In the end, the smallest things can be the most earth-shattering. A short conversation with a stranger will alter your entire perspective on life, love, and everything. An early morning peek at the sunrise will crack open your heart for the day's possibilities to seep into. One look from that someone will set your heart racing. One night will start a relationship that lasts a lifetime. One word will end it. One song will bring you to tears. Just one meeting of the exotic stranger with the way with words and the startling insights and the eyes will change your life.

But rarely do we have such philosophical thoughts in our everyday life, and Abbey was nothing short of distraught at her reaction to meeting Sherlock Holmes. Bloody disgusting it was, how quickly she had fawned over him. How she felt like the universe rotated in the opposite direction, if it even buggering rotated (she had always been bollocks with anything very macro-level in school—maybe it was the galaxy that rotated? Or just the solar system?) just from meeting the brilliant and mysterious detective.

It was absolutely juvenile and she had much too much dignity to get swept away by some well-educated, handsome, eloquent, superior, sophisticated, well-dressed, pompous …so-and-so. She did not pathologically need the approval of everyone she met, especially intelligent older men. Much too much dignity.

Her heart was not still wildly beating, ten minutes after he had swept away, because that would be utterly absurd. Bloody disgusting. Absolutely juvenile. And oh so very like her.

Who needed a real relationship with a nice, funny, sort of nerdy guy when she could pine after unattainable men who never even noticed her because they were too busy being brilliant? Who needed to feel wonderful and appreciated and beautiful when they could feel like an idiotic lovesick fool? Not Abbey.

And Sherlock Holmes had bloody pointed it out to her. Like that was just allowed. Like you could waltz up to a stranger and point out their highly private, dysfunctional shit when you had no bloody way of knowing about it.

She had gone for coffee. Well, she had gone to a coffee shop to get a hot cocoa because she hated coffee but it was so bleeding cold outside she needed a hot beverage, but she always told her colleagues she was going for coffee, because it was shorter, easier, and honestly just cooler to say. Succinct was good. Succinct avoided rambling, which led to embarrassment.

So she had gone for coffee. The line was insufferably long, of course, so she had gotten out her phone to occupy herself as the queue inched forward. She texted Justin, one of those nice, funny, sort of nerdy guys that happened to work down the hall from her, to be nice and see if he wanted a cup of anything. She flipped her mobile around in her hands, waiting impatiently for the line to move. It was really only a few people deep, but she absolutely loathed waiting around for things. At home, she was practically a slug, she was so lazy and sedentary, but when Abbey wanted something and other people and things held her up, it made her legs dance with restlessness and her skin practically itch.

Her mobile vibrated a response from Justin.

I think it's better if you concentrate on walking back to the office without mishap. Juggling two cups just isn't a good idea for you, Abs.

Okay. Ha bloody ha. Just because she had trouble opening the door to the building that one time because she had been juggling a bag of take-away and a cup and her purse, didn't mean that she was a clod. She could be very graceful when the situation called for it. She thought.

Just for that, I'm ordering two cocoas for myself and nothing for you.

Only a moment later, and one person away from the counter, her phone buzzed again.

It's your funeral.

She saw movement ahead of her and stepped forward, about to open her mouth to order as she started typing a scathing reply. Except that she stepped into a person, instead of the empty space she had been expecting. And wasn't saying "empty space" redundant? She'd have to remember that for the future. And perhaps she should be apologizing to the bloke whose coffee she had almost just made him spill instead of thinking about redundant phrases.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so redundant!" she said.

"Er—" the man replied as he turned around and stepped a little to the side to clear the way to the counter.

"Sorry, I mean. I'm so sorry. I was thinking about something…" she had trailed off, flapping her hand at the air to indicate she hadn't been thinking and it wasn't important.

"It's alright. No harm done," he said, holding up his two unspilt cups as evidence. She had nodded and smiled apologetically again, stepping forward to order.

"You can make it up to me by saving me from my flatmate and having your coffee at our table," he said. She turned to him, surprised. Coffee with a stranger? And said stranger's flatmate? Was it some sort of, what did they call it? A pass? She didn't ordinarily get hit on by, well, anyone.

"And how exactly shall I save you from your flatmate? Bring about his untimely demise via spilt coffee?" He had laughed, a real laugh that you rarely saw on a stranger's face, and she decided she couldn't resist the invitation, even though she had no idea why he'd invited her.

"I was thinking conversational distraction, but I think you'd get a knighthood for offing him, frankly," he replied, still smiling.

"Yeah, alright. I'm dying to miss a bit of work," she'd said, and ordered her cocoa. It only took a minute and she was picking it up and following John Watson, as he'd introduced himself, to their table.

"So what do you do, John Watson?" she asked. He didn't look like a professional; he was dressed in a rumpled jumper and jeans that were nice, but not stylish.

"I'm a doctor," he answered. "Mostly."

"Mostly as in didn't finish med school but you get good money for removing kidneys and selling them on the black market?" She hazarded a guess.

"Mostly as in he has an interesting side job," a deep voice interjected. They were at the small round table by the window she hadn't been paying attention to because, dammit, she really don't look where she was going, but that didn't make her a clod. But she was definitely paying attention now, because at the small round table was sat a striking man with the best kind of curly dark hair, intense eyes, an awesome coat, and—

"Cheekbones."

"John, is this more slang that makes no logical sense but that I am somehow expected to understand anyway?"

"Er, no, not that I know of." She flushed as she followed John's suit and took her seat opposite the window.

"Sorry. I meant, what side job, and hi, I'm Abbey." She took a sip of her still way-too-hot cocoa to cover her mortification, but ended up flushing deeper when she had to let her tongue flop out of her mouth to cool off from the scorching it took.

"John, why do you insist on trying to find romantic entanglements everywhere we go? How can I think with them hanging about all the time?"

John put his head in his hands, elbows on the table, and sighed. "Sherlock, why do you ruin everything? I just thought it'd be nice to ask her to sit with us. Stop being rude." John looked up from his hands with the most perfect rendition of a long-suffering expression that Abbey had ever seen. Even though the dark-haired man had made her feel uncomfortable with that romantic entanglement bit, she smiled. John was just so…cute.

"Abbey, this is Sherlock Holmes, world's biggest git." Sherlock inclined his head toward her with an expression something vaguely akin to I do these things because I have to do or John makes more of those faces. Abbey stuck her hand out to shake his, but then…

"Wait. Sherlock Holmes? The resurrected phony-who-wasn't-a-phony-maybe?" Sherlock shot John a glare that was much less ambiguous. See what you've done? Gone and brought an idiot over here. She blushed. "Sorry, I never followed. Not much of a newsreader, you see. Terribly irresponsible of me, I know, but how anyone can bring themselves to read that depressing drudge everyday when there's fantasy to read is beyond me. I'm not so self-controlled. Oh dear," she ended with a heartbroken expression.

"What? What is it?" John seemed anxious. Abbey turned toward Sherlock.

"I'm afraid we can't be friends. I'm afraid we might not even be able to sit at the same table together." She pulled a chagrined, regretful face. He slowly turned his head away from the window where he had undoubtedly been trying to ignore her existence and looked at her. Right in her eyes. She hadn't known that not very many people looked her right in the eyes when she talked until then, because it was so startling that he had.

"Infamous frauds unnerve you," he said. She couldn't tell if it was a question.

"No, I tend to disbelieve conspiracy theories. It's easier for your story, what little I know of it, to have been true than to have been elaborately constructed, crumbled, and now exonerated by the government. No, I'm afraid I can't associate with geniuses."

"Too fragile an ego," he said with the barest squint of his eyes. Definitely not a question this time. She had laughed then.

"Right in one. You see, being smart is about all I've got going for me and I'm much too insecure to hang round with geniuses all the time," she informed him with a smile.

"If that were true, you wouldn't be saying it," he replied.

"Oh, it's true, alright. My self-esteem comes crashing round my ears when I associate with you off-the-charts IQ types. What's less true is that I don't associate with those types. I find them absolutely fascinating and can't rip myself away, no matter how moronic and useless it inevitably makes me feel." John laughed at that.

"Cheers," he said, lifting his cup up to drink.

"Your father pressured you to excel in school. Put you down—no, praised you for it. So much that you came to solely identify yourself with your intelligence. Being around those who are potentially more intelligent than you causes you to question your self-worth. Your inability to overcome this self-consciousness mixed with the fact that you are aware of, and disapproving of, that same insecurity is likely the culprit behind your lack of ambition in your career. You're a glorified secretary though you're highly overqualified, and oh, it affects your personal life as well. You've had your share of interested parties, but no serious relationships, perhaps because you are, as you said, drawn to unattainable geniuses," he said, eyes boring into her. She looked away, to John.

"Does he explain or are we just supposed to congratulate him on being brilliant?" John opened his mouth to reply, but Sherlock beat him to it. He spoke like an oncoming train, coming at you with no pause, relentlessly chugging forward, too fast to dodge.

"Justin from work is obviously fond, by the rate at which he returns your texts despite his being at work. You display no anxiety in waiting for his return text, nor hesitation in how to phrase your responses, ergo you do not reciprocate the interest. His admiration is not the only you've received, based on rapidity of response—you've lightly flirted before. You don't think it's flirting because you don't take those things lightly, or you would've had a boyfriend before, so you're too self-conscious to believe he's interested, and only engage in flirtatious conversation subconsciously. I know you've never had a boyfriend because you were obviously surprised when I implied that John's invitation was romantic in nature, which it obviously was, and which you would have known had you ever had past experience. Your pride in your intelligence and subsequent insecurity could only have developed at a young age, and fathers are statistically more likely to openly place worth on concrete achievements. Your own words gave away your insecurity, and your secretarial status was obvious by the callous on you middle finger, a result of extensive writing, your business casual attire, and the fact that you have a letter waiting to post sticking out of your pocketbook with your firm's name. However, your keychain professes you an alumna of Cambridge, where you likely studied literature, based off your interest in fantasy fiction and your assumption that news is primarily read and not watched."

"Yeah. Definitely can't be friends with you. Do you breathe?"

"What a ridiculous question. John, make her go away." Her face was red as a cherry, she was so embarrassed about having been read like an open book—and for having been understood better than she often understood herself. Was Justin really interested in her? The thought had occurred to her, but had never really taken hold. Was she really that insecure?

But it was just so clever. So unbelievably clever.

"Does he always show off like that? He clearly thinks, or pretends to think, that explaining what is so obvious to him to mere mortals like us is utterly beneath him, yet he did it with minimal prompting. Looks like I'm not the only insecure one," she said with a sly smile. "But, yeah, alright, I'll give you your ego-boosting. Bloody brilliant it was. Just genius. Could you read my texts from across the room? What, do you have 20/5 vision? Oh, and I have had a boyfriend, but just the one and it was years ago, so I'll still give you credit there. Just fantastic. I can feel my self-worth dipping as we speak."

John groaned from his seat. "Don't say things like that to him. He's unbearable as it is." She grinned in response.

"Sorry, Johnny boy. I told you, I'm a sucker for genius." She checked her watch and decided it was time she headed back to her job as a glorified secretary. Standing up to leave, she felt relieved to escape the omniscient eyes of Sherlock Holmes, but also very disappointed to go. She was sure she'd never meet another like him, and she felt like she was letting something wonderful slip away. Which was silly, because he wasn't hers to let slip away. Not even remotely.

"Thanks for the table, fellas. Gotta get back to that grindstone. And thanks for the show," she added with a crooked smile to Sherlock, her version of a wink because she couldn't pull winks off, but she felt it was imperative that she show she wasn't bothered in the slightest by his cracking open her skin and showing her insides to the world. And, oddly, she didn't mind, not in the way you might think. She minded that her insides weren't as good as she thought they should be, and that her skin was so easily crackable. But the fact that he had cracked it open… well, that had just been sexy.

Abbey. Poor, messed up Abbey. Couldn't go out with Justin. Had to pine over college professors and married bosses and Sherlock Holmes. She just wasn't satisfied unless she felt entirely insignificant.