The day before New Year's Eve, I brave the snow and head down to the country. Time to pick up the dead woman who has had the courtesy not to be dead.

She's walked down from the house to meet me at the road. Mostly it's to show where the drive actually starts. She's startling, on all that white, a sudden shape in a heavy black coat. She is, as always, the impeccable Irene… Something about her, though… I think the holiday has been good for her. She looks relaxed. Maybe that's what happens when you don't have a session nearly every day where you have to pretend another human being belongs to a lesser species. But that's just a guess; I wouldn't know, for a fact.

I tell her, straight off, when she gets in at the passenger side, "You're looking better than the last time I saw you."

Adler rolls her eyes, brushes snow off her shoulders, "How did I know you'd open with a corpse joke?"

She assumed that. That's not really what I meant, not at all. But I don't see any point in correcting her, do you? "Seriously. How are you coping?"

"I'm alright," she said, and it's like I told you, she means it. Feels it. "And you?"

"Yeah, same." That's a lie. The truth isn't something she needs to know, but it's important to me, it helps me, just to think to myself after I've said it that it's a lie. I'm acknowledging it, so I can't be accused of pretending any otherwise.

"And our mutual friend?" One's dead, one's AWOL in the wake of the murder, one's broken-hearted and one of them's Mycroft. One way or another I've got some awful news for her. She's going to have to be more specific. "His Majesty," she says trying to use the lingo. But still… You see my problem, don't you? And eventually, so does Irene. "His Majesty the Crown Prince."

"Broken-hearted, by all accounts. Thinks of nothing but you unless he's thinking about your mobile. The violin is driving the people next door loopy. There's a rumour, unconfirmed as yet, that shots were fired. No casualties reported from that. No casualties total, or none that make the radar."

"Well, that's something," she spits. It is sarcastic and brutal. Again, she is not taking things the way they were meant. That wasn't a joke. In the wake of her disappearance, on my side or theirs, there might well have been casualties of all sorts. Name me a player and I'll tell you how they could have been taken out of the game since Christmas Eve. I'm trying to be comforting (which, come on now, let's be open with each other, we all know it's not an effort oft made on my part) and she's snapping at me.

I'm not hurt or anything ridiculous like that. I'm just going to shut up, for lack of any sort of appreciation.

But she doesn't need me to talk, apparently, goes right on ahead with further snapping completely unprovoked. "This was too long," she says. "It was never my idea that he care about me, but given that was where we found ourselves, where you put us, I never should have allowed this to go ahead. This was too long. Allowing somebody to believe that you're dead is… is cruel."

"I'll take your word for it. After all, it's your specialist subject."

"For heaven's sake," she snarls at me, quiet, "do shut up."

I can explain this; she's forgotten who's driving this bloody car, and just how far from London we still are. If I didn't care so much how she performs her resurrection tomorrow, I'd pull over and make her walk. See how she likes playing the whole scene with a cold. Or pneumonia. Hypothermia. Frostbite. How do people always forget , so very easily, what I can inflict on them? I don't forget it. For instance, looking at the snow I think of the things I listed above. Icy death. Bodies preserved in snow banks until the thaw. And it baffles me that there are people alive who look at those smothering white blankets and whose initial reaction is, 'you know what would be brilliant? If I fell flat on my face in that and waved my arms and legs about to create an arbitrary shape on the ground.' I don't understand that.

And please, don't get me started on the breed of Captain-Morgan-swilling, Jackass-watching, chest-bumping moron who looks at fields of crystalline ice and says to himself, 'I should whip out one of the most important and, more to the point, vulnerable parts of my anatomy and piss my name into that'. Just don't start me. It's not worth it.

What I mean is, big, scary, dangerous world, dangerous even before you add on somebody who's happy to use it to his advantage, and yet people just forget. They get so wound up in their own little problems and lives that they miss the great shark mouth closing round them. How can anybody stand to be so ignorant? They'd top themselves only they've no way of knowing what they're missing.

But all of this is in my head, because I was told to shut up. If she says anything else of the sort, tomorrow's scene is going to involve a lot more snivelling than I had factored in, probably take longer, look more pathetic for her. So I just won't provoke her.

I know, I know, I already tried that and she went on ahead. But, contrary to the popular belief (which belief owes a lot to the popular fear of realism), I am an optimist. So I'm trying again. If at first you don't succeed…

And lo and behold, but patience is a virtue and calm heads prevail. A few minutes go by, long for me and a lot longer for her, and Irene breaks. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It's…" And what comes next is difficult for her to admit, so I don't interrupt or stop her. "It's that feeling, of being the object. Naturally I've gotten used to that. It's necessary, considering what I do. My entire career is based on remaining perfect and unobtainable. And, of course, on inflicting pain and humiliation. But it's… dosed, might be the word. Carefully controlled. But I've felt grief. Grief isn't controlled, or careful. Grief is wholesale. I'm at the centre of that. It's a feeling of tremendous…"

"Guilt," I fill in, because it's clear she doesn't have the word, or maybe just doesn't want to say it, because as soon as I give it up she looks down at her hands.

"That's all," she says. "I never meant to be sharp with you."

"Do you want advice on this?" I ask. And she's completely free to refuse me. Sometimes a bit of guilt does good.

Jesus… In a church in Dublin a bell just rang for no reason and an unlit candle sprung a bright and sudden flame…

Irene shakes her head. Then says, "Yes."

"Force yourself to be ruthless. We wanted him to care. We wanted him to be cut up when you died. We wanted him to develop an obsession with unlocking your phone. He never had to do any of these things, we just put them in his way. Once you can start thinking of it all as good, as victory, it gets easier."

"That sounds like experience. Don't be offended, but I never imagined you to have that sort of trouble."

"Not that I can remember. I've watched other associates learn it. And watched yet more suffer because they couldn't make it stick."

Take that shocked bloody look off your face, please. Don't think I don't know where your minds went just now. I offered her advice and you thought I was going to be tough and heartless and tell her to wind her fecking neck in. Well, I won't lie, the thought crossed my mind. But that wouldn't have done the job, and wouldn't have been honest and I – bear with me on this one, maybe we can work it out together – I want to be honest right now.

I'm an honest person. Obviously not in terms of the business, but in terms of the words that come out of my mouth, I'm an honest man. And a good m-well, no, I'm a bastard, let's not push it but… Provided you mean something, and you're not against me and you steer clear of that most heinous of sins that is tedium, you and me aren't going to have a problem. Fulfil all of these criteria and also prove yourself of use? I'm good to my friends.

I am. In my way, in the only way that matters, I'm a good man.

"You give yourself very good advice," Adler breezes. Waking up again, turning back into that perfect, unobtainable object that protects her so, that china doll. Then opens her mouth again, but I stop her.

"Don't finish that."

"I'm surprised you recognized it."

"Carroll was the one wrote down the words, 'We're all mad here'. I can't be bad to that." She laughs. The sound is somewhere between the holiday calm when I picked her up and that hard, derisive front she puts on. It'll have to do. In the interests of not getting caught up in anything else unpleasant, I move us on. "Wear that coat tomorrow."

Contentedly stroking the lapel, she's only curious when she asks, "Why?"

"Same shape as his. Watson'll react to it. Like ducklings; he'll follow after anything even vaguely Sherlock-shaped."

"I'm playing this with Watson?"

"Well, who did you think? I'm not sending you straight to Baker Street. I thought about it and all I could get in my head was the banquet from Macbeth. And you were the one talking about cruelty already."

"You're mixing your references."

"You're allowed to mix references. It's metaphors you don't mix. And drinks. Anyway, how is it Watson that makes you go all nervy and questioning?"

"I've scarcely met him. No practice."

"He's easy. Very nearly like a normal person." Adler's head whips round. I swear, a little strand of hair falls by her face, she turns so quickly. It gets in her wide, startled eye and she remembers to put it away. She's flapping for the words to express herself. I shake my head, let her know it's okay, "Don't even start; I know."

"I mean, I've seen it on the blog," she gabbles, "But I always assumed that was just how careful he was being, that it was some sort of a front. He's not really so…" In a hush, like a dirty word, "Bland, is he?"

No. Bland's not the word. John's got hidden depths. And he's very in control of himself, so not a lot of that shows. There's a rage there, and competence, and an intelligence which, amongst the masses, would be more than enough to mark him out. He's very strong and, which I have learned to value above so much else, loyal as a bloodhound. No, certainly, he's not bland, not in human terms. But the harsh reality is, we're not living in the ordinary human world. And here, in the next circle, Doctor Watson is hideously outclassed.

We're all mad here. And even silly human madnesses, PTSD and the like, that doesn't really count.

So while I understand the potential, and that there are worse people Sherlock could have pinned his sentimental heart to, the realist in me just can't accept him, not in earnest. Irene, however, doesn't need to know all this. She'll come to her own conclusions, in her own time, and even those won't matter. To her I say, "I wouldn't lead with the word bland when you meet him again, alright? Play the boyfriend angle. That always gets a rise out of him."

"Bit cheap, isn't it?"

"Then don't take it so literally. He won't."

"What do I even tell him? We don't want the phone back yet, do we?" I like that. I like 'we'. It's been a while since I was in a job where there was a 'we'. I like 'yet', because it proves she's come to terms with the extended timeframe. Maybe that was the day she was bugged; all that business about 'getting it done right'. Irene's grave-filler was always a wonderful saleswoman. Most of all, though, I like her understanding of what has to happen.

"We don't want it back yet, but that doesn't matter. If you walk in there, and you say everything in a cool, imperious voice which appears to be hiding deep pain-"

"-No pressure."

"Oh, you'll be fine. Do that, and you could stand there and tell him the word for word lyrics of your favourite Bowie song, and he'll be none the wiser. Nobody will be listening to syllable-one, because you'll be freshly risen from the dead. Speaking of mindless zombies, do you have somebody, preferably a woman, classy sort, to do the pick up?"

"Don't you?"

Oh, that's the other thing. Might not have mentioned this; Adler doesn't know who's currently six-feet beneath the stone with her name on it. She doesn't need to. We're not going into that.

"You ever try and get a classy sort to work a bank holiday? I have to pay double-time or give a day in lieu. I just thought, with your leverage-"

"Leave it to me."

"I can get you a driver, no problem, but I want her to look the P.A. type. Mycroft's always picking him up out of the blue. Make him think this is that, keep him on his toes. He'll bitch about it, but he'll go, no suspicion, and then you're a complete surprise."

She shrugs, "I suppose if he faints it really doesn't matter what I say."

Oh, God, I'd love him to faint. I would love that. She could pick whatever city she wanted for dinner if she gets him to faint. And between surprise, and blinding rage, and the urge to punch her, and the tension between wanting to punch a woman and a lifetime of training otherwise, oh, maybe we can just overload him and he'll be out like a light. I would live off that moment for long, blissful weeks, if me and her could get John Watson to faint. In my heart, I know he won't. But so long as I keep hold of that reality, where's the harm in a little bit of hope?

"We'll talk the details out later. The sort of questions, that kind of thing. Forget it for now." She's about to say something, but her stomach growls and answers for her. "Why, Irene, of course I'll make you dinner…"

There is polite English argument to follow, but again it's put off in favour of something more immediate and instinctive; this time, a mildly bemused, "You cook?"

I live alone and I like to eat well. What choice do I have?

But, and I know I've said this a few times, but I'm waiting for you to get the point, this is all just details. She doesn't need details. See, even though it's not New Year yet, I'm not going to let thirty-odd hours make the difference. What's 'New Year' anyway? It's just another day. Why wait on tradition? If I have a resolution to make I'm just going to make it and not stand about checking my watch because it's December 30th. That would just be ridiculous.

Irene doesn't need details. And I can be honest without them. Starting clean. Pure as the driven snow. New leaf, red line under what came before, water under the bridge, I'm mixing my platitudes, but that's alright. You get the picture, don't you? Just be ruthless. When a thing isn't coming back, I don't know why any right-minded person would ever wait for it, do you?

"I'm afraid of Americans," she says, after a pause.

A little baffled by the vulnerability (and the xenophobia more than anything), "Don't be."

"No. My favourite Bowie song. 'I'm Afraid Of Americans'"

"Oh. Strong, solid choice."

[For RB - just until I think of something better ;)]