AN As much as I wish Robert Downey Jr belonged to me he unfortunately doesn't.
Personal
He didn't pay much mind to her absence at dinner. He just shirked it off, assuming that she was only playing another game. He didn't get suspicious after a day of her absence either; his web of shadows, as he had come to call it, was growing bigger and bigger by the day and he was far too wrapped up in cracking the so called 'mystery of the century' James Moriarty if you wanted to get technical. He knew the exceedingly intelligent professor was known for leaving no loose ends, but Irene didn't even cross his mind at all. He had completely forgotten that she was his right-hand woman, and that was his first mistake.
Still oblivious, and after attending a wedding that drove him to drink, he accepted an invitation for an audience with the good professor. He formally met his match in a college lecture hall where he was terribly out of place. Sherlock was trying so badly to show off that he barely had time to recognize the story Moriarty was spinning and the piece of silk linen being tossed his way. Only after he saw the initials and the foreboding red spot did the pieces snap into play, but his mind couldn't accept what it was processing.
He drank until he was broke and then drank some more, the scorching taste of whiskey searing into his throat. It was something that was at least close to the pain he held inside his soul. He wasn't used to being so irrational, so emotional, so human. The fact that he was actually succumbing to his heart instead of his mind disgusted him, yet all he wanted to do was sink farther. He felt something hot and wet fall down his cheek, and as it fell, another took its place, running the same track. It was an old sensation, one he was not accustomed to nor did he think he was ever capable of; he was far too sophisticated for such petty emotions. He hadn't cried since he was a child, and he never thought he would cry have to cry since then. Apparently he was wrong Irene Elisabeth Adler was worth shedding tears over.
The kerchief lay on his lap, fluttering a little in the breeze. Watson could see the change in Sherlock's eyes. They looked dead, dull. Their usual gleam had vanished with the discovery, and his mouth was set in a grim line, his breaths clipped. He left Watson to imagine only the worst.
Holmes held the piece of soft linen up to his cheek, gently rubbing it as if to permanently ingrain the texture into his skin. Watson was sure it still smelled of her, the alluring scent of jasmine. When he flung the handkerchief over the side, Watson glanced up from my newspaper long enough to see his face when he turned to him. He may have been mistaken, but he believed he saw a tear on his cheek, and while normally this would have concerned him, this time it did not. And Sherlock hadn't said anything. Not that Watson would honestly have expected him to.
Watson did not pretend to understand how Holmes felt in the moment in which he learned of Irene Adler's death. Watson had never lost a woman that he loved- and though he may deny it vehemently, Holmes did love her. Holmes may put on a mask and pretend that he is an unfeeling bastard, but Watson knew better. As he stood at the railing of the boat with her bloodied handkerchief in his hands, he looked like a man who had lived a lifetime in Hell. Watson could read a thousand emotions in his eyes: grief, rage, shock, guilt… Yes, he clearly saw guilt. Holmes would not rest until he had his revenge upon Moriarty. Watson knew he was determined, and he too wanted well, perhaps not revenge, but justice. He had had hopes that Irene Adler would be his friend's salvation, the one who could pull him out of the darkness to which he constantly succumbed through his wretched cocaine. Watson was not a fool. Anyone could see the way he'd looked at her.
The grief and fury Holmes' must have held at Irene's murder, he could hardly imagine. A man who always bottled up everything remotely emotional dealing inwardly with the underhanded murder of the woman that he desperately loved - the very thought was cringe-worthy to Watson. And he'd never get Holmes to say a word. He would simply go on inwardly, and vehemently hating and cursing Moriarty, till the man was either behind bars or dead. And somehow, Watson was sure that Holmes would be willing to commit murder for her.
It did not surprise Watson when Holmes began the search reinvigorated, with new energy at every turn. Perhaps he saw the drive now, less so than that dull form of hurt and mourning. Holmes acted as if the moment had never even occurred, but there were times when he seemed lost in thought, and the light would once again leave his eyes, and a sort of agonized look came over him. In these moments, John knew that he was thinking of her. Maybe, playing different scenarios in his head of the way she had died, perhaps, trying to figure a way that he could have prevented the occurrence.
Moriarty had gained an even worse adversary in Holmes when he had made the mistake of taking Irene Adler out of the equation. Now, it was not only the chase, or the principle of the matter: it had become personal.