A/N: I'm not usually one to rewrite huge slabs of dialogue from the TV episodes, however I have placed a small portion of dialogue in this chapter to help weave my narrative around it... especially the end bit. Had a bit of a giggle about that one.

Chapter 10: Not Mounting Any Defence

"She had your email address on her. Just wanted to check if she was a client of yours?" Lestrade's voice continued in Sherlock's ear.

But his head was buzzing. His hand trembled as he held the phone out. A curious thing itself.

Rose?

It had been two weeks since their last liaison. He hadn't texted her for another appointment. He couldn't stomach it. Sherlock had to be the best at everything he tried. If he was going to be having sex regularly, then he had to be good at it. No, not just good, excellent. And he'd learnt through those first conversations with Rose that to be any kind of great lover you had to more than satisfy your sexual partner.

Rose had indicated that she'd found his efforts sickening, repulsive. Of course her heart rate could also rise if she was stressed at being placed in an uncomfortable situation. He was stupid.

Stupid, stupid.

To think he could get Rose aroused. She wasn't trembling with desire, but cringing in disgust. He'd had a few quick wanks in the shower thinking about Rose. But he wasn't ever going to touch her again.

And now this.

This call from Lestrade. Straight off the back at having been made even more of a public figure. Another two presentation ceremonies - rewarded for helping the kidnapped banker to escape his captors, and netting interpol's most wanted in one fell swoop.

Sherlock had been hiding out in his flat. John had been chastising him for getting in the papers again.

"You're this far from famous," the doctor had said. "Find yourself a little case this week?"

Is this a little case? Identifying the body of a murdered prostitute? The murderer had already been caught. Nothing really for Sherlock to do, but go to the mortuary and confirm whether or not it was Rose.

Lestrade had said there was an inconsistency as to her identity. Some said Rose, others said Shelley.

There was only one Rose/Shelley who was a prostitute as far as Sherlock was concerned. Did she end up on the streets because she no longer had Sherlock's income? Did the brothel owners kick her out because they'd found out she had been seeing a client independently?

With a sickening feeling, Sherlock slowly wound his scarf around his neck. John had left for work. Today would normally have been his appointment with Rose had he made one. A morning round of sex. Now he was going to see her again, for one last time.

It was an odd feeling really. Sherlock sat pensively in the back of the taxi as it wound through the streets, taking him to St. Bart's hospital, and to Rose.

It wasn't as if he felt any emotional attachment toward her. He'd missed the sex, obviously - the conversation, yes. Her familiarity? He'd become comfortable with her. Was that an emotional attachment? How would he feel when Molly wheeled out her corpse? He'd seen a multitude of dead, naked women before. Would he scrutinise her features? Examine her skin, fingernails, bruising around her neck - for she had been strangled, Lestrade informed him. Strangled during sex in the back seat of the perp's car. The perp got off on that. That was his thing according to the other toms on the street. Asphyxiation. He'd gone too far on this occasion and hadn't released the grip on his tie in time. How much money had Rose negotiated for that?

Sherlock's eyes stung, and a lump came to his throat.

What just happened then? he thought, blinking rapidly.

Sherlock paid the fare, ignoring his unconscious physiological reaction and climbed from the taxi. He strode the familiar corridors of the hospital and made his way to the mortuary to meet the D.I. and Molly Hooper. He felt as though he needed a cigarette.

"Right, well there was no I.D. in her possessions," Lestrade began. "But was she a client of yours, this Shelley?"

"Rose," Sherlock corrected him as Molly rolled out the table.

"Uh, yes. Shelley was her real name according to some. She preferred to go by 'Rose' when working though. No I.D. so no address. Had a slip of paper in her handbag with your email address on it though."

Other way round, thought Sherlock. Rose, not Shelley.

Molly unzipped the body bag and Sherlock took a sharp intake of breath at the rounded facial features, close set eyes and a shock of blonde wavy hair.

Not Rose.

Not -

- Rose.

This wasn't Rose!

Who was it?

Sherlock's head spun as the confusion of names swam around him. Shelley! Her real name was Shelley. She'd used 'Rose' as her alias, as her flatmate had done to her. As Sherlock had done to John.

Not.

Rose.

"Her name's Shelley," Sherlock stated, breathing out and stepping back from the body.

"We know," said Lestrade a little gruffly. "A client?"

"No. Potential client. Another...client had referred me and gave her my details. She never made contact with me. I can probably get a full I.D. from their flatmate, or you could try the Massage Parlour on Lyceum Street, North London," Sherlock said, speaking rapid-fire and relieved to be able to project indifference at last.

Lestrade cocked his head to one side. "A massage parlour on Lyceum Street? And you know this how?"

Sherlock's face remained impassive as he replied. "My clients are wide and varied and completely confidential, Detective Inspector. She used to work there. And so if you're finished with me?"

Sherlock turned and left when Lestrade turned back to Molly and nodded thanks. Striding down the corridor from the mortuary, Sherlock exhaled deeply.

Not Rose.

Rose was alive!

Sherlock looked down at his phone, and checked his messages. There was one message from a contact he had called "Psych Student" which read, Nice hat! Rose had sent that two days ago after those dreadful, embarrassing photos had appeared in the papers as a result of the Ricoletti presentation ceremony. Those bastards at Scotland Yard had humiliated Sherlock with a gift of a deerstalker hat. An ear hat!

Her message had arrived shortly after another one did, that had been sent by Irene Adler. I like your new hat.

What was it with him and sex workers?

But Sherlock hadn't responded to either Rose's or The Woman's messages. He typed one to Rose now: Contact me re: case, not appointment!

Sherlock grabbed a cab back to Baker Street. He looked at his watch and found that it was after eleven. Rose was probably in a lecture, he thought, and she would only check her phone an hour before an appointment (which he didn't have), or intermittently throughout the day, she'd said - probably to keep in contact with the brothel owners regarding her schedule at Lyceum Street.

When she finally rang at around four, Sherlock tried to surreptitiously hasten to his bedroom in order to answer the call. John was lounging in the living room, reading the paper.

"What case?" was all she said, breathlessly, when he answered. It sounded as if she was walking around the campus or to the tube, possibly.

"We should meet somewhere. I shouldn't discuss it over the phone," he suggested in a low voice.

"What, why? Is this a..." she paused, whispering the last two words, "...sex thing?"

"What? No! Of course not," he snapped, but then softened a little when he realised it was a delicate matter he was ringing about, and that wasn't how empathetic people behaved. "Look, where are you? I'll meet you. At university?"

There was a moment's silence as Rose considered her options. Meet Sherlock in her normal, safe surroundings? A client? Here in her pristine, chaste life? "I'll meet you somewhere public. I don't think I should meet you anywhere I frequent in my personal life. That's too stalker-ish."

Sherlock paused at Rose's words. "You think I'm going to stalk you?" he asked, immediately taking offence.

"I don't know. Why do you want to meet me? I thought you were done with me."

"This has nothing to do with that," Sherlock remarked, his voice flat and unemotional.

"Oh..." Rose was silent for a moment as she thought to herself. "A case? Has this got to do with my psychology paper? Because I'm not writing that one anymore."

"No, it's not."

Silence filled the line once again while Rose's mind ticked over. "Then what?" she asked eventually. "We've only ever interacted with...those two things. Psychology and...", she lowered her voice again, "...sex."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, wanting to move on with delivering her news and to just yell it into the receiver, but he bit his tongue and said tonelessly, "I can't say...social customs dictate this isn't the type of news you deliver over the telephone."

"Social customs? News?" Sherlock could hear Rose's sharp intake of breath. "...oh God! Oh...Jesus...what are you saying? A case? ...oh my God... the...the unidentified prostitute that was murdered...the story in the paper. Is that what this is about? Oh Sherlock! Fucking hell." Rosie's voice was fraught with emotion now. "Thank you," she choked.

Then she hung up.

She'd made the connection, Sherlock concluded. Took her time, but got there in the end and I didn't have to be the harbinger of doom, he thought in deep satisfaction. All her fears about her flatmate had been realized. Probably noticed she'd been missing, what was it now – forty-eight hours?

Should he ring her back?

No. Not his place to.

He started to type a message for her: Ring back. You need to identify the body. Then he deleted it. Didn't sound quite appropriate. Lestrade will work it out or somebody would report Shelley missing even if Rose didn't.

Not his problem.

Now, he had this two hundred year old mystery to solve: Henry Fishguard - a suicide or not? Where is my trusty mannequin? Time for a hanging.

He spent a day consulting his Bow Street Runners book and playing executioner's hangman, much to John's annoyance.

The next morning, as Sherlock was peering into his microscope on the dining table, Henry Fishguard's doppelganger swaying in the living room, his phone buzzed from the table next to his armchair. He walked over to check it. A message from Pysch Student: Shelley is dead. I guess you knew that. Have just identified her body. I'm moving back in with my parents.

Sherlock deleted the message, then put his phone back down.

It buzzed again. Could we meet? it read.

He didn't reply, deleted that message too and placed his phone back down on the pile of books. There was no need to see Rose again. He went back to his microscope and tried to ignore the next two texts as they were probably from the Psych Student also.

John strolled in, fresh from the shower as Sherlock's phone buzzed once more.

"It's your phone," John stated.

"Mm, keeps doing that," Sherlock replied, not taking his eyes from the microscope. I'm done with you Rose, he thought. We have nothing left to talk about.

Six weeks later Sherlock was holed up in his flat again. The Moriarty trial was in full swing, well perhaps not full swing - more like limp swing: the crown presenting Sherlock as their key witness, upon which he had been thrown in jail for contempt of court for most of yesterday, and then not permitted back in for the rest of the trial. And the rest of the trial was a joke. The defense was not calling any witnesses. As a result, this morning the verdict would be handed down.

Sherlock paced the room several times before taking to his couch once more. The ringing of his doorbell interrupted his thoughts. He listened as Mrs Hudson answered. Probably somebody from the press again, he thought. Fucking annoying. I can't even leave the flat these days without being hounded by someone.

But it wasn't the press this time.

"Hi!" Rose said, tentatively entering the room as Sherlock sat up again and glared at her. "Just thought I'd see how you were. I called round several times but there were always photographers outside, or you just didn't answer the doorbell. I lied to your landlady and said I was a client. Sorry."

"I didn't make an appointment," Sherlock stated simply.

"I know. You've been busy. I've been reading about it in the papers. The verdict is being handed down today, yeah?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn't in the mood. "What do you want?"

"To see how you were."

"Why? You don't do anything unless there's something in it for you. Come to look at the Reichenbach Hero, have you?" he asked her sullenly.

"I just thought, when this is all over you might like some relief again? An outlet for all your pent up energy, or a release from the stress of the trial?"

Sherlock had to hand it to her. For all his glaring she was still smiling at him pleasantly.

"For a tidy sum of one hundred and eighty pounds? Forget it. I don't carry that amount of cash on me anymore. And besides, I thought you were living back with your parents?"

Rose shrugged. "Didn't work out. It never works out. I've got a new flatmate, in a dismal, shitty flat really. Still tough to make ends meet though." Her smile faltered a little. "I'm not at the brothel anymore. They kicked me out for trying to steal one of their clients. Businessman. Loads of money."

Sherlock shrugged and raised his eyebrows in a 'not my problem' kind of gesture.

"Can't I ... apologise or something?" she suddenly blurted out.

"Apologise for what?" Sherlock asked, his brow furrowed out of annoyance.

Rose took a deep breath and sighed. She tried to smile again despite Sherlock's unfriendly demeanour. "I know I offended you the last time. But I wasn't referring to you at all."

Sherlock's granite face seem to soften ever so slightly. He asked, "And to whom were you referring?"

"The others."

I knew it, Sherlock thought smugly. I was getting fucking good at...er...fucking. "And your apology will take the form of...?"

"Whatever you like," Rose said pleasantly.

Oh, that again. "I'm really not in the mood."

Rose stepped closer to Sherlock and raised a seductive eyebrow. "I'll put you in the mood."

Sherlock scoffed. "The verdict will be handed down any minute now."

"And then you can celebrate with me," she said encouragingly.

"Commiserate, more likely."

"How do you know?"

"Because I can read it like it's all written out before me."

Sherlock sat back and stretched his legs out along the couch. He closed his eyes. Rose perched herself on the side of the coffee table.

"Just let me..." she said, resting her hand lightly on Sherlock's thigh.

Sherlock opened one eye. "What?"

"Take your mind off it for a minute or two."

Sherlock opened both eyes. "I told you I don't have any cash on me."

"An apology, and a gesture of goodwill."

He thought for a moment. It would be good to take his mind off this whole business - for a minute or two. John was at the courthouse. He'd be away for ages. And Rose's presence and close proximity, and scent, made him just...

Sherlock could already feel a ripple of pleasure ease through him.

"Gesture away," he murmured, closing his eyes again. "But be quick and then leave."

Rose unzipped Sherlock's trousers as she asked, "How can you read what the verdict is going to be?"

Sherlock opened his eyes again. "It will start with the judge's recommendation," he whispered, as Rose's hand set to work.

"Which will be what?" Rose whispered, her hand finding a good rhythm, as she felt Sherlock's arousal growing.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Sherlock intoned, "James Moriarty stands accused of several counts of attempted burglary, crimes which, if he is found guilty, might elicit a very strong custodial sentence, and yet his legal team has chosen to offer no evidence whatsoever to support their plea.."

Rose listened intently as she continued masturbating him.

Sherlock continued, "I find myself in the unusual position of recommending a verdict wholeheartedly. You must find him guilty."

He closed his eyes as Rose bent down and took Sherlock in her mouth. "Guilty," he whispered.

He kept his eyes closed, the case almost gone from his mind as he tangled his hands in Rose's hair. Just a few minutes, he thought. Just a few minutes. Oh, Rose. His breathing grew shallow and ragged. He moaned and caressed the back of Rose's neck.

So good...

He had never let her finish him off so completely in this way before, and he wasn't going to stop her now. He'd forgotten about this. Forgotten over the last two months how wonderful the act of sex and Rose's sexual favours could be. His mind quietened at last, blanking out the last remaining thoughts as all receptors stood by for the final assault on his sensory systems. With a final moan, he climaxed, waves of ecstasy flowing over him during which he gasped 'Rose'. As the waves turned to ripples and then finally just a slight tingling sensation he gently moved her away from him, opening his eyes once more.

Sherlock pulled his boxers up, zipped up his trousers and said one word, "Leave."

Sherlock closed his eyes again, still breathing deeply as he heard Rose straighten her clothes and pick up her bag. He listened to her footsteps descend the stairs and finally the sound of the front door opening and closing. As his breathing returned to normal, the silence in the flat was broken by the ringing of his phone. He opened his eyes and reached for it from where it had rested on the coffee table beside him.

"Not guilty," came John's voice. "They found him not guilty. No defence and Moriarty's walked free."

.

UPDATE 13th Jan 2016: This chapter has been edited to be consistent with changes made to chapter 1.