The Question of Faith in Baskerville

Chapter Four: Rumbling Ride

John settled back, preparing himself for the two-hour train ride. Arguably, he could have brought his research with him, but he knew that once they arrived at their destination, he would have to focus completely on the case. He also didn't want to risk losing one of George's books. Besides, he should probably use this time to go over what he and Sherlock knew about the case, form a plan of action.

Sherlock was already delving into his Mind Palace beside the window. The window seat separated him from other people as much as possible. Lowered the intake of data that he felt the compulsion to absorb.

Quite frankly, the longer John lived with Sherlock, the more he suspected the detective to have a mild form of Asperger's instead of being a high-functioning sociopath. Admittedly, the latter could more properly intimidate people than the former. And while sharing his medical opinion to Anderson and Donovan could potentially stop all their conspiracy theories of Sherlock turning on them, he feared it would lead to cruel jokes.

John pulled himself from his straying thoughts and opened his notebook. He was just starting to enter his own detective zone when a dog's sharp barks and a woman's calls behind them interrupted.

"Whisky! What are you doing in that corner? Whisky!"

John sighed, looking back, just to satisfy his curiosity, just as he picked up a weak form of Darkness. He stood and followed the barks to the back of the train car. There, just behind the last row of seats, he found a white, long-haired terrier facing off a yellow-eyed, twitching, black heartless. "Whisky," he said sharply, getting the dog's attention. "I got this. Go back to your human."

The dog tilted its head before retreating back.

John eyed the nervous creature. The first sighting in months. It was weak. Obviously not been doing so well. "Let's put you out of your misery," he said.

The creature seemed to nod a little, as though recognizing this was a lost fight. The little beast had already been weak before the dog started tormenting it.

John didn't pull out his keyblade. That would have been overkill on the miserable lump of Darkness. He summoned a bit of fire magic in his hand and painlessly ended the Heartless's existence. He smiled as he caught the remnants of peace and relief. He suspected that soon, another person, whether on this world or another world would be restored.

He returned to his seat, getting ready to read his notes again.

"What happened?" Sherlock asked.

"A dog was getting after a Shadow Heartless," John answered.

"Quite possibly the last Heartless on this world," Sherlock noted.

"Possibly," John said. "We can certainly pray and hope." He made a quick note to tell Greg and Mycroft about the incident. Then he turned to the case.

"Do we have anything else to go on besides footprints and whatever it was that captured your interest?" John asked.

"I told you, it had nothing to do with the footprints," Sherlock said in a bored tone.

"What then?" John asked. "I am trying to figure out just what it was that so suddenly caught your interest."

"You write detailed enough notes, surely you picked it up," Sherlock said.

John sighed, wishing it was just a few minutes until noon instead of an hour and a half. He appreciated Sherlock's confidence in him and his intellectual abilities, he truly did. But there were moments like these, that John wished that his friend would actually spell things out for him. Point out what exactly it was that was so important. Instead, Sherlock would just let him flounder about, believing that what he observed was so obvious.