Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta-read so all mistakes are mine. Thanks for their reviews go to likingthistoomuch, shazzykins, Emma Lynch, Icecat 62 and my mystery guest for their reviews. Please be aware this chapter has a teensy bit of swearing. Enjoy!


~ Whiteout ~


The first time he realises how deeply she's embedded herself into his life is also, by a complete and utter coincidence, the first time he nearly bleeds to death.

It's also the first time he lets himself acknowledge just how much he misses home.

For he's in a back alley off the Arbat in Moscow, trying to stay upright and ahead of one of Moriarty's more… goal-orientated associates. The blood loss is beginning to disorientate him and he can't seem to remember which particular casino Irene said she'd use as a rendezvous, his ability to see clearly- let alone read anything in Cyrillic- having deserted him. Everything's getting too loud and too near and too bright and he's starting to be a tiny bit afraid that he's not going to find his contact, that this mission is going to be his last-

It's ridiculous, but there's a brunette ahead of him in a barely-there white dress and white heels.

Her long dark hair and pale skin reminds him of something- of someone- that he can't quite place and he finds himself staggering up to her, muttering in badly broken Russian that he needs help.

Something deep within him tells him that the possibility of that help resides with her.

The young woman's gets a fright. Screams as he tries to pull her to a halt. She's with someone, a muscled, tattooed mountain of a man with a shaved head; He is not, needless to say, terribly impressed with some broken-down foreigner making a grab for his woman and he makes his feelings about the matter clear. By the time he's finished Sherlock's on his knees on the filthy, rain-soaked pavement, trying not to retch and desperately pressing at his wounded shoulder. There's blood dribbling down his chin and one of his eyes is rapidly swelling shut. Passers-by are giving him a wide berth and he knows it's only a matter of time before either Moriarty's associate or one of the infamous Moscow militsyia pick him up...

If that happens, he may well be done for.

He closes his eyes, remembers John and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, all the people he has to get back to and from somewhere deep within him, he finds the strength to forge ahead.

Somehow, somehow he manages to get to his feet, manages to stagger towards an alley. He uses the wall at his back to keep himself upright and does the one thing he had promised himself he'd never do: he pulls out his phone and calls Mycroft. Asks to be extracted, or at least to be taken in.

He doesn't hear his brother's answer, though he knows he takes the call; His heart-beat's pounding so loudly in his ears, you see, the screaming traffic and the hissing rain rising in cacophony about him. He can feel his knees starting to go from under him and, from the sheer need to distract himself, he digs his nails into the stone wall behind him. Lays his head back against it and closes his eyes. Face tipped upwards, breathing ragged, he the icy wind rakes his skin, tugging his hair. Another gust of wind blusters by and it nearly knocks him over. Sherlock sighs: With every fibre of his being he just wants to let go, just wants to give himself over to oblivion, but then-

Then-

Then something totally, utterly impossible happens.

For arms slide around him. They're strong. Soft. Safe. A scent rises in his nostrils, lemon and vanilla and just underneath it the smell of carbolic soap and decomp. For him, this is the scent of home. He feels something soft and silky- human hair?- press against his throat, tickling, almost as if… Almost as if someone had tucked themselves underneath his chin and was holding him close. Holding him tight. There's warmth at his chest now, someone breathing in time with him. He opens his eyes and he sees Molly Hooper looking up at him, clear as day.

"Jesus fucking Christ," is what he says.

"Not really my area," is what she answers. "But thank you for the vote of confidence anyway."

And she grins, showing her dimples. Sherlock stares: Her eyes are starry, bright. She's wearing a sheer, little white dress and her feet are bare. Bloody, dark hand-prints twine around her ankles, her toes. There's blood and dirt beneath her fingernails. A tinsel halo sits, lop-sided, on her head and at her back… At her back are a pair of perfect, impossible, blindingly bright wings. Blood and tar are visible on some of their feathers' outermost tips; Here and there peacock feathers peek out, the green and blue dazzling where they're threaded through the white...

He must react to the sight because before he can speak she reaches up on tiptoe. Presses a kiss to his mouth.

"Don't say anything," she murmurs. "I know: I've taken a leaf out of your book and decided to become impossible." She smooths down her dress. Her feathers. "It's more difficult than you make it look, it seems."

Sherlock shakes his head, tries to straighten up and without his quite wanting to his arms tighten around her.

"You're not here," he croaks out. "You can't be here- I wouldn't let you be here-"

"Don't I know it." Her smile is sad. Rueful. "Why are you always trying to protect me, Sherlock?" she asks and rather than answer he pulls her closer, without thinking. Holds her tighter, without thinking. Without any forethought whatsoever he plants a kiss against her forehead, leans his forehead against hers as they breathe in time. Her skin is warm and pale and smooth. It feels so soothing against his own.

"I need you to do something for me," she's saying and her voice is so soft, so welcome, that instinctively he nods. Acquiesces.

His tongue feels thick in his mouth as he slurs out, "I think I'd do anything for you."

Molly smiles at that, her eyes turning brighter as she leans up. Kisses him. It makes him feel light headed but he feels a little stronger too.

Maybe that's what being kissed by a celestial messenger did to everyone, but he has his doubts.

"You have to hold on," she's saying quietly. "When they take you in, when they tie you down, you have to hold on for me: Can you do that?"

Sherlock nods but he feels confused. Groggy. The sense of wellness which her presence brought is beginning to dissipate. He can feel himself shivering and he is suddenly, frighteningly aware that he's lost an awful lot of blood. It's pooling with the rainwater at his feet.

"I'll hold on," he says tightly though. "I just- I just can't be sure for how long I can-"

She kisses him again, cutting him off. This time when he opens his eyes to look at her she's Irene's angel again. Her wings man-made. Synthetic. Her body bare and soft and sweet beneath his hands. No more blood or dirt, just whiteness.

Touching her makes his skin itch. It makes his skin burn.

"You will hold on," she tells him, and now her voice is stronger. It brooks no argument. "You will hold on until I give you permission to let go, is that quite clear Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

He frowns, unsure and confused. His vision's going blurry. When he bobs his head in agreement though her eyes soften. Suddenly she is brightness and light personified again. Suddenly she's his Molly, his Incompetent Angel, no matter how she may have looked in his dreams of Irene oh so long ago.

"Will you be with me?" he asks and he's aware his voice sounds ridiculous. Lost.

He feels almost like a child.

"Of course I'll be with you," she answers. Her tone turns wry. "What on Earth makes you think that I ever leave?"

He has an answer for that, he does, but before he can speak someone's lowering him onto his back. Putting a blanket around his shoulders. He opens his eyes to see a man in what is obviously a fake militsyia uniform loading him into the back of a police ambulance and though he wants to protest, all his strength is gone.


The next few days are difficult. Scarring. It takes Mycroft and The Woman far too long to find him and when they do, he can tell they're worried about what's been done to him. The extent of it. The fallout.

It's after this mission that Mycroft stops being willing to have Adler act as Sherlock's official handler.

It makes no difference, of course: he and Adler continue to work together off the books. Sherlock even explains to her, one night when he's far too drunk and far too lonely to be circumspect, just what he saw that night off the Arbat. He saw a vision in white and she told him he had to stay. He's sent to convalesce in a convent somewhere outside of Nizhni Novgorod in the aftermath and though he scoffs as he stares at the religious icons on his room's walls, in his dreams he feels feathers and warm, perfect flesh beneath his hands. Warm, perfect flesh beneath his fingertips.

Eventually he can't take the ache which their absence brings and he deletes the memory of his vision whole-cloth.