So sorry for the lack of updating on my House fanfics... I've been distracted lately by job hunting and a love of Sherlock Holmes that has lain dormant since I watched "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" when I was younger... I've only just now rediscovered it, and I'll try to update my House fanfics at some point... the season 6 tags may have to wait until the box set comes out and I manage to get my hands on it...

Title: Green

Category: Sherlock Holmes (movie verse)

Pairing: Implied one-sided Holmes/Irene

Genre: Angst/Romance (kinda)

Set: Pre-movie

Rating: PG-ish

Summary: The papers had been known to make men see red, flush white, or feel blue, but never has anything on the printed page served to turn a man green.

A/N: Inspired by the first real Holmes/Irene scene of the movie, wherein he makes the comment that she is between husbands. Watson's POV

Holmes sat in his chair facing the fire, his pipe in one hand and the morning paper in the other. I could see his eyes scan the page as if searching for something to clip for one of his notebooks. During the previous month, there had been quite a bit of clipping for one book in particular. The man didn't even try to hide the activity from me as other men would do. Whenever I'd question him, he would give me the same answer.

"If the time should ever come when such a large amount of clear evidence is required for her capture and conviction, I shall be able to present it. It's nothing more than that, I assure you."

He snorted suddenly and set his pipe between his lips to turn the page and I looked up from my writing of a letter to a young woman with whom I'd recently become acquainted.

"What is it, Holmes?" I asked, leaning back a bit in my chair on the other side of the fireplace.

"Nothing you need worry about, Watson," he replied easily from the corner of his mouth not holding the pipe. How that man could talk and smoke at the same time was quite astounding, if that word could be said about anything the man did anymore. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my letter, only to glance back up seconds later as the pipe clattered to the floor and Holmes rose swiftly from his chair and began to pace. I could catch very few of the words he muttered as he paced, his pipe ignored along with the ash and tobacco that spilled from it in a small pile on the floor. Words like "woman" and "what is she thinking" and "preposterous" caused me quite more interest than perhaps Holmes would have liked if I'd chanced to ask what the devil he was blathering about. Instead of asking, I simply guessed.

"What's Miss Adler done now?" He stopped and fixed me with the hardest stare I'd ever seen on him in the absence of a case. I raised my eyebrow to show that I was quite unfazed after so many years of our living together. "Stolen a great diamond? Made off with the Japanese Emperor's kimono?"

"No and no," Holmes snapped and turned away from me to glare into the fire and I had to strain to hear his next words, whispered in so harsh a voice I was certain that he was angry. "She's getting married… again." I allowed a smirk to touch my lips simply because he wasn't looking at me and I slouched a bit in my chair, getting quite comfortable. I remembered clearly his reaction to all of Miss Adler's marriages, the first of which was incredulous confusion. I remembered him telling me he'd been spotted by the husband, Mr. Godfrey Norton, and had been made to stand as witness to make the union legal. The way he'd spoken of her, I didn't need any of Holmes' special skills to deduce why his reactions steadly followed the spectrum from surprise and confusion to amusement to anger. "Stop that infernal smirking, Watson," he ground out and my face fell. How the devil…? He turned to face me and his eyes were narrowed and his lips drawn into a thin line as he paced back to his chair and collapsed into it. He seemed almost to be brooding.

"Holmes, she's gotten married before. Why are you upset this time?" I asked gently. His eyes flicked to mine for a brief moment before turning to focus again on their previous target, a cabinet photo on a table. His prize from the case of the Bohemian King and his most prized possession even above his emerald ring or Persian slipper, it was a rather attractive photograph of the woman in question. If he expected me to believe that the only reason he kept it out in the open was because it was a souvenir from a case, he was quite sorely mistaken. Sherlock Holmes was a man like any other, regardless of what he thought otherwise. There was one reason in my mind that a man would keep a cabinet photo of a woman he had no relation to out in the open to be viewed by anyone who entered the study for a consult or social visit. It dawned on me as I thought of that. "Are you… jealous?" I asked incredulously. His eyes turned back to mine, narrowed. "You are jealous."

"I most certainly am not jealous!" Holmes spat before turning his eyes to glare moodily into the fire.

Hopefully I'll also be able to update this soon with another color prompt...