A/N: Hello! I know I should be working on The Great Desolation and I am. It's almost ready to go to the awesomest beta in the world, old ping hai. I am also aware that I have other sequels I should be working on first but this just got into my head and wouldn't leave.

This is my first Mystrade, so be kind please.

Greg thought he was having a good day. He had done all his paper work. He had a juicy case that would interest Sherlock. Anderson was in counseling that had been ordered for his return to work and wouldn't be reporting to duty for at least another week. It wasn't that he was a bad bloke, but Greg, having been on the wrong side of an affair, had little patience for those who cheated. Even if Anderson hadn't cheated since The Fall.

When he walked into his office, he thought that things were looking up. There, sitting on his desk like those dames from the old detective stories he read as a boy, was a buxom red-head. She wore a red pinstriped pencil skirt with matching waistcoat. Her blouse was a black frilly number that looked as expensive as hell. Her shoes were black pumps with red soles. The whole outfit probably cost more than he made in a year.

He instinctively straightened his tie and was about to clear his throat when she brushed her hair back with her left hand, revealing a ring on the appropriate finger. He sighed and shuffled in.

"How can I help you?" he asked, throwing the file he had just gotten from the medical examiner on his desk behind her.

She stuck her hand out and said with a smile, "Liya Mason. I'm here about your most recent case."

"The artist?" he asked. When she nodded he swore. "The Liya Mason? The famous painter?"

"That's me. Are you a fan?" she laughed.

"God, no. My ex-wife was, though. She'd kill me if she knew I was speaking to you."

Liya laughed again. "How friendly was the breakup?"

Greg frowned. "Not very. Why?"

A grin split her face. "How would you like to make her green with envy?"

"Okay..." he hedged, suspicious. His cop radar was going off.

"I'm doing a painting of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. And you would be perfect for Cromwell."

Greg rocked his head back in shock. It had to be a trick of some sort. Or there was a nasty catch. Not being Sherlock and able to deduce it, he merely asked.

"No catch, I promise. You get revenge on the bitch and I get my Cromwell. It's a win-win situation."

"I suppose I can do that, but we are really off topic. You said you came here about my case, not to acquire a model for your work."

"Tell me she didn't," said the voice from the doorway. Greg turned around to see someone who looked achingly familiar. He had dark, curly hair, broad shoulders and piercing, intelligent blue eyes.

"And you are?" Greg said in gruff tone, crossing his arms over his chest. The man smiled charmingly and Greg was almost there, it was on the tip of his tongue. Who this stranger resembled.

"Her husband."

"Well, Mr Mason-" The stranger cut him off.

"Holmes. My name is Holmes. Sherrinford Holmes to be exact." Greg ran a hand over his face. And there it was. He was the perfect blend of Sherlock and Mycroft.

"Oi, now see here..." he said with the strain of a man whose patience was wearing thin, but again this man cut him off.

"I see you are acquainted with my younger brothers, but be rest assured I am not here to make your job harder."

Greg shook his head in disbelief. That's what Mycroft had said after the second or third kidnapping and look at how many problems the politician had caused over the years. "Holmes" was synonymous with "trouble" as far as Greg was concerned. The man laughed. It was a clear, bright sound and reminded the detective of the few times he made Mycroft genuinely laugh.

"They may be enormous pains in the arse, but they are good lads. Now, about your case..." Sherrinford said.

"Right. How can I help you? I take it Ms. Mason knew the victim."

Liya smiled. "Sherlock said you were clever."

"I very much doubt he said anything of the sort. He calls me an idiot on a very regular basis."

"Aww, I assure you he says some very nice things about you to us. What was he saying only the other day, Sherry?"

"Hmm...that you were the best Scotland Yard has to offer," Sherrinford replied.

Greg laughed. "Well, I'm not sure that's a compliment, considering how he feels about us, but thanks." He moved around his desk and sat down in his chair with a sigh.

"So, Ms Mason, were you friends with Miss Jensen?"

Liya blushed. "Um...no. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, we were more like enemies, if you will."

"So you were rivals then?" Greg inquired.

"Rivals is such a mild term, but if you prefer it, then yes, we were rivals."

"And when was the last time you saw the victim?" Liya exchanged a glance with Sherrinford that told Greg volumes. He ran his hands over his face in frustration. "Let me guess; you were the last person to see her alive, weren't you?"

"Well, other than the killer obviously," she hedged.

"Ms Mason-" Greg growled.

"Please call me Liya, Detective Inspector," she told him.

And this day had been going so well... "Liya, you do you realize that not only have you complicated matters exponentially, but you have insured that I cannot go to Sherlock for help on this case. Not if I want it prosecuted."

"Oh." She hadn't even thought of that. "Oh dear."

"Does John know you?" Greg asked, hopeful.

"Well, sort of. I went to uni with him and have recently become reacquainted."

"How recently?" he pressed. If he could get John, then Sherlock could solve it behind the scenes via his flatmate and no one would be the wiser.

"Last month. We had been talking online a bit before that. We invited him to our annual party we throw every year."

"Wait…this was a month ago?"

Liya nodded.

"I think I was invited. Mycroft asked me to come, but I already had plans to go out with some old Hendon mates."

"Pity you couldn't make it. It was lots of fun," Liya said with a wink. Sherrinford rolled his eyes. His idea of fun and his wife's were two completely different things.

"And by fun she means matchmaking," her husband drolled from the doorway, having still not made it fully into the room.
"Matchmaking?" Greg asked, confused.

"Well, clearly Mary and John were with the wrong people. John needed Sherlock for many reasons, including that ridiculous desire for danger and adventure. Mary needed someone to sit at home and have long discussions about books and telly shows. So I hooked her up with

Sherlock's friend Victor. Positively charming young man. Well…mostly. He did put it wrong-footed with John when they met, but they're over that now."

Greg cut her off when she stopped for breath. "Enough! The fact of the matter is that you don't know John nearly as well you know Sherlock, yes?"

"Yes. Good. As long as he gives his 'word' that Sherlock will stay clear of this case, I can bring him on as a medical consultant."

"And of course if Lockie were to just happen to find the file and told his flatmate who was the culprit was," Sherrinford said, "and John told you, there is no way that anyone could say that Lockie unduly influenced the evidence."

"Exactly. Wait…Lockie?" Greg blinked bewildered. "Lockie as in Sherlock? You call him Lockie?" And then he just started to laugh.

"He doesn't like it much. My likes to tease him about it, but never around others lest Lockie call him his nickname."

"'My?' Mycroft?"

"See, you are clever, Detective Inspector," Liya told him.

"Oh, I know that. I just don't believe that Sherlock said that I was. Am. Whatever."

They laughed.

"Well, Ms Mason, if you give your statement to my sergeant. We'll get back to you."

"Thank you, Detective Inspector," Liya said, sliding off his desk. She turned and shook his hand.

"My pleasure." He waited until she got to the door to add, "Oh and I can't be your model until the case is over with as well."

She screeched and stomped her foot. Sherrinford laughed as he watched his wife stalk toward Sally Donavon's desk.

"You know," he said turning back to Greg, "I think you are the only person in years besides myself to have out-foxed the slyest vixen I know."

Greg just smiled.

"I'll be seeing you around, Detective Inspector Lestrade."

And Greg was left with the feeling that he had fallen down the rabbit hole. He shook his head. I fell into the hole years ago when I met a drug addict named Sherlock Holmes. I just met the Mad Hatter and March Hare is all. He laughed. What did that make Sherlock and Mycroft then? The Cheshire cat and the caterpillar respectively. He then wondered about John and where he fit in the metaphor and decided he should stop while he was ahead. He had work to do, after all.

It turned out to be only a two for Sherlock on the excitement scale. He looked at the file John had "accidentally" left on the coffee table when he went up to bed.

"It was the intern," Sherlock told Greg when he came to pick up the file. "He was smuggling drugs in some of her lesser works. She found out and confronted him. Then it was wham! lights out for Hannah Jensen. Dull!"
Sherlock huffed and threw himself on the couch in a snit. John just chuckled.

"And I think that's all you're going to get, Greg. Do you need me for anything else? Or us rather?"

"Nope. Now we know the direction to go in, we should wrap it up in no time at all."

"Good," John said with a smile, and then he went to sit on the couch at Sherlock's feet. As Greg turned to leave he saw John start to massage the curly-haired detective's soles and Sherlock's body shuddered as it released the tension.

Liya was right, they did make a good couple. Ever since he divorced Emily, he hadn't gotten around to dating much and envied Sherlock and John their deep, abiding love. He wished for something like that. For someone like that. He sighed.

As he got to the street he pulled out his mobile phone and dialed. "Hey, we're just wrapping up the case, when did you want me to come to your studio?"