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When she opens to find a tall black ghost wearing a burka on her doorstep, she is careful not to raise an eyebrow. It wouldn't do to be shocked; that sort of thing just makes people pleased with themselves, and Irene can't have that.
"Not broken and bleeding? Really, Sherlock." She clicks her tongue and stares into the icy blue eyes that are separated by a thin black thread. "And you fancy yourself dramatic."
Something in his stare makes her let him in without forcing him to ask nicely.
Underneath the burka, his shirt and trousers are wrinkled, lined with dust, the most unkept she's ever seen him. He may not be bloody, but he looks like hell. He folds the burka into a bundle and drops it on the floor among last night's flower petals.
She watches him while he sips gingerly from a glass teacup: hot, spiced tea, brewed strong in the hopes of getting some color back into his face. His gaze darts around the room crisply, landing on this golden tapestry or that framed photograph of a nondescript hillside, and she knows he's absorbing everything, all the little moments of her life that have occurred since she last saw him in the desert. It worries her that he's keeping it all to himself, the clever things he's figured out. He should be bursting with things to tell her.
"I arrived this morning via shipping container," he says, and his voice is scraped rough. Not from screaming (she knows the difference). From protracted silence, then. "It was the best I could manage, under the circumstances."
"It's good to see you in Marrakesh," she broaches. "Anything can disappear in Marrakesh." She examines her nails in the fading light. "Except when you are the man looking for it, of course. How did you find me?"
He sits stiffly on the mound of floor pillows, his bare feet tucked under his legs like a Turk, looking oddly childish. Well, not so oddly, she thinks. She's beginning to understand this penchant he has at times for sealing his lips with an invisible key and throwing it over his shoulder like a schoolboy might.
If there was ever a man to keep your secrets.
"What a stupid question," he mumbles into his tea. He doesn't elaborate.
She tries again: "I saw it in the news, of course. Your big splash. Didn't believe a word of it, obviously. What fool would think you dead? You shan't be dead until all the mysteries are solved, and you still have God to tackle."
That doesn't even provoke the slightest twitch of an eyebrow. Things are serious, then. She places her own teacup in its saucer.
"And John?" she asks. "Is he one of the fools?"
His eyes are honed in on a small tear in the carpet, a divot gouged weeks ago by the spike of a woman's shoe, and she wonders if he's reading the story there: the beautiful Louboutins, the small scuffle, the heated words and splashed drinks, and finally the lovemaking on the balcony. Alien-clear eyes lift to meet hers.
"You should teach your male clients the basics of walking in heels before taking them on such an adventure," he says. But there's no joy in it, no smirk teasing the corner of his smug mouth. She steels herself.
"So John does not know."
"And you will not contact him," Sherlock says sharply.
Dear John, there is something you must know: her skin crawls at the thought of finishing such a letter. She gives a careless shrug. "Of course. I owe you that, at least." Something about her phrasing puts him off; he scowls down at his hands, still wrapped round his glass.
"I need a safe place to rest. Only for tonight," he says. Voice thick.
"Sherlock, is that a favour I hear you begging for?" Her slash of a mouth widens in a smile, but she does not feel it. It's his eyes, something in his eyes is off. "Are you sure you need nothing else?" It's coy, but the sentiment is not. Tell me what's going on, Sherlock. Tell me how I can help.
"Only for tonight," he repeats. Not the most gracious man, of course.
"There's just the one bed." She sips her tea, eyebrows raised in feigned innocence.
"This will do." He looks down at the pedestal of pillows that support him on the floor. He is so pale, moreso than she remembers. She contemplates asking him (once more) to have dinner with her, asking him to curl up in her wide, soft bed with her. She would be good, she'd promise, she wouldn't even touch, just look. She might even keep such a promise. For him.
But the way his fingers shake on the teacup stays her tongue.
He's gone before sunrise. No note, no clue he was ever there at all. Irene holds her kimono closed at her throat and watches the gold cresting over the hill from the balcony.