Chapter Text
She should have expected it, really.
After all, when you have been captain of your own ship for most of your adult life, to be suddenly cast adrift in a foreign sea and left to sink or swim keeps one pretty busy on the whole. Well, for a while anyway, and she should know, she’s been there – twice.
Creating an empire from scratch is a steep learning curve for a penniless twenty-something, even one with her particular flair. Oh, but English men are so easy. Oh, they are! She smiles and shakes her head. They are so unfailingly transparent, particularly the public school/ancient university/Foreign Office types. Something about the boarding school ethos, perhaps? The why barely matters, just knee-jerk reactions so deeply embedded in the psyche that tapping into them is child’s play for a woman like her; it’s what makes her such a successful businesswoman.
Too successful.
Even now it rankles. She zips up the dust cover of her current favourite suit with unnecessary force, smoothing a hand over its surface apologetically; time was when she had Kate to do all this for her. Still, it’s no use crying over spilt milk, she reproaches herself; it was just sheer bad luck. She hangs the suit in its accustomed place on the long rail of garments, exits and closes the wardrobe door. She didn’t do anything wrong; not a thing.
Too many secrets, too many enemies. That one little piece of tech, her phone, contained enough intel to bring down several governments. She should have resisted her natural patriotism and gone straight to the Americans: they would have been so much easier to deal with.
By rights, she should be dead – fanatical creatures in Karachi, no appreciation of her talents whatsoever – and the irony still burned; she owed him. She hated it.
America was a much tougher market to crack, Irene had to admit. Bigger, of course, and with higher stakes. She couldn’t go it alone here, and she had to admit that she wasn’t getting any younger. Some of her clients had requirements she couldn’t fulfil personally – she’d had to recruit and train.
Then out of the blue the text: “Goodbye, Miss Adler. SH”.
She was no longer in a position to make detailed enquiries, there were still too many people left in the world with a grudge against her to risk exposure; if Sherlock Holmes had given her nothing else, he had taught her that. Still, the truth will out and the story of the two men who fought and then fell from the Reichenbach Building in Berlin had been newsworthy enough for most channels to carry until the details ran dry and they lost interest. In her enforced exile, Irene finds it easier simply to forget and to bury her curiosity in her work. However, if she were to be honest she still finds it difficult to believe that either of them could actually perish at all, let alone in such a pedestrian manner.
Suddenly in need of some air, Irene slides open the balcony door and goes outside to lean against the parapet. It is unseasonably warm here with the smells of diesel, petrol and tar emanating from the road beneath. The traffic is quiet because the hour is late, but the city is still lit up with billboards, streetlights and headlamps; people still go about their business, oblivious to the time of day.
“The city that never sleeps,” she murmurs, leaning her elbows on the rail. A faint breeze twines around the folds of her dressing gown like tendrils of homesickness.
Irene stares at the city for a few moments longer before returning indoors. Earlier, she had some vague intention of pouring herself a drink, something she rarely does – a bad idea, losing any atom of control – but as soon as she steps back into the room she freezes, all her senses screaming at her.
Not the terrorists again, her subconscious tells her calmly; the signals are different. Alright; she forces down panic and lets her practical side buckle on its armour. Already she feels the cool liquid of reason spreading through her veins.
Okay: what alerted me? A sound, a sign, a movement in the corner of the eye?
No, none of these. She inhales briefly and pauses, frowning. She gives an experimental sniff and narrows her eyes. Something not – not her; not her cosmetics, not her fur and leather, not her furnishings. Silently, she slides her feet out of her slippers and her body out of her robe. The silk has barely fallen before she is off in a flash across the carpeted floor, head turning from side to side as she tries to catch anomalies before they catch her. A very small blade appears in her left hand; compact and very, very sharp. Few people have seen it, none of them still lives; Irene’s kid gloves disappeared many years ago.
She inches her way around the doorframe, silencing her internal monologue about the shortcomings of her very expensive security company – she will deal with them later – and stands debating her options: bathroom, wardrobe, office, bedroom.
The office is locked, the key code changed daily and known only to her. This alone would not stop a really skilled burglar effecting ingress that way of course, but without the code the booby trap on the door hinge should certainly put paid to the attempt - permanently. The bathroom is windowless and Irene’s customised security system ensured that anyone trying to gain entry using the ventilation shaft would already have suffered a very unpleasant demise. As a hiding place, it cannot yet be ruled out though, so she shifts her knife into her right hand and reaches for the doorknob. Pulling the light cord reveals exactly zero – nothing disturbed, nothing different. Slightly spooked, Irene spins around, belatedly covering her back; still nothing. She exhales silently and changes the grip on her knife once again.
The wardrobe is next on the list and is also intriguingly possible as a hiding place, but for the fact that Irene visited it herself not ten minutes previously. Nevertheless for the sake of completeness, Irene pads over to it, keeping her back to the double-locked front door, and quietly slips the latch. She inhales a full breath, taking in leather, fabric, solvent from dry-cleaning, wax and shoe polish. Nothing untoward, just as she thought; she closes the door.
That leaves the bedroom. Her mouth twists – how very conventional.
The door is ajar. Irene remembers leaving it that way when she took off her jewellery earlier in the evening. Giving up all pretence of secrecy, she pushes the door fully open and snaps on the light, shifting her little knife to throwing position as she does so.
“Bravo,” rasps a gravelly voice from the bed; a slow handclap follows. “So glad you could make it; I was beginning to lose the will to live.”
Sherlock Holmes looks up at her from where he is sitting on her bed reading her bedtime paperback. He glances back at the text and replaces her bookmark.
“P.D. James,” he says, shaking his head, “Really, I expected better of you.”
Irene lowers her knife and releases a pent-up breath.
“What did you expect?” she replies, “Stephen Hawking?”
It’s a pretty poor riposte she has to admit, but forgiveable under the circumstances. Sherlock gestures towards her lack of attire and cocks an eyebrow.
“I’ve seen that one before,” he remarks, “but I applaud your choice; a split-second’s distraction would be all you’d need.”
“Yes,” she agrees, reaching behind the door for her second-best dressing gown then stops to stare at his droll smile. “What?”
He gives the ghost of a laugh, rusty and unused.
“Has time improved your sense of modesty, Miss Adler?” he asks mockingly. She shakes her head.
“Hardly,” she responds, “however, adrenaline released in situations of fight or flight redistributes blood flow.” She smiles brightly. “I’m cold.” She finishes tying the sash.
“Come on,” she says from the doorway, “I was about to pour myself a drink. You’d better join me, Mr Holmes: I have a feeling that this may possibly take all night.”
The Pol Roger would have benefitted from a longer chilling period, Irene thinks, but it’s still a perfect accompaniment to the microwaved pizza with watercress and rocket salad which was the most her kitchen could provide at short notice. To her surprise, Sherlock eats if not quite as though he were starving, at least with some semblance of appetite. She gives him the once-over with her eyes; he’s lost weight, she thinks critically, and it doesn’t suit him. He always was too thin but now he actually looks years older than his actual age of – what? – thirty, thirty-two years? Is this deliberate, she wonders? A disguise maybe, or perhaps just the effect of too much adrenaline, too little sleep and no security. These thoughts unsettle her; she is more accustomed to having her maternal feelings express themselves in a more disciplined manner.
“Where have you been?” she asks into the silence. Sherlock shrugs.
“Here and there,” he replies. She gives him an old-fashioned look that reminds him disconcertingly of his brother Mycroft. He sighs and rolls his eyes; it covers his uneasiness. Irene smiles and smiles then shakes her head.
“You’re fifteen years old,” she tells him teasingly when he shoots her a questioning look. “Oh, never mind. Look, are you being close-mouthed on this for your own protection, my protection or simply because you’re a bloody-minded man who has his back to the wall and not in a good way?”
Sherlock seems to consider this question seriously.
“I think probably for your protection,” he concedes, “but that would also bleed into my own safety at present, so I imagine all three of your solutions would pass.”
Irene turns her head away to hide a smile.
“How long do you intend to stay here?” she asks. Sherlock turns his head to regard her fully.
“I don’t know,” he replies, uncertainty creeping into his tone for the first time, “It depends.”
“On what?” she asks. He steeples his fingers in that familiar gesture and prepares to pontificate, rattling off facts at Brands Hatch speed as is his custom, but Irene holds up a beautifully manicured index finger and the words die in his throat.
“Let’s see how much I can deduce, shall we?” she said quietly.
Irene curls her long legs under her on the sofa and settles her hands tidily in her lap.
“The English press reported you dead a year ago,” she begins after a small pause to compose her thoughts. “John Watson refused to speak about you to the press and never fully recovered from the loss, so the tabloids insist.” She sneaks a quick glance at Sherlock’s features but his expression doesn’t move a muscle.
“It was all very dramatic,” she continues. “You and Jim Moriarty met at the top of the Reichenbach Building in Berlin and climbed the old radio tower on the roof for reasons unknown to anyone, particularly as the tower had been superseded by a radio mast in the 1990s and is now redundant. Unsurprisingly, wind, weather and age put paid to the stability of the structure some time ago – it was only there for sentimental reasons after all – metal fatigue took its toll and the whole thing toppled over the edge into the street taking you and Jim with it. Mercifully, at 4am the street was empty so no other people were involved. You and Moriarty were both reported dead, bodies were produced.” Irene smiles again. “But I know better than anyone how much that kind of proof is worth.”
She leans back in her seat to stretch her legs and raises her arms above her head; the motion tightens the silk of her gown around her chest. To her surprise, she observes a muscle jump in Sherlock’s cheek. Interesting.
“I am guessing that you weren’t the only one to survive Reichenbach,” she continues, “and the increasing likelihood of Jim Moriarty’s continued existence has given me quite a lot of late nights over the past year.”
“Scared of him, are you?” Sherlock sneers. Irene does not smile.
“Yes,” she says simply, "Very." Sherlock gives her a long look then bows his head in silent apology.
“Anyway,” she continues, “I am deducing that you have decided to remain dead in order to work outside the law in your pursuit of Moriarty and also the rest of his criminal network. John Watson may or may not know what you are doing, but I have a hunch that you have deliberately allowed him to believe that you are dead.”
Sherlock snorts inelegantly.
“Hunches are for amateurs,” he replies scornfully.
“Alright then,” Irene sits up and curls her legs under her again, “If John Watson had even the vaguest notion that you were still alive, he would have followed and found you by now. And both of you would no doubt be dead, because that is exactly what Moriarty would be expecting him to do.” She shakes her head in admiration.
“You really did learn a great deal from our little altercation in Belgravia, didn’t you?” she remarks and her tone is glacial.
“What did you expect me to do?” Sherlock returns equally coldly. “John is not an analytical being, despite being a doctor and a soldier. It is better for all of us that he remains in ignorance.”
“Better than living a lie, you mean?” Some steel starts to leech into Irene’s tone; her professional persona interfering again, she tells herself. Sherlock gives a shrug.
“He couldn’t help me,” he replies equably, “and his total belief in my death is necessary for the success of my quest.”
“For Moriarty?”
“For Sebastian Moran.”
“Moran, eh?” Irene raises her beautifully shaped eyebrows, “Since when did Moran become a player, Mr Holmes?”
Sherlock Holmes leans back against the sofa cushions, evidently very weary. Irene smiles; he can barely keep his eyes open, or perhaps that is just the effect of the mild sedative in the wine? Strange that Sherlock Holmes should allow himself to fall for the same trick twice.
Irene rises from the sofa and gathers up the crockery to take to the kitchen. She stacks the plates in the small dishwasher and washes the glasses, drying them carefully on a glass cloth. She disposes of the rest of the wine down the sink and the pizza crust in the waste disposal. Drying her hands on a towel, she glides back to where Sherlock is lying on the sofa, his eyes closed, to all intents and purposes asleep. She reaches out a hand to smooth his wayward curls away from his face.
“You’ve gained some new wrinkles since we last met,” she says softly. “You’ve been all over the world, haven’t you? I may not have the all resources I once did, but times change and so do networks. Mine are so much wider now that I’ve learned to process the data all by myself. I’ve you to thank for that, Mr Holmes. You taught me the dangers of becoming too visible. Oh, did you – in spades!”
Irene leans down and kisses him very gently on the forehead.
“You’ll find him,” she whispers, “Sebastian Moran. He’s not been quite as clever as he thinks he has. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Sherlock’s eyes flicker open just a fraction; Irene smiles and strokes his hand.
“Hush,” she says, “Sleep now. You’re safe here, I promise.”
She covers him with a soft woollen blanket which smells of lilies; Sherlock Holmes sleeps.