Hey guys. Third chapter. Surprised I'm updating this quick [Me very lazy so this be quick]. Anyway, if you've read my fic, please please let me know what you think of it. Reviews = a writer's manna. 3 Thanks for reading!
'You've been thinking of me…'
"Not really." Sherlock said to himself. As always, he hadn't noticed when John had left, and continued talking anyway.
But it was true. He hadn't thought about the strange girl downstairs or the strangest dream he had ever had in a long time. For a week after it happened, he had obsessed about the nature of his dream, psychoanalysed it to bareness, and forgot about it. He put it down to fatigue and an enduring obsession with the fact that she had distracted him enough to prevent his inferential skills from working. But more engaging cases had soon come his way.
Strangely though, he was thinking of her now. It was Christmas Eve, a year after the night Irene Adler had left him her camera phone on the mantelpiece. She had gone her own way after having escaped the terrorists in Karachi. Hell, their last goodbye had been strained, hurried, unsatisfactory. Sherlock missed her. Sexually? No. That highly transitory phase had passed. He missed the game. Sure, he had his share of opponents, but they missed the female element. To Sherlock, the closest thing to arousal was friction. Intellectual, emotional friction. After Moriarty, it had been a while since such had come his way.
Yet, the girl with the strange name now wandered in his thoughts. Perhaps it was just the name, or perhaps the fact that he never saw her, though according to Mrs. Hudson, she returned in the wee hours of dawn though she was never seen leaving her flat. After a few days of neighbourly camaraderie, Iran Adelia had disappeared into the bowels of her rooms and a shadowy life. It had been weeks since their only encounter.
Of course, he still couldn't understand why John insisted that they had both helped her settle in. As hard as he tried, Sherlock couldn't recall a single moment of their ostensible time in her rooms. He didn't even have a single visual memory of her apartment walls, her drapes, her furniture, anything. It was like he had moved around in some kind of bubble that prevented memory from perpetuation. He wasn't sure why such a mnemonic void came upon him, but he was going to let it go in light of the murderer who had apparently used a Hanukkah dreidel to kill three security guards.
But – he looked around the room, cheerily adorned with festive decorations – he wished for a bit of company tonight. Different company. Someone he was still new to.
"Excited for tonight?" John was back.
"Hardly."
"Come on, its Christmas Eve. There will be eggnog and cake and rum and.."
"And the very same people I see everyday of my life. And the very same words exchanged. Can't see much to look forward to. There is only a finite number of word combinations those of the common mind can conjure into being."
"Well, those are the only people willing to be in the same room with you without whacking you over the head with a hatchet. I'm not even asking Paula to come." His new girlfriend had, as all others, taken instant dislike to his best friend.
"Hmph."
"Deal with it, genius."
He had. For way too long.
…
"Merry Christmas, dears." Mrs Hudon's optimism was nerve-wracking.
"This is good." Lestrade was wolfing down cake. Evidently, his wife had stopped cooking edible mush.
"Any plans for tomorrow then, Sherlock?" Molly stuttered, blushing. Her resilience amazed Sherlock, as did her luck with other men. Bad, always.
"None. Thankfully." He was quick to discourage any offers for Christmastime company.
Sherlock watched the door from the corner of his eye.
…
The last candle was stubbing down. The molten wax had collected in a pleasant lump at its base. She slipped in without a sound and walked over to the sleeping figure reclined awkwardly on the chair by the bolted windows. His feet propped up on the desk, and a book face down on his chest. His chin angled uncomfortably on his right shoulder, his curls shadowing the arch of his eyebrows; all soothed in the tender light of the dying fire in the old fireplace.
She ran her fingers, just the most careless of touches, through his hair before bringing her hand to rest on his left shoulder.
He woke, looking up to see her face framed in snow-swept curls.
"Doesn't look very comfortable." She said.
"Um…" Sherlock propped himself up and pulled down his legs. "What time is it?"
"Just past two. When did you doze off?"
"I…don't know." He shook his head. "Sorry but, why are you here so late?"
She smiled. "You certainly don't go for politeness, do you? John left a note under my door inviting me to your little gathering tonight. Unfortunately, I was caught up with another engagement. I thought I'd check to see if anyone was up, and drop by a present."
"Where's John?"
"Not here. The door was wide open, and I saw you were asleep rather uncomfortably."
"Yet, I was asleep. And wasn't your journey upstairs predicated upon the assumption that there would be someone still awake? And when you found the actual situation to the contrary, shouldn't you have just left?" Sherlock snapped sardonically.
She was unfazed, having walked over to the fire. "Do I bother you?"
"Yes." He promptly replied.
"Why?" No surprise.
"Because…"
His breath stopped, then a burst of wind rammed into his lungs. Sherlock realised that something external, some object had penetrated his rib cage and hit his lung. A line of blood shot out of his lips, soaking his shirt in seconds. He felt the carpet on the back of his head; he had fallen. He could see the white edges of the rug being overrun by a licorice colored swill. "Mrs Hudson will squeak about this again." He thought.
Then the pain started. His lungs tried to expand to accommodate more air and pump more blood into his brain, but the rupture made bolts of fire shoot along his nerves instead. The warm mush of a late dinner crawled up his food pipe. Wheezing gasps forced out of him, he tried to move. Impossible. The agony was too much.
"How unseemly."
She walked, from the fireplace to where he lay in an ever widening pool of his own blood and puke. "Even a man like you can be terribly unattractive." She knelt beside him, and from the folds of her evening dress drew a small but sharp dagger.
"Shall we begin, Sherlock?"
