Fight for Me

Chapter 63

Three Weeks Later

"How was today, Lydia?" John asked as she returned to the flat in the evening, her body sore and exhausted.

She glared at him, but before she could say anything, Sherlock stepped in for her, "she was just forced to spend hours doing mindless and physical work to make up for a crime she really should not have been charged anything for, how do you think she's feeling? Removing graffiti today, I assume?"

Lydia nodded, "unfortunately. I understand that Greg didn't want to let me off the hook, especially considering I broke the agreement he had set. But honestly, I'm starting to think I would have preferred prison to community payback."

"No you wouldn't. You couldn't solve murders in prison," Sherlock corrected, causing her to roll her eyes.

"Maybe I don't actually like solving murders as much as you think I do, Holmes," she purred, taking her now normal perch on the arm of Sherlock's chair.

Sherlock raised a brow, "then why do you whine when I don't invite you to tag along?"

"I don't whine. I complain when you go off to solve a case and don't inform me of it first because it's rather rude to leave me with no idea where you've gone. But I certainly draw the line at whining, that's your job."

He hummed in disbelief, neither of them breaking their gaze with the other until John cleared his throat. They looked over at him in sync as he managed to get out, "do you mind not flirting right in front of me?"

"Flirting?" Lydia echoed innocently, glancing over at Sherlock. "I apologise, were we supposed to be flirting? Let's run that back a bit, I think I was playing the wrong objective."

Sherlock grinned at her, but unfortunately Lydia lost the opportunity to make John more uncomfortable when Sherlock's mobile went off. Not taking his eyes off of Lydia, he extracted it from him pocket and answered the call, "Sherlock Holmes."

"Potential kidnapping? That's all you got for me?" Sherlock whined and Lydia kicked him lightly in the shin, prompting a glare in return. "Fine. I'll be there in five. You're lucky I'm bored."

"And that I'm here to make him quite acting childish," Lydia quickly added as she leaned into the mobile, hoping Lestrade would catch her words. Sherlock hung up and pushed Lydia off of the chair, who had lost her center of balance when she had leant towards the detective.

She hit the floor with a loud thud, muttering under her breath, "bastard."

"Sher- What the bloody hell was that for?" John demanded, quickly rushing over to Lydia's side to make sure she was alright.

Sherlock, however, gave his most innocent look while grabbing his coat, "she was being annoying."

"That doesn't just give you the right to push people off of chairs, Sherlock!"

"Relax, John, he's just being a child, it's nothing new," Lydia interjected, pulling herself off of the ground.

Sherlock scoffed, "says the person who just yelled abuse into my mobile."

"If that leaves a bruise, I'm going to be quite cross with you," Lydia murmured under her breath as she walked past Sherlock, leading the trio out of the flat, her hand brushing Sherlock's lightly as she passed by. She knew John wouldn't see the slight movement, but it would assure Sherlock that she was just being playful.

They arrived on scene to find an incredibly emotional woman, whom Lydia assumed was the wife of the man presumed missing, crying on a sofa while a young boy clung to her. Sherlock gave her a nod, informing her that she was to go question the wife, something that was becoming quite routine when there was someone crying at a crime scene. Sherlock was still working on the whole empathy thing and would make no effort to be nice while on a case and John got too caught up in comforting them, failing to extract any useful information, so that left Lydia to deal with the emotional wrecks.