In the Dying Days of Summer
A conversation that's been brewing for months, lurking in the backdrop of their affair leads to an unsatisfactory final goodbye in the dying days of Summer.
A/N I've wanted to write something about Irene and Sherlock in a white villa in Greece for some time, but I never had the inspiration or the circumstance to write it in. I wrote it in the same universe as my previous oneshots: 'The Blurred Lines of Love, Lust and Sentiment' and 'Damascus is Burning and acts as a final chapter so to speak. I plan to write more oneshots of Irene and Sherlock's fleeting moments together during his 'death' although it will be out of order given this is the final chapter. Who knows, among them, there may even be an epilogue of sorts.
He was in Rome when he texted her.
I'm still alive. Let's have dinner – SH
She already knew that he hadn't died in the fall from St Barts of course. He'd turned up at the door of her New York City Apartment 18 months ago; a mere 48 hours following the breaking news story of the Consulting Detective's demise had reached her ears. However, that is not what he's referring to now; he left her apartment at the end of the weekend, having regrouped, and continued on to end Moriaty's web once and for all. During that time, they'd bumped into one another on several occasions, war-torn Damascus and Paris at New Year included. Although, he hadn't contacted her in months, not since Paris and she hadn't expected him too anyway.
She texted back almost immediately her coordinates, a villa on the Greek island of Hydra in the Saronic Gulf. The quaint villa, on the outskirts of the port, belonged to a rich Athenian of old money that she'd bumped into a fortnight ago at her hotel bar. It had almost been too easy to slip the key and into her pocket on her way out of the woman's residence the next morning.
She'd was out when Sherlock eventually arrived, giving him time to shower and shave; for he'd looked like a homeless tramp at the airport and had to prove proof of funds that were in his name (or rather his alias') in order to make sure that he hadn't just stolen a businessman's identity. Per usual, when she arrives there's a brief conversation, this time a game of deductions as to where he's been which is then quickly followed by more physical intimacies to reacquaint themselves with one another's bodies. He's been stabbed, not seriously, since he'd last seen her and she presses her lips lightly to the jagged scar on his shoulder once they've come down from their highs.
She's tantalisingly beautiful, leaning on the rail of the balcony that overlooked the vast expanse of turquoise blue sea. The sun's reflection causes the waves to sparkle behind her and yet Sherlock couldn't care less about the aesthetics of the natural beauty surrounding them. They could be in war torn Damascus for all he cared; Irene Adler would always be a stunning beauty whatever the backdrop. She's wearing a loose white dress that she'd thrown on moments beforehand following their escapades on the bed, in order to step outside for a cigarette. Her dark hair is loose, having been pulled out of an updo she'd tied it in earlier, to keep the heat off of her neck. Sherlock debates what look he prefers her in best, he decides as he throws back the sheets of the bed Irene had left him in and walks over to the open balcony doors with the white curtains blowing slightly in the breeze, that this is how he likes her best. Post-coital, natural, with her hair down and her makeup soft. It's not that she isn't absolutely stunning with her hair up in a complicated updo, her makeup bold and her dresses designer but that is the side that everybody else sees. The Dominatrix. It is just that he likes being unique, the only one privileged enough to see her like this, soft and serene. He likes reducing her to a withering mess underneath his body, squirming in orgasm that he has induced, but he prefers the afterglow more. Where she tries to pretend she didn't just beg for mercy, twice, and escapes for a cigarette to try and get her heart beating at its usual rate.
He picks up his boxer shorts from the floor where they'd been discarded earlier and shrugs on a shirt, but leaving it unbuttoned before stepping out onto the balcony behind her.
"I don't love you," he whispers the words per usual into her ear as he presses his body against hers.
She leans back slightly into his touch, only minutely, but still an action that is not lost on either of them. He doesn't wrap his arms around her, although he is tempted to in a fleeting thought, but instead chooses to rest his hands on the railing either side of her, effectively trapping The Woman between him and the rail.
They've gone past the tipping point of sentiment, her feelings were obvious when he unlocked her phone and his were reciprocated when he went to save her in Karachi. Yet he still protests the affection they both feel, not because he doesn't want to and not just because he thinks 'love' is far too mundane and meaningless statement to refer to what they have, but because neither of them are the type to say it and protesting allows them both to pretend that nothing has changed.
"I didn't suppose you did." She retorts, his words not fazing her in the slightest.
She blows the smoke of her cigarette outwards and watches as it disappears in the sunlight. She knows he's not trying to diminish what they have by repeating those words so often that it's his attempt at retaining normalcy and trying not to frighten either of them by the implications of their actions.
They lapse into a slight silence whilst she finishes the cigarette and stubs it out on the railing, before letting it fall over the edge.
"You're going to burn woman." He says after a moment, noticing the pale skin on her shoulder begin to redden.
"Is that concern I hear?" She retorts in amusement, an eyebrow raised despite the fact he can't see her face.
"No." He growls. Although it is.
"When is this nightmare going to be over?" She whispers the words but he hears them anyway.
"Soon," he replies in a similar whisper before pressing a kiss to the hair by her ear.
"When this is over will you come visit?" She tries to make her sounds seem casual, although she finds herself tensing slightly in anticipation. After all she has grown used to their frequent but unplanned meetings.
"Perhaps." Sherlock replies coyly with a smirk.
"If you don't." She laughs slightly into the wind. "I might just have to get married."
She whips around to face him, to see his response to her words with her own eyes. Their bodies are still pressed against one another, but Irene's back is now what is pressed against the railing.
Sherlock laughs in response, his baritone voice echoing outwards, across the expanse of water below. "You detest marriage."
"No." Irene shakes her head. "I detested the idea of being tied to one man for the rest of my life." She swallows as she looks straight into his eyes, narrowing her own at his. "But situations change, circumstances alter, I may be more willing than you think."
"Is this your way of proposing?" He says
"No." She says honestly and he believes her. "But if there was a man that was conveniently rich and powerful enough to protect me I would."
Her words leave a bitter taste in the air, for he doesn't like how she now as to beg for protection, how all thanks to his actions back in Mycroft's office years before she is a wanted woman. Despite the fact she is apparently dead, having been executed by a terrorist ring back in Karachi, she needs to be careful, to stay inconspicuous and to remain 'dead' so to speak. Irene Adler was not one to be tamed, not one to be quiet and the fact she now must be silent for the rest of her days is depressing.
"Knowing you, it won't take long Woman before you have every eligible bachelor at your feet." It's a compliment and yet it reaches Irene's ears as a snide reminder that she can't have what she wants. Him.
"Hmm." She muses. "Yes." She adds, turning her back to him so she no longer has to face him. He understands and drops his arms from where they were pressing her body against the railing and instead moves to rest his own body against it, next to her. He's careful to look out into the expanse of the Mediterranean instead of at her, she's grateful that he doesn't notice the slight moisture that's built up around her eyes. She sighs; this conversation had been brewing for months, possibly since Karachi when they first succumbed to sentiment in a mutual agreement. It was a pity that it had to be done, in a place as pretty as Greece; she knows that once she leaves she would never return. It's silly, but the unique heat and the perspiration that accompanies it in this country will always serve as a reminder of him and their activities and the conversation that would serve to break them apart that followed.
"We've come this far Sherlock." She turns to him, to look him in the eye. "We've bludgeoned the lines between love, lust and sentiment; we can hardly deny what we have, whatever it is that we have." She swallows back her fear and continues. "But I can't hold out anymore. I can't hope. Don't give me hope Sherlock. Don't torture me with hope." Irene is deadly serious as she pronounces each word without breaking eye contact. "Tell me now; is this going to continue when this whole nightmare of a holiday is over for you?"
She has to add 'for you' because this whole nightmare, of being dead, will never end for her. She has to continue, to be a dead woman in a different alliance for every month of the year.
He can't help but take the full weight of responsibility by what comes next, for he knows that it is his response that will determine what we will happen between them for the rest of their lives. He takes a moment to answer, although his response is immediately formulated in his mind as her words leave her tongue.
"No." He replies clearly.
"Good." She retorts, as if this is just another one of their verbal sparring matches.
She swallows once more without breaking eye contact and smiles at him, covering her emotions in one practiced motion. "Well now that's sorted, I think I need a shower."
She turns to leave, to return back into the stolen villa, leaving him to breathe a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. It didn't matter what happened next with Moriaty's web, this moment would always mark the end of his unconventional 'holiday' from death. The moment where an accumulation of love, lust and sentiment climaxed at its peak and came tumbling down in one swoop.
That night she sleeps with her back to the door and he doesn't sleep at all, choosing to muse at the situation they've found themselves in from the chair on the patio outside. When the sun rises the next day, she showers and invites him to join her, it's as if their previous evening's conversation never happened and yet it is still there, under the softness of her skin a layer so fragile it would break like porcelain if he pushed too hard.
The mood as they depart Greece is bittersweet. He doesn't feel rested and energized like he usually does following their meetings, feeling drained and jaded instead. She's almost certain that this is it, that the customary kiss of her cheek at the airport was their final goodbye, that she would never see the dark haired Consulting Detective again.
However, in the dying days of summer draw, where the heat that's suffocated Europe for the past three months begins to diminish, he texts her one last time with the coordinates of a fountain in a park near Budapest. He's preparing to go to Serbia, where the near final components of Moriaty's web shall be brought down, from there, London and back to being Sherlock Holmes. He is busy, building up supplies and hearing the whispers of his contacts on the situation in Belgrade. He doesn't know what possessed him to type out a message and press send to an all too familiar number and yet he did it anyway. They deserve to succumb to one last moment of sentiment for a final goodbye, however unsavoury and unsatisfactory it is bound to be.
She's already there, at the fountain, when he arrives, grateful that many native Hungarians had decided to leave this area of the popular park alone. He greets her as a friend, with the knowledge of a lover and the mannerisms of a stranger. It's a juxtaposed moment that mirrors the situation that they find themselves in, a confusion of cross-roads with only one clearly marked avenue.
"I almost thought you were calling me here, I was in California you know,"
"I know." Sherlock growled and Irene laughed slightly.
"Of course you did. You always do, although I do distinctly remember that time you thought I'd been in Florence when really I'd been vacationing in Paris."
He smirked at the memory and waited for her to continue. "Anyway, I thought you were calling me here to tell me we'd made a grave mistake-"
"And have we?" Sherlock slipped in and if she could have found the strength, Irene would have slapped him. How dare he throw a spanner in the works when she'd only just accepted the situation that they'd found themselves in.
"No." She replies coldly. "We've done what had to be done. I knew what the rules were but I allowed myself to hope and think that things could be different. But I lost."
He doesn't interrupt her and tell her that if this feeling he feels means that he's won, he doesn't want to win anymore.
"I think-" Sherlock goes to say something but he's interrupted by her.
"I think it's time that we both stop pretending." Her words are curt as they interrupt his, but he understands and stops.
"I will move on. I will survive and I will prosper Sherlock. Don't you dare feel sorry for me." Irene stresses her final words as she looks at him.
"It's easier this way." He admits and swallows to try and continue but realises he doesn't actually have the words to go on.
He's never been one for words and Irene understands that so she continues in lei of him. "Let's just say that I don't love you and you don't love me."
Sherlock nods once in agreement as the words leaves her lips. She'd reused his own words that he had so often repeated to her and it felt like his own dagger being used against him, twisting itself in his heart. But he knew the pain would be short-lived, this was necessary in order to complete the task at hand, he would get over it, they both would, or at least he hopes. The Woman had become a hindrance, a distraction from his true goal of defeating Moriaty's web and anyway it was cruel and unfair to keep this pretence up when he knew full well that she could not follow him to London. It was better to break this off, whatever it was they had, now, before the web was completely destroyed, and save them both a little bit of dignity.
He may not have the words to express how he feels, he's always been better with actions and thus he presses his lips against hers for the last time. She reciprocates and slips her tongue into her mouth, tasting him and the taste of cigarettes that he's definitely been smoking since they departed in Greece.
"Goodbye Ms Adler." He whispers as they eventually break away.
Irene remains silent at his words, staring transfixed at the fountain before her instead. After a customary period of wait, Sherlock glances at The Woman before turning to walk away. He won't turn back and neither will she. This was something that had to be done, however heartbreaking it is.
"Goodbye Mr Holmes." She lets the wind carry the whisper of her words to his ears.
In the dying days of summer, they say their final goodbye.