'Oh, my God, look at you! What an idea! To go for a walk in such a storm! Only you two could come up with such a stupid idea!'

Mrs. Hudson let them into the apartment and immediately went to put a kettle on.

Amber took off her wet coat and hung it on the back of a chair. Sherlock also got rid of his coat and shook his head, decapitating curls from drops of water like a dog after a bath.

She laughed at this sight, drying her hair with the towel Mrs. Hudson gave her.

When she was changing into dry clothes, she was still in shock. She still didn't believe they could defuse the bomb.

Sherlock, however, was too absentminded to think about changing his clothes. He began to walk in a circle in the living room. A real storm was happening in his head, even bigger than the one outside the window.

Why didn't he just run away? Why?

Maybe he's more human than he thought. But he just couldn't leave her like that, he couldn't.

Did that mean anything?

Did the white king just find his biggest weakness?

***

Amber couldn't sleep. And not just because of the sound of a storm raging outside the window. She still had Sherlock's face in front of her when he told her he couldn't escape.

He stayed with her. He wanted to save her. Does that mean he actually cared about her?

Amber knew they had formed a relationship of sorts. It was hard to name it because none of them in life would admit that one cares about the other. All of Sherlock's relationships are complicated, and Amber herself was not good at making human connections. In fact, she was satisfied with their partnership. They worked well together.

She sat on the bed and put her bare feet on the floor. She hesitated for a moment but finally got up and went down to the living room, without lighting the lights along the way. The room was lit by lightning outside the window. Besides, she knew this space too well now.

She sat down on the floor, leaning against the back of the chair, so she could watch the storm. She loved doing it since she was a child. It's true, that she had been afraid of fire since that fateful November night, but water, whether it was a stream or heavy rain, calmed her down. Quite ironic.

She crossed her legs and wrapped herself in a sweater, which she put on buttoned-down blue pajamas. She closed her eyes, listening to the rain. Maybe this will calm her down enough to let her sleep.

She felt someone sitting next to her. She did not open her eyes, but a smile appeared on her face.

Sherlock leaned against the chair next to her, examining her silhouette. He was wearing purple pajamas, but unlike Amber, he didn't even try to sleep.

'Normal people are afraid of the storm.' He said quietly, now looking at the jets of water flowing down the glass. He has said it more just to say anything than really thinking about his words.

'Let's be honest, none of us is exactly normal.'

He smiled at the corner of his mouth, glancing at her face. She still did not open her eyes.

Suddenly, a lightning strucked right outside the window, and immediately above them there was thunder. The storm was raging at its best.

The detective stared into space, drowning in his thoughts.

Amber's sudden movement ripped him out of this state. She moved and opened her hazel eyes, which were now glowing in the dark like a cat. To Sherlock, she often resembled a cat, able to scratch somebody when they were bothering her. 

She was now sitting, turned toward him, and if she had cat ears, they would now surely be upright and listening for disturbing noises.

In fact, Amber was reviving the world around her with the help of hearing more than with her eyes. She was able to distinguish Sherlock's steps from Mrs. Hudson's since the first day. She was also able to tell how old and what weight was the client by the way they walked up the stairs to their living room. And on the basis of the creaks of the floor, she was able to recognize the humor which the detective currently was in, and the tone of the voice made it easy for her to discover the emotions of the speaker.

Now she was listening for sounds from the apartment below them. The rain outside the window was no longer that heavy so they could easily hear a soft crackling, a creaking of the floor, and someone's heavy breathing.

'Mrs. Hudson!' They whispered in unison and got up on their feet.

They ran down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible, and entered the apartment of their landlady on their toes.

They crept inside listening carefully. Mrs. Hudson's steady breath came from the bedroom, which proved that the owner of the building was still asleep. However, the quiet creak of the floor in the kitchen revealed that there was someone else in the apartment.

A thief?

Sherlock walked slowly to the kitchen door and peeked in through the crack. In the light of lightning, he saw a dark figure.

The detective gave Amber a sign with his hand so that she would not come any closer. He wanted to wait for the right moment, but he was also curious about the thief's intentions. This could not have been an accident that they were here tonight.

The thief now moved into the living room and opened a drawer, leaning over it. This was the moment Sherlock attacked them from behind, one hand covering the man's mouth, and the other, grasping his neck to be able to slightly suffocate him at any moment if he began to pull himself out.

The thief - at first confused and not knowing what was happening - hit Sherlock against the wall. The detective saw only darkness for a moment, but still did not let go.

A light turned on in Mrs. Hudson's bedroom.

'What's going on there?' The sleepy voice of the housekeeper came from behind the door. 'Sherlock, is it you?'

No one answered her, everyone too busy at the moment: the thief trying to throw the attacker off his back, Sherlock trying to prevent him from doing it, and Amber trying to help, despite both men aggressively fighting with each other.

Finally, the girl picked up a plant with a heavy pot from the chest of drawers and threw it at the burglar. It hit him in the arm, injuring him, but causing no more harm. However, she caused what Amber was hoping for - the man lost his concentration for a moment and Sherlock managed to knock him to the floor. He stood over him, panting heavily and rubbing the blood from his lip.

Mrs. Hudson walked into the living room and stood in the doorway as if impaled upon the sight of an unconscious thief on the floor. Amber laughed heartily. There was nothing that could have surprised her anymore during this storm.

'Everything is under control, Mrs. Hudson.' Sherlock said after a while. 'Amber just saved your precious porcelain collection.'

None of them noticed a wooden chess piece that fell out of the thief's pocket during the struggle and rolled under the chest of drawers.