A Hint Of Femlock - A Study In Pink

The Oddity In The Other Room

It was a calm, female voice, with a slight hint of control in the tone. Then the owner of the voice walked in.

She was tall for a woman, around five foot nine and a bit Joan guessed, yet the short heels may have boosted her height. Her eyes were a mix of blue and grey, an insidious composition that Joan couldn't help but feel threatened by. The wavy, almost black hair that sprouted from her scalp fell down to just below her shoulders, some of its ends hiding behind a loose navy scarf around her neck. Her figure was slender under the dark, long clothing she wore. In fact it was a black coat, the same Joan Watson had seen half an hour before.

Trailing behind the mysterious figure came a rather excited Mrs Hudson, wearing a lilac blazer and floral knee length dress.

"And this is Joan," She tilted her head toward Joan with a big grin on her face. "Joan, this is the new roommate I was talking about!"

The woman in question gave Joan a strange, short stare, before clasping her hands together and looking around the flat.

"Mrs Hudson," Whispered Joan. "You never told me about this at all!"

"Ah, well, you see Sherlock had already booked this place in advance before you even came along. It's just that she'd been so busy--"

"Mrs Hudson, I told you to leave the eyeballs IN the microwave!" Came a loud call from the kitchen.

Still standing by the door, Joan took a few paces backwards to see the obscure character pouring a thick liquid onto the ground.

"Busy?" Joan took a deep breath. "Wait, was she here earlier? Because I'm sure there were no "eyeballs" in or out of the microwave yesterday!"

"Sherlock wanted to meet you." The older lady smiled with glee.

"Check she hadn't touched any of my stuff." Someone interrupted. This made poor Joan jump because the voice was barely a few centimetres behind her, and really wasn't a nice feeling considering Joan had such a surprise sprung on her so suddenly only two minutes ago. "But she's not the problem, I guess. At least not yet."

"Oh, Sherlock! Anyway, I'm sure you two will get on like a house on fire! I had a roommate, back when I was in boarding school, you know. Me and her had the very best of times..." Then Mrs Hudson hurried out of the room and down the stairs.

Leaving Joan alone with Miss Eyeballs, the dark-haired individual suddenly jumped up on the armchair on the right of the fireplace and stood there, standing upright like a marble column, unmoving with her eyes closed. Joan Watson, not only confused but mildly concerned that her new roommate could be an escaped mental patient, watched the figure, unsure whether to say anything. What she was sure of was that she was going to have to make conversation at some point with the person standing in front of her, and she didn't think it would be the stranger who stole her taxi that would speak up first.

"Erm, Sherlock, is it?" She finally gathered. No reply. Again, Joan took a deep breath. Outside, the sky had darkened greatly, and the awkward night was seeping through.

"Can I borrow your phone?" The statue spoke, scaring Joan once more.

"Jesus, will you stop doing that?!" Joan's tone heightened in a hostile way, which she noticed took Sherlock by surprise, but only for a fraction of a second. Annoyed, Joan still complied; reaching into her jacket pocket and placing the mobile into Sherlock's outstretched hand. "And if you want to use my laptop, ask next time."

Sherlock had just sent a message to his most recent client - a policewoman whose husband had been murdered - when Joan had made that last comment. "You've read my website then." She said, jumping into a sitting position on the armchair.

Joan paused on her way to her bedroom. She turned her head toward her queer companion, only to notice she was now sitting, watching, waiting. "You write stories?"

Sherlock snorted at this remark. Joan, yes, that's what Mrs Hudson called her, knew absolutely nothing about who she was. Yet Sherlock could tell everything down to her brother's drinking habits about her. Pity, Sherlock thought, she had hoped the roommate Mrs Hudson had chosen would be a bit more observant. "Stories..." She muttered to herself, handing the mobile back to Joan.

Fed up with the incompliance of her acquaintance, Dr. Watson trudged to her bedroom, but left the door slightly ajar. For some reason, she didn't want to completely close the door on the oddity in the other room. Not just yet.

Joan lay out on her bed, still with her phone in her hand. Her eyes were growing heavy but there was one thing something within her told her to do before she drifted into sleep. Holding the phone up to her face in the dark, Joan Watson opened up her outbox.

"If brother owns green ladder, arrest brother." Then she closed her eyes.