A/N: You guys are so awesome with your enthusiastic responses to my last chapter that I didn't work, eat, sleep, or look after my children or pets for an entire week just to get the next chapter out!
I may be slightly exaggerating, but I did neglect to thank each and every one of you for reviewing. I thought you may appreciate my gratitude more if I just delivered the next damn chapter quick smart.

So thank you, a thousand times. Much love! This one's for you guys!

I'll just shut up now.


Chapter 33 - You Let Me Grieve

Rose's breath caught at Sherlock's statement. He was so close to the truth, and she could almost see the hurt reflected in his eyes as they widened by degree because she had remained silent for the moment. The corners of his mouth had curved downwards, but he still maintained a steady gaze fixed on Rose.

"No," she said almost inaudibly, her voice straining under pressure. "No, I didn't," she repeated a little louder, her second attempt gaining in confidence.

"But..." Sherlock began, his brow drawn down in confusion. He was still dwelling on all of the signs that lead to him deducing that Rose once had sex with John Watson.

Rose couldn't move toward him because her guilt had paralysed her. "Let me just explain a few things."

The room immediately felt stifling to Sherlock, and he gently tugged at his scarf to loosen it.

"You were dead," Rose began, "and we were in mourning."

Sherlock thought that this statement was a horrible precursor to delivering devastating news about having it off with your lover's best friend. He loosened his scarf some more, then irritably drew it over his head, thinking to remove any restriction to his airways, for he was finding it harder and harder to breathe.

"So we got drunk," she continued.

Then had sex, Sherlock's dark thoughts added, despite Rose's initial words to the contrary. He looked away from her, tossing his scarf lightly onto the living room table.

"We had a few laughs at your expense," Rose said, nervously attempting a smile, when Sherlock glanced back at her.

And then you had sex.

"And toasted you. And for some reason we did snog a bit."

Sherlock's gaze dropped to the floor. He didn't understand this behaviour. He knew people indulged in it—making out when inebriated—but for reasons he couldn't determine, he had elevated Rose above all that. The air still felt oppressive and he sought to remove his gloves as well.

Perhaps she did it because, at that time, she saw John as her next meal ticket, he thought. Maybe she was thinking of staying in the game after all, having given away her psychology internship.

Rose drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "But we didn't—"

"At what point did you negotiate a price?" Sherlock asked, interrupting her, his voice low and rough.

Disappointment and hurt flickered across Rose's face and Sherlock immediately regretted voicing his dark thoughts.

But Rose's face hardened by degree and she lift her chin in defiance. "As I recall," she started, her voice steady and devoid of emotion, "I wasn't working as a common whore that night. You may have your nights and Johns mixed up. It was the previous week that had me dressing up as a school girl and fucking John Garvie for £500."

Rose turned toward the window and slowly moved toward it, folding her arms in front of her.

Idiot, thought Sherlock, silently chastising himself. She's already upset. Why am I making her feel worse? Sherlock sighed and said quietly, "Sorry."

Rose paused in her narrative while she reflected on that week's turn of events—leaving Cardiff to come back to London, having no money and deciding to contact the perverted Member of Parliament for a well-paid night of debauchery, wanting to pay her respects to John Watson, but having to avoid the crowd of press and fans outside the flat in Baker Street. It seemed a lifetime ago, but the emotions she felt at the time of Sherlock's supposed suicide still resonated through her.

Eventually she said, "When people suffer a loss such as this, they sometimes look for comfort or seek solace in the unlikeliest of places."

"I really don't need to hear the psycho-babble."

Rose turned to Sherlock in irritation. "Well, perhaps I need to say it!"

Their eyes met and locked before Sherlock huffed and turned away. He ran a hand through his hair, wishing Rose would just drop the subject now. He was conflicted between letting her voice her concerns and therefore supporting her in her turmoil, or shushing her so that he didn't have to hear anything that could possibly upset him.

"I think we both needed to be in the company of somebody else who knew you. It was comforting not being alone. Anyway, we ended up in John's room upstairs," she continued.

"You ended up?" Sherlock repeated in distaste. "So where did you start?"

Rose indicated the couch with a nod of her head.

Sherlock regarded the piece of furniture and wondered what the room would look like if he had the thing removed and burnt. But then he remembered lying idly on it one day, waiting to hear the verdict of the Moriarty case, and Rose had visited him, giving him a free blow job in her bid to apologise and win back his custom or something. There was a lot of history in that couch, it seemed.

"But when I came back downstairs to get my bag—"

"Your bag? For what—a condom?"

When Rose nodded, Sherlock silently kicked himself for interrupting her with his questions. It was a bad habit used to prevent clients from waffling. In hindsight, he knew he'd be better off not knowing all of the details in this particular story.

"But I decided that I couldn't go through with it," Rose continued, her voice breaking a little. "I sat down halfway up the stairs and cried."

Rose gazed past Sherlock to the stairwell, her eyes glistening, while Sherlock exercised a short vow of silence.

She had told Sherlock's ghost that she loved him, but did she really at the time? What did she know of him then? What had he done to deserve her love? There was no doubt in her mind her feelings for him now; he wasn't the same man he had been two years ago, or at least nowadays he saw and treated her differently.

Guilt and regret coursed through Sherlock's veins once more. He hadn't let her know he was alive soon enough. Because of his death, she came back to London, and thought her only option to get by was to fuck that sick pervert, then still found the decency to seek out the only other person she knew who would be affected by his suicide.

Rose pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind, and continued her recount. "When I went back up to tell John, I discovered that he'd passed out anyway."

Sherlock blinked rapidly at Rose's last few words in order to reset his curious mind. "Sorry, what?"

"John had passed out on his bed."

Sherlock arched an eyebrow, and queried, "Naked?"

"No."

Sherlock turned from Rose, for he felt an inappropriate response bubbling up inside him.

Perplexed, Rose regarded Sherlock's reaction. His back was to her, but his head was bowed and his shoulders shook lightly. When he emitted a tiny snort and turned back to face her, she realised he was quietly laughing.

"What?" she asked, wide-eyed in bewilderment.

Sherlock continued to shake with laughter, his eyes glistening with mirth. Rose failed to see what was so humorous. Eventually the hilarity was reduced to the odd chuckle, and Sherlock wiped tiny tears of laughter from his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, straightening up, and forcing a solemn expression to his face. It quickly split into a broad grin again. "No," he said, as if to chastise himself, and he immediately masked his emotions once more. "Entirely not appropriate," he began, "but in my defence, I have known John for a lot longer, and have been a witness to many an occasion where he would go on dates and come home completely dejected. To hear an encounter where he managed to get a woman into his bedroom for the purposes of sex, and then subsequently passed out, well, that's just..." His mouth quirked into a smile again and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "It's hilarious, that's all." Sherlock strived to compose himself once more when Rose raised her eyebrows at him. "But now I can see," he continued, "how it would be a little bit embarrassing for you to show up to the wedding when you and the groom both had a drunken snog. Bit awkward. So you're off the hook. Okay?"

Sherlock studied Rose's face, and became slightly uncomfortable when an expression of relief failed to materialise on it.

"That's not all," she said, and Sherlock's heart sank just a little. "I crashed here because I was too drunk and tired to go home. It was a bit awkward in the morning, like you said. In fact, I'm not sure how much of the night before John even remembered, but I did reassure him that nothing happened."

Sherlock clenched and unclenched his fist, the only outward sign that he was getting worried about the rest of Rose's story. But they didn't have sex, he reminded himself, so why is she still upset?

"John was preoccupied with getting ready for your funeral service. I didn't go, by the way," Rose hurriedly added. "I can't do funerals."

"I know. I was there," Sherlock said blandly.

Rose drew in another steadying breath before she was able to continue. "I said something stupid, in hindsight, but at the time I was going through my own grieving process, I guess." Rose paused and ran her fingers through her hair.

Moving right along, Sherlock thought in agitation, to the part where you cleave my heart in two.

"The night before, John and I had a discussion about how much we really knew you, about why we had no inkling that you were going to take your own life. And the next morning, I thought, quite ignorantly I suppose, that I should tell John your most darkest secret."

"Which is what?" Sherlock asked, rather curiously.

Rose hesitated, taken aback by Sherlock's quizzical expression. "That I was a prostitute," she said carefully, "and you had been paying me to have sex with you."

Rose was surprised to see, again, Sherlock's face brighten into a smile.

"Sherlock!"

He began chuckling and turned from her once more, dipping his head, and shaking with laughter.

"Sherlock! It's not funny!"

Rose crossed her arms, and stared, unimpressed, at the Consulting Detective who made no effort to recompose himself this time.

"Sherlock!"

"Sorry, Rose," he managed to say in between chuckles. He straightened up and moved in front of her. Placing his hands on Rose's arms, he said, "This is an entirely serious matter, and I shouldn't be visualising the look on John's face when you told him that information."

"He was angry," Rose retorted. "He was just about to go to your funeral."

"Yes," Sherlock said, trying to maintain a cool visage. "And you were trying to sully my good name. Shame on you." When Rose continued to glare at him, Sherlock dropped his hands and added, in an obviously fake show of sincerity, "I fully understand why you wouldn't want to come to the wedding now."

"You do?" Rose challenged, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Yes. Because John will think I paid a prostitute to be my guest at his wedding. Entirely inappropriate."

"Yes," Rose responded, continuing to scowl at the detective who clearly still showed that he found the whole thing amusing.

"Although, that would also be funny."

"Sherlock!"

"Or not. Definitely not funny."

Again his words were at odds with his expression when his mouth curved into a smile. Sherlock felt an enormous weight lift from his shoulders. Rose and John had never had sex, and Rose's additional concerns were nothing really, he concluded. This was John Watson she was talking about.

"You know what I could do, though," he suggested to Rose, gently pulling her into his arms.

Her entire composure seemed to relax when she was caught in his embrace. "What?" she asked, gazing up into his warm eyes and bringing her hands to rest lightly on his chest.

"I could tell John that you're no longer a sex worker."

Sherlock's expression seemed so hopeful that Rose dropped her gaze and didn't immediately give him an answer. She knew that he really wanted her to attend the wedding with him, despite his best friend knowing he was seeing an ex-prostitute. Of course, Sherlock had told her on a previous occasion that he would much rather people knew he had the need of a sex worker rather than the need of a therapist. Rose didn't want to disappoint him, but she was as reluctant to see John as she ever was.

She sighed. "I won't feel comfortable being around him when he knows who I really was."

Sherlock offered Rose another reassuring smile. "You know, John may have been angry with you at the time you told him, but that was because your timing was off. He's not going to harbour any resentment toward you now. I happen to know he's the kindest, most compassionate man on this planet. It's not in his DNA to make you feel uncomfortable."

Rose tried to return Sherlock's smile, but instead, she felt tears well in her eyes. "I can't go," she whispered. "I just can't."

Sherlock's face softened, and he pressed his forehead to Rose's. He hated for Rose to be upset a moment longer.

"That's fine," he reassured her, his voice pitched low. "I won't press you about it any more."

Rose sniffed back tears when Sherlock brushed his lips against her forehead.

"After the wedding, I'll bring you a piece of wedding cake," he said, "and a little bag of almond things with your name on it. Come to think of it, you can have mine, too. They taste quite disgusting."

Rose laughed lightly in response. "Speaking of wedding cake, you'd better go, or you'll be late."

"I'm already late," he murmured, his mouth hovering over hers. He kissed her lightly, then drew back to study her features once more. "It's a pity," he added, "I was looking forward to teaching you how to dance."

Rose slid her arms up to encircle Sherlock's neck, her eyes shining brightly.

"I'd love you to still teach me how to dance."

"Proper dancing," he said sternly. "Not that lambada rubbish you were probably hoping for. Although," he mused, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "I'm quite the expert in the forbidden dance as well."

"I'll look forward to that," Rose whispered, then she stole another kiss from the detective. His mouth was warm and soft, and Rose couldn't bear to pull away.

Sherlock held Rose tightly, savouring her taste for a moment before reluctantly drawing back. "I won't be long," he said, recognising only too well the stirring of desire deep within. He lessened his grip on Rose, before he got himself into trouble. He was keenly aware that they were yet to make love for the first time this weekend.

"Thank you for being so understanding," Rose whispered again, her arms still wrapped around his neck. When she felt herself about to lose control of her emotions again, she drew Sherlock in tightly, and was comforted when Sherlock returned her hug in equal measures.

Rose turned her head suddenly toward the door, when she detected movement out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh!" said a figure approaching the top of the stairs.

The woman suddenly spun around and rapidly descended, calling out, "I'll just wait downstairs. Don't mind me!"

Sherlock looked over toward the stairwell upon hearing the voice of the interloper.

"Was that..." he began.

"Mary," finished Rose.

They awkwardly disengaged, and Sherlock cleared his throat.

"Obviously I'm later than I thought," he said, and he looked around for his scarf.

"But... she saw us hugging," Rose stated, trying to keep her voice from rising in a panic.

"Don't worry about it," Sherlock said, a little distractedly. He found his scarf where he'd tossed it onto the table earlier. "I'm a hugging kind of person," he quipped, a tiny smile growing from one corner of his mouth.

"No you're not."

"Oh, relax, Rose," Sherlock said, winding his scarf around his neck. "It was Mary, not John."

"What does that mean?"

Sherlock paused, and looked off to the side, deep in thought.

"I've no idea," he concluded.

Rose folded her arms in front of her and brooded while Sherlock patted his pockets, then fished a glove out of each of them.

"She saw you hugging your therapist," Rose said. "Your therapist who's only wearing a dressing gown."

"Yes," Sherlock said forcefully, pulling on a glove. "And if she was here a few seconds earlier, she would've seen me kissing my therapist."

"Sherlock, you're not helping."

"And a few seconds later," he continued, donning the second glove, "I may have been dancing the lambada with my therapist."

"You're not funny either."

Sherlock stepped closer to Rose, and gently reached for her again. His eyes glistening with sincerity, he said, "Don't you worry about a thing. I'll sort this out." He gave Rose a quick kiss on her cheek, then strode toward the landing. "Won't be long." He glanced back at Rose, and gave her a wink before rapidly descending the staircase, hoping she wasn't too concerned about Mary after what they'd just discussed in regard to John.

He heard Rose shut his living room door above him.

It's too bad the horse has well and truly bolted, he mused. And now to deal with the horse.

He spied Mary at the end of the passageway, talking to an unseen Mrs Hudson through the doorway into the landlady's kitchen. The subject matter under discussion was almond icing and fruit cakes.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows at Mary when she turned to him, and as he strode toward the entranceway, he was relieved to hear her bid Mrs Hudson goodbye and follow along behind him. His long stride had him outside and to the kerb in seconds, and by the time his best friend's fiancée had joined him, he'd already hailed a cab.

"Don't want to take the tube?" Mary asked, as the taxi pulled up in front of them.

Sherlock opened the rear passenger door and ushered Mary in before him.

"Since when do I take the tube in favour of a cab?" he asked as he joined Mary in the back of the taxi. "And besides, this is a more appropriate mode of transport for private conversations."

Mary gave him a knowing smile while Sherlock ask the cabbie to take them to the Strand.

The Consulting Detective settled into the back of the seat, propping his elbow onto the armrest and distractedly rubbing his lower lip with his thumb. He stared out onto the street until Mary sighed loudly next to him.

"You're really not gonna say anything?" she asked, as Sherlock idly looked over to her.

Sherlock's expression remained impassive when he replied, "You're the one with the questions, Ms Morstan."

"You're the one who's been caught in a lie, Mr Holmes."

Sherlock fixed Mary with a challenging glare. "Which lie would that be?"

He wasn't going to make it easy for her, he decided. And Mary Morstan was a worthy opponent.

"It's not just your story I'm calling into question. There are also Rose's statements that I'm putting under scrutiny."

"Scrutinise away," Sherlock bid Mary amiably, gesturing with an open palm.

Mary narrowed her eyes at the detective as if giving some thought to the challenge he'd set. After a moment, she began, "When John and I started dating—"

"Good God!"

"What?"

"Are you travelling that far back in time, just to ask me a question?"

"Look, if you're not going to volunteer any information, I'll go back as far as I like."

Sherlock regarded the woman beside him. He suspected he was going to be made to feel guilty for faking his own death, yet again. And clearly nobody quite understood the enormous sacrifice he had made for these people. Everyone, that is, except Rose. He sighed deeply, but said nothing in response.

"When John and I started dating," Mary began again, "we spent a lot of time just talking."

"Good to hear," Sherlock remarked, with a tinge of sarcasm.

"Don't interrupt me."

Sherlock turned his attention to central London, as it flew past his window. It may have been Sunday, but the streets were still alive and vibrant, with the potential for serious crime to be committed on any corner.

"We'd talk about anything and everything," Mary continued. "He knows a lot, John does, about all sorts of things—"

"Fills his head with all kinds of trivia," Sherlock recited, without turning from the window.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Sorry," Sherlock said, glancing at Mary and giving her a tiny smile in apology.

The detective looked out of the window once more, his eyes drawn to the city, but his mind was once again poised to hear Mary's take on things.

"But there was one subject that was strictly off limits," she said.

When Mary paused and looked at Sherlock expectantly, his attention was drawn back to her. Noticing her raised eyebrows, he asked, "Oh, am I supposed to contribute now?"

"If you like."

"Oh, okay. A Q&A session. I'm brilliant at those. Hmm, a subject that's off limits as far as John's concerned... Afghanistan?"

"No. He talked about that quite a bit. Never shut up about it in fact."

"Really?" asked Sherlock, surprised at this information. "Hmm." He furrowed his brow, and was lost in his own thoughts.

"You, Sherlock," Mary answered, after a fashion.

"What?"

"He couldn't talk about you. At least not initially. It took him ages to say anything about you or the time you lived in Baker Street together solving crimes. And when he finally did, he only spoke about the cases. Talking about Sherlock, his best friend, as opposed to Sherlock Holmes the detective, came much, much later."

Sherlock breathed deeply and redirected his gaze out of the window as the cab stopped at a set of traffic lights.

"There was one interesting story he told me about," Mary said, breaking into Sherlock's thoughts once more—thoughts that almost strayed to deducing a middle-aged pedestrian who had stopped at the lights, and had swapped his tatty briefcase from one hand to the other.

"It wasn't a story about a case at all," Mary went on, "just somebody who had crossed your paths once or twice. A university student, John said. A psychology major. Pretty young thing, bright and friendly—a bit flirty though, he said, not that you noticed, or so he thought. She wanted to write about the mind of the criminal element, or something. Her name was Shelley, and she interviewed you both about your cases."

Sherlock endeavoured to give no outward sign of discomfort, despite the fact that he had stopped breathing the moment Mary had uttered the name 'Shelley.'"

"But the most interesting thing about Shelley, Sherlock, was when she visited John the day before your funeral service. She'd had a few, John said, and she told him that you'd paid her to have sex with you, and that her name was in fact Rose."

At Mary's linking of Shelley to Rose, and the mention of paid sex, Sherlock felt compelled to make eye contact again, however uncomfortable the subject matter made him feel. Now Mary was covering territory over which the detective felt fiercely protective.

"So when I meet a former psychology student, called Rose, in your flat, just after she's come out of your bedroom, I make certain connections. She was clearly lying about her reasons for being there, but I don't like to make assumptions about people. Now John didn't know whether she was just enamoured with you and may have made up the story about you having sex with her—kind of a wishful thinking thing, I mean you were dead, so you weren't around to dispute it—but if it's true, then I'm worried that it's happening again.

Sherlock clenched his jaw before asking, "What's happening again?"

"Sherlock," Mary began in a gentle voice, "Are you paying this young woman to have sex with you?"

Sherlock tore his gaze from Mary. Central London continued living and breathing through the passenger window, oblivious to Sherlock's inner turmoil. He and Rose had been over this topic several times before from many different angles. Do you still think of me as a prostitute? Rose had asked him, her eyes glistening with tears. And he had made the mistake of paying her for those nights they had spent together when he had first arrived back in London. He hated for Rose to be upset over her past, and he wanted to help her come to terms with it, but he knew he hadn't been entirely innocent when it came to his involvement with the sex industry either. But they'd sorted out his misunderstanding, and their relationship had developed from then into a sort of... something. Sherlock was unsure what to call it, but it certainly wasn't what Mary was describing.

Hearing the words spoken by a third party put another perspective on the origins of their relationship though, and gave more fuel for the argument that there had been something really wrong with the arrangement he and Rose had once shared.

Sherlock avoided answering Mary's question directly, by making light of the topic. He turned back to her and remarked, "Good old John. Omitting the one fact that was actually relevant."

"What fact?"

"Did you tell John that you had met Rose the other week?" Sherlock asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that Rose's concerns were becoming realised.

"No, I didn't," Mary answered. "Rose asked me not to, for the wrong reasons, of course, but..." Mary's face had softened, and she smiled at Sherlock in a gesture of reassurance. "... I think I like her."

Mary's pretty cluey when it comes to people, John's voice echoed throughout Sherlock's mind. She's quite intuitive.

In the short amount of time Sherlock had known Mary, she had never given him a reason to mistrust her. The soon-to-be Mrs Watson had liked Rose after such a very short encounter, and she was willing to keep the young woman's secret from her fiancé based on the small amount of information she had on her so far.

Sherlock clenched and stretched his fingers that rested in his lap, debating whether or not to reveal all to the woman seated next to him. Did this woman deserve to know the whole story, because she was willing to keep their secret from her future husband?

Sherlock cleared his throat, deciding in that moment to trust Mary.

"Now it's my turn to travel back in time," Sherlock ventured, but he froze when Mary arched an eyebrow in readiness, for he suddenly had second thoughts about his information sharing.

Unable to make eye contact once more, he turned back to the concrete and brick scenery through the window. After a quick intake of breath, Sherlock launched into his story, reciting it at an almost manic pace.

"About three years ago, unknown to John, I visited a brothel and had sex with a prostitute. I liked it so much that I went back a couple more times. And because I enjoyed her company in particular, I asked if she'd make house calls. So we negotiated a price and a time when John wouldn't be home. But as luck would have it, on her first visit, John finished work early."

Sherlock turned his head and glanced at Mary, and he gave her a weak smile. "So there you have John's first encounter with Shelley, who showed up at my door just after he came home."

He then faced the front of the taxi, and stared, unseeing, straight ahead as he continued.

"As it turns out, being a university student who wanted to write a paper about the psyche of the criminal mind wasn't just a cover Shelley had thought up when confronted by the very awkward situation John's unexpected presence caused. She actually was a mature-age student, who was funding her way through university by working in the sex industry. I deduced the fact that she was a student the first time I met her, but she denied it of course. Despite this initial hiccup, I continued to pay her to come around and service me on a handful of occasions, until she finished her studies and was offered a psychology internship in Cardiff. We said our goodbyes, and two days later I leapt from the roof at Bart's."

Mary took the short break in Sherlock's narrative as an opportunity to breathe. Sherlock stole a breath himself, then felt invigorated enough to face Mary again.

"Shelley did in fact go around to Baker Street a week or so later to offer her condolences to John, and..." Sherlock paused, mentally filtering the part about the drunken conversation and snogging that had occurred between the grieving pair. "And... she confessed to being a prostitute named Rose. I don't know why John didn't remember that little detail, but then again, I guess he'd just suffered a loss."

Mary's mouth went to form a small 'o', before Sherlock continued on.

"I visited her two weeks after my death, scaring the crap out of her, I suppose, but I could only stay one night. Mycroft was busy getting my identity papers together and I couldn't bunk in with the annoying arse, not that I wanted to. I didn't see or make contact with Rose again until I returned to London. I visited her just before interrupting your and John's dinner at the Landmark Hotel."

"Okay," Mary remarked, when she realised at what point Sherlock had reached in his story. "So Rose knew you were alive, too."

"Yes," Sherlock replied, and a sheepish grin escaped him. "But don't tell John."

"I'm beginning to have a long list of things I can't tell John," Mary quipped.

Sherlock exchanged a comfortable glance with Mary, before his expression grew serious again.

"But there's one thing I'd like you to know about Rose," he said, his voice pitched low. "It's rather significant."

"Sure," Mary responded, her own expression softening.

"Rose doesn't work as a prostitute any more. In fact, she hasn't been a sex worker since..." John Garvie, Sherlock's mind recited in hatred. "...since my death. She's actually having a difficult time coming to terms with her past employment, and I... I'm trying to help her through that, without being a constant reminder that she used to have sex with men in exchange for payment."

"Sherlock," Mary exclaimed in sympathy, her voice barely above a whisper.

"On my first night back in London, I asked her to stay with me. London didn't feel the same anymore. The world had moved on, and quite rightly so. I did die, after all." He managed to exchange a smile with Mary, keenly aware that she knew that 'the world' he was referring to was, for the most part, the one that contained John Watson. "She agreed to stay, and of course, being the insensitive bastard that I am, I paid her for her time. We sorted out that misunderstanding eventually, and I think she's forgiven me for that gross error in judgement."

Mary made sympathetic noises, and reached over to squeeze Sherlock's arm.

"I have no idea why I'm telling you all this," he said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. He turned back to the window, and fervently hoped that a serial killer would fall out of the sky.

"You've obviously been through a lot together," Mary said warmly. "And I can tell you care for her a great deal."

Sherlock was relieved when Mary was comfortable letting a silence befall them. He watched the world go by once more, his thoughts returning to the early days of his and Rose's acquaintance, when she was a whore and he was an exploitative, manipulative, arrogant bastard.

After a while, Mary broke into his sombre thoughts. "You know John would be happy for you, regardless of what Rose used to do for a living... that is, if you are actually in a... relationship?"

Relationship, Sherlock repeated internally. Now there's an interesting word.

"I'm sure he would be," he responded, returning Mary's amiable smile. "But the request for secrecy comes from Rose, and I want to respect her wishes. I know it's just John in this case, but there's also the bigger picture. I'm a semi-public figure, apparently," he said, rolling his eyes, "and she doesn't want to be seen with me in case some curious journo decides to probe into my life and uncover the background of my new constant companion." Sherlock looked away, gathering his thoughts. "Since I've been back there has barely been a day when I haven't seen her, except when we... had a couple of issues." Mycroft, he thought in bitter distaste, and that prostitute ex co-worker Rose bumped into. Sherlock turned back to Mary and added, "But I don't know what we have, Mary. I haven't thought to define it."

He thought about Rose, waiting patiently back in his flat for him, probably frustrated at following yet another complicated origami pattern. The ones he had acquired were written in Japanese, and Rose wasn't impressed when Sherlock slowly rotated one pattern that sat in front of her to show that she'd been trying to follow it sideways. He laughed internally at the memory, causing Mary to remark, "Sherlock Holmes. I think your smile says it all."

When the taxi came to a halt outside the Georgian shop fronts along the Strand, Mary insisted on paying the fare, given that their outing was for her wedding. Sherlock stepped out into the crisp early spring air glad to finally escape the stifling confines of the taxi. On reflection, he knew that the relief he felt for the enormous burden he had been carrying was as a result of his conversation with Mary. It may be useful to have a confidante after all, he mused.

When the woman herself alighted the cab, she smiled broadly at Sherlock. Sherlock stood by the kerb waiting for her, with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.

"There's definitely a huge benefit to your return to London, you know," she said, sidling up to Sherlock, and looping her arm through the crook of his. "Aside from the obvious, of course."

"What's that?" he asked, as they slowly proceeded along the street toward the boutique cake shop.

"With John. There's a very subtle difference in the way he walks, especially soon after escaping some life endangering situations with you—you know, that guy with the poison dart, and the elephant thingy."

Sherlock hummed in agreement, although he was trying to remember the way John walked. Half a pace behind the detective was all he could come up with.

Mary looked wistfully along the street, and continued with her explanation.

"A bit like a cross between a swagger and a strut," she said. "It's just a little bit sexy."

"Oh," Sherlock responded, feeling uncomfortable with trying to imagine John's new sexy walk.

Mary stopped walking and turned to face Sherlock. "And do you know what happens with men who swagger and strut, Sherlock?"

Sherlock raised his eyebrows, and did his best to look thoughtful. "A cross between a swagger and a strut? Isn't that a... ah... stagger? Do they fall over a lot?"

Mary chuckled lightly. "No," she said condescendingly. "It transfers to the bedroom."

Sherlock's eyes widened by degree, and he suddenly wanted to be a million miles elsewhere.

"Okay," he replied eventually.

"I'm just saying, Sherlock," Mary said, her face bright with enthusiasm, "I'll keep your secrets for you, if you'll find some more cases to share with my fiancé."

Sherlock's face split into a broad grin once he realised Mary's ultimate goal. This was going to be an interesting, new found friendship with his best friend's fiancée.

"Deal."