Rebekah shook her head at her phone. Come quickly. – SH

Working. – RS

Then put it down for a moment and come upstairs. – SH

At the bar. –RS

Come anyway. – SH

Very well. At the end of my shift. – RS

She tucked her phone into her back pocket and looked back up for the next customer. The bar wasn't busy yet – it was still early in the night – and she was just filling in. She frowned when a familiar face came through the door and sat directly in front of her at the bar. "I'll take a whiskey sour." She nodded and set to work. "I can't say that I would have believed the gossip if I wasn't seeing you with my own eyes. To think, Rebekah Scott a bartender."

She shot him a withering look. "I tend bar, there's a difference." She slid his drink to him.

"Yes, well, you know there are certain expectations of you now…"

"To hell with them."

Peter took a slow drink. "Not bad. But all the same, there are people who expect you to take over now that he's dead."

"I'm a widow now, not his successor."

"I would be tempted to believe it… if you didn't have Sherlock Holmes on a leash."

"There's no leash that would hold that man."

He circled his finger around the pinky of the other hand. "All wrapped up around your little finger. You might be better than Moriarty at this game."

"That," she snapped, "is not the game I'm playing." She toweled off a few glasses.

"You may not have a choice. Someone has to do it. If not, everything will go to hell."

"James wouldn't allow it."

"James is dead, as you love to remind everyone." Peter lazily dragged his finger across the edge of the glass. "Is big brother watching you?"

"Of course. They have been my entire life."

He chuckled. "But now they have a reason to."

"You forget so much when it's convenient, Peter. My husband shouldn't have trusted you."

Peter held up his hands in mock surrender. "I will own up to that. But you are not your husband. You are not James." He leaned in. "You are a miraculous creature in your own right."

She rolled her eyes and took a drink order from another customer. As she shook the tumbler of shots, she thought. Peter had come here, of course, since her presence at the wedding had opened up contact. She'd done a fine job of avoiding them. Since James had died so recently, she hadn't wanted to see any of her old circles. And yet, somehow, for Sherlock's little quest, she was throwing herself headlong into it. She silently cursed him. Still, it had been inevitable.

"The old knight is on guard, too, you know."

Peter laughed. "Of course he is. He has so many sins to pay for." Peter put his glass down. "Watch it or you'll pay for them too. He's only lenient once, I hear. He missed his chance to strike back, and it grates on him." He laid down several bills. "You'll need us soon enough, I'd wager. When you find what made you come looking for me in the first place."

He winked and walked back out the way he came, like the dozens of other bar patrons. Rebekah scoffed. She didn't need his patronage or his warnings, his conspiracies or his information. She was doing just fine. She looked back at her phone. Sherlock had texted her twice more.

It's urgent. – SH

Nevermind. - SH

She ignored them and went back to work. She wanted to curse them all. Instead she pulled a Newcastle for an American tourist.