A/N: Hello again! So, I couldn't simply put down the "pen" (meaning, I couldn't back away from my computer) for long.
If you're with me after reading For You and For Myself, I'm going to make a promise right now: it's not going to be as dark as the last story. It's spring, the weather is wonderful here, so I have a feeling that the weather is going to influence that. :P
If you're new to the party, first: welcome, and second: this story can be read alone or after reading For You and For Myself.
Anyway, again, I don't recommend reading this if you haven't seen the first episode of the second series (or any of the second series for that matter). I don't own the rights to Sherlock, don't own the characters either. All rights are reserved to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Arthur Conan Doyle, the BBC, and any other group that I have not mentioned.
Enjoy!
Three years.
They weren't great, but at the end of the day, the work that Sherlock had set out to complete had been successful. He could rest easy now that he was absolutely certain that Moriarty's web was completely destroyed. Each silken strand that was woven back to Moriarty had been decimated.
No wonder Sherlock was exhausted.
Even though he desperately craved to get back to London, Sherlock knew that he had to be prudent in his return. As a precautionary move, he had decided to wait three years, almost to the day, before he would find John and assure his friend that he wasn't dead. Though it nearly crippled Sherlock to stay away from London when he knew that he could easily be back in the city and back to a life close to the life he had come to know, it was a small comfort to know that time didn't work backwards, and with every day that passed, he got closer to that three year mark.
With all of the time he had to wait, he spent a lot of time travelling around, seeing the world to the best of his abilities before he would have to settle back down into the life he knew.
Which was why he was in Seattle.
He stood in front of the townhouse that he had arranged for Irene three years earlier. He could see that she had settled into her life there, though he wasn't sure what she had been up to. Sherlock's focuses had been primarily on taking out Moriarty and not on tracking Irene. But he knew that she still lived here; the risk of showing up at her doorstep wasn't going to be a great one.
Sherlock climbed the stairs to the front door and rang the doorbell. He stood silently on the front step, glancing around at the house and the neighborhood, waiting for someone to answer the door. The neighborhood was quaint; a bit old for Sherlock's liking, but Irene seemed to like the place.
He stood out there for a few minutes before he resigned to the fact that no one was going to answer the door. Sherlock turned on his heel and marched down the front stairs and returned to the hired car. He started the car and drove off.
Two hours later, Irene Adler walked into her home, smelling something delicious as soon as she opened the door. There were noises of someone moving around the kitchen, which was odd, considering that Irene lived alone. She slipped off her shoes and quietly padded through the hallway into the kitchen.
Sherlock had heard the key slide into the lock and knew full well that she would come into the kitchen, armed with something that wasn't necessarily a weapon but could easily serve as one. "I'm not dead," he called out. "Let's have dinner."
Irene's jaw dropped as she stood outside the kitchen, just before the doorway. She, much like everyone else in Sherlock's life, had resigned to the reality that he was truly gone. Even though she knew who was in her kitchen, she was still going to throw one of her shoes at him.
She knew that she had hit her target when she heard a yelp and movement towards the door. "I make you dinner and you throw shoes at me?" he asked her as he stuck his head around the corner.
"You're ginger!" she cried. "Oh… I knew you had the right coloring to be a redhead."
"You hit me in the shoulder with your shoe!"
"You had it coming."
"I made you dinner."
"So I've gathered. I wasn't aware that you could cook."
"When we lived in France when I was an adolescent, my mother insisted that I learn. I never found it to be useful until after I jumped off of Bart's. You would be surprised by how many people can be persuaded with the incentive of a good meal."
"I knew that."
"I meant, a meal of actual food, Miss Adler."
She smirked. "So, Mr. Holmes… what's on the menu?"
"It's a surprise," he hummed as he stepped back into the kitchen.
An hour and a half later, once the meal had been eaten, Irene sat staring at Sherlock. "To which do I owe the pleasure?" she murmured. "I don't think we've discussed that yet."
"I've made you dinner."
"Yes…"
"It's my way of indicating that I might not be as opposed to having other forms of dinner."
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh."
"Of course, it'd be a mutual agreement. Even if you're not willing, you've still gotten a meal out of this."
"What makes you think I wouldn't be obliging to other forms of dinner?"
"Three years is such a long time."
"But you're now three years smarter. And smart will always be sexy."
Instead of making a garbled noise in reply, he smirked at her. "So…?"
"Give me a little while. You've gone to all of this trouble to make us dinner. Let me show you how it's really done…" she crooned as she stood from the table and walked out of the dining room.
Sherlock sat back in his chair. He'd tell Irene about the dream later. He was far too interested in seeing how things progressed to hinder the process by telling her about the dream before things even began.