Shadows of the Past (BBC Sherlock) -1-

1. London Calling

My eyes stuck to looking out the car window, taking in the sights around me. For as long as I could remember, Maryland had always been home. It was the one place where I could feel the safest.

"Are you nervous?" Amanda asked me. She and I had been best friends for years, since high school. We're the same age, twenty. She was attending college, I wasn't. Amanda didn't live on campus; her commute from school to home wasn't that far. Ever since we both moved out of our parents' houses, we decided to live together. No, we didn't have anything lesbian thing going on. We're two best friends who thought it would be financially better to share a place.

"I shouldn't be," I admitted, ruffling my chocolate, shoulder-blade length hair. "But I am, sort of."

"You don't have to tell them everything. Tell them the need-to-know things, and nothing else."

"Right, need-to-know." I messed with my fingers, a habit I had developed over the years. Most people didn't pick up on my finger habit, but I knew a few people who could. For the life of me, I didn't want to think about them. They reminded me of everything that had happened recently. As if the injury hadn't been enough of a reminder.

"Are you telling them about your shoulder?" Mandy continued to probe as she turned a corner. "They might notice your stiffness."

"I'll make up something." Consciously, I touched my left shoulder, the one that was still healing from a vicious wound. I grimaced, trying my hardest to not think back to the night that I got it. "They don't need to know the true story."

"They do have a right to know, though. They should sometime. Why did you tell me, anyway?"

"I live with you, Mandy. I had to tell somebody eventually."

"Why not your parents?"

"And have them breathe down my neck for the rest of my life? No thanks. I figured you would handle the news the best." I shrugged, wincing at a slight twinge in my shoulder. That little twinge would eventually go away, I hoped. "So...you haven't talked to them, either, the girls?"

Mandy shook her head. "Nope. I got a call from Madison telling me about the get together at Chili's with her and the others. We didn't really talk much."

"It's been, what, two, three years since we've last talked to any of them?"

"It feels like it's been longer."

"Tell me about it."

Ten minutes later, Amanda had her car parked in the Chili's parking lot. I stepped out, contrasting Amanda greatly. She didn't look twenty, with her appearance. She didn't like it when people believed she was older than her actual age. She held herself high, straight blonde hair up in a high ponytail. How she didn't break her legs in the heeled boots she wore amazed me. She was the fashionable one; I was more of the down-to-earth girl who wasn't looking for anything exciting in life, unless you counted finding Mr. Right.

The smell of Chili's food nearly made my mouth drool. My stomach roared. It wasn't noticeable, as chatter and music drowned it out.

Amanda took lead, weaving her way through the narrow aisles in search for our other friends. When I saw Mandy wave, I knew she had found them. She had sharp eyesight, she rarely missed a thing.

"Hi!" Mandy chirped as the girls slid out from the booths, coming to briefly embrace each other. Mandy and I settled in one booth along with Kendal, and in the other booth were Darien and Madison. Mandy and I were the youngest out of the group, Darien and Kendal were the oldest by a few years.