Sherlock had watched Celestia's behavior closely ever since they had returned home. He was pleasantly surprised to find her still strong and seemingly emotionally unmoved, even though someone had followed her half way around the world in search of her life or something... Sherlock had 7 different possibilities floating around in his mind at the moment. But as the door shut behind John and the two of them were left alone he could see her face fall. Fatigue and pain laced across her delicate features and a sigh escaped her lips as she sank into the couch, posture forgotten. He threw her a questioning look, turning his head slightly.
"Oh, Sherlock it's no use pretending with you, even I know that. You read people like books," she mumbled.
He smirked, wincing as a bruise on his face scrunched in upon itself painfully at the movement.
Celestia sat in silence and not wanting to get up. But exhaustion, confusion, and frustration made her wish for the safe haven of sleep. "I think I'm going to bed... Unless you need me for something."
"Do you know anyone with the initials JW?"
She stood up slowly, stretching her tired limbs and yawning as she did so.
Sherlock marveled at her, she was acting so.... not Celestia.
She sighed tiredly and shrugged half heartedly. "John Watson is the only one that immediately comes to mind, sorry. I'm just so tired."
He nodded slowly.
"So upstairs, right?" she asked.
"Yes, but give me the envelope first."
She obeyed then turned around to lumber slowly up the stairs. "G'night mate," she called down before disappearing through the door to the bedroom.
She closed the door behind her and collapsed onto the perfectly made bed, her arms outstretched and her feet hanging off the edge of the bed. She struggled to kick her boots off and finally curled up, oblivious to the fact that she still wore her normal clothing, and fell fast asleep.
Downstairs Sherlock turned the envelope over in his hands before opening it and pulling out the note to examine the carefully penned initials. Something was tugging at the back of his mind, but the connection refused to be made. Instead he looked down at the cipher, looking first at words and then individual letters.
Vaults in again abduce hungry the at art czar that I'd
What could that possibly mean? He quickly ruled out a scrambling of the words, there was no possible combination of the words that made any bit of sense. A letter scramble was possible, but sending them through a decoding program on his laptop revealed nothing.
Was it the first letter of each word? VIAAHTAACTI, aka nonsense.
Sherlock sighed and crossed his eyes slightly, letting the words blur and merge into each other in the dim light. His mind drifted to a night nearly a year ago when Mary had rushed to his side and decoded a message that had revealed the location of an endangered John Watson. It had been a skip code, every so many words revealed part of a message. Well, wouldn't that concept work just as effectively with letters? And even more so because of the distraction that was the actual words. The words didn't matter, the letters did.
Quickly Sherlock began to mentally skip letters, skimming over the page. Skipping only one or two letters showed a whole lot of nothing, but maybe the message wasn't that long? What about every fourth letter? Nothing. Sherlock was about to move on when he decided to try once more. Slowly he picked out every sixth letter and his eyes widened.
Vineyard.
The message came together, mental pieces in the puzzle that was Sherlock's mind.
Vineyard. Come alone. -JW
YOU ARE READING
No Vacancy at 221c: A BBC Sherlock Fanfic
Fanfiction*As featured on the official Sherlock reading list* The daughter of a wealthy Australian diplomat, Celestia Firethorne has fled to London to avoid her family's high expectations and a client turned stalker. When she comes across the long empty 221c...
