Breakthrough
When Lily woke up, she was in a hospital bed in a room empty except for John Watson, who sat reading a newspaper, his fingers gripping the page so tightly that his knuckles were white and the edges of the paper were tearing. How he was reading it by the dim gray light from the window, she had no idea, but there he sat. She coughed, clearing her throat and looking around for water. The IV in her arm itched at the port and her head ached and swam.
"John?"
Her voice was hoarse and raspy but Dr. Watson dropped the newspaper and was at her side in a moment.
"What do you remember?"
He helped her sip water and looked expectantly at her.
"Irene and Sherlock for dinner at club. You and Mary too. Stayed with Toby...there was a documentary on for him...I don't...I don't remember. What happened?"
"There was belladonna in the tea, they think. You have all the symptoms of anticholinergic poisoning."
John bit his lip and looked at her.
"Someone tried to take Toby. Sherlock thinks that this was purposeful."
"Toby? Is he all right?" She motioned for more water.
"They got home and found you on the floor in the kitchen, the dog going mad despite the fact that it looks like the man kicked him half to death, and Toby gone. Sherlock took one look at the scene and dashed off. Found Toby within a few hours, completely unharmed but scared out of his mind."
"He's all right?"
"He's fine. And they took Pan to a vet as well. Bastard cracked his ribs but Sherlock said that the little guy got a few good bites in. Bits of trouser leg that Pan tore off apparently sped up locating Toby significantly."
"Irene? Sherlock?"
"Fine. It's the most frightened I've seen Sherlock since Baskervilles though. They called me to meet you here and I didn't get the full explanation until after I'd gotten you seen and in a private, locked portion of the hospital. Met Sherlock and Irene to help with the case, though I really just hailed cabs and came with my pistol in case of trouble. The two of them...my God, it was like watching wolves hunt. You wouldn't believe it."
"Pan?"
"With the vet for a bit to make sure his ribs set properly. He's lucky they didn't puncture anything."
"Am I all right?"
"Nearly. They pumped your stomach, treated you with intravenous physostigmine, gave you some charcoal. You certainly gave everyone a fright though. When you came in, they said your heartbeat was in the 120s and you were running a high fever in addition to the hallucinations, dilated pupils, and dry skin and mouth."
Lily nodded and motioned again for the water glass, which John helped her with.
"You're going to be in here at least another day for observation. This is the first case of Belladonna poisoning this severe in quite a bit so they want to be sure you're completely all right before you head off anywhere."
She nodded again.
"Where are they?"
"Sherlock, Irene, and Toby? Probably asleep. They found you maybe around ten, recovered Toby by three or four in the morning, and it's nearly six in the morning now."
"Why are you here?"
"They needed some time with their son and Irene wanted to be sure you were all right."
When Lily yawned, he smiled.
"Go on to sleep; your body needs the rest to finish sorting itself out. Toby will want to see you when he's up again. The only way Sherlock and Irene got him to go back to the flat in the first place was to send him a picture of you sleeping here."
"They're at Sherlock's flat?"
"The house hasn't been de-crime-scened yet."
She was still nodding when she fell asleep.
Bouncing on the edge of her bed woke her up and when Lily opened her eyes, she saw Toby, looking a bit tired and jittery, bouncing on the edge of her hospital bed. Noticing that her eyes were open, he scrambled over the mountains and valleys that her legs made under the blankets and sat on her stomach, signing frantically at her.
"Yes, I'm all right. Perfectly all right," she didn't even notice that she had dropped into French in her rush to calm and reassure her charge.
"Toby, look, I'm all here. They're just looking at me a bit more, all right little one? Are you all right?"
His fingers halted and he looked hesitantly back at his parents.
"He hasn't talked about it except to ask about you and Pan," Irene explained.
Returning his attention to his nanny, Toby sat as Lily reassured him gently.
"Shhh, sweetheart it's all right. I'm fine and Pan is fine and your Mummy and Daddy came to get you just like I said they would if anything ever happened. I'm sorry that the awful man took you."
Man umbrella. Man wagon. Man rain.
Lily thought hard, her memory still fuzzy.
"He took you in a wagon?"
Lily Toby Pan, flowers, rain, umbrella. Sad man. Trip.
"He was sad?"
Share umbrella with Lily.
"Do you mean the man that ran into us on our way to Iris's?"
"That would explain how he got the key," Irene said softly.
"He took my keys?"
"It was poorly planned and poorly executed. He failed to take many variables into account. We think he was looking for a ransom."
"Not now please," Irene reminded the detective softly, glancing at their son. Sherlock flinched and nodded at Irene as Toby turned to peer curiously at them.
"We told you she was all right," Sherlock told his son.
Toby shrugged, turning back to his nanny and sitting with her for a while until his parents told him it was time to go have lunch and they could bring Lily flowers or something later. Pressing a sloppily childish kiss to his nanny's cheek, Toby half climbed and half fell off the hospital bed and rushed back to his parents.
The wind was sharply icy on Irene's cheek and it tugged at her scarf and hair as she stepped into the open courtyard next to the coffee shop, boutique, and small shoe store. Marietta was walking through the courtyard from the parking lot ahead of her and she slipped into the coffee shop which was fairly packed with Canadians waiting patiently in the coffee line. After she herself slipped in, she tapped Marietta's shoulder.
"Hello Marietta."
The other woman must have recognized her voice because she whipped around, hand at her hip. A few people turned to look and Marietta smiled placidly at them until they turned away.
"Ms. Adler."
"Before you get alarmed, I come bearing gifts."
"What could you possibly have to offer?"
"Sherlock Holmes on a silver platter."
"Trickery suits you, Ms. Adler."
"I'll buy you a coffee and let me explain."
Marietta looked suspicious but she nodded.
Half an hour later she was sipping coffee and nodding slowly as Irene laid out her scheme: her seduction of Sherlock Holmes after her discovery that he was alive and trying to eliminate Moriarty's network (herself included). She told her how the inexperienced fumbling man came to trust her and how she had discovered that his attempts to connect with others was his weakness and had managed that weakness with her usual skill.
"Why come to me?"
Irene smiled, predatory and dangerous.
"I took offense to the fact that he killed our employer and further offense to that he tried to kill me. So I brought him to someone who would make him suffer."
"And I'm just meant to believe you without thinking?"
"Let me prove it to you."
"Go on."
"He's taking me to dinner tonight at six. Come watch us and tell me I don't have him wrapped around my finger."
"Where."
Irene named a restaurant and Marietta nodded before rising, offering Irene her hand.
"I look forward to seeing this."
Chuckling, as they shook hands, Irene murmured,
"And I'll enjoy you seeing it."
When she returned to Sherlock after the meeting, they spent the rest of the day playing their roles, sure that they were being observed; after the sun began to lower, they dressed for dinner and went out, Sherlock pretended to be blindly entranced with Irene and she lead the game in the restaurant and winked ever so subtly at Marietta as she slipped past her table on the way to the ladies' room. Though they both knew that they were putting on a show, the facade itched at Irene even more than it did Sherlock. He knew he was only playing at his fawning adoration whereas Irene hated seeing him hobbled to something less than he was, even if he was only performing it for their target. Watching him this way was like watching a falcon hooded or forcing a professional musician to do scales over and over, limiting his or her brilliance.
Back at the hotel, Irene showered alone, rinsing the discomfort from her skin. Upon exiting the bathroom, Sherlock looked up from his stare into blank space.
"You're upset. Why."
"That was disgusting."
"I thought the food was acceptable. I was surprised, but pleasantly so."
"Not the food, the situation."
"We were convincing, I think."
"You were just," she shuddered, making a face. "I didn't enjoy it in the least."
"I thought you enjoyed being in charge, Ms. Adler."
He smirked as he said it and she ignored his tone.
"I enjoy actually being in charge. It was like instructing a drunk teenager."
"I was the happily complying lover, entranced by the new found sensations he's been introduced to."
"You were a drooling idiot."
"That was rather the point."
She shuddered again.
"I never thought I'd say this, but I missed the arrogant brilliance."
"Naturally. I do not challenge you in the role I had to play."
"Challenge?"
"Do use your brain Irene. Half of our working relationship is because our intelligences balance and compliment each other. Without the balance, it's just a lecture that no one understands. Congratulations; you now know how it feels to be me every day."
The last sentence was tinged with heavy sarcasm which Irene's mouth twitched at, amused.
"I'm sorry we all bore you."
"They," Sherlock corrected idly and then blanched, realizing what he had admitted.
"Excuse me?"
It would be admitting that he had erred to correct himself so hating himself for it, he repeated his words as coolly as he could, pretending they weren't an admission, pretending that they didn't mean anything.
"They, Ms. Adler. They all bore me."
"Thank you."
He dipped his head, acknowledging the thanks but not verbally responding to it, unsure of what to say.
"They bore me as well, Mr. Holmes."
"People are predictable little creatures, aren't they?"
She chuckled.
"What do you plan to do with what time we have?"
"It depends entirely on whether or not she's watching."
"I'd assume she is."
"Cameras?"
"Outside the window. No sound. I took a few precautions before we departed this evening."
"So we can eliminate that threat by closing the blinds?"
"We could convince her of my control over you a bit more."
"I hardly think that necessary."
Irene shrugged before letting her towel slip off her breasts and fall to the floor, smiling at him as she lowered the blinds, pulling the room-darkening curtains shut.
"Apparently you think it necessary."
Cocking her head to one side, Irene replied in mocking mimicry of his voice,
"Obviously."
He scowled as she pulled on knickers and picked a shirt up from the floor, pulling it on and doing up the buttons.
"If she's not watching, and she can't hear how will she know?"
"Imagination, Mr. Holmes, is ever so much more powerful than any of the other organs."
"Imagination is not an organ."
"Get onto the bed."
"What for?"
"Because I said so, because you can think just as easily there, because when I turn the lights off I'll be able to get back to the bed without worrying about tripping over your legs, take your pick."
More to avoid argument than anything else, he climbed onto the bed and waited to feel her weight next to him.
"Do you intend to seduce me, Ms. Adler?"
"I certainly don't intend to bore you."
He did not ask what she did intend, merely waited for her to let him in on the joke.
When she spoke again, it was not what she expected.
"Impress a girl, Sherlock. Find Marietta in the restaurant. Deduce for me."
She could not see him smile but she knew that he did, in his own way.
"Certainly, Irene."
And letting images flicker across his mind's eye, he dissected their evening together aloud. Every move, every expression. He translated what Marietta thought, what the waiter had for lunch, who the man a table over was having an affair with and why. And it was far better than any evenings he'd shared with her thus far, allowing her to contribute her own observations, to trade deductions, to challenge and counter his declarations.
Half asleep after they had finished speaking, Sherlock kicked off his trousers, undid uncomfortable buttons and ties, and slept in nothing but his boxers (in Sherlock's) and remaining in the shirt she had pulled from the floor (in Irene's case). Somewhere in the twilight time in the brain right between falling asleep and truly being asleep, one of them (both thinking it was the other) reached out across the bed and their hands passed each other, fingers resting on the wrist of their companion.
Toby did indeed bring flowers when he came back, a mixed bunch of them that he was clearly very proud of (his dandelions and last sad wilting English rose nestled between the store-bought flowers all wrapped in a yellow ribbon) and Lily of course fawned over the gift, picking out the rose to sniff, praising him for finding one despite the weather and commenting on its lovely color. After appreciating his flowers, telling a few stories, and asking him to please look after Pan and make sure he didn't get any nightmares without Lily, the small boy was escorted out by John, who had stopped by, leaving Lily alone with her employers.
She looked a bit disheartened as she took a breath and opened her mouth but Sherlock interrupted her.
"No, for God's sake you're not being sacked."
"But."
"Capable as you are with Toby, we couldn't expect you to be as observant as Irene or I would be, or as clever. You could have done better, but as far as I am concerned, you've done no worse than any other ordinary person would."
"Um...thank you?"
Irene smiled sympathetically at Lily, whom had become more accustomed to Sherlock's way of speaking over the past two years, but still (it seemed) not accustomed enough to not be startled by it.
"Don't mind him. What we need to discuss are a few procedures we'll be implementing in the house. A security access code for one, as well as replacing the glass in the doors and windows with bulletproof glass."
"Is that necessary?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not, but it is a good precaution to take."
"Anything else?"
"Security camera by the front door, allow Mycroft to dispatch a search every now and again of anyone who would mean ill towards Tobias or you." Sherlock felt the need to contribute, sneering when he came to his brother's name.
"So..."
"We'll be keeping you up to date. And I feel that you would benefit from some sort of self-defense course at the very least. And to not let others handle your food. And to perhaps invest in some basic chemical equipment to examine possible harmful contents of your foods."
"What Sherlock means to say is that you're not sacked, we'll keep you in the loop, and we hope that you'll get better soon. And we'll look after Pan if he gets out before you."
"What?" Sherlock demanded, but Irene shot him a smile that was more of a snarl and he bit his tongue, face turning slightly pink at the effort to not say anything.
"We'll be by to visit again tomorrow. If you need anything, ask John. He knows most of the staff here."
Irene lead Sherlock out the door and as soon as it swung shut, Lily heard Sherlock's crisp voice demanding to know why they were in charge of the dog. It became louder as John Watson returned to the room.
"I did warn you that they would be a handful when Toby was born."
Lily nodded and leaned back onto her pillows.
"It's certainly been an adventure."
"It's not over yet," John reminded her and she smiled sleepily as she closed her eyes for a moment.
"No, it's not."