"The Woman. She knew."
It wasn't the sight of the Woman in his mind palace that shocked him. Nor the fact that she wore the same assembly as the day they met. Her perfectly-in-place hair coupled with those red lips were not the cause for alarm.
No, Irene Adler regularly flitted in and out of his deductions. Sometimes it passed as a whisper in the background, "Would you like me to try?" Occasionally, a passing perfume in the tube or through a crowd brought a twitch of a smile to the corner of his lips. Impulsively, when the moments would transpire, Sherlock's fingers inevitably wound their way around his mobile, as if to will the ringtone. Then, in a disgusted sigh of sentiment, he would push back any emotion associated with Miss Adler. The Woman.
It was her touch, a caress of a finger across his cheek. Because I took your pulse. Elevated. Your pupils dilated. "Impress a girl." He swore he heard her, but her eyes skimmed from his lips, as her thumb grazed the same spot, to stare at him with silent scarlet lips softly parted. Those blue eyes that neither contracted nor dilated this time, tugged him away from the murderer in his midst.
Ramming down the subsequent thoughts as her manicured finger drifted towards his chin, he needed to focus. Impatiently, he dealt with her. "Out of my head, I'm busy."
She would wait. She always did.