"Turns out there's two."

Watson is behind him, hair pulled back and up into a rough bun, functional, as are the gloves she wears and the tools in her hands. Sherlock sits backwards in his chair, good arm braced on the stile and head pressing against the top rail. Bloody strips from his shirt are piled in a bowl on the table, the rest discarded. They have been there some time, and she has almost completed her work. He breathes harshly as if running a race; her breaths come slow and deliberate in silence and concentration. She pauses every few minutes to shake out her arms, long unaccustomed to this task. This is when he speaks.

"It was all lies." Bitterness has burned the incredulity from his words.

Her mouth works a little, as she starts and stops saying something once, twice. Eventually, "Was she even an artist?"

"No doubt she orchestrated the referral that brought me to her door, but yes, I believe she had some skill; that couldn't have been faked. Or not all of it. She even—" He grinds his forehead into the back of the chair, exhaling sharply through his mouth. "She told me she appreciated art, and that's why she didn't kill have me killed in London. Because I was a work of art. Her flat was full of stolen paintings, works she told me she 'preserved' when I confronted her about them. I suppose she thought that's what she was doing with me. A well-crafted curio for her collection. Until the novelty wore off and she reconsidered her opinion of my worth."

"Or it became clear that you actually had a moral compass that would stop you from being as useful to her as she'd hoped."

"Perhaps, but once she, ah, abandoned the field? My collapse into addiction simply proved her conclusion that I did not have the strength of will she required from an associate or expected from a proper adversary."

He presses his lips tight as she resumes, drawing the needle steadily through the edges of the wound, tying off the stitch, and trimming the thread ends. Her jaw clenches as tensely as his, and she too lets out a shuddering exhale through her mouth, blowing down toward her chest. Another pause for each to rest.

"She said… She said we saw the same things, that she could see what I see."

"You're nothing like her."

He gives a harsh laugh. "No. She would concur; she said she's better. My subsequent search for oblivion only confirmed my inferiority. I can't argue with that line of reasoning."

"I can. Better at psychological abuse and assassin pimping doesn't really count as superior in my book."

"Be that as it may, I won't lay my drug history at her feet. I had already started on that path before I met— before she intercepted me. She may have greased the wheels, but I can't blame her for where I ended up. That's where I was going. And if she's not an addict, well, then she is better."

Her face falls, and she presses the back of her wrist against her mouth, eyes shut, shoulders hunched and shaking. She doesn't make a sound, and after a moment regains sufficient composure to continue. She preps another piece of suture thread, and clears her throat. "Do you want some water before I keep going? I've got three more of these to do."

Forty-eight hours later, and once again he sits uncomfortably in the chair by the library fireplace. She's admonished him to get some rest, and they reached agreement on a compromise: He'll remain seated while waiting for yet another London colleague to reply with results of facial recognition analysis on the emailed photograph. She lies on the couch, eyes drooping until the empty take-out box in her hand drops from her slack grasp and the noise startles her awake.

She sits up and rubs her face with both hands, hair sticking out on all sides. She looks at him and looks away, then clears her throat and takes a long swallow from the glass of water on the floor by the corner of the couch. "There was one other thing from my, ah, 'meeting' today," she says, gesturing air quotes. Pauses. "Didn't seem relevant at the police station, but…" She smooths her hair back away from her face, trying to restore some order. "She called me your mascot."

Sherlock turns his head toward her slowly, shadowed eyes and haggard expression shifting to dismay, as the layers of the insult unfold. "Oh—"

"I know." Her gaze is directed to the fireplace where the barely burnt doll remains at the stake. "It surprised me, I admit. I hadn't realized just how little she thought of me. Makes me wonder about the people she chooses to associate with, really." She glances at him then, catches his eye for a moment before it darts away. "There was you, special and unequalled, and then a sea of imbeciles, apparently. I don't understand how she can be so good at what she does and have so little eye for nuance."

He exhales and shifts in the chair, wincing. "She will regret her mistake."

"It's an advantage, I guess; good for the element of surprise. She tried to hit several targets during our little outing; pretty clear she has no idea why you'd want me around."

The tendons in his neck stand out a bit more, and his eyes flicker around the room.

"Hey, relax. That's not a question I'm worried about. Or at least not when it's been three days since you last ditched me."

"She was mistaken about me, also. It's not the same—" He looks down again. "She wanted me to let her win, for my own good."

"Yes, she told me, that she'd asked you to leave her to her work here. And actually seemed put-out that we didn't do as she asked." She shakes her head. "She's a piece of work. Expects so much and so little."

"We lesser beings are a constant trial to her, no doubt."

"Good help is hard to find." He coughs at that, then groans and smothers the cough, right hand reaching over to press against the wound. She is overtaken by an enormous yawn that goes on for several seconds and staggers to her feet, knocking over the empty glass. "Good thing we're on the case, then. We're quite the pair."

He looks up at her and nods. "Yes we are."