Lost And Found

Balloons

Elizabeth's POV

We begin to walk home from the supermarket. John has like four bags.

"Do you want me to take a couple of them?" I ask, feeling kind of guilty for not carrying anything.

"No it's fine. One of them has about four bottles of milk. I'm hoarding it so we don't have to go out again. They're all really heavy."

I sigh and take the bag with the milk in and the bag with potatoes and other things without asking him. "There." I say, carrying the bags in one hand with ease.

We walk for a while longer until John breaks the silence, "are those bags not hurting your arm?"

"No not really." I shrug.

"Mind you, I'm not surprised." He decides.

"I don't understand."

"Well you've lived under the radar for your entire life; obviously they'd train you physically."

"Yeah I guess."

John presses the button by the crossing and we wait for the little man on the monitor to turn green. "Just how much food did you get every day?" He kind of says out of the blue.

"Not much. Sometimes none, sometimes more. It depended on how much food some the guys managed to get. Obviously that caused some stomach problems for me but it is what it is. According to everyone I was born into the group, but I uhh, I have no idea who my parents are."

"I see."

We make it back to the flat and I drop my coat off in my room before going up stairs with the bags to meet John and Sherlock.

It's warmer in here than earlier. I suppose Sherlock could've turned the heating up but he doesn't seem like the type of guy that lets his thought process be interrupted by being cold. It must be automatic or something.

I place the bags on the counter so John can put the stuff away, and join Sherlock in the living room. "Hello."

"Hello." He replies, clearly having no intention of starting a conversation with me.

"So, your job is literally just hunting down murderers?" I ask which seems to have at least caught his attention.

"Yes. But not all the time, sometimes I solve the case before the potential murderer actually becomes a murderer."

"Some people enjoy their jobs...do you?"

"Well enjoy is a rather unspecific word, it's more...captivating, liberating, extricating-"

"That's Sherlock's way of saying yes." John pipes in from the kitchen, chuckling to himself as he puts some apples away in the cupboard.

"Figures." I reply and look around at the room like earlier. "Do I want to know how that wall has bullet holes in it?" I ask, looking at the yellow smiley face with several bullet dents around it.

"Somebody got bored." John claims from the kitchen.

"I'd rather call it 'deprived from intellectually solving planned crimes against the common people'. But yes, I suppose I did find myself to be bored."

I laugh and see another thing in the room that spikes my interest, "why are there balloons?"

"It was Mrs Hudson's 75th Birthday a few days ago, so we had a little gathering with Greg and Molly and a couple of others." John answers, finishing putting the shopping away and coming to join us in the main room. He wanders over to where the balloons are kind of floating around on the floor and picks one up, tossing it in the air between two feet like footballers do.