Disclaimer: I'm just playing around. Almost everything belongs to someone else. Recognisable characters, TV shows, movies, etc belong to their creators (in some cases otherwise known as god), producers, directors, etc.
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Tarnished.
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She's at university; a music student, when they first meet. A year younger than him and so bright and shiny and new.
Sherlock's first impulse is to run as far away from Irene Adler as possible, so he can't tarnish her, can't make her matted and dull.
His second impulse it to reach for her and hold on tight in the hope that he can be as bright and shiny as she.
The second impulse is easier to follow.
And it works, for a while. At first the sound of her voice, her laughter is enough.
Her singing alone is worth all the heroin in London. He's only been dabbling with drugs and for her smile and a mind that catches all the things he misses, it's easy to give it all up.
And for a while, years really, everything's good.
Better than good.
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But eventually, little by little – a little bit here, a little bit there – he's in deeper than ever before and this time he's pulled her down with him.
The trouble is, she's supposed to be his safety net, his floatation device, his bloody parachute.
When his father does finally drag him (and only him) out, he does the rehab and then jumps straight back in, because she's still there. The Woman his father doesn't care he cares about.
The singing stops first, about the same time as his second trip to rehab. The laughter is next, then her smile, until she is more dull and tarnished than he is.
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His father agrees to help her clean once. She wants to be, for the bright and shiny new life, that could only be his and his father never believes is his.
But then she loses the baby...
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She finishes the rehab, writing him letter after letter after letter, letters that he never reads and overdoses on the day he breaks out of his rehab facility to have her and the baby's initials tattooed where he will be the only one to ever see them.
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The day after he buries her; on a day that is too bright and too shiny and too new, he's on a plane (already high, but experienced enough to hide it well), to New York.
To Alistair, who will listen and won't judge.
To a tattoo parlour, to have eglantines; thorns and all, twisted over and around the initials, and then to a rehab facility he's never been to before.
He needs to away from his father, and even further away from her.
It will never be far enough.
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Finish.
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