Chapter 8

It goes without saying that the first thing John had done when he got home was shut and lock the window in Sherlock's room. However, part of him felt like the glass of the window was only a principle at this point: he didn't want Adler in his home. He was thankful Mrs. Hudson was at ballroom dancing tonight.

He made himself a rather pathetic-looking plate of beans-on-toast, drank his milk, sent an businesslike email to his sister, and finally settled into his armchair for the evening with a bottle of whiskey, two glasses, and the shoebox of his late flatmate's childhood.

He'd hardly made it past two photographs—both depicting a middle-aged, red-haired man in a crisp orange suit with the brothers Holmes, all arranged in cheerless, militaristic poses in front of a rather sinister-looking Christmas tree—when he heard a crash in Sherlock's room. He sighed and poured some drink into the empty glass. Martin leapt off the sofa and went padding after the noise, already defending his new territory.

A few moments later, Irene Adler was washing the blood and glass shards off her hands in the kitchen sink and looking for a dustpan and duster.

"It's on the mantelpiece," said John, not yet bothering to look up.

"Aha, so it is," the woman murmured.

When Adler had pushed all the broken glass into the trash, wrapped her hands in toilet paper, and claimed the pan of cooling beans for herself, she came and sat across from John. She spooned some beans into her mouth, and took off her jacket.

"Thank you," she said, swallowing, and her smile was ruthlessly apologetic.

"Just make sure my window doesn't stay that way forever. London is cold."

"Mm, consider it done, darling." She wiped her mouth delicately, and stood up to lean over him so she could reach the glass of whiskey. She lingered there a moment too long. "Do let me know if there's anything else I can do to make my stay less burdensome." John heard the note of suggestion loud and clear, and quickly changed the subject.

"How long do you plan on staying?" he choked. She beamed at him playfully, settling back down into the chair.

"Fish and visitors smell after three days, Dr. Watson, so no later than Monday." She took a small sip. "I've not brought a phone, so I couldn't have been tracked too closely. And I'll try to stay out of your way, of course, considering you have a woman in your life now." John followed her gaze to the empty mug of tea in front of the fireplace, on which there were traces of lipstick that wasn't Mrs. Hudson's. He nodded.

"You're good," he allowed, though he'd seen better.

"You know, widowers are much quicker to move on to the next partner than widows are," Adler mused, leaning back in Sherlock's chair a little. Martin had come and laid out luxuriously over her stocking feet, his expression vacant.

"Funny you should say that, considering Mary is a widow," John remarked, not liking where the conversation seemed to be going.

"What a coincidence; I assume her grieving period has been longer than yours. Anyway, I was talking about you." John chuckled and took a sip.

"Oh, that's right, you think we were a couple."

"I know you were. And, hadn't things taken a turn for the worse, you two might have even figured things out. You were in it for life. I saw how you were around each other."

"I'd had girlfriends!"

"So it was an open, as far as I know asexual relationship. Anyway, can you think of one lasting outside relationship either of you'd had?" John rolled his eyes and felt his breath catch in his throat.

"What," he rasped, eyes narrowing, "does it matter anymore, Miss Adler?"

She dropped her eyes, then finished her drink in one, coughing.

"My name's not Adler anymore, you know. I'm now Darla Mercy, of Cabot, Vermont, United States," she announced, a little bitterness to her words. "But I'd like it if you called me Irene while I was here."

"Darla Mercy?" he repeated.

"Shut up."

"No, no," he said, grinning and clearing his throat. "It's…smart. I like it."

"I have a little A-frame cottage, and I'm earning an associate's degree in accounting on the internet, and I work in a cheese factory." She pulled out a brick from her backpack, and tossed it to John.

"Cabot cheese. Pepper jack," he read, trying to sound impressed. "Thanks."

"I also have two dogs and a girlfriend named Hannah who works at the grocery store."

"Is she all right with you disappearing for days on end?"

"She's all right with me whipping her senseless once or twice a week, so I should hope so, Watson." They stared at each other, dead-pan, for a moment, then burst into laughter, so violently that the shoebox slipped from John's lap and the yellowing photographs were scattered all over the carpet between them.

John was wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his dressing gown when Irene leaned down and carefully picked up a photograph. She slipped down onto the floor, and clutched the long strip of paper in her poorly bandaged hands.

John joined Irene on the floor, and she held it over for him to see. Martin had made the landslide of photographs into a throne.

It had been taken in a photo booth somewhere. The dark-haired boy, probably ten here, wore a fine school uniform with the top button fastened, and he sat on the lap of a woman with wild raven hair like his. She beamed at him in the top photo, despite how he shrank from her. In the second photo, she was saying something in his ear and he was holding back a smile. The third was blurry—the two were laughing boisterously. And in the fourth, at the bottom, the woman was still laughing, her eyes gleaming wildly directed just above the camera. The little boy had buried his face lovingly in her thick, wool, cabled sweater.

"Had you ever seen him smile like that?" whispered Irene, shaking her head. John frowned.

"No," he coughed, shifting to pick up his cane and hoist himself back up. He stumbled from the ache and leaned on a stack of boxes.

"I wish I'd known him better—"

John snorted.

"You think you do? I've lived with the man for well over a year and he's never even once mentioned that woman there." Irene turned away from him and rose herself, wiping her eyes.

"I think I'll go to bed now," she mumbled, making for Sherlock's room.

"You'll go upstairs," said John. "I've taken the lower bedroom. The stairs…they hurt my leg." She watched him for a moment, then nodded and changed directions. She stopped in front of him, swayed on the spot, and stared down at their feet.

"If you were worried about your security here, I can take care of that. I'm not entirely without defenses."

"You did not even bring a phone, Irene." She allowed a sly smile.

"Let me borrow yours."

"For what?"

"Please?" she said. "I promise I won't be bad."

John sighed.

Sherlock sighed.

He was curled sideways in Mycroft's desk chair, twiddling his box of nicotine patches, of which he was wearing four, and spinning around in circles.

This was a four-patch problem, and he'd put on the patches thinking he'd spend the night right where he was, in his mind palace, gleaning as much information as he could from what little evidence he had.

However, much of his mind palace had be locked off by a massive headache, and he could only replay a few clips over and over in his mind's eye—Moriarty's sardonic expressions in court has he, Sherlock, described him as being a spider at the center of a crime web. Was this text-talk troll he was dealing with yet another spider he'd have to deal with (now left with minimal resources, considering his lack of further existence)? Or was he just a funny little string hanging off the rest of the web—the kind that float onto your face and arms when you're walking under trees, that brush you and confuse you for a moment…then slip away?

The phone rang. Mycroft still had a landline. Old-fashioned smartarse.

It rang a second time. This was getting ridiculous.

Sherlock sprang out of the chair.

"MYCROFT! PHONE!" No response. At this hour, he must have gone out to smoke or binge or fix some late night foreign crisis.

Sherlock hiked up his slippy satin pyjamas and marched over to the phone. It rang again. Jesus.

He checked the caller id.

John H. Watson. Mobile. He shut his eyes. Why would John be calling at 23:27? What could have possibly been going on? Was it an emergency? Was it the texter?

Sherlock considered picking up.

No. He let him leave a message. If it were a crisis, he'd pick up and jump into action.

It rang maddeningly another six times, until finally he heard the cool voice of one of Mycroft's assistants explaining very slowly to whoever was calling who they had just called, and how he didn't pick up, and how to leave a message on a landline. At long last, it beeped.

Not John.

"Mycroft Holmes," she stated warmly, before she started to speak a mile a minute, her thin voice cunning and confident. The Woman had a lot to fit into thirty seconds. "I just wanted to express my sincere condolences. Your brother was truly a great man, and it saddens me to hear that things took such a bad turn. I take full responsibility for the part I played in Moriarty's little game. Speaking of which! I seem to recall a funny little story about you and a plane full of cadavers! Gosh, if that juicy tidbit were to anonymously fall into the hands of, oh I dunno, The Sun? Why, they wouldn't have to look too far to find loads of fantastic evidence, wouldn't they? And I don't think the good people of London would enjoy hearing that their loved ones' remains had been hijacked by the government, though they'd certainly enjoy reading about yet another Holmes scandal. So what do you say you have your cover my tracks while I'm in London, eh? I'm staying in John Watson's guest room." She took a gasp of air. "This is Irene Adler, by the way."

End of message.

Sherlock chuckled, delighted, and set about hacking the Baker Street CCTV cameras on Mycroft's laptop.

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