This is a writing experiment I did late one night and have decided to publish as a rubbish apology for how long it is taking me to update. Sorry lovelies, but enjoy! X

Out of the blue one day he returned to her dressed and packed and silent, obviously not expecting him. I need to go, she'd said, please let me go. And to this day, he regrets that he let her. Something will bring us back together, if it's meant to be. Which didn't sound like Irene at all and made him want to take her in his hands and shake her, remind her of what they had done together and what they were to each other and that running away has only caused her pain. But he turns back to his experiment with a nod and catches the briefest glimpse of her crestfallen look as she turns away. Why didn't you want all I had to give?

She is gone, and he is lost.

John gets married, with Sherlock as his best man. Mary is radiant and John is delighted and Sherlock buries his misery in a cascade of champagne and cold, calculated sentiments. Irene's absence is palatable in the air. He hears her in the laughter of the bridesmaids, even though none sound as perfect as her. He sees her in each well-dressed woman he passes, but none compare. He feels her, needs her, and doesn't have her. She sends a gift, far too extravagant and not from the register but the happy couple are delighted all the same.

He withdraws further. They know better than to ask by now, and Sherlock is left to sulk in silent solitude. Oddly enough he keeps picturing Irene in a white dress and him kissing her at that sodding alter. It's got to be the five glasses of champagne coursing through him. He swallows a sixth, leaves without a word and finds himself at her old flat.

She isn't there. Of course not you idiot, she's gone, remember?

By Christmas the people that care about him are worn down with worry, so far gone is he that John approaches Mycroft once and begs him to look for Irene. He'd never admit it to Sherlock, but Mycroft does look. He looks hard and he looks well and comes to the conclusion that the bloody minx is the devil herself and will show up when she damn feels like it. If she ever does.

He's a gaunt statue at John and Mary's Christmas dinner, refusing to eat and spending the majority of the time deducing her relatives and staring intently out the window. It doesn't make it hurt any less. She should be here, and he feels her absence as a grieving widower would, mourning not his wife but the loss of what could have been, the empty space where the words he should have said fit perfectly.

Irene comes crashing back into their lives a week after New Years. He feels hurt and empty an betrayed and she isn't clear nor suitably apologetic. The ensuing row sends both her and Sherlock to the yard on disturbance and domestic violence charges (which John and Mary will laugh about for years because yes, she did really slap him that hard in broad daylight). These are dropped of course, and they nearly get arrested again for indecent exposure not four hours later. She is bliss and he is in heaven. She is better than cocaine and the withdrawal had been worth it as long as she is back for good this time.

If she isn't, he'll damn well make sure she changes her mind.

They get married not two months later. He'd pleaded with her and told her how awful her absence had been and she'd cried and confessed that she'd really buggered it up this time. Irene does not wear a white dress, she wears an emerald green day dress with heels indecently high and her hair is an absolute mess from Sherlock's hands in it not ten minute prior. He stands before the not-priest in a lawyers office in a too tight shirt that she'll rip off of him once they leave (it's crinkled in the back from when she already had). They sign all too quickly and she is his and he is hers and finally, finally, maybe she has a reason to stay.

When Irene comes home one day and drops an ultrasound in his lapand purrs congratulations daddy in his ear he thinks- not for that first time- that this woman will kill him someday soon. His reaction to the new addition to their lives isn't quite perfect or joyous but it is very him, and she accepts it and smiles and glares accordingly. Her first months of pregnancy are quite, downright unfair if you ask Mary. She barely shows until five months in and only gets sick once. They attempt to take care of John's son and discover rather quickly that not only is the flat incredibly unsafe for a child, but that Irene will probably be the parent to do most of the discipline and scolding (how fitting, Mycroft laughed bitterly and his sister in law cackled and joked that he'd gotten the short end of the stick, sticking her tongue down Sherlock's throat as her husband laughed into the kiss. Mycroft left them alone after that.)

They don't name their daughter Hamish, but her middle name is Harriet as a testament to John. Ravenna is a quiet child, with her father's hair and her mothers eyes and the beginnings of absolutely stunning cheek bones. She talks late and runs before she could walk, is a devout daddy's girl and absolutely brilliant.

Their little girl is six when Sherlock informs Irene that she should buy a pregnancy test, which comes back positive. She is less than thrilled, complaining that she wasn't prepared for this at nearly 40 (38 Sherlock reminds her, kissing her forehead and wrapping his arms protectively around her). Their second child is more like Irene, louder and more mischievous than his seven years older sister from day one. By the time they are both in school and Sherlock's hair is sprinkled with streaks of gray in the right light, Irene decides that staying really isn't such a bad thing.

(She had of course, decided long ago, before she came back. But it is now when she chooses to voice it.)

She cries at their daughters wedding, and Sherlock beams far too enthusiastically for him. Ravenna Harriet Katherine Adler Holmes-Watson (because one name is never enough) drives off with her new husband at the end of the night and her parents finish off the remainder of the champagne, observing the rising moon and not bothering to speak, because at this point they really don't have to.

"We did alright, in the end." Sherlock remarks, transcribing the constellations on Irene's exposed shoulder.

"I suppose we did." Irene sighs, leaning back against him in the quiet, "a bit of an odd route though."