- c h a p t e r   s i x  -

Artist's block was certainly a real thing, Emma thought. She'd experienced it plenty of times in her life, but now she'd figured out a way to get herself through it all, at least for one day. Breaking through the wall for only a few hours was better than not at all, she decided. She refused to resort to her muse - Sherlock - in order to make something. Instead, she was going to go a very different route.

Emma still had the dress she'd worn back when she'd attempted suicide. She'd shoved it into the back of her closet for several weeks, but then she'd decided to pull it back out again. Now the bloodstained white fabric lay inside of her bathtub, and she had a matchbox in her hands.

Emma liked to think of the situation surrounding her almost as if she were a phoenix - she was being reborn, and this simple but dramatic action would be very symbolic of her bursting into flames. It was her old life being burnt up into ashes, of course, and the new her would be crawling into the world.

After striking up a match, she allowed herself to stare into the tiny flame she'd created. It fed off of the oxygen in the room, but even her slightest breath could end up putting it out. But, of course, she had plans to make it grow. She wasn't about to let this spark die any time soon.

She swallowed back any of the qualms she had left, dropped the match into the folds of tulle in the bathtub, and then immediately took several steps back. She'd been more or less expecting an enormous fireball to appear in the tub, but instead the fire gradually licked out from the spot where the match was dropped.

Soon enough, however, she'd managed to get a rather brilliant fire blazing within her bathtub. Emma stood there admiring it. She was so utterly absorbed by the gentle crackling of the flame that she didn't notice the sound of footsteps coming down towards her flat and her bathroom. The smoke that she hadn't inhaled already had been escaping from the room.

John stormed into the bathroom, nearly knocking into Emma standing in the doorway.

"Emma, what the hell are you-" John began, but he froze after setting his gaze upon the flaming dress. Then he raised his gaze to Emma herself, who was already beginning to roll her eyes. She was certain that no one would else would fully be able to understand what she was up to. Even if John was a lot more understanding than certain others, he still wasn't able to see her path of mind.

His eyes flicked between her and the flame over and over again. Despite the heat radiating off of the flame, the colour seemed to be disappearing from his cheeks. Emma immediately felt somewhat irritated with him - he was ruining this moment for her.

"Emma, what are you doing?" John asked once again, his voice far softer but more shaken than before. Emma couldn't figure out what the issue was as she ran her gaze over his face. Surely he couldn't be experiencing fear? That was the only thing coming to her head.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied, planting her hands on her hips.

She never ended up getting a reply out of John - he'd bolted away from the scene almost as quickly as he'd entered it. Emma didn't care all too much, mostly because it meant she could focus on the flame in front of her.

It didn't take too long before the fire had completely consumed the dress. When Emma began to get bored of the same image over and over again, she rushed forwards and turned on the shower in order to douse the flames. She was successful on the first try, much to her delight.

The remains looked bizzarre, but somehow lovely. She almost wanted to take a picture of it and attempt to paint a picture of the charred remains of the wedding dress. It reminded her of a pile of feathers that a bird had molted, which was perfect.

It was her pile of phoenix feathers, which only seemed to be supported by the fact that they were stained a reddish tint by the blood she'd spilt on it all those weeks ago. And despite just how macabre the whole situation was, she felt excessively prideful over what she'd done. It didn't matter that it had apparently made John panic, because this was about her.

All she'd really done was set a wedding dress on fire with a match, but the fact she'd been able to come up with something so simple and yet so creative felt like a dream - any artist would be proud to do what she'd done.

But even in this moment of pride the reality of the situation started to set upon her. Emma decided against letting it get her too far down. She'd achieved something close to a masterpiece with the remains of the dress, and nothing would change that.

The fact that Sherlock would soon be down to investigate what John had seen at any moment wouldn't change it.

The fact that she had just set something on fire in her bathtub and now was surrrounded by smoke wouldn't change it.

The fact that she'd set a wedding dress aflame and might as well have burned the money she paid for it as well wouldn't change it.

No, Emma would see this as a triumph no matter what the consequences. Perhaps she hadn't made thebest decision by doing such a thing, but she found that the benefits she gained were quite good. It almost felt therapuetic - perhaps she'd have to mention something next time she headed off to see Dr. Natalie Thompson.

Emma released a cough and a curse word after inhaling a good bit of smoke. Her big project was now complete, but the effects of it were really only beginning. The only thing she was sincerely worried about at the moment was if the smoke would end up hurting her dear Florenz - but then she started hearing footsteps coming down the stairs.

He wasn't moving particularly quickly. He was being awfully casual about the whole ordeal. Perhaps John hadn't been panicked like she'd thought...

Sherlock wasn't the last person she'd want to see on earth, but he was certainly close to it on the list. She hadn't forgiven him for bursting into her flat while she'd been trying out cigarettes for the first time, and Emma suspected that he still held a grudge against her after she'd barked to him about not really being a sociopath.

But at this point in time she didn't feel like she had the energy to drive him away - she'd just have to deal with him for a few more moments. There was a tiny creak alerting her that he was stepping through the front door. He'd spot the fact she'd covered up all of the smoke alarms immediately, of course.

Then he'd follow the trail of smoke straight to the bathtub, right where she was standing. At least Emma was prepared for him - she hadn't exactly been expecting John to barge in on her art project. A few moments later, those very things occurred. She took a moment to congratulate herself on predicting Sherlock's movements, and then released a sigh as he began to speak.

"John told me you had set something on fire," Sherlock said, his voice flat. "I wasn't surprised. It was easy to smell the smoke from 221B, and obvious you'd planned something as the smoke alarms didn't go off."

"Smoke rises, yeah?" Emma asked, whipping around to face him. "So why the hell are you down here? John didn't give you enough information?"

"He never does," Sherlock sighed. "He is intelligent, but he seems unable to constantly observe. Besides, I prefer to see things with my own eyes."

"This isn't a case," Emma retorted. "You don't have the right to come barging in here to look over what I'm doing."

"I'm sure Mrs. Hudson won't be pleased to find out you've set a fire in your bathtub and tampered with the smoke alarms."

"It's out now, and I only covered up the alarms! They're not tampered with," she protested. "God. What was John's problem, anyways? He took one look at the flame and went bolting."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows in that irritating manner, as if she were supposed to have figured out what had happened days ago. He always seemed to expect people to be on his thought track but was also constantly sure that everyone was an idiot and miles behind.

"Surely you're aware of what happens on November fifth?" he asked, scanning her up and down as if she were wearing clues along with her dress.

"Good God, Sherlock, I might not be the smartest but I'm not foreign," she said, her mind already missing the part. "Bonfire Night. What does that have to do with anything?"

"You lit something on fire."

"Okay..." Emma said slowly, nodding a few times before she started to shake her head back and forth. "Yeah, I don't have the foggiest. Pull out your little magnifying glass and look, and then leave. You should be glad I haven't pushed you out already."

On this particular day, Emma would not figure out that she'd triggered the memory of being caught within a bonfire for John. Instead, she would just continue glaring over towards Sherlock with daggers in her gaze.

Sherlock did not pull out his magnifying glass, but he did move through the vestiges of smoke still left in the room and went towards the bathtub. He only spent a few moments glancing over everything, as it was fairly obvious what she'd done. Now he could take time to figure out why Emma would do such a thing...or perhaps, try to figure out something about Emma herself.

Sherlock took this opportunity to glance over Emma yet again. It had been strikingly clear that there was something off about her from the very moment he'd walked into the room with her, but he'd been preoccupied with the remains of the fire in her bathtub. Now he could finally manage to focus on this particular subject.

Despite not having a job or anything she needed to look impressive for, she'd dressed herself as if she were a member of a much higher class. There was no expense spared for her clothing - all clean lines and designer labels. She shouldn't be able to afford any of it - in fact, she couldn't afford any of it.

Yet there she was, standing there with her high heels propping her up several inches higher than she should be. It didn't even completely look like what she typically wore - instead of going for bright and flashy colours, she'd opted for black and white.

Then, of course, there was also the matter of her hair and makeup. It was obvious she'd spent ages working on both just to achieve that effortless sort of look, her hair piled into an elegant chignon and her lips a striking red. Now that amount of patience was not something he expected to come from Emma for anything.

Sherlock decided that it couldn't be for a date or a job interview - Emma was very aware of her attractiveness and knew how to manipulate that without such effort or money. Besides, she wouldn't want to get the smell of smoke stuck within her clothes if she were to do such a thing. At least, he assumed that she would be intelligent enough to avoid doing that.

Emma was certainly up to something with her new clothes, and the clothing itself wasn't giving away much of anything. It was new, being worn for the first time out of the store, and didn't seem to have any flaws to it. Sherlock continued trying to observe more clues, but then Emma herself interrupted.

"Why are you staring at me?" she said, her voice nearly reaching the pitch of a squeal as she got more and more flustered over the situation. She'd learned throughout everything just what Sherlock's gaze meant - soon enough, nasty deductions would be thrown in her way.

Sherlock didn't believe he needed to give her any explanation - she knew what was going on when he was staring at her.

"Go! Leave! You've already looked at the fire remains for long enough. Just go," she cried out. Her heels clicked against the floor as she started attempting to force him out. Sherlock started moving, but she stayed right behind. He didn't protest, simply because he was focusing more on his thoughts than whatever she had to say.

For the first time in the time they'd known one another, it seemed as if Emma Newman had managed to perplex Sherlock. He would never admit that fact anyone, especially not her, but it did bother him. He immediately shoved the bits of information he'd deciphered about her to very back of his mind - he could come back to it some other time when he had more of the puzzle filled in.

Certainly more of it would make sense as time went on...but Sherlock felt several of the details sticking in the front of his brain, urging him to figure them out as quickly as he possibly could. As Emma forced him out of 221C, he turned around and looked over her ensemble once again before she slammed the door in his face.

The strangest thing about her new appearance was just how familiar it looked. He didn't feel like bringing the thoughts of her back up towards the front of his mind to figure out why it looked so very familiar and very unlike Emma, but he did make sure to note this as well. There was something about it that triggered a memory in the back of his head, ones that he didn't want to spend time on.

Sherlock decided he would put more thought on it later - at the moment he had more important things to worry about. John, currently suffering from memories of being caught in a fire that had risen up in him just like smoke. Cases that stacked up in his email and on papers on his desk. And of course, the fact that he could smell a different sort of fire being lit up in Emma's room - she'd lit up a cigarette.

That was the one thing about Emma - she seemed perfectly incapable of learning from her mistakes. She might have convinced herself that she was moving forwards, but in reality she was just making the same sorts of errors over and over and over again. Sherlock could recall the overused quote about that particular sort of thing perfectly. Even though he didn't necessarily agree with it, he found that it fit the situation rather well.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."