John's heart is pumping with adrenaline, with the thrill of murder. He can taste blood on his lips and it's making him hard. Things aren't over yet though; there may be more of the Americans to come, and they may need to die too. Every sense is alert, battlefield ready; he has thought at times that this is what it must be like for Sherlock all the time, this hyperawareness.

Sherlock pauses in the lounge with Adler, letting him go and check the rest of the house, and John sees him toss an expensive looking phone casually, catches part of his conversation – though gloating would be a more accurate description. He smiles, heading upstairs to see what the spies might have been doing up there. There is still one person in the household unaccounted for – he hasn't forgotten the woman who let them in, the one Adler had referred to as 'the maid'.

He finds her supine on the floor of the bedroom, unconscious or dead. Not that he really cares either way, but he still checks. Her breathing is slow and overly shallow as is her pulse, signs that they drugged her with something when they came in. Not a dart – there's no puncture mark anywhere visible, and they weren't carrying any weapon that could have fired one. He thinks almost idly how easy it would be to lay his free hand on her throat, press down gently but firmly then blame it on the dead men downstairs. What kind of emotional reaction would it get from Adler? Honestly he has no idea, and he decides against the experiment. This woman hasn't done anything wrong, and it wouldn't be right to take out his frustration with Irene Adler on her.

He gets up and checks the bathroom where the window is wide open. He can hear footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later Sherlock appears, Adler close on his heels. "They must have come in this way," he says looking over as they enter the room, keeping his eyes on Adler. He doesn't trust her.

"Clearly," Sherlock says. His eyes flick around, taking in information. He too checks the en-suite. Adler on the other hand looks to the unconscious woman, and there is a flicker of what might be worry on her face.

"It's all right," John says, something making him offer words of comfort, though he hasn't the faintest idea why. "She's just out cold."

"Well god knows she's used to that," Adler says. Hmm. From that it sounds like they're in a relationship of some kind, though Irene hadn't wanted them to know that before. Or maybe the lack of closeness and affection is all part of whatever they have going. "There's a back door," she continues. "You'd better check it Dr. Watson."

He has no intention of taking orders from this woman, but what she says makes sense. He hesitates for a moment, looking over at Sherlock for confirmation that he's okay to be left alone with her – though he's not entirely sure of the man's judgement right now – but with Sherlock's nod he heads back downstairs. Perhaps there will be someone down there that needs killing.

Irene breathes a silent sigh of relief the moment the man is out of the room. He hasn't made even the slightest attempt to wipe the blood off his face, and she's sure she saw him licking his lips more than once. He's a cold-blooded killer and she wants him well away from her, the more so because of what she'll have to do to his boyfriend to get the phone back. Letting Sherlock see it, touch it, is just a tease, it's far too early in the game to let him keep it. They've planned this all out carefully, she and Jim, though the Americans were something of an unpleasant surprise. No matter. They're out of the picture now.

Sherlock has his back turned, examining her phone. He can't see her retrieve a syringe full of ketamine from her dresser drawer, hide it against the folds of his borrowed coat. The sedative is a present from Moriarty; though it acts on the same receptors in the brain as heroin rather than cocaine, Sherlock's apparent drug of choice, it still gives 'cocaine-like stimulation' and a drug is a drug. Perhaps it isn't playing fair, but now that she is more sure what these people are capable of, she has fewer scruples.

"You're very calm," Sherlock says suddenly. She looks at him blankly, unsure quite what he's talking about.

"Well we did just kill three people in front of you."

Yes and forewarned is forearmed, she wants to say, or It isn't as if you or Dr Watson are bothered that I saw you so why even ask. Instead she settles for, "They would have killed us. It was self defence."

She steps closer to him, the syringe at the ready. He's casual, relaxed with the arrogance of thinking he's won. It's simple to reach out and run her hand down his arm in a parody of flirtation, distracting him just enough to plunge the needle into his shoulder. He gasps, whirls around and stumbles trying to pull it out but the drug is already starting to take effect.

"What... what is that?" he demands, anger – definitely murderous, considering what she knows of him – flaring on his face before it starts to go slack and fuzzy. She slaps him for good measure. This is the most crucial moment; if John Watson comes back before she has the phone she's as good as dead.

"Give it to me. Now." He's got it clutched in a death grip, damn him. "Give it to me."

"No." He falls to hands and knees, and it would look wonderful on him if only there weren't far more important things at stake.

"Give it to me."

"No!"

"Oh for goodness sake." She doesn't have time for this. It won't take Watson long to check the door. She whirls round and grabs the first thing that comes to hand, her riding crop. Meant for better circumstances, but judging by the man's sexual psychology perhaps it will make him more amenable to following orders. "Drop it."

She lashes out, striking him across the face in punctuation to her words. "I said drop it!"

Finally it falls from his hand as his back hits the hard-wood floor. She scoops it up and checks it for damage. Of course there isn't any, it's hardier than that, and he hasn't had time to guess the code. That itself is Jim's little joke to him. An amusing pun and a sort of half-affectionate threat, though how he can find it in him to be affectionate after what these people are supposed to have done to him she'll never know. She doesn't want to know what James Moriarty likes.

"Thank you dear," she says. "Now tell that sweet little posh thing the pictures are safe with me. They're not for blackmail, just for insurance." These ones at least. "Besides, I might want to see her again."

Gasping – bronchodilation, the ketamine doing its work – Sherlock writhes onto his side, trying to get up. She nudges him back over with her foot, unable to resist trailing the tip of the crop over those striking cheekbones, along the line of his jaw. Mmmm. "No, no, no, no. It's been a pleasure. Don't spoil it. This is how I want you to remember me. The woman who beat you."

She knows she's already stayed too long but she can't resist a parting shot. "Good night, Mr Sherlock Holmes."

She hadn't heard anyone on the stair, but the snarl of pure rage behind her is unmistakable. Her quick reaction is the only thing that saves her, and as it is the bullet clips her between neck and shoulder, scoring a burning line over her flesh. Fear is a powerful motivator, and she's in the bathroom and out the window faster than she would have previously thought humanly possible. Christ.

"Sherlock," she hears from back inside the flat. "Sherlock can you hear me?" Thank God for the man's priorities. She isn't sure she would be able to get away otherwise. She's only wearing a coat, not even any shoes, but one of her clients lives nearby and he won't object to a surprise visit.

Christ but that was close.

Seeing Sherlock drugged out of his mind might have been funny, if it was anyone else, Greg thinks. But he's seen the man under the influence of illegal substances too many times before to find much humour in the situation. Let Sally and Anderson think he is filming it on his phone for laughs if they want to, but that's not why he's doing it at all. No, it is evidence he's after. Evidence of a crime committed by one Irene Adler.

John shares his opinion on the matter, if the glares he is giving them as they help Sherlock out to one of the police cars are anything to go by. That man has the patience of a saint to spend any extended amount of time with Sherlock Holmes, but he's also very protective, and it shows. Lestrade tries to make things as painless as possible for them both. Get it over with quickly. He can't really blame his team; they don't know the full story behind Sherlock's past, they've never seen what he was doing to himself before Greg started letting him onto crime scenes, all they know is the arrogant genius who puts them down and never follows procedure. (A case thrown out for broken chain of custody and contaminated evidence is theoretically better than a case never solved at all, but only just.) It's understandable but that doesn't make it right.

In any case, Sherlock and John are well on their way home by the time they actually get into the house properly and find the bodies. Three dead and one unconscious, to be precise. Three men are lying in the lounge, one shot and two with horrific knife wounds. Blood is everywhere, still liquid. They can't have been dead more than half an hour, if that. It's hardly the worst thing he's ever seen, but it's still a shock. Thankfully the woman they find upstairs isn't injured, just drugged, and she's already starting to come around. Lestrade gets someone to phone an ambulance for her. It's too late for the others.

The real question is just what the fuck happened here. The 999 call that got them here was a report of shots fired, but he hadn't actually been expecting to find a corpse, let alone three. Now he wishes he'd made Sherlock stay, though it's not likely they'd get anything useful out of him in his current condition. They should have questioned John. Now Lestrade thinks about it, hadn't his face been slightly damp, as though it had just been washed? He had taken his coat off, folded it inside out, but there might have been a speck of something red-brown on his shirt collar. He doesn't like to think it but... a doctor would be good with a knife. And hadn't he once said something about being in the army?

Of course it was probably self defence. There are two guns lying abandoned on the floor, after all. He doesn't know the full story. And yet, and yet... He scrubs a hand across his face, trying to ignore the smell of blood starting to seep into the air like a butcher's shop. There's been something strange going on with those two for months now. He's been feeling wrong about them ever since that case with the bomber, that Moriarty, who had disappeared off the radar in the end, leaving the whole business with an unfinished sort of feeling. He'd never been able to get a satisfying answer out of Sherlock about that.

He orders the scene to be processed as usual and then he heads back to Scotland Yard. He'll call Sherlock and John in for questioning at the earliest opportunity tomorrow, and they can get this whole thing straightened out. He hopes.

When he walks into his office there's a letter sitting on his desk, once of those big A4 ones. It's got his name on it, but no stamp, nothing to show who might have sent it. Too small for an explosive, but there are plenty of biological nasties that could be waiting inside. If he was sensible he'd sent it to be thoroughly looked over before he opened it, but he isn't feeling very sensible today. Instead he simply angles it well away from him as he carefully slits it open with the penknife he keeps in his desk.

Sherlock Holmes is a murderer. Plain black text on white paper. Disbelief is his first reaction, just some weirdo writing unsubstantiated bullshit. This kind of thing isn't uncommon. There are plenty of people with a beef against Sherlock. But... He turns the sheet over.

I have proof. This is the first of many. There are those who will try to stop this from becoming public. Keep this a secret. It is safer for both of us if you don't know who I am.

There is something else in the envelope. He tips it up and a USB stick slides out onto his desk. He hesitates before he picks it up. Such a small little thing, but if this letter if to be believed, something that could change... well. Everything. He rolls it between his fingers. There could be anything on this. It could be a trick to let some kind of virus onto the police computer system, for all he knows.

A separate computer then, one not connected to their Intranet. There's his personal netbook, which is a few years old now and not exactly irreplaceable. He uses it to take work home, but the WiFi can be turned off. And he has to know.

It's a tense few minutes starting the little laptop up. He slides the USB in, and clicks on the first file in the folder, one of five. It's an audio file. No picture, but he would recognise Sherlock's baritone anywhere.

"The first person I ever killed was Kevin St. James when I was 19 years old..."

Mycroft pays them a visit the following morning. He is less than pleased, and John can't help but sympathise. Irene Adler drugged Sherlock with an unknown dosage of sedative, it could have killed him if he'd reacted badly and yet the man seems to regard it as a minor transgression along the line of neglecting to offer a guest a cup of tea. What is wrong with him?

"She's not interested in blackmail," Sherlock tells his brother, more concerned, it would seem, with the morning's paper. "She wants... protection, for some reason. I take it you've stood down the police investigation into the murders at her house?"

Mycroft sighs. "Not an easy task, but yes. Really, couldn't you have been a little more discrete."

"It was self defence."

"He's right, they were threatening to kill us," John agrees.

"In any case, the camera phone is her 'Get out of jail free card'," Sherlock continues. "So you have to leave her alone. Treat her like royalty."

"Or kill her," John says. "Honestly, please do. I'd be happy to oblige." Sherlock frowns at him and is just opening his mouth to say something when a sudden moan fills the room.

"Text," Sherlock says, as if this explains anything.

"And the noise?" John can't help the slight growl that creeps into his voice.

"What about those CIA-trained killers," Sherlock says, ignoring him and quickly changing the subject. "Were you aware of them when you sent John and me in there?"

Mycroft is quiet for a moment. "No," he eventually says. "I was not aware of it. You may imagine me to be omniscient, but this is not actually true."

Sherlock gasps mockingly. "Don't shatter my illusions, brother."

"In order to avoid similar problems in future you may be sure I will be putting Ms. Adler under all possible surveillance," Mycroft says.

"Why bother," Sherlock replies. "You can follow her on Twitter. I believe her user name is 'TheWhipHand'." And how would you know that? John thinks viciously.

"Most amusing," Mycroft says, with a tight smile. Abruptly his phone rings, and he raises his eyebrow when he sees whoever is calling. He wanders out into the hallway to take it. John watches him, curious. You pick things up here and there working for Mycroft Holmes, shadows of rumour and gossip. Something is going on. But presumably if his or Sherlock's skills are needed, they'll be told.

"Why does your phone make that noise?" he asks Sherlock, taking the opportunity to press. Sherlock will never give him a straight answer when there's someone else around as a convenient excuse not to.

"What noise?"

"You know very well what noise." And he's pretty sure he knows who is responsible for it.

"It's a text alert. It means I've got a text."

"Your texts don't usually make that noise."

"Well somebody got hold of the phone and apparently, as a joke, personalised their text alert noise."

"So every time they text you..." As if on cue, the phone goes again. John grits his teeth, wondering if it's something generic or if that really is Adler's voice. Even if he didn't hate her for drugging Sherlock, there's something about her that brings out an irrational jealously in him. It isn't a nice trait, but there are a lot of things that aren't very nice about him these days and trying to fight it hasn't done him any good. Easier to go with the flow, within reason.

"It would seem so."

"And you don't know how to get rid of it?"

"No."

Mrs Hudson pokes her head around from the kitchen, her hands full of a plate of biscuits. "Could you perhaps turn it down a bit Sherlock dear? It's a bit rude. At my time of life..." And then she's gone again, tidying up the place, her movements traceable by the clatter of plates and glasses and whatever else Sherlock has left lying about.

Sherlock checks the phone, making a non-committal sort of hum. He flicks his paper up again hiding his face. Avoidance. Is it even sexual, this strange behaviour? Or merely an intellectual thrill, the knowledge that someone got the better of him. John would have thought that would piss him off, not make him more interested. Perhaps Sherlock has some kind of unspoken kink for being shot up with unknown substances that he hasn't mentioned? (God, he hopes not, though if that was what Sherlock needed, better it be a trained doctor than anyone else.)

John glares as though he's capable of burning through several layers of paper. Sherlock isn't even properly reading it, or he'd be turning the pages more. He's just being an oversized child, which admittedly is hardly unusual for him. After a short while Mycroft reappears. John catches the tail end of his conversation.

"Bond Air is go, that's decided. Check with the Coventry lot. Talk later."

Sherlock looks over at him as his brother hangs up. John knows that look; something has intrigued him.

"What else does she have? Irene Adler? The Americans weren't interested in compromising photographs; not really their area. There's more." He tosses the paper down carelessly and gets to his feet. "Much more."

Mycroft says nothing, but they've been working for him long enough now that John can read by his face that Sherlock is getting too close to something Mycroft would really rather he didn't know.

"Something big's coming, isn't it?"

"Irene Adler is no longer your concern, either of you. From now on you will stay out of this."

"Now I know there's something interesting going on?" Sherlock says. John leans back in his chair, entertaining a daydream of extracting whatever it is through torture. He has a lot of ideas.

"Yes Sherlock. You will stay away," Mycroft says, very serious. "Do remember our arrangement, and do as you're told."

Sherlock turns his back on him with a shrug, like a cat that's pretending it was going to do just that all along. He picks up his violin as Mycroft makes to leave.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend."

"Do give her my love," Sherlock says, and begins to play God Save the Queen. John grins, he can't help it. He does enjoy Sherlock's sense of humour, even though most people would probably say he hasn't got one. But no-one knows Sherlock quite like he does. Not even Irene Adler. There's comfort enough in that.

"Well?" Moriarty demands the moment she walks through the door. Quite how he knew about this flat she's not sure, seeing as he's only ever been to her main house. A house that is currently a crime scene, hence coming here.

"It didn't go entirely to plan," she admits. "But he's intrigued. He'll take the bait."

"Good," Jim says. He's lounging on her sofa in another impeccable Westwood suit, his feet up on the coffee table. If she didn't know it was there, she'd never be able to tell one was prosthetic. He's adapted very well, but that doesn't surprise her. Moriarty strikes her as a man who doesn't believe in the existence of the word 'no' – particularly where it applies to questions like 'is it right to stab people thirty times with a butter knife' or 'should I steal millions from a member of the vory v zakone'. He's not about to let a physical limitation get the better of him.

"Good enough I suppose," he says with a theatrical sigh and a roll of his eyes. "Tell me all the gory details."

She does, making sure to mention the Americans and John Watson's attempt on her life. Even if she hadn't agreed to help Moriarty in return for access to his contacts, shooting at her is enough to get anyone on her naughty list. And not the good kind of naughty list.

"That's wonderful," Jim says when she gets to the CIA. "Now they're sure to believe it when you show up dead."

"About that..."

"Oh, I'll find your body double." He brushes her concerns away with a wave of his hand. His nose wrinkles up in a way that's far too normal for an evident psychopath. "He'll be sooooo disappointed. I'm sure he loved thinking he'd have someone else to play with while I'm gone."

"Are you sure you need him to break that code?"

"I don't need him to," Jim says, suddenly snappish, offended that his own personal genius has been called into question. "I know what it's about. But it's the betrayal. To be fooled by someone, to pass big brother's information on to me, his worst enemy."

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?"

"Why Ms Adler," Jim says, with a shark's grin and a shark's dead eyes. "I could say the same thing about you."

It's been months since they heard anything about Irene Adler, and John is finally starting to relax. Wherever she ran off too after leaving London, she's long gone, and Sherlock will find something else more interesting to occupy him eventually, even if the usual run of cases on both sides of the law aren't quite enough to drive her entirely from his mind. Moriarty is still out there somewhere. John is sure they would have found out if he'd died of his wounds.

It's Christmas and they're having their first ever Baker Street Christmas party. It's just a small affair, the two of them, Mrs Hudson, DI Lestrade and Molly, just enough to be cosy. It almost makes John feel normal, which is a pretty strange sensation these days. It's nice, to relax for a bit, to pretend he's the same as regular human beings, that he hasn't killed scores of people, even if most of it has been on the orders of his country.

There's mulled wine, and mince pies which Mrs Hudson baked herself, and shortbread, and port, sherry and brandy. Sherlock has been researching appropriate Christmas tipple, and he's even condescended to play a few tunes to fit the season on his Stradivarius. They have fairy lights up, Christmas cards on the mantelpiece... it's even snowing, for God's sake. John basks in front of the fire feeling pleasantly full from dinner and just the right amount of relaxed from alcohol. It's just... pleasant. Really, really pleasant, unmarred by interfering dominatrices or criminal masterminds.

Molly arrives a little late and laden with Christmas shopping. She's wearing a very flattering black dress under her coat, and John doesn't miss the way Greg's jaw drops when he sees her. To his knowledge they don't actually know each other all that well; there's an overlap between homicide and the mortuary but as far as he knows Lestrade doesn't have much to do with the disposal of victims after the initial crime scene. Perhaps he can do a little matchmaking. Greg deserves someone better than his wife, from what he's heard from Sherlock's deductions on the matter.

There is one rather dicey moment when he thinks Sherlock is going to say something rather... Sherlockian... about Molly, but he has time to clear his throat in warning and head it off at the pass. He knows about Molly's crush on Sherlock, but she knows about their relationship. If she's trying to look nice it's not out of any real hope of getting his attention. Maybe it's just for her. Maybe she just wants to feel beautiful. But Sherlock sounded like he was going to take it the wrong way.

Anyway, disaster averted the evening continues rather nicely, up until that blasted text alert pops up again. It's the kind of thing that will get a room's attention, but Sherlock is suddenly deaf and blind to the lot of them, going with slow, almost hesitant steps to the fireplace and picking up an unfamiliar box wrapped in crimson and a heavy rope tassel. John has never seen it before, and he's sure it hadn't been there earlier.

"Excuse me," Sherlock says suddenly. He whirls about and makes for his room, still clutching the present. John twists in his seat to watch him go, his heart sinking. It's from her, it has to be. Damn it!

John follows him, making his excuses to the others. He's deeply, desperately curious, and when he eases open the door it's to find Sherlock holding the phone, her phone in his lap, and talking to someone on his own.

"I think you're going to find Irene Adler tonight," he is saying. Then a long pause – it's probably Mycroft he's talking to, that would make sense. "No, I mean you're going to find her dead." He sounds not sad exactly but... disappointed. Yes that's it. Disappointed.

It's a complicated series of emotions that rush through him in that moment. There's satisfaction that she's dead, anger that whoever has caught up with her has chosen Christmas of all times to disturb them, and jealousy that she has made Sherlock feel anything, anything at all. Not to mention a good dose of disappointment all of his own that he didn't get to kill her himself.

"You okay?" he asks Sherlock once he's hung up.

"Yes, of course," is the reply, but his brow is still creased in a frown. John doubts he's even aware he's doing it. "It's just such a waste of a less than mediocre mind. She had potential."

"Mycroft is taking you to see the body later?" John guesses. Sherlock nods. "I'll come with."

"I shan't let you if you intend to gloat," Sherlock says, with a more deliberate expression of disapproval.

"I'll try and keep it to a minimum."John hesitates, trying to think of something to cheer him up. "There's always Moriarty. You know he'll be back eventually."

That at least gets a smile. "Yes," Sherlock says thoughtfully. "He will."