All is Fair in Love and War

Countdown

If inconvenient, come anyway. - SH

The doctor rolled his eyes and dragged himself regretfully out of bed. Why couldn’t London’s criminal masses be more considerate of his sleep schedule? For that matter, why couldn’t Sherlock?

John didn’t even bother answering that last. Sherlock, he suspected, had already been up all night and had likely forgotten (or simply deleted) the fact that most humans require sleep for proper bodily function. Climbing into slacks and a jumper, John scrawled a note to Mary, dropped it on the pillow, and made his exit. The time on the alarm clock at this moment read “7:12”.

He grabbed a sack lunch from the refrigerator, peeked in on Sheryl, who was cooing quietly in her sleep, and texted the consulting detective back as he stepped outside and hailed a cab.

7:14 a.m.

Is it going to be dangerous? ;) - JW

As a general rule, John did not care for the use of emoticons in text messages, as he found them rather banal means of communicating expression. He thought that Sherlock probably felt the same way, but he sent the winking face regardless, because if there was one place Mr. Holmes was deficient, it was in his comprehension of people’s feelings, and without the additional clue, John wasn’t sure Sherlock would recognize that the text was a joke.

7:14 a.m.

I seriously doubt it. Nothing was actually stolen. And what on earth did you send me a semi-colon and an end-parenthesis for? - SH

For the second time that morning, John Watson rolled his eyes. Apparently it was going to be one of those Mondays.

The cab dropped the doctor just outside of the boutique. For a change, the site had not been barricaded off by Scotland Yard, so he did not have to answer any awkward questions about why he was strolling up to a crime scene, cool as you please. This, John surmised, was presumably linked to the fact that, according to Sherlock, nothing had been taken. But if there was no crime, he wondered, why were they there?

Sherlock met him at the small blue door.

“At last, a possible connection!” he exclaimed gleefully. “Do you see it?”

“Uh...” John thought back to last week’s case. “The murder victim, Rockwell. He was a jewelry forger, wasn’t he?”

“Precisely,” the detective nodded sharply, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “And now a break-in at one of London’s many fine jewelry outlets.”

“But you said nothing was taken,” John said, following Sherlock as the man turned and strode down the aisle between displays.

“And today you were too tired when I texted you to brush your hair before leaving your flat,” he replied without bothering to turn around. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought we were listing things that were painfully obvious.”

John flattened his hair self-consciously, hastening his step to keep up. At the end of the aisle, Sherlock tapped smartly on the door to the back room and a young, well-dressed woman, presumably an employee, opened it.

“Is this your friend?” she asked, eying the doctor coyly. “You didn’t tell me he was cute.”

“Very astute - I did not tell you that. I also did not tell you that he is married and finds the cut of your skirt unappealing even if it does complement the length of your legs. Show us the security footage. John hasn’t seen it yet, and I could do with watching it again.”

The significantly more flustered woman opened the door wider, introducing herself as Tiffany, and led the men into a room already containing Lestrade and Donovan, who, fortunately, refrained from making any snide comments about Sherlock’s presence in the company of the store attendant.