"Blonde doesn't suit you."

A tall, slender figure stood in the shadows of the doorway. The blonde woman placidly continued to pour tea for her elegant dark-skinned companion, who eyed the stranger nervously. Without skipping a beat she said, "I'm terribly sorry Salima, but I'm afraid we will have to reschedule. Something's come up."

The other woman gathered her things and left through a rear exit, continuing to glance suspiciously at the man, who had not moved from the doorway.

The first woman sighed when she had gone, and removed her well-crafted wig, allowing waves of chestnut hair to cascade down to her shoulders. "Blonde is more exotic here. Not to mention less identifiable with a name I have tried to leave behind. I was wondering when you would show up."

Sherlock stepped out of the shadows into her lavish receiving room, strewn with silks and pillows, the thick stone walls and high, latticed windows keeping it cool even in the midday hour. He said nothing.

"Does he know?" the Woman asked.

"Why? Going to tell him?"

"No, I'd make you do it. I owe him one on that score. But of course he knows." She gave him an appraising look. He was covered in slowly healing cuts and bruises, and several fingers were bandaged. He moved stiffly. "I'd ask what happened to you, but given the fate of Sebastian Moran I don't think I need to."

This won her a brief but genuine look of surprise. "You know Moran?"

"Only by reputation. His tastes were a bit…indelicate, even for me. As I'm sure you've found out. As for what happened to him…his arctic stronghold burns to ash in the middle of a Lapland winter, and he turns up thousands of miles of away destitute and terrified? It wasn't hard to figure out who was responsible for that one."

She motioned him to sit, and he folded himself up onto one of the cushions while she poured two cups of mint tea. She was wearing some kind of scarlet harem style get-up, very transparent, that shifted and revealed as she moved. Sherlock was unphased. He had seen far more of her before.

"Back to plying your trade, I see. Are you sure that's wise? And in Morocco – not exactly a stronghold of sexual liberation. I would have thought after that business with the Taliban you'd have had your fill of the Muslim world."

"It's what I'm good at," she said, settling on her own cushion. "The King's got a beloved cousin who is a favorite – and might I add, talkative – visitor. He's my insurance. Marrakech does not attract a lot of attention, and provides a charmingly diverse clientele. It's not London, but I get by. And the climate suits me. And you? Still a virgin I see. You know, I am a professional – I could teach you how to do things that would have your Dr. Watson begging after half an hour."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "For me to stop or to continue?"

"Whichever you preferred."

"John is straight, as he has assured me and anyone else who will listen numerous times. And that's not what I'm here about."

She laughed. "Oh please. When it comes to you, John is as straight as I am. Although that may be a poor example, given the effect you seem to have on me… And if that's not what you're here for, then why are we talking about it? Love does always seem to come up when we're together."

"Sex does," he allowed. "But I'm not the one who keeps bringing it up. As for love, I believe I've already made clear my position on that topic."

"Oh, abundantly so," she said, stretching languidly. "And I agree, love is fleeting. Chemical. We can fall in and out and back in twenty times a day. And it's no guarantee of actions either, as we both know. Luckily you and your doctor have something better than love."

Sherlock leaned forward, intrigued. "Enlighten me."

"Devotion. Commitment. Whatever it is that keeps two people together no matter the outside forces, no matter how they may actually feel about each other at any given moment. Feelings, as you have so often pointed out, are unreliable. Love is nice when it's a part of it, but I've seen people do incredibly, breathtakingly stupid things for someone they love and then end up hating them or leaving them or killing them. No, you two have got it right. Loyalty is the only currency that's worth anything in the end."

"An interesting theory," said Sherlock sipping his tea. "Although I'm not sure it applies in this particular scenario."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. Of course it does. What I don't understand is why, given all that, you two don't just admit what you are and reap the more enjoyable benefits of it? If either one of you finally got up the courage to make a move, you'd be ripping each other's clothes off and doing desperate damage to your respective virtues before your tea had time to get cold."

Sherlock, in spite of himself, blushed.

The Woman crowed. "I knew it! So why don't you just get on with it then? "

He composed himself, crossing his legs beneath him and looking prim. "We're not like that," he said.

"But you could be!" she pressed. "I hate to see such glorious sexual tension go to waste, not to mention your whole… self. Someone should get to ravish you, even if it's not me."

"Do you mind if we don't discuss it?" Sherlock said, annoyance plain on his face.

"I do, actually. I want to know what makes you tick. If I can't tempt you and Dr. Watson can't tempt you…" She trailed off.

"I have my work," he answered firmly.

"And that's it? No…desire?" She was whispering. "Not even a flutter when you see a naked woman? Or your partner in a tight shirt and dark jeans, his hair still wet from the shower, smelling of soap and aftershave…"

Another, barely detectible blush, then he rose in anger. "I said, I don't wish to discuss it! Now, if you won't help me with what I came here for, then I'll be on my way."

The Woman approached him, took his hand, and kissed it. "Of course I'll help you if I can," she said. "But I'd like to help with more than that. Think of me as a priest. Who am I going tell? Who else have you got to tell? If a twice-dead man can't trust a twice-dead woman with his secrets, then what is the world coming to?"

"I hate priests," Sherlock said, but he consented to sit again, uncomfortably.

The Woman was silent, serene, waiting for him to unburden himself. Long minutes passed while Sherlock waged an internal war as to whether to speak. He had hoped to go the rest of his life without a conversation like this, but was starting to realize that might not be possible. At least, he thought, nothing he could say was likely to shock her.

Finally he said. "At Uni."

"There was….someone?"

"A boy. We were mates, at least I thought we were. We hung around a lot and he never told me to get lost. He teased me some, but he wasn't mean like the others. I thought he was…flirting. Maybe he was. He was clever too. Not clever like me, clever about people. He had so many friends, but he still wanted to pal about with me, said he liked to watch me think. Second year we were in his room, drinking and watching late night telly, laying on the bed. He kissed me. I kissed him back. It was…nice. Things started to progress, then suddenly he pushed me off him on to the floor, and asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing. He was so angry. I said sorry, though I didn't know what for, but he ran out of the room with his shirt undone and didn't come back. Next day he told everyone I was bent and a faggot, and that I had tried to take advantage of him. And that was the end of it."

Sherlock's eyes had glazed over as he spoke tonelessly, disassociating. The Woman's face was carefully impassive. "You know half the people who come to me are here working out some horrifying experience they had at Uni or elsewhere. You're not the only one, believe me. It's no call to give it up for good."

"I didn't," he said. "Not totally. My work always took up most of my time, but there was a period when I…wasn't in complete control of my habits. I ran in less savory circles."

"You did a lot of drugs," she supplied. "I've looked into you, remember?"

He nodded, unsurprised. "In any case, I met people that way. One night I went home with a man. He was older, I was high. He just wanted a shag, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. No emotional stakes. But I didn't know…what to do. Not really. And some of things he wanted to do, I didn't like them. He laughed at me, called me a little boy, said he couldn't do anything with me if I was going to be like that. I left. I got clean. I moved on."

"Did you? And that was it? No more entanglements, just you and your work?"

"Mostly. There was a woman once and I thought…"

"A girl?" The Woman perked up. "Do you like girls? At all?"

He frowned. "I thought I might like this one. She was a cop. We had things in common. A strong dose of cynicism, for one thing, and forensics for another. We started spending a lot of time together. It might have been something, I wasn't sure, but she could share the work with me and that was new. But it went bad."

"Bad how?"

"I don't know! I did something. I did lots of things, she said. I solved her cases and she resented it, I knew that much. But everything else I did seemed to be wrong too. At first I thought we were just mates, but she said I always letting her down, never there for her, so I thought we were more and I tried…and that was wrong too. I just didn't know what she wanted! She hates me now, hates me enough want me dead. Can't say I'm very fond of her either, but she actually thinks I'm a murderer. She'd hunt me down herself if she could."

The Woman didn't do him the disservice of platitudes or expressions of sympathy. "Women are fickle," she said. "Believe me I know."

"I shouldn't have told you any of this," he said.

"Yes, you should have. You can't keep everything to yourself all the time, and if you're not going to tell your Dr. Watson you might as well tell me." She was paused. "You know what you and John have…it's not like any of those other things. It's different. It's real."

"I know."

"Then why don't you –"

"Because it is different from all the times before. And I want it to stay that way."

"But that doesn't mean you can't be together, really together, and have it still be different," she insisted. "I know people, and I know you Sherlock Holmes. You deserve a little satisfaction, a little pleasure in this lifetime. You need to get out of your head once in awhile. And I know you think it will blow up in your face again, but it won't. Not this time."

He shook his head. "I'm not willing to risk it." Disgust, derision, loathing. He couldn't stand even the thought that he might one day look at John's face and see any of those emotions looking back at him.

"Yet."

"Yet," he conceded. After a moment he added, dryly, "Now if we're done plumbing the depths of my sexual dysfunction, would you mind giving me some information so that I can finish what I've started and get back to my life and my flatmate and our daily routine of not screwing each other over tea?"

The Woman smiled. "What do you need?"

He gave her a list of names. "I need whereabouts and usable information."

She went through her phone, having ample files on all of them and their activities, some of it quite juicy. She transferred what he needed and handed him a memory stick.

"I think you should stay the night," she said, not quite letting go of it.

"I'm not—" he began, irritated.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist. If I were really still trying to seduce you, you'd know. I mean just…stay the night. You look awful and I'm betting you haven't had any decent rest in weeks, possibly months. You're as safe as you're going to be for a long while here, especially if you're going after the people you just named. There's plenty of beds. Give yourself a night off."

He considered. He was very tired and his wounds still pained him, especially his broken ribs. He nodded, at last.

The Woman smiled. "Let's have dinner."

"Dinner," he agreed. "But just dinner."

The next morning, when she awoke, he was gone. The Woman sighed, put her blonde wig on, and went back to work.