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Chapter Text

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I want the parts of your hand-grenade heart
That beat slowly with anger and fear

-"Spiracle" Flower Face

********

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder

-"Hey Jude" The Beatles

My name is Delilah. 

It’s a feminine name, that’s for sure. Based on one of the most treacherous women in history, the Philistine who cut Samson’s hair in the Bible, rendering his superhuman strength void.

Although not a believer myself or raised as one, that name still haunted me through primary school, lending itself to schoolyard taunts. Although, I hazard a guess that I would have been ridiculed either way; between my frizzy brown hair, second- hand clothes, and advanced intellect, there was no way I was going to fit in even if my name was Betty or Christina.

Not sure why I was given a Biblical name. My theory is that my mother heard the name Delilah on the radio one night waiting up for my dad to come home while she was heavily pregnant and he was a dirty cop with a drinking problem and a mistress, and she chose the woman with the soothing voice to name her first and only daughter after.

Soon after I was born, my mother died, leaving me in the care of my ill-equipped father. My older brother took care of me for a few years until, around five years old, I was old enough to take care of him instead. My father stopped seeing his mistress but did not stop drinking or taking bribes.

Anyway, the point of this diatribe is that my name is Delilah but I go by Del personally and professionally. The name Del Patrick is viewed immediately as a man’s name, and no one goes out of their way to double check that.

Because of this, I was not surprised that when I arrived at the address indicated by the online advertisement- 221B Baker Street, London- I was greeted with a confused look by the fairly short, gray haired man who answered the door.

“Hello, can I help you?” He asked politely, adjusting the brown and gray fair isle sweater vest he had on over a muted mustard yellow button up.

“I’m here to meet Dr. John Watson.” I answered him, and his eyes widened slightly.

“Well, yes. That is me. I am John Watson.”

I waited for him to invite me in for a moment before shifting my attache from my right hand to my left. “Dr. Watson, I am Del Patrick, you scheduled me for an interview for the temporary research assistant position.”

“You are Del Patrick.” He said. “I thought you would be…older.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that thought without being snarky enough to wreck my chances for acquiring the position so I just smiled politely, still not managing to avoid creating an awkward silence.

“Oh. Come in, please.” He let me in and stepped in front of me to lead me upstairs to a door marked 2, again opening the door to let me step inside. The flat was a bit brighter inside than the foyer, but not much. Light streamed in through a window across from the door, making the dustiness of the room evident as it danced in the light beams. There was a sofa with a blanket draped messily over it, a desk covered in papers and books, a closed laptop sitting on a couple books, two armchairs around a coffee table, and a wall taken up by a bookcase, covered mostly in hardcover books but also with various tchotchkes. Beside that was a fireplace, no fire in the hearth, a broken mirror hanging above the mantle.

“Ah, sorry for the mess.” Dr. Watson said, clearing some things off of the coffee table and gesturing for me to sit in the armchair facing the window, while he sat on the armchair across from me.

I pulled down my suit jacket and sat, adjusting my tie and pressing my knees together, loafered feet lined up side by side. On my lap, I opened my attache and removed my resume, handing Dr. Watson a copy.

“I noticed you didn’t have a copy handy. In case you would like to refer to anything on it.”

“Oh, great.” He took it from me, looking over it downward from over the bridge of his nose. I glanced toward the desk with the laptop on it; I had seen a pair of reading glasses sitting beside a mug there. Dr. Watson began to pat his pockets and I cleared my throat gently. He looked up at me and I gestured toward the desk. He looked in the direction of my nod and point and looked surprised to see his reading glasses there. 

“Right, thanks.”

He got up and grabbed his glasses and sat back down, looking over my resume again. I could tell he was trying to decide which of my credentials to question first.

“So how old are you?” He asked. “Not that that will prevent you from getting this position, of course, but-”
“You wonder how it’s possible for someone seemingly in their early twenties to have graduated high school fifteen years ago, obtained two Master’s degrees six years later, and now be a PhD candidate nine years later?”

“Well, yes.” He looked confused and appreciative of my bluntness on the subject.

“It is a confusing timeline, I agree. I did graduate at fourteen. I am twenty-nine, slightly older than most people assume. I graduated with my dual Master’s degrees in Philosophy and Astrophysics/Astronomy from UCLA four years later. And then I took a gap…few years from academics, all of which are accounted for in the litany of menial jobs I kept myself busy with, and during which I accrued not so much as a speeding ticket. A year ago, I enrolled at Oxford in pursuit of my PhD in Biochemistry, having moved to London due to a family matter. If you like, I can bore you with the personal anecdotes and psychological intricacies that led me down this serpentine life’s path, I am an open book. But I hope that my history of scholarly publishing coupled with my recent volunteer work as a research assistant at Oxford is enough to persuade you that I can be a reliable and useful tool in whatever research you are currently in need of assistance with.”

Dr. Watson blinked at me a few times, a smile creeping slowly over his face, aging him down by at least five years, as he had a friendly and youthful smile. ”You don’t like to waste time, do you?” He asked, leaning forward over his crossed leg.

“I do not. Not anymore, anyway.” I answered. He looked back down at my resume, I assumed to analyze the three years I spent working as a cashier at a department store.

“It’s not my research.” Dr. Watson said suddenly, raising his gaze back to me from my CV.

I tilted my head, using my pointer finger to push my glasses back up my nose by the underside of the frame. “I’m sorry?” I said, as a means to request clarification.

“My, uh, business partner. And friend.” He tacked on the last bit. “It’s his research. And documentation needs.”

I looked around the flat, noting a pad of dust on the table beside me. “Okay…?”

“Do you know who Sherlock Holmes is?” He asked me, seemingly non sequitur.

“No. Is that your friend?” I asked. Was this someone I should know? Is this a setup? Is Sherlock Homes the name of a shady human trafficking porn company? I shifted forward in my chair, placing my weight into the balls of my feet in case I needed to bolt suddenly. 

“Yes. Sherlock is a Consulting Detective. He has worked with Scotland Yard, the British government, and private individuals to solve mysteries and crimes over the last decade.”

I kept my question of ‘how is a consulting detective different than a private investigator?’ to myself.

“Until recently, I was his partner in that and also his…blogger.”

“Blog?”

“Oh surely I’m not that old. A blog is-”

“I know what a blog is. I just haven’t heard anyone mention that term in probably ten years.” I said, impatiently. “I’m not really sure what any of this has to do with the position I applied for.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to assert myself but deep down a tad worried I had fallen for a complicated and dusty scam.

Dr. Watson made a face, closing his eyes and holding up his hand as he realized how this must have looked to a young woman from out of the country. “Hold on, I can explain. It’s been a rough last couple years for us. I lost the mother of my daughter. We lost a dear friend who Sherlock was close to like a second mother. The cases have become…uninteresting to Sherlock. He is a man who needs to be…intellectually stimulated to…stay out of his own way.”

I nodded, continuing to wait for what my part in this mystery man’s exciting and sad life would be. 

“In the earlier years of our partnership, Sherlock found great value in the documentation I provided of his cases. He would like to start documenting his cases again, and is also intent to work on a book based on…well, two years of his life which were full of adventures but as yet, undocumented and a bit…unexplored in general.”

“So, why don’t you just start blogging again, or whatever?”
He looked very, deeply sad for a moment. “My daughter is already down one parent. She is going to be starting school next year. I need to be there for her. To stay safe for her.”

“Implying the job is unsafe?”

Dr. Watson cringed at my catch. “I understand now that this job may not be…a fit for you.” He sighed.

“Or perhaps misrepresented, almost entirely by the online job listing?”

He closed his eyes. “That might also be the case.”

“So really this is field reporter, personal historian position with possibility of bodily harm.”

“Well, the bodily harm not so much. Sherlock said he doesn’t intend on bringing whoever gets the position to anything dangerous.”

“He took you.”

“That was…different. He needed my medical expertise on the cases. And I have a military background, you see.”

“My father was a detective with the LAPD. A better detective than he was a father, and he was not a great detective. I spent a lot of my life in dark places and young girl shouldn’t have been.”

Dr. Watson looked surprised by my personal admission, at first looking at me with sympathy, and then asking, “Wait, are you considering taking the job?”

“I’m saying that danger is not a dealbreaker for me. Are you interested in offering me the job?” I countered.

Dr. Watson glanced at the kitchen behind me and I looked at the reading glasses still on his face. I thought I saw a figure reflected in the lenses but as I looked harder there was no figure, only appliances and counters and a table covered in more oddities. 

Dr. Watson spoke to me again, his voice lowered. “I think you would be a competent personal historian and…aid. Take the weekend to think about it, yeah?” He looked at me hopefully.

I looked over his face for a moment. I could tell he had reservations about me, unanswered questions. Unspoken comments. I held his gaze perhaps longer than I should have, because he seemed to shift under my scrutiny.

I myself had a couple unanswered questions but instead I rose from the armchair, again adjusting the bottom hem of my suit jacket, and proffered my hand for shaking. Dr. Watson rose, adjusting him sweater vest and shook my hand. His hand was warmer than expected and his grip tighter. He stepped around the coffee table with my hand in his, closing the distance and making our handshake more secure. He was about six inches taller than me, which by men’s standards wasn’t tall, but not many people I ever met were shorter than me.

He smiled down at me, nervously at first, it seemed, but then genuine as he stood closer to me and I could see more detail of his face, my own reflected in the lenses of the reading glasses he had forgotten to remove. I observed to myself that he seemed to dress much older than he actually was, mentally placing him in his late forties, although he dressed like he was twice that age.

As always, I kept these observations to myself.

“Thank you for coming to our appointment, Miss-” And then he stopped himself. “Miss, is it? Not that it matters, of course-”

“Miss Patrick.” I said, interrupting his foot from mouth extraction project. “And it seems like it does matter, in this job position, specifically.” I saw his expression change, caught off guard by my bluntness. “I am unmarried, no children. No attachments that would preclude my seeing this project through to the end.” 

We released our handshake through mutual unspoken agreement. Although I had not meant to, I seemed to have hit a nerve with my statement. Rather than try and back out from the implications of what I had said, I let the simple fact hang in the air between us and let Dr. Watson decide to defend himself for nothing to a stranger, or show me to the door.

He politely chose the latter option and promised to be in touch with me on Monday as he shut the door to 221B Baker Street behind me. I looked at the door once it was shut and motionless and for a moment let myself reflect on how strange an experience that had just been. 

I turned to my motorcycle, parked on the street and unhooked my helmet from the back, popping it under my left arm as I replaced it instead with the attache, hooking it securely to the back of my decade old MT-10. I nestled my helmet down onto my head, tucking my braid up inside and mounted my bike. As I started it and kicked the kickstand away, I felt eyes on me from above and looked up at the window from 221B, which overlooked Baker Street directly. The sun was gleaming off of the glass in such a way that I could not tell if someone was indeed watching me, or who that person was. I couldn’t shake the feeling that though the flat looked quit unlived in, someone else had been there during my ‘interview’ with Dr. Watson.

I checked traffic behind me and pulled away from the curb, gunning it in the direction of home.

********

My flat was two miles away on Peony Lane in a tall, run-down apartment building. I could have afforded something slightly bigger and nicer further out of the city, but the proximity to the psychiatric facility my father was at was the main selling point.

I parked in the tiny lot behind the building and pulled my attache off the back, wearing my helmet into the building. I noticed that if I wore my helmet, people avoided talking to or looking at me. Not that many people in London went out of their way to engage me. I appreciated that about London.

I got into the elevator alone, standing at the back leaning against the wall with my arms crossed, the lift shuddering toward floor six. I hopped out on my floor, moving through the dim hallway, making my way through a group of four teenage boys taking up the expanse of the hallway. They stepped politely out of my way and I tilted my helmeted head toward them, unlocking the door to 626 and letting myself in, locking it behind me. 

I began the process of peeling off my layers of outside clothes, kicking my loafers off by the door, pulling off my helmet and putting it on an armchair by my couch, shucking my suit jacket and putting it in the same chair and yanking my tie loose, hanging it on the corner of my dresser, stepping out of my slacks and kicking them toward the dirty laundry basket. I smelled the collar of my dress shirt as I pulled it off. Smelled musty and a touch smoky. I frowned and pulled it over my head, shoving it into the laundry basket.

I realized my laundry basket was full and I needed desperately to do laundry. I thought for a moment that the wisest course of action would be to do it now. I looked around the rest of my bedroom and realized I had probably another half a basket sitting around on the floor and draped over things. I stepped out of the bedroom and into the only other room in the flat besides the bathroom positioned on the other side of my bedroom. The kitchen and living room were all one room, a lone window overlooking Peony Lane and facing another apartment building lighting the small space. My kitchen was in a similar state, dishes in the sink and next to the sink, a garbage bin that needed attending, boxes of books against the wall that never got completely unpacked, my desktop computer stuck on a tiny desk in the back corner. I hadn’t even turned it on in a week, ever since finishing my dissertation. My dissertation defense was still another month away. At the thought of my dissertation defense I decided to abandon thoughts of tidying my flat and instead procured a beer from my refrigerator, slamming it open against the kitchen counter and collapsing onto the couch in my mismatched bra and panties, turning on the television that’s still sitting on the floor and wasting my brain cells on reality television.

The rest of the weekend went quite like that, wasting my own time although I had told Dr. Watson I didn’t do that anymore. There were any number of constructive things I could have been doing, be it reading, learning, creating, cleaning. I did none of those things. All through Saturday I procrastinated on my chores and doom scrolled through social media posts. I did some online searches of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes, finding the blog which was still posted online. I read through its entirety with great interest, wondering to myself what the true character of this Mr. Holmes might be, as it was evident Dr. Watson’s writings were obviously colored by his own thoughts and feelings- his perception of himself seemed skewed, presenting himself as quite more dull as he actually was, especially the earlier entries. From my interactions with him and my knowledge of his being a physician, I knew his intelligence to be greater than he portrayed it. Perhaps it was an artistic choice to portray Mr. Holmes as more intelligent than he really was. Holmes was also portrayed as occasionally blunt, crass, and casually cruel. I wondered if he was written that way, or if in fact he was even worse in reality.

The entries tapered off in the last five years and became increasingly vague, spotty, and cursory. The last entry had been written over a year ago.

********

Sunday morning, I woke at five in the morning and stumbled toward the shower, propping myself against the back wall of the shower and willing the hot water to wake me. I had stayed up far too late the previous night. I could feel insomnia creeping back into my life- my last bout had been about a year prior, most likely caused by the move from California to London. It was hell and I didn’t wish to repeat the experience.

Out of the shower, I plaited my brunette hair in a French braid down tightly down the back of my head and pulled on a calf length navy blue dress with small white dots and a white Chelsea collar, paired with white stockings and white Mary jane shoes. I opened the jewelry box atop my dresser and pulled out a small golden crucifix, clasping it around my neck.

My father was fairly anti religion as I was growing up, but when my brother Mike died five years prior, my father suddenly found God and now that he had succumbed to the middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease, religion was one of his major anchors to reality. Keeping his nose constantly in a Bible kept his terrors at bay. He had sinned quite a bit throughout his life and the dementia centered greatly around his guilt about those sins. 

So, on Sunday mornings I got up early and dutifully visited him at St. Emil’s, the psychiatric facility that his advanced directives had forced me to institutionalize him in. I assumed he was set on this facility because it was the one Mike had died in. There were other facilities more equipped to handle my father’s condition in more residential and seemingly humane ways, and now that I was his legal guardian I could have reassigned him but, honestly, his comfort was not worth the price increase. Not only could I not afford it financially, but I was already at my limit emotionally having to see my father weekly and on holidays. Having to visit a church inside of an asylum every week was hardly a relaxing experience. I wasn’t entirely sure why I put myself through it, other than the fact that any time I had to miss our standing appointment my phone would be blown up by staff informing me that my father had become distraught and violent, requiring tranquilization.

The weather was extra gross that morning, even for London. It would make for a dicey drive to St. Emil’s, I would have to go close to the speed limit. I pulled on my leather touring jacket and zipped it over my dress, wiping the water droplets off of my bike seat with my gloved hand, straddling the seat and tucking my skirt around my legs. My bike was not entirely practical in this city due to weather, but the size and maneuverability won out against a car. Besides, Saturday morning drives in the country were a favorite pastime of mine. That’s what I should have done yesterday instead of browsing social media in my underwear all day.

********

Two hours of voluntary dissociation later I skidded my bike back into the parking lot. Everything had triggered me. Everything had pissed me off. The self-righteous preacher. The traffic on the road. My father, more lucid than usual, trying to engage me in conversations about the past I did not want to and was not ready to have. 

I pulled into the empty parking lot and stepped off of my bike, planting one of my white shoes directly into a puddle. 

I angrily hoisted my right leg over the seat, the stupid skirt of my stupid church dress catching the swell of the seat and knocking me off balance enough to stumble.

I clenched my fists, glaring at my bike, seconds away from kicking it over. Instead, I turned away, crouched down, and screamed into the inside of my helmet. After I had exhausted breath, I opened my eyes and noticed a gigantic crack in the asphalt of the parking lot. There was a loose piece about two inches by two. I grabbed it and yelled again, pitching it hard at the chain link fence that enclosed the parking lot.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Goddamnit!”

I stopped for a moment, my chest heaving, trying to decide if now would be the time that I finally lose it. Or I could go back inside, wash the stench of incense off of me, and resume civilized life.

After ten minutes of deliberation I stomped back across the parking lot toward the door into my apartment building.

As I turned the corner, a man stepped out of the shadows, smoldering cigarette perched between his lips, startling me slightly adjacent of my inner rage. He opened the door for me with a flat smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Pleasant church service?” He asked me.

“Thank you.” I answered, entering his offered open door. To my surprise he pulled the cigarette from his lips and ground it into the pavement, following me into the building. 

My hackles went up and then he followed me into the lift also. There were eight floors in this building, the chances of him belonging to one of those floors was good.

When the doors closed the stranger did not press a button right away.

He’s being polite, I thought to myself. I pressed the button for the fourth floor. The stranger gave me a momentary quizzical look that he probably didn’t know I could see, as I was at the back of the lift leaning against the wall with my arms crossed, the visor on my helmet a silver one way mirror. 

He pressed six.

I got off at four, brushing past him quickly and waiting for the lift doors to close before I walked down the hallway and into the stairwell.

I climbed the two flights up and reached the top slightly out of breath. I opened the door quietly but heard the usual crowd of teenagers in the hallway. The sound of others in the building emboldened me and I started walking briskly toward my apartment. Surely by now I had incurred enough goodwill in my fellow apartment dwellers to step in if I were to be assaulted by the parking lot stranger. 

Unfortunately, as I rounded the corner to the front door of my apartment, the stranger was standing right in front of my door, looking away from me down the hallway toward the group of teens. I strode toward him confidently but slowly enough to try and take in his appearance. 

Six feet tall, at least. Slight build. Worn navy blue anorak. Jeans an inch too short and black Chelsea boots. Dark hair, at least fifty percent gray, slicked back with a slightly receding hairline at the temples. Two days' worth of beard growth.

As I neared the man, he turned at the sound of my steps. He took in my appearance much like I had done to him, although I knew in my case my ridiculous mixture of 1940’s church clothes and motorcycle racing accoutrement was quite up for judgment. I flexed my hands, still in my light leather gloves.

I was not unarmed. The legality of my forms of protection was questionable in this country but, as the female daughter of a former vice detective I didn’t feel guilty breaking these sorts of laws. I saw firsthand at a young age what happened to women caught off guard.

“Del Patrick.” The man finally spoke. His voice was deep and sounded familiar. Like recently familiar. Like a voice I had heard for the first time this very weekend.

“Who?” I answered, crossing my arms again. The man smirked.

“I know it’s you, Delilah , you were just in my flat on Friday.”

I bristled at the use of my full name. And then the voice recognition clicked.

I pulled my helmet off, my face flush from being in the helmet while I climbed the stairs. I straightened the circular wire frames of my glasses and brushed a few loosened strands of hair out of my face.

“Sherlock Holmes?” I asked, probably more incredulously than necessary. He looked chagrined.

“Is it that hard to believe?” He sneered.

My eyebrows dropped low over my gaze as I tucked my helmet under my left arm. 

“You look a lot older than you looked in the video I found of you. Plus, you’re missing your fancy hat.” I deadpanned and I saw a flash of annoyance behind his eyes. At that sign of anger, I remembered I was supposed to be trying to acquire a job at his service and intentionally provoking him was probably the wrong way to be going about that. 

I neutralized my expression and pulled my flat keys out of my jacket pocket.

“Uh, can I invite you in, Mr. Holmes?” I reached around him and unlocked the door, shoving it open between us. Sherlock took a moment to recover from the fast pivot in my countenance and nodded, entering my apartment ahead of me, his strides long and decisive.

As I followed him into my home, I realized it was in no way ready for company. I grimaced and threw my helmet into the armchair my suit coat still laid across. 

“I wasn’t expecting company.” I mumbled by way of apology, unzipping my jacket and hanging it on a hook I had installed specifically for the purpose.

Sherlock said nothing but studied my apartment and its mess embarrassingly closely. 

“You saw the state of my flat.” He admitted finally, a surprisingly fair response.

I took a brief pause. I wanted to ask if he truly lived there, given the amount of dust on everything there, but reminded myself to be nice to the person I wanted to work for.

“Tea?” I asked instead. Sherlock nodded and I went about filling my kettle and clicking my gas stove alight. I frowned at my small round kitchen table, quickly divesting it of piles of notes and printed out information.

“‘Biochemical Signaling and the Role that Scent Plays in Alternative Diagnostic Methods.’” He quoted the title of the research paper laying at the top of the pile. “I saw that you are a PhD candidate in Biochemistry. Is your dissertation related to…?” He inquired about my project by leading my response. 

“Not quite. My dissertation is more focused on identifying the biological processes that produce the signals that provide data through which we can attempt diagnoses. Mostly in regard to catastrophic events such as multiple organ failure, adrenal crisis-”

“Death.” He simplified my thought. “You are trying to identify the early signals of death.”

I disliked hearing it made that simple. It almost made my project seem metaphysical, in a way. Like I was trying to sniff out death in order to cheat it. Which I guess I probably was, but didn’t want to view it through a less than academic, practical lens. 

I didn’t respond to his simplification of my dissertation and instead dropped my pile of papers and books onto my sofa, the papers on top sliding noisily across the other side of the cushions. I pretended not to notice and instead turned to Sherlock and gestured toward the chair next to the table.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Holmes.” 

He did as I offered without a word or facial movement, and I walked around the other side of the table and sat in the only other chair, perched toward the end of the seat with my ankles crossed politely. I looked at the big stain on my shoe and glared, and then I remembered that Sherlock had met me in the parking lot, a cigarette mostly smoked, and chances were better than half that he had witnessed at least part of my tantrum. Given his snarky comment about church, I had to conclude that yes, he had.

My eyes darted directly from my shoes to Sherlock’s face and he caught the path of my eyeline and smirked. As if he had read the entire progression of my thought process, he said “I didn’t really take you as a devout Catholic. Perhaps I should have guessed, given the Irish ancestry and origin as the daughter of a LAPD policeman.”

I felt my face tingle in what I knew on my pale skin came across as a patch red blush. Not a dainty pink one, of course. A blotchy, obvious emotional response.

“I’m not.” I answered probably too defensively. “I go because my father is ill, and he requests it.”

“St. Emil’s, is it?” He asked, a smirk playing across his stubble-lined lips. 

I blushed further. “How did you-?”

“Assuming you came directly from a church service, which your emotional outburst made seem likely, and assuming you drove slowly enough to mind weather conditions but as fast as you possibly could, your arrival time relative to the early Sunday service times every church seems to adhere to made it impossible for you to have come from Bethlem, the next closest psychiatric facility. I assumed by your dress, your resume, and the area and building you live in, that you couldn’t afford to place him anywhere nicer, and your comment about your father being ill but not directly saying what he is suffering from, coupled with the obvious sense of unpleasant obligation you feel about a chore you perform weekly would suggest it is a chronic condition and one people don’t usually volunteer or prefer to talk about. Given his age, assuming yours, I’m leaning toward an age-related dementia, like-”

“Alzheimer’s.” I finished for him. He looked smug, his eyes obviously searching my face for a reaction.

“That’s good.” I commented, my eyes studying his face in turn as he seemed struck, surprisingly unhappy at my compliment. “I should have seen how obvious that answer would be.” I murmured, tearing my eyes away from his face as my kettle whistled. I jumped up to prepare us both cups of tea.

“How do you take your tea, Mr. Holmes?” 

“One sugar, splash of milk.” He answered perfunctorily. I put in a cube of sugar and looked in my refrigerator, removing a glass bottle of milk and sniffing it gingerly, trying not to gag directly after. I heard Sherlock sigh deeply. “Two sugars, then.” He amended his order and I put another cube in his mug and poured a small portion of honey into my own.

I brought our tea into the dining area, setting Sherlock’s in front of him.

“I wasn’t prepared for company.” I reiterated. Sherlock sniffed.

“Clearly.”

I sipped my tea gratefully. I was sure it was a less than optimal, underwhelming experience for Sherlock but to me sipping my honeyed Irish Breakfast tea was the first real pleasure I had had all morning and my breath escaped in a small, contented sigh. I felt Sherlock’s gaze fall upon me and knew without looking it would be one of disapproval.

After giving him a moment for comment, I finally asked him,” To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

His gaze was refocused out of middle space back onto me.

“I plan to do some verbal processing tonight.” 

I took a moment to connect this random statement of fact to the other facts at my disposal.

“Dr. Watson told me to take the weekend to decide if I wanted the job. He hasn’t even offered it to me yet.”

“I want you for the job.” He told me, as if the mere statement of his preference would be enough to convince me to accept the position. I had to admit, having his preference bestowed upon me was a bit of a momentary ego boost, until he finished with, “You were the least idiotic candidate during this entire monthlong search.”

“Well, I do endeavor to be the least idiotic in as many situations as possible.” I muttered. His eyes narrowed and turned to me but he didn’t say anything.

“How long will it take you to move all of…this?”

This question gave me a longer pause than the other. 

“Dr. Watson didn’t say anything about moving anywhere.”

Sherlock sighed impatiently and shifted, turning his body more fully toward me in his chair. 

“There is an additional space above 221B-2, John used to occupy the room up there and the rest of the floor was inhabited by Mrs. Hudson, my former landlady. She left the property to me when she died and the floor has been entirely vacant for almost a year. You will live there, above me so that I may fetch you as necessary. It’s very important I have you on hand when my mind is ready for…release.”

I ignored the unintentional innuendo and contemplated this new bit of information. There was little to no risk- bodily, at least- to living in the same building as Sherlock. If anything, I would be safer living in his proximity than I was living in my current dodgy building and area.

“Okay, well.” I threw my hands up, looking around at my apartment. Most of it was still half packed up even after almost a year. “I can move in this week.”

“Start moving in tonight.” He ordered. “I need you on hand. I have plans and I know I will be ready for our first session afterward.”

I wanted to glare a hole in the side of his skull and instead directed the anger as breath out of my nose. “Alright, I’ll start bringing my things over today.”

Before I finished my sentence, Sherlock was on his phone and standing up out of his chair.

“John will be over in an hour with a Kei truck to help you begin moving.” He said, headed toward the door without even glancing in my direction as he left. I had logistical curiosities about the timing and the swift procurement of a kei truck but Sherlock had left before I had even decided I wouldn’t pursue that line of questioning. 

I heard my phone vibrate in the pocket of my jacket hanging on the wall and then vibrated again before I could retrieve it from the pocket.

First was a texted contact card for Sherlock Holmes.

The second was a longer text from an unknown number.

“I am so sorry. I had no idea he was going to ambush you at your flat. I was going to call you tomorrow and discuss the possibility of a move to Baker Street. This is John Watson btw.”

I added both contacts to my phone and sighed. This was all becoming more…involved than I had bargained for.

“No worries. I will work on boxing my things. Shouldn’t take too long.”

“Thank you for understanding. Also, I have to bring my daughter as I could not secure a sitter at such short notice.”

I grimaced and held the phone away from me slightly.

“This isn’t a great neighborhood.” I texted.

It took a moment and my phone lit up again.

“I don’t have a choice. She is very well behaved and will stay anywhere I park her. You can watch her while I move your things to the truck.”

Okay, so I didn’t have a choice. It’s not that I disliked children, they just made me deeply uncomfortable and had a habit of seeking me out for interaction, sort of how cats tend to with dog people.

“See you when you get here.” I texted and quickly changed from my church clothes into a pair of jean shorts and an old heather UCLA tee shirt with old worn tennis shoes. My braid was about halfway fallen out so I pulled it all the way out and shook out my long, naturally wavy but currently severely crimped hair, pulling it into a low ponytail at the nape of my neck. I threw all of my dirty clothes into bags and started refilling the half empty boxes strewn around my apartment, taping them securely and piling them in the kitchen. 

********

 About forty minutes later I heard a knock on my door and ran to answer it. Dr. Watson stood there awkwardly, dressed down from the last time I had seen him, his hair more askew and wearing a tee shirt and corduroy jacket with jeans. In front of his right leg stood a little blonde girl with giant blue eyes, clutching a hardcover book in her hands. 

“Good morning, Dr. Watson.” I said after a moment and stood back to let him and his child inside. She entered first, fearlessly, and stood behind me as her father entered with a bit more hesitancy, casting a glance around the apartment to gauge the amount of work it would take to move me. Luckily there wasn’t much besides books, boxes, and too many dirty dishes in the kitchen.

“Call me John.” He flashed me a quick smile.

“Hi.” 

I looked down, startled, at the towhead right behind me.

“Hi there.” I said, making myself smile in a way that was hopefully more friendly than creepy. Judging by the big smile I got in return I succeeded. My smile became more natural in return.

“Daddy and I were supposed to go the park and then Uncle Sherlock texted him and now we have to help you move.” She said in a perfectly annunciated British accent. 

“Ah, ha ha ha, we don’t need to make Miss Patrick feel bad.” John chuckled, reddening slightly. His blushing was far more complimentary to his complexion than my own was.

I turned my attention back to the little girl. “Well, I am very sorry about that.”

“That’s okay.” She said. “You sound like Miss Maura.”

I opened my mouth and shut it again, looking up at John for a clue.

“She makes educational videos online. American, I’m assuming is the connection there.”

“Oh, yes.” I nodded, looking back down at the girl. “I’m from California. Do you know where that is?” I asked her.

“Yes, that is in the United States of America.” She said proudly, her little chin lifted slightly. 

“Rosie, why don’t you go sit at the table and read your book while Daddy and Miss Patrick work on some boxes?” He suggested, obviously eager to get things in motion. 

She smiled and did the cute little trotting run children do everywhere and jumped onto a kitchen chair. 

“She’s so smart.” I told John. “Adorable.” 

He looked less out of place then, obvious pride widening his smile. “Thank you. She’s the spitting image of her mother, charm and intellect included.” He looked a tad sad behind the eyes at that.

I thought to myself that she probably got some of those things from her father as well, but that seemed like too familiar of an observation so I redirected the conversation instead.

I let John know which boxes were good to go, I had packed everything I would need for at least the next week at what would apparently be my new residence. I continued to pack, keeping an eye out for Rosie, but she was quite content to read her book, which seemed very impressive for a child not quite school aged yet.

After John had hauled down all of the boxes I needed right away and a few extra, he stood in my kitchen catching his breath.

“That’s all I need for now.” I told him. “I’ll hire someone else for the rest and get it taken care of sometime this week. John nodded.

“That seems like a wise choice.”

We both looked over at Rosie who at some point in the last ten minutes had retrieved a Beatles record out of the milk carton by my bookshelf. She had pulled the inner sleeve out and was reading over the lyrics quietly.

“I’m sorry, do you want me to take that from her?” John asked me quietly. I smiled as I watched her little finger move along the lines of text and shook my head.

“I think I discovered The Beatles the same way, at about that age. Make sure to play them for her at some point.” I looked back at John and he was looking at me. My gaze shift seemed to startle him and he looked at his watch. “It’s getting near lunchtime, I supposed we should get moving. Did you want to ride over with us in the truck?”

“Ah, no, I’ll head over on my bike. I have to throw a few things in my backpack, so I’ll meet you guys there. “ I smiled and John gathered his daughter and ushered her out of my soon to be former home.

After loading my backpack with a few other important items I changed into jeans and my knee high motorcycle boots, zipping my jacket and slinging my canvas knapsack over my shoulders, putting on my helmet as I took the lift downstairs. A minute later I was on my bike pulling out of the parking lot, on my way to Baker’s Street.

I pulled up to the front of 221B as John was stepping out to bring in what looked to be a third box. I parked far enough behind the truck so as not to get in the way. John kept his eyes on me, confused until I killed the bike and raised a gloved hand in greeting.

“Del. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

I hopped off the bike and trotted up to the truck. I saw John look me up and down when he most likely thought my attention was directed elsewhere. Not in a lascivious way, his gaze was one of curiosity. I grabbed one of the boxes and John moved to grab it from me.

“I’ve got this one.” I told him and he grabbed another, leading me inside after a brief wrestling match with the door. I followed John upstairs past the door to 221B-2.

The flat he took me to was laid out the same as 221B-2 but it was cleaner and brighter, and instead of a kitchen there was a wall with a door that looked like something has been placed in front of it for many years.

There were a couple bookshelves, a few chairs, a sofa that looked like it was made in 1945 and a baby grand piano placed where desk was located downstairs. I was surprised to see Rosie sat at the bench, plunking a couple keys, and more surprised to see Sherlock standing behind her, watching what she was attempting to play with interest. He was much the same as I had seen him earlier, minus the anorak and simply wearing a black oxford shirt, untucked over his jeans. He looked up as we entered, his gaze settled judgmentally over my figure as I walked into what was to be my new home for the foreseeable future.

“I like your helmet!” Rosie called to me as I set down my box of books. I pulled my helmet off, freeing what had become an unmanageable poof of brown hair.

“Thanks, kid.” I self-consciously tried to flatten my hair as I saw Sherlock’s amused expression while his eyes raked over it.
“Wanna try it on?”

“Yes!” She cried and jumped off of the piano bench to grab it from me. She placed it on her head but it only went down halfway.

“I’m gonna push on it.” I warned her.

“Okay!” Came her muffled agreement and I pushed on the top lightly, helping it to rest on her head fully. She turned to me and stumbled a little under the bulk of an adult sized helmet. I knelt down, opening the visor.

“You okay in there?” 

She shifted her head upward and gazed at me from underneath the helmet. “Yeah!” She said excitedly. I put the visor back down and let her run back to the piano bench, where she proceeded to play with somewhat greater difficulty. I laughed a little and then saw Sherlock exchanging some sort of look with John, behind me. 

I turned to John, who was shaking his head at Sherlock.

“I’m so sorry, is that okay?” I asked, jutting my thumb backward back at Rosie.

His gaze snapped back to me. “Oh yeah, that’s fine. She’s happy as a clam.” He smiled. “Thank you for being so nice to her. I kind of had the impression-”

“That I don’t like kids? They do typically make me pretty nervous. Yours is way less creepy than they usually are.”

I heard Sherlock control a snort from behind me and John chuckled. “High praise for one’s children. I endeavor to keep her as non-creepy as possible.”

I blushed a little, feeling I had stuck my foot in it a bit but John seemed to have taken it in a good natured manner. He turned to Sherlock.

“Help me with these boxes, Sherlock. Del can watch Rosie.”

“I don’t want to.” Sherlock protested.

“That’s okay, I-” I started. John cut me off.

“Sherlock. Help with the boxes. Please.”

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes in a manner befitting someone thirty years his junior but he strode past me and out the door with John anyhow. I wandered around the flat, trying to imagine what I would do with it design wise when I heard a little muffled voice.

“Del, my Daddy played me a song on his phone when we were coming here. He said it was a beetle song.”

“Oh yeah?” I turned my attention to her, still sitting on the bench with her gigantic bobble head. 

“It was called Judy. I’m trying to play it.”

I walked over to the bench. “Was it called Hey Jude?”

“Yes!” Her little hands slapped the bench beside her. “Can you play it?”

“Actually, believe it or not, yes I can. Want me to?”

“Please!” She said.

I grimaced internally, wishing I hadn’t offered.

“Okay, scootch over.” I told her. She complied and I sat next to her, running my hands over the keys a little to get my bearings. It had been well over a year since I had played last.

“That’s pretty but that’s not it!” She said, looking at me with my own helmet.

“Patience, kid, I was just warming up.”

She giggled. “You have to sing too.”

“Why don’t you sing it?” I asked.

“I don’t know the words.”

“Eh, that’s a pretty good reason.” I mumbled. “Okay, I probably don’t remember all of it though.”

“That’s okay.”

I completed the first few bars, stumbling over the chords only briefly, my voice straining from not having sung much or at all in recent months. Surprisingly, most of it came back to me and Rosie clapped for me in encouragement as I gave a piano flourish at the end of the first two verses.

I stopped and turned to her. “Is that good?”

“Play the na na na part.”

I looked up as the door banged open and Sherlock entered carrying two boxes.

“Did I hear you singing?” He asked me incredulously as he set my boxes down, his face flush and out of breath.

I opened my mouth to answer him and Rosie interjected once more.

“Play the na na na part.” She said, more forcefully.

“Okay, okay!” I put my hands on the keyboard. “You have to help me sing it though.”

“I will.” She promised and so I launched into the last verse before the part that was requested. I did my best to keep time and tune, staring at the wall opposite me and trying to ignore as John entered the room also.

As I launched into the “na na na” part, I hunkered down and bumped Rosie with my shoulder, encouraging her to join me. She popped the helmet visor up and sung at the top of her lungs as I matched the tempo of my playing to her bellowing voice.

I burst out laughing in delight as I watched her little face turn red with effort. I finally brought my gaze to the two men standing near the door, looking one slightly aghast and the other amused.

“Everybody!” I encouraged, looking directly at John who, being game, came to stand next to his daughter, placing a hand on her back and joining us, his voice obviously straining.

“Last one!” I announced. 

“Uncle Sherlock, you’re not singing!” Rosie yelled at the top of her lungs and Sherlock turned cerise and reluctantly joined us for one last set of “na na na”s.

I flourished at the end and ran my finger from right to left. 

“That was awesome.” Rosie said seriously.

“I agree.” I told her, looking up at John who was beaming down at his daughter. Sherlock was smiling fondly at John and Rosie and all at once I felt very apart from the moment. I smiled to myself and slid off the other end of the piano bench to help unload the last few boxes from the truck.

As I was trying to figure out how to get as many boxes into my arms as possible I heard footsteps behind me.

“That was a spectacle.” I heard the gruff low voice of my new boss.

“That’s me. Love to put on a show.” I didn’t look up as I hefted the boxes. Sherlock’s hands reached out and steadied the pile of boxes, and then took the one on top.

“No.” He told me, looking at me seriously. “It was nice to see them happy. Both of them.”

I didn’t know how to respond to Sherlock’s sincerity but I took it at face value. I smiled, and somehow their happiness and the bond that all three of them obviously shared made me feel very lonely. Sherlock’s eyes looked over my face curiously before I moved around him to go back inside.

I sat with Rosie for a few more minutes, fulfilling various, non singing song requests while her Daddy and “Uncle” finished bringing my things upstairs.

The men took a few moments to catch their breath while I attempted to teach Rosie the “Heart and Soul” duet.

“Okay, Rosie, you’re overdue for lunch and we have some things to take care of at home.” John said finally said as Sherlock left, assumably to go back to his own flat. Rosie groaned but didn’t argue and I helped her take my helmet off.

“Can we come back tomorrow?” She looked at me and I looked at John.

“Del has to settle in. We’ll see her again soon, okay?” He nodded to me and I waved to them both as they shut the door behind them. 

********

Chapter Text

I'm becoming less defined as days go by
Fading away and well, you might say I'm losing focus
Kinda drifting into the abstract
In terms of how I see myself
Sometimes I think I can see right through myself

-"Only" Nine Inch Nails

The air in the room closed in on me with a sense of thick and heavy sadness, the silence present like a corporeal body. 

I felt like I had stepped into someone else’s life entirely. The feeling had already been present within me to a certain extent, but I could tell this move would serve to unmoor me even further.

I was surrounded by space that was not yet mine, filled with sounds and smells that were unfamiliar. Even the voices that drifted in from the street only served to alienate me further, their crescendos and cadences foreign from those I heard as a child in Los Angeles. 

I tried to remember that this was all tantamount to a fresh start. A new city, a new degree, a new field of study. Yet I remained haunted by the same history, the same father, the same recurring nightmares, and the same sucking, sinking feeling in the core of my being. No amount of degrees or travel or accolades or strutting could numb that burning ache.

I thought for a moment about playing myself a sad tune and then closed the lid to the piano keys. The weight landing on the piano reverberated through the strings inside.

I noticed that not only was the piano in tune, but the thick coating of dust present in 221B was not present here. I wondered if they had outsourced the cleaning of this unit to a professional. I certainly couldn’t see Sherlock up here with a vacuum and feather duster. John, maybe. 

He seemed to be very in tune with Sherlock and serving his needs and random preferences. Although Sherlock heeded when John insisted he help with my things from the truck. An interesting dynamic, not necessarily a heterosexual one. 

Not that I had any judgments on that front. Over the years I had had few relationships, either purely sexual or deeply emotional. Although the sample size was small, there were really no similarities between anyone I had been with, man, woman, otherwise. And that exploration wasn’t out of an abundance of love, but rather a lack of passion or conviction. 

With love, as with every other part of my life, I didn’t seem to know what I wanted, and no compass existed within me to point to a due north in my soul.

I popped the piano back open. One of my Master’s degrees was entirely paid for by a musician’s scholarship I earned as a concert pianist in my later teen years. As always, this came from a dalliance, a brief flirtation with passion that I excelled at and tried to continue as long as possible, until burning out on it shortly after enrolling at UCLA. The piece I played that won me my scholarship was Mozart’s No. 8 in A Minor. I knew I still remembered it. I would never forget it.

I allowed my fingers to move along the keys, a tad under tempo at first but then, as my mind began to wander, the part of my brain that didn’t forget things even when I wanted it to took over and guided my hands, the autonomous rhythmic swaying of my body keeping tempo with the beat of my heart.

About seven minutes into the piece, I felt a loud bang at my feet and stopped.

Sherlock was hitting the roof of his flat with something, possibly a broom handle if one were stereotypically inclined. 

I blushed for the benefit of no one and closed the piano, deciding instead to explore my new flat.

The door in the front room led to a bedroom, and the door past that led to a bathroom. 

All recently cleaned.

No kitchen, though. Surely I wouldn’t be expected to use the kitchen in 221B-2. There must be another kitchen somewhere.

I opened my front door and peeked out into the dimly lit hallway. Silent and dark. I walked downstairs as quietly as possible, wishing I didn’t have my giant motorcycle boots on.

I cleared the landing of 221B-2 and made the turn to head to the ground floor when the door to 221B-2 swung open and I turned around, stumbling a little bit and bracing myself on the handrail.

“Hello. Mr. Holmes. Sorry for the um…music.”

He considered me for a long moment. “It probably won’t be a big deal. I’ll get used to it. Probably. The noise you make coming down the stairs, however…”

His eyes dropped to my boots, as did my own. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Hey weird question. Do I have access to a kitchen somewhere?”

Sherlock grunted. “There used to be a kitchen which Mrs. Hudson would utilize on the ground floor, but it is currently in…disrepair. You’ll have to use the one in my flat.”

“That’s inconvenient.” I mumbled and then caught myself. “I mean, for you.”

“How often do you need a kitchen?” He sneered.

“Daily? To eat, usually.”

“So you cook, then?” He looked as if he hadn’t considered the possibility.

“Well, typically, yeah. It’s cheaper than takeout.”

Sherlock snorted. “Are you any good at it?”

“I’d say so. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.” I shifted in my strange position between the stairs and looking upward at Sherlock. He rolled his eyes at me and turned to go back into his flat, leaving the door hanging open. 

I hesitated for a moment before turning to go downstairs but then I heard him bark, “Come!” from inside his flat. I jogged up the stairs and slipped into his flat, closing the door behind me.

“We should discuss a few things anyway.” He said, sitting heavily in the armchair John had sat in during my “interview” on Friday. I went to sit on the couch and before my ass could hit the cushion he snapped at me “Not there.” I jumped back up as if I had just made contact with fire. He stabbed his pointer finger at the armchair across from him and I walked quickly over and sat down obediently. I looked across at Sherlock. He looked incensed, honestly. His nostrils were slightly flared and there was a fire behind his slightly narrowed eyes. 

I opened my mouth to defend myself against nothing but he spoke first.

“Let’s go over some ground rules.” He drawled, steepling his fingers in front of his face, leaning back into his armchair with his right ankle rested on his left knee.

“Okay.” I prompted him to continue, thinking to myself that after hearing his rules I was most likely to have some of my own to insist upon. 

“In regard to the kitchen. It is free to use but try and text me beforehand in case I am indisposed.”

I nodded.

“I think it may be best if your duties are expanded to cooking for me, also. With a compensatory bump in pay.” He finished quickly before I could protest.

I frowned in deference, shrugging. “That works for me.” I agreed.

“Don’t enter 221B-2 without asking, my room is on the other side of the kitchen, you don’t ever need to go in there. Don’t move or touch anything in 221B-2 unless I ask you to. I will be asking you to shortly because I feel it may be time to clean things up a little around here. Another pay bump for those services.” He tacked on.

“So far this is a lot of work.” I told him. “I’m helping you with fact finding, transcribing for you, cooking and cleaning.”

“Maybe you should drive me around, too.” He said thoughtfully, not quite looking at me.

“Um, no. I can’t do that. I don’t have a car.”

“I’ll buy you one.” He stated simply. “I don’t like the thought of you riding around on that motorcycle. You bashing that brain against a curb would be a terrible waste.”

“I think I’m flattered but probably mostly offended.” I commented wryly. 

He put his hands down flat against the arms of the armchair, gripping them with his lithe fingers as he shifted in his seat, cocking his head at me in what felt like a invasively predatory fashion. 

“I looked over your resume. I listened in on your interview with John-”

“I know, I saw you.”

“In the window.”

I paused. “No. I felt you looking at me from the window, but the sun was in the way. I caught sight of you in the reflection of John’s reading glasses.”

“Ugh, those ghastly things. They make him look terribly old.”

“I can’t disagree with that.” 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, as he was wont to do whilst looking at me.

“You do seem to…flail about in your existence.”

“Can’t disagree with that, either.”

“To save both our time you should decide not to disagree with me ever.”
“I would disagree with that.”

We sat in silence, sizing one another up. He looked tired and haunted, and I felt hungry and overwhelmed. 

“Did you have any questions about my history, or were you just making an unkind observation? Because I am an–”

“--open book. Yes. I heard that too.”

I shrugged. “Well, it’s true.”

“Is it?” He looked at me as if I had directly challenged him. He did not push me further at that moment, but I was afraid I may have ignited some competitive streak within him, like he wanted to find some way to push me past my point of comfort.

He did succeed in making me slightly uncomfortable as he stared me down. In my defense, he had the upper hand in height, sex, wealth, social status. He had many metrics at his disposal to make me feel inferior, and he knew it. The smug shift in his facial expression irked me and I opened my mouth to say something snarky but he cut me off. Again.

“You will prepare us dinner tonight. We will dine in 221B-3.”

My face remained impassive. “Any requests?”

“Surprise me.” He smirked. “You may take my charge card and get whatever is needed, as I’m sure you are currently…low on funds.”

I didn’t argue with him, although I probably had a bit more money to my name than he assumed. I certainly was not wealthy, but I was not in the habit of spending money needlessly. My childhood of unnecessary poverty had convinced me that frugality was the wisest way forward. I wouldn’t be drinking or gambling away my funds.

He leaned forward and took his wallet out of his back pocket, producing a heavy black card and holding it out for me between his fore and middle fingers. With a feeling of humility I reached out and took it, tapping my fingernails against it.

“Am I dismissed?” I asked impatiently. His gaze darkened.

“Yes.” 

He didn’t move so I just got up and tried to ignore his eyes on me as I walked into his kitchen and tried to orientate myself with what ingredients he had and didn’t have and his cookware. There were quite a few non-food items in his kitchen but nothing incredibly shocking. It needed a cleaning, though. I sighed heavily.

“Mr. Holmes I am going to need to clean this kitchen before I cook in it. So, I’ll need to buy something for that too.”

“I don’t need to know the details of your operation.” He huffed and I stood up straight from looking underneath the sink. His eyes were still level upon me.

“Fine.” I answered. I wanted to tell him I was leaving and would be back later, but he seemed irked by every unnecessary word I uttered so instead I just left and went upstairs to 221B-3, digging into one of my bags and changing into tennis shoes to walk to the store.

********

An hour later I hauled three overfull canvas bags full of groceries and cleaning supplied upstairs, balancing on one leg to open the door to 221B-2 with my foot. Sherlock was nowhere in sight, so I quickly put away the food and pulled my hair into a ponytail, setting into work to clean the kitchen. That took about an hour, nothing was filthy, but it was certainly dusty and in need of a good reset. Once I was done with that, I went upstairs to take a quick shower and change out of my bleach-stained clothes. 

Stepping into the front room with a towel wrapped around me, I saw my phone light up on the kitchen table. 

“It reeks of bleach in here.” It was Sherlock.

“That’s what happens when you clean. It will smell like food soon.”

I put my phone down and pulled some leave in conditioner through my wavy brown hair, leaving it down to air dry. I put on a plain white button up and pair of dark blue jeans, slipping on black ballet flats and flinging my denim apron over my shoulder.

“Can I come down and start cooking?” I texted.

“Yes.” Was my only response received. 

I trotted down to 221B-2 and opened the door slowly, sticking my head in. Definitely smelled a little like bleach. Thankfully, no Sherlock.

I pulled my apron over my head and tied it around my waist, taking my earbuds out of the pocket and nestling them into the shell of my ears, putting on some Nine Inch Nails as I set to work crafting my oldest and best tested recipe- my father’s shepherd’s pie. It was a time-consuming recipe involving making mashed potatoes and gravy from scratch. It was the only thing my father knew how to cook, or the only thing he ever bothered to at any rate.

My mind wandered and my body danced as I chopped, boiled, sauteed, rouxed, mashed, etc. Cooking was an underrated meditative practice, I felt. It was productive and physically nourishing, a test of dexterity and time management, and a treat for the senses, minus some unpleasantness when it came to onions off-gassing into ones eyes. 

At long last I was ready to put the entire production into the oven. As a finishing touch I dragged a fork across the top in a geometric pattern and placed the glass dish into the oven.

I had thirty minutes until the potatoes were browned and everything had boiled together in the dish. I wasn’t sure if I should retreat to my flat or hang around downstairs. 

I walked over to the window behind Sherlock’s armchair, watching as the people below, making their way around London at dusk, seemed to be walking to the beat of the metal in my ears. I cast a gaze toward the horizon, watching the sky turn golden as the sun sank slowly.

“ I just made you up to hurt myself. And it worked. Yes it did. ” Trent Reznor purred in my ear. 

I cast a glance toward Sherlock’s bedroom. No movement, only a seam of light uninterrupted under his door. I took the opportunity to dance the shit out of the bridge, my eyes closed to the dank, sunset stained flat, finding an empty area between the armchairs and the front door and the desk covered in shit I was apparently responsible for cleaning up sometime this week between moving the rest of my belongings upstairs and also, possibly, doing the job I was ostensibly hired for.

I spun in a circle and flipped my hair violently, one of my ear buds also flying out as the song crescendoed into the chaotic guitar rifts at the end.

“Shit.” I mumbled as I watched it fly under Sherlock’s chair. I pulled off my apron and draped it over the other armchair as I got down onto my knees on the rug. 

“Why is there so much shit under here?” I muttered to myself in annoyance as my left ear began throbbing with the heavy one-two electronic beats of Nine Inch Nails’ best known song.

I sang along under my breath as I pulled out a stack of newspaper clippings, sneezing once at the fuzzy dust that came flying as I pawed around for my other ear bud.

“I wanna fuck you like a– oh there you are!” I found my earbud and sat back on my ass, picking dust off of the earpiece.

A heavy shadow startled me from above and I legitimately screamed. I glared up at Sherlock who looked annoyingly amused by my fright.

“What did I tell you about touching things?”

I looked at the displaced pile in front of me and, without moving my glare from Sherlock’s face, reached out my leg and shoved it back under the chair.

“It’s day one and you’re already disobeying me.” He commented, watching me defiantly kick his things back under his chair.

“You told me I need to clean this up tomorrow anyway.” I backed up a little so I could stand up without standing directly into Sherlock and rose to me feet, my nose crinkling in disgust as I batted debris and dust off of my jeans.

“You’re supposed to be cooking tonight.”

“I am .” I gestured toward the kitchen, where I had put the cooking dishes to soak and the oven was finishing the pie. “It’s in the oven.”

“It smells good.” Sherlock bestowed an unexpected bit of positivity upon the situation.

“I know it does.” I snapped and went to the sink to wash my hands before opening the oven to check the brown on the potatoes.

“Can’t you ever just say thank you?” Sherlock whined, annoyed as he joined me in the kitchen and picked up my phone, looking at the music playing status on the lock screen. 

Trent Reznor was telling me to bow down before the one I serve as I pulled my other ear bud out and stuffed them in my pocket and went to pull my phone from Sherlock’s hands as he began trying different PIN combinations.

“What the fuck?” I asked as I grabbed and he reached the phone upward out of my grasp.

“Touchy.” He chuckled, lowering the phone to try the PIN again.

“Rude!” I answered, diving at the phone again. He raised it again and I jumped for it. I only managed his forearm before he whipped his hand around his back, smirking at me.

I bit the inside of my bottom lip to stop from smiling. “It’s not funny.” I told him unconvincingly. His smirk widened to a grin.

“I know you’re trying more combinations behind your back. You’re going to lock me out of the phone.”

Sherlock brought the phone back around to look at the screen. “Oh.” He said simply and handed the phone to me. The lock screen informed me I was locked out of my own phone for five minutes. 

“Thanks.” I commented sarcastically, rolling my eyes and putting the phone in my back pocket. Sherlock sat on the back of the armchair closest to the kitchen and looked pleased with himself.

“Dinner will be done in ten, you can eat in 221B-3, obviously, but I’m probably going out.” I told him.

His face fell and he looked at me in consternation. “What? Where?”

“Maybe for a drive? Probably grab some things from my apartment.”

“No. You’re going to eat dinner with me.” He insisted.

“I’m not hungry. I ate like half a potato while I was cooking.”

“No.” He repeated, standing up and stepping toward me, using his height as leverage for intimidation. “You’re going to have dinner with me, and we will discuss what to do about the motorcycle.”

“What do you mean what to do about the motorcycle?” I turned the oven knob to off and slipped the oven mitts on, pulling the pie out of the oven and placing it on the stovetop to set for a couple minutes.

“I told you I am going to need you to drive me places and you can’t very well do that on the motorcycle.”

“That’s debatable, you could always ride in the bitch position.” I pulled off the mitts and set them on the counter. “Seems suitable.” 

Sherlock reddened and his eyes flashed.

“Besides,” I continued, “Can you not drive?”

“I can.” He said through set jaw.

“Then why don’t you get your own car and drive yourself?”

“I don’t want to.” He said simply. What a frustrating answer, I thought to myself. And what a nice life. To do or not do things simply according to what one wishes to do with no considerations to others’ wishes or comfort.

“Is that what you’re wearing to dinner?” He snapped before I had time to address anything else.

I looked down at myself. “What is wrong with the way I’m dressed? Besides the fact that your disgusting floor got my knees dirty.” I pulled my gaze over his frame. “We’re practically wearing the same outfit.”

“Well I will be changing.” He huffed.

“Okay. Fine.” I threw up my hands. “What is the dress code for this evening?”

“Semi formal.”

I snorted and grabbed my apron, heading toward the door. “Semi formal? You have got to be kidding me. This has been the longest day of my life.”

“Can you ever…not complain? About everything?”

I grabbed the front doorknob, looking back at Sherlock. He was standing erect, looking down at me slightly, his hands in his jeans pockets.

“Have I been complaining a lot?”

Sherlock tilted his head, surprised at the sudden lack of defensiveness. “A bit, I’d say. Yes.”

I frowned. “That’s unpleasant. I’m sorry.”

Sherlock looked even more struck. “Well. Don’t be sorry.”

I nodded. “I’ll be back in ten.” 

********

Back in 221B-3, I opened a couple of boxes and dug through some clothes I had shoved inside, hangers and all. The only thing I could find that was remotely semi formal was an emerald green, calf length velvet dress I had worn for my last piano performance back in college. It was a little bit tighter than it had been around a decade prior. I slipped it over my head, adjusting the off-the-shoulder neckline. I quickly dug out and slipped on the only dress shoes I could find, slingback kitten heels. I pulled my hair over my left shoulder and tied it into place with an elastic tie.

Running around a bit now, I pulled some dishes out of the cupboard and set two place settings, two glasses of water, and two wine glasses, as I had purchased an expensive bottle of red wine on Sherlock’s tab.

I trotted back downstairs to 221B-2. Sherlock was nowhere in sight, I assumed he was making good on his promise to clean up a bit. I pulled on the oven mitts, put the bottle of red under my right arm, and picked up the shepherd’s pie. Standing in front of the door I tried to catch it with my elbow a couple times before balancing and trying to open it with my foot. No dice. I stepped out of my shoes and used my foot to turn the knob, opening the door finally and giving a triumphant “ha!”. I moved to step back into my shoes and felt a hand on my lower back as I almost ran backward into Sherlock. I controlled a scream but almost dropped the bottle of wine, which he caught. I turned to look at him as he looked over the label.

“Hmm. I spent a pretty penny on this one, didn’t I?” He raised an eyebrow and looked at me with a slight smirk. 

“You shaved.” I said, staring at him. He suddenly looked five years younger.

“I did.” He answered. “Shall we?” He gestured to the door and I soldiered forward ahead of him, leading us both upstairs.

“You can keep your shoes on.” Sherlock muttered and stepped in front of me, opening the door and stepping inside, holding it open to allow me past. 

I placed the dish on the table as Sherlock closed the door, taking a moment to look me over from the front as I pulled off the oven mitts.

“Do you not wear makeup?” He scrutinized my face, stepping toward me, coming close to my face, crouching down so that his nose was a few inches from mine.

“I do sometimes. I didn’t expect to be dressing up today.”

“And these glasses?” He asked, examining my round wire frames. “Do you wear contacts?”

“I have sensitive eyes.” I grumbled.

Sherlock reached his hand out and, before I could pull away, touched the center of my chest, a couple inches under my throat. 

“That cross necklace would have looked nice.” He ran his middle finger along my right clavicle before removing his touch. 

“I only wear it to church.” I glared at him as he straightened up and I took the bottle of red wine out of his hands. I walked into the kitchen and started going through drawers, trying to find a corkscrew. Sherlock strode quickly toward me and reached around my to produce the tool. I took it from him and opened the bottle quickly and efficiently, walking back toward the table and pouring two glasses, setting the bottle aside and plating our food. 

Sherlock came around the table and pushed my chair in underneath me before I could reach for it.

“Thanks.” I said quietly and watched him walk around the table. He was wearing a tailored British suit with a white button up underneath but no tie. I couldn’t decide if I preferred his face shaved or not. But he certainly looked put together.

“Do you want me to put some music on?” I asked as we began to eat. I saw Sherlock make a brief impressed facial expression but he did not compliment me.

“No.” He said, chewing his food and looking at me closely. “You have a hard time with silence.” 

“I don’t think so…”

“Wasn’t a question.” He took another bite. I opened my mouth to say something but realized that would be filling the silence and decided to try not to prove him right. I gave thought to what he said. Did I have a problem with silence? I always had a television or music on, that was true. But was it the silence that bothered me? Or was it the–

“Mental inactivity.” I said.

Sherlock looked up at me, eyebrow raised. “You’re saying it’s not the silence that bothers you, it’s the lack of distraction?”

“I rather think so, yes. I hardly read in silence, that is true. But if I do, I am also writing, or cooking. Running, sometimes, or at least I used to before I moved to London and lost access to my apartment gym.”

“That would explain the ten extra pounds.” He looked me up and down, as much as he could with the table in the way. His gaze lingered on my breasts, the swell of which was only partially visible over my neckline.

“Five.” I countered.

“Ten.” He was still staring at my cleavage.

“Six, maybe. And I’m about to go on my period.” I felt my own breasts. Fuller and firmer than usual, and slightly sore. 

Sherlock shrugged, accepting my negotiated weight gain.

I smiled smugly to myself and took a sip of my wine. 

We ate in silence for quite a few minutes. I did my best to try not to fill the silence with errant comments but found myself rereading the label on the wine probably one hundred times as it was the only reading material accessible. I also spent a lot of time studying Sherlock’s hands and wrists and the cuffs of his suit. I was impressed by his long nail beds and lack of hangnails. 

“So.” Sherlock finished his food and pushed his plate to the side, folding his hands in front of himself and focusing his attention on me. I put my fork down and pushed my plate away as well. I was done, I guess.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

“Begin what?” I asked suspiciously, taking another sip of wine. 

“Our interview. I never got to complete my half.” He smiled at me, the smile not quite reaching his icy blue eyes.

“If you are telling me I’ve done all of this-” I swirled my finger in the air indicating the apartment, and then down at the dinner, “-for free-”

“You are the eldest daughter of Francis “Frank” Patrick, a once decorated and celebrated policeman with the LAPD who, some years after being promoted to detective, succumbed to the temptation of bribes, be they monetary or sexual. He put your mother Amelia Patrick nee Hartley through a decade and a half of hell before she died, shortly after giving birth to you. You spent your childhood first raised by your older brother, and then when you were old enough you became the caretaker of the family. Your early onset of responsibility precluded many of your academic and personal dreams, especially because you were particularly gifted but your father needed you at home and disallowed your ability to take advanced classes or do any extracurriculars, save piano, which he allowed you to pursue because someone in your neighborhood was teaching you, which kept you close enough. You had a lonely childhood with few friends and no other hobbies except the reading, you read every single thing you could get your hands on. Your musical talents bought your way into UCLA, since your father had gambled and drunk away your tuition, and you landed on a double major because you couldn’t decide whether or not to pursue something creative or something scientific, so you chose both. Both majors- philosophy and astrophysics- denote a certain…romantic view of life. You want to see that there is something bigger than yourself, your struggle, your pain. You graduated with honors. And then you disappeared for a number of years. Even I had a difficult time tracing your very existence during that time. Would you like to fill me in about all those missing years?”

I finished my wine and poured myself another glass, leaning back slightly in my chair, one arm wrapped around myself and my other elbow resting against it as I held the wine glass to my lips.

“How did you know about my sister?” I asked him. He smiled. 

“When I looked into your deceased brother Michael and saw that he had been committed to St. Elin’s after being convicted of murder, I looked into his victim. Five year old Abigail Rojas, daughter of Vera Rojas, no father listed on the birth certificate. Vera Rojas was unmarried at the time of her death by suicide, but she did have one piece of property to her name- a house in Los Angeles that had been signed over to her five years prior. Previous owner Francis Patrick, and your last listed address before you fell off the face of the planet and reappeared in London almost a year ago.”

“My father seemed to get his shit together right before I left for college, when he met Vera and got her pregnant. Something about that baby made him want to try, even when the first two kids hadn’t been enough to convince him. I had nothing against Vera or the baby but I didn’t want to know them. I never would have left if I knew Mike was a danger to her.” I took a sip of my wine, looking down at my lap and running a fingernail over the velvet stretched across my thighs. 

“He hadn’t shown any prior propensity to violence?”

I shook my head. “He was only a year older than me. Did okay in school, quiet but sweet. He was taking a year off before enrolling in community college, which last I had heard he did. And next time I heard from any of them, Mike had strangled Abigail and then run off to London of all places.”

“And you had no previous connections to London?”
I shook my head. “Nowhere outside of the US, really.” 

Sherlock sat back a little, steepling his fingers in front of his face thoughtfully and looking at me but through me.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to try and solve this or something.” I said, annoyed, putting down my wine glass. “I don’t mind giving some details, but everyone involved is either dead, dying, or deeply traumatized. No one needs all this dredged back up just because you’re curious.”

Sherlock’s eyes focused, looking at me again. “What happened to ‘open book’?”

I cocked my head at him. “I am. Ask me anything you like. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. But please just leave this all alone after I’ve told you everything.”

“Don’t you want to know why Mike did what he did? And why he fled to Britain?”

I rolled my eyes, not in exasperation but because it had taken me many years of avoidance and substance abuse to not wonder at his reasons every night before I tried, often in vain, to sleep.

“Another thing you don’t know about me, Mr. Holmes-”

“Sherlock.” He looked me in the eye, somehow softer this time.

I paused a moment before I said, “Sherlock.” His name feeling soft and round in my mouth. “I practically grew up watching police interrogations. My dad used to sit me in the room behind the two-sided mirror, doing my homework, reading a book, listening to The Beatles on my Discman. He interviewed murderers, rapists, thieves, criminals, innocents, victims. Psychopaths. Schizophrenics. I read some of the things my brother left behind in his notebooks and on his walls at our house in Los Angeles. He had hypergraphia. There was no rhyme or reason to what he did beyond what the voices told him. I couldn’t have seen it coming.” I hissed the last part intensely, glaring directly into Sherlock’s eyes before collecting myself. “Nobody could have. Even if I was there.” 

I downed my second glass of wine and reached for the bottle, but Sherlock put his hand over mine, pulling it gently off of the bottle and placing it on the table. I almost thought he gave it a barely perceptible squeeze before releasing it.

“Where were you until 2017?” He asked me, his voice firm but surprisingly kind. 

“Long Beach, mostly.” I finally told him. I lived with various people. I wasn’t lying on my resume about the retail jobs, it’s just that I worked them under a pseudonym.”

“What were you doing besides working?”

“Drugs, mostly.” 

“What sort of drugs?”

“Heroin, mostly.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and put his hand back on my hand, pulling it toward him and turning my arm over. I proffered my other arm. 

“No track marks, strangely enough.” I told him. “There are a couple scars between my fingers you can probably see.”

He raised my hands and leaned forward to examine between my fingers, his own threading between them and probing them open. When he found one between my middle and ring fingers on my right hand, his pointer finger moved down to feel the space. His eyes narrowed and he flipped my arm back over, having noticed the scar parallel scar on the inside of my wrist. It was thin, about four inches long. I held up my other wrist.

“I’m surprised I didn’t notice those before.” He said quiet and thoughtfully.

“I did it when I was blacked out on something. I woke up in a hospital. They held me for two weeks, and I decided I had had enough. I was in the process of getting my life back in order. It was about a year after this-” I said, running my own finger over the scar on my left wrist, “-that I got a call from my Dad, saying he had come to London to be near Mike. And then Mike was murdered by another asylum patient. And it became evident Dad wasn’t well. After about six months I decided I had to move here to be closer to him. And when I moved to London, it’s like the last vestiges of his sanity fell apart. I was here to take care of it all.” I flashed a mirthless smile. “I followed his directives and had him committed to the same place that Mike had been when he died. So that’s what I’ve been doing, besides of course working on my PhD.”

“So why biochemistry?”

“It started out as a fascination with biology’s bearings on psychology. It sort of morphed into a generalized interest in the chemicals that run all of our body processes. Then I honed in on my project regarding the biochemistry of dying.”

“So you’ve been clean for how long now?”

“I guess it will be three years in November. What about you?” I looked Sherlock in time to see his eyes dart up to me in an intentionally nonchalant fashion. 

I knew he wouldn’t deign to ask me how I knew about his habit, so I told him, “I saw that look in your eye when I mentioned it. It never goes away. Doesn’t seem like it, anyway. I miss the way it quieted all of…this…” I tapped my temple. 

“I bet you do, too.”

He visibly stiffened in his chair, although I could tell he was putting effort into not showing any reaction or feelings. 

“I haven’t used in four years.” He said, avoiding giving an anniversary.

“Our use overlapped.” I said with morbid interest. “Perhaps we met at one time, on some Jungian junkie collective unconscious while we were both high.” 

Sherlock’s eyebrows raised further than I had ever seen them on his forehead.

“That was really stupid, I’m sorry I said that.”
He burst out laughing. “No, I love it. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a philosophy major!” He said between chuckles.

“I’m a physicist, too.” I said, feeling somewhat pouty about being filed away as a philosophy airhead.

“An astrophysicist. I feel there’s a difference.”
“I have a complete understanding of physics.” I insisted. “And chemistry, thank you very much, I am an ABD, after all. I graduated months ago.”
“AB- All But Dissertation.” He chuckled. “Let me know when you’ve successfully defended your dissertation, and only then will I address you as Doctor.”

“Oh, you probably wouldn’t then, either.” I huffed and Sherlock laughed again. 

“Probably not. I barely call John a Doctor and he’s an actual Doctor.”

“Actual Doctor.” I rolled my eyes and chuckled.

A less uncomfortable silence settled over us for a moment and I, of course, chose to fracture it.

“Now that you know my life story, can I ask you a couple of questions?”

“You can ask, I don’t know if I’ll answer.”

I folded my arms and gave him a stern look, but his position didn’t budge.

“Okay, fine.” I considered my questions carefully, in case I would be limited in their number. “So, John has a daughter, and her mother died.”

I saw Sherlock stiffen though his face remained unreadable. “But Rosie is not quite six, and John’s blog indicates that you have known one another for over a decade. He either didn’t mention the mother in his blogs or he edited her out at some point. My question is, are you two not…together?”

Sherlock looked mildly pained. “That’s your question?”

“It’s the only one I could think of that you might actually answer for me tonight.”

Sherlock sighed. “You’re probably right about that. No, John and I are best friends and spent many years as working partners. He was married to Rosie’s mother. He was ridiculously in love with her. I was very fond of her as well. There is a frequent assumption that due to our travel and work together, and until somewhat recently, cohabitation, that we were in fact romantic partners. But I am entirely certain that John Watson is not gay.” Sherlock looked at me during the last part, as if to gauge my reaction to that last bit of news.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked Sherlock, suddenly feeling a tad more emboldened by the wine.

“You’re interested, are you not?”

“In John?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I…don’t think so. He’s very nice. And handsome. And helpful. But I don’t think so.”

“Really?” Sherlock asked in slight disbelief. 

“I really don’t think so.” I shook my head. “What about you? Are you gay?”

Sherlock smirked. “I don’t really think so, no. Not entirely, anyway. What about you?”

“Maybe a little? I don’t know. I’ve had partners of various genders. I probably prefer men. Maybe.” I laughed. “I do like sex, I’m not a big fan of relationships.”

Sherlock leaned forward slightly. “Really? I find a lot of women say that and don’t typically mean it.”

“A lot of women? How many women have you experienced saying that?”

“There’s been a few, lately.” He admitted, when in fact I didn’t expect him to give an answer at all. “I’ve been doing some…experimentation. Mostly involving flirting. Trying out techniques to get people interested in giving their number, inviting you home. Coming home with you. It’s actually helpful data for the rest of my work.”

I bit the insides of my lips together, trying not to laugh. “What do you do once you’ve brought them home, or gone home with them? Are you having sex with all of them?”

“Not all of them, no! Hardly any of them.”

“That sounds…risky.”

“Oh, don’t be a prude, I get regularly tested. Until the last few years I was not sexually active at all. But I came to a point where it was really the last undiscovered aspect of my personhood and biology so I thought, better get a move on while the parts still work.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “Oh my god. So, both men and women then?”

“Yes.” He said matter-of-factly. “One has to be scientific about it, after all.”

“Do you…” I stopped for a moment, disbelieving I was grilling Sherlock Holmes about his sex life and  that he was willingly answering me. “Do you enjoy it at all?”

He looked down and thought for a moment.

“If you have to think about it, I’d say no.” I grimaced a little and he looked up at my face.

“That’s not entirely true.” He said, surprisingly defensively. “Obviously I have had enjoyment in the occasions…very obviously.” He made a broad sweeping gesture toward his body, and I caught his drift. “But I continue to not quite understand what all the fascination is about, frankly. I am leaning that my initial assumption was correct, sex is more enjoyable to people with simpler minds.”

“No. I refute that. One hundred percent.”

“On what basis do you refute that?” He asked with a smug look on his face.

“Look, I am not deigning to presume I am as intelligent as you are, obviously. But it’s not like I’ve never been clinically tested before. I know that my IQ puts me in the top 1% of human intelligence. That is simply a fact. You cannot, factually, call me simple. And I adore sex.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, pushing back from the table and crossing his legs. “Give me a break.”

“No. Look. Just because you don’t personally enjoy it, or have been pursuing the activity for such a short amount of time that you haven’t had any really good sex yet, does not mean that you have to be an idiot to enjoy sex.”

“So you think the problem is me?” Sherlock demanded, thoroughly annoyed.

“It’s not that you have a problem. Maybe you are asexual.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Maybe.”

“I just think you haven’t been exploring for long enough. You may find yourself to have a particular orientation, or a specific preference for certain kinds of sex. You could try going to a sex club.”

“Sex. Club. Both of those words make me nauseated separately. Put together, I’ve almost vomited your perfectly lovely shepherd’s pie.”

I stopped for a moment and grinned at him. “You thought it was lovely?” 

“You could make it again.” He answered nonchalantly.

“I should probably put it away before it goes bad, now that I think of it.” I rose from the table, grabbing the leftovers and headed toward the door.

Sherlock got up too and used the length of his legs against me to reach me before I opened the door.

“Wait.” He said, touching my bare shoulder. I turned around and looked up at him. He took my other shoulder in his hand and held me at arms length, looking at me from head to toe.

“You see, when I look at you, I can tell that part of me is physically attracted to you. I can feel my own physiology responding. I don’t have that feeling for everyone, I don’t have it for many women or really any men unless I am being otherwise stimulated. I don’t think I’m asexual.”

I blushed unwittingly but decided to ignore Sherlock’s assertion. “So you’re sticking to your theory that you’re too smart to enjoy sex.”

“Well, yes.” He smirked, still gripping me by the shoulders.

“You don’t see how it could be within the realm of possibility that you just haven’t had good sex yet?”

“I find that very improbable. I’ve done my research. I know I have completely satisfied most of my partners.”

“Just because you are good at sex doesn’t mean that people have given you good sex. Unless you have a particular kink for it, you will require some additional effort being given back to you.”

“I have hired a professional dominatrix before.” He released my shoulders and stood up straight, raising his chin slightly in defiance that I could have a point that he can’t knock all of sex until he’s tried it.

“That’s…wow. Okay.” I snorted and opened the door, heading down toward 221B.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m putting the leftovers away so I’ll have lunch tomorrow.”

“You seem like I’ve upset you.”

I stopped on the landing and waited for Sherlock to open the door for me. “Not at all. I think it’s kind of cute that you’ve been sexually active for as long as I was at nineteen and you think that you know everything about everything.”

I bent over, looking through the cabinets in the kitchen for aluminum foil.

“Cute?” Sherlock scoffed angrily. “Just because you can’t handle the insinuation that your obsession with sex is indicative of-”

“My obsession?” I laughed. “I haven’t had sex in like...well, let's just say it's been an embarrassingly long time. Like a year.”

I ripped off a sheet of aluminum and folded it over the dish.

“What, really?” Sherlock asked, incredulously.

“Yeah, like I said, I enjoy it, but anything besides masturbation requires interacting with people, and that bit I am not a huge fan of.”

“That is an excellent point.” Sherlock conceded.

I shoved the leftovers into the refrigerator and turned around. “To that end, did you ever think that maybe part of your problem is that you seem to be having sex with random strangers?”

“Psh.” Sherlock crinkled his face up like a child. “If you’re insinuating that sentimental feelings are necessary for sexual enjoyment-”

“No.” I held up my hand. “I’m saying that there can be benefits to having sex when there is an intellectual connection. It doesn’t even have to be friends with benefits, just someone with whom you at least feel you share a same…species, honestly. Not everyone requires or prefers that in a sexual partner. Maybe you do.”

Something seemed to dawn on Sherlock and I pointed at him. “Aha! You’ve experienced that, haven’t you? You’ve experienced the thrill of sex with someone who also excites you intellectually.”

“I…did. Yes.” Sherlock admitted. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He said lowly.

I reached my hand out and touched Sherlock on the side of the arm, and he stiffened but did not flinch. “It’s okay. I’m just glad you can see that I’m right.” I slapped him on the side of the arm and went to walk around him.

“Ow.” He rubbed his arm. “Where are you going now?”

“Back to my flat, probably. Unless you were wanting to work on your memoir tonight?”

He thought for a moment and I sat on the edge of the kitchen table, watching him, trying to guess what he might decide. 

“No.” He said finally. “You are dismissed for the evening.” 

“Yes sir.” I smiled and stood up off of the chair. Sherlock’s gaze darkened and he looked away as I walked to the door. 

“Oh, would it be okay for me to come down here around six tomorrow morning?”

Sherlock sighed and waved me off. “Yes, that’s fine. Just try and be quiet when you do so.”

“Night!” I waved as I went out the door, but Sherlock didn’t respond to me.

I went downstairs and changed into pajama bottoms and a tank top, hanging my cocktail dress in the back of my new closet, and spent the rest of my evening putting things away in my new space, collapsing into bed around eleven.

********

I woke up the next morning around six and trudged downstairs, opening the door to 221B-2 quietly, but to my surprise Sherlock was already up, completely awake, and dressed in a blue button up shirt and black trousers. He was reading the paper and had a mug in his hand. I didn’t smell coffee so I assumed it was tea.

“You’re late.” Sherlock said simply, not looking up from his paper as I hesitated by the door. 

“I didn’t know this was an appointment.” I said and entered the apartment, reading the headlines on Sherlock’s paper as I did. Well, the main headline, as I hadn’t put on my glasses before coming down. 

“Serial arsonist?” I asked, coming close and bending over to read the subheadline.

“Do you mind?” All I saw was Sherlock’s annoyed gaze over the top of the paper.

“No, not at all. “ I answered. “So is that the sort of thing that you might investigate?” I asked him curiously.

“I might, if it were interesting at all. It’s clearly an insurance scam, and even the idiots at Scotland Yard will be able to parse that one out.”

“Ah.” I stood up and nodded at Sherlock, looking at him for a few moments just to annoy him. He pretended not to notice and did a good job until I saw his nose twitch slightly and I smirked to myself, walking into the kitchen and gathering the supplies to make coffee. As the coffee was brewing I walked back into the front room, tidying up some of the piles and things on the desk.

“What. Are you doing. Now?” Sherlock slammed his paper down, hissing at me.

“You told me you wanted me to work on the flat this week. Make it a little less…gross.” I wrinkled my nose.

“Must you be moving constantly?” He growled at me, back behind the paper and flipping the pages angrily. 

“Sorry.” I walked over and sat down across from him in the armchair, leaning forward to read his paper.

“Stop. It.” He growled again and folded the paper into his lap. I smiled at him. He looked at me incredulously. “You’re annoying me on purpose, aren’t you?”

“I’m just waiting for my coffee, and then I’ll be out of your hair for the rest of the day, if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not, because we have an appointment at the car dealership.” He got up and tucked the paper under his arm, walking around the chair to look out the window. He seemed to be glaring directly at my bike.

“Come again?” I asked him.

“I am in want of a car. I don’t want to take cabs anymore, and I detest driving. So I’m buying a car. You can drive it instead of your motorcycle.”

“No.” I said, standing up. 

Sherlock spun around, glaring at me with his eyes blazing. “What do you mean no?”

“I mean, we’ve already talked about this and the answer was no. I like my motorcycle.”

“And I told you.” He threw the paper down and stomped around the armchair, coming to rest very close to me and again trying to intimidate me with his extra head and a half above me. “I don’t want you driving it anymore, it’s unnecessarily risky.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do in personal matters like this. What are you going to control next? Where I go? Who I see?” I turned to go into the kitchen and Sherlock grabbed my arm roughly.

“I don’t know, is who you are going to see apt to bash your brains in?” He hissed at me.

Sherlock’s face was close to mine, his skin flush, nostrils flared. I studied him for a moment, a particular thought regarding our discussions last night crossing my mind.

Sherlock’s gaze into my eyes intensified and his eyes widened slightly, his grip on my arm loosening.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, startled.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked him back, pulling from his grip and heading into the kitchen, opening the cupboards to look for a mug for my coffee.

“Your pupils dilated and your cheeks got blotchy.” He pestered me.

“Would you like me to verbally observe all of your physiological tells, because two can play at that game you know.” I looked him up and down as I found a mug and poured myself some coffee.

“I don’t have tells.” He argued.

“HA! Okay.” I lifted my eyebrows and gingerly took a sip of black coffee. I closed my eyes and let out an involuntary sigh of contentment. 

Sherlock reddened and clenched his fists. “You are maddening.” 

I looked him up and down briefly. I occasionally liked to goad people to get a rise out of them, that much was true. But I didn’t want to genuinely vex Sherlock. My gaze softened and I put my mug on the counter, lowering my head slightly.

“I’m sorry if I’m actually annoying you.” I told him. “I like to frustrate people sometimes but I don’t want to legitimately anger you. And if the motorcycle thing is that important to you, I will…at least consider riding less. Okay?” I asked him, looking up to meet his gaze.

He looked completely caught off guard and perplexed, a soft rosy color creeping out of his collar and up his neck, overtaking his face. “Oh-Okay. I will accept that. And, um…all is forgiven.” He waved at me, still staring at me as if I had done something shocking.

My same thought from earlier crept in again and I stifled a smile.

“There it is again! You are looking at me and you are thinking! Tell me what you are thinking!”

“I was wondering when our car appointment is.”

Sherlock closed the space between us.

“Delilah Beatrice Patrick. You just told me your don’t aim to be legitimately vexing, yet you are doing it again.” He growled at me through gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t really think that you want to continue our conversation from last night is all. Also how did you know my middle name?”

“Social Security Card. Which conversation?”

“The very long and detailed exploration of your late blooming sexuality.” I crossed my arm underneath my bust and sipped more coffee. 

“Oh. That.” He backed away from me a little. “Why are you thinking about that ?”

“I don’t know, it’s just my simple, sex-addled mind I guess.”

He snorted. “Seriously. If you have a thought, I guess I…well, welcome might be too powerful a word.”

I slowly drew in a breath. “You seem to…enjoy telling people what to do.” I started.

“Only if they need to be told.” He defended himself. 

I squinted one eye, my head turned. “Maybe? You seem to enjoy telling me what to do. You also seem…appreciative when I defer to you.”

Sherlock blushed. I would call it a real, proper blush. “Well, obviously I enjoy being deferred to, as I am often right and people should do the things I tell them to do.”

“Maybe.” I said again. “You like being called ‘sir’.” 

Sherlock looked like he was about to choke. “I do not.” He said, practically in a whisper. 

I full-on smiled. “Oh…you really do.” I said in a similarly hushed tone.

“What are you trying to say?” He asked. He didn’t look angry. He looked almost…ashamed.

I sipped my coffee and set it down on the counter, walking over to the kitchen table and sitting on the edge by Sherlock, trying to look non judgmental.

“You might have a slight…preference…for domination. Rather, being dominant, specifically.” Sherlock blanched and I reached out my hand, grabbing his forearm and squeezing it, trying to get him to look at me. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Heaven knows this world needs a few more doms.”

Sherlock couldn’t help but snort at that, even though I had to say he looked slightly mortified.

“We can stop talking about this now if you like.” I squeezed him with my hand again. Sherlock moved his hand forward and clasped my forearm, and I let him turn my arm over, his eyes moving briefly over the scar on my wrist and then more broadly from my palm up to my shoulder.

“No, that’s okay.” He mumbled, distracted.

“As long as you have a willing participant, and you follow mutually agreed upon rules, there’s nothing to feel bad about wanting to be the one in control. In fact, it’s often therapeutic for submissives to be able to trust someone to take control. Their obedience is an act of thanksgiving.”

“You seem rather…familiar with the roles.” Sherlock observed, dropping my arm unexpectedly. 

“I mean, in theory, yes.” 

“In theory?”

“In my own research.” I laughed a little. “Fiction. Online spaces. Maybe a little porn.” I snorted. 

“So you’re not a submissive then?”

I thought for a moment, smirking at the floor. “I’ve never had the opportunity to be, no. Never met anyone I’ve trusted enough to submit to, or that wanted to put in the effort to be a proper dominant.”

“Proper dominant?” Sherlock folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe across from me.

“Demanding undue respect, complete laziness with foreplay. A lot of guys just want an excuse to have rough non reciprocal sex. Which is fine occasionally, but does not a BDSM relationship make. Also I would say there’s a measure of imagination necessary.”

“It sounds like a lot of effort to put into an orgasm.” Sherlock looked at me, halfway between bored and skeptical.

“It might be.” I conceded with a shrug. 

Sherlock shook his head as if to snap out of a trance. “Well. As educational as this has all been, it’s time to get back to more important matters. I have a meeting with a big client at the end of this week, they can’t come to meet me, and I don’t want to hire a car. So I very much intend to buy one today and then you can drive me. How’s that?” He gave me his fake smile.

I threw up my hands. “Just tell me when.”

“Nine this morning. I’ll have a hired car waiting for us at 830. We’ll meet out front.”

I took the last half of my coffee off of the counter and headed toward the door.

“Don’t be late!” Sherlock called sternly as I was walking out. I stopped in the door and looked over my shoulder. 

“Yes, sir.” I told him with a wry smile and shut the door behind me.

********

I got dressed in gray slacks and a white cream silk button up, leaving my hair down and putting on a touch of makeup. Sherlock seemed to be fairly dressed for our appointment and I tried my best to match his energy, thought the aristocratic casual look that seemed to come to him easily felt elusive to me. I called to schedule movers on Wednesday to finish bringing the rest of my items to 221C and as I took a moment to casually browse social media I received a text message.

“How was the first night at your new place?” It was John. 

“It was interesting. Apparently a new part of my job description is cook and maid.”

“Are you serious? Let me talk to him about it.”

“No!” I texted quickly, followed with, “It’s fine, he’s paying me, so whatever. Also he’s buying a car today.”

There was a brief pause and then, “Sherlock is buying a car?”

“For me to drive him places, yes.”

“I think I need to have a discussion with Sherlock. This is far too much for you to do.”

“Please, no. It’s fine. I’m being compensated. I honestly don’t mind.”

“Maybe we should get together and talk soon.” John wrote back finally.

“Actually, are you available on Wednesday? I have the movers coming and it would be nice to have a male presence there.”

“Absolutely, and I’ll get a sitter so you don’t have to worry about watching Rosie.”

I smiled to myself thinking about the little sprite. “I don’t mind watching her but it’s probably better she stays behind this time.”

I looked at the time. 8:27 AM. Shit.

I grabbed my jacket and threw it on, grabbing my bag and running downstairs.

By the time I got outside Sherlock was already there.

“You’re late.” He didn’t look at me as I came to stand next to him near the curb.

“Not.” I argued, my phone dinging in my hand. I looked down and saw a text from John.

“Rosie keeps asking me to play The Beatles constantly, by the way. I was ambivalent about them before but I’ve grown to despise them in the last 24 hours.”

I snorted and Sherlock’s hand lunged for my phone.

My reflexes quicker than his for once, I pulled the phone away and hit the screen off button, putting it in my jacket pocket.

“What the hell?” I asked, glaring. 

“Why are you texting with John?” He asked me, irritated. 

“He’s helping me finish moving on Wednesday.”

“That wasn’t about moving.” Sherlock snorted.

“We were talking about Rosie’s new affinity for The Beatles.” I told him.

“I didn’t tell you you could fraternize with my friends.” He stated.

“I don’t think my friendly interactions are within the scope of your bossing.” 

“I think it’s inappropriate-”

“And I think it’s inappropriate that you think it’s inappropriate!” I stepped back, facing him fully and yelling at him with my hands shoved deep in my jacket pockets. He took a step forward, reaching out his hand toward me and a black car pulled up along the curb suddenly. Our cab. 

I stepped in front of Sherlock to open my door and he body checked me, opening the door for me instead. 

“Oh my god.” I muttered through gritted teeth and slammed myself into the back seat. He slammed the door closed and practically ran around the back of the car, yanking the door open and slamming it shut behind him as he sat next to me.

The car left the curb and I turned to face Sherlock, opening my mouth angrily to lay into him when suddenly he had me pinned against the corner of the backseat and my door, one of his hands on the door and his other arm right next to my head near the headrest. His face was very close to mine, a vein I hadn’t noticed in his forehead before raised on his flushed face.

“After this appointment you will meet me in 221B-2 and we will discuss your public insolence.” His voice was low and his speech slurred by clenched teeth.

“Public insolence?” I asked, my voice a whisper as I became aware of the proximity of my breath to his face. I wanted to maintain my defiant nature but I felt my righteous anger being overtaken by fear. Fear and-slash-or something else entirely. The knit of my brow loosened slightly and I forced my lips to stay closed, told myself to keep my eye-line above the bridge of his nose. Look at his eyebrows. Look at his eyes, electric with rage. Look at the tiny veins in his sclera. Do not, and I repeat, do not look at his lips.

My body just as defiant to my brain as my brain was to Sherlock, my eyes dropped to his lips. I spent a lot of my time in Sherlock’s vicinity actively ignoring what I felt to be the most fascinating lips I had ever seen on a man.

My momentary indiscretion started a chain reaction of biological imperative, as my nostrils flared and took in additional olfactory information, becoming aware of soap, shampoo, shaving cream, deodorant, tobacco, leather, books, man. The unmistakable smell of a man. Sherlock smelled far too human to me, all of a sudden. 

My hands, previously balled in fists against the seat of the car, loosened and flattened against the sides of my thighs. I moved backward slightly and forced my eyes back up to Sherlock’s, even though that suddenly seemed like the more dangerous option.

It had been mere seconds since he had, let’s face it, pounced on me, looking into my eyes like he wanted to throw me into a fire. Surely he didn’t also sense the way time had entered quantum spacing. To him he was still angrily reprimanding his foolish and disobedient new employee, who squirmed awkwardly beneath the power of his size and anger. He couldn’t know that I wasn’t able to breathe, blink, or think. That my brain had become a pastiche of impressionistic replays of every sexual encounter I had ever had in my life, that I was hearing my own heart like a throbbing bassline in a dark club and that at that moment I would have sold my soul just to feel a piece of him penetrate me for half a second.

Surely, even he wasn’t that observant.

My eyes locked on his and I knew he knew. His brow twitched backward almost imperceptible and he looked at me with a question in his eyes and on his mouth. His lips parted and that was his question. I inhaled through my nose, and that was my answer. 

I saw a flash of amusement on his face and his lips quirked into a smirk for a moment, until his expression became more of a “Really?”, a mask of disbelief.

“I…” My mouth opened and voice attempted to escape. I wanted to try and defend myself. If I could pull out of this tailspin, I would gain the upper hand. He was knocked askew, as I was, and if I took the win now, we would both be back on solid ground, but I would have the winning hand of full knowledge and acceptance of my own carnal desires and he would be the one still fumbling in denial.

But maybe I wasn’t as smart as he was. If my mind were more powerful, I would be able to ignore the heat of his body radiating onto mine even through the layers of both of our clothes.

I was thinking too slowly. I was reacting too slowly.

But the counterpoint to that is he was reacting more slowly than I expected. It was almost as if he was having the same power struggle. 

“Yes. Sir.” I whispered, finally, swallowing dryly. 

Suddenly I had knocked us both through Door Number Three. 

Sherlock made a pained noise before moving his hand off of the door. He held it up and to the side of my face for a moment, flexing his fingers once before it struck like a cobra, grabbing my lower jaw and forcing my head upward slightly. My lips were forced forward and open slightly as I gasped, peering at him from over the bridge of my nose.

“That’s better.” He murmured, his breathing fast.

And with that he released me and withdrew from me completely.

I wanted to collapse forward and catch my breath, but instead I gripped the fabric of my slacks and looked out the window, blinking back tears of intense frustration and I tried to orientate myself not only as to where we were going, back where I was in the universe.

For the rest of the car ride I could not bring myself to look at Sherlock, but I could tell from the faint reflection in the glass of the car window that he did not turn to look at me once.

He could tell, I assumed, that I did not look at him either. We were in a stalemate, but now the stakes were higher than before. 

********

Chapter Text

If he's a serial killer, then what's the worst
That could happen to a girl who's already hurt?
I'm already hurt
If he's as bad as they say, then I guess I'm cursed
Looking into his eyes, I think he's already hurt
He’s already hurt

-"Happiness is a butterfly" Lana Del Rey

The thing about me is, I love cars. I like the way they look, the way they smell, I love to drive them. I love to look at them. 

But this, this was torture. Something that should have been immensely enjoyable to me, helping my boss choose the luxury vehicle I would have full access to, should have had my complete attention. Instead, I turned my brain off, dissociating as I watched Sherlock ask the idiot salesman questions about whatever and Sherlock tried the passenger and back seats of probably a dozen different vehicles as I made useless silent observations.

“Delilah.” I heard Sherlock snap at me and tore my eyes away from the shiny silver flank of the Mercedes sedan next to the car Sherlock was talking to the guy about. He walked around the car and handed me a black key fob. I took it and looked at Sherlock quizzically.

“What is wrong with you?” He asked, more annoyed than concerned. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you drive my new car after all.”

I looked at the car and then Sherlock. ”Oh. Oh! What, already?”

“Yes, they give them to you very quickly when you can pay in cash.” He said, smugly. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to look at the time. Unread message from John Watson, and we had been at the dealership over two hours.

“Why is he texting you again?”

“Probably about Wednesday, I don’t know.” I looked at the car, the latest model V8 Mercedes, beautiful shiny black. “Well, damn, Sherlock, you don’t mess around.”

“Yes, yes, it’s very pretty and expensive. Let’s go home, I have to talk to you about something.”

I walked around and got into the driver’s seat as Sherlock sat in the passenger seat. I took a moment to adjust my mirrors and seat, Sherlock sighing beside me. I glared at him and pushed the button to start it. I couldn’t help it- I giggled as it purred to life. I started messing with the infotainment system.

“Can we please leave?” Sherlock asked by way of demand. 

“Sh.” I shushed him and paired my phone. “Just let me do this- please.” I looked over at him. He rolled his eyes.

“Fine. I’m just glad you’re suddenly back to normal.”

I smiled at him and hit play on “The Hills” by the Weeknd. Great song, epic bass line.

“Jesus Christ.” Sherlock mumbled as the entire car vibrated and I cackled.

I used the fuck out of all 500+ horses as I zipped through London, doing my best to remember how to get back to Baker Street.

“God it’s been so long since I drove a car!”

“You don’t always drive like this, do you?” Sherlock asked, gripping the door.

“No, of course not. I’m an excellent driver.” 

“Sure thing, Rainman. Try not to get pulled over, please.”

“Okay, okay.” 

We were about to hit traffic anyway. I turned down the stereo has we slowed to a crawl. 

“Dammit…” I hissed. “Hey, what did you want to talk about?”

“We can wait until we get back to Baker Street.”

“We are in standstill traffic.”

He hesitated for a moment. “Fiiine” He sighed. “I want you to come with me on Friday.”

“Your new case?” He nodded. “Why do you want me to come?”

“One of the services I always appreciated that John provided was excellent observation of my process. I enjoyed reading myself through his eyes.”

I nodded. “That doesn’t seem narcissistic at all.”

Sherlock gave me a dirty look but I saw a hint of a smirk at the corner of his lip. 

“Okay, so can you tell me anything about this case?

“It’s an art theft case.”

“That doesn’t seem like your type of case, exactly.”

“It’s not, exactly. This one is different. It involves forty years of art thefts and a missing heir.”

I frowned with interest. “That’s a bit more intriguing.”

“It’s in California.”

I switched lanes and snaked around a couple slow moving vehicles, glancing at Sherlock. 

“Seriously?”

“Why would I joke about that?”

“You want me to come to California with you?”

“You used to live there, right?”

“Live is not exactly the word I would use to describe my time in California, but sure. What part of California?”

“Just outside of Los Angeles.”

I pushed a light, the back wheels spinning as I damn near drifted the corner.

“ Christ .” Sherlock mumbled again.

“I will come with you.” I told him.

“It wasn’t a request.” He responded.

We pulled up outside of 221B. “Wait…where is my bike?”

“You don’t need it anymore. You have the car.”

“No, that is not what we agreed on.”

Sherlock jumped out of the car and I pursued him. He practically ran inside, and I followed after him, slamming the door shut.

“Stop walking away from me! What did you do with my bike?”

He walked into his flat and swung the door behind him but caught it with my shoulder and went in after him.

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock was ripping off his suit jacket and loosening his tie “I told you I didn’t want you to ride it anymore.”

I pulled off my own jacket, throwing it onto the couch. I felt very hot and sweaty suddenly.

“Just because you have a preference does not mean everyone around you must capitulate. What did you do with it?”

“I sold it.” He turned toward me, hissing, pulling his tie off and putting it on top of his jacket on the coffee table. 

I gasped, my eyes wide. “You sold my bike?” I asked, my voice softening.

Sherlock was walking toward the window and stopped, turning toward me at the sound of my voice. “I will give you the money raised, obviously.”

I felt my eyes well with tears, but not the angry kind. 

“I can’t believe you did that.” 

Sherlock looked stricken. “I…I didn’t realize it held…sentimental value.” He stammered. 

I felt my bottom lip quiver and grabbed my coat, turning to leave.

“No, wait, wait!” Sherlock caught up with me as I opened the door and grabbed my arm, pulling me backward and shutting the door. He turned me forcefully toward him and taking me by the shoulders, stooping slightly to look me in the eyes. I felt a tear escape my right eye and streak down my cheek behind my glasses. I looked down as a black tear fell on my silk shirt.

“Delilah.” He looked down at his feet and then back up at me. He sighed. “I didn’t actually sell it. It’s in storage.”

My wet eyes snapped up to look at his face; he was looking at mine but anywhere except my eyes. 

“What?” I asked in a small voice.

“I didn’t know you would get…emotional about it.” Sherlock wrinkled his nose.

“You motherfucker.” I shook myself loose of his grasp and shoved him hard in the chest. He stumbled backward a pace or two. I wanted to be angry with him but at this moment I was mostly relieved my bike wasn’t gone. 

My hands flexed a couple times as I stood looking at him, my hands registering the feeling of his chest on my palms only too late. I wanted to hit him again, just so that I could touch him again.

Sherlock turned his head to the side, looking at me predominantly with his left eye, sizing me up like prey. As much as I had tried to distract myself at the car dealer and on the drive home, the memory of him pinning me in the back of the cab was foremost in my mind. And it was crazy, because all it took to leave that indelible mark on my psyche and libido was proximity. He hadn’t kissed me, hadn’t even touched me really. 

Except the part where he manhandled your face. Said some inner voice.

I spun around and reached for the doorknob again, but his hand wrapped around mine before I could turn it. His left arm overlapped mine and he was very close behind me. 

He stepped closer then, and I felt his body against my back. He stepped forward again, slowly, and I put my right hand up against the wall as he pressed me against the wall beside the door. 

He prised my left hand off of the doorknob and placed it against the wall. He had had both his hands on top of both of mine, pressing me against the wall with his body.

 I looked backward at him out of the corner of my right eye. He took his left arm away from mine and ran it up my arm over my shoulder and up the back of my neck, running his fingers through the hair on the back of my neck and then balling his fist into my hair, pulling back firmly, leaning back and as my head fell backward toward him, his hips keeping mine pressed against the wall. 

My back was bent at an uncomfortable but not painful angle. My lips fell open as he stretched my neck back. My breath came out of my mouth hot and quick as Sherlock’s face came close to mine, his eyes running over my face. His mouth parted but he didn’t lean in to kiss me. It was like he was breathing in my air.

He studied my face for a long moment and I felt his member twitch against my ass. His face was smug as I waited helplessly as he decided what to do with me next.

In the next moment he released me, removing his hands from my hair and his body from mine.

“Sherlock…” I moaned. I pulled myself off of the wall as he stepped back and watched me turn around, dazed and my hair messed up as I stood awkwardly. 

He smirked and walked over to the window, looking outside and not at me, and I turned around a left 221B-2, slamming the door behind me.

********

I entered my flat and latched the door locked behind me. I started pacing back and force. What was his game? What was his deal? 

I knew he was not unaffected by our…one couldn’t even call them flirtations. I felt obvious physical evidence that at least physiologically he was responding to our shared proximity, breath, pheromones.

He was testing my boundaries. Testing to see what he could get away with. What I would allow him to do. Testing himself, trying to figure out how far toward the edge he could push us both before something fell and broke. 

He was experimenting. I had to admit, it was a bit fair play. He had told me he was in an experimental phase and I had encouraged him to expand the scope of his experiment. It didn’t seem like he was testing out our dueling hypotheses. I wasn’t really sure what the thesis was.

Or maybe it wasn’t about experimentation. Maybe it was simply about power at this point.

I sat down at the piano and opened it up. I decided to play something as potentially obnoxious as possible. I settled on “Orage” by Franz LIszt and played it as aggressively as I could, adding extra dissonant notes where applicable. After that I moved into an obnoxious rendition of Mozart’s Turkish March.

I waited for the broomstick to come but it didn’t, even as I finished the piece. Even more annoyed, I stood up and stomped into the bathroom, stripping off my clothes as I went and hopping into the shower before it even warmed up. 

********

I was laying naked on my back in bed sometime later, having calmed myself down with a cold shower and an extended masturbatory session.

 I was rereading my taped-together one hundred-year-old copy of Jude the Obscure when I heard the phone buzz against my nightstand. I rolled over and grabbed it off the nightstand. There were two new messages- I had forgotten John’s update about Wednesday.

The other was Sherlock:

SH: What is for dinner?

DP: Eat leftovers.

SH: I don’t do leftovers.

DP: Order something.

SH: That’s not what I pay you for.

I rolled over and buried my face in my pillow, screaming.

SH: I heard that.

DP: It’s not even 4 pm yet.

SH: I like to know ahead of time.

DP: I’ll be down to look in a minute.

SH: You can come down naked.

I narrowed my eyes at my phone, my eyes darting around my room in paranoid fashion. I shook my head. There’s no way that was anything except an educated guess.

There was also no way he thought I would do it. I didn’t think.

Although, I knew he was trying to outthink me also. He knew that I was more beholden to my libido than he was. He knew I was turned on by our games. But I knew he was. Well, physically, at least. Sherlock seemed to have an uncanny ability to separate his physical reactions from his mental ones. Key word was seemed, but if it was an act it was an extremely convincing one.

My options:

Come downstairs fully clothed. Be perceived as defiant. Possibly chicken.

Come downstairs partially clothed. Desperate.

Come downstairs naked. At first seems like the power move, more likely will be perceived as desperate and compliant. 

Refuse to come downstairs. In fact, leave London altogether and fly back to California, or possibly the Midwest and disappear forever.

Speaking of flying to the US- Sherlock said we would be going to California on Friday. Shit. I hadn’t even thought about the proximity to the weekend.

“Hey, I need to make sure that I’m back before Sunday morning.” I texted him.

“Why are you texting me? We can talk about this face to face when you come downstairs. Naked or otherwise. I don’t care at this point.”

I rolled my eyes. Hadn’t thought of the fourth option- simply wait the game out until Sherlock became bored of it.

I hopped out of bed and pulled on some cotton boxer shorts, a Pink Floyd tee shirt, and my favorite UCLA sweatshirt and padded downstairs, barefoot and my hair still wet.

I opened the door and Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. Suited me. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, trying to decide what to make for dinner that night. 

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Sherlock appeared over me as if by teleportation.

“You’re clothed.” He remarked. I shrieked into the refrigerator and stood up, slamming the door shut. “And jumpy.” He bitched, digging a finger into his ear to indicate I had deafened him

“Stop sneaking up on me!” I sighed, opening the refrigerator for a moment before closing it again. “You’re getting pasta tonight.”

“We. We are both having pasta tonight. Upstairs.”

I sighed. “Haven’t you had enough fun at my expense for one day?”

“No. You continue to amuse me.” He pulled out a kitchen chair and spun it around, sitting straddling the back of it. “Also, we will most likely not be back by Sunday. I was planning on staying for two weeks, less if I solve the case faster.”

“Sherlock, you know I have to be there for my Dad on Sunday mornings.”

“Why?” He asked snappily, looking up at me with arms crossed. “Why do you have to be there for him?”

I blanked for a moment. “Because…he gets very upset if I’m not.”

“So?” Sherlock asked impatiently.

“So then the staff gets upset because he gets violent.”

“That is what haloperidol is for.”

“That just seems wrong. Drug him into compliance when all he needs is for me to be there.”

“ I need you. With me .”

“He’s my Dad, Sherlock.” I was trying to convince myself at this point.

“Delilah, think back across the decades of your life. You spent the majority of your youth parentified and taking care of your father and his children. Now you’re taking care of him again. The only time in your life you haven’t felt responsible for the man is the five years you spent addling your mind with drugs trying to forget how guilty you felt for not taking care of everything. Just stop. You’re not responsible for your father, or his life, or his happiness. He was supposed to be responsible for those things for you . And he failed you on every front.”

I felt like I was going to collapse and I walked blindly to the kitchen table, pulling out a chair and sitting in it, slumping backward and looking at Sherlock.

“Shit, you’re right. I know you’re right.” I furrowed my brow. “Kind of hurts to hear, honestly.”

“I’m not trying to be hurtful.” Sherlock huffed.

I reached out my hand and placed it on his forearm. “No, no. You’re not being hurtful. The truth hurts. That’s not your fault.” I said absentmindedly. I looked Sherlock in the eye.

“Who the fuck am I supposed to be if I’m not feeling guilty constantly for not doing enough? How am I supposed to live free of that?”

I dropped my hand into my lap and Sherlock sat up in the chair. He reached over and took my left hand in his, looking me gently in the eye.

“You can be my helpmeet, coming to California and helping me with my case. Also making me pasta tonight.”

I threw my head back laughing, and Sherlock laughed too, relieved that his levity had landed right.

“Yes, I should reassign my sense of duty to you, instead.”

“Well.” He said, squeezing my hand and then letting it go. “I am the one who’s paying you, after all.”

********

Come 5:30 PM I was finishing dinner and Sherlock texted me from wherever he had gone to let me know that he would not be back to Baker Street any time soon. That was fine with me, I needed a little bit of space and quiet anyway, so I took my dinner upstairs and ate it in bed while I watched a movie. 

On Tuesday, Sherlock still wasn’t back home. I took the opportunity to spend the day cleaning and organizing 221B-2.

********

On Wednesday morning I drove to meet John at my old apartment one final time.

I pulled Sherlock’s Mercedes into the parking lot and observed John hanging by the back door, hands in his pockets. He looked up briefly as I pulled the car into a spot; the AMG exhaust was fairly audible- it was one of my more favorite things about the vehicle, besides the incredible sound system.

John did a double take as I got out of the car, beeping it locked behind me.

“What happened to the bike?” He called to me as I walked across the lot to him.

“Sherlock hid it.” I responded. “This is his car.”

“He wasn’t messing around when he said he wanted to buy one, I guess.” John followed me into the building and to the lift. I tucked myself against the back wall, looking down at a scuff on my Docs.

“How is everything going?” John asked hesitantly. “Sherlock had been talking about going to California for a case, something about decades of thefts. I haven’t spoken to him since I told him I couldn’t be away from Rosie for a month.”

My head shot up. ”A month?”

John looked at me in surprise at my reaction as we exited the lift on my floor. 

I sighed and we walked to my front door. I unlocked it and let him into the mostly empty flat.

“Movers should be here soon.” I told him and started gathering last minute items. I walked into my old bedroom and started pulling things out of the closet. “I’m going with him.”

I called to John from the closet. In a moment John was standing at the door.

“You’re going to California with Sherlock for a month?”

“Well, he told me it would be two weeks or less.”

“What about your Dad?” 

I glared at John, taking a handful of old coats and throwing them onto the bed. “What about him? And how do you know about my Dad?”

John shifted uncomfortably. “Sherlock may have filled me in on some of the details of your arrangement when he was trying to guilt me into coming with him.”

“It’s always nice to be a second option.” I muttered. “Granted you would probably be much more help to him investigation wise. I get the feeling I will be there as a driver and personal chef only.” I saw a large box on the top shelf of the closet and stood tiptoe to reach it. 

“Hey can you reach this?” I asked John, exasperated.

He chuckled. “Now there’s a request I don’t get that often, unless it comes from a preschooler.”

“Well, you’ve got like six inches on me so gloat away, I guess.” I stepped back and let him try at the box. He looked determined to reach what I could not but still had to hop a little to grab it. He pulled it down and handed it to me promptly sneezing.

“Bless you.” I told him and turned the box on its side. “Oh my god…” I murmured.

“What is it?” John asked, sniffling.

“It’s my telescope.” I smiled. “I actually thought this had gotten lost in the move here, I didn’t know the movers had stuck it back there. My 100 level astronomy teacher gifted it to me when I graduated with my Astrophysics degree.” I pulled the canvas carrying case out of the cardboard box. “I wish I had some place to set this up.” 

“You could try the roof, at Baker’s Street.” John suggested.

“That’s a great idea.” I smiled.

John chuckled to himself and I looked up at him quizzically. “What?”

“Your astrophysics degree. Sherlock tried to convince me not to hire you because he has such a distaste for space related sciences. Absolutely pointless to him.”

I burst out laughing. “You’re kidding me. Space is pointless? The questions of the origins of existence?”

John sat on the edge of the bed and shrugged. “Unnecessary details in his Mind Palace.”

“Oh yeah, the Mind Palace. I appreciated your write up about that on your blog. It was…poetic.”

John looked chuffed. “Poetic? Really?”

“Well, yeah. I really enjoyed your blog. The pictures you paint with your words are vivid and original. Do you still write at all? I hope?” I started shoving leftover things into a box, willing this process to be over already. The last dregs of moving are always the most mentally taxing.

“Actually, I do. I don’t publish it. At least not much of it. Sometimes I write things anonymously, post thoughts on Twitter, that sort of thing.”

There was a loud knock on the door and I trotted to open it. It was the movers and I instructed them with the rest of my items, rushing to box up the rest of it, trying to stay out of he two men’s way. I was glad John had come to chaperone me because one of the men did make me a little…nervous. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. He didn’t seem threatening, but he seemed to be…observing me. 

********

Two hours later the movers had come and gone from my old apartment to my new, John had gone home, and I was left alone to try and make my new apartment a home. 

Two hours of that and I wanted to pull my hair out by the ends.

I paced the floor.

I played the piano.

********

At 4:00 PM I ordered myself an entire pizza and ate it on the floor while I read a paper one of my former professors had just published, hoping none of the research would preclude my dissertation defense before my appointment in two months. Luckily, it did not.

********

Much later that night, around nine pm it was finally dark enough to haul my telescope to the roof and set it up. I put my sights on Venus, which that night was positioned in the Sagittarius constellation. I remained mildly interested in astronomy, but it was the physics of the farther reaches of the universe that kept me engaged enough to complete my degree. Since leaving the field, there had been a number of observations and discoveries that I was envious to be a part of, but that segment of my life was long gone. It had been less than a decade since I had graduated but it seemed like a couple lifetimes. 

“So, you really did move in.”

My blood ran cold and I snapped from my bending position, spinning around, my hand moving toward my abdomen, inches away from the gun I kept on me in the interior pocket of my leather jacket.

“Don’t reach any further, Ms. Patrick.” 

I didn’t recognize the man in front of me one bit. He was tall, probably twenty years older than me, dressed in a three-piece suit with an umbrella in his right hand, its pointed end balanced against the man’s right shoe.

I became aware of the distance between me and the man and the edge of the roof. Trying not to cast my eyes away from the man, I calculated every escape permutation.

“Am I supposed to know who you are?” I asked tersely.

“No, not at all.” He smiled in a manner that was probably supposed to be threatening. “So, you live with Sherlock Holmes?”

“I definitely wouldn’t classify it that way.” I answered. “More like a closely located employee. Are you a friend of his or something?”

“I wouldn’t classify our relationship that way.” He said with a smirk, echoing my reply.

“Well, can I help you with something?”

“You’re an employee? You’re not an additional part of this recent…sex fascination that he’s been having.”

I snorted. “Decidedly not.”

He narrowed his eyes and raised his head. “But you would like to be.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself before opening my eyes wider. “Oh my god, you’re his brother.”

It was the man’s turn to look mildly surprised. “He told you he had a brother?”

“No. But there’s no way you guys aren’t related.” I took a couple steps closer, and the man stiffened, looking put out by my sudden examination of him. “God, how did I not notice right away?” I narrowed my eyes. “Six years older.”

“Eight.”

“The drug use.”

“...Probably.”

“You’re worried about him. Checking up on me.” I crossed my arms. “You don’t look like law enforcement, but I could be wrong, I don’t have a lot of experience with British cops.”

He sneered at me. “I am most certainly not a cop.”

“Government. So, you know everything about me. Facts wise. You wanted to get a sense of me…personally?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not here to ask you about your hopes and dreams and favorite color. I need to make sure you are not a danger to Sherlock’s sobriety. Or any other part of him, for that matter.”

“Me, dangerous? To him?” I laughed. “Not hardly. I’m simply a disposable commodity.”

“A commodity he is taking out of the country for a month?”

“Why does everyone know it’s going to be a month except for me ?” I complained to myself. The man tipped his head in annoyed confusion. “Honestly, I’m pretty much a driver and a cook at this point.”

“Those seem to be rather mundane positions for a woman with three degrees and her name on a dozen published papers about physics and recently, chemistry? You will be getting your doctorate in biochemistry in two months, correct?”

I wondered how he knew that. Must have interviewed the committee or something. “Assuming I am successful in my defense, yes.” I said slowly.

“I read your paper. Given that you have successfully defended two theses already, I don’t doubt you will be able to defend a paper like this. It’s almost…revolutionary.”

“I get the feeling you’re not trying to flatter me.”

“No, not at all. I am illustrating in plain English how odd it is that someone of your intellectual caliber has chosen to fill her time with…well, all of the things you have chosen to fill it with, historically and currently.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Sherlock’s Older Brother.” I smiled to myself at the acronym I had just created, and the man had such a grimace on his face at my satisfied expression that I knew he had to have realized it himself as well. “I guess I’m just not as wise as I am smart.”

His joyless smile reappeared on his face. “I don’t like the spots in your history. I don’t like the holes. In your story. Or your arms.”

I cast my gaze downward. I took a couple deep breaths, chewing the inside of my mouth. “I understand your hesitancy about me.” I said quietly. “I haven’t done my best with the gifts I’ve been given. I haven’t been…focused. I dealt with my demons in the worst way possible. And I don’t know how useful your brother will find me, ultimately. I know I can do the job I have hired to do. I can promise you, without reservation, Mr. Holmes, that I am no risk to your brother’s sobriety. I would never enable…or, or…encourage…” I shook my head, trying to find the words. “I could never forgive myself if I took someone else down the road that almost ended me. And I couldn’t fathom destroying a mind like Sherlock’s. I think I’ve destroyed enough potential for one lifetime, don’t you?”

“Maybe temporarily squandered, Ms. Patrick.” He straightened up and turned around, yanking open the roof access door. “I look forward to your next publication.”

********

Thursday morning I woke up suddenly, my eyes opening immediately, my heart racing. I felt unnerved, like I had just been awoken by a nightmare. As my eyes rested unfocused on the crown molding of my ceiling, I tried to remember what I was dreaming about before I woke up. 

All I could remember was dreaming about lying on the beach. Spread out like a starfish in the sand, facing a sky that was less blue than bright burning white. The sun sank into my skin hotly and it felt so real that when I woke up, I was shivering cold.

I picked up my phone. 6:00 AM. No messages. I wondered if Sherlock was planning on coming back ever. Hopefully Sherlock’s Older Brother wouldn’t blame me for anything that happened to him. He seemed like someone who could make me disappear.

Having already gone missing once in my life, I knew that I wouldn’t be missed.

I stretched languidly and stumbled into the bathroom. As I was staring at my ridiculous pile of frizzy brown hair and a brand new line across the width of my forehead, I heard quiet music drifting from somewhere outside. Piano music. Liebestraum No. 3 by Liszt.

The music got louder as I moved through my bedroom out of the bathroom, and I realized it was coming from my piano. 

It was probably Sherlock, I thought, but after the unexpected visitor last night, I couldn’t be sure. 

Luckily, I hadn’t installed my jacket and purse hanging hook in the front room yet, so my leather jacket was draped across my dresser. I reached into the interior pocket and pulled out my Glock, holding it behind my right leg and opening my door slowly, peering through a couple inch space. 

The music had stopped, and no one was sitting on the bench. No one on my couch. I couldn’t see the dining table from my angle, so I opened the door wider and peered around. Nobody. I came entirely out of my room, still holding the gun down by my thigh and looked behind the door. 

What the hell? Was I hallucinating?

“A gun?”

I shrieked and spun around, jumping backward. 

“Sherlock! What the fuck, did you just teleport in here or something?” He smirked at me as I stomped back into my bedroom, shoving my gun back into my jacket and stomping back into the front room, where Sherlock was again sitting at the piano and playing Beethoven this time. At least I thought it was. I couldn’t quite place the tune.

“Is that a licensed firearm?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow at me.

“You know it’s not. What have you been up to? Still planning on going to California?” I walked over and sat next to Sherlock on the bench, forcing him aside on the bench with my ass. As my legs hit the cold bench I realized I wasn’t wearing any bottoms, just a heather gray Oxford tee shirt and pink polka dot knickers. I shrugged internally and started contributing to whatever it was Sherlock was playing.

“What are you doing?” He asked, feigning annoyance as I played a few keys in the upper range. “Also, yes, still going to California. I was wrapping up another case in the meantime. Thought it was murder, faked death for insurance money, very boring.”

“Well, you saw what I’ve been up to. Cleaned downstairs. John helped me finish moving in yesterday.”

“Yes, John has been extremely helpful, hasn’t he?” I looked over at Sherlock, but his expression was impassive. 

“I met your brother.” I said, not taking my eyes off of him. He stopped playing, the last chord ringing through the air. 

“Oh?” He asked, mask still intact. “Did he take you to his secret lair?”

“What? No.” I plunked an E key gently a couple times. “He found me on the roof.”

“Why were you on the roof?”

“Found my telescope.” I smiled at Sherlock. He raised an eyebrow. 

“Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

“ What? Again, no. What kind of relationship do you two- never mind. No, actually, he just let me know he doesn’t like the cut of my jib.”

“He said ‘jib’?”

“Not in so many words, no. But he definitely doesn’t trust me. Read my dissertation, though. Have you?”

“Yes, of course. I thought it was brilliant.” He said quietly and quickly, standing up from the piano bench. “Hold on, did he introduce himself as my brother?”

“Well, no, but you guys are like the same person from two different universes, it was easy to make the connection.”

Sherlock snorted and paced back toward me. “The same person? Are you insane?” He curled his lip at me.

“You see, that facial expression alone is a sure sign of shared DNA.” I put my hands up in an innocent shrug and smiled sweetly at Sherlock. He continued to look put out by the comparison but I just stared at him fondly until finally he sneered at me.

“What?” He hissed.

“I’m glad you’re back. I was bored without you.” I told him, running my hands softly over the piano keys and playing a simple sonata.

He stopped in his tracks and his facial expression shifted to one of surprise and confusion but when he spoke it was with the same annoyed tone.

“Why? It sounds like you had all sorts of company and distraction while I was gone.”

“Distraction. Yes, I suppose.” I looked down over the keys as I played them, swaying softly as I was apt to do.

“Would you stop that?” Sherlock grumbled, though he appeared to be forcing a small smile away from his lips.

“Why? Do you have a request?”

“Yes. That you stop playing.” I ran my hand over the keys from high to low and then slammed the piano shut. “Fiiiine.” I sighed exaggeratedly. 

I stood up and brushed past Sherlock to get to the front door.

“Where are you going?” 

“Gonna get some coffee! I’ve just woken up, after all. So where were you, anyway?” Sherlock followed me as I plodded downstairs to 221B-2 and the precious coffee machine.

“I told you, I was working on a case.”

“I know you were, I was just curious what kept you away from home for days. You don’t have to tell me, I was just…curious.” I opened 221B-2 and walked into the kitchen, Sherlock following behind. “Are you still planning to head to California?”

“If you mean are we both still going to California, then yes, I am.”

I retrieved the coffee filters from the cupboard, standing on my tiptoes. Sherlock stepped beside me, placing a hand at the small of my back and grabbed them from my reach just as my fingers touched them.

I didn’t want to grumble at him since he was technically being helpful. I looked up at him and held my hand out to receive the filters. He had a devious glint in his eye and a smile played upon his lips. He was up to something.

“What?” I asked him suspiciously. His smirk grew wider and his eyes bounced over my face. His face came closer to mine, as he tucked the filters behind his back. His left hand remained on my back, moving to my right hip as he slunk around in front of me.

“What are you up to?” I asked, a little turned on but mostly annoyed by lack of caffeine and this frequent game of getting me riled up and then leaving me to my own devices.

“What makes you think I’m…up to something?” His voice became very low and sensuous, his face coming close to mine. My eyes narrowed in suspicion and I opened my mouth to say something when I was interrupted by John Watson’s voice calling out from the front room and getting closer.

“Sherlock, I don’t know why I have to come all the way here just to tell you again that I am not leaving my daughter for a mon– Oh. Ohhh my gosh.”

As I turned toward the sudden interruption, Sherlock took the opportunity to reach his hand lower and grab my right ass cheek, knocking me off balance and pulling me toward him, casting one final smirk at me before we both looked at John, who at first averted his gaze and then, as he saw my face, did a rapid double take.

“Del. Del…and Sherlock.”

“Hi, John.” I glared at Sherlock and dug the heel of my right foot into his left instep. He yelped and released my ass and I elbowed him in the stomach.

“Yes, hello, John.” Sherlock bent over slightly, grabbing his stomach with a groaning voice.

“I don’t mean to…interrupt…Sherlock asked me to come by and…I’m sorry it’s hard to talk to you when you’re not wearing any trousers.”

“That’s fine, I’ll go finished getting dressed and leave you two to chat.” I smiled gamely and walked past John, slapping him on the side of the arm as I stomped past him. Sherlock trotted after me, following me as I left the apartment.

“Come now, Delilah, there’s no reason to be cross, I had no idea that would all culminate in such a perfectly timed manner.”

I tried to slam the door shut on him but he was too quick and shouldered his way in, grinning.

“Maybe not precisely like that. You set it up, though, you psychopath.”

A grin that didn’t reach his eyes spread across his face. “High functioning sociopath, actually-”

“Oh shut up .” I hissed, walking into my bedroom and ripping off my shirt and throwing it on my bed as I tried to locate the bra I had discarded the previous night. I turned around and shoved Sherlock in the chest with my pointer finger. 

“You’re not either thing, you’re an idiot .”

Sherlock reddened and snickered at me unkindly. “You are calling me an idiot?” 

He looked down at my bare chest and then back up at my face, his eyes blinking once more than they needed to but he maintained his angry facial expression to an admirable degree.

“I’m sorry, are my breasts distracting you?” I seethed at him through gritted teeth and pushed past him, finding my bra on one of the kitchen chairs and slipping it on, clipping it in the back and adjusting myself, stomping back into my bedroom and crawling across my bed to get to the pajama pants thrown across the foot of the bed. I grabbed them and as I was moving backward off of the bed I felt a hand grab the back of my neck, and Sherlock pressed into me from behind. It would have been extremely compromising if he had ever once made good on any of his threats-slash-promises, but as it was I was just thoroughly vexed and frustrated.

“Sherlock!” I growled and moved forward again to wrest from his grasp but his hand on the back of my neck tightened and his other hand grabbed my hip, pulling my ass against his clothed hips. 

“Stay.” He said sharply. I balled my fists into my duvet and glared back at him from over my shoulder. 

“Let. Me. Go.” I demanded through gritted teeth.

“I am not physically stopping you from leaving-not really. Yet you submit to my pressure. You follow my commands.” His hand raked forward from my neck to the base of my skull, threading into the hair at the back of my neck, which he then grabbed in a handful and pulled my head back firmly. I let out a surprised gasp, except it was also a trembling moan.

“You’re angry and frustrated and I haven’t even given you an incentive, and yet- you submit to me.”

“You’re my boss.” I gasped out, the angle my throat is bent backward at making it hard to talk or even breathe. “I have to.”

He laughed derisively. “Like you would ever submit to a man out of obligation of employment.” He released my hair and my head fell forward, my hair falling in a tangled mess of brown curls over my shoulders and draping onto the bed. As his right hand gripped my hip against his, his left trailed down my body away from my head, over my neck, his palm splaying out between my shoulder blades and traveling over my back, like he was maximizing the amount of skin he was claiming through touch alone. As his left hand neared my left hip I lurched forward, wresting myself from his grasp and onto the bed, turning over and sitting up to look at him.

I wanted to kill him. Sitting on my bed in my bra and panties I was at a tactical disadvantage, surely. My burning gaze landed on him and I observed his face before he had a chance to replace his mask of impassivity. There was a slight blush peeking out from under his collar and his eyes were heavy-lidded. His respirations were higher than usual and his eyes were a blue made darker by pupil dilation.

As he was testing his control of me, he was testing also his control of himself.

It wasn’t just about teasing me- although that still remained the primary endeavor. He seemed to be playing a game with himself as well. I thought back to the scant details he had given me about his sexual encounters. There were no games in those- they were a clear cut matter of boy meets partner, boy propositions partner, boy is ultimately left spent yet underwhelmed by transaction. He hadn’t had the misfortune- or pleasure- of delayed gratification.

As I made my deduction, my eyes locked onto his and his gaze refocused onto mine in that moment. His face went from aroused to devious, and then as his eyes were trained on mine, startled. I was not as good at hiding my innermost thoughts as he was, so he had to have seen the satisfaction I took from extrapolating his game.

I found myself at another flash decision point. Firstly, I had to decide what outcome was most important to me- power or sexual gratification. Sexual gratification would not ultimately preclude my possession of power in the situation, but I knew that sexual tension was a potent magnifier.

But it had also been a very, very long time since I had been intimate with another person. I knew the sex would be good between us because I had faith he could please me and I had faith also that I knew what could please him.

I grabbed my pajama pants and pulled them on clumsily, jumping out of bed and walking into my closet.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock asked me as I pulled on a tee shirt.

“I’m going downstairs to finish making coffee.” I said simply, devoid of any attitude or tone.

“I wasn’t finished with you.” He grabbed me by the arm before I could leave my bedroom.

“Aren’t you?” I told him, running my eyes from his hand on my arm to his face. Almost as if burned, he released my arm and let me walk out of the bedroom, following me as I walked to my front door.

I walked down the landing to 221B and opened Sherlock’s flat door, but he kept going, heading for the front door.

“Where are you going?” I called after him. 

“I’ll be back Friday morning. Six a.m. or we will miss our flight!” He warned me and slammed the front door behind him.

I rolled my eyes and walked back into Sherlock’s flat to finally get myself some coffee. I was a tad startled to see John sitting in the armchair across from Sherlock’s, as I had forgotten he was there momentarily.

“Howdy.” I said awkwardly, pausing a moment and then heading into the kitchen.

“So…” John called after me, watching my movements through the kitchen. “How’s it going?”

I looked up at him while pouring water into the machine. “Why don’t you tell me?” I said to him.

“It looks like you two have gotten…close.” He remarked, looking a mixture of amused and concerned.

“It does look that way doesn’t it? Per his machinations, I assure you.” I flip on the maker and plod into the front room, deciding to drape myself over Sherlock’s chair in a possessive manner I knew would annoy him. Would that he were there.

“Seriously, though.” He leaned forward slightly, meeting my eyes. “Is everything okay? Is he…crossing any lines?”

“It depends on what you mean by line.” I answered, running my hand through the end my tangled curls. "Tell me, John, were you aware of his recent…experimentation?”

“I’m assuming by the sexually charged nature of what I walked into you mean his ‘sexperiments’?”

I sit upright. “No, he’s not actually calling them that.”

John chuckled. “As far as I know, only I have been calling them that. But with Sherlock lately…who knows?”

“Guess who I met last night?”

“Has to be Mycroft.” John smirked.

“His name is Mycroft? What the hell is with this family’s names?”

John looked like he wanted to say something but decided not to. Instead, he just shrugged with an amused smile.

“I want to tell you something, John, but only because I’m worried it might affect Sherlock, and you’re his best friend. You know him best.” I started hesitantly.

“Maybe. But please, go ahead.”

“I’m a recovering heroin addict. Three years sober. That was part of the gap in my resume. I withheld the information because I didn’t think it would be relevant. But Mycroft has concerns about that, with Sherlock’s past addictions. I don’t blame him. Two addicts in close proximity is typically a bad idea.”

I saw John take a breath and swallow, his gaze down toward my bare feet.

“I know about it. Mycroft told me.”

“Oh.” I look down also. I nod. “Again, I wasn’t trying to lie it’s just…”

“You’d rather put it behind you.” He looked up at me, his bright blue eyes intense but his gaze felt reassuring. Like he saw me, truly, but still trusted me. “Sherlock is not the typical addict. Which isn’t to say that relapse isn’t possible…usually under extreme pressures. When Mrs. Hudson died and I had just moved out…we were worried. Myself, Mycroft, all his other friends. Instead he…focused on other things.”

“Do you think the sex is an addiction?” I asked.

John grimace. “I don’t think so, but I don’t live here anymore. It could be a problem. Have you seen it being a problem? I know you’ve only been here a very short time.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been gone, said it was for a case, for a couple days. Besides that…I mean, I live upstairs mostly, it’s possible he brings people here and I don’t know. I’m not sure. And John…” I open my mouth and close it again, not sure how to say what I’d like to communicate.

“Yes?” He asked, looking at me kindly. I took a moment to look at his face. From what I knew of humans and the typical trajectory of aging, I felt he had just as many laugh lines as he did worry lines. Decades full of pain and joy, and a lot of life still shining behind his eyes which so frequently shown with a shrewd kindness. I could see why Sherlock would look past the obvious wisdom and see more simplicity than existed. Though that characterization was from John’s earlier blogs. In the last decade and a half it very much seemed as though Sherlock had come to deeply respect John. For the most part. Sometimes Sherlock didn’t seem to respect anyone. Even himself.

I shook my head a little, realizing I was probably making John uncomfortable with what was surely a too-long stare. 

“I absolutely don’t deign to place myself above relapse. I’m no better than any other addict. That said, my rock bottom was death. I literally died. For almost ten minutes. They didn’t have to crack my chest, but-” I lifted up the left side of my shirt, and my bra just a little. Under my left breast was a scar, and another slightly lower and midline. Sherlock had most likely been staring at those and not my breasts when we were upstairs earlier.

“Pericardial window?” John asked.

I nodded. “At any rate, I know all addicts say this but-”

“You’re certain you’re done.”

“It sounds stupid to say.”

“Do you think you’ll be okay being around him? Not for his sake- for yours?”

I looked at John, frowning slightly. I hadn’t considered it. “I think so. I haven’t been tempted. Although if he started using, I guess I couldn’t predict how I’d deal with that.” 

We spent a moment in silence and then I jumped up to grab my coffee. “Would you like a cup?” I asked John.

“Please. Black.”

I prepared our cups and handed him his before sitting back into Sherlock’s armchair.

“Where did Sherlock go, by the way?” John asked. “He texted me this morning and told me to meet him after I dropped Rosie at daycare.”

I shrugged. “How is she? Still torturing you with the Beatles?”

John sighed at the ceiling dramatically. “Somehow she figured out that Yellow Submarine was also a movie. So now that is playing on the telly about six times a day.”

I grimaced and laughed. “It really could be worse.”

“I don’t know, could it?” He asked incredulously and then laughed again.

“I’m so sorry. Kind of.” I grinned coyly at him and gave him a wink. He chuckled, looking down at his coffee and then taking another drink.

“She’s been asking when she can come over and play the piano again.” He said quietly. “When Mrs. Hudson was alive, she used to let Rosie into her part of the upstairs to use the piano. And sometimes Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson would watch her if I had an appointment. Or a date.” 

He flinched when he said that, though I wasn’t sure why. 

“I know we didn’t really discuss that in your interview, but-”

“John, I would be happy to help however I can. If you guys ever come over, the piano is as good as yours. And eventually, when you get to know me better, know that I am truly trustworthy, I don’t mind…occasionally babysitting.” I laughed. “I don’t know if all kids are like her, but she was way less scary than I thought she’d be.”

“I’m sure at some point I’ll take you up on that.” John smiled at me. “And I do trust you.”

“Partly.” I correct him. “And that’s okay. She’s your world.”

John nodded. “She is. I never thought anything would pull me away from…certain parts of my life. Certain propensities. But my responsibility to her makes the decision easy. Which is part of what I was prepared to say to Sherlock when I came over but…he groped you and then left, so I suppose that won’t be necessary.” 

He lifted his cup to me, and I shook my head, lifting mine as well and we both drank a silent toast to Sherlock Holmes.

********

John didn’t hang around much after finishing his coffee. And Sherlock never came home for the evening. He didn’t answer when I texted him about dinner so I ordered myself something.

After I ate dinner, I packed for the week, as I was going to go on the assumption of a weeklong trip regardless of the constant threat of a month.

As I sat at the piano bench staring at my still foreign home, I wished I still had my bike. I decided that after we came back from California I would launch a campaign to try and figure out where Sherlock had hidden it.

I opened the piano and started playing, idly at first, then scales, then I transitioned to Chopin’s Nocturn Op.9 No 2.

As I began to play I heard a noise in the foyer. A voice. Two voices. Both male. 

I didn’t stop playing because I didn’t want whoever was in the foyer to know I had heard them.

I heard Sherlock’s flat door open and finally the voices were close enough that I could recognize one, especially as I rounded minute two in the piece I was playing and the notes became more spaced out.

Sherlock. Sherlock and a man downstairs. Loud. Laughing.

I listened and played. Couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they sounded rambunctious. Possibly drunk.

As my piece finished, I heard and felt a bang at my feet. I lifted my hands off the keys.

“WHAT?” I bellowed at the floor.

“Play something romantic!” Sherlock bellowed back, immediately followed by raucous laughter.

“Fuck off!” I yelled and started playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor.

The noise downstairs quieted for a couple minutes before I heard the tones change. 

It started with a couple low, spaced out moans.

Some yelling.

Some cursing. I could make out those words, at least.

Demanding tones from Sherlock.

A cry out.

They were sex noises. I knew they were. And I knew Sherlock was doing it all on the couch. The couch I would need to sanitize tomorrow.

He had gotten my attention- made sure I had heard him by banging on the ceiling. Made sure I knew he was having fun with someone. And then decided to have the loudest sex possible, nearly directly under me.

Oh my god, it was directly under me. It wasn’t the couch. It was the desk.

I moved on to Sonata No. 13. I would play Mozart sonatas until the loud fucking ceased.

Honestly, it would have been hot if it hadn’t been so obviously faked. Or at least…dramatized. Not by the other man, he seemed to be legitimately enjoying himself. But Sherlock was making a ridiculous amount of contrived noise. Maybe that’s what he sounded like in the throes. But I rather thought not.

Eventually all got quiet for a couple minutes and I considered ceasing my playing until I heard Sherlock’s flat door slam. Fast footsteps. Too fast to be Sherlock; his stride was longer than that.

As I listened my playing strayed into something I had playing in the back of my mind. I didn’t hear anything else from downstairs. I braced for a thump on the floor. Nothing. Maybe Sherlock left. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe murdered.

I found myself playing “Happiness is a butterfly” by Lana Del Rey, which had just come out. I must have committed it to memory without noticing.

As I sang, I vacillated between hoping my voice wouldn’t carry downstairs and also wondering if Sherlock was even downstairs or if he was okay. 

Despite our weird game playing we were doing, I found his reputation and his intense intellect compelling and the devotion of his family and friends intriguing. Unless I had misread John direly, he was an assuredly decent man who obviously loved Sherlock with the devotion of a brother. Hell, even his adorable daughter loved him. Little kids are great judges of character.

So, if Sherlock could be a decent person to people he actually knew and cared about, then his treatment was more indicative of the regard he had for our relationship than it was the kind of person he was. 

Although one could say his ability to treat other people as experiments could be a major comment on his character.

If I was going to keep working for Sherlock, I needed to stop engaging in these conversations and activities that violated boundaries, otherwise I would devolve into one of his discarded experiments. Like the man who had left a few minutes prior. There was no chance that Sherlock was thinking about him at all or that he would ever again.

Which, I thought to myself, certainly lent credence to my theory that Sherlock would actually enjoy sexual activity with someone he cared about.

I centered myself while I sang. 

This was the deal. This was my experience of life. I move through people’s lives, playing helpful parts, and then they transition away from me. Leave, run. 

Die.

Maybe after my dissertation defense I would get some sort of fellowship that paid money and I could leave this job and very strange chapter of my life in the past. It was all such a bigger, more complicated story that I clearly didn’t fit into.

I was a help, a distraction, a tool.

We’re used to this, I told myself. We’ll move through and move on.

It was going to be nice to get back to California.

If I could put my hands into the Pacific again, maybe things could make some semblance of sense.

********

Chapter Text

I am afraid of changing
And when it comes the time to check and rearrange shit
There are things behind things behind things
And there are rings within rings within rings

 -"THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS" Bon Iver

I was up at five the next morning. I put a flannel shirt and big fuzzy boots on over my pajamas and snuck downstairs, grabbing a cup of coffee from a shop around the corner. It was the first week of September and surprisingly chilly that morning, or at least it felt so to my previously sun-soaked bones. 

In my ears I was listening, for the five millionth time, to Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division. I had listened to it on repeat ten times in a row that morning. Honestly, I didn’t care how silly it was- I needed to stay sane. 

And sober. This was my coping mechanism.

I was actively not thinking about my father, and my coming absence that Sunday, and the possible fallout from that.

Sherlock had told me not to feel beholden to my father. I had felt in the moment he had made an empathetic point, and it had been nice to hear someone tell me I wasn’t responsible for my dad or his life or choices. But looking back on it now, as I opened the door to 221B, I realized it was probably just the button Sherlock was pushing on me to get me to accompany him to California.

Back in my flat, I changed the output on my phone audio from my earbuds to my Bluetooth speaker, sitting on the piano bench, leaning back against the piano, my bare feet on the windowsill, drinking my coffee and staring at the wispy clouds in the blue morning sky. Of course it was sunny the day I was leaving.

“ When routine bites hard and ambitions are low, and resentment rides high but emotions won’t grow…Love will tear us apart again…”

I had to admit I was excited to get back to the States. Nervous, maybe. Especially California being the root of my heroin habit. 

Maybe I would ditch Sherlock at LAX, go back to one of the smackhouses I knew of, and just…die to death.

I had spent years getting and staying sober. I had just told John I wasn’t interested in getting high again, only yesterday.

And yet…the bright blue sky.

It reminded me of being in one of the LA area city parks, high as tits, lying in the grass, surrounded by blue skies. The sunlight ringing in my eyes like visual tinnitus. Knowing I was dying and not caring. Nothing in my mind, no fear, no shame. No words. No puzzles. No predators. The eternal and tenuous state of my temporary and never-ending existence.

In the middle of my musings, I was startled nearly into dropping my now empty coffee cup by my door slamming open.

“We are going to be late!” Sherlock yelled. He had flung the door wide open, wearing what appeared to be the vestiges of last night’s outfit, dark wash denim jeans, white button up shirt buttoned twice and not in order. His dark, gray-streaked hair, which seemed to be growing very quickly, was mussed and part of it had fallen over the right side of his forehead, hiding the receding hairline.

“We aren’t.” I said wearily, standing up and throwing my empty cup into a trash can. Suddenly a wrist with a large, expensive watch was thrust under my nose.

Sherlock reeked of booze and cigarettes and an unfamiliar, overpowering cologne. I sighed and grabbed his arm to steady it enough to read the time.

“Sherlock, this watch is wrong. By an hour and a half.” I dropped his arm and looked up at him. He seemed to be sobering the longer he stood in my flat.

“Oh.” He deflated.

“Why don’t you go take a shower.” I suggested, avoiding his eyeline. “Do you need help packing?”

“I can pack my own luggage.” He sneered at me, suddenly noticing his button situation and beginning to rebutton.

“I know you can, but have you?”

“Mostly.” He sniffed.

“Go get in the shower and I’ll get dressed and head down there and help you finish packing before we leave. We do need to leave in an hour or we will, in fact, be late.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “You’re acting…strange.”

“Mm, no, Sherlock, you won’t be commenting on odd behavior today.” I grabbed his shoulders and turned him toward my front door, pressing him toward it. “Shower please.”

He growled with discontent but complied, slamming my door as he left. I shook my head. This flight was going to be…torturous.

I finished dressing in my comfortable-for-flying black velour tracksuit and grabbed all of my luggage, hauling it down to Sherlock’s flat and setting it by the door.

I walked in and observed all of the papers that had been all over the desk, which I had painstakingly organized into folders and files, were now on the ground. 

It smelled like…I wasn’t even sure. Blood, semen, desperation, despair? Just a nightclub, in general, I supposed.

 A fresh, moist air came from down the hallway and I could hear Sherlock still in the shower. I walked into his room and took in the packing situation.

His idea of ‘mostly’ packed was everything he wanted to take being set onto his bed for me to stuff into luggage for him. I sighed. I couldn’t believe that twenty-four hours prior I was balls deep in some sort of sexually charged chess game with this man child.

As I zipped up a hanging suit case, the bathroom door popped open and a great cloud of steam containing a stark naked Sherlock emerged.

“Towel?” I asked, eyeing him up and down. I should have known from the length of his fingers that…well, I shouldn’t have been surprised about any of the situation, size-wise.

“Already used it.” He sniffed, walking over to the bed I was packing and making a mess of one of the piles to grab his clothes for the flight. I sighed again.

“You sure are breathing heavily a lot this morning.” Sherlock complained. “Rough night?” He took his time slipping on boxer briefs, hefting his package in what I felt was an exceptionally obvious and obscene manner. He smirked at me, no light in his eyes.

“I slept like a baby.” I smiled at him. “Thanks for asking.”

He was only put off for a moment. “I disproved your theory last night, by the way.”

“Can’t wait to hear this one.” I mumbled, zipping up another case and pulling it heavily into the hallway toward the door into the foyer. Sherlock followed me but did not assist.

“I exercised my need for dominance.” He sniffed again, pulling a too-tight, plum colored shirt around his frame, buttoning the black buttons deftly with long fingers. “It was just as underwhelming as it always is.”

“Oh, Sherlock.” I muttered under my breath, throwing the bags down and heading back into his room for the last carry on.

“What? What am I missing?” He said, his energy much too frantic for six in the morning. “You were wrong.”

“That was only part of my theory.” I unrolled and rerolled a couple pairs of socks that had been mismatched. “Anyway, no. We’re not talking about this anymore.” I looked up at him and he looked triumphant at first, like my refusal to talk was an admission that he had won. But his facial expression faltered.

“Fine.” He said shortly, although it seemed far from fine. “Why don’t you make us breakfast.” He ordered under the guise of a request.

“Sure thing.” I said, finishing the carry on and handing it to him, heading into the kitchen to make frittata.

As I cooked, Sherlock sat at the kitchen table, watching me move around the cramped cooking area. His fingers were steepled in front of his face.

“You’re upset with me.” He said, a glimmer of hope in his voice.

“No.” I countered, flatly.

“I don’t understand. You’re so cold this morning. I mean, I thought the loud sex would bother you, but I didn’t know it would bother you this much.”

I flipped the frittata in the pan. “That is not what’s…I’m not upset.” I turned around to face him as he continued to stare at me in a critical manner. “We need to just stick to professional topics, okay? If this is going to work out, me continuing to be, well, your personal assistant apparently, we need to keep it professional.”

“No, that’s not what this is about.” He said quietly. “You are upset, but it’s about something else entirely. A Third Issue.”

I looked at him nervously, the flat silent suddenly. 

“It is.” He reiterated, getting up from the table and coming around closer to me without breaking eye contact. He stood a couple feet from me.

“Well, enlighten me. Please.” He ordered.

“You wouldn’t understand.” I said finally, turning back to my cooking and plating our breakfasts. I cast a glance at the clock. We would need to eat quickly.

I shoved a plate at Sherlock and he took it and we both sat down at the kitchen table.

“I’m not sure what about me gives you the idea that there’s anything I would fail to understand.” He said conceitedly. 

“It’s outside of your scope of experience. It’s less about understanding and more about…empathy.” I took a bite.

He took a bite also. “I guess I can’t fault you for assuming a lack of empathy on my part.” He mumbled with his mouth full.

I nodded once in acknowledgment of his concession and assumed that would be the end of the conversation.

We ate silently and as I cleaned up the plates, quickly washing the dishes I had used before we needed to leave, he suddenly came to stand behind me as I scrubbed the stainless steel pan.

“So try me.” He said, continuing the conversation I thought we had ceased almost ten minutes prior.

“Sherlock. Why?” I asked, drying the pan quickly and putting it in the dish drainer.

“Maybe I’m more capable of empathy than you think.”

I pushed past him and did another once over of the flat. “I think we have everything. We should head out.”

“I have a car coming. It should be here soon.” 

Sherlock helped me take the bags downstairs and the hired car pulled up just in time. The driver got out and helped us load the luggage. Sherlock opened the door for me and I got in. He closed it, more gently than usual, and a moment later he was sitting beside me as we embarked for the airport.

“Can I have my ticket?” I asked him after a little while. He had been staring straight ahead for an extended period of time when I realized that I had my passport in my purse but not my boarding pass or ticket.

“Hm? Oh, there’s no need. We have a private plane. We’ll board from the tarmac.”

I felt a childish little thrill at that. I had never been so much as business class on a plane before and now- a private plane? As much as Sherlock chose to live in a poverty-like filth state, I forgot that he had, at this disposal should he wish to use it, a lot of money. More than I had ever had, that was certain.

I looked over at Sherlock to see if he would take the piss out of me for being so excited, but he was distractedly looking out of the window. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. It reminded me of when I had first met him. That seemed like months ago at this point but it had only been two weeks. Unbelievable. Two weeks and my life no longer seemed like my own. That seemed to be the lot when it came to being in Sherlock Holmes’ orbit. I thought back to John’s blog. 

Sherlock moved fast, absorbed you, applied you in the manner in which he needed you. Your old life was gone.

You were in Sherlock Holmes’ story now.

I looked him over for a long enough time that I was surprised he didn’t notice. Didn’t call me out. Didn’t engage me at all. Like he was distracted.

Like he was coming down.

I dug around my small black crossbody purse and pulled out my phone, ensuring it was angled so that it couldn’t be seen by Sherlock or in the reflection of my window, although Sherlock was paying zero attention to me anyway.

I texted John:

DP: Hey, weird question- do you have Mycroft Holmes’ phone number?

After a moment I got two texts in rapid succession. My phone was on silent with no vibration so there was no danger of Sherlock hearing it.

One text was from John:

JW: I do. Is everything alright?

The other was from an unknown number.

“Delilah Patrick. I already have your number. How can I help you? -MH”

I sighed. Government. Of course he’s monitoring my phone. Hope he enjoyed the porn I was watching the other night.

I texted John:

DP:  All is well. Thanks.

JW: Enjoy California!

I looked at Mycroft’s text. I saved his contact in my phone as “Marjorie”.

I wasn’t sure what to say to him. After a long moment, I didn’t have to decide because Mycroft texted me again.

MH: Is he using? -MH

The Holmes boys and their deductions. 

DP: Not that I am aware of.

I finally wrote back, hoping he could read between the lines.

MH: Keep in touch. -MH

I backed out of my messages, looking at the list of messages, “Marjorie” at top, John next. I was considering answering him back one more time.

“Who’s Marjorie?”

Sherlock was leaning over looking toward the phone suddenly. I had forgotten I was trying to hide the phone from him.

“Research fellow at UCLA had a question about one of the papers I co-authored.” I lied easily. 

“You’re still messaging with John.”

“Yes, he’s my friend.”

“Hm.” Sherlock looked back out the window, his posture more bent than usual.

We were pulling into the airport but driving into an area separate from the main parking lot. There was a line of hangars and a little way away from them a small private jet sat on a runway away from the jumbo jets further down the way.

My heart started fluttering. I was not an experienced flyer and for some reason the thought of going on a smaller plane was more nerve wracking than the larger ones. I drummed my fingers on my thigh and bounced my other leg.

“Are you alright?” Sherlock asked as we parked near one of the hangars. He was looking over at me with a look that bordered on concern but settled mostly on curious.

“Small planes apparently frighten me.” I admitted. To my utter shock, Sherlock reached his hand over and placed it on my hand. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be comforting or to get me to stop tapping my fingers. He squeezed my hand gently and got out of the SUV as the driver unloaded out bags onto a trolley. He came around and opened the door for me and I dropped out of the tall vehicle onto the ground, following behind him and feeling like a child as I followed his lead up the steps of the small plane.

The interior reminded me of the Mercedes, everything well lit and in cream leather. There was a table with two chairs, two couches, and a couple belted seats.

A flight attendant directed me to a chair and gave me an overview of what to expect and how to evacuate the plane, etcetera. After we had settled she disappeared into a front part of the plane, telling us to push a button if we needed anything.

I looked at a screen with a graphic of the plane and our trajectory. It was 7 am- our arrival time was 8pm London time, which would have been noon in LA, meaning we were going back in time in the simplest and most inaccurate sense that I still got a bit of a kick out of.

We began to take off and, as the noise in the cabin got louder and the seats started to vibrate, I closed my eyes and gripped the arms of my chair. 

I tried to control my breathing as I squeezed my eyes shut.

Finally the noise level and vibration dropped off a little and I heard a soft chime. We were now free to move about the cabin, as they say.

I threw off my seatbelt and stumbled onto one of the couches, lying on my back with my knees bent and my arms over my face, practicing breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.

“Jesus, I didn’t know you’d be that afraid.”

I uncovered my face and opened my eyes, looking up at Sherlock. 

“I didn’t either.” He looked really nice in that shirt. I opened my mouth to say so, and then remembered that I had made a deal with myself to be strictly professional with him.

As if reading those thoughts, Sherlock grabbed my knees and lifted my lower legs and feet off of the couch, sitting down and putting my legs over his lap. He took my right leg in his hand and pulled off one of my fuzzy boots and threw it aside.

“What on earth are you doing?” I sighed.

“These boots are hideous. It’s September. And they’re just…fucking ugly.” He took the other one and pitched it aside also, leaving me in mismatched socks. Sherlock shook his head. 

“So, the Third Issue.” 

I groaned and went to swing my legs off of him and launch myself off of the couch but he yanked me back into place harshly.

“ Stop running from me .” He hissed, glaring at me. I glared back at him and his gaze held mine, he glared harder, and just a moment prior I wouldn’t have said that was possible. “I also don’t like this lack of engagement. All morning you have been doing nothing but sighing loudly and evading my attempts at conversation, like you’re a bored schoolteacher.”

“Interesting choice of imagery there.” I commented, trying to stifle a smirk.

“ There’s the Delilah I am used to.” 

My ass was already pressed against his thigh and he pivoted deftly, throwing my left leg around his waist and shoving my right into the backrest of the couch, positioning himself over me, his hands planted on either side of my head.

I sighed deeply. “Sherlock, what are you-”

He grabbed my jaw with a strong right hand, pulling my face upward, much like he had in the car the week prior.

“ Stop sighing at me like that .” He growled through gritted teeth. He looked so angry in that moment. Rage truly contorted his face in unexpected ways.

“Sherlock, are you okay?” I asked, though my mouth was squished by the way he was grabbing my face. 

He released my face but stayed positioned over me. I could tell he was trying to keep his face neutral but boy, was he failing. I wasn’t really sure what emotion he was trying to hide, so at least he had succeeded in concealing his true feelings.

“I’m always okay.” He huffed.

“That is…very provably untrue.” I countered, but there was more kindness than snark in my tone.

Although positioned right over my head, his pelvis pinning mine to the couch, he was at that point very much not in the same universe as I was. He was looking at me but not. I could tell something complicated was going on inside of his mind. I watched his face, the micro expressions that passed over his countenance as he traversed whatever journey he was on.

I took that moment also to look over his physicality, try and see if there were any tells or signs that he had been using any sort of drug again. His pupils were of an appropriate dilation for the lighting, his sclera clear, his skin looked well hydrated and a moment ago when he had bared his teeth at me his gums were an appropriate color. He was not clammy. 

None of this meant too much if he had just started again but it was not useless data either. 

I ran my hands over his forearms and up to his biceps, my thumbs applying pressure on his inner arm as I did. As I reached the pits of his elbows and squeezed lightly, that seemed to bring Sherlock back from wherever he had been. I saw the flicker of his heartbeat in his neck quicken.

“What are you doing?”

I removed my hands from him, holding them up near my shoulders in surrender. He finally got up off of me, sitting back on his heels.

“You think I’m on drugs.”

I pulled myself up, sitting facing him.

“You are acting a little erratic.” I admitted.

He began unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. “Did my brother put you up to this? Told you to keep an eye on me? He paying you?”

He rolled his sleeves up and showed me his pale and unmarred inner arms.

I grabbed his right arm, running my hand over the soft skin, although I could tell there was nothing there. “He had nothing to do with my concern.” I looked up at him, grabbing his other arm and doing the same, my fingers pushing into the bend of his arm. “You know this means nothing, right, you could still be using something else, or injecting it somewhere else. You seemed a little coked up last night, to be honest.”

He gave me an exasperated look and wrenched his arm away from me. “Don’t be ridiculous.” I snorted, although he seemed…embarrassed. 

I sat there and looked at him as his own hand trailed where mine had been, gently rubbing the crook of his arm where my fingers had pressed in.

As we sat in silence I noticed there was something very loudly unspoken between us. I didn’t think it was simply on my end, although there were a number of things I was withholding from him at that point. 

Instead, the secrecy seemed to come from his end, although was that really a turnabout?

Sherlock finally shifted off of his heels and then got up off of the couch and went to sit at one of the chairs at the table. I took my earbuds out of my tracksuit jacket pocket and was about to slip them into my ears when Sherlock made an “eh, eh!” noise and I looked up at him.

“What?” I asked, specifically not sighing at him.

“Please. Delilah. Just tell me what is bothering you, why you are refusing to continue our relationship as it had been. Is it because of last night? I was…I admit I was trying to evoke a reaction from you as well as test my own theories, but one of my projected outcomes was not you becoming completely disinterested.”

I think for a moment, trying to dissect his comments into pieces I could address one at a time. I decided to wait on challenging his statement that we had a ‘relationship’. 

“How was that not one of your projected outcomes?”

“You’re typically so emotionally charged, not to mention sexually. I thought at worst you would become…jealous.”

“Okay, on that note, I will ask you- what do you think our relationship is ?”

“Obviously we don’t have a romantic relationship.” He rolled his eyes. “I did think we had a bit of a sexual one.”

I open my mouth but close it again. Thinking back, I couldn’t say our relationship was not sexual, although we had not had sex, or even kissed, we had been in sexualized positions and had sexually explicit conversations. 

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.” I admitted.

“Let me ask you .” He moved from the chair to the couch across from mine, sitting on his leg and throwing his arms widely across the back. “How do you define our relationship? Or what it had been before you decided to become so…boring about it?”

I glared at him. “I felt like we were becoming friends, for a moment, and then I realized that, most likely I was…I was just another experiment.”

“All of my friends are experiments. And I experiment on all of my friends.” 

I crossed my legs under myself. “Right, but I started to think maybe I was more like the man last night, than I ever would be like, say…John.” 

As I said these things, I realized that although I had felt very mature in making the decision to back away from our sexualized chess match, that it was less about wanting to have a mature, appropriate relationship with my boss, and more about my deep insecurities and intrinsic abandonment issues. I blushed and looked down at my mismatched socks, embarrassed.

I looked up at Sherlock, hoping he wouldn’t call me out on my childish vulnerability.

He was watching me process things, my face exposing my feelings in the manner of blood seeping from a wound. 

As he looked like he was about to say something, I decided to beat him to it.

“You have to understand, Sherlock. I am entirely alone. I know you have experienced loneliness and isolation in your life.I know they say there’s nothing lonelier than feeling alone whilst surrounded by people. But I don’t think that’s true. I think complete isolation is worse. 

'Even before you had John, who is a truer love and friend than I have ever imagined anyone having- you had your brother. Your parents. You have people in your corner. You are exceptional and are recognized as such. I’m nobody. And I have no one. So, although it is tempting to immerse myself in your world, and to feel like your friend or whatever, and to feel like I belong somewhere, the bonds that I see you engage with- and sometimes take for granted- just…magnify how I don’t have those bonds. And if I let you make me believe I do, for the sake of my utility to you as an assistant or as an experiment, and then my usefulness comes to an end, and I am once again separated from everything I have become attached to and familiar with- I don’t know if I can survive that happening to me again.”

I said it all very quickly, looking everywhere around the fancy plane except anywhere at him.

Sherlock shifted forward, putting both his feet on the ground. “Christ, Delilah. I don’t even know what to say to that. That’s a lot of assumption and pressure to put on a situation. You have really written me as a villain in that.”

“I don’t mean to. It’s not a comment on you, rather a comment on myself. I have proven to be disposal and replaceable. Repeatedly. I’m not an object of permanence. When people don’t see me they forget about me.”

“That’s not true. What about your papers?”

“A product. Nobody cares about me, just the work.”

He looked over my face slowly as my eyes welled with tears, moving away from his gaze to fixate on the couch cushion beside him.

“You’re really feeling sorry for yourself, aren’t you?” He ribbed, unexpectedly. 

I snorted. “Yeah, apparently a little.” I admitted.

“You should stop listening to your sobby music all the time. That might help.”

I shot him a look but then a small smile broke. “Honestly it might.”

Sherlock smiled back at me. 

“Honestly, Delilah, despite the fact that the Sherlock Holmes in your imagination is a heartless and cruel bastard, I have to tell you that, although about ten years ago I would have agreed with you, it seems like I am not quite that calculating and careless. I wouldn’t engage with you as anything beyond an assistant, or a night-long distraction, if I didn’t mean for you to take it that way. I’m not a person to lead someone on for their usefulness alone. And I know that for a fact, because I did do that, once. It was a calculation, I felt she wouldn’t take it to heart. She didn’t. But it still felt so entirely callous that I promised I would never do anything like that again. But don’t tell John, because I’ve never copped to it before.”

I gasped in a friendly mocking manner. “Did you just confess to feeling guilty about something?” I whispered.

“Shut up.” He look upward and glared at me over the bridge of his nose, but a small smile played on his lips. “You know, if you’re feeling insecure, you can just say something outright. Just ask me.”

I tilted my head. “You hardly ever give me a straight answer on anything.”

“That is not true. You never ask straightforward questions. It’s like you’ve already played every conversation ahead in your mind. It’s usually very easy for me to talk to you because a lot of context can be assumed and skipped over when we converse, I appreciate that, but sometimes it leads you to plug in entire sentences and exchanges that never even happened and you engage the person based on what you’ve already assumed they’re going to say.”

“I’m not often wrong about what people are going to say.” I pointed out.

“Well, no. Not with most people anyway. I propose to you these two things: Firstly, that perhaps it’s not fair to assume a person is going to say the absolute worst most terrible thing to you. Secondly, that you might give at least me a chance to surprise you? I feel that if anyone could, it would be me.”

I pulled my right leg over my lap, stretching my hip as I considered what he had said. “I suppose it isn’t really fair, is it? To assume the worst about people. I assume it because I feel like I’m so terrible I’ll bring out the worst in people.”

“You’re doing it again.” Sherlock said shortly.

“Doing what?”

“Feeling sorry for yourself!” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You had a bad hand dealt in a lot of ways. But look at your gifts. Your intellect, your beauty, the fact that you died and they managed to bring you back. And you’re going to squander them on self pity?”

I squished down my first instinct to question him about my ‘beauty’. That would be shallow, especially since he had mentioned in the same breath my overdose. Besides, I objectively adhered to Western beauty standards and I couldn’t argue that I had, in my younger drug addled days, used that fact to my advantage. 

“If I’m so great, why am I alone?” I countered.

“You’re not alone. Granted, you were for a long time, but you’re not now. And you just have to have faith that you won’t be in the future. If you assume the worst is going to happen then, with equal lack of evidence, why not assume the best? Again, never tell anyone I said something that pitifully optimistic.” He huffed, leaning back against the couch once more. 

********

Having cleared the air, at least about my feelings and behavior, the rest of the very long plane ride was pleasant and uneventful. 

The food was none too bad and the conversation with Sherlock came easy. I had the opportunity to talk shop with him about my dissertation and other topics relevant to the field of biochemistry. 

He was, of course, extremely sharp and informed, and the ideas he presented to me were sound and thought provoking. Upon regaling me with a story of a case that was heavy with relevance to the subject, he introduced me to a new character in his lineup of friends- a Forensic Pathologist by the name of Molly Hooper who Sherlock admitted to me- again with insistence that I was sworn to secrecy- that he had always been very fond of and at one point came very close to engaging in a real relationship. 

He had waited too long one too many times and she had gotten married two years ago. 

She was also, apparently, John’s daughter’s godmother. Hearing these connections did, admittedly, give me a pang of loneliness, but I chose to heed Sherlock’s advice and not feel sorry for myself. 

Instead, I chose to feel hopeful that one day I might meet Molly, who was important to John and Sherlock and apparently very bright when it came to biology and biochemistry.

It was thought provoking to hear that Sherlock had considered having a romantic relationship with someone. I wanted to ask him why he had considered it. 

Obviously, he loved her, as he loved others in his life. From hearing him talk about it, it didn’t seem that he had any sort of passionate feelings toward her. Just loyalty and affection. 

Maybe it wasn’t Sherlock who was mistaken about marriage and romance, maybe it was me. Maybe a relationship or marriage should be based on friendship first, or only, and waiting to feel “in love” was my own folly. 

Too many Jane Austen novels. 

Additionally, Sherlock tertiarily mentioned Molly helping him with his faked death. 

This I wanted desperately to ask him about, but it seemed such an intensely sore subject that I would have to wait for another time. I knew that the main guise of his hiring me as a writer and research assistant was to help him document what he did for the two years he was a ghost. I knew that it was all to do with dismantling the criminal network of James Moriarty but I knew it to be more than that. I knew part of his pain in discussing it was the guilt that he carried over the ruse, once he truly understood how painful the mourning process had been for John.

Another thing that one day I wanted to ask someone, John or Sherlock or both, was about John’s wife Mary’s death. 

I knew nothing about the circumstances except that she was dearly loved and sorely missed. Something about the way Sherlock avoided the subject reminded me of the guilty countenance he had in relation to his faked death.

We both sat in silence during the last couple hours of our trip. As I was listening to music and writing down some pretty terrible poetry and doodles in a notebook, my thoughts traveled to John, and what a sad but hopeful person he still seemed to be. 

Single parenthood seemed to be wearing on him, not because Rosie was a difficult or unpleasant child, of course. But he seemed lonely and haunted. Considering the loss that he had endured before and after meeting Sherlock, he continued to impress me. 

He was a better breed of human than us, I thought. He got therapy, reached out to people, helped, enjoyed and lived life. Sherlock was right, I had a massive self pity problem. 

But Sherlock did, too. 

That said, I couldn’t say whether or not it really was a quantitative quality of character, or just that Sherlock and I were a different kind of person. 

Were we worse at being human or did we actually feel more than others? 

Sherlock knew now about himself that all of the anti-sentiment Spock idolization he had done, his classification of himself as someone who could separate himself from his emotions, was absolutely false. I never pretended to not have emotions, but I specifically went out of my way to not feel them. In the small amount of therapy I had done in rehab, I was told I intellectualized my feelings instead of experiencing them. Nobody could ever tell me how to properly feel my emotions- the only thing I ever got was to “sit with” the pain. 

How the actual fuck was someone supposed to do that?

I was terrified that if I ever let myself truly feel the things I’d been compartmentalizing, I would just never stop feeling sad. I wouldn’t even be a person anymore. I would just be Sad. All the time.

I was fairly certain in my assumption that Sherlock was the same way- that in addition to denying they existed, he would obsessively dissect the hows and whys of what he was feeling, in lieu of actually going through the process of working through the feelings. 

Even still, with that understanding, I could not fathom how to do it any other way.

It was no small wonder we both turned to opiates. Ostensibly, we both explained to others that it was due to a quieting, peaceful effect, that our minds were too busy. And that wasn’t untrue.

But the full truth of it was, for myself and I assumed Sherlock, that heroin was the only time we ever actually “felt” anything. In a pure fashion. No thoughts, just feelings. A happiness you can’t question. A peace uninterrupted by reason. A death of intellect.

Shit. My pen stilled on my page and my left hand traveled to my pericardial scar. I pressed hard on the scar which, though healed years ago, was still frequently sore. I pushed hard and willed myself to remember what the cost of that “peace” had been. I gasped a little, having pushed a touch harder than I had meant to, although it was probably for the best.

‘We’re not suicidal.’ I told myself. ‘And using again would be suicide. We’re just a little bit sad. This won’t last forever.’

I felt a tear fall from the corner of my eye down my neck and into the collar of my shirt. I wiped it away as nonchalantly as possible. Sherlock was quite absorbed with reading through some documents he had brought in relation to the case, which he had not let me read. I knew he wasn’t watching me but I didn’t want to provoke his attention with fast movements either.

So, I closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, occasionally poking, but not as hard, the scar below my breast, dozing lightly for the last part of our trip.

********

I properly fell asleep at one point because the flight attendant woke me with a gentle shake of the shoulder. Sherlock was already buckled for the landing and I was directed to do the same.

The landing was nerve-wracking but I was less nervous this time.

We disembarked the small plane into Mercedes G Wagon. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the horizon. I had missed palm trees a lot more than I would have imagined.

Driving on the 5 was surreal. I still dreamed about my times in California, and my memories all seemed like dreams. A completely different lifetime, even if I hadn’t been high most of the time.

As we drove, I began to recognize the direction we were heading. I looked over at Sherlock to ask him where exactly we were headed but he was already looking back at me, staring at me intently, studying me.

I started momentarily. “Where exactly are we headed?”

“Long Beach.” He answered, his eyes running over my face.

I didn’t expect to have a reaction to simply being in the place I used to frequent, but knowing we were going to Long Beach, the place I was living when I overdosed on Junipero Beach made me feel suddenly very sad. Forlorn. I suddenly missed the people I had known. I missed the nurse that took care of me for the week I was in the hospital before they transferred me to rehab.

I pushed it all down. “Are you going to tell me anything about this case? Or will I just be your personal assistant some more?”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched. “You will certainly be acting as more than an assistant. You will be integral to this case.”

“Ha. I don’t see how I could be integral, don’t overvalue me now. “ I chuckled.

His mouth twitched again. He looked like he was about to say something but then didn’t.

********

We drove another 15 minutes and then the G Wagon took us into an area of foothills, up a narrow, winding drive through vegetation and into a gated property.

The house behind the gate was a big, whitewashed Spanish style mansion with a circular drive and a fountain on the lawn.

I looked at Sherlock, eyes narrowed. “This isn’t…your house, is it?” I asked.

“No, not at all. It belongs to a friend.” 

The vehicle came to a stop and Sherlock came around to open the door for me. The driver of the G Wagon helped us unload the bags onto the driveway and then left. Sherlock picked his up and I followed suit.

“What, no butler?” I snorted. Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

“Not hardly. I want a minimum of people to know I’m even in LA this month.”

I hefted my carry-on and hit Sherlock in the shoulder as he unlocked the fifteen-foot-tall mahogany front door.

“Ow! What the fuck was that for?” He asked, rubbing his shoulder as I pushed past him into the empty foyer.

“A month! I knew it! Why did you tell me two weeks?”

“It probably will be two weeks.” He grumbled. “If not less.”

I sighed, for the 50th time that day, looking around the empty mansion.

“So, there’s no furniture here.” I commented.

“I’m not sure why you think you won’t be helpful with my case, you seem to have the makings of an excellent detective.” He smirked at me. “There’s food and utensils in the kitchen, a sitting room with a couch and television, two bedrooms upstairs should have at least beds and linens in them, and the bathroom has toiletries. I didn’t want anyone to notice things being moved in. This is supposed to be an empty house. It’s an extra property owned by a multi millionaire.”

“Why the secrecy?” 

“Just trying to keep a low profile. I’m luckily relatively unknown in the United States.”

“Mm, it’s hard being so famous, huh?” I hit him on the same shoulder I had slammed my bag into. He rubbed his arm again.

“So…” I moved into the kitchen and Sherlock followed me. “Are you going to let me know some details about this case finally?” I asked, admiring the white marble countertops and clean white cabinetry.

“Delilah, I am investigating your half-sister’s murder.” He said very quickly. I stopped dead in my tracks.

My knees felt weak suddenly and I braced myself on a kitchen island that was bigger than my bed at home. 

It felt hard to properly take air into my lungs.

“Sherlock…Sher…what? Why? Why??” I felt like I was going to throw up. “I asked you to leave it alone. I know what happened. We know what…and my brother is dead.”

I spun on him, glaring at him as I braced myself. 

“I told you to leave it alone!”

Sherlock looked startled and moved to put his arms around me. I let myself be supported by him and walked over to a huge dining room adjacent to the kitchen, sat in a tall dining chair.

Sherlock sat in a chair beside me.

“I don’t think your brother killed her.” He said, putting a hand on my knee and another on my back and neck, rubbing quickly as I pitched forward, my head in my hands and my hands gripping my hair. “Jesus, Delilah, I’m sorry. I thought you’d be mad, maybe, I didn’t know-”

I started crying, tears coming out as my breathing bordered on hyperventilation, and then the sobs started coming. I started heaving.

Sherlock got down on his knees in front of me and grabbed my face, forcing it upward to look at him.

“Delilah. Delilah!” He yelled. My eyes focused on him, tears and snot pouring out of my face as I tried to catch my breath. “Delilah, focus. Calm down. You’re going to be okay. You are okay. Everything. Is. Okay.”

My breathing started to slow and the sobs get quieter, but then I began to weep.

“Why, why did you bring me with you?” I cried at him.

“I-” He looks down, ashamed, “I needed the help. I thought maybe you would want to help me. I had no idea you would be so…triggered.”

I closed my eyes and wept openly, collapsing forward off of the chair and into Sherlock’s arms, making him hold me whether he wanted to or not. I made a gross crying mess of his fancy purple shirt and he sat back onto his heels, wrapping his arms around me tightly.

“I’m sorry, Delilah. We can go home. I’ll call the car, I’ll get the plane going.” He said softly into my hair.

I eventually stopped crying, catching my breath and hiccupping softly.

After a while, I knew I couldn’t lay broken in his arms forever. I pulled myself off of him, embarrassedly wiping the drool and other things off of my face. I pulled myself back up into the chair, wiping my eyes and pulling my wild curls back off of my face, looking at the ceiling and letting my breath out of pursed lips slowly.

“Wow. Okay. Sorry.” I said hoarsely.

“What are you talking about?” Sherlock glared, getting up with a bit of a wince from sitting in the same position on the floor for so long. He stood next to me and rubbed my back.

“Let me call the airport, okay? I’ll get you home. This was a terrible idea.” He growled, taking his phone out of his back pocket and he started to walk back into the kitchen. 

I reached out to grab him, managing to catch his belt loop.

“No, no, wait, please.”

He stopped short and turned to look down at me. I looked up at him, my eyes feeling sore and swollen from all of the crying.

“You said that, somehow, you don’t think Mike did it?” I asked him in an unsure voice.

“I don’t.” He answered. “I’ve uncovered some things that lead me to believe that it may have been some sort of act of retaliation against your father.”

I let my hand drop from Sherlock’s side, continuing to look up at him. He was looking back at me with such unbelievable tenderness. I didn’t know he could look so soft. Kind. 

It made him look so much younger.

“And you’re going to let me help?” I asked him.

He controlled his reaction, for the most part, but I saw a spark of excitement in his eyes gazing into mine. “If you’re willing to, I very much would like you to.” He said in a gentle voice I hardly recognized.

“Yes, please. I very much would like to.”

I couldn’t put it into words right then, but agreeing to help Sherlock posthumously clear my brother’s name and redirect the blame back onto my piece of shit father felt like I would finally be able to take control of something in my life. All of these things had just happened to me, over and over, for years. I was tired of letting things happen to me. 

I wanted my power back.

Although I hadn’t said any of that, something in the way Sherlock’s expression changed, and he smiled at me softly, made me believe he knew what I was thinking. Sherlock was a crime solver and a seeker of truth and justice. I could see why he wanted to pursue this. But a tiny bit of me finally ascribed an optimistic assumption onto someone’s actions and inner thoughts- that he wanted to help me get this justice for my brother to assist me in taking control of my narrative. 

Because maybe we really were becoming friends.

I jumped up and wrapped my arms around his chest, because I couldn’t comfortably reach much higher than that. He squeezed me back briefly.

“We’ll start looking over the case tomorrow. You should get something to eat and then maybe sleep a little. Fight off the jet lag, remember it’s close to 10 pm back home.”

He released his arms from me and I took that as my cue that our bonding session was over. Still a little embarrassed from my breakdown, I went to get my bags and take them upstairs.

I found the two furnished rooms. There was a master suite and a smaller room next to a bathroom. I took the smaller room and arranged my bags next to the bed, heeding Sherlock’s advice to get some rest. I laid down on top of the duvet and closed my eyes, emotions and travel having exhausted me. 

I fell into a dreamless sleep.

********

My phone chime woke me up at 4 am Pacific Time. I couldn’t remember if I had set the alarm myself or if Sherlock had somehow set it for me. I was lying in roughly the same position I fell asleep in, on my stomach, on top of the duvet. My eyes were dry and stung, my face disgusting and crusty from the crying jag I went on right before I collapsed into bed the afternoon prior. I was grateful that I had slept so long, hoping it would preclude jet lag.

I stumbled into the bathroom with my toiletries, starting the shower and turning it on hot, leaning against the door as the water warmed up.

There was a small window overlooking the shower stall, but it was still pitch black outside and probably would be for another hour.

I planted myself under the stream of hot water and washed myself while I tried to imagine what an investigation with Sherlock would be like. I had seen some things while going through Sherlock’s closed case files, but it did little to inform me of the process of actually doing detective work outside of a police force.

And beyond that, what sort of good would I be?

I would have to trust Sherlock to teach me. After all, he had taught people detective work before. John had been his partner for years and years but had started as a veteran Army doctor. Honestly, though, from that skillset alone, John would have been a better asset than I imagined myself to be.

But, I reminded myself, I actually did know a lot about detective work. I grew up being dragged to crime scenes, precincts, interrogation rooms. I saw my father and detectives better than him work for a decade and a half.

I couldn’t start this all doubting myself or feeling sorry for myself. I had sold my resume and my experiences to John Watson and then again to Sherlock Holmes, and they decided to take a chance on me.

This was my opportunity to turn everything around. To really take hold of the second chance I had been given. And to find justice for my brother and sister.

With a feeling of renewed purpose, I shut off the water and wrapped a towel around myself, taking a moment to blow dry my hair as I got ready. Blow drying it made it look practically unrecognizable. Where it was usually an untamable mass of brown curls, now it was tamer, softer, longer over my shoulders and down my back. I put on a bit of makeup, some mascara, liquid liner elongating my eyes with a cat eye, berry lip gloss on my lips.

I put on black slacks and a white short sleeve, high-necked button up shirt, buttoning it all the way up the front.

When all was said and done, it was 5 am. I had fallen out of practice at quickly applying makeup.

Slipping on my black Chelsea boots, I headed downstairs to see what sort of breakfast I could make for myself and Sherlock.

I halfway expected Sherlock not to be there, but he was, sitting in an armchair by a dark fireplace, the beginnings of the late summer sun streaming in from the blinds beside him, lighting him from the left as a small table lamp lit him from the right. He was reading over what I assumed were files from Michael’s case.

He looked up as I came down the stairs, and the double take he did at me made me realize that I really should be putting more effort into my appearance if 45 minutes of work changed my looks that greatly.

“Morning.” I said brightly. The chipper-ness in my voice seemed to disturb Sherlock and he continued to stare at me as he closed and set down the files he was looking over.

He stood up and walked over to meet me as I reached the last step.

“Why do you look like that? Why do you sound like that?” He narrowed his eyes at me.

I gave him a weird look and walked around him to get to the kitchen.

“I don’t know, I just decided to blow dry my hair.”

He followed me closely into the kitchen as I located a coffee maker. Unfortunately, all that was available was a complicated looking espresso and brew machine. I wanted to be annoyed but instead decided to suck it up and teach myself how to use it. I leaned over it, looking at the knobs and trying dials.

I felt Sherlock get very close to me. He sniffed my hair.

I spun around and he took a step back. 

“Did you just sniff me?” I asked him, incredulous.

“I was trying to ascertain whether you had taken anything.” He spoke. “Smell is only one of several clues I can utilize to determine if this sudden switch in mood is due to chemical enhancement.”

“Sherlock…no. Just no.” I went to rub my eyes wearily and then remembered I had makeup on. “I just…I had a good sleep, and I got to thinking about everything, got to thinking about what you said yesterday. That I’m just seemingly very determined to assume the worst will happen and to remain miserable. So, I’ve turned over a new leaf.” 

I grabbed a cup out of the cupboard and pushed a couple buttons, and suddenly-thankfully, even- coffee was happening.

He looked at me skeptically. “So, you’re just going to be…perky now?”

I slammed my hands onto the counter, closing my eyes and leaning forward, my head falling backward.

“Sherlock.” I growled, opening my eyes to stare at the ceiling. “Do I seem like a perky woman to you? In general?”

Sherlock chuckled and stepped toward me, placing a hand on the small of my back and kissing my cheek. 

“Ah. There she is.”

He smacked my ass, causing me to jump as he walked back into the living room.

“Make me a cup, too. You know how I like it.” He called as he left me blushing and nearly exactly where I had been two days before.

I watched the coffee finish pouring into one cup and started another, contemplating the new place my relationship with Sherlock was in. Because apparently, we did have a relationship. To Sherlock’s definition, a sexual one. Though it was not solely sexual, and also not entirely sexual, as we did not have sex and also we were trying to solve a crime together.

It’s indefinable . I told myself. That’s okay. Some things cannot be defined. Get over it.

I took Sherlock’s coffee into the living room and sat it next to him. 

“Do you want breakfast?” I asked him.

“Yes.” He grunted, not looking up at me.

“Okay. Better get in there and make it then.” 

“Very funny.” He grumbled, still not looking up. I rolled my eyes and headed back to the kitchen. If I did, in fact, serve as “integral” to the investigation, we were going to need to renegotiate the cooking duties, at the very least.

I headed back into the oversized, well stocked kitchen and curiosity crossed my mind, now that I was a bit more well-rested, less jet-lagged, less shell-shocked, regarding the ownership of the mansion. It was not surprising that Sherlock had rich friends; he had all sorts of friends of all social and economical calibers. But what of this partially furnished mansion in the hills of Long Beach, California. Semi-furnished with a fully stocked kitchen, no less.

I decided I absolutely would not be going out of my way to become a gourmet chef, though I was currently in a gourmet kitchen. I pulled the ingredients for a frittata and threw it together quickly, plating our breakfasts and taking Sherlock’s into the living room for him. He did not look up from a set of gruesome photos as I set it beside him.

Gore did not bother me, but in relation to my sister’s murder- supposedly at the hands of my brother, no less- I had a hard time looking at the photos.

I took my breakfast with me back up to my temporary room. I had noticed last night that there was an arcadia door at the far end of the room. Outside the door was a spacious balcony overlooking the fully fenced in backyard and, on the other side of the fence, a vast deserty area, probably about 100 acres in its entirety, full of nothing but scrub, rocks, dirt, and palo verde trees, on the other side of which was a very small mountain with a water tank atop it. The location was incredibly private, it seemed, and so was perfect for Sherlock’s intention to make ourselves as scarce as possible.

By this time the sun had fully crested the horizon and was casting the desert world around us in shades of gold punctuated in long shadows. The air was cool and humid, just like I remembered it from all those lifetimes ago. I imagined that when I closed my eyes I could hear the surf in the distance, though I knew from casting a glance to the West that we were not close enough to actually hear it. 

I thought to myself that I was steeped, entirely, in triggers. Triggers to post traumatic stress responses, triggers directly to my previous drug use. Was this all incredibly stupid? Or was this an important step for me to finally move forward in my life, to claim the mantle of intentional existence rather than this constant, overarching trend of provocation and reaction.

I finished my breakfast, thinking about the pattern in my life of very rarely reaching out and making moves, but rather being subjected to circumstance and acting as best as I could accordingly.

When was the last time I took initiative?

Even moving to London was in response to my father’s needs. I got this job with Sherlock because I needed a job to afford London. I let him move me in because it was cheaper than continuing with my flat.

Even my relationship with Sherlock was a constant reaction to his whims and experiments. He took me where he wanted when he wanted to. He took my motorcycle. He brought me to California under false pretenses for longer than he had portrayed.

The more I thought about my life and the things I had gone through, been subjected to, all without my consent or direction, the more annoyed I became.

I grabbed my plate and stormed back into my room, slamming the door behind me, stomping downstairs back into the kitchen.

I put my dishes down loudly and stormed into the living room.

Sherlock didn’t look up as I entered, although I noted he had eaten most of the breakfast I made.

“Hey.” I said, or rather barked, although I had not meant for the utterance to come out quite so forcefully.

Sherlock looked up with his eyes only, an eyebrow quirking as he looked at me though the thick hair of his eyebrows.

“You bellowed?” He answered.

I stomped over to him as he followed me with his eyes, an amused glint in the blue of them. As I came to stand over him, he leaned back, casting his face up to me and closing the folder he was looking through.

I leaned against the arms of his chair and got closer to him. I expected him to flinch or back away in some manner, but he did not, and so I was very quickly very close to him.

“Can I help you, Delilah?” He said, his voice lower than usual, but the same cavalier smirk on his lips. I noticed he hadn’t bothered to shave again. Judging by the musky smell of him, I wasn’t sure he had showered since yesterday morning, either.

“Holmes.” I growled at him, to which he snorted but controlled himself as my glare darkened. “Tell me what we are doing today. You have to start filling me in on the plans for this investigation. If I am really going to be your assistant, you have to start communicating with me.”

“Yes, quite.” He agreed easily, finally shifting uncomfortably under my gaze. “Today I was hoping to conduct a debriefing with you, and then depending on how the entire situation struck you, we could go down to the police station and put in a FOIA request for some materials that I feel will be relevant to the case. After that, I will go through all of it with you, and we will work together regarding how you feel about my deductions and what our next steps will be.”

“Oh. Okay.” I didn’t intend for him to give so easily. It seemed as if he had already come to conclusions regarding how I should be involved, and it all seemed incredibly fair and, dare I say, kind. My angry resolve dissipated a bit and I stood up from my menacing lean over Sherlock.

“Not so fast.” He said gruffly, grabbing my wrists as I stood up and pulling me back down roughly, planting my hands even farther back on the arms of the chair, pulling me mere inches away from him and forcing me off balance. I stumbled and had to plant my knee into the chair beside Sherlock’s left leg. He moved his leg under me until I was forced off of my left leg and was, in essence, straddling his leg, resting my ass on his knee. He looked down at my positioning and smirked, releasing my arms and moving his right leg under me also until I was fully straddling him, sitting on his lap with my legs tucked against the chair cushion on either side of his.

He reached up with his right hand and grabbed my face, squishing my cheeks and lips the way he seemed to like for some reason. He pulled my chin downward to look at him.

“What was all of that about, hmm?” He asked me, his tone attempting levity but his timbre low and breathy. The way his eyes moved over mine betrayed an interest contrary to the detached facade he was attempting.

“I’m just tired of letting things happen to me.” My words were muffled due to my mouth being squished and I yanked my head upward to try and wrest my chin from his grasp, but his grip on my face tightened and he yanked it back down. 

“Eh.” He made a disapproving noise at me and I stilled beneath his grasp.

His eyes were laser focused on my mouth and as his lips parted, I thought for a second that he was about to kiss me, but at the last moment he released my face so that I could speak freely.

“Explain.” He demanded, his eyes lingering on my lips but then meeting mine.

“I can’t keep being a victim.” I explained to him. “I need to take accountability. Take some action. I don’t want to just keep going with the flow. I’m done.” I said with certainty, though my voice was quiet, it was confident.

“And what does that mean for our relationship?” Sherlock asked. “Beyond professionally, obviously. I intend to start working with you on a more equitable basis, as becomes appropriate. Are you done playing with me, then?”

“Playing with you?” I asked, confused and incredulous.

“This back and forth. This tension play. I have enjoyed it, but perhaps you feel I am…provoking you into reaction too much? Is this a new aspect of your theoretical ego?”

I wanted to immediately answer him in the negative, but I thought about it for a second. Was continuing to let him pseudo-dominate me another play on this old, tired pattern that had led me to ruin and frustration?

As Sherlock watched me mull, from underneath me, I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of me having these deep second thoughts while I was sitting on his lap.

He looked at me in confusion, brows knit but a small, amused smile on his lips. Those beautiful, full, slightly dusky lips, the ones parted, pointed at me, small wrinkles cutting into the edges because he still smoked too many cigarettes and time spares no one, no matter how angelic their faces might look as they gaze up at me.

I leaned my pelvis forward, spreading my clothed legs farther, as far as they would go in the armchair. This had the effect of pushing my sex up against his groin, and I heard the breath he was drawing in catch in his throat. 

He was trying so hard to look unaffected as I looked over his face, but his pupils had blown wide open, as I knew mine had. 

But I wasn’t going to hide what our proximity was doing to me. My superpower in this next stage of our power struggle was a turnabout of what had started out being a weakness- my inability to hide my arousal.

He couldn’t hide his much, either. I could feel that he was already at least half as excited as I was, just from the feel of it on my inner thigh alone.

“It depends.” I said, answering his question finally. “Are you asking, ‘do I now have a need to be in total control’? No. Not in the slightest. But I’m not going to just keep playing confused anymore. Don’t expect me to go high when you go low. Expect a fully engaged response.” As I finished, I leaned backward, putting my hands behind myself and resting them and my weight on his knees.

He didn’t say anything then but took the opportunity to test the new parameters of the experiment.

He placed his hand, fingers open and palm down on my belly, on the tight fabric of my blouse. He slid his hand upward slowly over my torso, over the fabric taut between my breasts, over my chest as my heart fluttered underneath his touch.

He continued moving it upward, flagina first, to the place where the high collar of my shirt covered the hollow of my throat. His fingers curled lightly around my neck, his hand moving higher still, meeting my windpipe under my chin. He didn’t tighten his fingers or apply additional pressure, but I ever so slightly tipped my head backward, allowing him to do what he wanted with my vulnerable neck.

My breath was coming fast under his touch, but my body language belied a total trust and willingness. 

I looked down at Sherlock over the bridge of my nose, but his gaze was fixed on his hand on my throat. He didn’t look scared, but he didn’t look predatory. He didn’t look blank either, though. He looked…struck. Like he had just made a discovery. 

His left hand found my right knee and he touched me in the same way, his hand open and palm flat, fingers loose as his hand pushed forward, moving from my knee up my thigh, up toward my hip. But when he got to the soft flesh over the jut of my hip, his rotated off course, moving inward toward my core and suddenly his thumb was moving over the fabric stretched over my crotch. I could barely feel it as he stroked his thumb over my slacks-covered-labia.

And then suddenly he pressed hard, pushing with enough force through my slacks and hit my clitoris directly. 

I whimpered suddenly, forcing myself to keep my eyes open so I could watch Sherlock’s face. He looked pleased, continuing to study the movement of his own hands on my body. It looked like he was trying to decide what to do next, and I divined a measure of comfort from the fact that he seemed to be treating this experience as a continuation of the experiment. It was good to know where we stood, good to know that it wasn’t a matter of flirtation with romance, it certainly wasn’t love, it was Sherlock testing his sexuality and me being a willing- and eager- participant.

The hand at my throat made its way around my neck to the nape, as he leaned forward. His fingers threaded into the hair at the back and grabbed in a fist, except instead of forcing my head further back, he forced it forward, his left hand at the same time moving back over my hip and on over to my ass. He leaned toward me as I was pulled toward him and my arms went, almost automatically, around the back of his neck. 

Suddenly he stood up, unexpectedly lifting me as he did. I was very impressed by his strength as I held on tight, wrapping my legs around him as he hefted me by the hand on my ass. He walked a few strides and put me down on the lilo perpendicular to the armchair and fireplace. He followed my body down, still wrapped in my arms and legs, resting his lower weight on my pelvis between his legs, propped up on his arms. I released his neck and fell backward onto the lilo, looking up at him propped over me. My long hair spilled out around me and cascaded off of the couch, tangling around his wrists by my head.

He moved upward a little, my legs less around his waist and more around his hips, the firmness of his length in his pants pressed against my own sex. He thrust his hips against mine, and we both gasped in reaction to the friction.

“I see what you mean about…engaged response.” He said finally, his voice little more than a growl at this point. He acted as if I he was unaffected by the stimulation. It was obvious he was not.

He looked down at me and I think at that moment it dawned on both of us that this is the furthest we had ever gotten with one another, and it was still a matter of awkward half-way-theres and in-betweens. 

We hadn’t even kissed. Would Sherlock want to kiss me? Did he kiss people? And would he kiss me ?

Here is what had changed since we had begun all this three weeks ago:

We had emotionally charged discussions. We had both discussed our pasts and exposed secrets to one another.

We had discussed the definition of our relationship and the expectations and limits we had regarding it.

We had cleared up assumptions, misapprehensions, and fears.

We were at a point freer than we had ever been. Before this, we were constrained by unwritten rules of our game, all of which we had traversed over the last few weeks.

We were in the exact same place, seemingly. Consent intact. No question, we were both interested and engaged.

So, what was stopping us?

Oh, that’s right. We were both terrified of unknown outcomes. And as much as we had dissected the situation and the possible outcomes, we had no way of knowing what chemical reaction we would achieve when our ingredients were finally poured into the same beaker.

I wasn’t thinking as my hands moved from their position near my shoulders, to his forearms, traveling upward much in the same way that they had yesterday in the plane as I tested his limbs for evidence of heroin use.

My hands rested on his biceps and then his body responded by bending his arms and resting on his elbows.

As his torso met mine and his face came toward my own, my hands moved over his shoulders.

His mouth dropped to mine and my right hand moved over the back of his head.

My fingers threaded through the hair at the nape of his neck and Sherlock’s mouth was over my lips, open, breath warm against me. I opened my mouth and met his kiss tongue first.

We finally kissed, a hot, messy, open mouthed exploration as my arms and legs wrapped around him. His hands tangled into my hair above my head.

As soon as his mouth was joined to mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth, requiring me to give way to his exploration, I felt like my body couldn’t get close enough to his. I pushed myself into him, in turns arching my back upward, and then my hips against his, opening my clothed legs and pushing forward to meet his own insistent, firm thrusts. Sherlock’s left hand had come down from my hair to move over the left side of my torso, caressing the curve of my waist between my hip and bust, dragging upward and grabbing my right breast, squeezing through the layers of shirt and bra, eliciting a moan from deep in my throat, delivered into his open mouth.

Sherlock broke our kiss and pulled back, looking downward at my body as if to determine what item of clothing to divest me of first. My hands grasped at the fabric of his shirt over his chest, watching his face intently as he leaned on his right elbow, propped over me.

His eyes moved back up to my face, and his look of planning and determination faded, as if distracted, as his eyes met mine. His gaze raked over my face, and he looked suddenly…sad?

“What?” I asked him carefully, my brows knitting together. His face flushed and, unthinkingly, my right hand released his shirt and traveled up to his face, holding my hand gently against his jaw and cheek. He flinched at my hand but did not pull away, and my thumb swept lazily over his cheek.

I hoped his hesitation would not lead to the complete cessation of our activities, but just as the thought crossed my mind, he leaned down and placed his lips against mine, kissing my bottom lip softly.

Compared to our previous kiss it was almost chaste, but compared to that kiss, this one felt like the first. Actually, it felt like a lot of things. It felt deeply personal, which was crazy to think, being that we had just been groping and dry humping one another for the last 20 minutes, he had already seen me naked, and his hand had been all over my ass multiple times.

But this? This made my heart not just race, but do flips. The soft breath from his nose caressing my face warmly felt downright intimate, not just sexual.

My eyes had fluttered closed for a moment, breathing in his exhaled breaths, as the surprising feeling of shyness moved through me, and with trepidation I opened my eyes a slit. To my vast surprise his eyes remained gently closed. I knew the open or shut status of his eyelids was not in itself meaningful, but seeing his face so relaxed so close to me was touching, somehow. 

I shut my eyes again and he deepened our kiss, running his tongue over my top lip, and I parted my lips for him. His hand moved over my face and back toward my chest. I took that as a cue to reach between us and begin unbuttoning my shirt. As I reached the bottom of my blouse, Sherlock broke our kiss again and raised up off of me, sitting back onto his heels. I sat up and pulled the shirt backward off of my torso. As I did so, Sherlock began unbuttoning his shirt, wrists first and then pulling it untucked from his trousers, moving from the bottom buttons up to the collar, pulling his shirt off as well as I unhooked and discarded my bra. 

We had both been completely naked in front of one another at various times over the last three weeks, but again this seemed different. Something about the way he looked at my naked breasts made me feel like it was the first time he ever had. I unbuttoned my slacks and pulled them off of my legs, kicking them onto the floor, and then I was naked in front of him again, save my black cotton thong underwear.

Suddenly, Sherlock stood up, and before I had a chance to ask him where he was going, he held out his hand, palm down, looking at me expectantly. I took his hand and stood up and he led me out of the room and over to the staircase, motioning for me to go ahead of him. I did as he had indicated and he followed behind me up the stairs. I waited at the top for him to join me and he took my hand again, leading me into the master bedroom.

The Master Bedroom was half again larger than the bedroom I was occupying. It also had a door out to a balcony facing the mountain, but the balcony looked larger. There was another door that appeared to lead to a bathroom. Against the same wall was the bed, a California King with a four post bedframe and canopy. It was probably the largest bed I had seen in my life, made of solid, tooled oak and covered in a purple brocade duvet. 

As soon as he entered the room, he was quickly upon me, his hands cupping the sides of my face and drawing my mouth to his. I kissed him back eagerly and he pushed me toward the bed, the back of my legs hitting the edge and I sat down, looking up at him. He held my gaze as he unbuttoned his black trousers, shucking them off of his hips and letting them pool around his feet before kicking them away. He had on white Calvin Klein briefs, his excitement more than evident through their tight fabric.

I reached up my hand and ran it over the hard length through his underwear and I heard him take a quick breath in. His hands found both of my breasts, running his palms over them  roughly, then cupping them and rubbing his thumbs around my nipples, which hardened at his touch. We were finally in unexplored territory in regards to one another, meeting each other as players of the same pace. And now it felt less like a game. It didn’t feel like a game. Or an experiment.

At all.

I moved onto the bed, laying back as he slid over me, his weight fully on my body, my legs parting to allow him to rest between them. He kissed me deeply again, his right arm wrapping over my head and left massaging my breast, kneading and pinching my nipple as my hands moved freely over his arms, back, flanks.

As he groped my breast and kissed me deeply, I moved my hand into his briefs, feeling his hard cock with no barriers for the first time. In the tight space of his underwear I wrapped my fingers around him and stroked him, he hips involuntarily bucking forward and breath coming raggedly as he became unable to maintain our kiss.

My hand was covered in sticky precum and I honestly wanted to just finish him off right there, with my hand, like we were in high school. I wanted to make him come, desperately.

He looked down into my eyes, reason gone from within them. He was willing to let me do it. I think he would have been willing to let me do anything in that moment. But as our eyes met we both decided that’s not how we wanted it to go.

As he rolled away from me to remove his underwear, I did the same, slipping off my thong and discarding it. Sherlock rolled back on top off me and reached down between us. I gasped as his finger moved over my clit, my entire center slick with arousal. He sank a finger into me and I whimpered. I was completely ready for him.

Without any more words, or looks, or hesitation he righted himself into my path and pushed into my core.

He sank quickly and completely into me in one easy movement, bottoming out, fully hilted. I spread my legs for him and he pushed his pelvis against me, both of us breathing quickly as he ensured there were no spaces left between us.

Time stood still as I looked up at his face, which was flushed, eyes dark and full only of feelings. 

My inner dialog stopped for the first time in my life and I felt everything.

I felt it as he leaned down to kiss me and I leaned up to meet his kiss, as he began moving within me.

I felt him shudder inside of me, felt his flanks tense and goosebump as my hands moved over him.

I felt him drop his weight, heavy on top of me and bury the side of his face against mine, pressing kisses against my head and neck as he tried desperately to cease being alone in his universe.

He wrapped his arms around my head and neck and I wrapped my arms and legs around him. He gasped open mouthed against my neck, his trapped breath hot against my skin, and the friction of his pelvis against my clit coaxed a crashing orgasm out of my body.

I arched upward and cried out, which immediately harkened his body to respond in kind.

His thrusting became erratic and he made gasping noises, as if startled or in pain, higher pitched and more vulnerable than I would have imagined.

Although my orgasm had continued to blossom, clenching around him, I focused on him, his reddened skin, my hands stroking over the back of his neck and through his hair as he finished spilling himself into me.

It all happened fairly quickly. As waves of spent pleasure washed over us, Sherlock rested his head against my neck, panting. Seemingly dazed.

He remained sheathed inside of me, softening, as we both wrapped our heads around what had just happened.

After a long time, Sherlock carefully propped himself up on his shoulders, breath hissing through his teeth as he fell out of me, finally.

He looked down at my face and though I intellectually wanted to meet his gaze with some sort of haughtiness, or triumph, or even indifference, I couldn’t. 

I didn’t know if it was the oxytocin or what, but I couldn’t meet his eyes with a look of anything less than adoration.

‘Stupid, stupid’, my brain told my body. In response my core spasmed lazily one last time.

I couldn’t see the thoughts that were running through Sherlock’s head, but he bent down and kissed me on the lips and I kissed him back, eyes closing.

To my surprise, he shifted around, laying on his back and drawing me closer to him. I tucked in underneath his arm, and we cuddled.

********

I don’t know how long it took me to fall asleep like that, but when I woke up three hours later, Sherlock was gone.

Not just gone from the bed, or the room, gone from the house entirely. He left a scrawled note on the kitchen island, but it only said that he would be back and didn’t even indicate when. 

********

He had left the files from my brother’s case, and I went through them, taking a couple hours to read through the reports and statements, contemplating the cryptic notations Sherlock had left in the wake of his own read throughs. 

I could see where Sherlock’s thought process lay in regard to the holes in the confession and timelines, and I did actually recognize the name that Sherlock had jotted down- Paul Stephen. I would need to pull the case files regarding him, but I remembered one of the last interrogations that I had watched my father conduct was his.

I didn’t remember all of the details. I was 14 years old and the details the man confessed to, laughing, about the violent and perverse things he may or may not have done to women were startling to me. The man was insane, terrifying, gross, and creepy. And nothing he had been accused of, or was half heartedly admitting to in a non legally binding way, could be traced back to him.

He got away and had seemingly fled the country. He was a man of wealth, connections, and resources and was never heard from again, at least by the time I moved away from home.

My father, as booze addled and corrupt as he had become at that point, seemed to have taken exception to Paul’s predilections for violence and chaos. Even bad men had standards, it seemed. It was notable to me, even at the time, that my father had cared so much.

********

As the time wore on, I became antsy, stuck alone in a partially furnished stranger’s mansion, no entertainment or transportation. Come 10 pm, I texted Sherlock, a simple question to see if he had plans on returning that evening, and got nothing in return. 

Feelings aside, I was thoroughly annoyed at the discourteousness of the situation, and his seeming flakiness as a boss.

Feelings, altogether? I wasn’t going to touch it. Not an iota. I was not going to unpack the implications of the most transcendental sexual experience of my life. Not going to consider why what should have been somewhat quick and boring missionary sex with someone I, in all reality, didn’t know that well, should have been so…ecstatic. 

And I definitely was not going to dwell on the fact that we had that moment and then Sherlock disappeared on me, again. 

********

When the next morning had come and Sherlock had still not returned, I tried not to be worried. He had left for days at a time before, and he certainly didn’t need to answer to me.

But I had an inkling that what we had done was not nothing to him, as well. He was already being flaky and elusive before, acting erratically enough that I had reached out to his brother, of all people.

Sherlock was so incredibly mercurial that on one day I was afraid he was coked up, and the next he was whimpering into my neck like a lost child. 

And I hated, hated the fact that he had left me alone here. Here, of all places in the entire world. 

I cursed his name under my breath and decided to go to the beach.

It was a cool morning so I dressed in a lightly knit, oversized cream sweater and blue linen capris pants, putting on my sunglasses and Keds and calling a car to take me to Junipero Beach.

I didn’t leave a note in case Sherlock came back. Or cared to find me gone.

********

I spent the afternoon lying on the beach, my toes in the Pacific and body warm in the sand, staring at the sun and trying to remember what it was like to be high. I bought a blue and green Baja blanket from a beach vendor and set it out, baking myself underneath the southwestern sun.

I knew I was playing with fire, I knew it. But I missed who I was. I missed that brief shining moment when I was living a life solely for myself. When my life had been mine to lose, mine to waste, mine to destroy. 

I thought about my dad, rotting in a mental hospital. My brother and sister, dead. What was the point of drudging it all up from the past? At that moment I didn’t even care if it was Paul Stephen or anyone else responsible. Nobody knew my brother or sister. Abigail and her mother were both dead. Michael was dead. My dad was crazy. 

I alone bore the knowledge of their lives and the weight of their deaths. And I didn’t care to do so anymore.

As I lay on the beach, my knees up and arms spread out wide beside me, I didn’t care about justice or the concept of justice. Biochemistry or trying to stop death. Sobriety or chosen family. My motorcycle, playing piano with John’s daughter.

Listening to Sherlock, possibly high, fucking a man downstairs just to piss me off.

Maybe I would stay in California. None of my possessions back in London mattered.

And it’s not even like my apathy blossomed from despair. Not really.

I just didn’t see the point of any of it anymore. None. I really felt like I had nothing to lose.

********

After too many hours in the sun, I pulled the tentacles of my mind back from the vacuum of existentialism and got up, folding my blanket and putting it under my arm, casting one last glance back to the sea and setting off downtown in search of something to eat.

I could feel a bit of a sunburn on my face and was glad that I had the wherewithal to at least take off my sunglasses before I surrendered to the void, because that would have been a truly embarrassing pattern on my face.

I found a small gastropub near main street and asked the waitress to tuck me into a corner booth. I sat by myself, eating a very Californian salad and watching the tourists move in and out of the pub, drinking IPAs and feeling rather American for the first time in months.

At 5pm my phone vibrated and I looked at it, sighing. I was at a 5% charge, having been gone the entire day. If I didn’t order my car now my phone would die before I could.

I paid for my food and gave generous tips to the two waitresses that served me while I took up a booth for hours, meeting my hired car out front and having it drop me off at the mansion.

I unlocked the front door with a key Sherlock had given me our first day here and kicked my sandy shoes off in the foyer, padding into the kitchen and setting my sandy blanket down on a kitchen chair. 

I heard loud footfalls coming down the stairs and I spun around, startled, to see Sherlock coming down the stairs. He had shaved at some point and was dressed in a smart, black three piece suit.

“Where the hell have you been?” He snarled at me, his voice so voluminous it was almost a yell. I jumped.

“I don’t know, where have you been?” I countered with a sneer, pulling off my sweater and putting it next to my blanket on chair, adjusting my white tank top.

“I was working.” He glared at me as he moved past me to pick up his note and thrust it at me.

“Your note doesn’t say that.” I told him, my voice thick with contempt.

“Why else would I be in California, Delilah?” He crumpled the note and threw it at me. “I’m here for you, for your family’s case.” He hissed at me through gritted teeth. “I’m not here to fuck around, if I’m out it means I’m working.” He talked to me like I was an utter, infuriating idiot.

I laughed into his face like a lunatic, my eyes wide. “You’re here for me? As if I asked you to do this. I asked you specifically not to do this.” 

I stepped forward suddenly and shoved him hard in the chest with both hands. Stunned, he staggered backward a couple steps, looking back at me furiously, which only angered me more. “ And you told me we were partners in this case, you’re supposed to be communicating with me.” 

The stupid look on his stupid face angered me more and I launched myself at him again, but he caught my wrists before I landed my blow. His hands were large around my arms and he was much stronger than me. He broke into a mirthless laugh as I struggled to free myself from his grasp.

“You are a crazy bitch, do you know that?” 

He had pulled me very close to him and I looked up into his eyes, and that’s when I saw it.

I stopped struggling and my eyes grew wide. He stopped for a moment, looking confused, and then it dawned on him exactly what was going through my mind. He shook his head.

“No. Delilah, no.”

He gave me my wrists as I wrenched them away from him and I shoved him again. This time he let me.

“You are high.” I accused him, my voice raised in astonishment. “You are completely geeked out.”

He laughed derisively as if to deny it, yet he did not deny it.

“ Sherlock .” I moaned, appalled. His face fell for a moment and then he reacquired his defensive stance.

“It’s for the case.” He insisted.

I turned and left the kitchen, heading upstairs. He followed after me quickly.

“It’s for the case!” He repeated. “The only way I can get close enough to Paul Stephen is to run in his circles. He is rich, and connected, and a massive partier. I went to one of his parties last night and I will have you know that I garnered a lot of important information, made many connections while I was there. It’s extremely important to expand my circle of informants in any place I conduct investigations-”

He was talking at me very quickly as I made my way to my room and he caught the door with the heel of his hand as I tried to slam it closed on him. He continued yammering justifications at me as I leaned across the bed to charge my phone which was down to 2%.

“What are you doing?” He said suddenly, his voice wild and accusatory.

I held it up for him. “I’m charging my phone.” 

He looked at me suspiciously. “You’re going to call my brother, aren’t you? Or John. I know you’ve got some sort of little crush on John, by the way, I can tell-”

“Sherlock, no!” I yelled at him. “I’m not telling anybody anything. I’m going to get a cab, and then I’m going to the airport, and then I’m going back to London to pack my shit and leave Baker Street!” 

My statement devolved into a near scream and it struck Sherlock quiet, the echoes of my protests ringing off of the empty walls like bells at a funeral.

Sherlock stood, as still as he possibly could, although all of the cocaine in his system made it impossible for him not to fidget a little bit.

“You’re just going to leave. You’re going to leave me.” His eyes left my face, falling to some unknown surface near me as he nodded to himself, his right hand bouncing at his side, fingers rubbing against one another. 

“I mean…of course you would.” He nodded again. “You should. John did.”

“John did not leave you.” I protested, my voice level but throat sore from exertion.

“He did. After I killed Mary he left Baker Street.”

“That’s not what happened.” I argued. I actually didn’t know exactly what happened with John’s dead wife, but I knew that if Sherlock had actually been culpable of killing her that John would never have kept him in his or Rosie’s lives.

Sherlock swayed and then staggered, looking like he was trying to decide whether to run or not. “I’m…too much for him. I’m too much for everyone. Obviously too much for you.”

He looked up at me again, gesturing at me while I stood across the room from him, my phone still charging in my hand and a bed between us.

“Sherlock.” I sighed, holding my hand up toward him. “You’re too altered to think about this clearly, okay? This is a bad time for us to talk about this. Why don’t we get something to eat?”

He looked at me for a moment, blankly and then sank sideways toward the door frame, and then lower onto the floor, sitting with his head in his hands. “This was a mistake.” He moaned, voice muffled.

His voice was so full of emotion and remorse that I couldn’t help feeling a well of empathy for him as I walked over and sat cross legged beside him. I reached a hand out and touched the side of his arm.

“I swear I didn’t come out here to do this.” He was crying now. “I didn’t come out here to party, or to do drugs, or to have orgies…”

I wanted to ask him about the last statement but decided to leave it, so as not to throw the discussion off track. Sherlock, in his drug enhanced state, however, decided to press forward with more information about it.

“Yes, I went to an orgy! An hour after we were together, I went to the party and I fucked four other women, and two men, and then one man tried to fuck me, but honestly I’ve decided it’s not my favorite thing, and he got all annoyed when I asked him to stop, which he did of course, it wasn’t that kind of party-”

I rubbed Sherlock’s arm, shushing him as he got himself worked up again. I had forgotten how much work talking to drug addicts was in the years since rehab.

********

Eventually I got Sherlock downstairs and onto the couch. He sat in just his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, and boxer shorts, wrapped in my sandy Baja blanket, which he insisted on using even though I told him it had sand in it. He said it smelled like me so I shook it out and let him wrap it over his head and around his shoulders, and I ordered us in some burgers and fries (and Sherlock yelled at me every time I chose to call them fries instead of chips).

He talked at me and to me and to himself, occasionally crying, until four in the morning when he finally passed out, exhausted, and I did, too.

********

At some point mid-morning that same day, I was awoken by the sound of my name, drifting first through the decaying remnants of my dreams, and then rousing me as I came to, draped over the armchair across from the couch, my head resting against the back.

“Delilah.”

I opened my eyes and looked up to see Sherlock looming over me.

“We need to talk.” He said seriously and I pulled myself from my cramped sleeping position to sit.

He sat down on the couch across from me. He was wearing a black tee shirt and blue jeans, stubble on his face and looking older than I’d ever seen him.

“I am- so sorry.” He sounded exhausted, rubbing his face harshly with his hands, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and then pulling his fingers through his hair.

I rubbed the sleep out of my own eyes, pulling my legs up under myself, still groggy. 

“What are you sorry about?” I asked him. Not to imply he shouldn’t be sorry, or that I didn’t know why he would be, but I wanted to hear from him directly what he was sorry about.

“I haven’t been honest with you.” He said. “I have been using. Not heroin. Not this time.” He added. “Mostly stimulants. Cocaine. Some Adderall. When John pulled back from our partnership- which was understandable, and the right thing to do for his child- I realized that…I don’t know if it’s age, or depression, or just not having John with me- I couldn’t focus the same way. Everything was taking me far too long to sort out. My deductions, my investigations. I felt like a…a fog had settled over me. And I had too much time to think.

That’s when I started my sexual experimentations, trying to see if that was what was missing, or if that would help me in some fashion. And then Mrs. Hudson died. And the man I was hooking up with at the time offered me some Adderall. Which seemed like…an okay choice, since it’s a prescription. And well…” He gestured forward, allowing me to fill in the blanks for myself. 

“So you’ve been using since before I was even hired.” I stated for clarity. He nodded.

“When I was thinking about everything, trying to figure out me- well just, myself. Trying to decide what it was that I actually felt for John, for example- that’s when I realized that everything that I went through in the two years that I was ‘dead’...I’ve never really talked about it. I couldn’t talk to John about it at first, he was so angry at me. And rightly so. And then when he had forgiven me it felt like it was too late to talk about it. 

So I kept it inside. And things got better. And then they got worse again. And we lost Mary. 

I loved her so much. She was like the sister I never had- and then it turned out I have a sister, but that was just another trauma in itself. Everything kept…snowballing. 

And then John pulled away. We never…unpacked so many of the things that happened. John did therapy, he was smart. I never did. 

The closest thing I had, and the closest anyone has ever come to understanding me, was John. So it did feel like a bit of abandonment. But, if I’m honest…I was getting dark before that.”

He looked down, his fingers pulling at the fabric of the couch, his expression blank.

I stood up and came over to the couch and he watched me sit beside him out of the corner of his eye. I sat back into the cushion and touched his arm. He tensed up but I pulled at him.

“No, come on.” I told him. He sighed and moved back against the cushion, leaning over stiffly toward me, putting his head on my shoulder. I put my arms around him and moved so that his head was tucked against my neck and chest, and I held him tightly. It took a moment, but the pressure eventually coaxed a release from him and he melted against me, wrapping his arms around my waist. After a moment his breathing became more erratic and I felt something drip down my clavicle. He was crying silently into my neck. I tightened my arms around him and pressed my face into the hair on the top of his head, and he broke into barely audible sobs.

I held him for a long time and eventually the shuddering ceased. Sherlock loosened his grip on me and then sat up, wiping his face with his hand and pointedly not looking at me.

“I don’t know what to do, Del.” He said finally, in a hoarse voice, calling me the nickname he had always refused to use on me.

“About what?” I asked him softly. He let out an exasperated sigh.

“About any of it. I have made such a mess. The case is a mess. I’m on drugs again. My brother is going to be seething. John will be disappointed. And you-”

He turned to look at me as I sat on the couch, my knees pulled to my chest and arms wrapped around them. His eyes were puffy and his whole face red and heavily lined. 

“I wish John had never hired you.” He said softly, looking at me sadly. “Just another life I’m bound to ruin. And I’m not strong enough to just leave you alone. And I can’t bear the thought of telling you to leave. I’m a selfish piece of shit, I’m going to destroy you and I’m not even strong enough to stop the ending even as I see it coming.”

I considered his words, my chin resting on my knee. 

“I think you need to realize, Sherlock, that all of these people you care about- and I guess I’ll put myself in that category, just to make my point- they can all think for themselves. You may feel like the smartest person in the room, but it’s not up to you to think, or decide, or to feel for anyone else. We’re all our own people, and you haven’t forced anyone to be part of your life. We’ve all chosen it. And we’re not as dumb as you think.”

He turned his whole body to look at me fully, his eyes narrow as he thought about what I said. 

“I can’t argue with that.” He finally admitted, sullen.

“I know, that sucks, right?” I kicked him lightly with my toe. “If you can’t hold yourself responsible for the actions and feelings of everyone around you, what are you going to use as an excuse to continue your path of self destruction?” 

“I do care about you.” He said then, quickly, almost as if his body forced it out of him before his brain could shove it back down his esophagus.

“I care about you, too.” I admitted.

“I can tell.” Sherlock said gruffly, looking down guiltily. 

“So let me do it, idiot.” I said to him quietly. 

He looked up at me with a small smirk, looking more in that moment like himself than he had since right after we had sex, and he pulled me to him to fall asleep in his arms. 

Even if that had possibly been a ruse to get me to sleep so he could go have a yayo-powered sex party.

“Let’s go back to London.” I told him. He looked up to protest but I held up my hand to him. “We will revisit this case. I looked over the files while you were gone. And I remembered some things about Paul Stephen from when I was younger. But we can take care of it another time. Let’s just go home, and we can figure out what to do from there, okay? Please?”

I held his eyes with my gaze and he nodded finally.

********

And so, four hours later, Sherlock had hired the private plane, and I had packed all of our belongings and we were headed back to London. 

Sherlock slept most of the way home. A few hours in I texted John to let him know we would be back soon:

DP: So, change of plans- we’ll be back in London around 2 AM tomorrow.

JW: The case wrapped up that quickly?!

DP: No. 

DP: Don’t worry, things are okay. Mostly.

JW: I don’t like that sound of that…

DP: I think we’ll be okay. I WILL reach out if I need help

John waited about 20 minutes before sending me one last text

JW: I think we should get together and talk sometime soon.

DP: Are you firing me?

JW: NO! But we should talk.

DP: Tomorrow night. 7 PM. The Crowing Hen.

JW: It’s a date.

JW: Plan.

JW: Nothing implied.

JW: <message unsent>

DP: lol

********

We reached London very early the next morning and Sherlock locked himself into 221B. He assured me he would be fine but needed some space and time by himself, and I gave it to him, under the condition he didn’t bugger off to party.

He kept his word, and I periodically heard him in his flat in various places throughout the day, running water, playing violin, snoring, making tea.

At 6PM I started getting ready for my Nothing Implied Plans with John. I already felt I knew where the conversation would be headed. I looked forward to hearing John’s side of Sherlock’s pathos, and to know what John’s actual feelings about anything that had happened were. Simply from an understanding of human nature I knew that he didn’t view Sherlock as harshly as he was viewing himself, but I was not happy with the incomplete picture I had of their history, even with all of the blanks I had filled in for myself. 

It was a warm late summer evening, so I wore a light dress. Long, airy and flowing cotton, with long blouse sleeves and a muted floral print, like something Stevie Nicks would have worn on vacation in California. I pulled on my black gladiator sandals and stepped outside to the cab I had called, pausing briefly at the landing to Sherlock’s flat to see if I could hear anything. He was still playing the violin, so there was a chance he would see me leave, as he often looked out his window over Baker Street as he played, but I had tried to text him to let him know I would be seeing a friend this evening and he hadn’t responded.

I felt guilty and worried leaving him, having seen him so sad and knowing that he was currently having drug abuse issues. But I couldn’t babysit him and he wouldn’t let me in, at all since we had gotten back to London early that morning. 

I didn’t look up to the windows of 221B as I climbed into the cab destined for The Crowing Hen pub.

I walked into the darkly lit tavern. That was one of the things I really adored about London- they had taverns, and they were invariably darkly lit. Sure there was usually an assortment of neon signs here and there, but so many of the buildings in that town were so old, and there was an understand that seemed to be seldom found in America anymore, that not everything needs to be brightly lit by cold white LEDs.

This pub actually had a hearth, with a fire lit in the corner. It was like a scene out of a Lord of the Rings novel, I thought to myself, smirking.

I looked around for Gandalf but only found John Watson, sitting in a back corner table by a window. I walked over as I saw him and he looked at me, smiled, and then really looked at me, his eyes running over my figure. He stood as I walked over and we exchanged a small side hug and both sat back down.

“Wow, you look…tan.” He commented.

I laughed. “Yeah, we were only there like two days but I spent one of them at the beach.” I smiled and didn’t mention I was having a mental breakdown at the beach I had ODed on five years ago.

“Yeah, right, so…” He did his John, smiling-while-confused thing. “What happened? Why are you back if the case didn’t get solved?”

“How do I say this?” I rested my elbows on the table, steepling my fingers in front of my face, bouncing my fingertips against one another. “It just wasn’t a good place for either of us- me or Sherlock- to be.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what that means.” 

“I have a history in Long Beach and Sherlock is having some…issues.”

“He’s using again.” John said, irritated. I shook my head.

“I didn’t say that.” I told him, which was technically the truth, I had not said it. “It was a trip we didn’t need to take, a case we didn’t need to be working on. I think I’m going to try and get him to work with me on Lost Years project.” I told John, definitively. “I think it would be good for him to work some of that out.”

John looked at me warily. “Del, I don’t know. He never talked to me about it, never wanted to talk to me about it. I’m afraid of what might happen if that all…surfaces.”

“John, believe me, it’s on the surface.” I told him, leveling my gaze over his face. His eyes snapped up to mine.

“Is he okay? Are you okay?” He took a drink of his pint, frustrated and shaking his head. “I wish I knew what was going on.”

“Look, it’s not like I want to hide anything from you.” I insisted, feeling guilty. “You’ve known Sherlock far, far longer than I have. But sometimes all of that history just makes it harder to talk about some things. Especially when you feel guilty about your part in…certain situations.”

“He was talking about Mary again, wasn’t he?” John’s eyes grew cold, momentary flash of grief, pain like a reflex that would never go away.

“Yes and no.” I again half-truthed. 

He shook his head again. “This is what I’m talking about, bringing things up again. We should just let it lie. We’ve put all of this to rest, years ago.” He looked at me, more animated and frustrated than I’d ever seen him.

“No. You did. Sherlock hasn’t.” I looked down for a moment, trying to decide how I was going to word this without making it seem like I was leveling any blame onto John for Sherlock’s inability to deal with his feelings. 

“He made temporary peace with it. I don’t know the details, at all, but at some point he did something he felt guilty about, and you forgave him for it. So he forgave himself. And when you decided to move away, even though he understood it was for your daughter’s best interest, he still, deep down, viewed it as a rejection. And as such, he reopened every wound that existed, started punishing himself for every wrong he felt he had committed, because people like Sherlock are massive control freaks who feel like they have the ability to bend people to their will. 

You would think it’s a problem of inflated self importance and ego but, in reality, it is a levying of massive responsibility for the pain of everyone around you. It’s…a terrifying weight to bear.”

John furrowed his brow at me, parsing what I had just told him. 

“No…that definitely makes sense. I mean, he has always felt this…intense responsibility for just…everyone. Granted, he almost always manages to come through with these superhuman feats. It’s hard not to hold him to a higher standard when he almost always lives up to it.”

“It’s hard to function at 120% at all times.” I countered, before I could help it. “Sorry, sorry.” I held up my hands. “That was a personal experience comment. Not relevant to the conversation.”

John licked his lips thoughtfully, sitting back a little, practically staring a hole through my head. I tilted my head at him in confusion.

“What?”

“Actually, Del, I brought you here to, well. To warn you.” He set his hands gently on the table, as if physically feeling around for the best way to put a difficult point. “About Sherlock. About some of the things I’ve seen him do at some of his worst times. I was worried about you. Well, let me start by asking.” He leaned forward and looked into my eyes, and I suddenly felt quite diminished under his gaze, like I was answering to a teacher or an uncle or something.

“Do I need to be worried about you?”

I think for a moment, wanting to give him a truthful answer. He doesn’t know the extent of everything that has happened, and he doesn’t know for sure that Sherlock is using drugs again. Does he need to be worried about me? Do I need to be worried about myself? 

John didn’t take well to my extended silence, and he reached out and covered one of my hands lying on the table with his own.

“Del, please. What is going on?”

“I just need a little time.” I told him truthfully. I stood up from the table, gathering my skirt around me and pushing my chair in.

He stood up and stepped closer, looking down at me intently and gripping my arm above my elbow. 

“Don’t take it all on yourself.” He whispered to me. “Just because you feel like you understand him, doesn’t mean that he’s your responsibility to fix.” He continued to hold my gaze as I looked up at him. “We all love Sherlock. He’s a great mind and a great man. But he’s complicated. And damaged. And I know that you feel like you’re scary and damaged, too, but he has a lot of years on you. You’re still young. You’re practically a baby.” John chuckled but also looked concerned. “He’s a grownup, even if he doesn’t always act like it. You don’t always have to be the only adult in the room. Okay?” 

I nodded, looking down. Seemingly compulsively, John stepped forward and took the back of my head gently in his hand, pressing a kiss into the hairline at my forehead.

“Text me, okay?” He commanded, his lips in my hair, and I nodded again, practically running out of the pub.

********

In the cab on the way back to Baker Street I texted Sherlock to let him know that I would be letting myself into his flat so that I could see him and that we would talk. He didn’t answer me, but I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer, either way.

I just hoped to God he was actually going to be there when I arrived. Following the patterns of the last month, this would be the perfect time for him to go score more drugs and engage in meaningless sex with a person or six.

As I ascended the stairs to 221B-2, however, I heard Sherlock’s violin. He was playing something I didn’t recognize. It sounded like a lively Bach Sonata in a minor key, but it was not something I recognize, although I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of Bach, by any means.

I turned the knob to Sherlock’s flat- it was unlocked as usual, and I was unworried that I would startle or surprise him, as he must have seen me coming from below.

The music got much louder as I enter the flat. Sherlock was standing by the cold hearth, wearing pajamas and his nasty old blue dressing robe, untied and open. He turned to look at me as I entered and sat perched on the couch across the room, my hands resting on my knees as he continued playing. He stopped after a few more minutes, the piece unfinished.

“Why did you stop?” I asked, a bit of disappointment in my question.

Sherlock lowered his bow, violin resting on his clavicle. “That’s all I have so far.”

“ You wrote that?” My face broke into a smile, and he looked begrudgingly chuffed. He nodded. 

“Does it have a name yet?”

“No.” He answered quickly. “I probably won’t name it until I finish.” He moved over to the music stand by the window and quickly closed a manuscript notebook, where about a page and a half had been notated with music. He lowered his violin and I stood up suddenly.

“Wait. Come with me.”

Sherlock looked at me strangely, placing his violin down. 

“No, bring the violin. This will be fun.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, but his expression was one of good-natured intrigue. I led him out of the flat and up the stairs to 221B-3.

I sat down at the piano bench and opened the keyboard cover.

“Will you duet with me, Sherlock?”

He came to stand beside the piano, facing me, and tucked his violin under his chin, raising his bow. 

“What are we playing?”

“You’ll recognize it.” I smiled at him and began playing Mozart’s Sonata for Piano and Violin in E Minor, K:304 II. This piece is highly piano led, the violin often following in response to the meanderings of the piano. It was almost sad in parts, a melancholy in minor key, but playful again, adagio notes with sections akin to call-and-response, and then playing quickly but in tandem.

Sherlock quickly knew the piece- anyone who plays violin or piano was familiar with it.

I watched Sherlock as I began to play, and then as we played together, his eyes were locked on mine as well.

It was fascinating to me to watch him play. He wouldn’t have been any good at it if he didn’t know how to feel the music in, for lack of a more scientific term, his heart. I wasn’t sure if he was aware of the changes that took place on his face and in his eyes when he played. 

Even with his eyes locked on mine, as he played, the calculation fell away from his gaze. It was like he was open for me to see, some kind of honesty seeping forth from dilated pupils. His body swayed slightly with the tempo, back and forth, weight shifting from ball of foot to the other.

I had a tic-like habit of swaying front to back on the piano bench as I played. I tried to control it my whole career, as it seemed almost embarrassingly dramatic to me for some reason. Not sure why I had put that judgement on myself about it, as I didn’t judge anyone else for how their bodies kept time.

Maybe because in the music I felt exposed. And watching Sherlock unfold in front of me as he played, I could comprehend why it might make me feel vulnerable.

But with him, I didn’t care. I felt the music overtly. We played in tandem, keeping time with one another easily. I hadn’t heard him play that often before, but he had been playing almost constantly since we got back to London the previous day. I was glad for it, because as long as I could hear him play, I knew he was downstairs and, hopefully, safe.

Our eyes remained on one another, our playing a partnership and breaths coming in time with one another. I felt like I was seeing him pared back and saw in his eyes a willingness to share something real with me, beyond his bluster, or any silly games we might be playing with one another, or my need to top from the bottom, or his need to be a superhero robot.

As we hit the last note, together, a strong finish, I kept my foot on the sustain pedal, and he kept his bow raised, and we let the strings of our instruments vibrate themselves asleep naturally.

As the ringing silenced, Sherlock lowered his bow and violin, looking at me with shoulders slightly slumped. His hair was bedraggled and face dark with stubble.

“Where did you go earlier? You had a date?” He asked quietly, enunciating the last ‘t’ in a manner meant to indicate nonchalance and failing spectacularly. 

“No.” I answered simply, hoping to avoid a barrage of observations to the contrary, but it seemed that Sherlock didn’t have it in him anyway. 

“I went to see John.” I went on to explain. “He’s worried about you. I didn’t tell him…well I didn’t tell him much. Which doesn’t seem fair. He loves you.”

Sherlock sighed, and I turned to watch him as he moved to the dining table and took a seat, placing his instrument on the table behind him.

“I know.” He said simply, resting his elbows on his knees. He seemed so quiet. Quiet for a normal person, which was startling for a man who had boundless energy and something to remark on at all times. Although, apparently, I had not experienced Sherlock sans cocaine yet. 

The thought of that made me sad. He knew me by now. We had only known one another for a month by this point, but I had shared more with him than I had anyone in my entire life. Yet it was entirely possible that, having met Sherlock in active addiction, I might not know him at all.

And there was a chance that, at the end of it, he wouldn’t want to know me at all.

I wanted to ask him if he was planning to quit. How he was going to go about it if so. If I could help him through it. I didn’t know how bad his withdrawal would be, I didn’t know how often he was using.

I didn’t know anything.

But fuck, it felt like I did. It felt like I knew him. 

Maybe I knew his pain, because my own recognized it as kin.

“Have you eaten anything today?” I asked him, finally breaking the silence. He didn’t look up at me, only nodded.

I stood up and walked over to Sherlock. He looked up at me as I stood in front of him, his blue eyes incredibly dark. By his generally deflated and apathetic energy, I had to assume that he was somewhere in the process of detox, and that his main side effect seemed to be depression. That also could have come also from the aborted California trip and the temporarily derailed investigation into my sister’s murder. I knew those things would also be apt to make him depressed.

I thought also to our own relationship. We cared about one another. We had both admitted that. But what a nebulous concept that was. We had had sex, but sex was not something that was special or emotional to Sherlock, and it wasn’t necessarily to me, either. 

No, I concluded. Nothing about our relationship, whatever it was, was contributing to Sherlock’s depression. I had to assume at this point that whatever was happening was temporary.

He had assured me to the contrary, not a week before this, that I was not meant to be a short-term addition in his life, a tool, or a means to an end, or a plot point hastening character growth.

However, it seemed more and more likely that that would be my role in this story. Sherlock’s life was a tome of adventures, a serial where he was the main character. He was special and, as much as I envied his irrefutable necessity in the lives of others, I also pitied the responsibility that seemed to place on his shoulders. 

To be an archetype and an antihero, but never a person.

If I could be a ledge of humanity upon which his entirely mortal hand could find purchase during his freefall, I would do it. 

I could play that part. For him. 

********

Chapter Text

Remember how it was with you
Remember how you pulled me through
I remember, I remember

-"I Remember" deadmau5

My indecision on further action lasted long enough that the urgency of said decision diminished to a point of complacency, at some point around the two week mark after we returned to London.

Yes, two whole weeks. You would think, given the previous pacing of events, that within two weeks someone would be either dead or married.

But isn’t that the way things usually work? It’s either a deluge or drought conditions and never any in-between.

So, what did I do for two weeks? Besides watch Sherlock’s behavior as closely as possible and repeatedly type and untype messages to ‘Marjorie’?

I did my job, mostly. Cooking and cleaning for Sherlock, running occasional errands for him. I spent three solid days closed up in my flat doing an intense research project for a colleague of mine at Oxford. Sherlock didn’t even notice, because I was providing him with meals as necessary, when he was actually there, which was about every three days.

Another reason, besides the dampening nature of time, that I wound up not “doing” anything about Sherlock was because he had almost completely disengaged himself from me.

********

After Sherlock and I had finished our duet, we sat in silence for several moments. I didn’t even feel his presence in the room with me as he sat across from me in my armchair. It was like I was sitting in the room with a stranger. Or a figment of my imagination. 

I got up off of the piano bench and walked over to him as he continued to look away from me. My hand reached out, fingers brushing over the soft fabric of his dressing gown draped over his shoulders. He did not tense under my touch but did not respond, either. As my arm moved over his shoulders, I leaned my body against him, not to be an intrusion but to provide comfort. To that, he responded. He leaned toward me, head against my stomach, and I reached out my other hand and touched the side of his face gently, fingertips prickled by the stubble on his dry, tired face.

He looked at me finally, tilting his head upward to look into my face. His blue eyes were lighter than usual, as if a measure of depth had been drained from them. 

And then he stood up. I gave him room to stand, and he walked around me, grabbing his violin and bow off of my piano, and left my flat. He didn’t look back as he closed my door behind him.

I heard him leave his flat the next morning and heard him return eight hours later. Shortly after that he had texted me shopping and chore lists for the coming week.

The rest of our communications for the next two weeks were handled in this manner. I never came across him when I ventured into 221B-2 to tidy up or put away groceries- I only saw him a couple times as I came and went from my own.

During that time, he did receive visitors. Only during business hours. A hodgepodge of people that I wondered were perhaps potential clients. But I had no way of knowing and my one text requesting information was ignored.

********

It was the first Friday of October, and for the first time that week, the rain had stopped. Normally, the persistent London drizzle did not bother me, but something about the Autumn cold had seeped into my bones. I had spent most of the week sitting by my fireplace, in the chair last occupied by Sherlock before me. I had drug it closer to the hearth, wrapping myself under my Long Beach Baja blanket, now de-sanded but also last occupied by Sherlock.

Between Sherlock’s occasional requests on my time and the odd research work I was doing for the university, I was working on a series of essays, or possibly some longer form of non-fiction. I hadn’t decided yet, but I had become determined to keep my mind occupied, and to occupy it with matters larger than myself and the weird little situations I frequently found myself in. I hadn’t made too much headway, in all honesty. I had a habit of starting to write and then looking up from my laptop screen as I tried to order my thoughts, and then my gaze would fall to the flames in the fireplace, and next thing I knew I had been staring at fire for an hour.

It was after one such spell that my eyes flicked up to the window to see the rain, except there was not rain. There was blue sky. In growing cerulean patches, peeking out between gray puffball clouds. I eagerly put on my black peacoat and pulled my “fucking ugly” chunky suede boots on over my pajama pants, and set out for the nearby park.

I popped into the cafe downstairs and bought a pasty on the way, hooking my earbuds into my ears and choosing something decidedly not sad-cold-wet to listen to. Best of Electric Light Orchestra, I thought. Would be fitting, I thought, to start with Mr. Blue Sky. It was more Mr. Calico Sky at this point, but we would take what we could get.

I entered the park and noticed many other Londoners seem to have followed the siren call of rare sunshine on a Friday afternoon. I watched couples strolling through, holding arms, and businessmen in blue coats taking to the park benches on their lunch breaks.

I probably looked a bit homeless, I thought, with my currently extremely frizzy brown hair tied in a high messy bun, peacoat worn open and hanging over a Pink Floyd tee shirt and pink plaid pajama pants tucked into the world’s most worn-out shealing-lined boots. Uniquely and obnoxiously American, I thought to myself, and then realized that no one was looking and nobody cared.

I stood by the side of a small pond, eating what was left of my pasty and watching some ducks– two males and a female– swimming around, quacking at one another and occasionally dipping underneath the surface of the pond, reappearing after a long while to discuss with one another what they had found underneath the water.

I binned my trash and walked further into the park. It got darker as I strode underneath a canopy of trees. They had not yet dropped their leaves, and the sunlight cast through them glinted red and gold as I looked upward toward the autumn sky. A stiff wind blew through the trees, my coat flapping around my figure as I stood still on the pavement, letting the unmistakable smell of autumn seep into my mind a nostalgic feeling for a childhood I had only ever observed on television.

As I wandered through the large city park, the wind became more persistent and more biting, the afternoon growing older, the clouds reclaiming the patches of blue sky. I pulled my coat around myself and belted it, turning my collar up and pulling down my wild hair simply to keep my neck warm. After all of this, I was still just a California girl. Maybe one day I would get used to the cold and the rain. If I stayed.

As I trudged back to Baker Street with my hands shoved into my pockets and small droplets of rain splattering the lenses of my glasses, I pondered my place in London. 

When Sherlock and I had come back from California, I immediately resumed my weekly church visits with my father. Although he continued to try engage me in conversation about things in my childhood that either hadn’t happened, or I had completely forgotten, I did not attempt to ask him about Paul Stephen or anything that would be relevant or helpful to the case with Mike. 

I didn’t even know if there was a case anymore. Or if there ever was a case to begin with. The evidence Sherlock had produced had been compelling, sure. But if Sherlock wanted to let it be, perhaps it was better to let it be. Did it really matter if Mike did it or not? 

The implication had been that Mike had been framed for Abigail’s strangling. Abigail was strangled. So, if Mike didn’t do it, someone else must have. That person could be anywhere, doing anything to anybody. If they existed.

Did I have a responsibility in any of this? Was it my moral duty to seek the truth?

So much for my lighter mood, I thought, rounding the corner to Baker Street. My brain was clouded with the what-ifs of justice and responsibility. As I walked nearer to 221B, a police car pulled up to the curb. From within it emerged a man I had come to know over the last week from my four separate runs to Scotland Yard to pick up boxes of old, closed case files- Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade.

I must have looked a complete mess as I plodded up to the door, because he did an almost comically dramatic double take when he saw me as he reached for the doorbell. 

“Del Patrick!” He said my name as if he were reminding himself what it was.

“Detective Inspector.” I smiled at him tersely, opening the door and heading inside in front of him.

“Call me Greg.” He said in a friendly manner, more because he was at my home than because he cared what I called him, I figured.

I headed up the stairs first to alert Sherlock to company, but as I rounded the corner, the door to 221B-2 was open and Sherlock stood in the doorway.

He had gotten a haircut since the last time I had seen him. It was still wildly curly and possibly too long for a man his age, but the shape suited him, the sides shorter and the length more even. He was clean shaven and was wearing a tailored and well-fitting navy blue suit.

I had not seen him that put together possibly ever. Even at times before when he was shaved or wearing a suit or seemed to care one lick about his appearance, he still exhibited some sort of vibration or antsy-ness that I wasn’t aware existed before I saw him like this.

I tried not to stare at him and instead fumbled a step, my shin hitting the corner of the second one from the top at full force as I tried to catch myself on the banister.

Sherlock took two long steps forward and grabbed my left arm by the wrist and elbow, helping me up as my shin smarted and felt like it might be bleeding. 

He gripped my arm tightly as he helped me up the last step. I didn’t look at him and simply told him, “You have company. Obviously.”

I pulled away from him as he immediately turned his attention to Lestrade. I heard some words of greeting followed by ‘murder, note, old case’. I didn’t listen and instead shut my door quietly and began pulling off my damp, cold clothing. 

When I got to my pajama pants, as I pulled them off, I saw that I was, in fact bleeding. I had hit my shin so hard that it had torn the pants and gouged my skin, not deep, but about two inches long and wide. I went into the bathroom and stood on one leg, my other leg draped into the sink as I washed the abrasion with soap and water and then limped into my bedroom to put on some boxer shorts and pull on my UCLA hoodie. I pulled a brush through my hair, which only made it frizzier but at least straightened out all of the knots, before finally coming to rest sitting by the hearth. I leaned forward to throw in some firewood and was working on starting a fire when I heard a knock on my door. Three raps, quick and solid.

I stood up and limped quickly to the door, opening it a few inches to peer out.

“Sherlock.” I said, his name leaving my mouth as more of an observation than a greeting.

He was standing in front of my door with one hand in the pocket of his trousers and the other holding a brown folder against his chest.

“Delilah. May I come in?” He raised an eyebrow at me, looking down at me with straight posture and an unaffected gaze.

I nodded and stepped back, opening my door to let him in. He took in the small changes to the inside of my flat- a computer set up in the corner, the desk piled in thick textbooks and piles of paper, a purple vase with dying white roses in it sitting on my piano, and the armchair pulled up next to the cold fireplace, on the mantle of which sat a bell jar. I did find him double take when his eyes passed over that piece- I had gotten it at an oddities market shortly after moving to London- a small, taxidermy albino mouse, wearing a red Victorian dress coat, her back adorned with real blue butterfly wings, and in her little paws clutching a black rose. She had sat wrapped safely in a box since I had arrived at Baker Street and I had pulled her out on the first of October. It seemed fitting.

I walked in front of Sherlock, hiding a small limp, and pulled my blanket off of the armchair, tossing it in the corner and turning the chair toward the piano.

“Would you like to sit down?” I asked him with awkward politeness. 

“Yes. We should sit down.” He affirmed, and I took a seat on the piano bench, facing away from the piano so I could see him.

I watched him walk across the room and sit, leaning forward slightly and holding the brown folder in his hands, resting in his lap.

I had been avoiding his eyes this entire time. I forced myself to look at him, really look at him. It felt as though I may be looking at a stranger, his energy was so entirely different.

As my eyes met his, I could have sworn I saw something inside them soften. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

“We have to talk”, he said quietly and carefully, “about this case that Detective Inspector Lestrade has brought to me.”

I blinked. “Alright…” I commented, urging him to continue.

He opened the folder to himself and began speaking. 

“This morning at 3 a.m., at a club on Merino Street called Daze, a body was found in one of the private rooms as they were closing. A young woman named Celia Whigg. She was a twenty-two-year-old student at London University and was working at Daze as a dancer.”

I nodded, listening to the details of the case. It was absolutely unfortunate, but it didn’t seem to warrant the absolutely dire countenance Sherlock was showcasing. I was surprised that he seemed so disturbed by it. Not because it wasn’t disturbing, of course, but because surely, he had seen much worse. Although I hadn’t yet heard the details of how she had died. Perhaps that was the disturbing part to him.

“She had been garroted and hidden under a table, probably around 11 p.m. according to the Forensic Pathologist. The room had not been rented out that night, at least not per the club’s records. So, the body was there in the locked room until they did their final security sweep after lights on.”

“The room was locked? That’s odd.”

Sherlock nodded, looking down at the folder again. He seemed…nervous almost.

“What? What are you not telling me? If you’re worried I can’t handle it, I’ve seen and heard much worse, growing up shadowing my dad.”

“No, no, it’s not that.” Sherlock said, continuing to hesitate. Finally, he pulled an eight-by-eleven picture from the folder and handed it to me.

It was a photo taken of the crime scene, centered on the body of Celia Whigg. She was laid on the floor, legs straight and arms to her side, eyes closed, and head tilted back slightly, blue lips parted. 

She had her blonde hair in low pigtails by her ears and was wearing a sexy, costume version of a Catholic schoolgirl outfit, complete with knee high socks.

Across her throat was a dark red gash surrounded by intense bruising where the wire had rendered her unconscious and, in the process, cut open the delicate skin on her neck.

The truly shocking detail of the photograph was the white envelope laid across Celia’s bare midriff.

In cursive writing was scrawled: “To Dr. Delilah Patrick”.

“That’s–” I started speaking, shut my mouth and tried again. “That’s not even technically correct.”

I looked at Sherlock, who seemed to twitch a small, quick smirk despite himself. He got very serious again very quickly, producing to me another eight-by-eleven.

This picture was a collage of four pictures: the envelope from with my name on it, the back of the envelope sealed with a lipstick kiss, and then the contents of the envelope.

First was a picture of a news article. I brought it up to my face, raising my glasses to peer at it through squinted eyes.

It was a news article about my sister’s murder.

The last picture was the back of the article, where someone had written, in scrolling letters with a black permanent marker:

“LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE OR A BITCH GETS BITTEN.”

I took a deep breath in, exhaling it slowly through slightly pursed lips.

“Points for wordplay, I guess.” I said quietly. I looked up at Sherlock again, holding both photo sheets in my hands.

He looked pained. Apologetic.

“Delilah, I think I made a mistake in California.” He said, his eyes not leaving mine. “I don’t remember being particularly careless, but I must have been. It baffles me that anyone would know Abigail’s murder is being investigated. I must have been…indiscreet.”

“Why would they follow us to London? Why wouldn’t they just assume that we reached a dead end in Long Beach and came home?” I was wracking my brain trying to make sense of the reasoning behind any of it. 

“I said something to someone. It had to have been me.” Sherlock looked away from me, the line of his jaw hard and face blank. “I’m sorry.”

“This is good, though.” I said, my eyes remaining on his face. He turned to look at me, quizzically and almost as if I had said something insane. 

“This means you were right. Michael didn’t do it. Or someone else was involved. But it wasn’t just my schizophrenic brother murdering his sister out of nowhere. Someone else bears responsibility in this. You were right. Sherlock.” I reached out and took his wrist with my hand. He froze underneath my touch.

“Thank you.” I told him.

“No. No.” He stood up, wrenching his arm away from me. 

“You are not going to thank me for this. I fucked up. Big time. I was correct that something else was going on. But I have possibly ruined this investigation by letting whoever else is responsible know that I was nosing around. And furthermore–” He reached down and grabbed the photo sheets out of my hand, holding them up at my face. “--now you are being directly threatened. None of this is ‘good’.” He sneered at me as if I were an imbecile.

I stood up angrily, trying to come closer to meeting his eye. “I don’t care if I’m being threatened. There was never a zero percent chance of danger when I agreed to help you with this case. Which I did, remember? You asked me and I agreed. Do you remember that? Do you remember me asking you, clarifying that you would let me help and you said ‘yes’? Do you remember any of it?!”

The last bit of that had come out more shrill than I had meant it. I also did not mean for my voice to crack, or for tears to surface in my angry eyes. 

I hadn’t meant for it to sound so sad. 

I hadn’t meant to feel so devastated as I said it.

But then I continued. 

“Do you? Do you remember any of it?” I asked him again, more quietly.

Sherlock opened his mouth but couldn’t seem to form words for a good moment.

“Delilah, I…I don’t think that we should talk about this right now.” He said rather weakly.

“No! No, I want to know.” I looked down as he was clutching the case file in both hands like a lifeline. I took the folder and pulled it out of his hands, throwing it onto the piano bench. 

Pieces of paper and photographs slipped out of it, onto the bench and across the floor. I turned back to him, as he quickly tried to decide what to do with his hands. He decided on propping them up on his hips and trying to look unaffected.

“Sherlock.” I said his name as a plea, trying to get him to see me as a person again. Trying in two syllables to get him to remember his promise to me, a promise as simple as ‘no I will not cast you aside and forget you forever’.

“Do you remember it?”

He let out a hard, sharp hiss through his teeth, throwing his head back and turning away from me, toward the wall and walking a pace and then spinning back around toward walking at me.

“Yes, of course I remember it.” He seethed at me through gritted teeth. He held a hand up, as if to lecture me, then closed it in a fist, holding it between us.

“I remember everything. Except the club I went to after we…” He dropped his fist and then his shoulders. “There are parts of that whole experience I don’t remember fully.” He admitted, still holding my gaze. “But I remember…absolutely…everything else.”

“Do you remember acting like I was your friend?” I asked him, my voice breaking and tears finally spilling out of my eyes. “Saying you cared about me? Saying you didn’t just plan to discard me?”

“I haven’t discarded you.” He quickly insisted, though there was a tone of guilt to the sentence. “I’ve been very…busy. And I’m sorry if you feel…neglected–”

“Neglected?!” I found myself becoming shrill again, and this time I wanted to hit him as well as whine at him. 

“I have been worried sick about you, and you didn’t just shut me out, you acted like I didn’t even exist for two weeks. You treated me like–”

“An employee?” He finished. Coldly. 

My face fell. 

My anger. 

My sadness. 

My heart and my mind sunk through my body and rooted themselves into the damp earth beneath 221B Baker Street.

All of my fears were confirmed in two easily flung words. All of my fears about Sherlock, and of myself also. 

I was right. I was nothing to anybody. Ever.

“Wait. Wait.” I heard Sherlock talking to me from under water. “Delilah, wait. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean it like that.”

My eyes moved back to his face, slowly. “I’m not trying to be needy, it’s just that we had discussed so many things, especially on the plane, and you reassured me, you told me and I thought–”

“Delilah, stop.” Sherlock took my arms, ducking down to my eye level to try and match his pupils to mine, to get me to lock back into his gaze and listen to him. “I was being an asshole, I didn’t mean it, I was feeling guilty. I do feel guilty. I’ve endangered your case and you in one fell swoop. Not to mention all the other things over the last few months I regret.”

“Do you regret having sex with me?” I asked him bluntly. I had to know. I couldn’t keep dancing around about this and I couldn’t keep not talking to him about it.

He looked deeply uncomfortable. “If I gave you the impression–”

I held up my hand. “Sherlock, I want the truth. I don’t need it prefaced or overexplained and I don’t want to hear that you regret it if you gave me the wrong impression about your intentions, or some bullshit about your inability to have regular romantic relationships. I’m not asking as a way to convince you to love me or anything like that. Just remember what happened before, what happened after, and how it felt when we were together. Do you remember how it felt when we were together?”

Sherlock still had hold of both of my arms, his large hands curled around my biceps right underneath my shoulders. He parsed through my question and the additional demands I placed upon the answering of it and lit at last upon my final question. 

“I remember everything.” He reiterated. His eyes locked on to mine and I could tell he was. 

Remembering.

I don’t know how it happened, and I’m not sure how Sherlock traversed the burgeoning of guilt and the weight of responsibility, how he managed to duck past the feelings of being scared of connection or worried that I’d expect too much from him.

Nothing logical led to our lips suddenly pressed against one another, to Sherlock’s hands shifting from my arms to my back as he pushed me against his body needily. My hands meeting his chest and then his face, pulling him toward me as his tongue slipped into my mouth again. 

Even the most heavy-handed metaphors about magnets and currents and unstoppable forces cannot accurately apply science to what happens between two people sometimes. 

You can prattle on about pheromones, or hormonal cycles, or even venture into the softer sciences of psychology. A brilliant man with an intense inferiority complex presenting itself as inflated self-importance meets a woman with daddy issues and disordered attachment, something something something, of course they’d wind up together.

Let’s consider this: people are living organisms with brains that contain eighty-six billion neurons that can create over seventeen trillion action potentials per second. 

They’re flesh vessels of mostly water but also chemicals. Meat prisons full of feelings and unique thoughts, actions that can be explained by statistical likelihood or cognitive schemas. 

Penis envy and childhood trauma and social programming.

Beyond anything else, people are individuals and they make any number of choices wise and unwise for any number of motivating reasons.

Sometimes people just decide, and if they’re fortuitous indeed, decide at the exact time as one another, to take a leap together. To do the stupid, stereotypical thing. Throw caution to the wind, they say. Follow your heart.

Or maybe it’s not about passion or chance. Maybe it’s about pain. You can be cynical about it. Maybe it’s about trying to bury yourself in someone else, figuratively and literally.

Or…or maybe I’m wrong about it all. Magic exists. There is a god.

Love is real?

********

Chapter Text

Tender is the night lying by your side
Tender is the touch of someone that you love too much
Tender is the day the demons go away
Lord, I need to find someone who can heal my mind

-"Tender" Blur

I was hanging somewhere between waking and sleep, my eyelids for some reason too heavy to open for what seemed to be an eternity. I felt as if I had been woken right in the middle of a dream, my consciousness emerging from quiet blackness and slowly becoming aware of the sound of the clock on my bedside table whilst my heartbeat too quickly. I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t, opening my mouth and gasping heavily. At last, my eyes forced open, and I sat up, gasping and cold. The room was blue with late morning light filtering through inadequate blackout drapes.

“Delilah.”

I jumped, quite a bit hearing my voice, turning to my right to find Sherlock sitting on the edge of my bed, fully dressed in his usual suit, every strand of hair in its usual place. 

“Sherlock.” 

I realized I was still naked, covered from the waist down by my duvet, which I reached down to grab, pulling it up to cover my bare chest. Sherlock watched me with idle disinterest, or rather detachment.

“We need to talk.” Sherlock said, bluntly but quietly.

“We don’t–”

“It’s not about…that.” Sherlock interrupted strongly though growing a bit weak by the end of the statement, before reasserting himself. “Something has happened.”

“Something has…something else has happened?” 

“Why don’t you get dressed and come downstairs–” Sherlock moved to get up from the bed, but I reached out and grabbed the sleeve on his suit jacket before he could rise.

“Sherlock, just tell me.” His eyes met mine as he heard the intonation of my voice. He sat back down, turning toward me as I turned toward him, duvet clutched to my naked body. He moved to put a hand on my thigh, and it stayed there suspended four inches from my body, as if he was undecided if he should touch me. 

Or if he was allowed to anymore. 

In the end he decided to place his hand firmly against my lower thigh, curling his fingertips around the curve of it, in a manner more comforting than intimate.

“Delilah, your father is in the hospital.”

I looked at him, startled, as he watched my face. “Shit!” I dove for my phone on the bedside table. Three missed calls: one from the memory care home, one from Morrell Hospital, and the other from-

“Lestrade? Why is Lestrade calling me?” 

I started dialing my voicemail, my hands shaking with unexpectedly obvious tremors. Sherlock grabbed my wrist.

“He was attacked.” Sherlock started explaining. My heart started racing and I felt tears spring to my eyes as a voice in the back of my mind chided, ‘when did you become the sort of person that breaks down in a crisis’?

********

I was eight years old.

My brother Michael was thirteen years old.

It was a Friday afternoon, and I was sitting in the backyard of our house in Los Angeles. It wasn’t so much a backyard but a postage stamp with a small patch of crabgrass and a bottle tree that started in our yard and obnoxiously dropped half of its pods into the yard beside us.

I sat against the pale trunk with four spools of ribbon- pink, blue, purple, green. My art teacher at school had given them to me, along with a set of thin wooden dowels and some glue. The other children in my class had gone on a field trip that day and I had not been given the money to go, or a signed permission slip allowing them to take me. The only child left behind; I was sorted into the art room where the art teacher had taught me how to make roses out of ribbons. I was not great at art, or particularly interested, but I was a polite child, and I think the teacher appreciated my willingness to learn.

After helping me make about a dozen ribbon roses that afternoon, she sent me home with the supplies to make more over the weekend.

So I sat in the backyard in the warm-but-not-too-warm late afternoon May sunshine, making colorful ribbon roses. I was considering handing them out to the ladies in the neighborhood that sat on the porch all weekend. A klatch of seven older women, sitting on rocking chairs, folding chairs, steps, drinking alcoholic tea and laughing as they worked on embroidery, knitting, crossword puzzles. They had all been young mothers in the neighborhood at one time, but now their children had grown and moved away to nicer neighborhoods, so they clung to one another and did what they could to look out for the stray children that lived there now, including me. In the few weeks, one of those women- Phillipa- would begin teaching me to play piano.

As I dropped another completed rose on the pile beside me, I heard my name being called by a soft voice.

“Delilah. Delilah!”

********

“Delilah!” 

Sherlock grabbed my face and turned it toward himself, leaning into the bed and over me, forcing me to meet his eyes. I felt wetness on my face and realized I had been crying.

I took a breath in, steadying myself almost immediately.

“I’m fine. I’m fine!”

I wrenched myself out of his hands and rolled away from him, out from under the covers on the other side of the bed, wiping my face with the back of my hands and running naked to my bureau to find some clothes.

“You said he was attacked?” I forced my shaky voice to perform, to gather information so that I could respond appropriately. Like a functional adult.

“He was being strangled in his room at the memory care home, there was a struggle, and he was able to hit the Code Blue button. The attacker fled in the commotion-she was dressed as a nurse.”

I was pulling a shirt over my head and spun around to look at Sherlock. 

“She? It was a woman?”

“Scotland Yard is still at St. Elin’s interviewing witnesses and they’re trying to access tapes of the hallway, but the system is ancient and uncooperative. I haven’t been down yet. One of the lieutenants responding to the disturbance recognized the last name Patrick as…relevant to a current murder investigation and phoned it into the office. As soon as Lestrade heard it was your father, he phoned you. And then me.”

I was pulling on my socks and trainers, making my way into the living room and pulling my mass of hair into a bun for control. “I have to get to the hospital. Do you know what his condition is?”

Sherlock watched as I grabbed the keys to his Mercedes off of a dish on the piano.

“He’s stable, although they had to sedate him. Let me drive you.”

Sherlock walked over and put his hand around the keys in my grasp, but I pulled them away.

“No, that’s fine, I can drive, I know you don’t like to.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Delilah, you’re no state to drive, give me the bloody keys!” 

He said sharply, standing in front of me and holding his hand out. I handed them over promptly and turned to leave my flat, Sherlock stepping easily in front of me to open the doors for me as we exited 221B, and again to let me into the car.

Sherlock drove me very quickly and competently to Morrell and as soon as the car came to a stop I burst out, running to reception and eventually being directed to a room on the third floor. He had already passed through Accident and Emergency at that point, being stabilized and then sedated, and then admitted for observation, mostly. 

On the third floor finally, I briefly spoke to a doctor about my father’s status mentally, about the treatment he was receiving there. He was in good overall health, but mentally becoming more addled at a rapid rate.

In terms of damage from the attack, he had bruising on his neck and a ligature injury that was fairly deep but would not require stitches. He had been rendered unconscious but had not been unconscious long before the attack was interrupted.

I walked into my father’s hospital room. Although it was early afternoon, the room was completely dark save a dim recessed light over the head of his bed.

He did not stir as I entered. I expected him to be in sheepskin restraints, but he was chemically restrained so instead he was lying peacefully in the bed, blanket covering him, hospital gown on. He had an IV for the hydration and sedation in the crook of his left arm and cardiac leads sprouting from underneath his gown.

I walked slowly toward him as if to not disturb him, though of course that was quite impossible. I noticed that he could do for a shave and a bit of a haircut, I thought.

While sedated he looked probably ten years younger, his facial muscles relaxed, and lines disappeared.

I pulled the chair beside the bed closer to him and sat down, looking him over, my eyes falling on the ligature marks. It looked remarkably similar to the marks on Celia Whigg, which was completely unsurprising. Everyone had assumed the two crimes were linked, but it probably would have been less disturbing if it were somehow an insane coincidence.

I thought to myself that maybe I should take his hand, but I wasn’t sure why I had that impulse. Growing up my father was not physically affectionate, nor I with him. I would follow him around, trotting behind him with my arms full of books, and he would never once look back to ensure I was keeping up. 

Mike and me, on the other hand, were physically affectionate, possibly only because he was. He was a strange boy, in accordance to traditional masculinity standards. He cried easily, both of sadness but also of happiness. He loved babies and delicate things. His first instinct when he saw things hurt or sad was to cuddle them, taking them gently in his hands or arms and pressing his body against them, less an embrace than just wanting to be a physical source of heat, love, and comfort. 

This is one of the reasons it was so unbelievable when he was accused of murdering Abigail, with whom he had previously been so tender. The only way I could ever rectify it in my mind was to remember he wasn’t well. Even though he had never exhibited an iota of violence or violent ideation, he had filled every square inch of every surface he had access to with written word, using pens, pencils, blood, feces.

Most of it had been largely nonsensical, but it was often a touch poetic and was never angry or violent.

Just like he never was.

********

“Delilah! Watch!”

Mike was the only one who ever called me Delilah back then, all of the teachers and adults in my life called me Del, or I would get loudly indignant. But Mike called me Delilah and in turn I called him—

“Mikey! Get down off of the roof this instant!” I scrambled to my feet, tripping on run of bricks separating rock landscaping from the sparse grass, skinning my knee in the process. I stood some feet back from the edge so I could see him.

Although we lived in a one story ranch style house, the roof was still an incredibly high and dangerous fall for anyone, much less a thirteen year old, frail boy.

He held his arms out to the side, tripping his way down the steep slant of the tar-shingled roof, a bleach faded floral cotton sheet tied around his neck and clutched in each hand.

“Delilah, I’m a sparrow!”

Even as a child I thought this was a very strange situation. Though sensitive and a tad odd, until this episode of detachment from reality was not something he had ever done before.

He jumped onto the roof of the porch, the drywall ceiling underneath raining dust and plaster onto the concrete below.

“Mikey, it’s dangerous! You’re far too heavy to fly.” I argued with him logically. When I was a bit older, I would begin to craft my persuasive arguments in more emotional manners, especially when they had to do with safety. I had not yet taught myself this skill as a child.

“Watch, Delilah! All you have to do is believe, and your wings will become real and you can fly! I saw it happen!” He yelled down to me, stepping to the edge of the porch, a strip of rotten fascia giving way as he did. The small stumble did not scare him but it scared me.

“You didn’t see it happen, because it is impossible!”

“Nothing is impossible! If you truly believe!”

And suddenly, with a flourish and a wild look in his eye that I didn’t recognize, he flung himself off of the roof.

It went as expected.

He fell hard onto the dry packed earth below, his right leg and then left arm catching most of the fall, his head following next.

I screamed and ran toward my brother, turning him over. His face was bloody, and eyes were closed and he was groaning quietly. His ankle was at an odd angle, tucked underneath his body by bent knee. And his arm…

Mike had accrued a compound fracture of his humerus, the bone splitting through the skin halfway between his shoulder and elbow. And it was bleeding profusely.

I put my small hands over the sharp bone, slicing two of my fingers open while blood poured out of Mike and through my fingers onto the dirt underneath us. I couldn’t make it stop.

Suddenly I thought back to a manual I had found at the police station- “Basic Life Support and Emergency Wound Treatment for Peace Officers”, tucked into a shelf in a cubicle in the back of the precinct. It was forty years out of date, but most of the information was timelessly relevant.

I remembered reading a section about uncontrollable bleeding and arterial wounds and saw in my mind’s eye the series of black and white photographs illustrating how to place a tourniquet.

I quickly looked around the back yard, screaming again for help, my sight blurry and I realized I was crying. 

My eyes landed on the pile of colorful ribbon roses, and then on the bags of supplies. 

I ran over to my spot under the tree and grabbed spools of ribbon and a dowel and ran back to Mike, who was still minimally conscious. I unspooled as much ribbon as I could as fast as I could, wrapping the thick strands around his narrow arm as quickly and tightly as I could, tying a secure knot and sticking the dowel in. As I cranked it again and again, tightening it with all my strength, the bleeding stopped but Mike began to moan loudly in pain.

At some point one of the older women down the road had heard my screaming, and right as I remembered I needed to call 9-1-1, the house seemed to be swarmed with police officers, neighbors, paramedics.

I was put in the back of a squad car.

I head them mention my dad.

They put Mike in an ambulance.

Somebody hugged me and told me I did a good job.

I was at the hospital with a woman in a suit.

I saw my dad run into the Emergency Room waiting room, glaring at me as he ran past.

Next thing I remember, I was back home, in the kitchen while my brother was sleeping, two casts and thirty stitches later, on the couch in the front room.

My dad was screaming at me, lecturing me on how I had embarrassed him, gotten him reprimanded, almost killed my brother, how could I have let this happen? I was supposed to be such a smart little bitch, how could I be such a stupid, ungrateful cunt, just like my psychopathic, useless mother…

The next thing I remembered was laying on the ground in my room, headphones on my head, a Beatles CD in my player, playing “Free as a Bird”: 

“Free as a bird, it’s the next best thing to be, free as a bird, home and dry, like a homing bird I fly…”

********

I told the nurses to call me if they needed anything from me, and I walked out of the hospital wing, down the lift, and out of the doors.

I hadn’t seen Sherlock, and I assumed he had gone to St. Elin’s to investigate, or maybe he was just avoiding me. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care right then.

As I walked away from Morrell, trudging onward assumably toward Baker Street- though I had no real destination in mind- my phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. 

Text from Sherlock: “Head back to Baker Street NOW. Need to be under surveillance.”

I shoved it back into my pocket. The thought did graze the surface of my mind that I could be in danger, was almost certainly in danger from someone who seemed to be desperately trying to keep the secrets of Abigail’s murder in the past.

It’s not that I was keen to get garroted myself, I just felt very much in that moment that I would take the future as it came, because I could do almost nothing to protect myself anyway.

I couldn’t protect myself from mortal danger, or from emotional ruin.

********

Friday night, in my flat, after Celia Whigg’s murder and before the attempt on my father’s life, Sherlock, possibly sober and at the very least less high than usual, had kissed me deeply and passionately.

And I had kissed him back.

I had put my trust back in his hands and he had put his hands all over me.

We had moved to the bedroom, a crash and fury of hands and mouths and frantic attempts at squashing all of our molecules together like balls of clay.

Sherlock had touched me- oh, how he had touched me. He had teased me. And then tortured me.

I didn’t mind it, not really. I liked it. 

He pulled the sash from my bathrobe and wrapped it expertly around my wrists and tied it to my headboard.

He brought me to the edge over, and over, and over, with his lithe hands and watching me as I came close over and over.

He told me to beg for it and I obliged, obliged until I started crying.

And then I had told him:

“Sherlock, I love you.”

Killed the mood a bit.

********

Twenty minutes after Sherlock's text, I was still walking when suddenly a sleek black sedan pulled up beside me at the curb and, as I walked by the door opened and I heard yelling.

“Delilah Beatrice Patrick!” I heard my name bellowed and turned around as Sherlock, looking disheveled with sleeves pushed up his arms and a pack of cigarettes obvious in his breast pocket, came walking quickly at me.

“I’m headed back to Baker Street right now!” I seethed at him as passersby tossed glances our way. I turned back around and kept storming the direction I was headed, but Sherlock quickly caught up with me and grabbed me by the elbow.

“Damn right you are, come on, you silly woman.” He hissed at me, his fingers digging hard into my arm. “You can’t be this stupid.”

“You’re right, I’m not.” I yanked at my arm and thought about incapacitating him but chose instead to let him lead me back to the car. He opened the door and practically threw me in.

“Delilah.” Sherlock spoke to me in a low, dark voice, gripping the steering wheel and glaring straight ahead. “I know you have a lot of…emotional turmoil right now. And I’m sorry about what happened to your father. But you cannot just…be reckless like this. People are working very hard to keep you safe right now, and you’re making a mockery of their efforts.”

“I didn’t ask for people to ‘work very hard’ for me. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because that’s what the police do. That’s what I do. Make the world safer for people, no matter how ungrateful they wind up being.”

“Ungrateful?!” I exploded. He winced with a glare, and we rounded the corner onto Baker Street.

“What else do you call ignoring my warnings that you need to be in your flat, under surveillance until we can figure out who is doing this.”

“So now I’m just on house arrest until the men handle it?” I jumped out of the car as he parked and slammed the door.

“The men? Don’t be ridiculous.” He growled as he slammed out of the car and followed me into 221B’s foyer.

“More like the adults. The adults are handling things, Delilah. The professionals. And if you could pull yourself together for two minutes–”

“What are you talking about? I was walking home. I didn’t do anything reckless. I was headed home.” I rounded the second landing to 221B-3 and he followed me up. He forced his way past me into my own flat and I slammed the door behind myself.

“You know who is being hysterical here? You are. You are one hundred percent over reacting!” I pulled my coat off and hung it violently on the coat rack, trying to determine if it was physically possible to hurt someone with a glare.

“Because it’s my fault if you get hurt!” He yelled at me louder than I had ever heard him yell before and took hold of one of the dining room chairs, pitching it hard against the wall beside the kitchen. I jumped as it landed with a cracking noise.

“It’s my fucking fault that any of this is happening. This will happen again, and again, and again because I cannot help myself, I don’t care about anything but the glorification of my own ego. I will continue to destroy the people I love most because their lives aren’t as important to me as making sure everyone knows I’m the smartest person in the room!”

He had started pacing violently back and forth and as he ran out of words his feet seemed to run out of steps, and he was rooted in place, falling back into a lean against the wall and pitching forward, his hands deep in his hair. His breath came in heaving shudders as he tried to control an onset of weeping.

I wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed like every time I tried to make him feel better, I only served to make things worse. He didn’t want to be helped, didn’t want to be comforted. He just wanted to suffer, to punish himself endlessly.

But I couldn’t leave him alone. Not only for his benefit- if he even reaped any benefits from my presence or attempts to help. But I couldn’t do myself the kindness of walking away and letting him clean up his own mess. He had bewitched me, in a sense. Besides his impressive intellect and the clever things he achieved, the scope of his sense of honor was enough to move my heart. I didn’t know if it would do either of us any good, or be both our ruin, but at this point- it was what it was.

I surged forward and grabbed him around the shoulders before he could stop me, and though he grew rigid under my touch I held him tighter.

“Stop it, you fucking baby.” I admonished him, pressing my lips into his temple. “You think you’re the first person to make mistakes? To run through someone else’s life like a bull in a china shop?”

“Delilah, stop–” He murmured, swaying away from me. I held tighter.

“No, Sherlock. I love you.”

He made a protesting noise and pulled out of my hands but was backed against the wall, so I reached up on tiptoe and took his face in my hands, my body pressing his into the hard surface behind.

“You’re going to let me do it.” I said to him lowly through gritted teeth. His gaze reluctantly met mine and then held as if compelled by a tractor beam. 

“You are going to let me help clear my brother’s name. Get justice for Celia and my dad. Put whoever is doing this behind bars. They aren’t going to hurt me. And you’re going to let me help you. And then after this we’re going to move onto other cases, and you’re going to let me help you write your book. Because it’s my job. And because I love you.”

I spoke to him slowly and as I finished, I saw witnessed his face attempt to make expressions of distaste, or frustration, or exasperation. But it never came to completion. Instead, I got a look of sorrowful pity and then just mournful acceptance. He put his hands over mine on his face and grasped my fingers with his, moving my hands from his face and planting them on his chest. He stepped away from the wall into me and wrapped his arms around me, bringing me closer to him with hands on my upper back and threaded through the hair at the nape of my neck.

“You really are completely, utterly mad, you know that?” He asked me softly.

“Well…I’m afraid it runs in the family."

********

Chapter Text

We've been doing all this late-night talking

'Bout anything you want until the morning

Now you're in my life

I can't get you off my mind

-"Late Night Talking" Harry Styles

It was easy for me and Sherlock to talk for long periods of time. Our minds seem to make similar connections between subjects, seemingly abstract, but jumps logical for us, made easily. Topics changed and sentences only partially spoken. I think the shorthand language we fell into during our long conversations was a relief to us both. No waiting for the other party to cotton on, no explanations or backtracking required. Talking to him was easy like talking to yourself as you prepare your toast in the morning.

And so it was that we had talked late into that night and early into the next morning, by the lit hearth, Sherlock in my armchair and me wrapped in my Long Beach blanket and propped on a couple decorative pillows that had belonged to the original owner of my flat, Martha Hudson.

I don’t know what time early that morning I had fallen asleep, but when I awoke Sherlock was gone.

This was his nature. I knew that, especially with everything happening in relation to me and my family case, there were a number of places for him to be and things for him to be doing. 

That said, I had explicitly asked him to keep his word to me that he was going to let me assist him on my case. 

Additionally, it had been weighing more and more heavily on my mind and conscience that I had no solid proof that he was not still using drugs. 

It would have been entirely unusual for someone to be able to just…quit like he supposedly had; I knew that Sherlock was “unusual”, he was exceptional in almost every way, it seemed. But his sobriety was a dangerous assumption for me to make.

I thought to Mycroft and meeting him on the rooftop and the assurance that I had given him that I would not aid or abet Sherlock in his addiction. It seemed irresponsible of me to not have told him once I got confirmation that Sherlock was using. Irresponsible and selfish.

My own struggle with drug use- and addiction- had happened over a relatively short period of time in comparison to Sherlock’s issues. Short but intense. And it ended, seemingly easily, with an abrupt and traumatic rock bottom. Can’t get much lower than dying on a beach.

I didn’t understand what it was like to struggle and relapse over the course of decades. I was foolish to think that I could understand and manage what Sherlock was going through.

Sherlock’s admonitions to me the day before pinged in my conscience as I went about my morning. He was right, of course, that I was immature. That I often let my feelings, however strong they may be, make decisions for me, to the exclusion of proper reason. This was a childish habit that put me and other people in unreasonable, avoidable danger.

The fact of the matter was that I should have told Mycroft that Sherlock was in fact using again.

I should have told John.

I most certainly was not acting as the adult in the room- I was acting as a lovestruck teenager, protesting that I didn’t need to listen to advice and that, what? The power of my love could fix him?

Fool. Foolish woman.

But what was I supposed to do now? I guessed that all I could do was hope that appearances were correct, and Sherlock had gotten things under control by himself.

********

I spent the entire morning and afternoon in my flat, feeling like a grounded child, watching television and not speaking to anyone and certainly not venturing outside. 

There were two police officers stationed at 221B, one at the front door and one around the alley way. Were I to choose to leave, one of them would have to follow me, per orders from ostensibly Lestrade, more likely Sherlock.

The hospital called mid-morning to let me know that my father was doing well. He was actually well enough to be released back to St. Elin’s, but it had been decided that it would be easier for the police responsible for keeping watch of him to do so at the hospital, so they kept him admitted and sedated. 

Any attempted communications from me to Sherlock went unanswered, of which there were only two: my initial request for his location, and another asking him to at least verify he was alright. The last one was silly, because even if he had been in some sort of peril, he never would have told me.

Finally, around four that evening, I swallowed a swell of anxiety and guilt within me and texted John for the first time since our meeting at The Crowing Hen.

DP: Hey, sorry to bother you, have you heard from Sherlock today?

It took about twenty minutes before I received an answer.

JW: Yes, he’s been with me today.

JW: Or rather, we have been together. Working on your case, actually.

JW: Did he not tell you?

I glared at my phone, feeling both a sense of relief and annoyance. I then immediately afterward felt guilty and ungrateful. Not only was Sherlock spending the entire day working on a case that directly affected me, my safety, and the safety of my only living relative, but I should have been exceedingly grateful that he had convinced John to help him with it. They were, after all, the dream team. Despite the possibility of me being any good at detective work, I was thus far completely unproven. John was the best, most logical choice as assistant. How lucky was I that I got both Holmes and Watson on my case?

After quite a few minutes of internal debate regarding whether or not I would say anything back, and what I would say if I did, I received another text.

JW: Sherlock asked me to ask you if you would please mind making dinner tonight.

DP: There is no way he asked me that politely. Why doesn’t he text me himself?

JW: He doesn’t have his phone.

DP: Where is his phone?

JW: In his pocket.

I leaned forward from where I was sitting cross legged before the fire and rested my head gently against the wood floor, fighting the urge to scream. After sighing deeply, I raised my head again and texted back.

DP: Does he have any requests for dinner?

DP: What time should I expect him home?

DP: PS Please tell him this manner of communication is stupid.

After a moment, I finally got another text. I supposed that John had decided to refuse to continue to be a go-between because it was from Sherlock:

“We will be home at half six. Make shepherd’s pie. Dress nicely.”

I felt a prickling heat of annoyance rising in my face and got up to go downstairs and check that we even had the ingredients for shepherd’s pie. I let myself into 221B-2 and did a quick survey of supplies. Everything was well stocked, as that had been one of the few services Sherlock had continued to use me for over the past few weeks. I would have to start cooking now if I were to finish at six-thirty. And ‘dress nicely’? What the hell did that mean? ‘We’? Was John going to be there?

Although frustrated, I swallowed my exasperation and went ahead and started preparing dinner, assuming that John would in fact be there. I travelled between my flat and Sherlock’s, making my flat presentable in case Sherlock would insist we eat there. I tried to figure out what he meant by “nicely”. I most certainly was not going to be dressing in my piano performance dress like the last time Sherlock insisted I wear “semi-formal” for dinner.

Putting the pie in the oven, I headed upstairs to take a shower and a critical look at my wardrobe. I put on an oversized, wine red sweater and black leggings, separating my hair into braided pigtails over my shoulders. I pulled on my brown leather, knee-high, low heeled boots and quickly headed back downstairs.

At six p.m. straight up, just as I was pulling my perfectly potato-mash crusted shepherd’s pie from the oven, I heard the door to the flat open with a click and a low creak.

“Sherlock, you’re early, and it would have been nice if you had told me what ‘we’ meant–”

I rounded the corner, hot pie in hand, and came face to face with Mycroft Holmes.

“Miss Patrick.” Mycroft drew my name out in three distinct syllables, moving them out of his mouth as if he had a distaste for their presence on his tongue.

“Mr. Holmes the elder. Are you…” I narrowed my eyes, holding up the pie. “...dinner?”

He gave me a slightly more threatening version of the mirthless smile Sherlock produced when he was truly annoyed by someone.

“I hardly think so, I shan’t be here long. I do think we should take a moment to discuss…some recent developments, however.”

I walked back into the kitchen with dinner and Mycroft followed me as I did. “Okay, so which part of it? The murder of the dancer or the attempted murder of my father?”

I set the dish on the stovetop and pulled my oven mitts off.

“I think maybe we will start with the part where you assured me that you would tell me if my brother was…having difficulties. Again.” He weighed each of his words, looking at me with eyes iced by anger. 

I flushed with embarrassment and guilt.

“I apologize. I…” I thought about every message I had written Mycroft and then erased, not sure what to say to him or if I even should. “Surely you knew. The entire time I have known Sherlock he’s…” I trailed off, hardly able to say it out loud.

His nostrils flared with irritation. He had taken my comment as a condemnation, although I had not meant it as such.

“Obviously I had my suspicions. Suspicions which would have been confirmed weeks ago if you had kept your seemingly sincere word to me.”

“To be fair,” I looked at him apologetically, desperate for him to assuage my growing sense of panicked guilt, “once I knew for sure he was using, he seemed to stop. To this day, I don’t know whether or not he is still using. Do you–”

I almost asked him his opinion as to whether or not Sherlock was still using drugs, and then I had a realization.

“Wait, if I didn’t tell you, how did you figure out he was still using? And I’m assuming you know if he still is?” I glanced up at his face, scrutinizing his expression for any clues he could give me about Sherlock’s condition that I was unable to ascertain from my own limited vantage point.

Mycroft sighed with further irritation at me, leaning lightly against the handle on the umbrella he had inexplicably carried into the kitchen with him. 

“I have known about my brother’s relapse for a period of time. The length of that period of time is none of your business. The manner in which I acquired my confirmation is also none of your business. None of any of this is any of your business, frankly.” He leaned toward me and I stepped back, leaning against the counter. “I should have followed my first mind and deemed you the irresponsible, flailing, woman-child liability that you have proven to be, and removed you from my brother’s life as soon as I had the druthers to do so. I cannot for the life of me imagine what sort of benefit, if any, you have provided to my brother outside of the usefulness of a maid service, a grocery delivery service, or a low-rent whore!”

“Mycroft!” 

At the sound of a booming voice, Mycroft turned, startled, raising his umbrella so that he was holding it in two hands like a bo staff. 

I also looked up, my eyesight unexpectedly wavering. I had started crying and hadn’t even realized. 

Sherlock was standing in the living room, his coat still on, his hands behind his back. His face was emotionless save a faint smile. I saw beside him was John, who in the last few weeks since I had seen him in person had gotten a haircut and instead of a stuffy cardigan was wearing a faded brown leather jacket. His arms were crossed and chin tilted upward, gazing at Mycroft with a glare.

Though John looked angrier between the two, it had been Sherlock who had bellowed.

“Ah. Brother.” Mycroft smiled wryly before turning away from me completely to face Sherlock.

Sherlock stepped forward toward his brother, smiling wider.

“Although it appears as if our accommodating Miss Patrick has been kind enough to provide more than enough sustenance for all four of us, it unfortunately seems you will not be able to join us for dinner this evening… as you were just leaving.”

“Yes.” Mycroft agreed, a smirk practically audible in the utterance. “Miss Patrick is quite…accommodating, isn’t she? Frequently accommodating. Practically at your beck and call, seemingly.”

My eyes darted from the back of Mycroft’s head, to Sherlock, to John, who briefly met my eyes and I felt my face grow warm as I looked at the ground.

“I will leave you gentlemen to…whatever your evening plans were.” Mycroft tapped his umbrella lightly against the kitchen tile before walking out of the kitchen. Sherlock followed him as he moved toward the front door and I heard the door close with a click a few moments later.

John moved into the kitchen, standing in front of me as I leaned against the counter. I could hardly meet his eyes.

“How much of that did you hear?” I asked him quietly.

“From the part where you questioned him about how long he knew. About Sherlock’s…”

I looked up at him briefly as he trailed off, but away again before I could clock how he felt about the fact that I knew Sherlock was using drugs again but didn’t tell him. Even after he had specifically asked me to.

“John, I’m sorry.” I said quietly before Sherlock came back into the kitchen.

“Del, why didn’t you tell me?” He got closer to me, reaching out his hand and touching me gently on the side of the arm.

“Don’t. Please.” I whispered, shucking off his hand and standing up off of the counter as Sherlock came back into view, now sans coat and suit jacket.

He didn’t look at me as I walked into the living room, heading for the door.

“Um, dinner is ready to eat. Enjoy.” I said as I practically ran out of the flat. I climbed the stairs to my flat but bypassed the 221B-3 and went up to the roof access, emerging into the crisp mid-October evening, realizing quickly that a light sweater was inadequate for my bodily temperature maintenance preferences.

I crossed to the ledge on the roof that faced Baker Street and leaned forward, looking down to the road below. The evening police watch assigned to me was packing up and leaving for the night after Sherlock’s arrival. I guessed they thought he would be adequate protection for me, and that he would assumably tell them if he had plans to leave for the evening. 

Either that, or Sherlock had caught the killer, the danger was over, and no one had told me yet.

I sank down to sit on the concrete of the rooftop, my back resting against the hard brick ledge. The chill of the materials seeped through the fabric of my clothing as I leaned my head back, closing my eyes to the night sky.

I think what had hurt worst about what Mycroft had said to me is that I felt he was completely correct in his evaluation of me. My actions, my motivations, my character. I was a fool, acting far too young for my age, too unambitious for my accomplishments, too stupid for my intellect.

Sherlock had achieved what he had in his life because he had been smart enough to eschew attachment and sentiment. I knew that he had made room in his life for certain kinds of love, but he had only accepted them into his reality after he had established himself, and even then he seemed to have suffered the greatest of his losses and disappointments simply because he had capitulated to his human yearnings for connection.

I had never been strong or smart enough to abstain. In fact, a major driving force that had threaded the pieces of my life together like rawhide binding two strips of leather was my aching, burning need to be loved. 

Wanted, accepted, needed. Chosen.

Everything I had never been.

Enough. Chosen. Wanted. Loved.

I found myself thinking about running. Again. 

Running or getting high. 

Or running away and getting high.

What would I be losing in my flight? My dissertation defense was in exactly one month. In that moment, the thought that I had ever cared enough to start the journey to my doctorate to begin with seemed like pie-in-the-sky folly. To have ever had enough hope or vision for my future or to have ever cared enough what people thought of me or what I could contribute to humanity seemed suddenly whimsical, bordering on asinine. 

I had truly wanted to help. Beyond the thrill of accomplishment, of being so good at something and lauded for my abilities, I had found real passion in my studies. I had, about a year prior as I was researching for my dissertation, met with a number of scientists and medical professionals that wanted to work with me after my successful defense. To begin studies to actually help people avoid needless death and suffering. To develop new tests, procedures, standard, medications. It was groundbreaking, possibly.

The picture of my life and future had seemed so large and boundless at that point, not long ago now at all. A mere two months ago- seemed like a lifetime. The only thing I had felt was remaining from my past at that point, holding me back and haunting me, besides the scar tissue I sometimes caught a glimpse of in the mirror, was my aging, ailing father. But even then, I had only seen him once a week and was able to keep his existence and the history that he represented to me separate and compartmentalized, sorted into a forgotten cubby.

I had my flat on the outskirts of London, my bike, my routine. 

My solitude. 

My responsibility to no one but myself.

The consequences of my yearnings for connection were beholden only to myself, in the middle of the night or at the crest of dawn. Times when I was between waking and sleeping, before I could raise the mental defenses necessary against the clawing avarice of the doubts that scaffolded the walls of my mind. 

The unmet needs that were the psychological foundation upon which all of my pain and mistakes had been built. 

The wounded child who erected the house brick by poisoned brick; the house that I had tried so hard to renovate, repaint, make habitable and acceptable and a place I could call home, rather than a prison I plotted to break free from.

These were all desperations I kept to myself and only for myself, and it was okay because no matter how it turned out in the end, I was only hurting myself and I only had myself to blame.

Now, I had a life that was hardly my own. A car that I borrowed sometimes, and a bike stuck somewhere in a storage unit. I had a piano on loan from a dead woman, a job that, although it paid well, still somehow didn’t pay enough for the workload, and a boss for whom I had fallen so hard and fast that, much like my love affair with heroin, the want of him and the thrill of being in his grasp had driven me to places of emotional and physical danger that I would not have attempted otherwise.

I needed him like I needed heroin.

********

I wasn’t sure how long I had been up on the rooftop, knee deep in the regret of my pursuit of human connection, when I heard the thin metal door to the roof creak open.

Opening my eyes but not lifting my head, I looked over the bridge of my nose as the small bare bulb that illuminated the roof access passage cast a wash of yellow light into the blue gloom I was sulking in. I saw Sherlock’s unmistakable silhouette, his coat back on and hair characteristically askew. 

The door shut behind him and my eyes readjusted to the darkness as he walked toward where I was sitting, a stride slower and more shuffling than he usually maintained.

I could tell just from the way he was moving, as he stood over me briefly, looking down at me, and me gazing up at him, that he didn’t know what to say. Speechlessness was not something Sherlock Holmes was used to or enjoyed, but I found the self-conscious air that it leant him to be endearing. I loved Sherlock for his exceptionality, but I loved him even more for his humanity, so getting to see it manifest always tugged at my heartstrings. Even when it was brought on by his inability to tell me that no, Mycroft was wrong about me, and that I wasn’t just a whore at his behest, a silly little girl trailing him like a puppy.

The sad part was, I wasn’t sure if he couldn’t tell me those things because he didn’t know how to do so, how to communicate that reassurance without verging into vulnerable territory, or if he couldn’t tell me so because those things were actually true. 

Sherlock sat down beside me against the ledge, sitting close enough that his left shoulder was pushed up against my right. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his coat and hit them a couple times against the heel of his hand before procuring one from the pack and producing a silver lighter from the cellophane outside it. In one easy flicking motion, he lit the cigarette in his teeth, flicking his hand a second time to close and extinguish the lighter.

He took a long drag on his cigarette as I watched the ember end glow red, lighting his trouble-lined face as he looked at something or nothing on the other side of the roof. He exhaled a stream of smoke into the night air and leaned his head back in the same manner as mine, his wrists resting on his bent knees, cigarette hanging between the pointer and middle fingers of his hand closest to mine. 

“Today went well.” He told me, finally breaking our comfortable yet loaded silence. “We got the tapes from St. Elin’s and managed to get a lot of good eyewitness accounts. A lot of details from St. Elin’s line up with things that people saw at Daze. There have been sightings of a particular woman hanging around areas local to both crime scenes. I have a couple particularly observant witnesses working with the Yard’s sketch artist. Maybe you’ll recognize the woman if we get a good sketch.”

He looked over at me finally, and his face said much more to me than I expected it to. He looked sorry, genuinely sorry. I wasn’t sure what for, and on the off chance that he was sorry because he was sorry for me, that his feelings for me were nothing more than pity, I didn’t ask him. I truly would not want to know that, even if it was the truth. 

I chided myself internally for my willing ignorance and reached over with my own two fingers to pluck the cigarette from Sherlock’s hand. 

I raised the cigarette to my lips and inhaled, grateful that, although it had been years since I had smoked last, I was spared the indignity of a cough and instead blew the smoke out of my nose in a steady exhale, closing my eyes briefly at the sinful but satisfying chemical indulgence. Nicotine quickly lit up the pleasure center of my brain and I felt a warm, welcome buzz.

“Thank you.” I told Sherlock, looking at him finally. He was already, or still, looking at me, his expression unreadable. 

“Please do tell me if there’s anything I can do. Anything. I hate being useless.” I took another drag from Sherlock’s cigarette and then offered it back to him.

“Where is John?” I asked Sherlock as he accepted the cigarette and took another long pull.

“He decided to pick up Rosie early from her babysitter’s. I convinced him to take some of the food you made with him.”

I smiled happily. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. I hope he likes it.” 

Sherlock sighed, ashing his cigarette and then looking down at it. I saw the muscles in his jaw flex as he mulled over what I assumed to be a subject deeper than just the embers glowing against his fingers.

“Mycroft is wrong, you know.” He said finally, still seemingly pondering the cigarette in his hand. “About so many things. And so often, too.” 

He smirked and looked over at me, tossing the last quarter of the cigarette toward his feet and grinding it under the heel of his boot. I smirked back, in a forced manner, because Sherlock’s words just reminded me of Mycroft’s speech. And Mycroft’s speech was the most scathingly accurate thing anyone had ever said about or to me in my life.

Sherlock tilted his head to catch my gaze as I tried to avert my eyes from his. Once locked on, I couldn’t get away from the softness in the way he looked at me, and the way the darkness managed to make his irises look even bluer, all while the rest of the world seemed more gray than ever.

“I think the most wrong he has ever been in his entire life is about you, Delilah.”

My body surprised me with a rapid inhalation of breath, which it then held, as I processed what Sherlock had said, and how he was looking at me, his eyes never leaving mine in the silver light of the October moon.

I didn’t expect him to continue speaking, and he didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward and down, his long eyelashes falling gently closed as he pressed a gentle kiss against my bottom lip. My eyes fluttered closed as well as I leaned into the soft heat of his breath and body, his lips soft, warm, and insistent against my own as I kissed him back.

He broke the kiss gently and looked at me again for a moment that was both fleeting and infinite, before wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me against him. I let my body fall sideways toward him, my head pressing into his chest. As I bundled against him, my hand gripping the lapel of his coat, he wrapped both arms around me tightly and rested his chin on the top of my head. 

I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to apologize, mostly. Though I wasn’t sure for what. I thought to myself that really, I wanted to apologize for my presence in his life. For the undue burdens that I had caused him. Worry, danger, stress. The obnoxiousness of my feelings for him. The neediness of my physicality and my grasping, aching heart.

I staunched the impulse to beg his forgiveness for being a human person that existed in the space that other humans had to, and instead just let Sherlock hold me as long as he was willing to.

********

Once the night had settled onto the rooftop, pulling us later into the night, I could no longer hide the inadequacy of my sweater against the chill of London in October. I tried to stifle my shivers inside of Sherlock’s arms, loathe for him to release me.

“You’re shaking like a leaf.” Sherlock mumbled into my hair, amused.

“I’m only a little cold.” I lied, my teeth practically chattering together.

Before I knew it, Sherlock had released me from his embrace, an embrace that had become my only heat source. He stood up quickly in his typically graceful manner and turned to offer me a hand up.

“Alright, fine.” I sighed and took his hand, letting him help me to my feet. I felt a little woozy upon standing and realized I hadn’t eaten anything since that morning.

Noting my unsteadiness, Sherlock rolled his eyes at me, a faint smile playing on his lips. He put his arm behind me, steadying me with his hand at the lower curve of my back.

“Come on, popsicle, let’s go get you some dinner.”

********

After I ate some reheated leftovers, Sherlock and I again retired to the rug in front of my fireplace, except this time Sherlock sat on the floor with me, shoes off and the sleeves of his light blue button up rolled unevenly above his elbows.

“Sherlock, can I please ask you something?” I started hesitantly, picking at a fuzz on the hem of my sweater as I sat cross legged before him.

“I’m not sure I have ever been able to stop you from it.” He smirked at me, mirroring my sitting position, but his full attention focused on me, his wrists draped over his knees.

“Why didn’t you take me with you today?” I finally asked. “I know that John is the better choice to have as a detective partner, obviously, but it’s not like there’s a limit to people you’re allowed to have in your party or something. You took me with you to California, I feel like you wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t at some point feel like I could be helpful to you. Am I wrong? Did you change your mind about me?”

I could tell he was holding back an impatient sigh, and to his credit he did not roll his eyes at me. 

“I did not change my mind about you. John mentioned that I had perhaps made an error in judgment by keeping you from the investigation today. That’s why I asked you to make dinner, I was going to broach a discussion between the three of us about you assisting in this case in a more hands-on manner. You and John have your own unique, individual skillsets to lend to a case like this. It would be foolish not to utilize every tool at my disposal.”

I looked at him, a small smirk ticking at the corner of my mouth. 

“I’m a tool at your disposal, eh?” I chuckled. Sherlock sniffed.

“In the broadest sense, yes. I have use for your intelligence, your ability to absorb and parse data, your research skills. I am very eager to see how you do in the practice of interrogation, between your ability to observe people’s tells and the years you spent observing police interrogations. I’m quite eager, actually.”

I laughed. “I don’t know if you’re trying to butter me up after calling me a tool, or…” 

Sherlock snorted, no longer hiding his eye rolls. “You are perfectly aware that I never resort to flattery.”

“So, you’re just being nice to be nice?” I teased him. I made a faux shocked face.

“I’m not being nice, you asked me if I had changed my mind about my opinion regarding your ability to assist me in my detective work, and I was simply answering the question in an honest manner.”

He responded to me in such a sincerely irked manner that I couldn’t help but laugh again.

“Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to insult you by implying you were being complimentary.” I rolled my eyes at him and then grinned.

We sat for a few moments of silence in our mirrored cross-legged poses, continuing to warm by the fire.

“Can I ask you another question?” I ventured once more.

“That’s technically the sixth you’ve asked in the past ten minutes.”

I gave him a scowl.

“Do you think things are just going to be weird between us forever now?” I picked at my sweater again, and he swatted my hand away from its twiddling.

“Weird? I feel like things are less weird between us than they have ever been.” He looked at me, his eyes betraying a hint of nervousness that he had misunderstood where we were at.

I shrugged. “Yes and no. I guess I mean…sexually. We’ve only had sex once.”

“Twice.” He countered, seeming indignant.

I bit the inside of my lips as I recalled the reason for ‘twice’. “The second time you edged me for 45 minutes until I professed my love for you. I don’t think that counts.”

“How does that not count?” He asked, seemingly offended.

“I just don’t think it does. Additionally, that was the last time we did anything close to sex, much less talked about it. Is that part of our relationship just…over?” I asked before the part of me that hated hard truths could intercede.

“Well, I certainly hope not.” He smirked. “There are a lot of things we still have left to explore.”

There was a certain amount of things left unsaid, namely by me. The thought that he did not need me for continued sexual exploration, just as he had not needed me prior to our meeting. Furthermore, my questions were entirely based on the assumption that my feelings for Sherlock would never be returned in kind. This was a fact I had accepted before I even told him that I loved him (although when I initially had it had been a mental ejaculation more than anything). I held no illusions that at some point he would change, and become a different person, and the kind of man that would fall in love with someone like me, someone that compared with Sherlock’s Michelangelo masterpiece was a lump of unformed and unfired clay. We were not the same class of human being, in the end, no matter how many friendly discussions or awkward sexual encounters we had. Traditional boy-girl relationships were not something I desired or expected from Sherlock, as they were not an option on the menu in any capacity.

“A couple follow up questions.”

This time he looked at me with a patient bemusement verging on fondness.

“You didn’t answer my original question- why didn’t you take me with you this morning? If it wasn’t because you decided I wouldn’t be useful.”

“I just thought you would be safer here. Now I know that is…the wrong impulse. I can’t keep people in boxes just to keep them safe. Especially not a woman like you. That attempt would be folly. But honestly, I don’t see how it’s an unreasonable precaution to take, given that a note with your name on it was left on a dead body and then someone tried to kill your father.” 

He looked at me sternly as if I was arguing with him about his choice. I held up my hands in a small gesture of surrender.

“I totally understand, Sherlock. I just wanted to make sure it was something like that and not just and end to my…usefulness.”

“You and your obsession with utility!” Now he was starting to look angry. “Would you just knock it off with the implication that I could only want to be around you because you provide a service to me?!” He ran a hand through his hair, only serving to make the half gray mess even wilder.

“You seem to be taking it as an aspersion cast upon your character but, Sherlock, you pay me.” I leveled my gaze at him, making him see that I was trying to discuss this in earnest. 

“I’m still on your payroll. We are still, legally, engaged in an employer/employee relationship. You can see why, regardless of my psychological baggage and the implications of it, I would find it a tad unsettling to live out my usefulness to the man that pays to keep me around–”

“Then you’re fired!” He said suddenly, leaning forward, placing his hands flat against the floor in front of his lap and looking at me hard, his blue and green eyes swirling with exasperated wildness.

My eyes opened wide, and the breath left my lungs. 

“What?” I barely eked out.

“I’m not your boss anymore. You don’t work for me. I won’t be paying you anymore.”

I opened my mouth to try and defend myself or make a case for my continued employment, or maybe even start crying like a baby. 

Before I could, he pushed forward.

“Find another job but stay in this flat. And we’ll be friends. You’ll be my friend that lives with me- but upstairs, so above me, but you still have use of the kitchen, of course- and talks to me, and helps me solve crimes, and maybe still does some cooking and cleaning. So maybe roommates. Who are also friends. But also have sex sometimes. Or often, depending. And only with one another, unless you want to discuss that part. But I would rather it only be the two of us having sex with only one another. So, in other words, I propose that we become cohabitating, mutually beneficial, sex-friends that only have sex with each other.”

It took all of my impulse control not to sigh heavily and rub my hand violently over my face.

Sherlock was asking me to be his girlfriend. In so many more words than necessary. 

Adorable and infuriating.

I felt like part of me should even feel insulted that he had gone so far out of his way to exclude the traditional relationship terminology. As if to make damn sure that I didn’t think we were actually boyfriend and girlfriend, even though what we would be participating in had all of the characteristics of such a relationship, save the implication of commitment. 

But I really wasn’t. At all. I didn’t need the title. Or the commitment. Or him saying ‘I love you’ in the three words assigned to the task. 

I just needed him, and to be with him.

“You look irate. Do you not want to–?”

I crawled forward toward him and stopped his yammering with my lips on his. As I kissed him, I crawled into his lap, sitting in the gap between his crossed legs and wrapping my own around his back.

“Delilah, you should know that this proposal and your acceptance to the conditions do not imply that–” He started talking against my kiss but didn’t have it in himself to pull away.

“Shut up, idiot, don’t ruin the moment.” I murmured against his lips. 

In response, he pushed his tongue between my teeth, and I opened my mouth to accommodate him, leaning forward against his body and challenging his balance. He pivoted us sideways, and I fell backward onto the floor, caught in his arms so that I didn’t smash the back of my head into the wood. As he shifted position to climb between my legs, he grabbed my blanket and placed it, bunched up, underneath my head.

“That’s so sweet.” I murmured as he broke away from my mouth to trail kisses over my cheek and jaw and throat.

“Don’t ruin the moment.” He muttered as he pulled down the neckline of my sweater, but there was an amused smile on his face before he took the opportunity to bite me on the collarbone. 

A gasping moan spurred him forth to pull my sweater up over my bra, and I pulled it all of the way off as he plunged his face between my breasts, burying his nose in my cleavage and inhaling my perfume and skin before choosing the left one with his mouth and right one with his hand. I was wearing a black mesh bra and the heat and wet from his tongue and mouth passed easily through the fabric as he ran his palm and then thumb over my other nipple.

“Off?” I asked, reaching behind my back to the clasp on my bra and he paused for a moment to look at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

“I should think so, yes.” He urged and I unlatched my bra and pulled it of, flinging it to the side where it landed half on the piano bench. He dropped his face to my chest again and grasped both of my breasts with either hand, pressing them together around his face and groaning in an exaggerated manner, like a man finding great relief in a drink of water on a hot day or a soft bed after a long journey.

I giggled and threaded my fingers through his hair as he took a moment to grin at me.

He leaned upward to plant another sloppy kiss on my mouth before continuing back down my body once more.

As the evening progressed, and ‘twice’ became a resounding and unmistakable ‘thrice’, I realized I had not asked my final question: 

Sherlock, are you sober?

********

Chapter Text

Hello, my old heart
How have you been?
How is it being locked away?
Don't you worry, in there you're safe
And it's true, you'll never beat
But you'll never break

-"Hello My Old Heart" The Oh Hellos

“Rise and shine!”

I wasn’t sure if it was Sherlock’s boisterous proclamation-slash-demand that woke me, or if it was the thud of the manila folder case file inches from my very recently sleeping nose.

My eyes shot open and I turned my head to find myself in my bed looking up at Sherlock standing over me. He was already dressed in a complete suit and smiling down at me, clear-eyed if not a tad manic.

“Sherlock…why?” Were the only two words I could get my brain to order my mouth to form.

“New day, fresh inspiration. While you were sleeping I was reassessing my entire vision of cooperative detective work.” He began to pace, gesticulating enthusiastically as he continued. “I came to the conclusion that if I am to truly utilize the special skill-sets of each of my individual ‘tools’, I need to let you each approach all of the facts and evidence on your own. I must allow you to make observations and deductions with fresh, inexperienced eyes, before I swoop in, as it were, to provide additional context and wisdom to whatever conclusions you may have come to via the rudimentary, unfettered instincts of your unhoned minds. So this morning I have provided both you and John with new copies of all of the case files, minus any of my notations or helpful conclusions written in the margins.”

I sat up, moving to the edge of the bed and glared at him for a moment long enough to make him stop pacing and look at me quizzically.

“What?”

“I’ll say this one time- your title for me and John cannot now, or ever, be ‘tool’.”

His face turned into an almost pout that seemed improper for a man his age and he hummed unhappily.

“Why not? It seemed to have a certain ring to it when you said it last night.” 

He came close to me and smiled, running his hand over my neck, jaw, upward over my cheek to move a piece of hair away from my forehead. 

“Utensils?” He suggested.

I rolled my eyes. “Like forks? No.”

“Apparati,” came the rejoinder.

“Really don’t think that’s even a proper plural.”

He bent over, grabbing the sides of my face gently, tilting my head upward and kissing me on the mouth in a swift and fond manner.

He put his forehead against mine and looked me in the eye before grinning deviously.

“Come downstairs and be my fork.”

********

A few minutes later I was dressed in jeans and my UCLA sweatshirt, the sheepskin boots that Sherlock despised pulled warmly onto my feet. Clutching my virgin case file, I headed down to Sherlock’s flat, entering the open door.

His flat was warmer than mine because he already had a fire going, and it smelled like coffee. Sherlock was already sitting in his armchair near the window, typing furiously on his phone while John sat across from him in the other armchair, a cup of coffee in his hand and the case file spread in his lap.

“Morning John.” 

John glanced up as I entered and gave me a cursory smile. It was evident that it was going to take a while before I regained his good graces. If I ever managed to.

“Should I make breakfast?” I asked the room, walking into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. 

Sherlock grunted at me and John mumbled “no thanks” so I put some bread in the toaster for myself and took a seat at the kitchen table, looking through the case file again, trying to view everything with fresh eyes, sans Sherlock’s thoughts on any of it.

Once more, I read through the police report, looking over the autopsies of Mike and Abigail, perusing the newspaper articles and pictures of the crime scene. I made my own notes in the margins- observations, insights, questions I had.

My toast popped up and I got up to grab it, spreading clotted cream and strawberry jam haphazardly across the bread, trying to do it quietly because Sherlock ridiculed me every time he saw me eating this particular concoction.

I sat back down and bit into my toast, continuing my survey of the photocopied magazine articles when my stomach did a suddenly flip.

Pausing mid bite, toast aloft, a bit of strawberry fell off my lip onto the paper. I quickly put down my toast and wiped the jam off the paper, leaving a long blood-like smear over the last paragraph of my step-mother’s obituary.

I grabbed the paper and took it into the front room, standing in front of Sherlock, my eyes still on the paper.

“Sherlock, I don’t know if this is important, but…this picture of my stepmother- of Vera Rojas- I didn’t notice when I looked through before. I wasn’t really looking. Guess I’m not a very good detective after all…but she does look like her and-”

“Holy Christ, Delilah, just spit it out!” Sherlock was sitting up, looking at me intently. He held out his hand, fingers splayed, demanding the paper. I gave it to him and he made a face as he observed the jam mess I created. John got up from his armchair, coming around behind Sherlock on the other side and looking curiously over his shoulder at the obituary.

“That’s not Vera Rojas. At least, I don’t think it is. I barely knew her, she and my father were only together for a few months before I left home. And I was so busy, doing volunteer work to pad my applications, practicing for my recital…”

“What do you mean this isn’t Vera Rojas?” 

“I don’t know, I just don’t remember her looking like that.”

Sherlock leaned forward, handing my copy back to me and pulling out his own copy of the obituary, an original newspaper clipping he had sourced from who-knew-where. Where would a British detective obtain a fifteen year old Californian newspaper? Online auction sites?

‘Probably’, I determined to myself, not sure why this was an important detail to me in this moment.

He examined the clipping carefully, getting close to the paper and then flipping it over, running his fingers over the back of it.

“It’s possible the pictures got mixed up at the newspaper office.” Sherlock mumbled. “I didn’t see any other pictures of women of similar ethnicities or ages when I clipped this.”

“Are you certain?”

He cast a dirty look in my direction and I held up my hands in surrender. “Alright, sorry for doubting you.”

“Do you have any pictures of Vera?” John asked me. I shook my head.

“I don’t have any pictures from my past.” I told him and he looked momentarily startled before looking away. 

I felt my face flush in…embarrassment? Shame?

Sherlock looked from me to John, obviously clocking the weird energy but understanding it about as much as I did.

“I, um…my dad. My dad has some old photos. When I helped admit him to St. Elin’s, they asked me to bring a photo album. Sometimes it helps Alzheimer’s patients to see pictures of their past. I know there were pictures of Vera and Abigail in there.”

Sherlock jumped up, walking toward the front door and grabbing his coat.

“Let us go back to St. Elin’s.” He smiled at me and John, pulling his coat on.

“Let me go grab my bag- Sherlock, does this really matter? This was probably just a mistake by the newspaper; the picture got mixed up with something else, or they pulled it off of the wrong social media site.”

“Delilah, one of the first lessons of detective work, besides ‘pay attention to evidence closely the first time through’--” at that, he looked at me hard, chiding me for having missed this detail weeks ago “--is to listen to your ‘intuition’. Because more than likely, that little voice inside of you is not the work of a deity or some spiritual muse, but simply your subconscious doing the back-of-the-house calculations for you.”

I glared at him as I started up the stairs to my flat. “I’m a Philosopher by degree, Sherlock, I think I know the value of intuition.” 

I turned my back on him and started climbing the stairs before I felt a hard pinch on my ass and I yelped, spinning around and using the momentum to smack Sherlock hard on the shoulder.

“Ow!” He laughed, rubbing his shoulder. 

I continued into my flat, pulling off my sweatshirt and grabbing my coat. “You’re such a dick.” I groused at him, not unamused.

“And you are an incorrigible brat.” He stopped me before I left the flat again, holding me by the shoulders and looking down at me with a soft smile.

“I wasn’t trying to lecture you. I’m trying to say- trust your instincts. They’re good. And don’t worry about missing things. Especially at first.” He looked at me a moment longer and then squeezed my shoulders. We headed back downstairs to join John in the foyer.

“That said, Delilah,” Sherlock called after me as we all made our way outside to the Mercedes, “don’t be arrogant. Being smart isn’t the only prerequisite to being a good at this. You have the world’s only consulting detective and all of his vast knowledge and experience at your fingertips. Don’t squander it because you have an inferiority complex.”

I frowned at Sherlock as he loaded himself into the back seat, knowing full well that he was right and that I deserved the bit of verbally-induced humility.

I looked at John as we stood awkwardly at the curb together. I held up the Mercedes key.

“Do you mind if I drive?” I asked him. 

He furrowed his brow at me. “Why would I mind if you drove?”

I shrugged. “Sherlock excluded, guys typically like to drive.” I blushed, embarrassed even to say something so silly and stereotypical, though it made it no less true. 

“We’ve never been all in the same car before like this. If you sit up front with me, I might feel less like a chauffeur.” I joked.

John narrowed his eyes at me. 

“Is ‘driver’ not part of your job description?”

I looked at him for a moment, feeling a mixture of hurt and surprise.

“It was, I guess. Until Sherlock fired me last night.” I said to him in a low, heated voice.

“He fired you? What does that mean? But you’re still working the case?” He looked from me to Sherlock, who was thankfully momentarily occupied on his phone in the backseat.

“We’re going to do cases together. And I’m still going to live in 221B-3.”

“So you’re like the new me, then.” John said, shifting his weight in a manner more impatient than I really understood the reason for.

I folded my arms in front of myself and leaned back slightly, tilting my head at him. “Well, unless there’s something I don’t know, I assume there’s a lot more sex involved in this situation.” 

John’s hairline seemed to shift three inches worth of space back and forth as he parsed my words. I couldn’t tell, but at one point he looked…happy?

“So, are you two…’together’? Like you’re boyfriend-girlfriend?” He asked with a mixture of amusement and hesitation, dialog straight out of eight grade.

“I believe the agreed-upon terms were more like ‘crime-solving, monogamous, cohabitating sex-friends’.” 

John reached out and touched my arm in an unexpected gesture of kindness. 

“And you’re okay with that?” He asked me quietly, casting another quick glance toward the back seat.

My eyes bore into John’s with an intensity that seemed to unsettle him.

“I love him, John.” I whispered. 

He again gave me an entirely too-conflicted look and opened his mouth to say something before Sherlock shoved the car door open forcefully, smacking John hard in the side.

“If you two are done rowing, can we please head to the asylum?” He called out in a truly bitchy voice. I gave John a pointed look toward the car, indicating with my eyes that he sit in the front seat next to me and he rolled his eyes as we both got in.

I turned the car over and the radio sprang to life, blasting the Placebo track I had been listening to on my phone last. As I used the controls on the steering wheel to turn the music down, Sherlock leaned forward over the front console with his phone.

“Do you recognize this woman?”

On his screen was a computer-generated police sketch of a blonde woman with full lips and cat-like eyes, a deep red scar extending from the left side of her nose to mid-cheek under her eye.

I looked it over carefully. I had never seen her before in my life, I was certain. 

“I don’t. Is that the sketch from the witnesses?”
“Yes.” Sherlock said simply, having received the answer opposite the one he was hoping for. “I’ll have to ask around my network to see if they recognize her.” He mumbled, nose back in his phone.

I glanced over at John as we drove toward St. Elin. 

“The unhoused people he knows; used to call them his ‘homeless network’ but it seems a bit politically incorrect these days.” He smirked at me and I nodded.

“A bit.” I agreed. 

We drove mostly in silence. I assumed Sherlock’s heavy phone use during the car ride was him using his various contacts to try and get an ID on our mystery malingerer and attempted murderer.

Everything that John wanted to say to me couldn’t be said in front of Sherlock. 

I was heartened that he at least seemed to already be softening toward me in regard to the fact that I hadn’t shared everything with him. 

And whatever else it was that I had done to draw his ire and disapproval.

********

At long last we pulled up to St. Elin’s, a sprawling Victorian-era sanitarium repurposed as a mental hospital and memory care facility. Rather than pull around the back of the hospital and park in visitor’s, as I used to do so very recently, I pulled up to the front doors, parking in the circular drive.

John and Sherlock made their way into the building and I hung back for a moment, trying to reorient myself in my current reality. 

Chronologically, it hadn’t been that long ago at all that I was last here on one of my normal weekly church visits, wearing a silly polka dot dress and stashing my motorcycle helmet under the pews as my father tried to hold my hand while I used the crucifix at the front of the room as a touchpoint for maladaptive daydreaming.

John held the door open for Sherlock and then me, doing a double-take when he realized I was still standing outside of the eves of the building, staring with vacant eyes into the windows on the third floor.

“Del?” He prompted. My gaze snapped back to him and I zipped my jacket up to my neck, shoving my hands into my pockets and striding quickly into the building, mumbling thanks to John for holding the door.

Sherlock was already at the front desk, speaking to the receptionist. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes.” She spoke in an Irish lilt, brown eyes large and genuinely apologetic that she couldn’t honor his request. “All of Mr. Patrick’s items have been moved to Dr. Hannon’s office. She’s with a patient right now.”

I walked over and stood next to Sherlock and the receptionist’s eyes filled with recognition.

“Good morning, Miss Patrick. I was just telling Mr. Holmes that your father’s belongings, including the photo album have been put in storage in Dr. Hannon’s office. And she’s with a patient.” The receptionist smiled apologetically.

“That’s okay, Becca. We can wait. This is important.” I smiled at the receptionist and she looked at me sympathetically.

“Oh, Miss Patrick, it’s so terrible what happened to your father. He’s a lovely man, we all adore him here. I can’t fathom why someone would want to hurt him.” 

She shook her head, reaching over the reception desk to put a hand on my forearm. 

I smiled at her. “Detectives tend to make enemies throughout their lives.” I shrugged sadly, not wanting to ruin the staff’s apparent affection for my made-tame-by-age-and-addlement father.

Becca tutted, shaking her head as she sat down behind her computer. 

“Imagine coming four thousand miles just to kill an old man.”  

She looked up at me, startled, as the words left her mouth.

“Del, I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing to say out loud.”

I chuckled a little, sitting in the waiting area next to the reception desk, crossing one leg over the other and realizing I still had on my ugly sheepskin boots. I ran my hand roughly through my tangled mess of brown hair.

“Shit.” I muttered, digging in my purse for a hair tie. Sherlock sat next to me as John stared uncomfortable out of a picture window, his arms crossed and seemingly deep in thought.

“Are you alright?” Sherlock murmured to me under his breath, watching as I finally found a ratty purple scrunchy and pulled my hair as tight as possible into a bun at the nape of my neck. 

“Yes, I’m fine, why?” I pulled the cuffs of my jeans out of my boots, trying to tuck the tops in.

He furrowed his brow, his eyes running over the entirety of my body. “I do despise those boots, so I appreciate your attempts to conceal them. But you seem suddenly concerned with your appearance. Are you expecting to see someone?”

I glanced up at him as he peered down at me with piercing blue eyes, once more seeming to leverage his height advantage, easily making me feel like a schoolgirl in trouble.

“Monica Hannon. My father’s doctor.” I explained.

“Ah.” Sherlock clamped a hand on my thigh, squeezing my knee before we both looked down at his hand, surprised at the comforting gesture that seemed to have come naturally in that moment. 

“Eh…I don’t think his doctor is going to make any poor judgments about the way you’re dressed. She knows you have a lot going on.” He gave my leg a final pat before taking his hand back and not being sure what to do with it. He leaned back in his chair, looking around self-consciously and shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. 

I could have sworn I heard John snort as he finally moved from by the window to come sit on the left side of me.

“It’s not that.” I told Sherlock quietly. I glanced at Becca, but she was on the other side of the reception area making copies or printing or something to do with paperwork and loud plastic devices that reeked of ozone.

“Dr. Hannon and I have a…history. Separate to my father’s treatment.” I mumbled, matching Sherlock’s hands in pockets, slumped-against-vinyl-chair posture.

Both men were suddenly looking at me from either side. John in mild surprise, his lips slightly parted as if multiple questions were just dying to pry open. 

Sherlock, on the other hand, had a look of something I could only identify as an emotional “Three Stooges Syndrome”; he was having multiple mixed feelings and none of them could make it through the doorway of his face well enough to accurately portray whatever his feelings and/or thoughts actually were.

I gave him a pointed look, a kind of ‘what?!?!’ face, my hands springing out of my jacket to open, palm-up at my sides in something of a surrender.

“It’s not a long history. It’s a brief history. It was a long time ago. I hadn’t been sober that long.” 

None of my words could get Sherlock’s face to decide on a discernible facial expression beyond unsettling intensity. 

“What?!” I hissed at him. “I’m not a slut. Not as slutty as some other people sitting in this waiting room, at any rate.” 

I glared at Sherlock intensely and finally cracked his facade. The corner of his lip twitched upward in a smirk.

“Maybe I’m just jealous that you’ll obscure your shameful footwear for this doctor but not for me.” He murmured.

I opened my mouth to reply when suddenly Becca’s voice spoke above our hushed conversation.

“Detectives…and Del..?”

We all three looked toward her. John had apparently been leaning toward Sherlock and myself somewhat inconspicuously trying to catch our conversation, but pretended that he wasn’t as soon as my head was turned in his direction.

Becca shrank under the combined intensity of our attention in a manner so obvious as to be almost comical.

“Er, Dr. Hannon will see…you…now.”

We got up to follow Becca through a keycard-secured door, down a hallway of doors to doctor offices and other locked wards and wings. 

Sherlock pushed ahead of me and John and we both trotted to catch up as Becca opened a door toward the end of the northern hallway.

We filed into the office, a room larger than my bedroom at home, with two large picture windows with bars over the outside, a separate, deadbolt-locked door, a wall with some cupboards and a hand washing sink, and the wall furthest from the door occupied by bookshelves containing hundreds of books and half a dozen picture frames filled with diplomas and certifications.

I entered the room last, and Monica didn’t speak until she saw me. She looked past Sherlock and John, directly into my eyes as soon as I entered the room.

“Delilah!” The tall, thin woman rose from her chair, a grin spreading over her face. I smirked at the way she said my name, because I knew the only reason she ever said my whole name was to stuff an ‘r’ sound at the end, her West Country accent making it sound like ‘De-lie-lurr’, a fact that always managed to garner a chuckle from me.

“Been a while since I’ve seen you, eh love?” She came to stand awkwardly in front of me before we engaged in a clumsy mutual cheek kiss. 

Monica Hannon was about five-foot-ten, making her taller than myself and John but shorter than Sherlock. She was reed-thin and her hair was silver, kept in a gelled, short, undercut hairstyle. She always wore scarlet lipstick, which I promptly and from long-ago-established force of habit wiped off the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand.

She was dressed sharp as ever, with tailored brown trousers, a powder blue button up tucked in, secured with leather suspenders, everything pulled together with a typically garish bow tie, which would come across as clownish if it was on anyone less sophisticated than her.

Today it was navy blue with tiny yellow rubber ducks on it.

Monica held out a hand to Sherlock, who took it seemingly before he could help it.

“Dr. Monica Hannon. Pleasure to me you, I’ll have those items for you post-haste.”

Sherlock kept hold of Monica’s hand a few seconds too long.

“You are Mr. Patrick’s attending physician?”

“I am now, yeah.” He finally gave Monica back her hand and, to her credit, she didn’t react to his overly enthusiastic squeeze of it. 

“I was Francis’ attending when he first came to St. Elin’s. I…recused myself of the case for…personal reasons…” Her confidence faltered as her bright green eyes darted to mine.

“I told them, Monica. They won’t say anything that will get you into trouble.”

She relaxed visibly and reached out her hand to John. As he opened his mouth to introduce himself, Monica interrupted him.

“You’re Doctor John Watson. I know you, your office referred a patient to me about six months ago. Pleasure to meet you.”

John looked surprised but pleased. “Well, it’s always nice when one’s reputation proceeds oneself. Especially in a good way.” He laughed.

“Indeed.” 

Monica’s eyes crinkled as she beamed at him and I felt my heart do a little flip.

“Why are you on Mr. Patrick’s case now?” Sherlock asked abruptly, his voice ever so slightly too loud for the room. Monica’s attention snapped back to him.

“He had been re-assigned to me when I came back from my Summer holiday, after the attack and his transport to Morrell.” She explained to Sherlock, reaching into her pocket to dig out a set of keys. “The only reason I had given for recusal initially was overwork, so there was no reason not to reassign him to me.”

She walked over to the locked door in the corner, disappearing into a dark closet for a moment, before coming out with a cardboard banker’s box with my father’s name and date of birth written in permanent marker on the side.

“As Scotland Yard investigated Dr. Theroux, it became clear that he had allowed certain bits of Mr. Patrick’s information- most damningly that he was being treated here at St. Elin’s- to become part of his over-drinks conversations with attractive women.”

Monica set the box down on her desk and pulled open the lid. I peered down at all of my father’s worldly possessions- there were very few.

As what Monica had said permeated my consciousness, I felt a swell of rage and my eyes snapped back up to Monica.

“Did you just say that Dr. Theroux is the reason this madwoman knew my father was here?”

Monica’s lips became a thin, pursed line as she nodded grimly. “He seemingly gave her other details as well. Admitted to revealing his treatment schedules. It wasn’t just your dad- the woman was smart. She made it seem like her interest lay in all of his patients, meanwhile gathering the confidential information just to use it to attack your father, seemingly. We are extra locked down right now, just in case.”

Monica looked back up at Sherlock, her story coming full circle.

“Anyway, Dr. Theroux has been put on indefinite leave, his patients divided among the rest of the attendings. Like I said, I was familiar with Frank so they assigned him back to me.”

“What a piece of shit.” John mumbled in harsh judgment of Dr. Theroux. Monica laughed brightly. 

“I’d tend to agree, Dr. Watson.”

“Call me John.” He answered, his eyes glinting in the fluorescent office lighting. 

‘You’re barking up the wrong tree, hon.’ I thought to myself, pulling a large, leather-bound photo album out of the cardboard box.

I opened up the album and set it down on the large desk, opening to the first page.

Everything in the album was arranged chronologically, and there were about twenty pages. On the right side were four photographs each, and on the left a series of pages with scrawled handwriting.

I had never looked through the album, and I wasn’t sure who had put it together or what it even had left in it. I simply found it in his mess of an apartment before I had him admitted, saw it was full of family photos, and took it with us to check him in.

I flipped through a series of black and white photos of grandparents I never knew and places I had never been, pictures of beach days and dead pets.

There was a blurry, color photo of a woman in a hideous pink dress. Huge shoulder pads, pearls on her neck. He had frizzy, almost-black hair and a sad look on her face.

“That’s my mom.” I told Sherlock, flipping away quickly. There were pictures of Mike as a baby and then a kid, and then there were pictures of me as a baby.

As I turned the pages, the records of years got more scant as time progressed.

Mike as a teenager, his fourteenth birthday, a huge red scar on his arm.

I pointed it out to John and Sherlock.

“That’s when he jumped off the roof, bone came out.” I mentioned. “I put a makeshift tourniquet on him, dad beat me for letting it happen.” I trauma-dumped without meaning to.

I flipped forward in time once more.

A picture of me in the observation bay of an interrogation room at the LAPD’s 11th Precinct. I was sitting at a metal table, a stack of high school level books beside me, notebooks strewn over the surface of the table, headphones planted firmly over what could only be described as a puff-ball of hair, plugged in to a CD player that I was certain contained a Beatles album.

I groaned. “I was eleven there.” I sighed and turned the page again. 

More pictures of Mike, getting older and more disheveled. 

Pictures of me wearing more and more black clothing.

Finally, I got to my fifteenth year. About to ship out to college.

There was a picture of me, glaring at the camera, my hair flat-ironed and bleached blonde within an inch of its life. I was wearing a graduation gown, over which was placed a Valedictorian sash and a scholarship medal. I was clutching my diploma in my hand. 

Mike was holding tightly to my shoulder, grinning, his wavy black hair greasy over his face. 

Beside me stood my father, not touching me, his eyes half open, probably drunk or high.

“Vera took this picture.” I explained and turned the page. 

There she was. 

It was a candid shot, overexposed. She had an annoyed look on her face, as if she wasn’t expecting or wanting her picture to be taken. She was wearing a pink sleeveless maternity top, clutching her hugely pregnant belly. I pulled the photo out of its sleeve, examining it. I handed it to Sherlock, who promptly examined it.

“That is assuredly not the woman pictured in the obituary.” He determined quickly. “Are there any other pictures of her in there?”

 Turning my attention back to the photo album, I flipped to another page.

A professional family portrait. I had never seen it before.

I was long gone by the time my father had pulled it together, getting sober and making an effort to be a decent human being. Besides my school pictures, I had never once had a professional photograph taken of me, much less to create a record tying my existence to my family’s.

The photo was my father wearing a dress shirt and tie, smiling. His face was barely recognizable to me in that clear-eyes and clean-cut state. 

Vera was sitting beside him, this time her hair short and blonde, ala Marilyn Monroe. 

Mike stood to her left, sullen, sadder and gaunter than I’d ever seen him, wearing a Nirvana tee shirt that contrasted with everyone else’s dress clothes.

On Vera’s lap sat a girl, I imagined to be around two years old, her hair tied back with an oversized cream bow, wearing a lace dress and white stockings. My half-sister Abigail, who I’d met exactly once.

I felt a pain spread like a flower and then stab into my viscera, like a hand with claws inside of my chest. That feeling of alienation, loneliness, sadness, and betrayal hadn’t been present in me for a long, long time.

Not since before the first time I tried heroin. 

I shoved the hollowing, breathtaking ache down beneath my consciousness as quickly as I could, flipping the page.

Nothing. That was it. No pictures, and no evidence that there ever had been.

“That’s weird. Abigail was five when she died. I don’t know why he wouldn’t have any other pictures of her.”

I pulled out the family portrait and shoved it at Sherlock to take so I didn’t have to look at it. 

Not that moment, anyway.

I forced myself to keep talking. Keep breathing. “Maybe there were more pictures in the apartment that I hadn’t noticed–”
I stopped short as I looked at Monica. She was staring a proverbial hole through me.

“You didn’t know?” She asked me carefully. She read the wordless response of my face. 

“You didn’t know.”
I chuckled nervously. “Know what? Monica- Dr. Hannon. Just tell me.”

Monica stepped back, pivoting to her file cabinet and opening the ‘O-P-Q’ section. She pulled out a thick folder, bound on top by four metal rings.

“There are some things in your father’s history that we should go over.” She said simply. 

She looked from me to John to Sherlock.

“It might actually help with your investigation.”

********

Chapter Text

The winter would hold no spring
Couldn't hear a robin sing
I just wouldn't have a clue
If not for you

-"If Not for You" George Harrison

I can hear you. I wanted to yell.

Instead, I remained on my hands and knees on the tile floor of the kitchen in 221B-2, yellow gloves pulled up to my elbows and a brush clutched in a death grip in my right hand.

For four hours I had been cleaning that kitchen.

Sherlock and John were standing right outside of the pocket doors, technically in the living room, watching me as I scrubbed into the grout with an ammonia mixture too strong to be entirely healthy. 

They were talking about me. They were worried. 

I got it.

I had gone briefly catatonic until we got home, after I found out that I’d gotten it wrong- that no one was okay when I was off at college, when I went off the rails riding the galloping horse, when I was blissed out and oxygen deprived and overdosing and slitting my wrists on a beach at the edge of the Earth.

While I was obsessively self destructing, my brother was deteriorating. My father was lost in the bottom of the bottle I thought he’d thrown out when Abigail was born. Abigail was being neglected, and my stepmother was being beaten soundly every single night.

I’d gotten it wrong. I had thought it was okay for me to go.

My family was okay. They’d moved on without me, better off without me. 

Started over without me. Like I never existed.

It was okay.

Except it wasn’t.

My father had spilled his guts to the professionals at St. Elin’s. The guilt was getting to him, I guess. He confessed to crimes I knew about, crimes I had theorized had happened, and a whole host of shit that was happening that I had no idea about.

Because I was too busy. Too selfish.

I should have been there.

“I should have been there.” I mumbled at the floor, for probably the one-hundredth time since we got back. Was that earlier that day? Or was it the day before?

Suddenly they were arguing about me. Arguing about if they should leave me alone.

I’m fine . I wanted to scream at them. But I just muttered, once more:

“I should have been there.”

“STOP SAYING THAT!”

I jumped at the sudden roared command, rising onto my knees and dropping the scrub brush with an uncharacteristic yelp.

John was gone and it was just Sherlock, standing over me for half a second before crouching down in front of me and grabbing me by the shoulders.

“Delilah.” He told me in a voice so low and serious that it was almost a growl. “You have to snap out of this. I’m sorry…I’m so sorry that things weren’t…that it wasn’t how you thought it was. But you couldn’t have stopped any of it. None of this is your fault-”

“I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!” I screamed in his face in exchange for his reassurances. 

Sherlock looked like he wanted to shake me. His face was a mixture of frustration and a version of worry bordering on terror.

He reached down and, with some difficulty, pulled off one long rubber cleaning glove, followed by the other. He pulled me roughly up with him as he stood and led me by the elbow into the bathroom. I followed him unquestioningly, my mind planted both deep in the past and far into the future, many steps and years ahead as I planned my escape.

I thought about running as Sherlock turned on the shower.

Thought about hitting up the place under a bridge a few blocks away that I knew I could score something from as he pulled my top over my head.

Thought about the last time I saw Mike, when Mike had grabbed me and wrapped me into his warm arms, pressing his face against mine as he told me he loved me, and Sherlock unbuttoned my jeans, the ones with knees soaked in chemicals, pulling them off of my legs and tossing them aside.

Thought about the fact that that wasn’t actually the last time I saw Mike. The last time I really saw him was at the hospital in L.A., when I visited Vera in the hospital right after she had Abigail.

I was high, and I remembered the visit in flashes of blue halls and yellow lights, plastic lines and antiseptic smells. A tired woman holding a red prune baby, and my brother looking at me from a chair in the corner of the room.

My dad wasn’t there and my brother didn’t hug me goodbye.

He had flinched when I went to touch him.

I was high, so high that it hadn’t mattered to me.

Water rushed over my face suddenly and I choked and coughed. 

I was in the shower, apparently.

“Shit!” Sherlock hissed and grabbed me and moved me out from under the torrent of water, soaking his shirt in the process.

He was stripping off his shirt as my choking turned into hyperventilation. I leaned my naked form against the cold ceramic wall and tried to catch my breath as it came in wheezes and I gagged and I felt like I was going to throw up.

His trousers still on, Sherlock quickly stumbled into the bathtub with me and stood under the water, grabbing me off of the wall from behind and wrapping his arms, vice-like, around mine, pinning my arms against myself.

I thought that maybe at that point he was speaking to me, but time was progressing and rubber banding and expanding and contracting, reality fading in and out in a manner which rendered my ability to sort my senses completely null.

I was a gaping void of endless input and variables and no coherent thoughts.

********

“Breathe. Breathe, my love. Please just breathe. Breathe.”

My senses suddenly came back to me in a rush. 

I would say it was like being born, except that instead of leaving a dark, warm place of comfort and emerging into the cold, sharp world of blinding luminescence, it was the opposite.

I could hear Sherlock’s deep voice, the vibration of his chest soothing against my back. His embrace, though tight, was soothing and soft, his breath on my cheek and the water still rushing down between us a warm comfort.

“Sherlock?” I whispered, struggling against his grasp. “Sherlock, oh god, what have I done?”

He tightened his arms around me. “You did your best.” He told me firmly through gritted teeth. “Delilah, you have to remember, you did the best you could. You did your best. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. You did your best.”

Sherlock sounded like he was about to cry, so I did it for both of us. 

I broke into sad sobs that tore directly out of my chest, collapsing my weight against Sherlock and he held me as I cried. I wasn’t hyperventilating and it wasn’t wracking sobs, it was just heaving sadness, a flowing blood, welling out of years-old wounds in my soul.

********

Eventually the water began to grow cold, and Sherlock turned it off, wrapping my shivering body in a towel before stripping his own soaked trousers and pants off in the bathtub and wrapping himself in a towel as well. I let him lead me to his bedroom and followed his instructions to lay down in bed. He got in behind me and wrapped the sheets and duvet warmly around us. I idly thought to myself that we were getting everything wet and would regret crawling under the covers in damp towels but then Sherlock was wrapped around me from behind, his arms around my torso and legs around my legs.

********

“Delilah. Delilah, my love.”

I grimaced momentarily as I woke up with a damp towel wrapped around my legs and a duvet pulled up to my chin.

Fingers moved through my hair and over my cheek as I finally opened my eyes to find Sherlock crouched in front of me beside his bed, looking at me intently. 

He was somehow already dressed, wearing the dark blue button down with jeans outfit that I remembered him wearing the day I moved in.

“What time is it?” I asked, feeling entirely disoriented.

“It’s ten. In the evening.” Sherlock informed me. He furrowed his brow at me before giving me a genuine smile.

“They caught her, Delilah. The murderess.”

“What?!” I pulled myself up to sitting, clutching the duvet to my chest. 

“The Police. I asked Lestrade to put a watch on Dr. Hannon. And sure enough, Dr. Hannon was attacked at her home.”

“What?!” I asked again, a thrill of terror running through me that someone else might be killed because of me. “Is she alright?”

Sherlock waved me off. “Yes, yes, she’s alright. MP got to her before she was harmed. Just a little strangled. But only momentarily.”

I shook my head at Sherlock incredulously, pulling the unpleasantly cold and damp towel out from under the covers to wrap around myself as I got out of bed.

“A little strangled? Honestly. I’m going to need to send her some flowers or booze or something.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “She’ll be just fine. Anyway, the suspect- Bree Graham- is being held at the Yard. Lestrade said that they wouldn’t question her until I was there. We could wait until the morning but I have a fair number of questions to ask her post-haste. So get dressed.”

I froze in place in the hallway, spinning around to face Sherlock.

“I have to be there?”

“Don’t you want to?” He asked, looking at me quizzically.

“I do…” I resumed my journey to my flat to get some clothes on and the cold towel off. 

As Sherlock followed me up the stairs, he prompted me to continue.

“You do, but…”

I entered my flat and held the door for Sherlock. 

“What if I like…have another breakdown? Or panic attack, or whatever kind of…episode that was earlier.”

I walked into my bedroom and draped the towel over a chair, pulling out undergarments and dressing as I continued my discussion with Sherlock.

“I’m really beginning to think I am not cut out for detective work whatsoever.”

Sherlock sat down on the edge of my bed and watched me dress.

“I think it’s too early to call that, and I certainly wouldn’t gauge your abilities by how you’ve handled this case. You’ll never handle a case this deeply personal again. Unless I get murdered.” He smirked.

I glared at him as I pulled on a fresh pair of jeans, wincing as they scraped against the mild chemical burn I had on my knees.

“Please don’t joke about that.” I told him quietly, going to my closet to find a blouse.

Sherlock pivoted agilely from one side of the bed to the foot, launching himself up onto his feet in a manner so spritely that it made me envy his joints.

He walked up behind me and slipped his arms around my still-unclothed waist, burying his face into the crook of my neck.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He mumbled into my neck as I pulled a grey V-neck jumper off of a hanger.

“Why are you being so agreeable?” I asked him suspiciously. 

He released me as I slipped the sweater over my head, pulling my still-damp hair out of the neckline and raking my fingers through it with difficulty.

“Because you worried me earlier.” He told me, far more straight-forward than was usual for his sentimental statements usually were. “And all of this is my fault.”

He locked eyes with me, his eyes unexpectedly wet. The sudden tears seemed to startle him, too, and he went to turn his head from me but I darted my hand forward quickly and grabbed his chin, squishing his face in my hand and forcing him to look at me, in much the way that Sherlock was fond of doing to me.

“Sherlock Holmes. Firstly, I need to learn your middle name so I can more properly lecture you–”

“Sherlock is one of my middle names. It’s William Sherlock Scott Holmes.” He told me through pursed lips. I released his face, resting my hand on his chest. 

“Christ, really? I should start calling you ‘Bill’.”

“Only if you want to be called ‘Bea’.”

I patted him on the chest. “Fair enough.”

He went to turn around, having been momentarily distracted by our joking around, but I caught his hand and pulled him back toward me. I took his other hand and pressed myself against him, looking up at his face.

“Sherlock, if you’re serious about me not blaming myself for things, please stop blaming yourself for this whole debacle. We are both guilty of various sins, mostly under the influence of substances. But in the end, we didn’t murder anyone, right?”

“Not recently.” Sherlock smirked.

I squeezed his hands. “Sherlock, I’m serious.”

My eyes bored into his, pouring as much meaning into my stare as I could. After a long moment, he opened his mouth to say something and then hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again and leaning down to peck me on the lips.

“We have to go.” He said simply, squeezing my hands and then stepping away from me, expecting me to follow him as he strode out of my bedroom and flat.

********

I stopped Sherlock right before we entered the building at New Scotland Yard, reaching out to grab the sleeve of his coat.

Seemingly a million miles away mentally, he looked down at me, startled.

“Hey, um…” I suddenly felt very small and silly, but pushed forward. “I will watch the interrogation, but I don’t want to be in the room. Not this one. Please.” I asked him quietly, practically begging.

He looked startled. “Well, of course. Whatever you’re comfortable with. I understand.”

Turning toward me, he took me by the shoulders of my coat and looked down at me.

“Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. Even if somehow this woman doesn’t have the answers about what happened to Abigail, or how Mike was involved, we’ve caught the person responsible for Celia Whigg’s murder and your father’s assault. You’re safe again, and we will get the answers you want. Or we’ll stop. It’s up to you.”

I felt my bottom lip tremble as he looked at me sincerely. 

“Really?” Was all I could manage out through held-back tears. 

Sherlock nodded and cupped the side of my face with his gloved hand, looking again like he was about to say something, and then just kissing me on the forehead before abruptly turning away and striding quickly into the building, leaving me to jog to catch up to him.

********

Bree Graham looked much older in person, I noted. Even through the two-sided glass I observed her from, she looked at least two decades older than her computer generated sketch. Her face was taut and almost deformed; she looked like someone that would be incredibly gorgeous in social media pictures, but was a bit of an uncanny valley mess in person.

She sat at a table, her right hand cuffed to a bar. A lieutenant guarded the door and the chair in front of her was empty, waiting for Sherlock.

I stood on the seeing side of the two-way mirror, leaning against a ledge in the wall as Lestrade and an MPS detective introduced to me as Devin Mayes stood beside and behind me.

Bree jumped as the door to the interrogation room pulled open loudly and Sherlock was in the room all at once, sitting in the chair across from the suspect.

She opened her mouth to say something, a devious look on her face as her eyes raked over Sherlock’s form in a way I could only describe as lascivious.

He cut her off immediately.

“Really, all we need to see is your tattoo, Ms. Graham.”

“My tattoo?” She snorted, in an accent I couldn’t quite place. Like an American trying to put on a British accent, or vice versa.

“I don’t have a tattoo.” She scoffed.

“Yes you do.” Sherlock said, simply. “On your left arm.”

She rolled her eyes at him, lifting the sleeve on her left shoulder.

“I thought you were supposed to be some superhero detective.” She laughed. 

“May I?” He stood, leaning forward and she looked at him incredulously.

“You can look all you want, there’s no tattoo.”

He grabbed her arm, pulling it toward him and rotating it forward in a manner not entirely gentle.

“Ow! What gives, prick?” She spat at him, pulling against his hand but he kept her immobile.

“You were telling the truth. No tattoo. But your dysplastic nevus is still there.”

“My what?” She yanked her arm away and he let her go, sitting back down.

“Your atypical mole. Shaped like a rabbit’s head. Or a duck, depending on how you look at it. Guess you should be glad it’s never turned cancerous. Especially hailing from California. That sort of sun exposure can put you at additional risk of melanoma, Vera.”

The woman in the chair across from Sherlock turned white. They say things like “white as a sheet” and this would be an entirely accurate simile in Vera’s case. The blood drained so effectively from her face that she could have been a sheet, either on a bed or made of paper. 

Very white and nervous.

As was I.

My stomach did flip in the manner of Simone Biles as Sherlock reached into his coat and pulled out a picture.

It was the one of Vera pregnant with Abigail, the one I had pulled out of a photo album only fifteen hours ago.

He flipped it toward Vera and she looked ill, at least that is the way the emotion played on her distorted face. I knew now that her strange, strained look must have been a product of a number of surgical procedures.

“That woman looks nothing like me.” Vera croaked out.

“Yes, tens of thousands of pounds worth of plastic surgery has that effect on a face.” Sherlock commented, sticking the photo back in his coat and jumping up, placing his hands behind his back as he began to wander around the interrogation room.

“Unfortunately for you, plastic surgery doesn’t change DNA.” He said cheerfully.

Vera snorted, trying hard to maintain a not-terrified countenance. “I know my rights, you can’t just demand a DNA sample.”

Sherlock smirked at her. “Since you were caught in the act trying to garrote someone, we have more than enough legal cause to elicit a compulsory DNA sample. Not that we would need one. One of the police officers assigned to guard Monica Hannon saw you drop a cigarette before you gained illegal ingress to her flat via the fire escape, and they promptly collected it. The DNA gathered from the butt is being tested against samples taken from under Francis Patrick’s nails and the saliva-sealed envelope that was left on Celia Whigg’s corpse. You’re not very good at this, are you, Ms. Rojas?”

She set her lips in a hard, tight line and glared straight ahead.

“So bad at in, in fact, that I have to assume you had help with your prior crimes. Namely the murders of your daughter and your stepson.”

Vera’s eyes flashed as she looked over at Sherlock.

“Oh, yes, Ms. Rojas. We know that Mike was framed, and we know that he was targeted for murder at St. Elin’s. But our knowledge of these facts gives you a unique opportunity, you know. If you provide us with the contact information of the party you enlisted to assist with the original murders, you would save us so much time that I’m sure, as a special ‘thank you’, you may receive a more lenient sentence for the murder of Celia Whigg and attempted murders of Dr. Hannon and Mr. Patrick.”

With a glare and a growl, Vera finally caved.

“You keep calling me Miss Rojas but it’s not. It’s Mrs. Graham. That is my married name. I met Aristotle Graham while I was still with Frank Patrick, that abusive, crooked, alcoholic son of a bitch. Do you know what that was like? To be left with his retarded son and daughter every single day, only to be beat by a drunk every single night? So yeah, I stepped out. But I was just a pen pal at first, ya know? We met on Facebook. He’s from here. Or was. Now that bastard is somewhere in Italy, last I heard.”

“Aristotle Graham killed Abigail and Michael?”

“No.” Vera sneered at Sherlock as if he was quite stupid for thinking so. “That motherfucker is rich but he’s a complete coward. I put him in touch with Paul Stephen, a real big bad-guy back in L.A., known to ‘fix’ things for people. I knew his name because Frank was always bitching about him. So Aristotle put the money up and Paul took care of the kid- honestly, that child was barely functional. I don’t know what happened to her, if she was in the birth canal for too long, or if it was something about Frank’s genes, what with the way the son came out. Although, I know he can make smart kids because that little snip that hired you- Del, or whatever the fuck she calls herself. That hot-shot bitch, she abandoned the entire family the minute she could.”

I felt Lestrade and Mayes’ eyes on me but just gripped the wall tighter, determined not to so much as flinch.

Sherlock pressed forward.

“And Paul Stephen also killed Michael?”

“No!” She groaned again, for some reason annoyed at Sherlock for not knowing all of the facts already. “That one was easy, all you have to is pay the right people the right amount of money.”

“How did you know Michael was in London?”

She rolled her eyes again. “It was on the news, obviously, the whole debacle with the extradition and the competency ruling.”

Sherlock nodded. “And Michael needed to be taken care of, because…”

Vera continued to unload her crimes and schemes, almost like she was proud of her clever deviousness.

“Here’s the thing, that kid was way more lucid than he pretended to be. He managed to track me down. Then when they put him on the meds, and he was really with it, he was writing me letters saying he was going to tell someone what happened, that he had figured it out. I don’t know if he was pretending to be retarded half the time or what. I’m telling you, even if he didn’t kill the girl, he was going to kill somebody at some point.”

“That’s all the questions I have for you.” He told Vera abruptly, moving to leave the room.

“Hey! What about my plea deal or whatever?” She whined at him, glaring.

“The police will be in with you to discuss that. I’ll see you next in court, Mrs. Graham.”
She watched him leave, a measure of panic setting into her taut features, in the limited manner they could express them.

Lestrade and Detective Mayes left the room and I caught a glimpse of them meeting Sherlock in the hallway briefly before the door shut again and I was left in the dark room, watching Vera as she picked at one of her well-manicured nails, attempting to quell an obvious anxiety attack.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket and I pulled it out. It was a text message from John.

JW: Sherlock just told me. Are you okay?

DP: I think so. There are still a lot of unanswered questions.

DP: But yeah. I am.

DP: Sorry for earlier, by the way.

JW: Don’t be sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.

JW: Try and get some sleep.

I put my phone back in my pocket as Sherlock came into the dim room. We both turned as Mayes and Lestrade entered the interrogation room to make things official with Vera.

“Do you need to watch that?” I gestured a thumb toward the glass, feeling very weary.

Sherlock shook his head, looking at me intently.

“Delilah, are you alright?” Sherlock put his hands on my shoulders and massaged the crooks of my neck with firm but gentle hands. “That was…surprisingly quick and disturbing.”

“To say the least.” I muttered. My head dropped forward and Sherlock pulled me to him, my forehead resting against his chest.

So many questions had been answered in a short amount of time, but where mystery had vacated, sadness filled the spaces. Deep, empathetic sorrow, for Mike and for Abigail. 

It wasn’t even guilt yet, though I was sure that would be on the way. 

Sometimes it’s easier to internalize a pain and turn it into a weapon you can control. Stab yourself in the heart with guilt before grief has a chance to get to it. Because who knows how grief will wound you? 

At least I knew how to handle guilt.

Rubbing the back of my neck, Sherlock pressed his face into my hair.

“Let’s go home, my darling.”

I took a deep breath in and nodded, following as Sherlock led the way out of the headquarters. 

By now it was almost midnight and I found myself distracted as I drove us home. Sherlock was talking to me about the next steps of the investigation, assuring me I would only have to be as involved as I wanted. 

I heard a song playing quietly in the background of our conversation, since I hadn’t bothered to hook my phone up to the stereo. I identified it after a moment: All Things Must Pass by George Harrison:

Now the darkness only stays the night time

In the morning it will fade away

Daylight is good at arriving at the right time

It's not always gonna be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

The roads were very empty. London was one of those cities that “didn’t sleep”, but it sure took a few small naps every now and then. 

A recent rain, within the last half hour, had blanketed all surfaces with the kind of shiny slickness that made everything look like a work of art, the streetlights glinting off of asphalt and road signs.

I watched a light turn from red to green in the surface of a puddle and stepped lightly on the gas, listening to the rumble of the engine and subconsciously counting gears as they shifted.

As I listened to the click-click-click of the turn signal match up with the beat of the song on the radio, I waited to make the final turn to home.

“I asked you a question six minutes ago.”

Sherlock’s sudden yet quiet proclamation roused me from my reverie as I drove the final stretch down Baker Street. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. What did you ask me?” I muttered, looking at him as we pulled up to the curb and I put the car in park.

He smiled at me softly. “It’s not important. Let’s get you inside. Something to eat, maybe. Then some sleep.” He tilted his head forward, peering at me through thick eyebrows in such a manner that it was clear I would not have a choice but to follow his prescribed actions.

He hopped out and opened my door for me and then led me inside to his flat, instructing me to sit on the couch as he made some tea and foraged for food.

Eventually he came back with a tea tray and a plate with toast on it for me.

“Aw, you made my abomination!” I said brightly, smiling genuinely as I picked up a piece of toast with a disturbing amount of clotted cream and some strawberry jam over top.

“Yes.” He wrinkled his nose. “You may be far younger than I am, but if you continue to eat that direct artery assault you may make me a widower yet.”
I snorted, taking a bite. “I think ‘widower’ is a term reserved for married people.” I pointed out.

Sherlock was loading a gross amount of sugar into his tea. “Is it? What is the term for someone that loses their beloved fork?”

“I told you not to call me a fork.” 

“I feel you were ambivalent on that request, actually.” He took a sip of his tea, sitting back into the cushion beside me on the couch and waggling his eyebrows at me over the cup. “I shall be your knife.”

“No, absolutely not.” I argued, dropping jam on my shirt and, without a better option, lifting my shirt up to lick it off. “Shit.” I murmured.

“I am never taking you to eat in public.” Sherlock muttered, shaking his head.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Quiet. I’m trying to come up with a humiliating piece of cutlery for you to be. Oh! You can be a snail fork!”

Sherlock snorted. “A snail fork? Now that is just…inaccurate. Sizewise especially. You of all people know that.” He gave me a smug look.

I smirked, feeling a slight blush rise over my neck. “That I do.” I agreed.

“Please let me be your knife.” He insisted.

“I would let you be my knife if I were willing to be a fork. Which I’m not.” I cast a warning glance over at him, only to find him looking at me in a far-too-fond manner.

“What?” I asked him suspiciously. “Why are you looking at me like that? Are you planning something?”

I held my tea cup to my chest and pulled my feet under myself, curling against the arm of the couch.

“What on earth do you think I’m planning?” Sherlock asked, half-amused and half-offended. 

“I don’t know, you don’t usually look at me that happily unless you’re going to do something mean, weird, or otherwise devious.”

Though I couldn’t tell for sure, Sherlock seemed to be a bit hurt by that accusation.

“I suppose that’s not an entirely inaccurate assessment.” He wound up conceding with a chuckle. 

I nodded. “I know it’s not. I’m incredibly perceptive.” I lifted my chin and looked at him haughtily. 

“Incorrigible brat.” He stated flatly. I looked over at him with a grin and opened my mouth to say something bratty, but he spoke before I could.

“I love you.” 

I wasn’t sure I had heard him right, so I didn’t respond except to stare at him with eyes that felt so wide that it couldn’t have been an attractive facial expression whatsoever.

He didn’t break eye contact with me, but he seemed to be struggling physically and mentally to say something in addition. To backtrack? To explain himself?

I wasn’t sure, but nothing else came for a painful minute.

He tried his mouth again, and managed words, but all that came out was the same three words, a second time.

“I love you.”

********

Chapter Text

Don't need to look no further
This ain't lust, I know this is love

But, if I tell the world, I'll never say enough
'Cause it was not said to you
And that's exactly what I need to do
If I end up with you

-"Chasing Pavements" Adele

November

I was fixated on the mirror, trying to get the newly short layers of my straightened hair to sit right, to fight their natural inclinations to bend in manners contrary to the best interest of pleasant aesthetics, when I was startled out of my obsessive and futile fiddlings by a loud knock on the door.

I walked quickly out of the bathroom toward the front door, nearly tripping over still-partially-unpacked boxes, standing on tip-toe to peer through the peep-hole. I hadn’t been expecting anyone that morning.

Least of all John Watson. 

Well, that was a lie, he had threatened me last week that he would swing by my new flat to ensure I had settled in properly. I had no idea it would be the same day my dissertation defense presentation was scheduled.

I took a deep breath and smoothed my hair one final time, pulling on my suit jacket and unlocking the deadbolt and door chair before opening the door and forcing a smile.

“John. Surprised to see you today.”

He startled for a moment as I appeared from the other side of the door, his eyes darting over my face and form. 

“Ah, still haven’t gotten used to the blonde.” He chuckled and walked around me and through my door as I stepped aside, himself nearly stumbling over a box full of books on the way to the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t be surprised to see me, especially today.” He smiled again and held up a paper bag. “I brought you breakfast, I figured you wouldn’t eat, but you really need to today.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes, both annoyed and deeply touched by the gesture.

“I don’t know that I can.” I told him, peering down inside the bag as the heavenly scent croissants wafted up at me.

John laughed, observing the look of what could have been described as unadulterated lust on my face as I rolled up my sleeves and reached into the bag to pull out a pastry.

We both took seats at my small round kitchen table and John took a croissant as well. 

“It’s important for you to eat at least something today. What happens when you’re halfway through questions and answers and you become hypoglycemic?” He took a bite of his croissant, raising his eyebrows at me expectantly. I obediently took a small bite.

“You’re like the nagging, caring father I never had.” I grumbled with affection as I managed a small bite and rolled my eyes at him, and he gave an amused snort.

“I would have been a very young father.” He stated defensively.

I laughed. “Not that young!”

“Hey, now, I’m only two years older than…Sherlock.” 

John immediately took a bite and we both tried to ignore the fact that he said Sherlock’s name or that we both knew the gravity of the mention of it, especially in this context.

I wanted to ask John how Sherlock was doing, how everything was going in California, if his sobriety was being maintained. I knew John would know, because I was reassured that he was keeping regular contact with both John and Mycroft while he helped the LAPD dismantle Paul Stephen’s criminal network. 

He’d been gone a month by this point. Nobody could say for sure how much longer it would be. It had taken two years to take apart Moriarty’s web, but that was global. This was far more local. Small potatoes.

“So, what time is your presentation?” John asked, intentionally popping the bubble of tension with a question to which he already knew the answer. 

I happily participated in the facade of normal conversation.

“Eleven.” I answered, forcing myself to swallow another bite of croissant. I looked at my watch to gauge how much longer I had to waste in wait. I wanted to just get it over with. Win or lose, doctor or slightly more delayed doctor, I wanted to know the answer.

Needed to know the answer. 

All of the loose threads of my life were beginning to come together in conclusions that, though frequently painful and disturbing, I was finding far more comforting than I ever thought they would be.

Not all. Most.

While the past was being sorted- my father readmitted to the facility he would die at, trial dates being set- there was one gaping question mark remaining.

Sherlock.

********

My name is Delilah.

Dr. Delilah Patrick.

Doctor.

I kept repeating this to myself as I sat on the couch in my flat, staring at a television I hadn’t bothered to plug in yet, half way finished with a bottle of sweet, cheap wine.

Right after my dissertation was approved without condition, I had texted John and Monica to let them know that everything had gone perfectly. Then, I had gone to an early dinner with the department head and a couple of the people I had been working closely with throughout my time at the university. 

I had ahead of me a host of offers and opportunities and years of research.

Suddenly an entire life, spread in front of me like a buffet.

I looked down at my phone, spinning it over and over again in my right hand while a held a plastic tumbler full of wine in the other.

I was a doctor now. Surely anyone could consider this a conclusion, a happy ending to a long, sad, and winding story.

What a frustrating conundrum, especially for someone who seemed to have an illogical inclination toward thinking in storybook style linear narratives. 

Beginning, middle, and end. Exposition, action, climax, conclusion.

What happens to the characters inside of a story outside of the story? 

When the readers aren’t there to observe, to root for and cast judgment upon them? 

When the story has no end, or perhaps has too many endings?

I couldn’t decide why I was feeling so morose about achieving a lifelong dream. I knew it was pretty common for people to feel blue once the immediate thrill of achievement began to mellow. 

Or it could have been my apparent inability to let myself feel happy about anything.

I felt my heart sink deeper into my body, succumbing to a sucking pull of dread as I pondered my latest failure to accept happiness into my life.

Sherlock. And his declaration of love.

And my immediate colossal fuck up.

I looked down at my phone, trying as hard as I could not to replay that night. Barring that, not to replay the days following afterward.

The days where Sherlock completely distanced himself from me. Me having no reasonable ability to stop it. 

Because I brought it all on myself.

The man had opened his heart to me in a way he never had for anyone before.

And I…

I looked down at my phone again, taking a long drink of unpleasantly warming wine before rapidly composing a text, hitting the send button before a separate, more self-preserving part of my brain could stop me:

“Defense was successful. I’m a doctor now.”

Sent.

Shit , I thought to myself. I had done it again. Since he left, I had sent Sherlock probably half a dozen messages, all of which had gone unanswered, and all of which I had tortured myself waiting for answers to for a minimum of twelve hours after each was sent.

So I did it again, and while I waited I finished the bottle of wine.

I ordered myself some chicken wings and poured myself a bath and fell asleep in the water before they arrived.

I woke up the next morning shivering in an tub full of cold water, my phone lying dead at the bottom.

********

December

I watched with mild horror as Dr. Elliot Banks hauled a live, three-foot-tall potted pine tree into our shared office at the university.

If he correctly interpreted the emotion behind my stare, Elliot certainly didn’t let on because when his eyes met mine he burst into a huge grin.

“Del, do you love it? I just realized it’s the Friday before Christmas and we haven’t decorated our office!” 

He ducked back out into the hallway and came back with a bag full of fairy lights and shiny plastic ornaments.

“Yeah, Elliot, did you maybe think there might be a reason for that?” I joked to him, finishing up some notes I had for the assistant I had helping with the current grant proposal. 

Elliot looked up at me, horrified. “Oh, shit, are you Jewish?”

I laughed at how aggrieved he looked by his possible faux pas.

“No, it’s not that, I’m just a grumpy atheist is all.”

Elliot rolled his eyes and continued to set the Christmas tree up in the corner by the window. 

“I’m an atheist, too, but you don’t have to be a Scrooge about it.”

“I’ll have you know-” I snapped the metal rings of the binder I was using shut “-I’m attending a Christmas party tomorrow night. I am perfectly capable of being festive.”

“Ugh!” Elliot sighed at me, looping a metal hook into a shiny red bulb. “So not only do you hate Christmas, but you get invited to parties and then rub it in my face that I am a forever alone science nerd that doesn’t get invited to holiday parties.”

“Eh, I’m pretty sure my invite to this one was contingent upon latent pity.” I walked over and dug into Elliot’s bag, fishing out an ornament. “John Watson seems to be inviting everyone he’s ever said a complete sentence to to this thing.”

“Oh my god, you’re going to the holiday party of your ex-boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend?”

I shot Elliot a look as I tried and failed to hook a pink plastic star to the little tree.

“I would hardly call Sherlock my ex boyfriend, and John is certainly not his.”

“I dunno, Del, you weren’t around here when the tabloids were always writing about those two. There’s a enough smoke there for several fires. Plus I once dated a guy who swore he hooked up with Sherlock.”

I chuckled. “If it happened within the last year, there’s a good chance he wasn’t lying to you.”

“See, this is why I like you.” Elliot hit me in the arm. “You have so many interesting little stories.”

“Yeah, half of which I shouldn’t be sharing.” I sighed, digging around for another bauble. “Hey, I have a great idea, why don’t you come with me to the party?” 

I smiled at Elliot, hopefully persuasively.

He only laughed at me. “No, I don’t think so. Even if Sherlock isn’t there, I still get the feeling that would be one extremely awkward Christmas party.”

********

I spent so long trying to purchase the perfect “Awkward Christmas Party” appropriate dress at the last minute on Saturday that I didn’t have time to straighten my hair. As I slipped the offending frock over my head, my short blonde curls springing out of the turtleneck in a cartoonish fashion, I decided I would just have to make peace with that decision.

From one of the fast-fashion high street retailers, I had purchased a short, crushed velvet, long sleeve turtleneck dress. Looking at it on the hanger, I had thought to myself, what is more stereotypically Christmas than green velvet?

Under the short skirt I wore black lace stockings and decided on black ankle boots, smearing on some deep burgundy lipstick and hoping this look wasn’t over-the-top for a fifty-year old’s home-hosted Christmas party.

Whatever , I thought to myself, if it’s too much, I’ll ditch and find a club or something.

********

I arrived at John’s house fashionably late, parking my Ford Fiesta- the one I had bought when I moved out of Baker Street- on the curb a few houses down and sincerely hoping that the glut of cars parked along the road was not solely for John’s party. That said, the last time I had been at John’s house was when he had convinced me to come over on Halloween to help with Rosie’s trick-or-treating and meet with ‘a few friends’ and that had been more of a crowd than I would have preferred, but at least I had finally gotten to meet Molly Hooper and her son.

I tried to shift my blonde frizz to one side, pressing it against my scalp in futility, and I rang the bell.

An utterly gorgeous brunette woman with caramel brown eyes and full, pink lips, wearing a red bodycon dress opened the door, smiling slightly as she ran her eyes up and down my figure. She pointed a long, perfectly polished red fingernail at me.

“Del, right?”

“Um, yes. Hi.” I smiled at the woman as naturally as I could, wondering if she was going to let me into the house

“Hi. I’m Madison. John’s girlfriend.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake, but before I did, she laughed. 

“Oh my god, I guess I should let you in.” She stood aside and let me in the front door finally, helping me take off my coat in the foyer. Beyond the small entryway, I heard a number of voices and some raucous laughter.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you.” She chattered. “That’s a great dress.”

Finally meet me? I thought to myself. I supposed I hadn’t actually seen John since Halloween, but we had texted since then. I was surprised at first that he hadn’t mentioned getting a girlfriend, but then I thought to myself that we probably weren’t close enough for that to really be a conversation we would have.

Madison led me into the sitting area. Through an adjacent hallway I could see part of the kitchen and an arcadia door from there led to the back garden, where a strand of bistro lights had been hung.

“Dr. Patrick!” A boisterous voice greeted me unexpectedly. Detective Inspector Lestrade was the first to spot me, and seemed to have been the first to get into the eggnog because though the party had only been on for a half hour, he lumbered toward me and wrapped his arms around me.

Granted, we had become more friendly in the last few months as I helped the Met wrap up some of the loose ends with the Vera Rojas case, as well as the footwork I had been doing for Sherlock when I was still under his employ. 

That said, I wasn’t sure we were on bear-hug-and-loud-kiss-on-the-cheek level yet. 

Another reason to love the holidays, I supposed.

As soon as Greg released me, I came face-to-face with Monica.

“Ah, Dr. Hannon. I should have known you would be here. After all, every doctor in London knows each other.” I joked, exchanging a peck on the cheek and this time leaving a small, deep red smear on her in return.

Luckily, Monica had forgiven me for almost getting her garroted and she returned my playful smile. She leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear.

“I think John’s girlfriend went into his phone contacts and invited every individual with a female name to this thing just so she could get a good look at us all in person.”

I giggled and my eyes traveled to Monica’s bow tie.

Red with tiny Christmas trees.

After some minutes of small talk with Monica, who introduced me to her date, whose name I promptly forgot, I headed into the adjoining kitchen to fix myself a much-needed drink.

Standing alone in the kitchen, looking overwhelmed and nervous, was John.

“Hey. Great party.” I said as I entered, hoping not to startle him.

He seemed to come back to himself in that moment, looking up at me with a nervousness I couldn’t discern the reason behind. 

Possibly overwhelmed by the crowd?

“Yeah, Madison planned this. Loves Christmas.” He told me in small sentences, barely looking at me.

I smiled at him and grabbed the makings of a cocktail from the counter beside him as he avoided my gaze inexplicably.

“She’s very pretty.” I mentioned, nudging him in the arm with my own as I tried to broach conversation. 

He didn’t bite, instead just mumbling, “Yeah, she is.”

Walking past me to leave out of the arcadia door, John moved around me in the cramped space with a hand to the small of my back. He leaned forward over my shoulder and kissed my cheek. I smelled beer and bourbon on his breath.

“Happy Christmas, Del.” He muttered in a low breathy voice and then he was gone.

After watching him disappear into the darkness through the glass door, I turned back to what I was doing, pouring an inappropriate amount of vodka into a glass cup, filling it with just enough juice to turn it pink.

I had downed half the cup of vodka cranberry when I felt eyes on me. I cast a quick glance sideways to see who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen and I almost dropped the glass tumbler.

“Sherlock.” 

********

Chapter Text

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're tryin', you're tryin' now

Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin', you're cryin' now

-"Baker Street" Gerry Rafferty

“Sherlock.”

I said it as a whisper, though I had meant for my voice to be a normal volume.

Dressed in a dark blue shirt with no tie and a black, well-fitted suit, he had a short, groomed beard and a recent, shorter-than-usual haircut.

Although I was startled as hell to see him, he didn’t look surprised in the slightest to see me, despite a brief fleeting glance to my newly short and bleached hair.

Before I could stop myself, I set my cup down on the counter and ran into his arms.

It wasn’t what I had expected to do, and it wasn’t what Sherlock expected either. I felt him tense between my arms for a few seconds before his body relaxed and his arms wrapped around me as I buried my head against his chest.

“When did you get back?” I asked him, the sound muffled by our embrace.

“Just this afternoon.” He answered. I couldn’t believe I was hearing his voice again. In real life. His voice had been echoing in my mind every hour of every day since the last time I had seen him.

I pulled back to look at him but he didn’t release me from his arms.

“You must be exhausted!” I looked his face over. He didn’t look particularly tired, actually.

He smirked at me. “I slept on the plane. And taking the private jet precludes a lot of the lines and waiting, so…”

“Perks of being one of the bourgeoisie.” I teased him. “Why on earth would you of all people come straight from an eleven hour flight to a Christmas party?” I asked him in curious incredulity.

“I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t want to wait.” He answered me simply.

I stepped back from him and we both quietly took in the sight of the other for a few moments. It seemed we both knew there was much to be said, much that had gone too long unsaid. We were both hurt, both in pain, both guilty of wounding the other.

“Did you want to leave?” I asked him. He shook his head.

“That will just attract attention.”

“Let’s go talk in John’s room. Provided he’s not in there. Have you seen him?” I asked Sherlock as we made our way down the hallway.

“He’s in the garden. Should I be jealous that you know where John’s bedroom is?”

My blood grew cold at his words, however jokingly he had framed them. He had spent two months and some change ignoring me after terminating our relationship and kicking me out of my flat. Why would he be jealous? And why would he have the right to?

We made it to John’s thankfully empty room and I turned the lock behind us. Sherlock and I stood awkwardly in the space for a moment before he sat on the foot of the bed. Having no other choice, I followed suit, perching awkwardly in my short, tight skirt.

“Okay, so. You said you wanted to talk?” I prompted Sherlock, suddenly feeling like I was going to cry. He looked down at his hand, palms facing up in his lap.

“I do.” He said quietly. “I feel uncharacteristically speechless, unfortunately.” He admitted.

“Okay, I’ll start.” I said, suddenly feeling irate, my half a cup of vodka cranberry spurring me on.

“I know this is all my fault. I know that. But I don’t know how you can say that you love me, and then when I express a modicum of doubt, you prove me right by leaving the country and ignoring me for two months.” My sentence ended in an unexpected, tearful whine.

Okay, so I wasn’t going to be angry about this; I was going to cry. Or maybe it was an angry cry. Wasn’t completely sure yet. 

I was also still completely overjoyed to be in the same room as him. Not long prior to this moment, I hadn’t been sure that was ever going to happen again.

He looked up at me, the blue of his eyes made more intense by the anger and shame that simmered within.

“I was gone for two months because had a job to do. Don’t be a child.” He snarled at me, looking me up and down unkindly, straightening his posture to the point where I felt as if he was towering above me. I hated it when he felt guilty about something, because it made him cross the borderline from rude and short to just plain mean and insulting.

I rolled my eyes at him and stood up, turning to face him and, unfortunately, only meeting him eye level when I stood as he sat on the tall bed.

“Obviously I didn’t care that you went to California. On behalf of all Americans, thank you for your service to the LAPD.” I told him sarcastically. “You didn’t have to…break up with me first.”

I felt silly using that term for the cessation of our relationship but I wasn’t sure how else to term what had happened.

“What else should I have done, Delilah?” Now was his turn to stand and now, of course, he was far taller than me once more. Even with my heels on.

“I told you…I told you I…that…and you said you didn’t believe me.”

“It had been a really long day!” I cried at him, my voice louder than it needed to be. “It was one of the worst days of my life! I was exhausted!” I shoved him in the chest and he grabbed my hands, giving me a warning look.

“You couldn’t have allowed me just…a moment to process? A moment of doubt?” I cried at him.

His grip tightened on my hands. “Do you have any idea the...the cost of me...” 

His eyes closed for a moment, and his lips pressed together, his throat moving visibly in a rough swallow.

He continued, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t say that. I don’t say those words to anyone. And I said them to you. And you immediately threw it back in my face.”

He tossed my hands away from himself and clenched his own into fists, turning from me quickly and walking toward the opposite wall, which he stayed facing.

I wiped my cheek as a searing tear poured over the edge.

“Sherlock, I am so incredibly sorry. I am. I just…can you understand? Can you use your amazing, beautiful brain for a moment. to think about why it might be hard for me to accept someone saying they love me?”

I saw him tense visibly when I said the “L” word again.

“You don’t understand because you are so loved. By family. By friends.” I left out ‘by me’ because I really didn’t need to bring that bit into the equation at that moment.

“Before I met you, I was loved by literally one person in the entire world- my brother Michael. No one else. I mean…” I faltered momentarily, trying to decide if this was the right time to tell this story.

“I had been told by a man...who said he loved me. The only one. And it was…”

I stopped for a moment, feeling weak and sitting back down on the bed heavily.

“The last man that told me he loved me got me hooked on heroin.” I told Sherlock, watching his back for any hint of movement or response or understanding. There was none.

“I am not saying this to blame someone else for my addiction, or to make it the center of…anything. But, you have to understand, at the time, I had no one. No one in this world. And I met him, and I thought I finally had someone I could trust. To depend on.

“Long, stupid story short, he told me he loved his heroin and that, if I loved him, I wouldn’t keep trying to change him, I would join him. So I tried it.

“I thought, what’s the harm in just…not thinking for a little while. And I was just so much smarter than everyone else, and all of the people around me who were using. Surely, if anyone could control it, I could. Obviously, I couldn’t.” 

I looked away, my eyes lazily searching over the room and its contents, taking idle stock of the things that were John’s and the things that must have been Madison’s.

“Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. But I wasn’t trying to doubt you. I know now how wrong it was to not just…accept what you said. How stupid of me it was to not just fucking shut up and accept it. But…it had been a long day. A long day, bad day, full of ghosts. I wasn’t ready, I guess.”

Sherlock turned around finally and I watched him walk toward me, his eyes cast on the ground as he came to sit next to me. He still didn’t look at me, just ran his hands over his own thighs, digging his fingertips in as he stared downward.

His tongue moved over his teeth, planting itself into the inside of his cheek for a moment before he began to speak, slowly.

“I unthinkingly told you I…I said what I said, after a very long day during which I, myself had physically placed you into a shower to stop you from having a panic attack. That day, that I had never seen you more traumatized or unmoored. I chose that day to say it. And I completely shut down the moment you dared to question what I had said. God, I–” He let out a gasping almost-laugh, shaking his head as he continued to rub his own thighs roughly.

Finally, he looked up at me, his eyes welled with tears as he searched my eyes.

“And then I ignored you for two months while you continued to try and reach out to me.”

His eyes bored into mine while tears streamed down his cheeks, his features twisted in anguish.

I reached out my hand to touch his face but he jumped up off of the bed away from me before I could make contact.

“No, don’t do that.” He told me, backing away from me and wiping the tears off of his eyes roughly with the back of his hands. 

“This- us- needs to be done. Finished. I cannot keep…you and I…”

He took a deep breath and did his best to place his typical mask of unfeeling over his ragged, heartbroken bones. It didn’t work, because tears were still escaping from the eyes attempting to steel themselves.

“I have done nothing but wreck you from the second we met. I have trampled every boundary of propriety, every limit you tried to set, lied to you, been unkind to you, placed you in actual mortal danger…” His eyes grew very dark and his jaw set in place. “I may as well have been the man that got you hooked on heroin. At least shooting up is a more obviously toxic choice than…than loving me.”

He finally met my eyes once more, standing up straight and doing a good job of looking certain and unemotional.

I let him catch his breath and order his thoughts for a few moments before I spoke again.

“Are you done?” I asked him blankly. 

He looked slightly surprised. “Yes. Yes I am done.”

“You’re going to listen while I talk now.” I informed him, standing up from the bed once more. 

Nodding, he watched me nervously as I walked toward him.

I stood for just a moment about a foot away from him, and then moved forward to close the distance and when I went to take his face in my hands, he just went limp and let me.

“I am so sorry for hurting you.” I told him, my eyes locked onto his. “I never meant to cast any doubt on the veracity of your heart. I don’t care how many times you try to tell me otherwise, I have never met a heart as pure as yours. And any doubts I had were meant to be placed squarely on my own worthiness. Doubts that you could ever love someone like me.” My voice broke and Sherlock flinched, but I pressed on. 

“And if you can’t love me anymore, that’s okay. I understand. I never expected you to love me. And you don’t have to. But I love you. I never stopped, and I never will. Whether you want me or not. If I never saw you again after this night, I would still love you until my dying day.”

“Oh, Delilah.” Sherlock closed his eyes, pressing his face into my hand. He looked at once rueful and triumphant as his eyes opened again, and his arms slipped around my waist and pulled me toward him.

He pressed his forehead against mine.

“Foolish woman,” he murmured. “My dear heart, my perfect disaster. You’ve ruined and rebuilt me.”

He said the last bit in a hushed whisper against my mouth, his lips dragging over mine as they spoke. We were separated by less than an inch for only a moment more, before the distance remaining between us was eliminated and his lips were finally, blessedly, planted completely against mine once more.

We kissed slowly and softly, pushing our bodies together with firm insistence but patient delicateness, the moment passion in its most emotional form.

I felt the drumbeat of worry and words that had haunted every moment of my waking hours for the last two months, the torturous monotony and noise of life without him fade as Sherlock gripped my waist with one hand and threaded fingers through my hair with the other.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled myself upward toward him as his tongue breeched my lips. 

His arms moved around my lower back and he lifted me easily, walking me backward without breaking our kiss until he sat me down on the side of the bed.

I watched as he unbuttoned his jacket and started to take it off. Glancing at the door, I was suddenly cognizant that I could hear the voices of the party at the other end of the hall. But then I looked back at Sherlock as he began to unbutton his shirt and I didn’t care anymore as I pulled off my boots and pulled my dress over my head.

I looked up at Sherlock, who was naked from the waist up, while I was sitting on the side of John’s bed in a matching black lace bra and panty set, lace thigh high stockings still on. 

“Christ, Delilah. Look at you. What were you planning to do this evening?” He stepped out of his shoes and leaned over me, in one movement laying me down and wrapping an arm around me to help me move further onto the bed, so that we were lying the wrong way across the bed.

“I was planning to text you Merry Christmas.” I told him, moving my hands over his chest and feeling his skin goosebump as my fingertips travelled over his flanks, next moving in a circuit across his lower abdomen.

“Happy Christmas.” He corrected, only mostly joking as I unbuttoned his trousers. In payment for his helpful guidance regarding typical British vernacular, I slid my hand down into his black briefs and directly over his already mostly hard length.

Sherlock performed a sharp intake of breath and a gasp before leaning forward and capturing my lips in another kiss, this one more insistent than the others so far that evening. He reached between his legs and grabbed my thigh, folding my leg forward to pull it from between his legs and place it on the outside of his own. He recentered himself between my legs and sat back onto his heels, quickly divesting himself of trousers and underwear. I reached behind myself and loosed my breasts, pitching my bra away and before I could do it myself, Sherlock had his fingers hooked through the waistband of my small lace panties, sliding them down my thighs. He scooted backward and stood up off of the bed so that he could pull them off of my feet.

I laid on my back on the bed, nothing on but lace thigh-high stockings and looked through the gap between my knees at Sherlock, completely nude before me.

I looked his body over and sighed contentedly, biting my lower lip with a smile and looking pointedly at his now full erection.

He grinned at me deviously and put his hand around his own shaft, stroking himself a couple times.

“You like that, eh?” He asked rhetorically, coming back to the edge of the bed, leaning against the mattress with his knees. “You want this dick inside you?”

“Yes.” I told him simply, opening my legs to him. I saw his neck and face flush as he took in the totality of my sex spread before him.

“Well, you’re going to have to wait.” He said gruffly, and before I could question what he meant he had practically dived forward, laying on his stomach on the bed, wrapping his forearms around my thighs and taking my cunt into his mouth.

I squealed probably too loudly and then clamped my hand over my own mouth as Sherlock chuckled into my core, the heat of his breath and vibration of his vocalization causing another pleasurable sensation, making me to squirm.

Sherlock’s fingertips tightened against my thigh to keep me from moving as his tongue ran its courses between my legs, expertly finding the places I desperately needed it to be. 

After many minutes of pleasure, and just when I thought it couldn’t feel any greater, he shifted position just enough that, while his tongue was on my clit, he slipped his middle finger inside of me. A couple strokes against my g-spot was all that was needed to throw me over the edge and I came hard into his mouth and around his finger as he worked me expertly through every last bit of the orgasm he had induced.

After my climax was finished, I lay buzzing, smiling in thankfulness at Sherlock who looked very pleased with himself as he came to lay next to me, propped on his elbow and grinning while he ran his hand over my stomach.

I leaned over and kissed him deeply, my hand gently pushing him backward by the chest as I tasted myself on his lips and tongue.

He laid back on the bed and I straddled him, my sex slick against his cock which was becoming erect once more.

Sherlock’s hands moved over my shoulders and back, squeezing my ass and moving over my thighs as I sat up on his hips.

His hands ran over my stockings, the only bit of clothing that remained on either of us.

“You should wear these more often.” Sherlock commented, pulling at them playfully.

I giggled. “You like them? Maybe I could leave my shoes on next time.

He shivered as I ran my hands over his abdomen and then pivoted my hips forward, sliding my wetness over his hard length.

“As long as they’re sexy shoes. Not the fucking ugly boots,” he managed out. Barely.

“You sure about that?” I rocked my hips again and his breath caught in his chest.

“You can make a dress out of nothing but those god damn boots if you want.” He agreed in quick, desperate words. “You could dress up like Winston Churchill and I’d still be desperate to fuck you.”

He gripped my hips and held me in place as he moved under me, trying to slide himself into me. Impatient and not entirely sure he would be able to achieve the feat, I leaned forward and reached between my legs, pushing him up against my entrance.

“Yes, that’s it, thank god.” Sherlock groaned and he thrust upward as I leaned backward and we both breathed sighs of relief and completion as he sheathed himself inside of me.

I took his hands off of my hips and intertwined my fingers through his, bracing my weight against him as I began to ride him. After a moment I switched angles backward, resting my hands against my own calves while Sherlock’s wandered over my breasts and stomach, his left thumb winding up against my clit. 

A few minutes of that and I came again, fully expecting Sherlock to follow me in climax but instead he surprised me by rolling us over and pinning me under him, his full weight lying on top of me.

I thought he would take the opportunity to pin my hands above my head but instead he laid flush against me, getting as close as possible to me with his arms to either side of my head. 

He kissed me deeply as he thrust into me at an increasing pace. My limbs wrapped against him tightly as he kissed me desperately.

His tongue plunged into my mouth, and we were practically breathing for one another when suddenly he tensed, his climax overtaking.

His lips were still held firmly against my bottom lip, and he whimpered against my mouth as he pressed himself into me as completely as possible. I moaned as I felt him fill me with warmth.

Sherlock tucked his face into the crook of my neck, gasping as he tried to keep himself inside of me for as long as possible.

Eventually we both came to what was left of our senses and Sherlock rolled off of me.

We laid side by side, looking up at the ceiling as our pulses and respiration normalized. Neither of us said anything, but Sherlock reached his hand over and took mine in his and held it tightly, squeezing it occasionally as we laid in place for a few minutes more.

Finally, we decided we couldn’t spend eternity in John’s bed and we both used his adjoining bathroom to clean up, make ourselves presentable, get our clothes back on.

Before we left the room, I pulled John’s duvet off and shoved it in the laundry hamper.

Only seemed polite. Considering.

********

We stayed for another couple hours at John’s party. 

When I went to my car to fetch a wrapped gift I had brought for Rosie, who had been sent to stay at the babysitter’s for the night, John seemed to be more himself than before, accepting the parcel with a smile and a warm hug for me.

Sherlock was surprisingly laid back given the amount of people there, but then again, the people in attendance seemed generally enthralled by him. John had told me once that Sherlock had been much less developed socially when they first met, that he was a much more awkward and sometimes shy person in his early thirties. That it had been almost painful to watch him try and socialize at John’s wedding, without John right beside him to be a buffer and a human interaction spirit guide like he usually was for Sherlock back then.

Something about John getting married and moving away had forced Sherlock to grow up a bit, just as his moving away the second time seemed to have launched him into a major regression.

As the more casual of the acquaintances left the party, a core group of older friends remained, to which I was an outlier. I let myself sink into the shadows as drinks were had and memories shared. I absorbed every detail I could; every word, every unspoken context, every telling twitch on another’s face. 

The only thing that kept me certain that I still existed was Sherlock’s hand on my knee. It came and went as the night proceeded. Any time he seemed to fade into himself momentarily, he would reach his right hand to my knee, gripping it like a lifeline, using my body as an anchor to remind him he existed in the current timeline. I was always there for him, to ground him and moor him, any time he reached for me.

And his hand returned, gripping me tightly as he informed everyone that he was to be leaving London again that night, that he had only returned for the evening, and still had another month’s work in America before he could come back for good.

My heart melted into a burning pile, feeling hot and lethal like a crucible full of slag. 

He didn’t look at me as he spoke, smiling at his friends as they expressed their regret that he would be out of the country for his birthday.

I suddenly felt, in a way I hadn’t since probably September, that I didn’t even belong here. That I didn’t know him and the man I thought I was in love with may actually just be construct designed by Sherlock Holmes to keep a useful tool close enough to utilize per his whims.

I kept quiet and I kept in the shadows, nursing the soda I was drinking in lieu of alcohol since I would be needing to drive myself home soon. As I did, I felt eyes on me and looked up, looking past Sherlock’s profile as he was listening to Molly jokingly chastise him about something he had done a long time ago, at a party like this one, back when she was full of unrequited love for him.

John was looking at me, his eyes dark and hard, Madison resting her head against his shoulder, her face a peaceful mask compared to the hard lines of his, made harsher by the light of the fireplace at the front of the room.

His eyes seemed to be echoing the same thoughts already running through my mind; actually, there was a perfect Radiohead song for this. Creep said it best:

What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.

I tore my eyes away from John’s and did my best to refocus on the conversation until Sherlock indicated it was time for him to be going.

Everyone said polite goodbyes to me and more heartfelt ones to Sherlock, both because they knew him far better and longer and also because he would be out of he country. 

Meanwhile, I would be here, in London, ringing in the New Year hoping it wouldn’t rain on the street parties.

Sherlock walked me to my little blue Fiesta, parked down the block from John’s house.

“This seems like an exceptionally boring car for you, Delilah.” He leaned against my car, pulling me against him. I leaned my weight on him, arms wrapped around his waist and head leaning on his chest, inhaling his scent of cigarettes, sandalwood, and him.

“It’s what I could afford. Although, I would love to have my bike back…” I prompted, looking up at him hopefully.

He bent his neck, peering down at my fondly and pressing my wild hair out of my face, tilting his head to press his lips against my forehead.

“I don’t think so.” He murmured against my skin. “I still need this brain in its original packaging.” 

I smirked, even while his joking words put a hot poker directly into the wound of insecurity I had been trying to heal since the day I met him.

********

We stayed like that for a while, me trying not to shiver in the cold late December air.

I felt something cold on my cheek and reached up to brush it away. My hand came away wet and I leaned back, looking at the sky, which was starless and black beyond the orange-yellow glow of the streetlights lined above us.

Expecting rain, I was startled to see something delicately fall past my nose and land on the lapel of Sherlock’s favorite grey coat.

Snow. Very small, very light. Wouldn’t make for a White Christmas, unless it turned into something more by Christmas Eve. But tonight, on Christmas Eve-Eve, it would be just enough to make me damper and colder.

“Come with me, Del.”

My eyes refocused from the snowflake, which had already melted into Sherlock’s coat, and landed on his face. He stared at me intently.

“I can’t.” I told him, immediately making plans in the back of my mind to put my dream job on hold and follow him back to California, reputation and career and groundbreaking medical research be damned.

As he stared at me, I could tell he was reading the calculations behind my eyes, and I wondered if he could tell that I was reading his.

He was fighting with himself; he knew that if he insisted that I go, I would. If he told me he loved me, I would burn my life to the ground. If he said the word, I would marry him, bear his children, kick off my shoes on the way to his kitchen and become a doctor in title only.

Or would I?

Both of us standing in the cold by my car, in our own worlds, once more in this stalemate of chess computers stuck in calculations of checkmate versus stalemate, I felt something else stir within me.

A flickering flame of something outside of the usual subroutines that directed my every thought and action. 

Something closer to what I had been feeling when I started my doctorate, the doctorate I was three little words away from throwing on the ground like a discarded gum wrapper.

A thought that I could be defined by something greater than my trauma, more than the role I played in other people’s stories.

The thought scared me, immediately.

Here was the problem, the reason for the fear: I felt like Sherlock loved me. It felt real. And if it was real, then it would survive me becoming healthier. It would survive a more whole Del Patrick, rather than a shell of a woman acting on fight or flight instincts at every moment.

But- what if it wasn’t real? 

What if I had made it all up, or if he had made it all up.

What if a healthier me wasn’t appealing to him?

For a terrifying moment I thought to myself that maybe I would just stay in this half-life of broken thoughts and hearts and bad habits. 

Because then I could stay with him.

I could build myself around what he wanted. Surely, as smart as I was, I could figure out a way to keep him forever. For sure.

And yet, again, that tiny flame answered back: I would never be happy like that. 

Because even though it was a terrifying and painful thought, my life did not actually revolve around Sherlock Holmes and, as such, neither could my entire happiness.

I felt tears stinging my cold eyes and as my eyes met Sherlock’s, his face fell, aloof mask of smugness cracking, revealing confusion and…perhaps fear. But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing and what I was imagining anymore.

This next break, this time away, would be good. 

When Sherlock was around, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, instead creating thoughts I believed Sherlock would want to hear when he inevitably read my mind.

I couldn’t say anything to him now.

Instead, I just pressed my cold lips against his.

“I’ll see you when you get back to London,” I told him. “You know how to find me.”

As I stepped back from him, he looked as if he wanted to say something but, after a long moment, simply opened my car door for me. 

I slid behind my steering wheel, and he closed the car door behind me.

Four cylinders rumbled to life, and I pulled away from the curb, watching as Sherlock raised a gloved hand and bid me goodbye, fading into the distance in my rearview mirror.

I turned my eyes back to the road and the radio up and Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” filled my car with the sounds of the greatest saxophone riff of all time.

With a small smile on my face, I made a right-hand turn.

The only thing in my rearview mirror then was a dark London street. 

All I could see ahead of me was the road home.

********