- c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   s e v e n -  

How strange it was. There was so much going on in the flat just above her, and she remained in her own tiny worlds of her own basement flat and the restaurant and the place where she worked. Their world consisted of mysteries and lies, of danger and risks. Her world consisted of the occasional scratch from an irritated Florenz and therapy sessions. And, of course, her cello.

Emma wished she could trace this alteration in her life back to a certain point and rid herself of it, simply because she wanted to feel something once again. She'd felt all too much for all too long just to find herself witout anything to feel about. God. She didn't even need much. Emma just craved something which would make her feel alive once again.

But instead she sat, curled up in her threadbarren chair, thinking about how Mary had lied about everything. Mary Watson wasn't who she said she was at all, of course. Emma had a sneaking suspicion she wasn't supposed to be aware about this particular subject, and yet there she was. It provided a sort of thrill to her life that she refused to push away - it could mean that she managed to get something to push he forwards.

Even though it was right out of her reach, she relished in whatever details she managed to glean from her neighbors up above. Their everyday problems seemed to be anything up to a scandal, enough to attract Emma to everything that they were doing. Frankly, she found it all rather impressive in the end.

She wasn't involved in any of it, not directly, but it still felt as if she had a connection to it all. After all, she'd been in all sorts of incidents with Sherlock and the Watsons. At the very least, she'd gone to the wedding where John and Mary had gotten married to begin with. It had to mean something, it had to mean she wasn't entirely out of it all.

If she couldn't be involved in it, she could find some way to talk about it. The main dilemma with this particular idea had to do with the fact that no one cared to listen to her for more than a few seconds before they immediately cast her aside and assumed she had nothing to give except for some endless words.

But when she did speak about what little information she had within her grasp, she always made sure to gossip about what had happened between Janine and Sherlock. As she lived in the flat below where everything had occurred, people just assumed she had information.

Janine had been pushed from Sherlock's life. In actuality, she'd been dispeled from the relationship quite a while ago. She just hadn't been aware of it after everything. There was simply too much going on after Sherlock died for the second time in the past handful of years. Emma thought she should've seen the break up coming from miles away...but she hadn't expected them to get engaged first.

Of course, Emma was missing an important piece of this puzzle. This was a feeling she'd learned to become accustomed to as there would always be details missing from her life. It had nagged her since she was a child and she didn't think it would ever go away. It had only intensified since she moved to Baker Street.

It was in such close proximity to every move she ever made, and yet she knew that her actions had almost no influence on what happened. Her actions usually weren't enough to get her into the action, either. Most of the time she ended up forced to snoop around in the hopes that she would overhear something interesting enough to allow her to understand more of what was happening.

Surely there had to be a simpler way to make this entire scenario come together, but few plausible ideas ever rushed into Emma's wind, or so it seemed.

If she simply stepped upstairs and stood there for long enough, she would either get forced into the situations which surrounded every up there or end up pushed out of the area entirely. Emma might've even gone up to get something happening in her life if it wasn't for the fact this situation apparently was a matter of life and death for many people...especially Sherlock.

Of course, Sherlock. He hadn't ended up in the hospital and nearly died for nothing, of course. This was clearly all connected in a web which, from Emma's current perspective, wasn't in the right light to be seen as anything more than a faint outline. If this was to continue for much longer, she'd end up walking into a sticky spiderweb entirely blindly.

Sherlock had all of the answers - she could've known that in her sleep. But, of course, she wouldn't be able to siphon the answers from him while sitting in the basement flat. She would have to go up the stairs and attempt to carry on a conversation with the man if she hoped to get anything out of him...and maybe that was exactly what she needed to do in order to get something new in her life.

Having a conversation with Sherlock wasn't necessarily the most exciting thing in general, but she knew it would most likely end up giving her a far better way to spend her day than moping about. She'd moped about for weeks on end and it was about time for such a thing to cease.

Deciding that there was nothing better for her to do, Emma whipped open her door and began ascending to flat 221B, hoping that she would be able to get something even vaguely positive out of whatever happened. Although part of her wished that Sherlock wouldn't be present whenever she came upstairs, she reminded herself that there more reasons that she was doing such a thing.

And, of course, Sherlock was standing right there when she got to the upper floor and knocked on the door. She didn't allow it to overwhelm her, however - she was staying there for a while, she promised herself.

"Hello, Sherlock," Emma said, placing her hand on the doorway as she gazed in at him. "Before you say anything to me to make me go away, I just want to say...er..."

"What is it, Emma?" Sherlock snapped.

Emma's eyes bulged as she realised she hadn't made any sort of plan to make this come together. She'd just taken the risk to come forward and hope that somehow Sherlock would make conversation with her. Perhaps he would even let her know some of the details of everything which was happening between them.

"I just wanted to say hello," Emma finally forced out, her voice dropping to a barely audible volume. "Sorry. I'll just be going now."

"Obviously you wanted to do more than just say hello," Sherlock scoffed. "You wouldn't have come to visit me just to say hello. I know there's more to it. Now, tell me."

"I would tell you that I have a case for you, but the fact of the matter is that...I just want to know what's going on. I know little details here and there, but I want someone to fill me in."

"You think I'm simply going to release the details of 'what's going on' to you?"

"Well, I think you're going to tell me something. I must already know too much - what damage will it make if I know more?"

"Your twisted logic isn't going to impair mine, Emma."

"Fine then," Emma said, starting to take a defiant stance. She crossed her arms and straightened out her posture, lifting her nose into the air but still staring over at Sherlock. "Then maybe you can just tell me one thing - who is Magnussen, and why is he so important?"

Sherlock didn't have an immediate rebuttal for this. If anything, he seemed to be rather alarmed that she knew anything about Magnussen to begin with. This shock on his face alone was enough to make a smirk appear on Emma's face - she'd managed to outsmart him to an extent. She wasn't supposed to know about Magnussen, but she did. She wasn't as dull as she might seem.

"Oh, I'm not supposed to know that man exists, am I?" Emma teased. "It's not supposed to matter to me at all, but it does. I know about him, Sherlock, but I might as well learn something more as time goes onwards."

Sherlock stood silently for a moment as if he'd turned into a statue, contemplating what to say next.

"You don't need to know about Magnussen."

"Because I'm too stupid to understand?" Emma said. "No, this is more important than that."

"No, because you'll be launching yourself into danger, and no one wants that."

"Really?" Emma asked. "Are you sure about that? Me getting into danger just means something more interesting for you, now doesn't it? After all, I've only been a source of entertainment when something is amiss with me, yeah?"

"Emma, not now," Sherlock said, hissing at her as if she were a nagging child. "The more you know about Magnussen, the more likely it is he'll see you as a threat."

"See me as a threat?"

"Knowing information is just as threatening as anything else. You should know that well."

"But keeping me in the dark isn't going to help anyone, is it?" Emma asked, already seeing that all of her protests were falling apart as she stood before Sherlock. She'd lost, but she still continued flailing in hopes that one of her punches would land.

"It's not going to help you to be metaphorically brought to the light, Emma," Sherlock said, his voice turning to the unwavering montone which alerted her to the fact that he was trying to drive her away entirely. But no, it wouldn't work. She'd made the decision to come, and therefore she would make the decision to leave.

However, Sherlock continued and said, "I'm not leaving you in any dark. You know that one saying, I presume...'ignorance is bliss.' I believe that applies rather well to your current situation, if I"m correct."

"Would it kill you to be nice to me for one moment?" Emma asked, biting her lip. "I swear, I talk to you hoping that something might happen and then...nothing."

"Obviously it's not nothing," Sherlock scoffed. "If it were nothing then you wouldn't have tied up my ribbon all that time ago."

Emma scowled at him for a moment, knowing that her glare meant absolutely nothing to him in the current time. Of course not. It didn't mean a thing to him, because he had more than enough going on within his own life to simply ignore her.

"I don't understand what you hope to achieve by standing around and simply hoping that I might reveal something that you already knew. I believe that you should head back to your own flat, Emma. There's nothing waiting for you here."

"Waiting for me here? No, of course not - but I'm certain there is more to everything than what you're saying. If I don't want to go, then I'm not going to go."

"This isn't a request as you seem to think," Sherlock sighed. "No, I need you to go and cease all of this endless questioning. It is bothering me."

"I'm sorry that your life is falling apart," Emma said. "I'm sorry that John's life is falling apart, too. I wish I could do something about it, but it seems like all I'm doing is rubbing salt into your wounds. Sorry, Sherlock."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for, Emma."

"If only you could say that as if you actually meant it," Emma said, shaking her head as she turned her back to the consulting detective. Her desire for conversation wasn't enough to keep her in the center of whatever this exchange was meant to be labeled as.

"What do you mean, as if I actually meant it?"

"You're a genius, I think you can figure this out in one way or another. But, just in case you're clueless, I'm trying to say that I know you aren't truly sorry."

"How could you be so sure of such a thing, Emma?"

"How could I not be?" Emma asked, letting out a forced laugh. "Anyone who knows you as more than just a passing observer knows that I'd have to be certain of such a thing. It's only simple as time goes on, even for someone as dull as me."

Before another word could manage to pass through her lips, she started backing away from Sherlock. She was making her decision to leave Sherlock on her own time, through her own thoughts, with her own ideas driving her forwards. Something about it did feel amiss, that much was certain, but it was too late.

This was as good of a goodbye as Sherlock would get from her. He'd already mentioned that she'd tied his ribbon and therefore they were, to an extent, even with one another. Therefore, there wasn't anything more to tie her to him. She could simply leave it all behind.

Emma immediately felt a wave of regret pass over her - she should go back, she thought. She should head back to the area and find out something more about what was going on. This was her moment to find a way to understand what was happening. Therefore, she wasn't doing herself any favours by stepping away.

However, in her eyes, she wasn't walking away from the possibility of seeing the hidden details of the scandalous phenomenons just above her flat. She was walking away from Sherlock, a man she couldn't stand to be near but couldn't stand to see disappear entirely.

But what could walking away possibly do to her? It would be a missed opportunity the end of everything and nothing more. Those sorts of things were scattered throughout the history of her life and every other human's on Earth. She couldn't sit down and dwell on it for ages on end.

She refused to overthink it all when she could feel a sinking feeling settling within her gut. She was most likely making a mistake. She was most likely doing something which would have negative reporcutions when everything came to an end. It was just how her odds added up.

No matter how much she fought against the way the world worked, it would always snap back into place. In the end of all things, she would be insignificant. She wouldn't matter a thing to a single soul, and her life would go on forgotten by so many. It seemed so obvious that Emma couldn't manage to feel upset about it at the end of it all.

In a world with billions of people, how could a woman who didn't even know what was happening in the flat above matter at all?