Won't Let My World Fall

Chapter 1

(Author's Note: I own no copyright to anything, Sherlock and all characters belongs to the BBC. Point of view will switch between John and Sherlock in this story. This is only my second full-length fanfic and I've never tried to switch POVs before. All errors are mine, unfortunately. Oh, and by the way, Water Night is a real song by Eric Whitacre and it is truly spectacular.)

(John's POV)

        John tried to ignore the sounds of the violin coming from the other side of the room. He hadn't been bothered by it when he'd sat down with the paper, but a combination of uninteresting news and Sherlock's repetition of the same phrase of Eric Whitacre's Water Night had distracted him from his reading. The song was undeniably beautiful and honestly quite heartwrenching, but he would never get this string of notes out of his head. Sherlock stopped abruptly. Looking up, John saw Sherlock frozen in playing position, staring out the window. "What is it?" John asked, expecting a client to ring the bell any second. "Lestrade," Sherlock answered, "Not a very exciting or pressing case, though. Probably theft." The bell rang downstairs.

(Sherlock's POV)

        A few minutes later, Sherlock and John were in the back of a tazi headed for Scotland Yard. John listened, as he always did, while Sherlock explained the numerous interesting points of the case, "...robbery had to have taken place in the night." Sherlock said. 

"But Lestrade said there was nothing on the security tape." John argued. Sherlock waved his hand, dismissively, "Cameras were tampered with. Thief must've had an accomplice or was an employee; the footage was an inside job."

        They pulled up outside a flashy antique store in a north-eastern suburb of London. Sherlock headed inside while John payed the cabbie. Lestrade was waiting inside. Yellow police tape surrounded a glass case beside the counter where three members of the staff stood. The case was open, unlocked, not smashed. Another indication of an inside job. Without preamble, Sherlock asked Lestrade, "Have you identified which member of the staff is involved?"

"The staff is involved?" Lestrade asked, eyebrows raised. Sherlock scoffed, "Obviously. This is an inside job." He stalked off to examine the case. Behind him, he heard John explaining what he'd said in the cab to a confused Lestrade. It was easy to tell where the stolen object had rested. An empty patch in the middle stood out on the dusty shelf. "Tell me more about the stolen item." He said to the oldest of the women behind the counter. "It was an old samovar. I don't know if you-"

"Yes, yes, Russian teapot. Now, how old is it and how much is it worth?" Sherlock interrupted. The lady hesitated. "Well, it was sold to us by a church. They had owned it, kept it in storage for as long as they could remember. When we had it appraised - this was after we bought it, mind - it was found to be much older than we had thought. It had been thought to be from the early to mid 20th century, but it is actually from the turn of the 19th century and yesterday we were told it had a value of about 3,000 pounds."

"And let me guess, you were planning to move it to a safer spot than the front of a glass case today?" Sherlock said bluntly. Before the woman could do more than nod sheepishly, John spoke up, "Who knew of the samovar's value?"

"Some of the staff, people who ran the appraisal, and anyone could've hacked into our system."

"It'll take ages to track down the thief that way, too many maybes." Lestrade said.

"No need." Sherlock told him, then to the employee, "One of your staff members who had a shift last night. She was hired within the last week. I need her address."

        After the staff had given them Emma hayes' address, Sherlock and John set off in a cab. Sherlock had managed to talk Lestrade into staying back and working at the store to figure out how many people were involved. "So what do you think?" John asked.

"About the case? I think they should have moved it out of the case last night."

"Well, they probably didn't think anyone was likely to steal it, did they?"

"Did they, indeed."

John was watching him closely. "How many of them are in on it, then?" he asked.

Sherlock shrugged, "The girl, Emma Hayes, for one, I suspect the woman we talked to today of being bribed or possibly threatened, and there must be someone else involved, not connected to the shop, an outsider."

"And you think Emma Hayes will tell you about this outsider? That's why we're going to her apartment now, isn't it?"

Sherlock beamed at John; he was definitely learning. John rolled his eyes.