Making good on Charlotte's prediction, she and Sherlock were up all night. They had been unable to get enough, rediscovering each other until sunlight began to creep in between the curtains shrouding Charlotte's bedroom. When they finally succumbed to rest it was the exhausted, dreamless, sound sort of sleep that hangs over the entire room.
Charlotte awoke to the sound of distant whistling, emanating from some far-off dreamscape. As she came out of her deep sleep, she felt for Sherlock beside her. Last she remembered, she had fallen asleep in his arms. Opening her eyes, she found that he wasn't in bed at all. She propped herself up on her elbows and sighed out groggily, realizing she should have figured it would be like this—after all, it always had been.
That was when the whistling got louder and she realized it hadn't been in her dream at all—it was her kettle. She smiled to herself and climbed out of bed, noting the sore muscles and aching parts of her body after the previous night's activities. She crept toward the kitchen on tiptoe, peering around the corner.
"I know you're there," Sherlock said, not looking up from whatever he was doing. "But I'm going to pretend I don't so you have a chance to hop back into bed."
Charlotte grinned and scampered back toward her room, leaping onto her bed and quickly pulling the covers over herself. Sherlock followed close behind, a steaming mug in one hand and a plate in the other. He walked over to her side of the bed and bent to kiss her forehead, setting the mug down on her nightstand as he did so. He then offered her the plate.
"Breakfast in bed?" Charlotte questioned, grinning ear to ear as she accepted it.
"Breakfast in bed," Sherlock echoed, stooping more fully to kiss her mouth.
Charlotte kissed him back, eyes fluttering shut. When they pulled apart, she glanced down at her plate.
"My know-how in the kitchen is lacking, to say the least," Sherlock admitted openly. "But I know how to butter a piece of toast and fry a sunny egg."
"Sorry I didn't have much to work with in way of ingredients," Charlotte responded understandingly. "I haven't been to the shops yet for the week."
"Quite all right," Sherlock rolled carefully into bed beside her, patting her thigh as he lay there. "I wouldn't have known what to do with it, anyway."
"No breakfast for yourself?" Charlotte questioned, looking down at him as she bit into her toast.
Sherlock smiled. "You only had one piece of bread and one egg," he told her.
Charlotte chuckled. "Wow, you really had to make sure you got it right the first time then," she teased. She moved the plate in her lap so it was closer to him. "We can share, if you like."
"It's all right," Sherlock assured her, gazing up at her with his blue eyes.
"Well, you should at least have my tea," Charlotte told him, reaching over to her nightstand and handing the steaming mug over to him.
Sherlock grimaced as he sat up in bed to accept it. "I remembered after I'd made it that you're a coffee person," he confessed. "But I think we should both be grateful I didn't tamper with the coffee maker."
Charlotte smiled over at him, completely smitten. She chewed on her mouthful of toast. "I thought you'd gone," she told him in a soft voice.
Sherlock looked over at her, knowing exactly what she meant without having to ask. "The other times we spent the night together, it was a necessity," he reminded her. He silently wrapped his free hand around hers, intertwining their fingers. "When I imagined what it would be like to stay with you, it always seemed too good to be true."
"Well?" Charlotte wondered. "Did it live up to your wildest expectations?"
"Absolutely," Sherlock responded, leaning down to kiss her bare shoulder and letting his lips rest there, brushing her skin as he spoke. "Better, actually."
Charlotte laughed, the sound more like an amused sigh.
"I missed you," Sherlock stated, his voice both heavy and hushed. He let the statement hang there, suspended.
"And not just this part of you," he continued, his head still on her shoulder. "I remember the day you could stand to be in the same room as me again felt like a bloody holiday."
He glanced up tentatively, as if afraid she had disappeared while he was talking. He watched as she stared back, unspeaking, her lips arcing into a blissful smile.
"I missed you, too," Charlotte admitted, shaking her head as she said it. "Against my better judgment, I did." She chuckled gently, in an almost teasing sort of way.
Sherlock sat up, placing his mug on the nightstand in order to use both hands to take her face. He kissed her long and deeply, soft gusts of breath drawing in and out of his nose as he refused to let his lips leave hers.
Charlotte set her plate blindly on the nightstand, shoving it clumsily with her palm to make sure it was secure before rolling on top of Sherlock. Their kiss continued as she straddled him, feeling his warm hands trace her ribcage, her hips, her buttocks.
When his hands caressed her inner thighs and then ventured further inward, she recoiled slightly. He retracted his touch, glancing up at her in confusion. "I'm sorry," he uttered. "Did I…?"
Charlotte shook her head. "It wasn't you. But I think it's a no-go this morning," she told him, grimacing in disappointment. "Even marathon runners need recovery time."
Sherlock's eyebrows lifted. "Does it…hurt when I touch you?"
Charlotte nodded, but not in complete commitment. "I don't think anything would be excruciating, but I do not think it would be pleasant, either."
"Ah," Sherlock responded. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rolled over onto his side, taking her with him. He held her tightly and breathed in the scent of her hair. "This will do just fine," he murmured. "I'm a bit knackered, to tell you the truth."
Charlotte ran her fingers over the fine hairs that lined his arms, her back to him. "I thought you had no limit," she joked. "I thought you were about to ask for more last night—next thing I knew, you were snoring."
"Did I fall asleep first?" Sherlock asked, genuinely surprised. He supposed his head had been so clouded with endorphins, his memories were hazy.
"Yes, you did," Charlotte answered, softly snickering.
Sherlock sighed out peacefully and let his eyes flutter shut, basking in the moment. A few silent seconds passed before he spoke again. "I had a chat with Mycroft," he told her.
Charlotte made a face. "I think I'd like to put a ban on talk of your brother while we're in bed," she responded.
"I'll be brief," Sherlock reassured her, smiling to himself. "I asked him why he hadn't told me about your teas."
"Mmm?" Charlotte requested, wanting him to continue.
"Turns out, he purposefully held back as much information about you as possible while I was gone," Sherlock explained. "He told me only as much as he needed to—general bits of information some light surveillance would catch."
"Are you saying your brother implied he had me surveilled and that didn't concern you?" Charlotte wondered.
"Charlotte, my brother has more people under surveillance than you would believe," Sherlock told her. "It's hardly a compliment or reason for concern."
"Go on," Charlotte invited, still not entirely comfortable with the notion.
"He worried that if he told me too much that I might be tempted to return before my mission was complete," Sherlock continued.
"Was he right to worry?" Charlotte wondered.
Sherlock grew quiet, potentially mulling over her question, or perhaps deciding how detailed he should get. "Yes," he answered after a beat. "I thought of you nonstop in the beginning. We had left things so…"
"Open-ended?" Charlotte completed his thought.
Sherlock hummed in the affirmative. "There was part of me that wanted to wait a few weeks at most before returning," he admitted. "But my brother reasoned me out of it—insisted that none of you would be safe until all of Moriarty's network were taken out."
"Did you believe that?" Charlotte wondered. "That they wouldn't be safe until you had gotten every last one of Moriarty's people?"
"Eventually, I came around to my brother's way of thinking," Sherlock confirmed. "And that's what kept me going all those months. It was the idea that I was keeping you all out of harm's way…" His voice drifted off toward the end, as if his mind was onto something else entirely.
"Why do you keep saying 'they?'" he questioned, sounding like it was something that had been on his mind. "—'that 'they' wouldn't be safe'—" He repeated.
"Dunno," Charlotte responded, grateful she was facing away from him so he couldn't read her expression. "Slip of the tongue, I guess. Of course I mean 'we.'"
"But you said it before, too," Sherlock stated, recalling the only other time they had had words about his disappearance—that day in her office. "You said 'hits on their lives,'" he recited, as if the conversation had happened moments before, not almost a year prior.
"Maybe I was speaking in the third person?" Charlotte tried, trying her best to sound nonchalant. "Sherlock, I don't know. Why does it matter?"
"There's something you're not telling me," Sherlock said, removing his arms from around her and sitting up. "Why?"
Charlotte sat up too, looking at him squarely. "Sherlock," she said placatingly, her brow knitted. "Why are you so stuck on this?"
"Why are you evading me?" Sherlock demanded softly, looking both hurt and frustrated. "You're hiding something."
"I'm entitled to my secrets," Charlotte replied levelly.
Sherlock looked taken aback. "So, you admit it. You're keeping something from me."
"How can I keep anything from you when you're…you?" Charlotte wondered exasperatedly. "You can deduce it right out of me. It's not…"
"Fair?" Sherlock questioned, raising his eyebrows in astonishment.
"Can't you just trust me enough to believe it's something you don't want to know?" Charlotte asked, gazing at him steadily. "Can you trust that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things?"
"If it doesn't matter, why keep it from me at all?" Sherlock countered.
"You don't want to know," Charlotte stated more strongly.
"Of course I want to know," Sherlock pressed. "Knowledge is all I can rely on. It's the barrier between me and—"
"Other people?" Charlotte interjected.
"Precisely," Sherlock responded, as if it were obvious.
Charlotte looked up at him, meeting his eyes. "What have I done to be so undeserving of your trust?" she questioned.
"Charlotte, I do trust you," Sherlock responded, looking shocked that she would think otherwise. "I-I've told you that before, I—"
"Then why didn't you trust me enough to keep your secret?" Charlotte demanded. "Why did Molly Hooper and your brother get that privilege, but I didn't?"
Sherlock gaped at her, not having expected the subject to be breached that morning. After all, it had been nearly a year and they hadn't spoken about it once.
"Is it just sex?" Charlotte questioned, glaring Sherlock down for an answer. "Is that all I'm good for or just all you trust me to be good at?"
"That is not it," Sherlock contradicted firmly. "You know that's not it."
"I thought I did," Charlotte admitted, shaking her head. "But it's hard to feel like you meant anything to someone who left you behind." Tears budded in the corners of her eyes. "God, maybe I was wrong to think I was ready for this," she uttered, covering her eyes.
"Charlotte, please," Sherlock pleaded, desperate. He gripped her shoulders gently as he looked down into her face. "Tell me everything you're thinking. Everything you've ever wanted to say to me. I-I promise I'll withstand anything, as long as it means I don't have to be without you again."
"You never had to be without me, in the first place," Charlotte rasped, meeting his eyes with a sad gaze. "I understand that the people you loved were in danger, but you chose to keep most of us in the dark."
"I…" Sherlock stared down at her, blinking. "I have no defense," he confessed. "I did choose—and I chose wrong. I'm sorry."
Charlotte nodded and glanced away, swallowing hard. "For months I was strapped with guilt," she admitted in a near-whisper. "I thought I could have stopped you from doing it; that I could have helped if you were certain I wouldn't be in danger."
Sherlock was no longer following. "What do you mean?" he questioned. "You were in danger like everyone else. Moriarty had assassins—"
Charlotte shook her head, cutting him off. "There was never a hit on me," she confessed. "Moriarty needed me alive." She looked up at him to let him know she was serious. "That's why I say 'they,' not 'we.'"
"How could you possibly know that?" Sherlock asked, furrowing his brow.
"Moriarty visited Baker Street the night before everything happened—before you faked your death," Charlotte replied defeatedly, finding no point in hiding it anymore. "You and John were on the run from Scotland Yard."
Sherlock was stunned into silence, his blinking the only sign of life. "What happened?" he asked.
"We sat in Mrs. Hudson's kitchen and talked," Charlotte answered.
"What about?" Sherlock wondered, narrowing his eyes slightly.
"You know how he is. He talks on and on about himself and it's your job to decipher what he actually meant by any of it." Charlotte shook her head, still remembering their conversation vividly. "I ended up figuring it out in the end—he wanted me to commemorate him after he was gone.
"He needed me," Charlotte went on. "He needed someone to reveal his master plan after it was all said and done. He wouldn't let himself die without ensuring everyone would know how smart he was." She snorted softly in disdain. "That's how I knew he wouldn't try to have me killed."
"So, your thesis…" Sherlock said, his brow knit as he looked at her—as if he were appraising a stranger.
"It wasn't for him," Charlotte asserted, realizing only after she said it how defensive it sounded. "It was always meant to vindicate you. I think he fully expected both of you to die at St. Bart's that day. He knew I couldn't write about one of you without writing about the other—I was trapped."
"Trapped," Sherlock sniffed, slightly disbelieving. "How could anyone in your field pass up the opportunity to be James Moriarty's ghost writer?"
"The work was mine," Charlotte defended, growing vexed. "I did all the research, drew all the conclusions for myself. What he left me was breadcrumbs, Sherlock. Not a manuscript."
"Breadcrumbs," Sherlock snorted, reminded of one of Moriarty's last ensnarements.
"That's not what I—it's just a phrase, Sherlock," Charlotte responded, exasperated. "And don't talk about 'my field' like it's some bad word. Like because I'm a psychologist I'm somehow more fanatical about James Moriarty than you are."
"Fanatical?" Sherlock scoffed. "He was a worthy adversary, but do remember he tried to force me to kill myself." He glowered at her.
"And you loved it all, up until that point," Charlotte said, seeing straight through him. "The thrill it gave you to crack his latest puzzle, to foil his elaborate schemes." She shook her head. "He was a break in the mundane, something unsolvable—how could someone like you not be drawn to someone like him?"
Sherlock looked unable to handle what she was saying. "What are you trying to say?" he asked.
"I'm trying to say it's unfair for you to treat me like I sold out," Charlotte told him. "To act like it should have been easy for me to turn down his proposition."
"It's why you didn't want to tell me, isn't it?" Sherlock questioned. "You didn't want me to know that the paper you claim was written to vindicate me was actually all based on some sick infatuation with the madman who put you up to it."
"Wow," Charlotte said, her eyebrows flagging. She stepped back and away from him, headed toward the bathroom.
She turned back to look at him as she stood in the doorway. "I didn't want to tell you because I thought it might hurt you in some way. I didn't want you to feel conspired against. I never considered that you would resent me for trying to further my career. That's why you used to say we couldn't be together, wasn't it?"
She paused, letting out a gust of breath. "Maybe we're better at this." She gestured haphazardly toward the bed. "Sleeping together and keeping it at that. If this is what happens when we're still here in the morning…" She shook her head. "I just don't know how that's ever going to work."
"Charlotte—"
"I need some time," Charlotte cut him off. She retreated into the bathroom and closed the door.
Sherlock heard the water go on and he swallowed past the dryness in his throat. Deflated, he began to collect his clothes off the floor of Charlotte's room.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey ya'll. This one's a little on the shorter side, but there's a lot to delve into here. Let me know what you think! xx
