A/N: Hi everyone! Sorry that this one took a little long. I am sure that the ending makes up for it... nicely.

Just a quick note - a reviewer was kind enough to point out that in my first chapter I accidentally made it sound like Moriarty was still alive, when I just meant to make it sound like Sherlock was being paranoid! That was careless writing on my part, and I apologize. Thank you, reviewer, you know who you are! It's all fixed now! (So don't go looking for it. [angry face]).

First warning for everyone now that hot sexy times are ahead. Except not really. Which leads me to my second warning and it's for the hot sexy times lovers; the climactic event itself will never be described in detail, so don't keep your hopes up. But there will be plenty of non-climactic things described, if you catch my drift.

Enjoy!


They spent the rest of the morning biding their time in the apartment, neither willing to go back out at the risk of being spotted. Irene unpacked some of her belongings, decorating the bathroom sink and shower with products and putting her own stacks of clothes next to Sherlock's, while the man himself sat at the kitchen table with a pencil and sheets of old pages that he'd torn from the newspapers he could get his hands on.

Neither of them spoke to each other for hours. After their kiss, Sherlock had coldly let her go and retreated to his chair, not uttering a word. He'd expected her to gripe about it, but she said nothing, probably too proud to show any signs of protest.

After a sorry lunch of bread with bread and a side of bread, Irene had announced that she was going back outside to buy some supplies. If they were to seal themselves inside the room overnight, she said, they might as well have the right amount of food for it.

She'd been gone for two hours now or so, and he was still in his spot with his pencil and papers. He used the ashtray as a paperweight, though glancing at it only made him feel uncomfortable.

The sound of a sudden, hard splash of water filtered through the window. Judging from volume and apparent impact, a man had probably fallen into the sea by accident. Maybe he was drunk; maybe he wasn't paying attention. In any case, his friends found it hilarious. Their guttural laughter echoed through into his room. He scribbled an accurately-proportioned image of the fat stupid police officer.

It had been four months since his death in London. Why had it suddenly appeared in French papers? Not only was it too long ago to be considered news, but why would France care? Maybe it had just been a trivia article, filler for the very back of the classifieds. But no, filler didn't tend to have large photos or take up a third of a page. Something was wrong. And "Sherlock" and "wrong" was a terrible pair.

"What are you doing?" Irene's voice sliced through the ringing silence and made his mind come crashing down. Sherlock turned and saw her standing there at the door, clutching two plastic bags in both her hands. She held a designer handbag under her arm.

"We're not safe here any longer," he managed to say. "You've wasted your energy unpacking. Put everything back in your suitcases and we'll leave tonight. I'm sure there's some boat worker at the bay who'd be willing to bring us to Italy. Maybe even-"

"Oh, don't worry about where to go," she interrupted him, strangely calm. She shut the door behind her with a kick and dropped the plastic bags to the floor. "I've got just the place to run to."

Sherlock frowned. "Really?" he said skeptically. "Where?"

"I won't tell you yet," she smiled. There she goes again. She loves knowing more than me. "But I promise you, I sorted it out all on my own. We can go by tomorrow." She shrugged off her white coat, folded it and set it on the kitchen counter.

"Why won't you tell me?" Sherlock asked, eyeing her distrustfully.

"Because I'd like your poor brilliant mind to worry about one less thing," she pouted as she slunk forward and lightly rolled Sherlock's right sleeve up to his elbow, to match his left. In his deep thought he hadn't realized that it had gone back down his forearm.

"I can tell it's somewhere close, perhaps within the country," he started. "If you say 'sorted it out' that calmly then it didn't take more than a phone call. Someone you know can drive in overnight and pick us up by the morning, maybe even earlier, but you'd like to relax for now and take the night to refresh yourself. Where is it? Orleans? Tours?"

"What are you doing?" she ignored his questions, gently brushing him aside so she could pick up a piece of paper. "Isn't this… the policeman we bumped into to?"

"The policeman you bumped into," he corrected flatly. "Is it in Amiens?"

"It's quite good," she tilted the paper left and then right. "I didn't know you were an artist."

"I'm not," he said, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. "It's something I do to help me think. Is it Calais?"

He watched her flip through the sheets of torn newspaper, looking at what he'd sketched – a view of his room from the door; a part of the bay; the landlady; the beginnings of a portrait of John, but half-erased. "Really?" she cooed. "My cold, analytical detective gets his fuel from pretty little sketches?"

Sherlock shook his head. "It's the only thing I can do here. In London I had cases. And my violin. And… and smoking. You're taking us out of the country, aren't you?"

The expression on her face twitched faintly, as if he had unexpectedly said something right. So it was out of the country. But that only widened the range of possible locations.

Irene suddenly broke into a devilish grin. "Really? Well, then, I've got a gift for my starving artist." She stuck the papers back under the ashtray and turned to pull something out of one of the plastic bags.

It took Sherlock a split-second to realize what she had in her hand. A small, white, rectangular box with a thick black Marlboro printed across it. With one sharp red nail, Irene cut through its cellophane wrap, and slipped it off slowly, as if trying to tease him.

Irene turned back to him with a cigarette already between her lips, smirking. Sherlock simply looked at her. "You intend to tempt me with a cigarette."

The Woman took a stick from the box and held it out to him. "Sherlock, darling, you're a fugitive hiding out in France by the sea. Live a little."

Of course, accompanied with his sense, Sherlock didn't want to take it. But the physical, the physiological part of him, the maddening aspect of his mind that he couldn't control, was greedy and hungry and very much stimulated by the sight of it. "No thank you," he forced out, before he could make any reckless decisions.

Irene only grinned wider. Stupid decision, Sherlock told himself, she's only going to play with you even more. She reached for her white coat, and pulled a lighter out of one of its pockets.

The spark sputtered and sprang alive. She lifted it to her cigarette, and soon enough, smoke glided into the air, soft and faint but very much present. It reached Sherlock, reached him in every sense of the word. It smelled like home. It smelled like just what he needed.

Irene seemed to notice how he was a little less relaxed. She was obviously relishing it.

She sat neatly on his lap, with their eyes locked, and took the cigarette from her mouth. She exhaled; he inhaled. Perfect, horrible timing. His mind and his lungs roared for more.

"Are you taking us to Spain?" he asked, trying to distract himself from the scent. "Or Italy?"

Irene took another drag and exhaled the smoke along the side of his neck. "Not telling you," she replied. She slipped her hand into his and smiled at him.

Her pupils were dilated. He put his fingers on her wrist. Her pulse was through the roof.

"You haven't changed," Sherlock said bemusedly.

There was a spark in her eyes. She knew what he meant. "Neither have you."

"What do you mean-" he paused as he inhaled some smoke, and his head felt infinitely lighter, "-by that?"

"You haven't bothered to push me off of you," she whispered into his ear, and with the cigarette held between her middle and index fingers, she deftly slipped it in between his lips. "…Just like last time."

The inside of Sherlock turned warm as the smoke filled him. His mind raced. It felt stupid and irresponsible and good to smoke again. His lungs burned but he tried his best not to show it. Seconds later she took the cigarette away and he exhaled it slowly, hungrily, and Irene, inches away from his face, breathed it in. There was the faint scent of menthol but it faded, as if his sense of smell was disappearing. There was something louder than that inside him, in the part of his lap Irene was sitting on, in the parts of his face that she'd touched. It had started as ripples and now they were waves.

Usually, smoking helped him think, but right now it was betraying him in every single way.

"Are we going… to Germany?" he managed to say as she began to kiss his jaw line. "Or… Belgium?"

"Oh, Sherlock, darling," her lips murmured against his Adam's apple. "Shut up."

He did.

Now Irene was straddling him in the chair, her fingers tangled through his hair and her mouth roaming about his neck and face. With what movement he was capable of he smashed the cigarette into the ashtray on the table. It was too late now; whatever reason Sherlock might have had to avoid situations like this were drowned out by cigarette smoke and his own stupid, stupid physical need.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed her hard against him. With skin against skin Sherlock only realized now how hard and fast his heart was beating. Against Irene's chest their hearts beat at frenzied, mismatched paces, as if they were racing.

His mouth found Irene's, in a kiss with a passion and intensity twice as much as the one early that morning. He sucked on her bottom lip, and she responded with this weird and wonderful whimper of approval that Sherlock had never heard before in his life.

Her hands yanked the tucked in part of his shirt from out of his pants. Good lord she was fast. And he was just slow and nervous and awkward. Sherlock slowly realized what trap he'd been lured into. Here was one thing she was good at – and infinitely better at than him – and she was going to prove just how outstanding she was in her field. It would be a battle of egos, and they were going to enjoy it, too.

Irene's fingers found the naked skin from where she'd pulled at his clothes, and their touch sent waves up and down the inside of him. It was new and it was dangerous. It was like the relief a thousand cigarettes would've given him… if he were still craving for them by that point.

"There he is," she purred with her lips and teeth crushed against his, her fingers exploring its new territory under his shirt.

The next ten seconds were a blind stumbling towards the one-person bed. Irene tripped out of her heels, but Sherlock caught hold of her before she could fall as he kicked off his own shoes, his lips still desperately claiming the parts of her skin he could reach. He was responding now to his most animal instincts and he simply hated how his mind hadn't roped him back in to his cold, unfeeling persona. Or maybe he didn't hate it.

Sherlock found himself lying on the bed, with Irene directly on top of him. She kissed him again and her tongue found its way to his. He made some noises he wasn't proud of. His hands, holding either side of her waist, eased her down so that her weight pressed against him magnificently.

He glued his eyes shut and, blind, fumbled for the zipper on the back of her dress. He tugged it down the length of her back, and noted distractedly that she hadn't fulfilled his request earlier that day to put some underwear on.

Irene broke their kiss to smile at him playfully, though she was panting as hard as he was. The straps of her dress slipped off her shoulders, until half of her was in plain view.

"Well, isn't this so much like our first meeting?" she whispered.

"Maybe…" replied Sherlock with a little less breath to spare. "…Though… I couldn't truly read you then… it's a little easier now in a situation like… this."

Irene laughed and kissed the side of his mouth. "Do you know why I think you couldn't read me? I reckon you'd never even seen a woman's bare body before that."

"Yes I have," he protested, though the immature amount of nervousness in his voice made him feel embarrassed.

She sighed a bit. "Yes, love, but they were dead and on metal tables. Not very sexy, I would guess. But what about the body of a woman who's responding to your every touch, who's been hot and keen all day…"

Her words alone made the lower part of his abdomen go weak with need. He realized that while they were speaking, she'd already managed to smoothly unbutton his shirt without a trouble. Bloody hell. She was good.

"…wouldn't that be much, much more interesting to study?" Her eyes sparkled.

Sherlock decided that words weren't necessary to answer that. He pulled her down by her bare shoulders to kiss her again. She moaned and grinded herself against him, and a certain movement of her hips against a part of his anatomy caused him to mutter a "fuck" that surprised the both of them (though everything resumed its normal course immediately after).

He'd familiarized himself with every kissable part of her neck when Irene kicked off the rest of her dress, and pulling his shirt off his shoulders, gasped, "Get your trousers off."

"Alread-"

"Sherlock for the love of god," and she bit his shoulder.

No more complaints here.