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Free time was gradually draining Emma of everything she had. She had a feeling that before the end of the week she'd have difficulty getting up out of her seat simply because of how exhausted she felt despite having done nothing. The majority of her energy was spent simply trying to sort through all of her varied thoughts.

Throughout her life, Emma had never been much of one to rely so much on her own mind and whatever ran through it. It just hadn't been necessary. Everyone else had acted as the thinkers, and she could simply go on about whatever she felt like doing. Now that everything was being twisted around, however, things wouldn't be so easy for her. There wouldn't be any more simple floating about life without a care.

Instead she found her mind hurting from all of the thoughts she was pushing through it and how often things ended up turning ill and more terrifying the more thought she pushed into it. Perhaps she was just overthinking things - but she refused to believe that. There was something going on, and she didn't enjoy a moment of it.

What had occurred with Sherlock entered Emma's head as strange, completely unusual and out of character for him. Certainly he wasn't going to end up becoming a kind person towards her just because of the fact Irene had left and she was still reeling from the loss, was he? For a few moments, it had seemed that was precisely what was going to occur.

After all, he'd shoved a piece of music he'd written by hand right into her waiting fingertips. Even through her awe, he'd continued to persuade her that it was her to keep, it was something that she needed on such a greater level than him. Since it was named after Irene, Emma knew she was missing one of the most vital pieces of the puzzle - but he'd given it to her, attempting to be "personal" about it.

She had even ended up sharing her ribbon project with him in its entirety. As a whole, it was meant to be something shared between her and her therapist. The idea of it could be considered embarrassing, very eccentric - but in those moments, Emma had trusted Sherlock enough to show him the ribbons. He knew all of the ins and outs, which was more than any other soul Emma could think of.

But in these days, all of that kindness he'd shown to her appeared to have faded away into oblivion. He morphed directly back into the Sherlock that she knew, the one that she'd always known. One time when she'd crept up to 221B during the day in order to offer a simple hello and a proper thank you for the music, she'd recieved a door slammed in her face.

There was absolutely no explanation for this sudden shift in behaviour - but sometimes it was rather difficult to follow Sherlock as his mind forged a path twisted by a million turns every few moments. He'd shifted himself quite a bit when he'd given her the sheet music for Irene, and then he'd shifted back.

It had been utterly foolish of Emma to believe that the shift might end up staying for more than a handful of days. Just because she tended to change herself around quite a bit and then allow the differences to stick permanently didn't mean anyone else would follow the same rules. Sherlock Holmes, of course, wouldn't be one of those people.

She still sort of wished that he could just be kind for once - or even not cruel. He certainly had that within him, but he wasn't allowing it to stay out as time went on. Emma heaved out a sigh, knowing there wasn't a single thing she could possibly do when it came down to Sherlock. No matter what she tried, she'd just end up bouncing back to the same place with the same problems.

At least she found that it was far simpler to move on to the more vital things in her life if she no longer had to worry about the way Sherlock was acting towards her. This meant Emma started thinking about how she needed money, and she needed it quickly.

Already she found that she was having difficulties when it came to simply attempting to get through every day and buying whatever she felt was necessary to her. She'd experienced a period of prosperity when she'd been given help from Maddie. As that was what Emma had grown accustomed to throughout her life, she'd been unable to deal when it all suddenly came crashing down.

Of course everything could fall apart so easily - in reality she'd only been holding everything together by a few hastily sewn seams, the threads loose within the fabric. But when she was happy in just about everything she was going through, it was difficult to imagine any sort of time when things would go completely wrong. She simply had wanted to believe that things were going right for once.

Most of the time, she experienced very little problems when it came to convincing herself of such a thing. She'd attempted suicide and managed to make it out unscathed save for some knowledge she hadn't been anticipating to learn about and some less than savory experiences within in the psych ward. Things weren't supposed to get worse from that point onwards.

But Emma had also convinced herself of something else - as long as she could afford the lifestyle she desired, filled to the very brim with all the clothing and various other things she desired, things would be fine. Certainly she could manage to make things work out well for herself if she was able to get everything that she wanted. It was all just out of her grasp, horribly tantalising. A walk down the street was enough to make her feel like whimpering.

Of course, in order to have money she would need to have a job. If she hadn't quit her job at New Scotland Yard, she wouldn't have to worry. If the situation with Maddie/Irene hadn't fallen apart completely, she wouldn't have to worry. But the fates had led her in this direction, and there was little she could do in order to fight against it.

All of her job searching thus far had been unsuccessful. She'd never even been able to snag up an interview or two. She'd expected the process to be easy just as it had been several years when she'd managed to pick up the job at New Scotland Yard. Emma hadn't tried to anaylse why she had gotten the job there - she just thought that the stars had aligned and she didn't have to do a thing.

Certainly she'd be able to pick up another job just as easily - but now it started to seem as if all of the ease had absolutely disappeared and been replaced by difficulty as things went onwards. There was something she was missing, something she had left behind...

But there was no time for her to dwell on it - dresses from every store window were calling out to her as she passed by, hoping to capture her attention long enough to persuade her to buy one of them. She still hadn't found something she wanted to wear to John and Mary's wedding, mostly because she couldn't afford any of it. She would need a job before she could move forward with any of it.

In order to have enough money to buy whatever dress caught her fancy, she needed to have a job. In order to have a job, she needed to go out job searching and find something she could apply. Then, of course, she actually had to get the job within a short amount of time.

She decided to head out once again during the day, in hopes that something would pop up and catch her attention. Even though Emma had allowed herself to go through similar conditions before to no avail, she felt that she might as well try once again. Another job search couldn't hurt her much more.

The current issue was that she didn't know what she was looking for, wasn't sure what she was capable of, couldn't figure out how she would manage to convince people that she was the correct choice to be hired and paid enough money to get her on track with her life. It couldn't be impossible, mostly because she knew she'd done it before and it had all worked out well at that point in time. It was just a matter of replicating those results.

But of course, nothing popped into her head to motivate her to step up her approach to getting a job. She wanted the money, and that wasn't going to change. But every time Emma felt like she was getting rejected or like she couldn't manage to live up to what she needed to do it brought her all the way to the beginning of what she was doing. It started twisting her mind into knots that couldn't possibly be untangled no matter how long she spent on them.

"Florenz," she groaned, watching him walk by. He looked ever so calm and peaceful, as if he didn't have a single problem in the world. Most likely it had something to do with the fact that he truly didn'thave a single problem in the world - he was constantly being fed and groomed and adored, so there was little to worry about.

"Florenz, come to me," Emma cooed, changing her tone in order to hopefully attract her cat back to her.

"Florenz. Come."

She was aware that he wasn't a dog and wasn't meant to walk over in her direction when called, but it still felt very frustrating. Not even her own cat would listen to her demands? How much worse could things get?

Finally Emma flopped to her stomach and grabbed Florenz, nearly having to drag him across the floor. When she had the cat curled up within her arms, she could finally express her thoughts out loud without sounding as if she were completely mad.

"I really don't want to go job searching, and honestly the only reason I want a job is to have money to keep me going," Emma sighed. "I mean, why else does anyone have a job?"

She allowed Florenz to curl up into her arm before continuing.

"At least you don't have a job," she said. "Your only job is to prance around and eat a few things here and there. You don't have to worry about a damn thing. I can't tell you how jealous I am of you."

Florenz didn't seem to think anything of this, which shouldn't have been surprising at all to begin with - he was a cat, and to Emma's knowledge cats didn't typically understand a word of English. Or any other language. It simply didn't make sense, after all, and Emma was more or less making a fool of herself.

Emma let the situation process - she was acting extremely strange, even for her own standards. Yes, she would often give a few words towards her cat now and again, but she wouldn't carry on a full conversation with him at any given point in time. She'd just toss a few words in his direction, knowing that he wouldn't understand any of it.

Did that make her insane, talking to a cat? Emma decided that it wasn't insane - no, she already had a diagnosis for actually being insane in a different way. Infantile histrionic disorder. Those three words made her wish she was insane in the "talking to cats as if they were humans" way.

Molly most likely talked to her cat. Molly seemed like the sort who could do that sort of thing and remain feeling perfectly sane about it. But Molly had a job, and a fiance, and a future set up in front of her...a future that most likely wouldn't involve Emma much at all. It wasn't her fault that everything had gone wrong, they'd just gradually drifted apart as time went on.

Emma decided against dwelling on the fact that she'd lost pretty much the only legitimate friend she had in the past several years. She'd already spent enough time moping around and thinking about the various things she'd been through. When she gave herself all sorts of free time after quitting her job, she'd assumed it would be nice - not just thinking.

Sherlock was the one built for thinking (he would never shut up about the fact that he was always thinking, after all). Emma would much rather enjoy herself, even though she was spending so much of her time thinking about jobs and money and all the angst that carried along with it as if it were permanently glued to it.

That was it - she would just have to allow herself to enjoy the life she was living, even if she was driving herself into a pit with seemingly every last action she decided to dedicate herself to. Things weren't supposed to be so difficult. They didn't have to be so difficult, she felt sure of that.

"Forget all of this," Emma groaned. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Florenz. I was going to go out searching for a job, but now I'm simply just going out. If I manage to pick up a job along the way, then so be it. But honestly, everything is going to be better off if I have fun. Enjoy myself."

Florenz let out a small mew as if to pull Emma away from this idea, but she wasn't going to budge no matter what. After all, he was just a cat. He was just her silly cat that she was deciding to have a conversation with because there was no one else to speak to who would properly listen.

"Yes, yes, I have no money - but get this!" she exclaimed. "If I flirt with enough people, I won't even have to buy any drinks. Just think of that. Actually, speaking of that, I better just go ahead and get myself changed."

She laid Florenz back on the ground, and he skittered away as if he'd never been wrapped up within Emma's arms to begin with. He made a beeline straight to his food bowl, just as she made a beeline to her closet to start looking through everything in her closet in order to find the right outfit for going out at night. She needed the perfect ensemble if this was going to work out.

Her eyes fell upon a sequined dress, catching her eye with all of the sparkle it projected everywhere. She'd worn that when she'd been interviewed for her job at New Scotland Yard, and that had worked out well...she might as well go ahead and wear it again. It couldn't hurt her to have a bit of fun, could it?