A/N: Hello, all who happen to stumble across this story! How are you this fine, fine day? I'll have you know I'm fine, just a little. Confused. Anyway, this is my new Holmes/OC story entitled 'The String, The Rope,' and it's almost established why in this chapter. I'unno. Might change the name later. Anywho, this story is (hopefully) gonna be very fun to write, if you guys make it so! Meaning, review. Please. I will take any advice on any thing I can change, grammar, constructive criticism, etc. Do you like it? Do you hate it? If so, why? I mean, throw me a line here, you know? Bringing us to chapter one. This first part is a dream, and the second reality. So, yeah. Have fun reading! Mlle Buckles.

A girl in her late twenties was walking among the streets, happily. She was mildly attractive, but nothing to get any man worked up for. Her hair feel in brown cascades for her midback, and she wore a simple blue dress. Not top fashion, but simple. Humble, would be a better word for her outfit. Her green eyes darted around around, looking among the strangers who tipped their hats towards her occassionally. She most likely knew them. Probably. Maybe she had taught their grubby little kids who'd simple die if they didn't learn how to play a violin or the viola within a few weeks. Or even the piano, the simplest of all the instruments she taught.

But she walked on, humming to herself slightly. She wasn't quite sure what her destination was, but she kept walking. It was like a reverse paralyzation. No matter how much she wanted to stop, she couldn't. She had a bad feeling about whatever was at the end of her rather long walk, but she simply couldn't stop moving her feet. In fact, the more she walked, the happier she got, making the bad feeling go away slightly with each step. So she did the only thing she did when she was frightened out of her wits. Hum.

She hummed down the whole street, occassionally looking in bakery windows, nodding slightly to a few people. Even giving the occassional coin to a poor homeless beggar person playing an instrument.

But never stopping. She slowed down for these things, but she never stopped moving.

Not once.

However, she had reached a top of a hill, and the street went down from the point she now stood on. She had been distracted for a moment by the smell of freshly baked cakes, but she looked down. Oh, she shouldn't have looked down. Down at the bottom of the street was a crowd. The word 'crowd' put it modestly. It was a mob, a riot. And for the first time, her feet froze, in mid step. Slowly, she put her foot down, frowning.

Quietly, she looked around. No one. A soft wind blew a flyer by her and she desperatly tried to reach for it, when a man pushed past her. She almost fell over, startled, but she slowly regained her composure, looking curiously at the was even more surprised when he turned around, refusing to leave his pace.

"Hurry up, miss! Don't want to be late for the show, do you?"

The woman shoke her head once, before setting off at a rather quick pace, wondering what the man was talking about. Her speed, though, eventually increased without her knowledge, and she soon found herself running down towards the bottom of the hill.

Suddenly, her feet froze, her mind still racing ahead. Her thoughts stopped, however, when she picked up a lone flyer on the ground. She looked at it before dropping it from her hand in disgust. Why was her brother on it? He hadn't done anything wrong, had he? He's been missing for years, he couldn't have done anything.

She looked around, only to find out that she was about twenty meters from the mob, who were absentmindedly chatting about nothing of importance to her.

Once or twice she caught her name upon their lips, and they suddenly grew quiet when she looked at them, curiously. They just pointed at her, their eyes empty of emotion. Then the crowd seemed to spread apart for her, and she suddenly she wasn't so sure about walking on. But her feet kept moving, in a slow crawl now. She was fearful; not for her life, but she feared for someone else's. When she reached the middle she gasped in fear.

There, standing in front of her, were the gallows.

Olivia H. Irings awoke with a start. Her somewhat pleasant dream had turned rather ugly within a matter of seconds. She lifted herself from her laying position to a sitting position and tried to keep her breathing under control. After about two minutes of heavy breathing, she had finally managed to at least control her breath. Her thoughts, however, were another story. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of why she was still having these dreams. It had been months, almost a year, and yet she was still haunted by the sight. Even though she dared not touch her forehead, she did so anyway. She silently cursed herself when her long fingers touched the wet, sticky droplets of sweat that had formed on her skin.

Realizing this, she flung herself back down to laying, and stayed there for at least ten more minutes, just trying to control her thoughts. Her hand had drifted its way over to a silver pocket watch on a night stand next to the small bed. She popped it open, and looked at the time, slightly baffled. A quater past eight. Her shop didn't open until nine, and her assistant would arrive in fifteen minutes.

She looked at it for several minutes, almost as if staring at it would make it go backwards. After deeming this not the case, she sat up, flinging her feet over the edge of the bed. She swung her legs back and forth, looking at her faded blue curtains. She sighed, and returned her attention to the nightstand. On it lay a silver brush and mirror, a small glass of water, and a small blue vase with a few daisies in it. She groaned, picking up the brush first. Almost silently, she brushed through her long brown hair, before standing up to get a better view of it in a large mirror.

So she did the only thing a woman would do when admiring her hair. Twirls. In her long white nightgown, she softly twirled on her feet, smiling. Unfourtunately, she had to pin her long hair up for her work day. So she quickly grabbed a couple pins off her dresser and pinned up her hair in a neat bun. When the first chore of the day was done, she opened the first drawer and got changed into a very simple working dress. However, it was still nice. It looked more like a simple blue dress that went down to her mid-calf, but was worn over a collared white shirt. She quietly rolled up the sleeves, and tied a blue bow under the dresses' collar.

And this was when she heard a bell chime downstairs, meaning that her assistant had arrived. However, instead of coming straight to the stairs and calling up like he always did, he seemed to be talking to someone. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't own this shop. And we don't open until nine, either way. Surely you can wait fifteen minutes." She wandered down the creaky stairs, only to be greeted by the back room of the shop. Eventually, she made it to the front, and saw who her assistant was talking to. Doctor Johnathan Watson.