A/N: I apologize if I get any information regarding London or even England in general wrong, as I have never left Australia and can't be bothered Googling if I am wrong (really dedicated to my craft…)

Description: AU, canon pairings and implied Johnlock.

Disclaimers note: I don't have rights to any of these characters or storylines.

Chapter 1: (PD)

It was exactly three days, seven hours, twenty eight minutes and forty nine seconds since Ned and Chuck had arrived in London. To celebrate the one year anniversary of Chuck's resuscitation from death, Ned had handed the keys of The Pie Hole over to Olive, along with Digby and his supply of peanut butter flavoured dog treats, and the two had left for the airport and boarded the second plane out of the country. Although they had agreed to buy tickets for the first plane leaving America, upon seeing it was headed towards South Africa, they had come to a mutual decision to holiday in a safer destination.

At this exact point in time, Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles sat at the dining table of the hotel in which she and Ned were staying, eating scrambled eggs on toast, complete with margarine and ground pepper, and enjoying being alive. Ned stood at the window of the dining room, his fingers drumming against his jeans, as he noted for the thirty second time that morning how cold London was. Regretting their decision not to leave for South Africa, he had to remind himself that it was better to have a head cold than to have a bullet in your head.

'Any news?' Ned asked, taking a seat at the table next to Chuck and turning up the television in the adjoining living area. Chuck swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs, before shaking her head. Ned read the headlines running across the bottom of the screen; 'Job losses will continue, says Minister,' 'Five Directions; X-Factor winners announce split' and 'Female body found in Thames.'

'Female body found in the Thames,' Ned said out loud. Chuck chose that moment to take a particular interest in the wood of the table they were sitting at. Just a year ago, she had been as dead as the woman found in the Thames. Not a minute later, the newsreader crossed to a reporter at the scene where the body was found. Female, early twenties, in water for extended period of time, unknown cause of death, police offering reward for any members of general public who can give any information.

'If Emerson was here you know what we'd be doing right now,' Chuck said, knowing that if Emerson was there, they would be doing exactly what they were usually doing. But at this point in time, Emerson was not there, rather in the third stage of sleep in his Queen sized bed in America. Ned thought for exactly four seconds, that perhaps Emerson had finally made his way into Chuck's brain. That in her mind too, the word 'murder' had become synonymous with 'money.'

'You don't seriously want me to wake her, do you?' Ned asked. They were on holiday, and holiday usually meant a break from working. Chuck stood to leave for the kitchen with the empty plate, as the news was now showing the diving search and rescue crew swimming in the Thames, and then the pixelated human they had found being lifted from the water and onto the ground.

'Well…yes. She was found in similar circumstances to me, and a similar age as me, and like with my case, justice needs to be served.'

Ned rolled his eyes back in his head, Chuck reminding him of a Hollywood star with her clichéd speech. Chuck placed the dishes down onto the kitchen bench and moved to stand in a pose that now reminded him of Superman, with her legs shoulder width apart and her hands on each hip.

'Don't you roll your eyes at me, you used that line when you brought me back, remember?'

Ned did in fact remember, and he also remembered when Chuck was still an unidentified murder victim headlining all news reports. He remembered wanting to know who had murdered the young woman on her way to see the world, and now he wanted to help the same young woman help another young woman to catch her murderer.

'If you really want to, I suppose we could cancel our trip to Buckingham Palace and find the morgue she's in?'

At this, Chuck's face changed into an expression that made her look as though she were a five year old girl given her first Barbie doll on Christmas morning. Ned made a mental note to cancel the taxi he had ordered to pick them up at eleven am to take them to Buckingham Palace, and on a new mental page, made another note made another to find the morgue at which the body was most likely being stored.

Exactly one hour, three minutes and fifty six seconds later, Ned and Chuck were in a taxi, with St Bartholomew's hospital programmed into the GPS.