A.N.- It's sad to say but I have a soundtrack for Sherlock and Madeline's relationship… any slow and sweet love song just makes me think of ways to throw them into a lovey dovey scene but it's not. In. Their. Characterization. Dammit! (Just some slow Ed Sheeran songs and stuff.)

I'm terribly sorry to the people near/ involved in/ hurt by the Charlie Hebden shooting. My heart goes out to you and I hope everyone's okay.

Grace- Oops, I wasn't trying to make you cry. I forgot about Mary's old line of work and by the time I remembered I was almost ready to write this so I just said "HA, I've got it!" and wrote her in. Thank you for your praise, it's very kind. ^_^

madqueen- Yay I was wondering where you were… although I thought you had two "d's" in your pen name. Yeah, Moriarty got what was coming to him. I'd been toying with the idea of Madeline shooting him since the beginning since his standoffs with Sherlock always seem to end with Sherry pointing a gun at him but not shooting.

AkatsukiShizu3- ….. was it a bad death? Sorry. I think Senor Appledore might come in at the end, and if there are enough fans asking for a sequel I might write one with him as the new villain. Perhaps. XD

I think this might be the last chapter, this one or one more after it. Thanks for sticking with the story for so long!

The Dame of Baker Street, Ch. 32

Madeline woke up to the unfortunate view of a familiar hospital ceiling. She tried to sit up but her arms wouldn't move. A stroke of panic flashed through her system as she remembered the restraints she'd been under after her suicide attempt when Sherlock had jumped from the roof of St. Bart's. Madeline jerked her hands upwards and craned her neck down to see the white restraints wrapped snugly around her wrists again. She began to panic and pull at them anxiously.

"Madeline, calm down!" Someone said firmly. Madeline kept jerking her hands away from the bed to try and loosen the ties until a strong hand pinned her to the bed by her shoulder. She threw her head back, then looked to the side and saw Jim Moriarty leering at her. She fought back a scream and shut her eyes. When she opened them again he was gone and she was looking up at Sherlock instead.

"Madeline you need to calm down." He said shortly. "You're disturbing the entire hospital."

"Sherlock, why am I tied down?" She shrieked. "Tell them to let me go!" Sherlock closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

"You're not in danger, but given what happened the last time you went through a- traumatic experience John and the other doctors thought it would safer." He explained, but Madeline didn't seem to hear him.

"Untie me! Let me go please!" She begged. The detective pressed his lips together into a thin line and shook his head.

"Not if you're going to act irrationally." He said calmly. "You're going to tear your stitches out if you continue to squirm." Madeline took deep, heaving breaths until her heart and breathing rates slowed to a pace just a little above normal.

"Please untie me." She said softly. Sherlock regarded her for a second then loosened the straps around her arms. Just like when John had untied her two years prior, Madeline sprang forward and wrapped her arms around Sherlock. The tears Moriarty hadn't allowed her to cry sprang to her eyes and ran down her cheeks, only to melt into the dark fabric of Sherlock's shirt. His shoulders tensed rigidly and he awkwardly tapped his hand on her back in what he hoped came across as a comforting manner. He desperately hoped John would get back soon and relieve the awkward situation; but at the same time tried to figure out how to diffuse the scenario.

Mind palace: Error,

Mind palace: Error,

Mind palace: Error,

Mind palace: Error.

Computing error.

Inconclusive.

Sherlock internally swore at himself and condemned his lack of knowledge in the area of sincere human interaction.

"I didn't think you'd ever find me." Madeline whispered into his shoulder. "I thought he was going to kill me." Sherlock racked his mind palace for something comforting to say, but instead came up with:

"I wouldn't dream of it." Madeline choked on something halfway between a sob and a laugh.

"What, not finding me or killing me?" She murmured, still resting her cheek on the detective's shoulder awkwardly. She could see an almost empty pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and a halfway filled ashtray on the windowsill littered with cigarette butts.

"Ah, both." He said after a second. Madeline pulled back from him and rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm, wincing as some of the cuts on her wrist and arm brushed in contact with her skin. Sherlock gingerly took her left hand in his grasp and turned it over gently. Madeline could feel the callouses on his hands, still rough from whatever he'd been doing in his two years of absence. He avoided touching the pristine white bandage hiding the "M" on her skin from view. It was going to leave an ugly scar, but he had the feeling Madeline already knew and refrained from mentioning it.

"How's she doing?" John asked softly, edging into the hospital room quietly but not bothering to minimize the noise the door made when he saw that Madeline was awake. He sat on the other side of Madeline's bed, choosing not to draw attention to Sherlock cradling her hand awkwardly. John handed Madeline a shallow plastic cup with her medication skidding around in the bottom. She stared blankly at the blue and black pills emotionlessly.

"You've been off of your medication for almost a week," John explained. "You need to take it, especially with what happened." Madeline pursed her lips and eyed it distastefully.

"We've arranged that you'll see a therapist for what's happened," John began.

"What, why?" She asked, leaning away from him a little bit. John held up his hand in a calming motion.

"Just listen; you'll see her twice a week. With the trauma you've had it's necessary." He said cautiously.

"I don't want a therapist. I don't need a therapist." Madeline interrupted him.

"It's either that or constant supervision." Sherlock informed her coldly, narrowing his eyes in a way that provided little room for arguing. "Which would you rather choose?"

"I don't want to talk to anyone." Madeline said. She went to rub her wrists but remembered the stitches and band aids on them and resigned to grabbing her elbows and pulling her arms in towards herself. Sherlock frowned and sighed out of frustration.

"John fix it. Persuade her or do something to help." He snapped.

"I'm trying to," John said. "I can't just write a prescription and force her to see a therapist. Madeline, why won't you see one?" He asked her.

"I don't want anyone to see my scars, and I don't want to go back through it again." Madeline said in one breath. John reached across the bed comfortingly and Sherlock folded his hands in his lap wordlessly.

"That's part of healing." John said softly. "I'm not a therapist, but that will help." Madeline picked at the hem of the bandage on her left hand quietly for a few minutes; John and Sherlock sat in a rare silence while they waited for her answer.

"Yeah, okay." She relented quietly. John nodded in satisfaction and leaned back, pleased with her reluctant answer. Sherlock frowned and grabbed the cigarette pack with its few remaining cigarettes and left the room after tapping Madeline's right hand once in a semi-comforting gesture. She stared at the bed sheets and pinched the blanket over her legs between two fingers. She pulled a pill of fuzz off of the blanket and flicked it over the side of the bed, watching it fall softly to the floor. John nudged her cup of medicine towards her.

"Take those." He said firmly. Madeline gave up and swallowed the rancid pills, almost gagging at the taste. She could feel the tightness in her chest unknot itself, she'd grown so accustomed to the emptiness that she'd forgotten it was bad and still in residence. She sighed at the relieved feeling that slowly spread through her body and sank back into the pillows.

"How long was I missing?" Madeline asked John. She noticed with a pang that his wedding band was missing from his finger. He sighed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"About a week, we just about tore up London looking for you." He responded, laughing a little bit to try and lighten the mood. Madeline leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

"That's comforting." She said. John smiled at her.

"Sherlock smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day after we found and hospitalized you. The nurses had to kick him out of the room because of the smoke." He added. Madeline frowned and pursed her lips again. John passed her the cup of water again and she drank all of it before continuing to speak.

"He's going to burn his lungs out one day." She said, "I'm going to quit giving him cigarettes."

"Says the person who gave him a pack for Christmas." John jibed. Madeline grinned at him while her eyelids started to become heavy.

"He'll be fine. Let him smoke what he has and then we'll make him go cold turkey." She murmured, intending to only close her eyes for a second but falling asleep as soon as they shut. John rubbed her knee kindly, then checked the monitors she was hooked up to and shut the blinds before leaving her to sleep.

. . .

Everyone seemed to visit. Molly Hooper and other scientists at St. Bart's stepped into Madeline's hospital room to give her their sympathy and good wishes. Even Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and his agents stopped by, although Donovan and Anderson seemed like they had better things to do. Madeline wasn't sure how much they knew about the ordeal with Moriarty and the attempted bombing so she kept her mouth shut and nodded politely at them, sometimes thanking them with sparse words. Sherlock disappeared and reappeared randomly, sometimes with a cigarette between his lips and sometimes with an angry rant about having no new cases.

John visited as often as he could between his shifts at the clinic, and he even began to take small shifts at St. Bart's to be closer. Madeline hadn't heard anything about him and Mary, but she assumed from the look on John's face when she'd brought it up once that it wasn't good; and she didn't see him wearing his wedding band either.

"You can't shoot the hospital walls." She told Sherlock, who was fuming about his boredom at a high decibel. "There's nothing stopping you from taking a case, I'm sure you've got tons waiting." Madeline added. Sherlock quit pacing around her hospital room and flopped into one of the visitor's chairs with a grimace.

"There are but they're all inconsequential and trivial." He argued. Madeline sat up in bed and crossed her legs.

"Then choose a bunch of small ones." She suggested, Sherlock rolled his eyes like she'd suggested something ridiculous.

"I'm busy." He complained. Madeline sighed and crossed her arms, mindful of her stitches.

"Really? You just said you were bored out of your mind. Busy with what?" She teased.

"Busy with your recuperation." He snapped, "The concerning aspects are in every corner of my mind palace. It's impossible to think." Madeline grew very quiet and reserved, staring down at her lap and the few remaining stitches on her arms. When she looked back up she was expecting Sherlock to have left but he was still sitting there, reading her expectantly. His eyes darted around the room quickly, reading Madeline's body posture and judging the apparent sincerity of her visitors by the kinds of flowers they left on her bedside table.

"So…" She said.

"Again if you're going to start a conversation have a clever topic to follow it up with." Sherlock reminded her absently as a nurse came into the room to hand Madeline her medicine for the day. She accepted the cup wordlessly and took the pills with a grimace. The nurse took her pulse and unwrapped Madeline's hand to inspect the wound. Madeline avoided looking at Sherlock as the nurse dabbed Neosporin on the injury, but she could feel his eyes on her. She did her best not to wince when the nurse rewrapped a new strip of gauze around her hand and even thanked the nurse when she left.

"Thank you again for looking for me." Madeline repeated, trying to initiate a conversation. Sherlock grunted and left without a word. Madeline sighed at the childish behavior and decided to flip through the magazines beside her bed lazily.

. . .

Though the summer months were approaching, Madeline still wore long sleeves. After the hospital had released her she'd still taken a couple of weeks off before going back to work, and she even began to wear gloves or gauze wraps to cover the scabs and tender scars of the "M" on her hand. She also unwillingly followed through on her promise to see a therapist, but she didn't enjoy it one bit.

Sherlock uncharacteristically insisted on accompanying Madeline to the therapist's office, and sometimes he would even wait for her during the session instead of going home; but waiting was immensely dull. Madeline stepped back into the empty waiting room once and found him trying to pour the contents of an alkaline and lithium battery together into the water dispenser. And another time she'd found him explaining a particularly horrific crime scene to a little boy with wide eyes and a furious mother. Madeline had resisted the urge to grab him by the hair and submit him for therapeutic counseling but instead led him out by the sleeve to catch a cab back to Baker Street.

Although they had kissed at John's wedding, Madeline and Sherlock acted very aloof towards each other- much like they had been before they had admitted their feelings to each other at the reception. They stayed platonically amicable, and once in a while gave each other friendly gestures. Once at John's insistence Sherlock tried once to call Madeline "darling"; but she'd grown extremely pale and quiet as soon as he said it and Sherlock remembered that it had been Moriarty's pet name for her. After she'd calmed down he distracted her with the details of a small case he was working on, even though Madeline refused to have anything to do with his line of work after what had happened. She also tried to avoid mucking around with Sherlock's cases because the media had gone berserk after the news had broken about the bombs planted in Parliament's basement and Sherlock's involvement. Needless to say by extent the press knew Madeline and John were involved as well, and soon enough Madeline began to get vulgar mail from Sherlock's large following of fans in England that berated her for "allowing" herself to be kidnapped and for being so helpless. Sherlock asked her about the letters once and she told him very little but then the letters mysteriously stopped coming altogether, much to Madeline's relief.

Then the panic attacks started happening.

Madeline was in her lab when her first attack made itself known. Her heart started to beat fast and her chest became heavy. She didn't feel the symptoms that appeared when she didn't have her medicine, but the new symptoms were even scarier. Madeline's vision swung madly and she felt detached from her body.

"I'm going to die." She wheezed, staggering to the side a little bit and latching onto the edge of the counter to steady herself. After what seemed like hours her vision settled down and her breathing slowed down again. When she finally unclenched her fingers from the counter Madeline found that her hands were shaking and her head was pounding.

"I'm going crazy." She whispered to herself, sliding to the floor and digging in her pocket for her medicine and shakily pressing her pills into her mouth. After her hands had stopped trembling Madeline stood up and went back to work, but she was still shaken by the experience.

The next panic attack happened almost a week later when she was trying to make a plate of tea and coffee to take up to Sherlock's flat. Madeline was placing the cups on the tray meticulously and tugged at her sleeve to make sure it was down when her kitchen began to spin like a fairground ride and she could feel her chest begin to collapse on itself. Sherry produced a concerned look from the couch as her owner slid down the counter to the ground and tried to catch her breath. Madeline pressed herself against the cabinet and shut her eyes to try and block out her swirling eyesight, but it made her nauseous. She slowly dragged herself back to a standing position and stared blankly at the shattered cup on the floor beside where she'd been sitting. Madeline sighed and swept up the fragments then replaced the cup and quelled the panic still lancing through her randomly before taking the tray up to 221 B.

"You look pale." Sherlock remarked as Madeline nudged the door open. His violin was tucked firmly under his chin and his violin bow dangled delicately from his fingertips.

"I'm fine, just not really feeling well." Madeline answered, "Is John coming over?" Sherlock frowned at her before lifting his bow back to the strings and playing a small song on the violin. Madeline had forgotten how much she'd missed his playing after he'd disappeared.

"Soon." Sherlock answered, "His clinic hours would have been over by now, but since he's been working at Bart's the shifts are more unpredictable." Madeline tried not to look guilty as she passed Sherlock his cup of tea and tucked her feet underneath her as she settled into John's chair with her cup of coffee.

"You look awful." The detective stated. Madeline mimed a hurt face and went back to staring at her coffee cup.

"I'm serious." He continued. "You look like someone dragged you over rocks and fed you turpentine."

"Wow, you're more obnoxious than usual." Madeline observed. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"And you're edgier than usual." He returned without hesitation. "Why are your hands shaking?" He added. Madeline quickly set her coffee cup aside and clutched her hands together in her lap.

"The rattling of the cups and tray made it impossible to think." Sherlock continued snarkily, but after a second his look lost its hard edge. "Your pupils are small and shrunken, a significant change from the way they dilate when you're in proximity to me. What happened?" He asked blatantly.

"I don't know." Madeline said, "Everything was spinning and my chest felt like it'd been hit with a sledgehammer. I thought I was going to die." Sherlock scrutinized her blankly, reading the way her eyes moved around the room and her breathing pattern.

"A panic attack perhaps?" He deduced. Madeline shot him a quick look and he shrugged like it was the simplest answer he could think of. "It's a common side effect after stress and trauma. Was this the first time it's happened?" Madeline shook her head as Sherlock's look began to harden again.

"And you didn't think of letting me know? Or John?" He added quickly.

"I didn't know what was happening." Madeline said defensively. "I honestly thought I was either dying or hallucinating. Don't be so angry." Sherlock huffed and picked his violin up, then began to play on it indifferently. Madeline went back to staring at her lap and wished she'd brought Sherry with her as a distraction. Luckily she didn't have to wait in silence for long because John soon came back from work and tossed his bag onto the couch. Sherlock ignored him and kept playing on his violin.

"How's everything going?" John asked pointedly to try and solicit an answer.

"Ask Miss Carver." Sherlock said shortly. John turned to Madeline and raised an eyebrow but she was busy glaring in betrayal at Sherlock, who ignored her.

"Why? What happened, Madeline?" John asked, Madeline stared at her fingers again before deciding to answer him, she saw that the doctor's left ring finger was still empty.

"Sherlock said I had a panic attack." She said simply. Sherlock nodded his head and danced his fingers up and down the neck of the violin. John immediately whipped out a penlight and tried to shine it into Madeline's eyes. She flinched away from the light and pushed John's hand away.

"Don't." She said. John frowned at her and flicked the light on again.

"I'm going to. Deal with it." He said shortly. Sherlock made an approving noise and Madeline glared at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Your antidepressants should lower the risk of those. Did you fall?" John asked, checking Madeline's hand while she continued to scowl at Sherlock.

"No I didn't." She answered.

"She did." Sherlock said blandly. John made a frustrated sound and began to check Madeline for bruises.

"Your therapist can help with preventing more panic attacks." He said. Madeline frowned and Sherlock drew the bow across the strings with a final high note.

"You're being unmanageably difficult." The detective stated tonelessly. "John and I are trying to help you recover but you're making it impossible by refusing help. On any other terms you'd never be quiet, but now all of the sudden you can't seem to get coherent words out." Madeline didn't answer him, so Sherlock turned to John with an overly-polite smile and said,

"So, any news from Mary yet?" John's frown deepened into a scowl as he tossed the penlight back into his bag.

"She's fine. She's staying at our flat." He said shortly.

"What, really? Why? Why is she there?" Madeline asked. John sighed and raked his fingers through his hair.

"It's a long story, but she's still my wife." He admitted. Sherlock grunted nonchalantly, and John scowled at him. "You'll know what it means, Sherlock. I married her because I loved her. You'll get it, I guess."

"What?" Madeline asked, Sherlock sighed and stood from his chair.

"Doing something you don't understand for someone you love." John said quickly, ignoring the pained and aggravated looks Sherlock and Madeline gave him. "It sounds like a fairy tale line, but I'm not kidding Sherlock. It's no surprise I'm not happy with her- hell I'm still furious she lied to me- but there's nothing I can do about it now." The detective rolled his eyes and mimed stifling a yawn, and Madeline said nothing and stared at the doctor's hand.

"But you're letting her stay in your flat. You're not at all afraid she'll slit your throat while you're sleeping?" The detective said snidely.

"Sherlock." Madeline reprimanded him with wide eyes. He huffed and reached for a pack of cigarettes angrily, but John stopped him and took the pack away.

"Smoke can bring on panic attacks." The doctor said tersely. "If you care you'll quit smoking." Sherlock opened his mouth to give an angry retort but Mrs. Hudson cleared her throat from the doorway.

"Sorry dears, am I interrupting anything?" She asked sweetly, Madeline shook her head slightly and the old woman nodded with a smile, knowing full well what she'd walked into.

"John, Mary is here." The landlady said kindly. John cut his eyes to Sherlock and sighed, then tramped down the stairs to speak with his wife. Mrs. Hudson left Madeline and Sherlock with a maternal smile and shut the door behind her as she retreated downstairs. Madeline busied herself with cleaning up the tray she'd hoped would spark a nice conversation between her and Sherlock and the detective drummed his fingers on his knee irately. Madeline hesitated before quickly grabbing Sherlock's teacup from beside him and placing it back on the tray. He rolled his eyes exasperatedly and frowned at her.

"Next time you feel short of breath or feel a panic attack coming on let us know. You could fall and hit yourself." He said shortly. Madeline acknowledged him with a nod of her head and took the tray back to her flat. She passed John and Mary talking animatedly in low tones at the bottom of the stairs on the way. They grew quiet when they passed her, so Madeline quickly continued down the hall and made sure to return the tray to pleasant Mrs. Hudson before taking the cups back to her flat.

. . .

After another panic attack in the middle of the street Sherlock and John both demanded that Madeline move back into John's old room again, and after Sherlock subtly changed the locks on her apartment she agreed. Unfortunately the new living scenario was incredibly awkward as Sherlock grew increasingly irritable without his cigarettes. He continued to take small and petty cases, and Madeline still refused to have anything to do with them. Apparently John and Mary had reconciled together and had come to terms with Mary being previously employed by the world's only consulting criminal, and they stopped by frequently.

There was one morning where Madeline was attempting to shower in peace before work when she smelled something burning. A second later the smoke alarm began to beep in two alternating tones repeatedly. Madeline panicked and felt around for her towel blindly, only to find it missing.

"Sherlock!" She shouted, "Where's my towel?"

"I needed it to smother the fire!"

"What fire?"

"The one engulfing the kitchen. Stay there I'll take care of it!" Sherlock called up the hall before laughing madly and darting into another part of the flat. Madeline huffed and paced in the bathroom.

"I'm stuck in here!" She shouted. "Give me back my towel or I'll use the shower curtain!"

"It's that or a charred and blackened flat and an eviction notice!" Sherlock called back to her. Madeline growled and began tugging at the shower curtain as the smoke alarm began to shrill. A loud gunshot ricocheted through the flat and it fell silent.

"Did you just shoot the fire alarm?" Madeline shouted, stumbling down the hall with the floral shower curtain wrapped around and trailing behind her like a wedding dress. She waved her hand through the smoke and frowned.

"Give me that." She snatched her sooty and burnt towel from an even sootier Sherlock. "What were you doing?" She snapped.

"Mixing boric acid and antifreeze with a little bit of sulfur to see how the temperature fluxuates." Sherlock said, almost beaming and looking very pleased with himself over the experiment's results. Madeline huffed and walked back down the hall.

"This is why we can't have nice things." She scolded him after she'd dressed appropriately, "You shot the fire alarm!" Sherlock shrugged and reached for his violin. Sherry made a keening noise as Madeline opened the window to let the smoke air out of the flat.

"The smoke didn't bring on a panic attack." Sherlock observed from behind her. Madeline gathered up her things for work and grabbed her medicine.

"You set fire to the flat to see if I'd have a panic attack." She summarized flatly. Sherlock tucked his violin under his arm and twirled his bow between his fingers as he strolled around the flat.

"But it didn't." He said smugly. "Which means you're getting better." Madeline gave him a confused look and he ignored her. "Which means whatever I'm doing is working." He added hastily, kicking open the door and nodding towards it pointedly. Madeline marveled at the mania feeling that began to creep through her system. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed the manic swings.

"Setting the flat on fire is a little far, but thanks." She said, trying to put words together to express the mania swinging through her head and making her want to giggle. Madeline boldly reached up and kissed Sherlock before stepping back, then kissing him on the cheek briefly and darting down the stairs. She didn't stay long enough to see if the detective would reciprocate or react, but she had a feeling that he was secretly pleased.

. . .

Madeline's panic attacks began to lessen in frequency and severity. She began to feel when an attack was coming on and could almost always lower herself to the ground or into a chair to wait out the asphyxiating waves of terror that still left her breathless and scared.

John and Mary visited often, and after their first few visits Madeline's tense attitude towards Mary diluted itself into an awkward mix of gratitude and acquaintanceship. Sherlock smirked every time he saw them walk through the door.

"I'm pregnant." Mary said breathlessly on an afternoon in late July. Madeline raised her eyebrows and looked to John for affirmation from Sherlock's chair. He nodded, and she turned to look at Sherlock. The detective was busy oxidizing something in the kitchen with a smug expression.

"You knew about this, didn't you?" Madeline deadpanned.

"For weeks." He returned, not bothering to look up from his work. "Out of my chair." He added absently. John huffed and scuffed his shoe at the carpet. Mary smiled warmly and subconsciously placed her hands on her stomach, making the small bulge underneath her shirt more evident. Madeline congratulated them and Mrs. Hudson insisted on bringing up a tray of tea to celebrate. Sherlock continued to work on whatever he was doing until it started to emit a smell like burning rubber and John and Madeline had to coax him out of the kitchen. Sherry stalked out of John's old room and wound herself around Mary's ankles affectionately while they talked. Sherlock did his best to remain civil but kept giving Madeline pointed glances that entailed how much he wanted to get back to his experiment.

As soon and John and Mary had left Mrs. Hudson collected her tray and retreated as well, leaving Madeline to fill out paperwork and Sherlock to continue with his test.

"Miss Carver, would you run these samples for me?" He asked a little too kindly after only a few moments of silence. He shook a bag of what looked like nail clippings in Madeline's direction; she frowned at him.

"No. I'm not doing anything with your crime scenes." She said flatly, tapping a stack of papers together and stowing them in a manila folder. Sherlock huffed and shook the bag again, pasting his smile back onto his face rather painfully.

"Miss Carver. Would you please run the samples?" He asked again, sounding constrained and overly polite. "Otherwise you're obstructing a police investigation."

"No, Sherlock. I said I won't. Learn your boundaries." Madeline repeated. The detective smiled painfully at her and waved the bag fervently above her head until she sighed and snatched it from him.

"What are these?" She asked, not willing to open the bag and inspect its contents without forewarning.

"Toenails from a seventeen-year-old out of Wales." He said.

"Why are you taking a case from Wales?" Madeline asked, Sherlock shrugged.

"Bored." He said tonelessly. Madeline pursed her lips and scribbled the information about the samples on the bag, then stowed it away with her things to take to work the next day.

Her hand brushed against her medicine bottle and she remembered that it was almost time for her next dose. Madeline took the pills and expected the speck of black in the middle of her chest to dissolve, but it stayed there and seemed to pulsate and emanate cold waves that increased in intensity. Madeline flipped her pencil around in her fingers and took deep breaths to calm herself down as she felt the cold feeling grow a little bigger. Her medicine normally worked, but when it didn't there was no telling if the bad feelings would stay and grow or be replaced by normal feelings or a mania swing.

Madeline flipped her pencil around so that the metal cap that anchored the bright pink eraser to the wood of the pencil rested against her palm. She could feel it slightly through the gauze she'd put on that day in place of a glove and twitched her fingers a little to let the metal piece slide down a little to her wrist and glide over the inside of her wrist gently. She moved her fingers again and applied a little more pressure as the metal cap made another pass at her wrist. Madeline looked out of the corner of her eye at Sherlock tentatively and made sure he was engrossed in his work before scraping the end of the pencil against her skin again. The watery pain felt good, it hurt but it was warm and cut through the cold water that felt like small icy tendrils pushing through Madeline's chest. She took a second and traced the "M" on her hand over the gauze bandages with the pencil tip, not really caring that the graphite left a faint gray "M" on the pristine white bandage.

"What do you think you're doing?" Sherlock said coldly. Madeline jerked back from the desk and dropped the pencil, spinning to face him out of surprise. He was wearing an expression that was a mixture of anger, disappointment, and something else. The detective didn't move forward or grab her wrist to inspect the shallow cut Madeline had made, it looked like she'd tried to arm wrestle with a thorn bush and hadn't done well but it wasn't serious. Instead he regarded her with an almost disdainful look, and Madeline found herself recoiling guiltily from his glare. She could feel her chest compressing like it was in a vice and balled her hands on her lap to steady herself. She took deep breaths to steady her racing heartbeat, although her chest spasmed slightly as she tried to regulate a lesser amount of air than her body was asking for. Sherlock's frown held a small edge of concern as Madeline straightened herself up and looked him boldly in the eye while holding her panic attack back. They just stood there in the most awkward fashion until Madeline could breathe properly again and sat back in the chair to allow more air to her lungs.

"You're being ridiculous." Sherlock remarked snidely. "What were you thinking?" Madeline stayed quiet and stared at the faint "M" the pencil had traced onto her gauze. "You're not seeking attention are you?" Sherlock asked coldly, "Because that's insultingly petty of you."

"Of course I'm not." Madeline snapped back at him. Sherlock folded his arms over each other firmly and scowled.

"Then you need to help yourself. John and I have tried multiple times by prescribing medications to you and even recommended a therapist to you- against my better judgment, might I add- if you won't let us help you then it's up to you." He stated. Madeline felt herself growing angry with him, despite the small shard of logic embedded in his statement.

"And your silence is even more aggravating." Sherlock continued, Madeline just kept staring adamantly at her hands, not quite sure what to say.

"Sorry." She murmured, earning her a scoff from Sherlock.

"Obviously not or you'd be making a better effort to not scratch yourself up." He said sharply. When Madeline still didn't answer him he growled out of frustration.

"At least occupy your mind with something to keep your thoughts busy." He said. "I've found that to be a viable pastime when my mind palace gets too crowded with simpleminded things."

"Okay." Madeline answered. Sherlock nodded at her and passed her the bag of samples.

"If you'd like you can start by running those for me as I'd asked." He suggested in an overly polite voice. Madeline stood quietly and made her way to the door with her paperwork and the bag of samples and left. When she was walking down the sidewalk someone shouted at her. Madeline looked up and saw Sherlock leaning out of the open window with the most ridiculous and rare smile on his face.

"When you finish with those tell John to meet me at the location I'm going to text him. I might have some leads on the case." He shouted to her.

"Got it!" She shouted back, giving Sherlock a thumbs up and finally regaining her voice. She ignored the people giving her disapproving glances for shouting in the street and hurried to Bart's. A couple of people recognized her, and Madeline made sure to ignore them and keep her shirt sleeves down and her left hand in her pocket.

. . .

"Sherlock?" Madeline called, stepping into 221 B and looking around for the detective. She wondered if he and John had returned from whatever they were investigating. It was past the normal time she got home; Madeline had stayed later to run Sherlock's samples for him. She threw her bag onto the couch and hung on to the sample files.

"Sherlock? I've got your results. Your guy is Liam Kensington, and I think you might want to see this." She said, walking around the kitchen and living room and calling down the hall. Sherlock didn't answer, so she assumed he was out with John.

Madeline felt a mania swing nudging at the back of her mind and decided not to take her dose of medicine and let the good feelings soar. She was confident it wouldn't turn into a depression swing and in the event that it did she kept her medicine in her pocket. Madeline frowned at the messy flat that had gotten worse since she'd left earlier. Apparently Sherlock had torn the place apart while looking for something or thinking out loud. Madeline huffed and hauled her radio up from her flat to Sherlock's and turned the music up like she liked it. Sherlock complained about it when she played her music loudly but had no qualms against playing the violin loudly at two in the morning or shooting the walls; so Madeline relished in finally being able to play her music loudly.

She spun her hair into a lazy bun and started tossing clothes into piles of "dirty", "clean", "almost clean", and "from the homeless network". She started a load of clothes to wash and stacked up baskets of clothes to fold. When she got to the papers and items scattered over the desks Madeline decided to leave them alone and spare herself an irritated scolding from Sherlock about how everything was in its proper place. She opened the windows, not really caring if her music spilled out into the street and detached Sherry and her claws from Sherlock's chair. Then Madeline started to fold the shirts she'd dried and dropped them in neat piles on the couch behind her. She spun around giddily as her mania swing took hold in time to the music. One of her favorite songs pushed itself through the radio and she swayed around the flat happily, trailing one of her shirts behind her like a dance partner and laughing at the endorphins flowing through her system and making her chest feel full of air.

"You look utterly ridiculous. Quit it." Sherlock snapped from the doorway. Madeline opened her eyes mid-spin and stopped short facing Sherlock.

"Oh you're back." She said quickly. He crossed his arms and gave her a scrutinizing look.

"One of the best statements you've made yet." He said over the music. Madeline hurried to the radio and turned it down, fading the song into background noise.

"Sorry. I decided to clean." She answered defensively. Sherlock's look became dangerous for a second as he surveyed the flat.

"You didn't touch my experiments or files," He said rhetorically, Madeline shook her head and grinned.

"No, I know better than that." She said, giggling a little foolishly. Sherlock cut her a strange look and sighed.

"You're not on your medicine." He observed.

"Nope!" Madeline chimed, "It's been too long since I've had a mania swing, and I'm going to enjoy it to its fullest." Sherlock "m-hmmed" and eyed the shirt she'd been dancing with.

"Like I've said before you look ridiculous when you're dancing." He said coldly. Madeline swung the shirt at him and he leaned back with a surprised expression to avoid it.

"You're the one who danced with me at John's wedding." She said sulkily. "Remember you kept stepping on my feet when I tried to teach you to dance." Sherlock pursed his lips like he was thinking heavily and finally snatched the shirt from Madeline.

"Under normal circumstances you'd be extremely irritating right now." He snapped. Madeline cocked her head to the side so much Sherlock thought she'd break her neck.

"Normal circumstances?" She asked.

"You're boring." He answered quickly. Madeline laughed and grabbed her shirt back, folding it and dropping it onto one of the piles on the couch.

"Right, and you happened to kiss this boring person more twice of your own accord." She jibed, Sherlock steeled himself and moved forward. When Madeline turned around again he was right in front of her, and his lips were very close to hers. He looked at her for a second, and she bit her lip to keep her expression in check. When Sherlock leaned in closer Madeline burst into laughter and had to step away from him to reign herself in.

"I'm trying to be romantic." Sherlock snapped. Madeline bent over, still giggling, and waved her hand at him disconcertingly.

"Don't worry about it. I don't think I could deal with you if you acted all sappy and 'normal'." She panted, still snickering a little bit. Sherlock gave her a flat look.

"It was John's idea anyway." He said. Madeline finally calmed herself down and was able to look at the detective without breaking into laughter for a good period of time. Sherlock stepped into his mind palace and tried to think of another affectionate or romantic gesture he could skillfully execute without shooting himself in the foot or wanting to shoot a wall. He held out his hand expectantly, and Madeline stared at it for a second.

"You're making the situation tense." Sherlock said tersely, snapping his fingers in a "hurry up" manner. Madeline gingerly slid her hand into his and stepped closer to him, her manic swing made her want to bounce around with excitement but she just shifted her weight from one foot to another restlessly.

"Quit it." Sherlock reprimanded her, putting his hand on her waist in an effort to take up what he remembered as the proper dance position and to hold her still. Madeline automatically put her hand on his shoulder and strained her ears for the faint song she'd turned down in the background.

"You have the most unorthodox taste in music." Sherlock commented to break the faint silence punctuated by faint notes of music. Madeline puffed her cheeks up and blew air out of them slowly.

"Is anything you say not an insult or crude?" She asked. Sherlock blinked for a second before shrugging the question off and continuing to sway in rhythm with the song.

"I can if I want to." He said finally, pulling Madeline out of her thoughts.

"Do what?" She asked absently. He frowned at her and she smiled back.

"You know what-"Sherlock growled, letting his efforts at being charming slide. He leaned down and kissed Madeline firmly on the lips. Her mouth curved into a smile underneath his as her mania intensified to such a high level she thought she'd start crying from sheer joy.

She took her hands from Sherlock's hand and shoulder and reached up to pull him closer to her. He was startled by the increase in contact but didn't entirely resent it, either. He carefully made note of the strange feelings coursing through him and filed it away in his mind palace in an area that would be easy to access again. When they leaned away from each other to catch their breath Madeline grinned at him.

"Thanks by the way for looking for me." She said softly. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"You've said that already." He reminded her. She leaned into him a little bit and the detective tried not to panic.

"Yeah but I wanted you to know that I mean it." Madeline answered, when she looked up she saw that Sherlock's pupils had expanded quite a bit, and he noticed that hers had dilated too.

"Sherlock!" John shouted, stumbling up the staircase out of breath and bursting into the flat. Madeline jerked out of surprise, and Sherlock froze like deer in headlights. When John had caught his breath he grinned before frowning at Sherlock, who'd stepped away from Madeline.

"You left me back there!" He said. "Yeah congratulations on the case and all but you could have at least stayed there to explain everything to Lestrade."

"You solved it?" Madeline asked.

"The boy from Wales was in an animal smuggling ring, simple execution murder." Sherlock said plainly, sparing her the details she didn't want to hear.

"Yeah well I thought you should know," John said, "Someone dropped a package outside after you came in and before I got here. Your brother has also been spamming my phone because he can't reach you. Where were you?"

"I was busy." Sherlock said shortly. Madeline smiled at the ground, still feeling her mania swing making her want to jump on the couch and slide around in her socks. John hid his accusing smile by rubbing at his mouth with his hand.

"Anyway. We've got another case." He said. Sherlock looked at him with interest and raised his eyebrows.

"Do tell. Explain." He deadpanned. John sighed and pulled out his phone.

"You'd know if you'd been checking your phone." The doctor said. "It's Mycroft, so it must be a big one." Madeline saw the exuberant grin slide onto Sherlock's face that seemed to match her mania. The euphoric feeling vanished quickly when she remembered Sherlock's line of work and how much she tried to avoid it.

"Miss Carver we might need your expertise on the case. If my brother's involved that means it's something important." The detective said lowly. "Would you accompany us there?" Madeline picked at the gauze on her hand nervously, uncertain if she wanted to involve herself in death again.

"Sherlock don't. The therapist wouldn't like it, you're not going to help like that." John intoned.

"I was against the therapist from the start." Sherlock snapped.

"Okay! I'll be fine, we'll go." Madeline interrupted. "I'll help if I can." John nodded grimly, and Madeline noticed he was wearing his wedding band again. Sherlock seemed to look at her with a prideful expression as he grabbed his coat and scarf. August was ending, and September was just around the corner with its dropping temperatures. John bounced impatiently by the door as Sherlock pulled on his gloves and made a "come on" motion to Madeline. She made sure her sleeves were pulled down and tugged on them first for affirmation. Then she joined John and Sherlock and they walked down to the street. Sherlock raised his hand to hail a cab, and Madeline grinned as the vehicle pulled up to the curb. Sherlock raised an eyebrow and looked at her skeptically.

"What?" He asked as John climbed into the cab first. Madeline shrugged and climbed in after the doctor. Sherlock sat on her other side and gave the cabbie directions.

"Nothing." She said finally, fighting back a smile and earning a curious look from Sherlock. "The game is on."

Finis

A.N.- Thank you to everybody for supporting this story since September (do you remember~…) I'm deeply grateful for everyone who commented, Beta'd, and followed the story through all the weirdness and the fluff so thick I think they had to get the Epi-Pens out.

Gratzi to my neighbor down the hall RomeoBlack123 and my Beta shadajoserj. Please go check out their items as well as my awesome roommate RavenclawStarkid13.

Does anyone want a sequel? I have a couple ideas (Appledore and Richard, etc) but of course I won't write it if nobody's gonna read it. Well, I'd write it I just wouldn't publish it. XD

Thank you all and arrivederci!

UPDATE- DUE TO THE REQUESTS ALREADY COMING IN THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL. ITS NAME WILL BE THA DAME OF BAKER STREET 2: MIND GAMES. I PLAN TO HAVE THE FIRST CHAPTER UP BY 1/10/15.