Sherlock has cake for breakfast the next morning, which really is about lunch time once again. Rosie also has another piece after eating all of her sandwich. She looks at the cake on the counter, dwindling down. "Lock, you have to make more."

Sherlock sighs. "If I don't get a case today, I just might."

"In that case, I'll have a slice," John says, coming in the kitchen.

"Surely someone has been murdered in the last four days. Or something's been stolen. Do you remember the bunny? I'll find a missing pet at this point. Anything to solve."

"What's one plus two?" Rosie asks.

"Three."

"Good job."

"You could call Lestrade," John offers, now holding his own plate of cake.

"If he had anything, he would've already called me."

John shrugs. "Maybe."

Sherlock stands and goes over to his laptop. "Maybe if I look at the news, something..."

"Maybe."

"You're being so very helpful, John."

"I could go out and murder a guy."

"Then I would know you did it because you just told me."

"What if I already did and didn't tell you?"

Sherlock looks up at him with a furrowed brow. "I would know." He turns back his laptop, searching around, even going to the comments on the blog. Most of it, though, is just about the cases or things he said or even Lily.

'Hey, I know her,' one user said, and based on the username (MasterLiam246), Sherlock can guess who it was. He reads on.

'She seems so nice!'

'I didn't know Sherlock liked sweets so much lol'

'She's so lucky! I could only imagine going on a case with him.'

Sherlock frowns a bit. "Don't people comment problems on these things?" They're nice, he supposes, but they're not what he's looking for.

John looks over his shoulder. "Sometimes. Usually nothing to tell you about. If it's serious enough and actually real, people usually just show up."

Sherlock gets up and looks out the window, watching people walking by. "Well, I wish someone would already... What are some of those comments, anyway?"

"They're all older. Now people are just commenting about Lily and... my fall. Anyway, I didn't put in too much detail about her specifically, but you introduce somebody new and everyone gets curious. I'm about to post the Adventure of the Ears in the Box, so I imagine they'll either be wondering where she is or less focused on her this time, since she wasn't there."

"That's the title?" Sherlock asks. "The Adventure of the Ears in the Box?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"It's wordy."

John rolls his eyes. "No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"Then what would you call it?"

"I don't know. The Adventure of the Ears."

"That sounds stupid."

"Then why don't you ask Lily? She's an author. I'm just the only consulting detective in the world that provides you with your stories."

"Are you implying that I'm not an author?"

"No, that's not what I meant."

"I don't believe that for a second-"

"What about Box?" Rosie offers helpfully, coming in the sitting room to play.

John pauses. "The Adventure of the Box?"

"Yeah."

"That's pretty good."

Sherlock nods. "You should have her title them from now on."

"What, now all my titles are bad?"

"No-" Mercifully, there's a knock at the door. Sherlock runs to answer it, hoping for either Lily or a case on the other side.

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Lily got up at a decent hour that morning, wanting to garden a little and clean around the flat. She was also hoping Sherlock would get a case, that someone would drop by and ask him for help.

Gardening and cleaning done, Lily sits down in front of the TV with her laptop. The fairytale castle on the mantle stares at her. Even if her last book idea got rejected, that doesn't mean the setting has to be changed. That fairytale castle full of fairies has to have some moral.

Her phone rings, and she sees the call is from Uriah. They mostly text, so she answers it immediately, worrying something may be wrong. "Hello?"

"Hey," he says. "Is your detective friend busy right now?"

"Actually, no. Why?"

"You remember James Barkley? Lived a street away from my mum?"

"Yes."

"He's dead."

Lily frowned. "Well... he smoked all his life, didn't he? Dad said he didn't look too good the last time he saw him. That was over two months ago."

"It's stranger than that."

"Hold on. Let me get Sherlock." Lily rushes upstairs, knocks on the door of 221B, and Sherlock swings the door open. Lily turns her phone on speaker and sets it on the table. "Okay, go ahead, Uriah."

"This is what I know — and keep in mind it's town gossip, so it might not all be true. Nancy Barkley had her niece visiting this week. They went out to shop or eat or something last night, came back, and then her niece left the room. She heard Nancy and James fighting downstairs, and then somebody screamed, but the door was locked and they couldn't get it open. So her niece called the police, and they saw through the window that James and Nancy were both on the ground. When they broke the door down, James was dead and Nancy was out cold. She's still in the hospital. They think she did it somehow and got knocked out in the scuffle."

"Where is this?" Sherlock asks.

"Boscombe. Two minutes from my house. About five from Lily's parents'."

Sherlock looks up at Lily. "Fancy taking a trip home?"

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While Sherlock, John, and Rosie packed (they didn't know how long they'd be gone, and Rosie wanted to go, too), Lily also packed while on the phone with her parents. There was an inn in town, but their parents insisted they had room for them all to stay. There was Lily and Liam's old rooms as well as the guest room. Lily then called Liam to tell him the news. He was at work, on a break.

"You mean someone got murdered in our own town and I don't even get to be there to investigate?" he said.

"I guess so. Unless you can call off work, but I don't know how long it will be."

"Keep me updated. If you're still there this weekend, I'm coming down Friday night."

They were able to catch the next train out, and Lily's mother agreed to come get them from the station. It was about an hour's ride. Once they got settled, Lily looked up what was on the news to relate to Sherlock, but it was less than what Uriah told them.

"Tell me about James and Nancy Barkley," Sherlock said, sitting across from Lily on the train.

Lily thought a moment. "They're older than me, but younger than my parents. They were in the army together; that's how they met. They both left the army after they got married and moved to Boscombe, I think. They've been there ever since I can remember. Nancy was always nice enough, I guess. James was... I don't know. He was very nervous — and he always smoked. Two packs a day or something. Dad said he didn't look too good a couple months ago. We mostly saw them at the grocery store, sometimes at church. I think they had my dad build them a new dining room table a few years ago."

"Any indication of marital problems? Fighting? Did they have children?"

"No children. They weren't... I don't know, they didn't kiss each other out in public or anything, but I never heard of them fighting. They seemed fine, not that we knew them very well."

Sherlock nodded, then went silent, thinking. Lily did the same. She had a little less than an hour to work on her book, and she needed to come up with something. Fairies in a castle. Doing what?

She glanced over at Rosie, who was coloring a picture of puppy dogs. Her little bag was filled with crayons and trains and dolls. John was coloring with her, another picture from her book. More puppies. She looked at Sherlock. His eyes were closed, his hands under his chin, not moving but for the when the train jostled him a bit. Solving a mystery in his mind.

A mystery.

Fairies in a castle solving a mystery. Something's been stolen, somebody's gone missing. Who? The fairy queen? Maybe the fairy queen. A detective fairy has to find her. They find clues that lead them closer and closer. But what's the moral of it all? What's the point? There has to be a theme.

Lily begins typing out her ideas, gears turning in her mind.

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Lily called her mum about a half hour away from the station, so she's already waiting there when they arrive. She walks up and hugs Lily. "Well, I haven't seen you in ages."

Lily chuckles. "I know."

"I'm glad, though. You haven't been home in so long."

Lily agrees. Before she can say anything else, her mum turns to Sherlock. "It's nice to actually meet you, Sherlock Holmes." He shakes her hand with a small smile.

John, hands full, has to nod. "I'm John Watson."

"Yes, you write the stories."

"And this is Rosie." He's holding her hand with his left, her car seat with his right. Rosie smiles.

Lily's mum crouches down. "It's lovely to meet you, Rosie."

As they walk to the car, John says, "I hope her being here won't be an inconvenience. We just didn't know how long we'd be here, and I didn't want to leave her with Mrs. Hudson — our landlady — for too long-"

"Don't worry about it, Dr. Watson." She unlocks the car, takes the car seat from him. "We have plenty of room, and I'm retired and don't have any grandkids — yet."

"Mum," Lily says, loading luggage into the boot with John and Sherlock. John puts Rosie in her car seat, then gets in the back next to her. Sherlock follows him, so Lily sits in the passenger seat, and off they go.

"I just can't believe it, you know," her mum says. "I mean, I know James didn't look so good, but he was too young — younger than me and your dad. And I can't believe Nancy would do such a thing."

"Why?" Sherlock asks.

"Well, she isn't the most talkative person, but I've always thought she was just shy. There's no ill will about her or anything, she just isn't sociable. Nothing wrong with that."

"How do you explain her and James being the only ones in the room when he died?"

"Well, that's easy — the window. I'm sorry to say, but I would think you would be able to come to that conclusion yourself, being such a famous detective."

Lily almost chides her mum, but Sherlock says, "I did."

"Then why did you ask?"

"I wanted to see what you would say."

Her mum shrugs. "Well, your process clearly works, so I suppose I won't question it."

When they arrive at Lily's childhood home, her mum parks the car in the house's driveway, avoiding Uriah's in the carpentry's parking lot. The shop/work space is right on the road, 'Marlow's Carpentry' on a high sign above the door. The house itself is further back, almost behind the shop. The door to the shop is open.

"I'll get Emmet and Uriah to help with the bags," Lily's mum says, heading to the shop.

"There aren't that many, Mum," Lily says, but she keeps going anyway, as if she didn't hear her.

"I'd like to talk to them, anyway," Sherlock comments, coming to stand next to Lily.

"What for?"

"The case."

He follows Lily's mum, so Lily, John, and Rosie do, too. Her dad and Uriah exit the shop as they reach the door.

"Lily!" her dad says, giving her a hug.

Lily backs up and brushes herself off. "Dad, normally I love your hugs, but now I'm covered in sawdust."

"Sorry." He turns to Sherlock to shake his hand. "Mr. Holmes."

"Mr. Marlow."

John likewise shakes his hand, then introduces him to Rosie. He smiles. "What a lovely name." Rosie smiles back. Uriah introduces himself to Sherlock and John, then says hi to Rosie, having met her once before.

"Well, I'm glad you're all here, but I wish it was for a different reason," Lily's dad says.

"Did you know James Barkley very well?" John asks.

"Not terribly, I suppose. I made their dining table, and I've seen him around many times, always said hello. He was so... jumpy, you know? But he was kind — and so was his wife. I can't imagine her-" he glances at Rosie "-um, making her husband go away, you know."

"So I've heard," Sherlock says.

Uriah shakes his head. "Nothing like this ever happens here. I don't know if it ever has. People die, sure, but never in such a... strange way."

Sherlock looks around, at the familiar street to Lily, and she begins to see it in a new way. It's vastly different from London, even when they are on a Main Street. A few other businesses dot either side of the street, in between houses. Cars drive by, some people waving as they pass. Her dad waves back. It's small.

"Yes, I imagine," Sherlock says. "It's such a... calm, quiet place."

Uriah shakes his head. "It's not at the Barkley's, I'll tell you that. I saw this morning, on the way to work. Police, news, people just going to look around."

"I'll call Lestrade," John says, stepping away.

Lily turns to Sherlock. "What for?"

"He'll be able to warn the police that I'm coming. If he doesn't, we might not meet such a warm welcome. Even if he does, we still might not be wanted."

"The people will want you," Uriah says. "You're a celebrity. This is the biggest thing that's happened around here in a long time."

When John returns, he says that Lestrade is going to get in touch, when he can. Sherlock grabs his bag. "Then let's give him some time and get inside. I suppose the two of you will need a late lunch before we go."

Lily frowns. "Are you not eating?"

"Of course not. I'm on a case. And I don't see any baked goods." He winks at her, then walks off, following her mum, who's telling John and Rosie what food they have in the house.

"Did you just wink at me?" Lily says.

Sherlock turns over his shoulder. "It was a thing I was trying. No good?"

"Never do it again," John says.

"Yeah, Lock," Rosie adds, helpfully.

"Well, anyway, I think I could use a snack myself," Lily's dad says. "Coming Uriah?"

"I'm always ready to snack."

As they all head in the house, Lily sighs. She wishes, just for one day, he would eat. Like, three square meals with some nutritious value. Maybe even a snack — and definitely a dessert or two. She doesn't know how he's still going. She even had a snack on the train and she's starving right now.

He's already being shown to his room for the next... well, who knows how long. She'll have to argue with him later.