All it took was a couple of drinks and an unexpected downpour of spring rain, and they were back to where they had started.
He let her kiss him for a few moments before placing a firm hand on her shoulder. "I don't think so. Do you?"
She stared at him with an odd mixture of sadness and fondness. "What if I don't care?"
"I'm asexual," he stated bluntly, as if that decided everything.
"You could have told me before, you daft thing," she huffed impatiently. "Doesn't really matter anyway."
"Doesn't it?" he frowned, confusion apparent on his face. It was clear that she'd caught him off guard, and a pleased smirk crept to her lips.
"We should talk it out properly, set some ground rules; however, as long as there are no international blackmailers involved, I think we could make it work."
He looked down at her, made a show of rolling his eyes. "What if I'm not interested?"
"Aren't you though?"
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a failed attempt to conceal his smile. "You're an unusual woman," he conceded, and she knew that counted as a compliment coming from him.
"That's why you like me," she grinned, and this time he didn't stop her when she stepped closer and kissed him.
xxx
"What's with you and Sherlock?" Mary asked upon dinner, and she all but shrugged.
"Mutually satisfactory cohabitation, that's how he defines it," she surmised. "I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Mrs Hudson we're not actually engaged to be married."
The baby chirped merrily in her crib, and a pang of longing stirred in her chest. Mary immediately noticed, a knowing smirk lighting up her eyes. "And what's his stance on children, I wonder?"
Janine laughed, though it sounded a bit forced to her own ears. "Who, Sherlock Holmes?"
"You might be surprised," Mary quipped back, strolling over to her daughter and scooping her up in her arms.
xxx
"It's your fault," she groaned as he handed her a cup of tea.
"Hardly," he pointed out matter-of-factly. "Do I have to remind you whose idea it was?"
"You agreed though," she retorted feebly, only to snap her mouth shut when another bout of nausea clenched her stomach.
"And your point is?"
He quirked a questioning eyebrow at her, and she decided that as irritating he was, she wouldn't have it any other way.