8

CASSANDRAS POV

"Lestrade sent the file," I explained, opening the text on Sherlocks phone.

"Play it," he ordered from his usual spot in the chair. I pressed play before turning up the sound. The noise of the street in the background, a hitched breath, a small tune, then a voice stating the address before hanging up.

"Play it again." I did as told, focusing on the small tune in the background.

"Again."

"Sherlock," I interrupted.

"Again," he repeated.

"Sherlock!" I tried; "The tune!"

"What of it? I need to hear the voice!" he complained; "Play it again."

"Sherlock! She was dying! She sure as hell wasn't playing the piano with her dying breath," I stated, looking at the phone in my hand.

"We have a musician as a murderer," Sherlock realised.

"No, no, it's more than that," I muttered, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen before playing again. I listened carefully, hearing the tones and writing them down.

"It's a message," I stated, holding the paper up for Sherlock to see.

D E A D

Sherlock looked at the paper before to me.

"It's a message," he agreed.

"Oh, how did you figure that out?" I asked sarcastically.

"Cassy, the sheet music!" he ordered, pointing to the empty pad of lined paper lying next to his violin. I quickly got up from the chair, handing it to him before giving him a pen. He closed his eyes, leaving for his mind palace, and I quietly backed away, giving him room to think.

Suddenly his hand jerked, violently making dots and signs on the paper before opening his eyes again.

SHERLOCKS POV

"This is the piece on the piano when we were there," I told Cassandra, handing her the paper.

She wordlessly took the pad and looked at it.

"No, this can't be it," she mumbled, more to herself than to me; "You can't play this."

"I assure you, this is exactly the piece on the piano," I told surely.

"You can't play an exclamation point, Sherlock!" she pointed out, reaching for the regular pad and quickly ripping the first page off, finding a blank one.

She quietly hummed as she went through the piece, 'translating' to letters instead of black dots.

How had I not realised it was a message? How had I not even noticed the first one?

"It's not just one word," Cassandra commented, interrupting my thoughts; "But they don't all make sense."

"Let me see," I ordered, quickly being handed the paper.

D E A D ! H E B E B E A D G A A B A F A B E A D B E E C A G D E G D E F G A A B E G

"Could it be random?" she asked me, sitting on the armrest of my chair to look over my shoulder.

"No. No, it's a message," I muttered; "He ran out of letters."

"The musical score only goes to g," she realised; "He ran out of letters to work with, but what about the rest? Did he just make shit up?"

I didn't reply, only focused on the paper.

"He continued it. He used the entire alphabet," I told, smirking at my solve; "Instead of stopping he just kept going, as if each tone had a matching letter covering the entire alphabet."

"But then it'd go higher, this is all in the same octave," Cassandra pointed out.

"Yes, but the notes have the same meaning, even if you move octaves. He'd have to go incredibly high, but this way... Each tone have a possibility of 3.71 letters since there's 26 letters in the alphabet-"

"No, no, because he'd just use a b as an h, wouldn't he?" Cassandra interrupted; "Then that means every note has, what, three possible letters it could be?"

"That's exactly what it means," I agreed. Cassandra looked at me with a small smile.

"Did we just solve a murder?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, we only found a clue," I reminded her, a small smile playing on my lips as well.

"Still. Pretty cool," she continued; "What does it say?"

I looked at her.

"You're a genius, Sherlock. I'd need a pen and paper to figure this out, you can do it in your head. What does it say?" she repeated.

I closed my eyes and saw the long line of letters ahead of me, the other possible letters showing in neat lines beneath it. The numbers moved up and down until they matched, the unimportant disappearing and spaces appearing between the separate words that now formed a sentence.

"Dead, he behead, now I am ahead, bet you regret," I quickly told, looking at her; "now beg."

"What kind of a murderer leave behind a note only you would understand?" Cassy asked confused.

"The kind who wanted to send me a message, of course," I stated, looking directly ahead of me.

"And they knew you'd get it, because of the note," she commented slowly, realising the train of thoughts that had been behind it.

"Okay, but, what is the message?" she continued, looking at me from her spot on the floor; "That you should beg? You don't even know who to beg to, what's the point of the message?"

"The point is that I should be scared," I told darkly.

"You know them," she realised slowly, looking up at me; "Don't you? Sherlock?"

"What makes you say that?" I challenged, disregarding her question.

"Where's the fun in scaring you if not because you need a major ego boost? Whoever it is wants you to know it's them, because they want you to be scared of them, and they said regret. Sherlock, what did you do?" she ranted, looking at me.

"I didn't do anything," I scoffed, closing my eyes.

"What do you regret?"

"Lots of things!" I said back, getting frustrated.

"Sherlock, what is your biggest regret?!" she asked.

"Putting John in danger!" I admitted loudly before freezing.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly; "John's just fine?"

"John's traumatised, Cassy," I sighed; "He was in the war and I made him relive every bad moment by constantly showing him the horrors of the world."

"Sherlock, John's fine," she repeated; "If you hadn't just said that, I'd even say happy."

"What do you mean?" I asked flatly.

"Well, he's happy when he's about to leave, that means he likes going out in the world, he has... Nice things, good people out there. All you did was probably make him face his past and get over it," she explained quietly; "He worries about you, if he's seemed unhappy around you lately I think that might be why."

"John doesn't worry about me," I scoffed.

"You know that's not true, Sherlock," she pressured gently; "You're one of the most, if not the most, important things in his life."

"John's found himself a wife. He doesn't have room for me in his life," I stated.

"You can care about two people at once, Sherlock," Cassy told softly; "And you can't compare a romantic relationship to a platonic one, there's no reason to put one down just to lift the other up. A good friend can be worth a thousand relationships."

I looked at her, the caring and empathetic look on her face showing genuine concern.

"But okay," she agreed, letting it go; "You regret putting John in danger. When was he in the most danger?"

"Oh, I don't know, he's been in lots of trouble. He once had a bomb strapped to his chest, that might be considered dangerous," I reminisced.

"That - why did he have a bomb strapped to his chest?" Cassy asked concerned.

"Oh, you know John, always getting himself in trouble," I shrugged, making her make an 'mhm'-sound.

"What else? When have John been in the most danger?" she tried instead.

"I don't know, I suppose they were all rather equal, to be honest. He was in a murderous maze, he was shot at, he was almost burned alive-"

"Okay, this is, I'm almost regretting becoming friends with you," Cassy told with a small laugh before noticing my look; "Almost." She smiled warmly at me.

"I feel like there's stories behind those dangers," she mentioned casually.

"I suppose."

"Feel like telling them?" she asked, looking at me. I smiled slightly.

"You know how you're supposed to check bonfires for hedgehogs and other small animals before lighting them?" I asked her, making her nod.

"You should also check for people. Sadly, these did not, and John almost died."

"I have a feeling that's a general theme in your stories," she joked; "How did he get out?"

"He - he didn't. I figured it out and got him out in time," I told honestly.

"You saved his life," she added with a smile.

"Well, I was also the one to endanger it. It was only fair," I joked back, the attempt unfamiliar.