Costs and Counteroffers

A/N: A tag (or not) for 2x3 We Are Everyone… Thanks, as always, to the amazingly talented handful of sky. She's so wonderfully patient and gives the greatest feedback… We've been working on a joint effort and we're both very excited about getting it posted… hopefully it'll be up here soon:)

"I think it's sad that you've given up. I think you have a lot to share if you cared to… I shouldn't be the only one who knows you."

She sits in the quiet offered by only the deepest moments of the night. The cast of street lights and the dim glow of her bedside lamp are all that illuminate the room. From deep within the belly of the brownstone, she can hear a soft jingle, a swift clink, followed by the unmistakable clunk of a padlock release. The pattern continues in an almost predictable manner, each sound following the last at precisely the same interval in time.

She studies the nearly ancient text before her without actually seeing anything. She spares a glance at her bedside clock, 2:15am. It would appear neither of them can sleep.

From the moment they returned from their meeting this evening, she had listened to nearly the same rhythm; the clank, clip, slip of the locks grabbing hold of the grid, the bolts slipping into their chambers and the keys sliding free to be tossed into the pile on the table that dominates the center of the room. She knows he's restless. Knows his hands won't stop when his mind can't slow down. She wants to ask, to offer, to take, but she knows he won't be responsive to any of it.

They keep reaching new heights in this companionship turned partnership near friendship that they share. They've gone from the careless, almost reckless climbing of those with everything to prove to the tentative, nearly measured gestures of those with too much to lose.

She' s well aware things are different between them.

She knows the moment she drops her feet to the floor he'll know she's coming. Perhaps it's the hour or her sleep deprived state, but she finds herself with a need for some tea and his company. Even if all he bestows upon her is a quick and impatient glance, she'll be better for the simple way his eyes trace her features and measure the look in her eyes before he will go about ignoring her again.

There's no rift or row between them. No justification for such caution aside from the natural order of shared spaces, slippery sanity and secrets kept in the name of the greater good. It's what's to be expected when every aspect of their lives is shared and more time than most emotion is pulled and tossed like branches in the winds of a hurricane. This last week alone has caused such a shift in equilibrium that they've each reached out for a steadying hand. And it is something neither is fully comfortable with grasping for.

Regardless of all of this, she pads down the stairs. Lets them all creak and announce her approach. If he's in the mood to hide, she'll give him ample time. Gestures of equal measures are received so much better than spoken guarantees with him.

And as she knew she would, she finds him as she left him; hunched over in his backless desk chair. He slides the few feet between table and grid, slipping locks and keys and wheels in a rhythm she knows he's keeping in his head. She doesn't stop or speak but continues past on down to the kitchen. He looks up in time to briefly catch her eye before going back without a sound. It isn't until she's reached the kitchen, filling the kettle, hips braced along the counter's edge, that she hears him halt.

She knows he's broken stride in favor of listening to her prepare their tea. She finds herself with a small smile painting her face as she fills the kettle, selects mugs and arranges a tray. She knows he hears the creak of the pantry and the pop of a tin lid so he'll know there will be scones as well.

Moments later, when she shoves locks aside and sets the tray down, he surprises them both.

"My dear Watson," Her fingers still along the line of the kettle as she lifts her face to meet his gaze. Because his voice harbors a gentleness she's never known him to possess.

"I feel I owe you an apology." He catches her barely-there reaction before she's able to steady the mask she knows she likes to think he can't see through. He knows he's caught her off guard and completely by surprise. And he can't help but smile when it takes her an added moment to find her way back to the task at hand.

"These last few days, I find myself grateful for just the comfort of your company." He steals a glance at her again as she lifts her steaming mug but does not sip. He's well aware it's serving the singular purpose of shield in this moment. "Only just a few days ago I had no qualms about… that is to say the apology should have run hand in hand with…"

He's well aware she can feel the discomfort rolling off him in waves, knows she sees the turbulence in his eyes, like the sky at the hands of a storm. So he is prepared when she takes two steps closer, but doesn't skirt the table. It touches him to know she leaves him that small space to keep his pride. Instead she lifts his forgotten tea and hands it to him. "Hey, it's okay. I get it." She tells him with the beginning of a smile.

"Do you? I highly doubt that." He stares down the contents of his mug after a long sip. "Not your understanding; I'm more than certain you understand. Your acceptance is quite another thing." He pauses again, on the precipice of saying something more and not knowing where to start. He raises the cup to his lips again before setting it down noisily and turning away to pace.

"Tell me Watson, do you ever find yourself…" He trails off in search of the appropriate words or perhaps the way to best cover his reaction to the answer he's expecting. "Or rather, do you ever feel your life is lacking?"

He can see his questions startles her slightly, knows she's well aware he's wandering from the original path his thoughts had chosen. He can't tell if she's pondering the question he's presented or the one he's left for another time.

He continues to watch her eyes over the rim of her cup as she once again sips to hide her face. "It's just that you've jumped into the work we do with both feet, so to speak, and where I have built my life on the isolation that accompanies such a lifestyle, you, my dear Watson, have not."

"Are you asking me if I'm unhappy?"

He does not answer her. Merely meets her eyes and maintains a steady contact. It lasts a great deal longer than they know he's comfortable with.

He's come to know her so well, they've come to know each other too well, it's not surprising he can sense that she's aware he's about to abort the entire conversation. He's prepared when he watches her push words forward without much thought or consideration.

"It has its costs." She tells him softly.

He watches her lower her eyes, surprised to find she's the first to break their lingering look. Watches her run a finger along the edge of an ancient pair of handcuffs that rests near her end of the table, knows they're both remembering the first time they broached this conversation, before either of them understood the flood of emotions that would accompany the implications the second time around. He can't help but wonder for a moment what regrets she carries with her- what costs she refers to with such a steady voice and guarded eyes. Do they weigh her down, even now, in moments where her body is relaxed enough to be content with her surroundings? It amazes him that even when her mind is obviously traveling down pathways shadowed with the unknown, she manages to smile. Does she do it just for him, or is it an attempt to soothe herself? At nearly three in the morning, she's shuffled down, made him tea, stood beside him, and followed his lead.

It startles him to find himself wondering how far she'd follow him.

He paces away and back again, displeasure in himself evident in his every move and his ever present frown.

"Sherlock." She says his name and it's part question, part demand, all coated in concern. He turns abruptly, does not stop until he's rounded her side of the table, feet planted firmly before her. He watches her watch him- her cup, her constant shield, hovering between her hands. He can't have her hiding from what he has to say. He meets her eyes in the shadow of mid-night and holds her gaze like a man with everything to lose. He reaches for her cup, takes it gently from her grasp and nearly fumbles when she lets him.

"I see no need for anyone else to know me as you do." The words are frantic and his tone rushes with a force that leaves them both breathless and speechless and thoughtless all at once. He finds himself wishing he were a better man: a man deserving of her devotion, a man who would not hesitate to reach out and touch her face in a moment that's as profound as any he's ever been responsible for initiating.

His bouncing and pacing have stilled. All but his fingers as they are forever tapping out a staccato along his thighs. His breathing is deep, erratic even. She finds his eyes in the lack of light and they're huge and bright and endless, a forest on the edge of springtime, full and new and strong. Brimming with something she's never known him to posses. She stops to wonder if it's really that or if she's never thought to look. It startles her then, to find that those eyes say so much more than his words ever could. How he's always remained a man of details, a man of words, a man of reaction and yet she's never seen him try to convey so much with something so simple as a look.

She listens to the brownstone in the early morning stillness, the sounds of shifting stairs and settling walls that have become the standard rhythm, sounds of comfort, of home.

Four walls and a place to rest her head and him.

She thinks she knows how he feels. What he means, how his mind can't let go and yet his heart won't give in. She takes the mug back from him then, sets it down besides the handcuffs. It takes her a moment longer than it should as she never lets her eyes leave his.

And when she reaches for him, just fingertips along his forearm, he does not flinch and she does not falter.

I see no need for anyone else to know me as you do.

She knows how hard those words are for him to say. Can't imagine how much harder it must have been to sit there and hear her tell him how she wished he'd let someone else in.

She steps into him, invades every one of their almost-boundaries and hopes he can understand what she cannot bring herself to say.

That she cannot take what she cannot give. That she does not possess the ability to rejoice in the things she's unwilling to sacrifice. Because if she let him in and he did not stay, she doesn't know how she'd ever recover. It's with this fear battling the warmth of love in her heart that she slips arms around his waist and lays her check to his chest. She can feel his hesitation, the stiffness of his limbs, the stillness of his staccato fingers and the impetuous heart beating beneath her ear.

She thinks he must understand how she feels.

It takes a moment, but she feels him relax, feels the tension leave him, she knows it takes with it all his insecurities and doubts because when he speaks, he sounds like he always does, so sure and full of the answers that calm him.

"You're trembling." It's said with his casual certainty and that gentleness she's afraid of becoming too fond of. She feels him shift and suddenly he's holding her; a tentative hand in her hair, threading his fingers through the silky strands from the base of her skull all the way down to the tip of her spine. The other hand snakes around her hip, beneath the wool of her sweater, callused fingertips brushing the exposed skin of her waist where her shirt rises from her shorts. Her breath catches at the contact, her own fingers tightening against the cotton at his back.

She shakes her head in the negative, to negate his statement or its implications or simply because she does not want this moment to end.

"What is it then?" he asks, after a few moments of silence; hand following the same lazy pattern in her hair. "We can rule out fear of rejection, so is it the complications you expect to accompany such declarations or perhaps it's simply just fear itself?"

She still can't find the words. Instead, she tightens her hold on him, presses her ear snugly along his sternum. She finds his heartbeat has calmed, his body as relaxed as she ever thought it could be in a moment like this. His hand stills in her hair and he cradles the back of her skull in his palm as he leans back along the ledge of the table, pulls her closer with the movement. Her cheek now resting in the crook of his neck, hair tickling his chin, soft exhales sneaking under the collar of his shirt; his hand once again begins to travel the depths of her hair.

And of all the things she's learned from him over their many months together, it is his unspoken guarantee that there is no rejection to be found in the silence that she is clinging to now. She can only hope he'll understand there's so much she longs to say but lacks the perspicacity to do so.

Because how do you put to words how very much he makes you feel when you yourself have never felt it before?

His lips find her hairline, and when he speaks his warm breath fans her temple "Do not worry, dear Watson, devotion in its purest form needs no definition. It asks only to be recognized with equal dedication by its counterpart."

She closes her eyes, commits the entire moment to memory, relaxed and content to stay as they are for however long they are capable.

"Come," he whispers. "You're in need of rest."

She tightens her hold, shakes his words off again, and whispers "In a minute."

"Very well, my dear, whenever you wish."

From some deep, dark, corner of the brownstone, a clock strikes three times.