A Rose By Any Other Name | Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 2

"Everyone, this is—"

"Aryn K. Clarke," Aryn finished, extending her hand towards Donovan, then Anderson.

"These two are my right hand people. If you need anything, they'll help you tend to it," Lestrade voluntold, guiding Aryn around the two after their introductions had been complete.

"You must be Dr. Watson," Aryn started, shaking hands with John.

"Just 'John' please. Pleasure to meet you. Greg has told us so much about you," John politely stated. This girl wasn't what John was expecting. If he had to guess, she was around Sherlock's age. Her hair was pulled back in a neat, professional way, and she had an aura about her. She was very polite, but he could tell she meant business and that this case was probably bothering her about as much as it bothered them.

"I hope he's only told you good things," she said with a laugh. "When I was first training in the force, Greg was the person I shadowed. When I moved out to Manchester, he kept pulling me back for cases." Bringing her attention to Sherlock, she continued, "And I'm guessing this is the reason why he stopped calling."

"Aryn, this is Sherlock Holmes."

Lestrade was nervous about the exchange, as was everyone. Sherlock wasn't known for making an exceptional first impression on people and seeing as how harsh he was about her earlier, no one knew what would come out of his mouth.

Aryn walked over to Sherlock and looked up at the detective. "Hello, Sherlock."

His gaze was intense. It was as if he was frozen in shock or in fear. John had only seen him do this one other time: when he had asked Sherlock to be his best man. John knew that Sherlock's mind was probably racing at a million miles a minute at that point. What John couldn't figure out was why. He had been around a lot of other women before and even when he was around someone like Irene Adler, he was able to keep his composure. It did strike John as odd, though, that Aryn wasn't so formal with Sherlock at their first meeting.

10 years of emotions and thoughts were indeed racing through Sherlock's mind. As he looked at Aryn, he kept thinking "She hasn't changed."

"It's about time you got here. Of all people I would expect that you should be able to help solve this. I hope your time is a DI hasn't softened you. So tell me, what do you know?"

These are the words Sherlock thought came out of his mouth.

"I'll go and get us all some coffee then," Aryn awkwardly announced, walking past Sherlock and making a left down the hallway from which the group had just come.

John's face was a mixed of confusion and amusement. He walked over to his friend who was still standing in the same position as he had been for the past five minutes. "Sherlock?" He snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Sherlock, you there?"

"Finally—someone's able to shut him up," Donovan remarked with a sense of satisfaction. She smirked as she walked past the duo. "Let's see if she can keep this up," she laughed as she left the room.

Anderson and Lestrade exchanged looks before following suit.

"Try to get to know her. She'll probably be here a while so best to get used to how she works," Lestrade informed John. He looked up to Sherlock again and shook his head. "And please make sure he doesn't keep doing this. I don't know if I'd rather have this over his usual...comments."

John nodded with slight embarrassment as the DI left the room.

As if on cue, Sherlock looked up and around and noted that the room was now empty. "Well that was rude."