S H E R.
To any external observer, it appeared she'd lost, that night in his brother's office. Jim Moriarty sends his love, she had all but purred, and the lie seemed so obvious then, an offensive joke thrown right into him that had nearly obliterated the answer he'd been looking for so long. And then, as the four letters of her password were revealed, humiliation provided and camera phone handed straight into the eager hands of the British Government, Irene Adler was nothing but yet another criminal brought by him to justice over a juvenile mistake.
Soon, however—probably before he even abandoned the room with a poor excuse of an apology in his lips—it became quite evident that the final score wasn't in his favour either.
He never felt the asphyxiating euphoria of his triumph cursing through his veins, or the usual air of brilliance and superiority that accompanied him, more than ever, as a case was successfully closed. The encounter had only left him with a heavy, hollow sensation, and as the vehicle that would take him back to Baker Street increased the distance between him and whom he'd invariably only referred to as The Woman, he couldn't help but wonder what the consequences of this unfortunate ordeal would be, trying to ignore a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like hers, because those words were the most stupid he'd ever heard.
She would last more than six months.
He needed her to last more than six months.