It was mid-May when Irene saw the book in the bookshop, seven months after the meeting with Emma. She was pushing her four-month-old in a pram down the sidewalk when the book in the front window display caught her eye. It startled her; she had never dreamt of the book being so prominent in the window of a bookshop.
"It's an interesting read," a man's voice said from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder to see a sandy-haired man who couldn't have been older than forty-five. "Sorry?"
"The book. It's interesting. One of my patients recommended it to me."
Irene realized that this was John Watson. "John Watson? Dr. John Watson?" Irene asked as she turned to face him.
He looked taken aback by the fact that this woman knew his name. "I'm sorry, have we met?" he asked her.
She nodded. "Irene Adler. We met a little more than a year ago," she explained as she offered her hand to shake his.
John eyed her warily as he began to remember what Irene looked like. "Irene Adler… the woman who came in with the man who thought he knew me?"
"One in the same," Irene confirmed. "How have you been?"
He shrugged. "I'm fine. How is your friend?"
Irene glanced down at the pram. "Currently, asleep."
John chuckled. "No… the gentleman you brought in."
"Oh…" Irene breathed. "He passed away several months ago. About a year, actually. Only a few weeks after we visited your office."
John's face softened. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I hope he didn't suffer."
She inhaled and shifted uncomfortably. "Well, it depends on your definition of suffering," she explained hesitantly. "His last few hours were not pleasant."
John seemed to understand Irene's meaning and therefore did not inquire further. He did, however, try to remember what Irene's friend was named. For some reason, he was convinced the friend was named Sherlock, but that could have been because he had just read Arthur Conan Doyle's book regarding a gentleman named Sherlock Holmes. And strangely enough, the book was written from the perspective of a man named John Watson, who, even more bizarre, bore a lot of resemblance to him. "Sherlock Holmes was real, wasn't he?"
Irene froze. "Sorry?"
"His name, your friend, was Sherlock Holmes, wasn't it?"
She nodded slightly. "It was his last wish to have his memoir written down and presented as fiction since no one would ever believe it to be true."
John looked confused before he broke out into a smile. "Now, I would have never thought of something like that. That's bloody brilliant," he exclaimed.
Irene laughed, probably the first time in a while that wasn't because of the something the baby did. "Yes, it is rather genius, isn't it?"
They stood nodding around, not really sure what to say next, for a moment or so before John pulled out his phone. "I've actually got to get back to the clinic, but I'd love to get coffee sometime. Would you be up for that?"
Irene was surprised by this. A man asking her out despite the fact that he could see she had a child? She wasn't sure what he meant by it, but she was curious to see how accurate, if at all, Sherlock had been about Dr. John Watson. "Um… sure, I'd love to," she answered.
After exchanging contact info, Irene and John parted ways. As Irene briefly watched John walk off in the opposite direction, she thought back to the moment she had first met Sherlock. She now knew that he had had her calculated down to a tee, but from her perspective, she thought she knew a lot about Sherlock while she really hadn't at all. Now, she thought she knew John based on Sherlock ahd told her, but she knew that that wasn't the case at all; not a lot of what Sherlock talked about could have been real. She was going to have to get to know John all over again, and possibly poke holes in all of Sherlock's argument.
Despite this, she was ready for this. She was ready to move forward. This was part of helping Sherlock, after all.
Once John had rounded the corner and was no longer visible, Irene glanced down into the pram and saw the baby staring at her intently with Sherlock's eyes. She smiled back at the child and gave the baby a quick pat on the belly before continuing on her way down the street, continuing on in this new life that Sherlock Holmes had lead her to.
End.
A/N: Well, that was probably the shortest fic I've written to this point. And it was kind of fun... in a very strange way. I'm in finals mode right now, so any other stories I've put on the back-burner will remain there until next week, once I'm all done with finals and moving out of the dorm. One year of college down, somewhere between three and 12 to go.
I hope you enjoyed the story!
-soulofair
