Joanna woke gradually. It was a slow retreat from the impressions of dreamland but she greeted the morning with a satisfied sigh.

Contently she stretched her limbs, realizing this was the first time in a long while she hadn't woken to an alarm of some kind: a blast from a bugle, her shrieking clock or even a tortured violin. The sun peaked through the curtains to warm her skin. She let the feeling soak in and gave one last lazy stretch before climbing out of bed.

Joanna never knew what to expect when she went downstairs for breakfast. Sherlock could be tearing his hair out, pouring over an experiment, or thoughtfully plucking out notes on his violin, he might not even be there at all.

She toyed with that last thought, considering she hadn't been rudely awakened by any of his nocturnal disturbances, it might be safe to say he was out. If that was the case she'd better steal the shower immediately.

She hastily tracked down her clothes. Realizing quickly she would have to make a trip to the launderette and possibly the dry cleaners judging by the bare state of her wardrobe. It smelled a tad ripe. Considering their last case involved a dip in the Thames (on three separate occasions), Joanna counted herself lucky to even have a stitch to her name.

The only clothes that were actually clean were her pants. She grabbed a pair before pulling her old jeans from the hamper and a slightly rumpled blouse from the back of her chair. Now if she could just find a bra that hadn't been sweated through or submerged in a body of water she would be absolutely sorted.

After wasting precious minutes rooting through her useless dresser, she triumphed when she stooped to check under the bed. An errant bra was cowering beneath the bed skirt—no doubt it had heard the stories of rooftop chases, gun thugs, and shootouts. And that was just last Tuesday.

Joanna smirked at her own whimsy and collected her clothes. At least she was presentable—for today.

She bolted the lock on the loo door firmly behind her. Sherlock had a nasty habit of barging in without fully comprehending the repercussions of his actions. Last week, she took off a few layers of skin when she gave him a dressing down ("Is it really so difficult to simply KNOCK!"). He had deemed it absolutely necessary to consult her when she happened to be bathing.

Living with Sherlock Holmes was definitely a process of trial and error.

She washed up with that healthy efficiency she learned in the army and was ship shape and ready for a cup of tea when she braved the kitchen. Sherlock was nowhere to be found; his coat and scarf were absent as well. Knowing him, he could honestly be anywhere. A case was always a possibility.

With that last thought in her mind, Joanna set to work on a full breakfast. When on the tail of Sherlock Holmes it was hard to determine when exactly you would find your next meal.

Joanna quickly bolted down a sausage, a pair of scrambled eggs, beans on toast and an apple. She was starting in on her third cup of tea when she heard the front door slam and the telltale sound of a certain long-legged, consulting detective skipping the stairs nearly three at a time.

"Jo!" he boomed from the stairwell, "Come at once, we've been summoned!"

He burst through the door with that wild enthusiasm that promised a good knotty case.

"You've been summoned Sherlock, I just tag along to clean up your mess." She abandoned her tea and pushed it across the table in his direction.

"All yours."

Sherlock sighed in exasperation, "There's no time for tea. There's a criminal on the loose."

"There's always time for tea. I need my coat and my gun, so if you'll kindly gulp that down we can be off in a minute."

Sherlock was riffling through his desk and produced his picklocks from a back drawer. His pocket glass was plucked from the table top and stored in an inner pocket.

"JO time is of the essence. Stand up!"

"The faster you finish your tea that faster we can leave."

With a growl and a curse, he turned away to snatch up her coat from its hook. He hurled it, none too kindly, across the table. Only then did he pounce on the cup of tea, he gulped it down quick enough to look like it hurt.

Joanna winced, "Burning your esophagus on scalding hot tea will not help you solve the case. Who will explain your deductions and insult half the Met while your vocal cords are blistered?"

"My voice in fine. Your gun is in my pocket. I'm leaving now, whether you are joining me or not."

He swept off with a swish of his coat and she could do nothing but grin as she slipped on her own jacket and followed.

"If you didn't care you wouldn't have taken the tea."

They arrived at New Scotland Yard twenty minutes later and Lestrade was waiting for them, storm clouds brewing on his brow.

"Sherlock, what have you done with my evidence?"

Sherlock dismissed the D.I. with a scoff, tossing an evidence bag onto his desk without ceremony. It held what looked like a bit of dirty, loose ribbon.

"I needed it for a cold case." was his only explanation.

Lestrade snatched up the bag, "You can't go around nicking evidence just because your ego needs a good scratch. Especially now; we've got bigger things about."

Joanna stepped between them, "What seems to be the problem?"

Lestrade handed her an altogether different evidence bag that held an envelope. Sherlock reached out and, after a cursory examination, Joanna had to admit defeat. She placed the bag into the capable hands of her flatmate.

Sherlock opened the bag and pulled the envelope into the open. Even in the washed out lights of Lestrade's office, the paper looked warm. It was a heavy cream color, and looked rather expensive to Joanna's untrained eyes. There was nothing on the outside of the envelope save an address, no recipient, to New Scotland Yard. The letter Sherlock removed from it was pasted together using various words from newspaper and magazine clippings.

11 o'clock the bell will ring,

The boom will sound,

The spirits will sing.

"The paper is medium weight car stock, used for durability and presentation, though this is a cheaper version of its counterparts. This can be bought at any stationer's shop. But the selections of clippings are far more interesting. The shinier selections are obviously from magazines (Harpers Bazaar in fact), these thinner pieces are from the Times. This is a personal construction from found items. See this scuff? Boot print. It's been on the ground, these were not bought by the sender but found. However the selection of "boom" is curious. The paper is thicker than a newspaper but not as waxy as a magazine. They couldn't find "boom" in the selections so they had to find it somewhere else. Possibly cut from a newsletter or advertisement tacked on the community board at a local coffee or chip shop judging by the grease and coffee stains. Track them down and you'll probably find a witness that saw an individual cutting up scraps in a back corner of the establishment."

Joanna tried, with all her might, with every scrap of stoicism she learned in the army, but she could not prevent the grin that spread across her lips.

No wonder they think we're shagging.

She shook her head at his antics, "Remarkable."

Sherlock passed the note and envelope back to her. He then turned away to speak with Lestrade, but she could tell by the extra flick in his coat that he was pleased with her praise. She turned the note over in her hand. The author was certainly no poet. Maybe he had a flair for the dramatic, even if he wasn't very successful at executing it?

Joanna returned the note to the envelope and was about to bag it in evidence again when she noticed something.

It was a curious little smudge in the corner of the envelope. It was round, a bit shiny, but before she could assess anything more Sherlock plucked the evidence from her hand and all but shoved her from the room.

"Come Jo, we must be off."

"But Sherlock there's a bit of—"

"Not just now Jo, we have business to attend to."

"It's important—"

But Sherlock was now antagonizing Anderson and Sally was about to get involved if the look of murderous intent was anything to go by. Joanna quickly extricated the detective and attempted a graceful exit. It wasn't until they were safely behind the lift doors that Joanna turned on him.

"Honestly Sherlock, I'm not a child and I'm not your damn body guard. If you insist on involving me in your cases can I at least contribute in some other manner?"

"Do you not enjoying being the muscle or my peanut gallery?"

"It's rather tedious."

"Yes, well, there is that."

"Why did you rush out like that? I saw a finger print that Lestrade might have missed."

He beamed at her, "Excellent Jo. I knew you'd catch it. You're twice as clever as that imbecile they call a forensic expert."

"You really shouldn't antagonize Anderson. He's going to try and have it out with you someday."

"Yes, and I'll see it a mile away. He's just as useless at subterfuge."

She waved away his ego in an attempt to focus, "Fine, but the fingerprint! It could lead us to whoever sent this message."

"It could if it was a fingerprint."

"It's not?" she frowned.

"If you had examined it more closely you would have seen the lack of whorls and realize that no skin had come in contact with that grease. The person wore gloves. However, they were not latex. It was some sort of tight woven fabric, possibly a thin polyester blend common among sports enthusiasts. The fact that it is bicycle grease lends credibility to this."

"Bicycle grease?"

He frowned at her, "Yes, bicycle grease? How could you miss that?"

"It looked like greasy smudge! Couldn't it be from a car?"

"No no no! Car grease is considerable blacker and more gritty. This grease was yellower and had trace amounts of dirt. Definitely from the gears of a bicycle. His chain could have jumped the gears and he had to stop and fix it, common problem among cyclists. No other reason to even touch the chain, the grease is difficult to remove. There are no stamps and no postal markings. The note was delivered to Scotland Yard in person. It didn't go through the mail. So how did it get here?"

The lift dinged merrily and the doors opened to the ground floor.

"It was delivered by a bicycle messenger."