Okay, so just a quick note so you kind of know what to expect: In writing this story I tried to modernize A Scandal in Bohemia while trying my best to keep as canon as possible-to both The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the new BBC series Sherlock, since I'm completely head-over-heels for both. Also, another good note to make is that even though I tried to give my writing a British style, I am not myself British, but Canadian, so if there are any mistakes in the slang or speech that I tried to use to give the characters their respective voices, or any small cultural differences that I don't know about, please feel free to let me know! Enjoy!

A Computer Hacking in Bohemia

Chapter 1: Carrying On

Jim Moriarty looked from the explosives, to the gun in Sherlock's hand, to John, finally resting on Sherlock's eyes. Sherlock met his gaze evenly. The two seemed to communicate telepathically as time stretched forward in slow motion. John wasn't aware of any noise at all, save for the pounding of his own heart. Come on Sherlock, John urged mentally, do it. John reflected that there were worse ways to go. In fact, there were a lot of positive aspects to going out this way: it would be over quick, and, more importantly, he'd get to take this bomber maniac down with him. John noted with approval that Sherlock's finger was slowly constricting around the trigger, just about to squeeze when—

There was a sudden rap on the door, and John nearly jumped out of his chair at the unexpected noise. He put his head in his hands, and reproved himself for being so silly. In the weeks following "that night at the pool", as the incident was referred to—when it was talked about at all—he had been on edge and at the ready for a fight all hours of the day. He couldn't remember ever feeling this level of anxiety save for in the days preceding his getting shot. That thought didn't bode particularly well for Dr. John Watson.

"Come in," he called as he raised his head to the door of his small office.

The door opened slowly, and just enough for Kendra to peek her face into the office. The medical secretary wore a somewhat distressed expression behind her glasses, "Doctor, I hate to ask—I know your shift is just ending, but Dr. Sawyer is late, Dr. Burns is sick, and we've got quite a line-up—"

John cut her off, "Of course I'll take patients until Dr. Sawyer can get here."

She breathed out a sigh of relief, and tipped her head, throwing her slightly frizzy, brown, ponytail forward, "Thank you, Doctor,"

John gave her what he hoped was a supportive smile, "It's not a problem—I certainly owe Sar—um, Dr. Sawyer, that much."

Of course, John would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he had an ulterior motive for staying. Even if it was only a few extra minutes, he felt that getting as much time as possible away from home was a good idea. Ever since the pool-incident Sherlock had become even more… well, Sherlock-like.

There was a soft, tentative knock at the door to the very messy flat of 221b Baker Street. While a part of Sherlock's brain surely registered the sensory data that the sound of human knuckles on a wooden surface presented, another part of his brain must have decided that it did not present information of importance, since the light sound was ignored. He continued to read off his computer screen as Mrs. Hudson quietly opened the door and made her way into the room. Quietly, that is, until multiple assaults on many of her senses (namely her sense of smell, her taste, and her sight) forced an exclamation of disgust from her. Certainly, Sherlock Holmes was lacking in certain domestic skills… but the mess that presented itself to her was truly not fit for human living conditions!

"Sherlock! What have you done?" Mrs. Hudson held her small hand, slightly curled, in front of her mouth, as her eyes, wide with horror, probed every messy nook and every disastrous cranny of the room.

"Would you like a list of all my activities since you last visited, or simply my most recent endeavor?" Sherlock asked rather distractedly, never taking his eyes off the screen of his laptop.

She began to pick up articles of clothing off the floor. When she had gathered some in her arms, and realized how little of a difference it made it the over-all state of the room, she abandoned her efforts with a mournful sigh, and let the clothes drop back down to the floor. After all she was their landlady, not their housekeeper. "Well you certainly cannot entertain company in this mess," she reproached Sherlock in her mother-hen tone.

His eyes flicked up momentarily from his screen at that remark, "Who said anything about entertaining company?"

"A man is here to see you… didn't you here the ring? He says he has a most frightful problem on his hands, and he's extremely desperate to have you help him."

"The door bell must be broken again," he droned. Presently, he was clicking and typing away on his laptop which sat upon his chest. Sherlock himself was lethargically sprawled over the sofa, looking like he was in about the same condition as the flat. Suddenly he frowned, and the combined frustration of being interrupted in his work and running into yet another dead end in his research made him close the lid of his laptop forcefully. He sat upright on the sofa and placed his computer beside him. "Send him away," he commanded flatly.

"But Sherlock! He's all the way from—"

"I don't care if he's from the moon! I'm not taking anymore cases at the moment." He leaned forward placing his elbows on his knees, resting his chin on his thumbs, and steepling his fingers in front of his face. Sherlock's lids descended partly over his eyes to complete his trademark contemplative pose.

Mrs. Hudson's brow furrowed, and her mouth drew in a worried line, "I didn't realize that you had any cases at all."

Sherlock only responded to her comment with a slight twitch of his lips and sarcastic remark, "Even so, I cannot possibly entertain any company in this mess."

She turned and made her way from the room, all the while shaking her head.

On some level, Sherlock Holmes must have registered the sound of Mrs. Hudson closing the door behind her, but he quickly decided that it was irrelevant to his current train of thought.

A man with arthritis pain. A boy with a cold. A woman with a fungal infection under her left thumbnail. These kinds of ailments were the general trend of things as John began to anxiously wait his replacement.

He only saw one other patient before he looked up to find Dr. Sarah Sawyer framed in his doorway. He took a deep breath, and tried not to seem as uneasy as he felt, "Hello!" He winced slightly when he realized that his greeting was a mite too enthusiastic.

"Hi," Sarah reciprocated the awkwardly enthusiastic greeting. At least we're both over-doing it, John thought. "Thanks so much for doing this… there was just one thing after another, and then I had trouble with my car… anyways," she realized she was talking to him as if they were still involved, and stopped herself, a little bit embarrassed. "Thanks."

"No it's no problem. These things happen," John smiled broadly. There was a moment of awkward silence that seemed to last an eternity. Suddenly John was compelled to fill the silence with something, "Look, I am sorry—for what happened between us, I mean. It was a very difficult decision for me to make, and I—"

"John, just stop. I told you I understand, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. Okay?" Sarah wore a smile on her lips, but the look in her eyes made John's stomach turn.

John nodded, "'Kay. Have—have a good shift." He turned from her, with that same feeling of guilt, mixed with a feeling of loss that he'd seemed to be feeling around her lately.

When John walked into his apartment and saw that his flat mate was able to cause as much damage as five natural disasters his mood went from bad to worse. A very off-kilter, high-pitched tune made him cringe—Sherlock with his violin. At least it isn't gunshots this time. "Hello, Sherlock," he called to announce his presence—not that Sherlock made any noticeable response.

Walking into the kitchen he found every available space taken up by a complex, make-shift distillation apparatus, comprised of glass tubes, flasks, and rubber tubes attached to the faucet of the kitchen sink. His hand went to his forehead and lingered to rub his eye tiredly as he wandered over to the gas stove. He looked down to observe a distilling flask containing a foul-smelling liquid bubbling away over a gas flame. "Right. Going to bloody burn the place down," he mumbled. He clicked the element off.

Suddenly the violin screeched to a halt. John turned to face the entrance of the kitchen, a little startled to find Sherlock marching towards him, looking very much offended. "I'm in the middle of an experiment," he reached over and re-ignited the element.

A little fed-up, John took on his lecturing tone, "These organic chemicals are extremely flammable! You can't just walk off while you do these sorts of experiments!"

Sherlock dismissed John's concern with a slight shrug of his shoulder, "Relax—I've only ever started two chemical fires in my life. And one of them didn't even spread outside the room. You seem uncharacteristically irritable today," Sherlock observed, "Is Sarah taking the break-up badly?" He thought it was the most likely cause for John's mood.

"I don't recall telling you that I'd decided to end it with Sarah." The doctor remembered distinctly that he didn't want to talk about it with anyone, much less his flat mate who had all the empathetic listening skills of a door knob. Sherlock had just began his explanation on how the marked decrease of phone calls received per day by John had led him to believe that there was some change in one of his relationships, when John interrupted, "Hang on… does that mean the other fire you started spread through the building?" John's brow furrowed with great concern.

"That's hardly important now." Sherlock shut his eyes and pounded his fist to his forehead as if he had suddenly remembered the only thing that was truly important to him, "What matters right now is that damned Bohemian envelope!"

John couldn't quite keep the exasperation out of his voice, "Oh yes, the mysterious lady's handwriting." John spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders, "That handwriting could belong to anyone. It could belong to that lady curator—you know the one with the fake Vermeer."

"Mrs. Wenceslas? No, I've already checked. The writing is not hers." Sherlock, set back on the same train of thought as he had for the past several days, began to pace about the kitchen, "Moriarty had a message for me with each of the cases he had me solve. All of the loose ends are part of something bigger. Some bigger game…" He trailed off with a far-off look in his eye.

"This is becoming an obsession, Sherlock," John's words were disapproving, but the tone sounded… concerned.

Sherlock looked at John's face to find his mouth in a grim line, and his eyebrows drawn together at a high point on his forehead—Yes, he thought, Concern.

"Have you considered that you are doing exactly what he wants?" Sherlock turned a questioning look on John, who elaborated, "Well, he wanted you to stop interfering with his criminal clients. Lately you've been so concerned with Moriarty himself, you haven't taken any cases. Not even the ones you used to find interesting."

"I would take a case if it appealed to me," Sherlock countered, "My standards are no higher now than they were before."

"Really? Because Mrs. Hudson told me you sent someone else away who'd come to see you today. Even after he came all the way from the Czech Republic, you wouldn't even listen to the poor man's story," John, who was no longer able to stand the hunger that initially drove him to the kitchen in the first place, crouched down to rummage through cupboard. In doing so he failed to see the mischievous gleam that suddenly lit up Sherlock's features.

Sherlock bent over and yanked John up-right in one swift motion, "Come on John! Best grab you coat, it's quite cold out." With that he bustled out of the kitchen.

John let out a very tired, and a very hungry sigh, wondering at the sudden change in mood of his friend. He looked back at the burning element which he subsequently switched off—again. It seemed that Sherlock's experiment would have to wait. And so would John's supper. He grabbed his coat from where he'd placed it not so long ago, and wondered to himself how Sherlock knew how cold it was, even though he was sure the detective hadn't stepped outside all day.

"Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock called as he ran down the stairs. As the woman appeared, with a surprised and concerned look on her face Sherlock continued quickly, "That man who was here to see me today, did he leave contact information?"

"Well, yes, but I threw it away," Mrs. Hudson looked confused.

"Fetch it for me will you," what should have been a polite request sounded like a statement.

"You want me to sort through my rubbish to find a little piece of paper?"

"If you would be so kind," Sherlock clasped his hands and held them in front of his face. "This is the case John—the case I've been waiting for."

John had just taken his foot from the bottom step, "What do you mean? What case?"

"Do you remember the fourth bomber puzzle?"

Mrs. Hudson thrust a waste basket into Sherlock's hands, "You can pick through it yourself. I'm not going to get my hands full of germs." With that she turned and stalked away, having had quite enough of Sherlock's demands.

"The Golem, the Vermeer, the dead security guard-slash-astronomer?" John recalled.

"Precisely," Sherlock tore through Mrs. Hudson's rubbish, "The scheme that would have gotten thirty million quid to divide between all who were involved. Why would Moriarty choose to draw my attention to one of his more lucrative endeavours?"

John glanced at the mess Sherlock was making and winced as he imagined Mrs. Hudson's reaction to it. "I'm not sure. Perhaps he's already rich and money has little meaning to him?"

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, "Undoubtedly that's why he was able to sacrifice the job, but not why he chose to. There has to be some logical reason to it."

"I can't see any sense in it," John admitted after a moment of thought.

"Unless," Sherlock didn't raise his head from the trash he was sifting through, but he did manage to jab the air dramatically with his index finger, "The case itself was a clue."

"A clue to what?"

"That's what a Mr. Kramm will, hopefully, clear up for us," Sherlock triumphantly held up a tiny white piece of paper with a scribbled name, phone number, and address on it. "Let's go before Mrs. Hudson sees the mess I made." Sherlock rose and made his way to the door, John close at his heels—lest he should be caught alone by Mrs. Hudson's wrath.