General Disclaimer

"All right," Holmes said lightly once everyone had settled into their respective rooms at a small inn in a town just outside of San Francisco and were now in a private lobby, "Now that we’re here, I’m only going to say this once. Have fun!" He beamed at each of them.

When no one responded, his smile turned into a concerned frown. "We’re on vacation, if you hadn’t noticed. I had hoped Tennyson at least would have been able to deduce that." He shrugged and grinned. "Well, since you hadn’t, this is a surprise and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Now, I’m off to see the sights." And with that, he left

Watson smiled reassuringly at the Irregulars after Holmes had left the lobby, even though he was worried himself. The detective was acting stranger than usual.

"I’m sure everything is just as he said it was," he told them.

Tennyson immediately chimed in with a rebuttal, "Then why did he say we were on a case?"

The other two nodded in agreement. "Yeah," Wiggins stated, "I mean, this is weird, even for Holmes."

"Well," Watson began, then gave up. "You’re absolutely right. Holmes isn’t acting like himself at all. I do hope nothing’s happened to him."

The four of them were silent for a moment, contemplating what that could mean. Watson, as soon as he had said it, envisioned several things that could be wrong with the detective, not the least of which was some sort of mind control. He shuddered, remembering the last time he’d encountered that tactic. He could still see Lestrade jumping from her balcony, and him being unable to do anything about it. Both his new personality and old programming (a compudroid’s primary function was protection of its owner, or in the case of a law enforcer, its partner) had hated that.

"Or maybe something’s ‘appened to Inspector Lestrade," Deidre said softly.

That of course was just as bad. "Well, the only way to know for certain is to find out exactly what’s going on," Tennyson beeped, "So, I say we come up with a plan of action."

"Yeah!" Deidre and Wiggins exclaimed together.

And so the four of them put their heads together and formulated a plan. Watson was to find out why Lestrade had gone on leave (an invasion of privacy, but it was an emergency) and where she had gone to, Tennyson was going to see exactly what had happened at the First Multi-National Bank of New London (the detective had decided he hadn’t needed the Irregulars’ help after all) and find out if anything unusual had occurred and Deidre and Wiggins were going to take turns following Holmes around.

Watson only hoped it wasn’t too late.

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David waved at Irene as she let him off at the Blanton Inn in the small town of Blanton, California. She was such a nice lady, and, with her temper, she reminded him of Beth. He grinned to himself. Beth would never in a million years be caught dead in a cheaply died red wig. In fact, if she ever found out that he had compared her to someone....

His grin faded. She would never find out, though.

Resolutely he pushed the maudlin thought aside and turned to go inside. As he walked up to the desk, he was nearly run over by a tall man wearing an Inverness and deerstalker cap. David shook his head and smiled wryly. There were all sorts in the world.

"Terribly sorry, my good man," the fellow said with a slight slur to his voice, "but would you happen to have any Grey Poupon?"

David blinked at him. He couldn’t smell any alcohol, but that didn’t mean anything. "Well...no, sorry."

"'S perfectly all right. No need to apologize. My fault entirely," the man said with a cheesy grin. Then he looked over his shoulder and frowned. "Must be going," he muttered and left the building.

David watched him leave, confusion and amusement warring with each other. He shrugged, turned back to the reception desk and was again almost bowled over, this time by a tall black boy in a sleeveless trench.

"'Scuse me," the boy said in a rush, "I didn’t mean to run into you. Gotta go, bye." And he ran outside as well.

"Lots of people in a hurry around here, I see," David said to the woman behind the desk.

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Beth hurriedly changed her clothes in the women’s restroom at the car rental place in San Francisco. She wanted to get back to Blanton before David decided to up and leave. She glanced in the mirror and grimaced. She had always scorned women who bleached their hair (since an accident in the third grade had resulted in permanent color loss in one section of her hair), and now she had done it.

Still, it had had to be done. If David recognized her, or even caught scent of her, he would run. Or worse, lie. One of his oh-so- very annoying habits was that he still thought of her as the little eight year old girl with no parents who needed her hand held and who couldn’t watch scary movies by herself. She smiled wryly. It was also one of his most endearing traits. Which of course made it all the more annoying.

After applying some garish makeup, she left the restroom and made her way to the front to get another vehicle. She had the perfect one picked out. It was a convertible. Actually, it wasn’t perfect. Convertibles were horrible in air-traffic, but her new character was a rich ditz and didn’t care about things like that. It was yellow too. When she finally did confront her brother, he was so going to pay for this.

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A/N: This one’s a little short, but I felt I needed to leave off here. Thanks everybody for your reviews.

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