The new house was...was...more magnificent than anything she had ever laid eyes on. It spat on the old ones, it downright beat the Italian Cottage and the townhouse in New York. It was...like something from Brad Pitts dreams. A certain Mr Moriarty had gave himself a generous Christmas bonus this year,

It had been dusk when they'd pulled up and she felt normal again. Normal car, bar the three surrounding jeeps, normal house, normal dress wear. Even if it was just a loose black and white striped silk smock dress, it was nicer than a hoody and sweat pants or pyjamas. The outside of the cream pebble dashed mansion was sit up perfectly for the evening, the driveway illuminated with spot lights leading to a small fountain. There was large open green spaces and it looked so beautiful even from the car. As much of a fantasy living in a castle was, it was also claustrophobic and this just felt so much more open, so much air of which to breath.

And Katherine actually felt safe. For the first time without the high walls and the shelter, she felt safe. She didn't step out of the car huddling close to Sebastian for cover or frantically looking around to see who was Heidi in the tress. Instead, she turned very much back into the woman she had been before all the drama, and strode from the car. The gravel didn't effect how her heels handled the ground and she kept her head held high as she entered the house ahead of any other member of the entourage.

Over the years, she'd learnt to hide her wonder. Although everything in the house was beautiful, in front of staff she acted as if it were but another silly old house. But it wasn't, if this was their new main home he had done very well, very well indeed.

As she walked down the hall to explore, heels clicking against the cream marble floor she could practically see her face in, Sebastian and co started carrying her belongings into the house.

"Where is he?" Katherine called out to no one in particular, finding her way into the kitchen where a number of bodies were already hard at work at the stove and polishing the China for dinner.

"Good evening ma'am." A couple of them greeted her with a low nod of their head but non dared stop what they were doing for a second. And before she had to repeat herself, the youngest girl in the room looked up and answered her.

"Mr Moriarty called an hour ago, he's expected at 7pm ma'am." She couldn't have been any older than twenty. Pretty, blonde hair, thin...she was new and she was going to have a pair of eyes watching her when Moriarty was at home. She also needed to learn how to cut a long story short.

"Good." Katherine nodded, but never took her eyes off the the girl. In fact she kept studying her until she started to sweat, twisting the dusting rag in her hands uncomfortably. "Get me a glass of wine."

"Of course Miss." Katherine quirked a brow but became amused after a few seconds as the girl began rushing around the large kitchen in search of everything she needed. As she took a seat of the kitchen bar, just a couple of feet from where vegetables were being prepared, she once again smirked with amusement when she looked up to see the girl being scolded by one of the more mature and experienced staff members.

"White please." She shouted over the rush of the kitchen, immediately silencing them all. She didn't really care honestly, but she was in the mood to tease and saw an open opportunity as the girl reached for the bottle of red in the wine rack. In response the blonde nodded and then scurried to the fridge.

But watching her was only amusing for so long and she had just remembered a certain little someone had begged for her attention on the drive over.

From: Sherlock Holmes

Your first name?

SH

Was she going to tell him? Over course not, but she would give him a little hint.

To: Sherlock Holmes

I'll give you a hint. It's begins with K.

K.I.M xx

There would be no way she would even give him her real name, not unless Jim told her to. Even if by chance he guessed. It would never be confirmed.

She replaced the phone back into her pocket just as the wine was set down in front of her. The girl hovered but then scuttled back to her corner after catching one of Katherine's glares.

There wasn't a real reason for her irritating mood, she should be delighted by the new house. But she was uneasy about the move and feeling verbals always made her a little tetchy.

Her phone screen lit up beside her glass and she made an impressed face. The reply was quicker than all the others.

From: Sherlock Holmes

I don't have time for games.

SH

She was going to have him scrambling to make time when she was done with him. And he would learn to love it.

"Ma'm. Mr Moriarty has arrived." The sudden announcement caught her off guard. It took a while for her brain to catch up with her, so much so she actually stuttered before she allowed a smile to cross her mouth. Moving from Sherlock to Moriarty proved to be difficult. With one she was encouraged to tease, test and taunt. With the other, it was classed as bad behaviour.

"Oh goodie. Is he in a pleasant mood?" The woman didn't answer, of course she didn't answer, she knew her place.

Katherine picked her up wine and her phone and breezily made her way to the front of the house where she knew he'd be waiting for her. He wouldn't have summoned her otherwise.

Just as she suspected, when she approached the main reception area by the front door she was greeted with the sight of men still unpacking their bags from the many cars and the man himself, stripping from his coat. She smiled at him, but waited silently as Jim took slow steps towards her.

"Evening sweetness." He kissed her unexpectedly, cupping her face with his hand as the other took hold of her waist. She knew it was good news. "My office, now." Jim spoke quickly after pulling away and slapping her rear. "I have some very important news."

"I don't know where it is." She called out to him with an eager smile causing him to shout over his shoulder.

"Then keep up!"

She trotted as gracefully as possible until she was right behind Jim, weaving through the sparkling hallways until he pushed open the very last door you could find, buried deep in the back of the house. She closed and locked the door behind them then watched Jim pour out two glasses of scotch on the rocks.

When Jim came back to her, holding one out for her to take, Katherine gestured to the wine in her hand but it ended up simply being removed from her grip and replaced with the scotch.

"May I enquirer to what deserves such celebration?" She chuckled, talking a seat around the small table in the centre of the room. Jim followed and took the seat to her left, sipping the amber liquid.

"We got them."

For a brief moment she wasn't exactly sure what he meant. 'Them' was a simple collective term which could have meant anything but then her brain narrowed it all down to one thing, the one thing which it must have been judging by the blood lust clouding Jim's eyes. Had it have been genetically possible to turn red, they would have glowed in the dim light of the office. No wonder he had been in such a good mood. No wonder Sebastian had even been positively elated. No wonder she was sat in a normal house, surrounded by lovely normal things.

"What?" It was barely audible, her shocked whisper. The ornate glass almost slipped through her fingers, threatening to smash on the ground, but she came to her senses in the nick of time and raised it to take a much needed sip. God she hated scotch. Katherine's face contorted as the liquid burned her throat, and she looked past Jim to try and take it in.

"The clients who sent the sniper, we got them. Well, we've been picking them off for weeks but we got the big guy and the name of the shooter. Both were taken care of this afternoon." His words didn't seem real. She would have believed that he was making it all up to make her feel better, over it actually being true. It couldn't be over, it couldn't it. It should've have made her feel a lot better.

"So...they're gone? Completely?" While trying to show her gratitude for him finding the culprits, she could ignore the lack of justice she felt. She was happy, don't get her wrong, but there was no penultimate reward. She may not have wished to see their blood be spilled in front of her eyes or to hear their screams but it came to her realisation that she had been expecting something. "What about people he may have been working with?" Katherine masked her unusual disappointment as she looked back at Jim.

"We were careful on this. We didn't rush anything, we watched more than we acted. They're all gone and anyone who may have known, who may have been scheming." Jim paused as his eyes glazed over with the darkness he reserved for his clients. "They're getting a nice big warning in tomorrows post about what will happen if they even think of trying something like that." She didn't want to know what it was they were receiving, but she got the impression it wasn't a threat of the verbal kind.

"So..."

"So..." He imitated her and stood so he could move to crouch by her side. "We are safe. More importantly you are safe. No one can get to you." His hand caressed her cheek and then travelled down her arm to hold her hand. "What's wrong?" She wasn't showing the delight he had expected her too. He had travelled home picturing her face being a one of pure joy, with that sadistic revengeful grin making him appreciate every bit of her twisted heart. But what he got was hesitation. She looked...lost.

"Nothing." Katherine shook her head but he wasn't stupid. Jim scoffed and dropped her hand from his grip.

"You know, I spent the best part of ten million pounds tracking them, pulling my men off multiple other jobs to watch them, kill them, dispose of them." He started to rant and the fact he never moved an inch from her made her heart start crawling into her throat. "I spend fifteen million on a new house with no bad memories, somewhere you'll feel safe and all I get is your pitiful face."

"It's not that I'm not grateful. I-"

"Then what is it? What else could you possibly want?" Katherine fell silent and didn't fight him after she was interrupted. But after he was done, she looked up at him from under her lashes and tried desperately not to say what came to her mind and what had been on her mind this whole time.

But he seen it. Of course he seem it. It was the same bloody look on her face as when he'd spoken to her upon first waking up in that hospital. He thought she was over it, she'd been so normal with him. He thought she had put it behind her, just like he had.

"Don't." His voice held so much darkness, it scared her. So she tried to drop it, she tried to let it go and tell him it was fine and to forget it. But the words wouldn't come and she could only think about how all his killing, all his vengeance and money and effort, had not made the baby reappear in her belly. "Don't." Her head fell down so her eyes met the ground instead of him, and finally Jim got up making a bee line for the door. "Get out."

Her head snapped up and tracked his movements up to him opening his office door. "Jim." But calling out for him didn't change anything.

"Get out!" His cheeks were hollowed and his eyes black.

"No." She stayed sat. She wasn't going to let him just throw her out along with his disregard to it all. They had never actually talked about it. They just comforted one another. For Jim to lay with her and be as vulnerable as he had been, it was something she valued but also something she never wished to see again. And it was also something that had very little closure. "No." She wanted to know how he felt, she wanted to talk about it because, inside that was what was was holding her back from moving on.

She'd just been expected to straighten up and fly right. To stand by his side like a loving wife. Well tough, because no matter how much money you threw at your problems, no matter how many people you killed, somethings didn't just disappear.

"What is it? You want a baby?" Jim slammed the door shut and started coming back towards her, footsteps silent against the wood. "You want to run around with a kid on your arm? Calling you mummy and me daddy?"

"Stop it."

"News flash Katherine. That will never happen." He stood a few yards off from her and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He looked so smug, so bloody smug she wanted to slap it off his face. He had no right, he did not have the power over her to do this. "This was a tragedy and a loss that shouldn't have happened. The people who caused it burned. Believe me sweetheart. They. Burned." Jim's jaw was slack as it always was when he was angry. "But a child has no place in this world. There's no room for midnight bottles and nursery rhymes." With a casual shrug of his shoulders, he closed the gap between them and started playing with her hair.

It made her feel two inches tall.

"What if I hadn't have lost it?" Her voice was hoarse and cracking too much for him to take seriously. She sounded weak and he hated weak. His Katherine wasn't weak.

"But you did darling. You did-"

She grew sick and threw her hands down by her sides in frustration. "But if I hadn't? What would you have done?"

"Taken you out the field and let you get on with that boring side of life." Jim hadn't even paused, there hadn't been one second where he had actually thought about it. But she knew it was the truth, he wouldn't have slowed and raised his child, he wouldn't have been sat in the waiting room and went furniture shopping. He would have went to work, sent flowers when it was born and bought it consolation presents every time he went away to try and make up for his absence. "That what you wanted to hear?" In a way yeah, because it crushed the idealistic world she'd build in her mind. It made her want it all just a little bit less, knowing The Jim in her head didn't meet who he actually was.

But her fighting spirt was still very much alight and once she was going, it was hard to stop.

"The boring side of life. Why did you even marry me? A child is just the step beyond that."

"Stop being melodramatic, you know it riles me." Jim drawled, rolling his eyes and turning his back to her.

"No Jim, you know I think this is the most 'normal' argument we've ever had." She was getting feisty. Good. He could work with her more when she was feisty. It was so much more fun than when she was feeling sorry for herself. "I don't want it, at least I know I should want it and I know if I became pregnant again I'd hate it. But I had it and I want it back."

Moriarty suddenly turned back to her and grounded his teeth together before forcing himself to meet her eyes. "Get up." This time she did as he said and stood, coming nose to nose with him. "I can give you the world." Jim's hands slowly circled her waist, pulling Katherine even closer. His lips started to graze her jaw and as hard as she tried to fight it, she felt herself melting into his arms. "Don't hate me because of the one thing I can't fix."

Katherine opened her eyes and pulled back, using her hand to move his head and look into his eyes. He was genuine. Of course it could all be an act to shut her up but in that moment she just didn't care anymore. Her fight was dwindling, she got her answers and she just wanted him to be as close to her as possible. Physical and emotionally.

"I'm sorry." With a small jolt of nervous laughter, she looked past him to the door. "I just...I don't know...maybe I am just stupid." Katherine laughed again, more confidently this time, though she was slowly hushed when Jim placed a hand on the back of her head and pulled her into his chest.

His chin rested on the top of her head and his finger rubbed circles below her ribs, near tickling her.

"Yeah you are." He even managed a smile as she huffed a chuckle and slapped his stomach. But before he could let this all be swept under the rug, he lowered his lips to her ear and emitted a growl. "Try not to be boring again in my presence."

No more chances. No more hearts to hearts. She had to be a big girl now. No excuses.

"Jim?" Her voice was back to being small but it held something, something he had categorically logged as very dangerous over the years.

"Yes darling?"

"It's been two weeks, and I've missed you..." Like clockwork, her hand started playing with the neck of his tie and the other tugged on his belt buckle. She was a minx. Slightly shifty in her moods lately but she was just like him and he loved it. They were so changeable and against one another it was disastrous, but together, they could rule. They did rule.

"Get upstairs."