Sherlock to solve these puzzles, to play with Sherlock and only him. Everybody else made it boring.

Even John and Danielle were taking some of the fun out of it. John would get all rigid and emotional whenever Sherlock admitted to having fun or enjoying the game. He always wanted to keep a morally upright position.

Danielle ruined it with her face. The downturn of her lips, a worried frown constantly stuck on her features. Shadows under her eyes from restless sleep.

"Has it occurred to you-?" John began.

"Probably." Sherlock answered.

John glared, unamused. See? Ruining the fun. "No-has it occurred to you that the bomber's playing a game with you? The envelope, breaking into the other flat, the dead kid's shoes, all these people that knew Danielle- it's all meant for you."

Sherlock grinned. He told John it occurred to him, even before he asked. "Yes, I know."

"Is it him, then? Moriarty?" John asked.

Sherlock could only hope. "Perhaps."

Danielle shuddered. The shake of her shoulders in time with the buzz of the phone. Sherlock quickly grabbed it. The pips played, showing a picture.

Sherlock had no idea who this woman was. By Danielle's blank reaction, neither did she. It could rule out another former teacher (the woman was clearly too old to have been a classmate)- then again, Danielle might have forgotten the face. The woman in this picture wore so much makeup, it's a wonder it managed to still stick.