Once John arrived at his destination, he scanned the hopeless number of Dormitory Buildings and tried the right one first. He ran up the stairs crying, “Sherlock! Sherlock, where are you?” but there was no reply. He tried room after room, and finally on the fifth floor ran into a room where there was a window looking towards the left hand Building. He ran towards it, looked through it…and saw Sherlock with his back towards him talking to a strange old man.
“Sherlock!” he yelled.
No one heard.
He watched in horror for a moment as Sherlock pulled the pink pill out of its bottle and prepared to take it, his hands shaking. John desperately pulled out his gun. He waited a moment, then when it became clear that Sherlock was actually going to take the stupid pill, he fired. The man fell to the floor and Sherlock bent down beside him, speaking.
John put his gun back and ran out as fast as he could.
Awhile later he saw Sherlock talking to Lestrade with a blanket about his shoulders. Sherlock was talking at a very quick rate, and then suddenly mid-sentence he stopped and looked strangely at John. He walked over to him and Watson looked innocently around.
“Terrible business. Dreadful.” He said lamely.
“Good shot.” Sherlock smiled.
Watson looked slightly surprised. “Oh, yeah; must’ve been, at that distance.”
“Oh, you’d know,” was the cryptic reply.
“I don’t suppose you’d serve time for this, but let’s avoid the court case.” Sherlock shrugged.
John just cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Are you alright?” Sherlock asked.
“Me? Oh yes; fine.”
“Well you have just killed a man.” Sherlock persisted.
“Yes well I-“ suddenly he stopped, realizing he was caught.
“Yes,” he continued slowly, “well, he wasn’t a very nice man.”
“No; he wasn’t was he?”
“Frankly a bloody awful cabby.” Watson grinned. At which point both men laughed.
“Yes, you should’ve seen the route he took us on.” Sherlock laughed again.
“Don’t giggle; this is a crime scene!” Watson was still grinning, though, as they walked.
Suddenly Sherlock stopped.
“What?” John asked, looking where his companion was staring.
“Look. It’s her again.” Sherlock said in a low voice.
“Oh yeah; she’s good, isn’t she?” Watson smiled at her, and she smiled back. It was a warm, friendly smile; completely devoid of sarcasm or insincerity.
“Maybe a little too good.” Sherlock muttered as he strode towards her.
She was talking to Sally. “Yeah, I think Lestrade was going to take the Pink case; said he’d put it in storage if we needed it for later. You never did find out who shot the cabby.”
Sally nodded and then saw Sherlock. “Oh, look who’s here!” she smiled a bit nastily. “Well, I’m off, Cora. See you tomorrow.”
“Laters!” said “Cora” answered cheerfully.
“So that’s your name, is it?” John asked. “Cora. Nice name.”
She shook her head. “No. not my name, actually, just a self proclaimed nickname. My real name is-“
