The first time Irene realises that she likes girls, she is thirteen. It's a little flash of "oh, I see" as she sits in class one day – English, she re-calls later. Her eyes fall on the back of the girl in front of her. It's April, and the spring sunlight sets her hair on fire. Irene's mouth dries and she shifts uncomfortably in her seat, stomach unsteady.
The face that goes with the hair is soft, gentle with careful brown eyes. But it holds Irene's attention through to the end of term. Summer comes, the girl goes to France on holidays with her parents. By the end of the summer, Irene's feelings have evaporated. Looking back years later, she always remembers how sweet and delicate that first flash of love tasted.
The realisation that she doesn't at all like boys comes later. She is sixteen, smoking a cigarette with her third boyfriend in six weeks. They were an experiment, a test to see if she could ever act like the other girls. When he kisses her, his tongue probing her mouth, it is sloppy and she is more than ready to bring the experiment to an end.
The first time that Janine realises that she is not wholly straight, she is eighteen and at her Debs. The Dublin club has nooks and crannies to hide in, and the music pounds in her chest. She sees her former best friend with her boyfriend of almost two years. The churning of her stomach has nothing to do with the alcohol she's been drinking all night. She fakes smiles and trades stories and pretends as if it doesn't hurt to see the two of them so close.
Lying in bed afterwards, she forms the conclusion that the ache she's felt since they've grown apart has not solely been about losing her best friend. It's the could-have-been, the what-she-would-have-liked-it-to-be. The memory of dark hair and verdigris eyes haunts her.
She is nineteen and at university when the word "bisexual" finally feels right. It's not that she's been with women, on the contrary, but she does have eyes. And those eyes result in thoughts that she's only had about men becoming about women too.
It's one of the first times she feels comfortable in her own skin.
It's not a fondness for men that leads Irene into her profession. Instead, it is a way for her to earn money, a way to have power over the men who come to her. She enjoys the secrets she uncovers far more than the job itself. She always lent a high value to intelligence, after all. And so when Sherlock Holmes comes to her for the photographs, it stirs her fascination more than her attraction. Her heart races for the brilliance of that brain, and if he were a woman . . . well. Perhaps.
This fascination is her downfall.
Magnussen is just a job, a way to earn money to support her fondness for fine clothes and good books and an active social life. She maintains her suspicions about Mary Morstan, but keeps them close to her chest, cultivating the image of a semi-innocent Irish girl in London.
When she meets Sherlock Holmes, she sees through the illusion. There's a softness beneath the façade which he's denied, much like he's denied the little fact that he's attracted to men, and one man in particular. (Janine has learned the signs.) She doubts if he quite realises it himself. When he comes to her suggesting that they go on a "date" (and bless his awkwardness), she plays along. It's not as if she can deny how attractive he is.
It ends up being very much to her advantage.
It's in a coffee shop in Paris that these two ladies meet. Janine sits by a window, sipping at her coffee and reading Wordsworth's Prelude for the first time since university. Irene catches sight of her, of the long hair and glimmering intelligence, and her stomach stirs.
She recognises the side profile, because of course she's kept up with the news from home. Her lips twitch as she takes her own coffee, walks over, and sets it down on the table across from this marvellous woman.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asks, polite as can be. Janine – of course she knows the name – waves her hand casually, looking over the top of her book.
"Go ahead."
Irene smiles, "Thanks," and sits. "I'm a great admirer of your previous work in London."
Janine raises an eyebrow, twinkle in her eye. "Are you referring to a certain consulting detective?"
"Of course." Irene extends her hand. "You can call me the Woman."
Janine shakes her hand, a smile curving her lips. "No need for such mystery, Miss Adler. We're both on the same page here." She sets down the book and leans across the table. "I think we're going to be good friends, you and I. Very good friends, indeed."
A/N: The Debs is a black-tie party that students in Ireland have when they leave school. It's basically our equivalent of prom, and as Janine is Irish I decided to make reference to it.