The seconds ticked by, and still Irene did not speak. She was looking down at the ground, her face set into a look that was obviously meant to give nothing away, but occasionally her eyes would flick first to Sherlock and then back to John. Sherlock watched her calmly, not giving any indication that he was keeping the phone on him. Not that Irene would have been able to do anything even if she knew, but he wouldn't have put anything past her. He was making it a point to keep a fair distance between her and them as it was, just to make absolutely certain that she never got close enough to use another one of her syringes.
And finally, Irene said, "I can't."
"You can't," John said, a thin wrinkle appearing between his eyes. "Or you won't?"
Irene folded her arms and the jacket pulled tight against her body, outlining all of her curves. It was a deliberate move that might have won her favour elsewhere. "You were right," she said, and it sounded like it pained her to admit that. "Not long after the police took Kate to the hospital, she disappeared. They didn't search very long." Her mouth twisted bitterly, and she visibly tightened her grip on her arms to the point where it had to hurt. "Not that they would have found her even if they had. Moriarty has spies all over this city, a web all over the world. I... have no idea where she's ended up. I can't even tell if she's in London, because our link has gone silent. I haven't heard anything from her in days. Either she's too far away or he's suppressing it with drugs."
There was a third option, one that was the veritable elephant in the room, but Sherlock did not need John's warning glance to know that bringing it up was not the way to get Irene to cooperate. "What does he want from you? The phone?"
"No. Small stuff like that is of no interest to someone like Moriarty," Irene replied with a thin smile. "I suspect that he already knows most of what's on there, and probably has better proof than I do." She paused before sighing heavily. "I thought - we'd always discussed that there was a chance we might end up in prison someday, even though I was the one who was doing the blackmailing. But as my bonded, of course she would be considered an accomplice." She rolled her eyes. "There was a plan for what we would do if that ever happened. She was supposed to - I didn't anticipate that Moriarty was going to interfere."
"So what were you trying to do with the phone? Were you really going to leave?" John looked astonished at the idea. Sherlock couldn't help being pleased by that.
"No!" Irene's denial was a good deal more vehement this time. "I told you, that's not it at all. I need that phone. Moriarty is the most dangerous man out there, that's true. But he's not the only one who'd like to string me up. There are a lot of people who aren't too pleased with me, and the only thing keeping them at bay is the fact that I could potentially go to the press with my information at any time. If they realize that I don't have that threat to hold on them -"
"You'll be killed, and Moriarty will be free to do what he wants with your mate," Sherlock filled in, realizing that the situation was not as interesting as he'd hoped. Of course, there was always the chance that Irene wasn't telling the truth. She'd proven once before that she was adept at lying and concealing the truth, so there was a possibility that Moriarty actually did want the contents of the phone and that he was holding Kate ransom until Irene got it back. There was no way to tell. It did not upset him as much as he might have thought.
"Exactly. So give it back." She held out a hand.
Sherlock snorted. "Not a chance."
Irene looked furious. "I need that phone!"
"And yet you sent it to me, which makes it mine. I don't feel very inclined to give it to you," he replied.
"You'll never get it open," Irene said.
He sent her a smug look in response and turned, intending to leave. "I think you'll find that there is not very much I can't do."
Sherlock, John said. He had not moved from where he was standing, and Sherlock could feel John staring at him. He fought back the urge to groan as John added, We can't just leave her here. Moriarty's trying to kill her.
I fail to see how that's my problem, Sherlock said, not even bothering to try and hide the fact that he was pretty much whining. Having Irene around would lead them to Moriarty, that was true. And Sherlock couldn't deny that another meeting with the psychopath did sound interesting. But he was also aware that having Irene around would exponentially increase the level of danger that they - John - were in. They'd got away from Moriarty once. He didn't know if the same outcome would happen a second time. For all of his curiosity, he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.
John sighed, and Sherlock could feel it: he was torn between agreeing that Sherlock had a point and feeling like he should do the right thing by Irene. "Where are you going from here?" he asked finally, because this was John and he always had to do the right thing. It never ceased to be annoying.
She was standing tense, likely glaring at the back of Sherlock's head, but she answered John readily enough. "I'll have to disappear again," she said, short and unhappy. "Without the phone, I don't dare give the people looking for me the chance to find me."
"You can't be too concerned," Sherlock said. He'd been looking at the wall, but now he pivoted to face her. Just as he'd thought, she was glaring at him. It was oddly thrilling. "After all, you've taken the time to bring John here even though you knew he didn't have the phone. And you've spun us this little tale, quite heart-warming I'm sure," he deliberately made his voice mocking, "but you've failed to tell us the most important part. Moriarty wants something from you, a trade that he considers worthy of your bonded. You've skirted the issue thus far, pretended that it doesn't matter. What is it? What does he want?"
There was a very long moment of silence, so long that he thought maybe she wasn't going to answer him at all. Her face shifted into an expression he couldn't identify, and at last she said, very quietly, "You. In the end, what it comes down to is that he wants you."
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