A Rose By Any Other Name | Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 8

"Sherlock?" he heard a voice call out to him.

His eyes opened suddenly, pulling him out of the dreamy state he was in. He looked around, seeing the office was still empty aside from Aryn who was standing at the doorway.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Fine. Just fine," he stated, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket. "Any news?"

"Unfortunately, no," she said, looking at the floor. "The parents are nowhere to be found—Greg's guess is that the child was put up for adoption." She turned her head from side to side, stretching her neck. It had been many hours of going over files, searching through databases, and listening to Donovan complain about how much time was being wasted on this case. At times, Aryn wondered why Donovan was even there if she was this frustrated with how things were being run.

"More useless information then," he spat, flopping back down on the chair he was just in. He pondered for a moment. "It can't be this hard."

She scoffed slightly, causing Sherlock to look up at her. "Something funny?"

"You," she immediately answered. "So hung up on a puzzle you can't solve."

It wasn't meant to be a mean jab. It wasn't any different than how she would have spoken to him in college. Sherlock wasn't amused.

He stood up once more and pushed past Aryn, heading back to the meeting room where he found Greg, Anderson, Donovan, and John discussing the child and its circumstances.

"It doesn't fit, though," Anderson was saying as Sherlock walked in. "It's not like this baby has anything to do with the pattern. What if it's just a copycat trying to throw us off of the trail?"

"Specific details haven't been released to the media," Lestrade informed.

"You'd need to have a leak in the department for something like this to get out," Donovan finished as Aryn walked in.

"Just got these in from Molly," she announced, flipping open the files in her hands. "Baby boy was two months old, COD was the stab wound, big surprise. Tests on the rose didn't find anything, just like with the previous victims."

It was an understatement to say that everyone in the room was frustrated with the direction that this case was going. More paths opened themselves up just to lead to three or four new dead ends. It was impossible.

Sherlock stood at the boards trying to inventory any information he hadn't already collected in his mind. His anger with Aryn still carried over, his temper unusually sensitive that day. All it would take would be one more little round of sarcasm to send him over the edge. Cases like these were challenges he enjoyed, but only if there was a solution in sight.

Turning on his heel, he began to walk out of the room without saying a word to anyone. It was another great Sherlock mystery as to where he was going. Aryn was sick of it.

"Where are you going now? We need you here Sherlock—you can't just leave," she angrily scolded.

He stopped dead in his tracks. Turning to face Aryn, who was now standing on the side of the table, he took long strides towards her, analyzing her from top to bottom.

At one point in their lives, he had promised to never use deductions openly to tell her what her life was like or explain to others what she was like. She had witnessed this ability many times and had told him she hated the way it made people feel. His methods let out peoples' biggest fears and insecurities, knowing that they were secrets for a reason.

Unfortunately, the only way Sherlock knew how to shut people up was to shoot them where it would hurt most.

"Of course you'd want me to stay here where we would make no progress," he began, his words clear as they started to pour out at a quick rate, "because it's so obvious that we're going to get all of the answers together, correct?