Chapter 13: The First Page

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Lestrade is pretty pissed off because Charlotte, being the little shit she is, doesn't want to look at her father's notes!!!

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Chapter 13: The First Page

Charlotte barely started waking up that early Saturday morning. The sun shone in her eyes, so she closed them back shut. She felt something around her, or rather someone. She slowly opened her eyes to reveal Hamish whose arms were still wrapped around her. She smiled slightly and scooted herself closer to him. She needed this, it felt like such a long time since she was able to sleep peacfully and for the first time, wake up peacfully.

She felt him start to wake up. She scooted even closer to him, not wanting his warmth to go away. She looked up a bit to see his face, which was slowly waking up. At first he was settling to the light, then confused as to why he was squished, shocked to find Charlotte next to him, then relaxed after remembering why.

"Morning, Charlotte," he mumbled lazily. "Don't want to," she muffled into his shirt. He laughed, "We have to, Lestrade is expecting us in a few hours, so get dressed," he shook her. She nodded no against him and then he started shoving her off playfully as if pushing her off a cliff. They laughed  and eventually, both fell on the floor.

"Alright, alright, I'm up!" she said and helped him up as well. "Meet you in the dining hall in fifteen then we will make our way to Scotland Yard after breakfast, got it?" he said before she opened the door. "Yes, mother!" she replied in a high pitched voice then closed the door. He chuckled softly and looked at the uneaten bluberries on the desk. His smile faded a bit and remembered what happened the night before. If I would have never brought that stupid book up in the first place, she wouldn't have blacked out! Wait, she didn't. That's all that matters, right she didn't. Because of me...

Charlotte was in her room preparing before she left to eat and remembered something off about Hamish when he entered the room. Her suspisions grew a bit but decided to save it for later, right now she was focused on the meeting with Lestrade. When she finished with her morning routine, she departed out of the g-wing and towards the dining hall to eat. She got her breakfast and sat down across from Hamish, who seemed to be elswhere.

"Watson!" she snapped at him. He looked lost for a moment, then remembered he was suppose to be eating. "Sorry," he yawned. She looked at him curiously and looked behind her to see Nancy talking to some bloke she recognized in her chemistry class. She was about to note about it to Hamish but decided not to, his mind was off as it is.

She couldn't help herself in asking Hamish this, but she did anyways. "You seemed nervous last night when you walked in our dorm, why?" she asked. "Our dorm?" he looked up at her confused. "Yes, our dorm, Watson. I consider it our drom since I do spend most of my freetime and nights in there with you, hence our room. We practically share it now!" she explained. He smiled, he liked the sound of the whole 'our dorm' thing.

"Alright then, our dorm it is," he chuckled, she smiled back at him while sipping her juice. He cleared his throat before speaking again. "It's nothing really, don't worry about it ok?" he tried to reassure her. She shook her head, that was obviously the answer she wasn't expecting. "Watson, come on, you can tell me! What happened last night when you came back?" she asked.

"Can we drop it, please?" he asked a little enraged now. She huffed and decided to let it go, save this conversation for another time anyways. "All finished?" he asked. She nodded her head and they both left the dining hall and straight into the streets to hail a wagon heading towards the Yard.

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"Morning Lestrade, glad to see your ankle is doing fine now," she barged in after opening the door to his office, surprising him a little. "My what? What do you know about my ankle?" he asked. "Last we came to visit, I heard some of the other office members talk about how you sprained your ankle, an obvious reason why you never got up and every time you swivled a bit in your chair, you winced in pain, almost as if you sprained your ankle," she finished.

Hamish rolled his eyes and took a seat in the chair he was offered to sit on. "Right, so lets get down to buisness, have you got anything new yet?" Lestrade asked her. She pondered at the question for a bit and then responded with a quick no. "Fine, let's go on to my favorite question, have you at least looked at the book?" again, she shook her head no.

"In the last month and a half that you have had this case, what have you learned so far?" he raised his voice a bit. "Not very much, I tried researching some background information on the Kidnapper but nothing seems to be found in the cabinets near the file rooms," she stated. "You weren't even suppose to be in those rooms without my supervision, Holmes!" he yelled.

"I'm working as hard as I can with this case, Watson is making the process a bit easier if you asked me and I think I might be on to something!" she retorted. "Are you? You keep saying that everytime you come in here but whenever you return, you have nothing to report!" he yelled.

"I'm working as hard as I can! Like I said before, these things take some time. You should know that, Lestrade!" she yelled. He exhaled deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm down.

"I just don't know what to think anymore, honestly. What happened to the cases you quickly solved in class months ago by just looking at the file name? This is taking longer than both you and I anticipated. If you don't have anything for me by next week, I am closing this case up for good, so you can say goodbye to this file if you don't look at your father's notes," he coldly said.

She gave him an icy stare before she got up from her seat and barged out the door. "See you next week then, and sorry," Hamish apologized before catching up to her. "I can't believe him! I'm doing him a favor in finding Sherlock for him and he's just going to take the case away from me because I haven't found anything?!" she yelled. She slumped on the kerb and buried her hands in her face.

The wind blew hard and her wavy, black hair swayed against it. He sat down next to her and put a conforting arm around her. "You'll find something, I gaurentee it. But you have to look in the book if we are going to get anywhere. Can you at least do this for me?" he asked. She looked up at him briefly and then looked across the street, watching the pedestrians hug their coats around them for warmth. "Let's go back, it's freezing!" he said after a few minutes, hailing a wagon and helping her up.

It was a quiet ride back, a bit tense. Once they arrived back to the Academy, they slowly walked back to their dorm and relaxed for a bit, not saying anything, not doing anything, not even looking at eachother. An hour passed by and Hamish was aggravated with being in complete silence. "I've got to go do something quickly, I'll be back before lunch to come pick you up," he said as he headed towards the door.

He looked back to see Charlotte fiddling with the violin bow and staring at nothing in particular. He sighed and looked at the book that was on the desk. He picked it up and flipped through the pages. Then he threw it at her, not startling her at all. She looked at him when she realized the notes were on her stomach and gave him a look, as if she were expecting him to explain what was she suppose to do with it.

"Please, we haven't been so sucessful with this case and it would help if you at least looked at the notes, hell even the first page!" He held his hand against his mouth and exhaled, trying not to loose his patience. "Just do it, for me. That's all I ask, read the book and maybe, just maybe, we can be one step closer to finding your father. Please?" he waited for her to respond for a while, but nothing.

He sighed and closed the door behind him. She looked at the book that was rested on her stomach. She picked it up and set the bow aside, feeling the ruggedness of the book and how worn it was. She looked at the book for a while, maybe five minutes before she realized she had to do it. In order to save Sherlock, she needed his help, wether she wanted it or not.

After coming to a conclusion, she then opened the cover and started to read the first page.

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YES I KNOW!!! Cliff hanger but I still need time before I can tell you what is on those pages. So far, I don't know where I'm headed w/ the story. But I have some pretty good chapters and I need to find a way to place it in perfectly, like for example: the purpose of why Sherlock went into that closet alone and a reason why he asked John not to let her do anything she will regret. I'll let you take some wild guesses :D

-iam22345

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