A/N: Okay, so consider this a warning. This is an emotional one. I won't say more at this point.
Sherlock returned a year later for Adele's fifth birthday. The previous year had gone very well for Sherlock, who had successfully taken out the last member of Moriarty's web. Things were finally settling out in that regard, which Sherlock was relieved about. In fact, he felt comfortable enough with the situation that he had started to lightly investigate potential cities for Irene and Adele to relocate to within Europe.
John and Mary had begun to view Sherlock as an extra parent to their kids, who were still continuing to blossom under Sherlock's informal tutelage. Alex had been tested in school, and as it turned out, he was an entire year ahead of his peers. Isabel had begun speaking in full sentences, starting to comprehend what Sherlock was teaching her. Mary had become much warmer towards Sherlock, which finally allowed Sherlock to see what John saw in her. In fact, Mary and Sherlock became rather good friends over the course of the year.
Irene had gotten promoted at work, and was talking about possibly being relocated by her company, something that she and Sherlock had deliberated over for a week before they decided that it was too risky to have Irene relocate to some location that the company specified, rather than one that Sherlock specified. Ultimately, this was the best decision, because as it turned out, the city that Irene and Adele would have had to move to had become a security liability for the three of them.
Adele continued to thrive in school. She had become more confident in herself, and the teasing from her peers had ended. In fact, she had become so confident, she was sent home because she made a boy cry after he had consistently bullied her about her glasses. Apparently, Adele had her father's tact and her mother's sass—a deadly combination. But, it was assuring to know that their daughter could take care of herself in situations like that.
By the time October rolled around, Sherlock was anxious to get back to Darwin. He had been seeing interesting patterns within the southern Pacific region that made him uneasy. He had requested that Mycroft keep him updated on this particular region because he was certain that the patterns would come to something drastic that he would somehow end up getting involved in. Unfortunately, he didn't realize how involved he would be in the culmination of seemingly unrelated events.
Two nights after Sherlock arrived for Adele's birthday, a loud crashing noise woke Irene and Sherlock up. Irene sat up in bed as Sherlock was already out of the bed, pawing around for the gun that they kept in his nightstand. Irene quickly rifled through her nightstand for the knife that she kept in there. They walked out of their room slowly, Irene branching off to go make sure Adele was okay while Sherlock walked towards the rest of the apartment.
Sherlock froze when he saw the source of the noise, holding a gun to his daughter's head. The man grinned at Sherlock as he pulled the trigger.
The shot of the gun was muffled, but Irene's screams were not. Sherlock made no noise as he snapped forward and threw the gunman down to the ground, pulling the trigger as he slammed the gun into the gunman's chest. Irene screams subsided as she swung into action and grabbed Adele from the man, pulling her away from the man's rapidly decreasing grip.
The neighbors did the neighborly thing and called the police, who arrived to the scene ten minutes later. At this point, the world was a series of contiguous blurs and hollow noises. Irene was slumped against Sherlock, who sat stoically on the couch where he had spent many nights trying to get Adele to go to sleep, trying to get Adele dressed, trying to live his life as normally as he could.
The coroner had come to collect the bodies. The police tried to get stories out of Sherlock and Irene, but had backed down on their requests when neither Irene nor Sherlock were in any state to answer such questions.
Hours passed before either Irene or Sherlock could utter any words. It was only when Sherlock pulled out his phone and dialed some number in that either of them spoke. He brought the phone up to his ear and drew in a deep breath. "John, I'm not coming home," he informed John before hanging up on him.
Irene had left the sitting room and had retreated to their bedroom. When Sherlock found her, she was curled up in their bed, sobbing into the pillows. Sherlock crawled into bed behind her and curled around her. "I'm not going back to London," he murmured into her hair.
"It's not safe here."
"That's why I'm not leaving."
"You have to go back."
"No I don't. We'll leave Australia and go somewhere else. Get positions at embassies, become ambassadors and have diplomatic immunity."
"No one will take us," Irene sobbed.
"Mycroft has friends in high places. Someone will take us."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Someone."
Irene turned around so that she was curled up against Sherlock's chest. The demure band she wore on her left hand glinted in the early morning light as she moved her hand to tuck it under her chin. She had started wearing the ring when Adele had started asking if she and Sherlock were married and if so, why didn't she wear a ring like the other mummies. Since neither parent wanted to explain to their daughter the finer details of how she came to be, Irene just took to wearing a ring. It had been a birthday present from Sherlock, who had taken the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
As a reference to the conversation he and Irene had had on the plane from Mumbai about how he proposed to her, he had even come up with an elaborate proposal, complete with laser pointers and a series of clues. He hadn't been able to utilize the harness, but he figured that if he had, Irene wouldn't have appreciated the damage a harness would have done to the flat. Of course, this was all done with the understanding that it was not a proposal of any sort and simply a means of ensuring Adele's confidence in her home.
"What did John say?" Irene asked after a while of silence.
"He didn't say anything. I hung up on him."
"Sherlock, you should call him back."
"I'll call him later. When things have settled a little more."
They spent the next four days in that bed, listlessly staring out into space, consumed with grief. Neither of them ate, seldom did they drink, and they most certainly never considered their personal hygiene. The investigation was in full swing, and Sherlock knew that Mycroft was involved somehow because he had foolishly indicated to his brother his interest in the area. With a murder that was obviously connected to Sherlock cropping up out of nowhere, Mycroft was bound to be interested.
By the fifth day, the inactivity and all-encompassing grieving was getting to be too much. Irene rolled over to look at Sherlock, who had long lost his abilities to use facial expressions other than the one of sheer disappointment and grief. She was certain that she saw a few more wrinkles on his face than she remembered, and if she squinted, there were a few gray hairs woven through his beautiful curls. "We need to get out of this bed," she murmured as she snuggled into his shoulder.
"Why?"
"Revenge."
"Sherlock…"
"There is no reason for us to leave this bed. I have no reason to leave for London, you have no reason to leave Darwin, and we have no reason to get out of this bed."
"Sherlock, we need to get out of bed. You're starting to smell weird."
"You're one to talk," he replied quietly.
She knew that he was trying to be a little lighter-hearted, trying to contrast the previous days. But it was rather unconvincing, based on the deadened look in his eyes. Irene pulled away from him and slipped out of the bed. She padded into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Sherlock stared up at the ceiling, hoping for some sort of an answer, something that would help him figure out who would want to kill Adele.
When Irene came out of the bathroom, having showered and brushed her teeth, she found Sherlock had left the room. "Sherlock?" she called out into the flat.
She walked out of the bedroom and saw that he was in the living room, sitting at his usual spot, staring at the faded spot of blood. "Sherlock," she sighed before sitting down next to him. "Call John."
"And tell him what? Tell him that the daughter he didn't know I had was murdered?"
"Tell him you're coming back to London."
"I'm not going back to London."
"You need to go back to London."
"Why?"
"Because there's nothing left here for you."
He blinked and turned his head to look at Irene. For so long, there had been something, multiple reasons, to keep him from London. The only reason to stay now was urging him to leave. "That's not necessarily true."
"Sherlock, you stayed because of Addie. And believe me: that is noble in itself. But if you're staying just because of me…"
"They'll kill you too."
"Then let them. Don't let Addie's death be in vain. Don't stay because you feel obligated to."
"You think I feel obligated to stay here?"
"Yes."
"You're wrong."
"Why?"
"I'm not obligated to stay with you. I choose to stay with you. It's a choice. It's always been a conscious choice. John won't be around forever, but you… you might."
Sherlock Holmes would never say the words "I Love You" to anyone. Love was not in his vocabulary. But, in the time that Irene had known this inexplicable man, she had seen him demonstrate true understanding of love on a few momentous occasions: saving her from the Karachi executors and replanting her in Darwin, upholding the promise to be with her when Adele was born, the sum of the minute instances where he proved that he was capable of being a good father, and now this: refusing to leave.
"Are you sure about this?" Irene asked quietly.
"Lestrade says that I'm a great man. He told John that one time. He also said that he thought that someday I'd be a good man. Good men don't run in the face of duress. They don't run when things get hard. And right now, even if running were an option, I wouldn't even be able to stand on my own. Why the hell would I want to leave and go back to London, knowing that you were vulnerable?"
Something flicked on in Irene's brain. It hadn't been flicked on in a very long time; she figured that motherhood and domesticity had worn away at this figurative light in her brain. She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. When she pulled away, she saw that he wore a look of confusion. "You really think this is the time?" he asked her stiffly.
"Lestrade is wrong. You're not a good man. You're a fantastic man. But you're also out of your mind."
"Irene."
"Who would take us, in our faded glory?" she laughed. "The former dominatrix and the consulting detective who were supposed to be dead."
"Ireland. I was on the phone with Mycroft. He's setting up ambassadorial positions for us with the Irish embassy."
"Who did you say I was?"
"Elizabeth Jenkins."
"And you?"
"Paul Jenkins."
"Status?"
"In-flux."
She smirked. "That pretty much nails it on the forehead, doesn't it?"
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
"And when will these positions be ready for us?"
"End of the week."
"So when you told John that you weren't going back to London, you were serious, but you didn't mean that you were going to be staying in Darwin?"
"Exactly."
"If it were any other situation, I'd have you on that kitchen counter until you begged for mercy three times," she crooned.
"Ah…" he gargled unattractively.
She moved back from him. "But, I won't. Someday in the future."
His brows furrowed in consideration. "Not sure about that one."
"Darling, you have never objected to me."
"I think it was just a phase."
"Not sure about that one," she murmured as she stood up and left the room, carefully avoiding the remnants of their daughter's blood on the floor.
