And how we feel is hard to fake
So let's not give the game away
Just please don't say you love me
'Cause I might not say it back
She's working. No, she's cooking, maybe. She can't tell anymore.
Does it even matter? Her mind is elsewhere. Her knife chops obsessively, needing to be constantly doing something, cto be occupied, to have something, anything, to stop her form thinking about...them.
They're still gone, and her heart is just about ready to burst out of her chest. Something is so wrong that she cannot put her finger on it. What she does instead, is almost chop her finger off, right before the phone rings.
The sound breaks her reverie and makes her jump. She rushed to it, hoping it was news, good news. Instead, it is him.
'Sherlock,' she whispers, but she knows he isn't calling from Baker Street like she was hoping he would. No, he's calling from what she can only assume is hell, from the note in his voice. He is scared. And remembering the only times she has seen him scared before doesn't help.
He tells her what he wants and it feels like a dagger through her heart. But she is not foolish. Her emotions are clouding her judgement, but her mind is not quite obscured. She knows there must be a reason. There is urgency in his voice. And so she overcomes the hesitation in hers. She says the words she might have meant once, but not anymore. Not in the way they think, at least.
She loves Sherlock. Just not in the way they want her to, she supposes. Even if he loves her...which she truly doubts, she cannot give it back to him. She is tempted to apologize, but that's not what he needs to hear right now, when his voice sounds like it will break any moment from carrying the weight of the world. So, she reserves the apologies and explanations for later.
When he cuts off, without explanation, soon after she says it, her doubts are confirmed. She goes back to her knife.
She only heard the details later, when they come back. When she meets Sherlock and John again. But Mycroft Holmes is there too, from the sides, glaring at her like she has committed a crime she does not know of.
She learns that he does, in fact, think her suspicious in some way, when she is detained by government officials later that evening. She is certain it is his doing, because she doesn't know any other man with enough power or motive.
She trembles a little in the cold basement where she is tied up, but her face is firm. She is not scared. She refuses to be. She has won her life against a whole country of wizards. She will not cave to one man, no matter how powerful he may be.
She hears footsteps. Firm, determined. She knows who they belong to. She also knows who they remind her of. She pushes him, out of her mind and looks up, to face Mycroft Holmes, standing on the other side of the small table between them.
Notes: Yes, I have been neglecting my writing forever. But here it is, a chapter that finally needed to be done. Apologies to anyone that might be actually following this story. The rest of this fic will be post canon, so hopefully a more regular update? (Original found at: .net(slash)s/11953837/1/Irises )
The song lyrics at the beginning are from Gabrielle Aplin's "Please Don't Say You Love Me".