Lorna threw on whichever clothes she came across first, not bothering to check if they matched or were even hers; once she was out of the room and running as fast as she could manage in her current state down the stairs, she realized that the shirt she'd dragged on was actually Sebastian's. Oh, Christ, he better be okay.
He reached out with external calm to touch the wound, ignoring the pain and blood, and the gravel and dirt embedded in his raw flesh.
His words...
They stopped at the edge of the wound, a ragged hole ripped through them, incomplete...
His heart was pounding so fast that he was lightheaded. The words had been broken, he was going to fall apart, the darkness was going to find him and he was going to be ripped into pieces-
He dug his finger feverishly into the bloody mess, trying desperately to put his words back into place.
She elbowed her way through the crowd, falling to her knees beside Sebastian - his eyes were desperate, focused on his arm, an empty fear present that she recognized. Her gaze darted to his arm, to his frantic scraping, and she took hold of his good wrist. "Sebastian, look at me. Look at me. You're okay. You've got the words, alright? Look at me, Seb."
His head snapped up to look at her, but it was just a distraction from his work, an obstruction. He pulled his hand away and picked up a stick, deciding that that would work better than his finger.
Members of the crowd were muttering in disgust and fascination. The rider of the moped was a few feet away, watching with wide eyes. "God... what the hell is wrong with him?" he asked in accented English.
She absently yanked the stick out of his hand, the majority of her attention locked onto the driver, fury in her eyes. "What's wrong with him? You have the gall to ask that after you crashed into him?" she snarled, practically bristling. She glanced at the license plate of the scooter for a moment, committing it to memory, mentally shooting him to the top of her shit list. But not now, not in front of these people, not when Sebastian needed her. She returned her attention to him, sliding an arm under his shoulders. "Alright, Seb, c'mon, let's get up. I'm going to need your help here, I can't pick you up."
He stood with her slowly, glancing at her with a touch more comprehension, though he was still confused. "Lorna...?"
"Yeah, Tiger, it's me," she said, her free hand touching his cheek briefly, before she was tugging at him again. "Now c'mon, let's get you off the street. I'll dress your arm inside."
He paused, looking back at the street and walking towards the place where he'd fallen, not bothering to shake her grip. "Hang on, I lost... I need my words..." He sounded confused, frustrated.
She felt tears sting at her eyes, pain welling in her chest as she tried to grasp that this was still a problem for him, that he couldn't be free of it. "No, Seb, they're- they're in the room, okay? You just left them there," she pleaded, tugging him again. It was like pulling at a boulder. "We'll put them back on, I promise."
He glanced at her, and between his warring to get a grasp on reality and his panic about the missing words, there was trust. He nodded just slightly, slowly relenting and following after her, starting to mutter his words under his breath to tide himself over.
The crowd parted in front of them, and she didn't look at anybody as she led him back into the hotel, carefully shielding his arm from the receptionist. Once they were back in the room, she guided him to the nearest chair. "Let me get the medical kit, okay?"
He nodded just a little, looking around and picking up a pen, starting to try to write the words back onto his injury.
She retrieved the kit from the bathroom and knelt in front of him with it, prying the pen back out of his hand and frowning down at the injury. "Alright, we gotta wash this out, okay? God knows what's gotten in there," she sighed, gently getting him back to his feet and guiding him towards the bathroom.
He let her take the pen, and nodded just a little, walking quietly with her. He was taking in their surroundings slowly. He didn't speak as she washed his arm out, just stood there, apparently oblivious to the pain. Then he said quietly "I dropped the coffee."
"It's okay, I can go get more if you want it," she murmured, turning off the water and grabbing a towel to gently pat dry his arm. "Let's get this wrapped up, first, okay?"
He nodded, studying his arm quietly as he followed her. "They'll come back," he said quietly.
"I'm sure they will," she agreed, sitting him down again and resuming the kneeling position in front of him. She took his arm and the roll of linen and carefully began wrapping the bloody mess. "What happened out there?"
He was still until she started the bandaging, and then he pulled his arm away, twisting his body to put it between his arm and her, looking a mix between incensed and betrayed for a half second. Then he closed his eyes, taking a couple of breaths as he evaluated the situation.
Pull yourself together, Moran... You're in India. You haven't been in that hole for a long time. Lorna will help.
Slowly, deliberately, he returned his arm to her reach. He focused on her question as she took his arm, trying to distract himself. "Just some idiot on a moped," he said quietly. "Came screaming around the corner. I didn't have time to get out of the way."
She grit her teeth in renewed anger, which she had to stuff down in order to give Sebastian the attention he needed right now. She ignored his moment where he reverted to the man she'd pulled out of that hole; she could see him fighting it, and that was all that mattered right now. "I'm glad you weren't hurt worse," she said quietly, finishing wrapping him up and securing the bandage.
He forced a smile. "Takes more than that to take me out. Christ, can you imagine- The great Sebastian Moran, killed by a moped."
"Your head okay? Did you hit it?" She asked, unable to joke for the moment, absentmindedly shutting the med kit.
He reached up to touch the sore spot on the back of his head. He found a bunch of sand and some gravel embedded in his skin, and brushed it out. There was a hell of a lump forming, though he didn't really feel it at the moment. "I hit it. Blacked out for a few seconds. I think I'll be alright, though."
"I'll call down and ask for some ice, anyways," she said, rising to her feet and stepping around him to pick up the phone by the side of the bed. "And I'm willing to pay them an exorbitant amount of money to get replacement coffee."
He nodded, putting his head in his good hand and rubbing at his eyes a little. What would have happened if she hadn't shown up? He didn't even know how she'd known what had happened. Would he have killed someone?
She finished the phone call in a moment, hanging up the corded phone with a quiet click. Then she walked out of the room to the kitchenette and filled up a glass with water, which she brought back to him. "Here, have something to drink. Hydration always makes you feel better."
"Booze might be better," he said, though he accepted the cup and took a sip. His hands were shaking just slightly. "How did you find me so fast?"
"I heard a crash, and then a little yelling. I'm a sucker for car crashes," she shrugged, sitting next to him. "You were pretty easy to spot amongst all the people who aren't the Aryan dream man."
He nodded, but that made him nauseous and he made a note not to do that again. He took a few more sips of water before he said, "I wasn't expecting that to happen."
"I don't think anyone ever expects to be hit by a moped out of the middle of nowhere," she sighed, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Not what I meant," he said quietly. He realized he was tracing his words over the bandage and pulled his hand away, clenching his fist.
"Oh," she murmured, fingers squeezing his shoulder softly. "Is there anything I can do?"
He laughed a little, leaning back in the chair. "Go back in time and kill my sister before we ever meet her?" he suggested, lifting a hand to put over hers.
She smiled slightly, but that brought up too many scary memories and she was too worried about him to find it very funny. "I wish I could, believe me."
He glanced at her, and caught that he'd poked a sore spot. He sighed, reaching out to pull her into his chest with his good arm. "Sorry. Shouldn't have said that."
She gave another small smile, leaning into him a little. "It's fine. I need to get over it, I shouldn't be so sensitive about it."
"You're right. You're so sensitive. You should be a big strong tough guy like me," he teased, rubbing her shoulder a little. "Then you can completely lose your ability to think rationally when you get a little road burn."
She elbowed him a little, rolling her eyes. "We went through vastly different things, Sebastian. Different shit does different things to us."
"Not what I meant," he muttered, standing out of the chair and heading for the couch so that she didn't have to sit on the floor. "What you went through is just as bad, arguably worse. You have a right to be 'sensitive'."
"And I just spent a year in a labyrinth with rabid animals, heroin, and Jim. I don't know how many times they put my guts back in, Sebastian," she said faintly, her throat closing up. "I was more reckless once I thought you were on their side. What did it matter, right? But they just wouldn't let me die. " She paused for a moment, breath hitching a little. "I should be over what happened before that. I need to be."
He pulled her into his arms, taking a deep breath. "You don't need to be anything right now," he said softly. "It's fine to be however you are, alright?" He felt like an idiot. Here he was panicking over something that had happened ages ago, while she was still healing from wounds of a few weeks prior.
She didn't say anything else, just fell silent and shut her eyes, trying to take steady breaths. What a broken couple of people they were.
He held her for a while, keeping her close, eyes closed. He could remember every time he'd seen her be gouged open, clawed apart over the course of those months. He knew exactly how many times they had stitched her back together, had seen her flatline, had screamed at her through the glass to wake up, come on, get that heart beating, dammit -
"You matter," he finally said, voice abnormally soft. "I know that the circumstances were... But you matter. Without me. Especially without me."
"Out here, maybe," she whispered, head resting against his collarbone, the familiar thump of his heart beating under her ear. "In there, I didn't. Nothing did. But I'm not in there anymore. That's all that matters, right?"
"Yes," he said with a nod. "As long as that's all that matters to you, then that's all that matters."
Somewhere in the back of his mind the words were droning on and on, like a song stuck in his head. They made an eerie background for the memories flashing through his mind, and he opened his eyes again, reminding himself that they were in India. Sunny India, where it was warm and the food was good, and his sister and Mycroft Holmes were miles and miles away.
And Lorna was here. Safe. Where she belonged.
He wondered absently when she had started belonging there, but it had been a long time ago, either way.
She shifted a little to slide her hand into his, careful to avoid brushing the bandage. She was grateful to be with him again, that she could trust him after all, and she was relieved that Mycroft hadn't put him through anything more terrible than watching the two of them suffer. His old wounds were bad enough. She didn't want them to get any worse, not if she could do anything about it.
He gripped her hand gently, getting lost in thought staring at the far wall.
"Don't let me give you any bullshit about the arm," he asked quietly. "I wouldn't ask but... I don't trust myself that far."
She nodded a little. "Do you want it to heal up without any... additions?"
He was quiet for a long time, until he wasn't sure whether he was actually going to answer or not. Finally he said, "Yes. It's time I... high time I get over this."
She squeezed his hand a little, supportive. That was a big step for him. Those words had been the only thing to get him through a nightmare-worthy time; beginning to let them go was huge. "Okay," she murmured. "I'll support you as best I can."
He nodded just slightly. He was done with this being a weakness. Done needing a fucking security blanket. He couldn't protect Lorna or Jim like he needed to if he was this... weak.
"I love you," she murmured, brushing her thumb over the back of his hand, skimming over his knuckles. "Take your time with this. Don't push yourself."
He nodded just a little, then winced again, sighing. "Give me a moment," he said, shifting her gently. "I need painkillers."
"Okay," she nodded, as there was a knock at the door. "You get those, I'll get the replacement food and ice."
He nodded, standing carefully and heading for the bathroom, doing his best to walk a straight line despite the vertigo.
She kept her eyes on him as she passed him, opening the door and taking the things offered before she shut the door again on the receptionist's face. "Seb, do me a favor and sit down. You might have a concussion."
"I'm fine," he muttered, putting a hand on the wall and walking better after that, heading into the bathroom. "Probably do, but not badly."
She followed him into the bathroom, intercepting him and directing him towards the toilet, pressing a cup of coffee into his hand. The other was in her hand, and a bag of ice was tucked under one arm and a bag of breakfast food in the other. "Sit! If you fall and get more concussed I'm going to have to take you to the hospital."
He sighed but didn't argue, leaning against the wall next to the toilet tiredly. "Let's eat breakfast," he suggested, watching as she juggled things and reaching out to take the ice from her.
"Good idea," she agreed, grabbing the bottle of painkillers and crossing back to hand him the bottle. "Knock some of those back first."
He took them in hand, avoiding the urge to nod, and poured five into his hand, putting them down dry.
"You have coffee right there, don't swallow those things dry," she rolled her eyes. "You'll burn a hole through your esophagus. Whatever. Let's get you back into bed and then we can eat like pigs."
He picked up his coffee, taking a chaser sip, and grunted in agreement, standing carefully.
She hovered only a little, one of her hands still occupied with the bag of food. She relaxed as he sat, sinking down beside him and leaning ever so slightly against his shoulder, just for the contact, and started digging through the large bag. "What do you want? I think there's one of everything."
He laughed a little. "Just give me one of those almond pastry things, yeah?" he asked, not feeling up for much beyond that.
"Okay," she chuckled, pulling out what he'd asked for and handing it to him with a crinkle of wax paper, then she retrieved a bagel for herself. Her mind wandered back to the arsehole on the moped. How would she kill him?
He ate quietly, just relaxing. What a mess all of his was... He needed to make sure that Jim never found out about this morning's incident. It would be less than ideal.
"You know, I don't think either of us has gotten an injury so mundane in years," she commented when she was halfway through with her bagel, and took a sip of coffee. "It's almost novel."
He nodded a little. "It's nice for life to fuck me for once, rather than some idiot with a vendetta. Or worse, a genius with one."
"Yeah, I've really had enough of those," she murmured, her head cycling through the various bastards who had hurt them, without being asked.
He nodded just a little, pulling her against his side a bit more. "Your appointment's in an hour..."
"You should probably stay here today. Rest, let your brain recover from being knocked so rudely," she suggested, though there was a sort of edge to her voice that hinted that it was less of a suggestion and more of an order. "I'll text you every ten minutes, if you want."
He glanced at the window. "I might be fine. We'll see how I am, if I'm alright I'll go with you."
She gave a slight nod, glancing at the bandage on his arm. It didn't look like he was bleeding through, but she wasn't sure whether or not that was her chief concern anyway. He had hit his head rather hard, and she didn't want him to hit it again. Concussions could take a long time to heal, and they only had a month to themselves before Jim would demand their services again. This was supposed to be a healing time, not more time to be hurt in. "Alright. Don't push yourself."
That was a fruitless request and they both knew it, but he decided not to bring it up. He didn't want her going to the appointment alone. That was paramount.
She had the feeling that she was going to have to fight to get him to take care of himself a little, but she was used to fighting him about those sort of things, so it wasn't that big of a deal. At least she was fucked up enough that he couldn't possibly take it as a threat.
He finished his pastry and just sat there, drinking his coffee slowly. It was good, but not worth the hassle.
The time went by slowly, but she didn't mind. A half hour before the appointment, she turned her head to look at him. "Can you walk in a straight line?"
He nodded confidently- a move he'd planned, though it sent aches rolling down his neck- And stood. "I'm-" At which point he promptly pitched sideways, managing to catch himself on the bed post. "I'm fine. Just stood up too fast. Give me a moment."
She let out a patient sigh. "Sebastian, I don't want to take you out onto the street just for you to hit your head again. What if it gets worse and you aren't better by the time we get back? Give yourself a few days to heal, okay?"
He sighed. "Then postpone your appointment until tomorrow?" he asked finally.
"It's not going to kill me to go by myself for one day," she said gently, abruptly realizing just how little time they spent apart these days. It didn't really bother her. "I promise I'll come right back. I'll do a short session. But it seems like a waste to reschedule."
He grit his teeth just slightly, but didn't let her see the concern, looking away and nodding just slightly. "Okay. Fine."
She knew that it bothered him, but addressing that too much would just bother him more. So she reached out to squeeze his hand, then got up to get ready to leave.
He watched her get ready to go. "Turn on the GPS on your phone," he said quietly as she headed for the door.
"Alright," she agreed, pulling out her phone as she reached the door and doing as he asked. Anybody who didn't know their situation would have assumed that their relationship was extremely unhealthy, but this was the safest thing for her to do. She opened the door. "Alright, see you soon."
He nodded. "Let me know when you'll be back, so I know," he added, before laying back and closing his eyes. His head was pounding.
She made a noise of confirmation and then stepped out the door, giving him one last look over her shoulder, just to check to see if he looked like he was in pain. On the way to the clinic, she searched the man's license plate.
He wanted to sleep, but found that he couldn't while she was out. It was pathetic, really. But he'd been careful not to let her out of his sight since he'd gotten her back, except when she was somewhere he deemed to be relatively safe.
She and Jim had gone missing in less than ten minutes, at a party. Anything was possible.
Doing alright? -SM
She was just walking into the clinic when she got his text.
Yeah, I'm good. You should be resting, though. LH
You're hilarious. Keep checking in. -SM
He stared at the ceiling in quiet contemplation, waiting.
And she did, every five or so minutes, glad that they weren't doing her arms today so she could text normally. When she was leaving again, stepping out onto the street and pulling out her phone to tell him so, she looked up and came face to face with Irene Adler.
Irene saw the recognition in the other woman's eyes, and gave her a once-over, before her own eyes widened slightly. "Why... Lorna Harrison... Fancy meeting you here..." she hummed, glancing at the building the woman was coming out of and smirking at the sign. "Getting a little spa treatment, I see."
She couldn't help reddening a little, pointless embarrassment seeping into her chest as Irene saw where she'd come from. This was only the second time she'd ever met Adler in the flesh, so she must have made some waves if Irene still knew who she was, after all the time and damage. "Adler," she said, sharply, not willing to play the grifting game with this woman. It would be pointless, trying to out-charm one another. "I thought you were off somewhere in the middle east, getting beheaded for whoring your way across the continent. Did your precious curly-haired boyfriend get you out of that?"
She laughed, letting her attention drift back to Lorna. "And still as blunt as ever. I had the Virgin get me out, yes. No reason not to. Though I'm not certain why you're being so hostile... Your boss and I parted on good terms. Something, it seems, that can't be said for you..."
"If by parting on good terms you mean fleeing the country because you leaked a few years' worth of information on a gamble, then yes, you parted on good terms," she snorted, arching a skeptical eyebrow at the woman, who was about an inch shorter than her in flats. "You have a habit of making those gambles. Forgive me if I don't want you to gamble around me."
She shrugged. "Nothing to forgive. It isn't like I was trying to work with your network again anyway- I didn't want to in the first place. Networks are too dangerous. You stay in one spot for too long. People get hurt... " She looked pointedly at Lorna's scars.
Her fingers twitched, just a little, her hand aching to form into a fist. Instead she just smiled, the cold, chilled-to-the-bone smile she gave people before she gutted them. "You're right, Irene, they do get hurt. How very astute of you..."
She seemed unphased, eyes still wandering over Lorna's various wounds. "At worst you end up dead, at best... disfigured... Not the life for me." She finally found Lorna's gaze and smiled. "Well, got to run. I've got a client all tied up in knots waiting for me. Do tell that good-looking boy of yours hello, would you? I heard the two of you were together... so sweet..." She turned and headed down the street.
Her hand flexed around her phone, the urge to follow and kick the living shit out of the woman overwhelming for a good moment. Stuffing down her rage, she opened up her phone again, her jaw grit.
On my way back. Have the booze out. LH
He had managed to doze off, and started awake at the text, reading over it carefully.
You alright? -SM
He stood carefully, a hand on the wall as he balanced himself and headed for the liquor cabinet.
I'm fine. I'll explain when I get there. LH was all she sent in return, deciding it was best to walk it off before she explained what she was on about. She wasn't sure he'd understand her fury.
She was back at the room in less than ten minutes, opening the door with the key card and just barely stopping herself from slamming it behind her in case Sebastian was sensitive to sound right now. She zeroed in on the liquor bottle on the small table, and crossed the room to pick it up, quickly unscrewing the cap. "I just ran into Irene Adler."
He frowned, pushing himself into a sitting position. "Where? Did she seem to be working for anyone?" He was immediately running through the various contingency plans he had for exiting the country.
"Right outside the clinic," she sighed, lifting up the bottle and taking a swig. "She didn't even recognize me for a moment. And we both know Irene has her uses, but she's not a real grifter. She doesn't act. She didn't expect to see me."
He nodded just a little. "That's good, at least." He glanced at the bottle. "I take it it wasn't a friendly discussion."
"Neither of us were happy to see the other," she agreed in a mutter, taking another sip of vodka and setting the bottle down.
He sighed, standing very carefully and walking over. "It's just Adler. What's got you so riled?"
"For a while, Adler was the biggest threat to my job security out of everyone in Jim's web. She could have made a good run for her money at my position if she'd had a mind to, and I'm sure she knows that. But she never wanted to surpass the level of contractor, and then she left the web entirely." While Irene hadn't been a grifter, she would have made a decent manager for them. She sighed, shaking her head. "She's a security risk that shouldn't even exist. She knows Jim's name, doesn't she? Why is she alive, if she's loose in the world? And she made a few cracks at my appearance, so that didn't help things..."
He put his hand on her shoulder with a sigh. "She's alive because Jim thinks she'll be useful," he said calmly. "And she was never a threat to your job, not really. She can't grift. Never could."
She sighed, nodding a little. "God knows she can't lie to save her life, not when it counts. I can't imagine what Jim would want her for, honestly. It must have something to do with the younger Holmes."
He nodded. "She's his weakness. Sherlock's, that is. And that's in Jim's interest." He sat down next to her, eyeing the vodka longingly but leaving it along for the sake of his head.
"You don't think she could be with anyone, do you?" She asked after a moment, raising her eyebrows at him just a little. "I don't want any surprises..."
"How am I supposed to know that, exactly?" he asked with a snort. "All I know is what you've told me."
She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I'm only asking you for your thoughts on the matter. You know more about her than I do."
He sighed. "She's a drifter. The plankton of the criminal world. Necessary for enough people's peace of mind that she doesn't end up dead."
"Fuck, you're right," she muttered, grimacing a little. "I was thinking about killing her. Forgot that she has the potential to release a lot of sensitive information."
He nodded. "I think, unless she's a threat to us, that we should just leave her be."
She nodded a little back at him, though she didn't look exactly pleased about it. "Yeah, okay. But I can't promise not to pick a fight if she shows up again."
He rolled his eyes. "Please don't make me have to babysit you. We're on vacation. Let's not make problems for ourselves."
"Sebastian, you did kill a man the other day for looking at me wrong," she snorted, capping the vodka again.
"'Looking at you wrong' hardly encompassed his crime," he snorted imperiously.
"And Irene was snide," she retorted, folding her arms over her chest. "But I can't kill her."
"We won't get much trouble from the family or effects of a dead waiter," he snorted. "But Adler... That's a pile of shit we very much do not want to step in."
"I know," she muttered, "But I'm still going to bitch about it anyway, if you don't mind. I forgot how unpleasant it is to have somebody around you're not allowed to kill."
He chuckled. "Believe me, I understand," he sighed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
She glanced over at him, concern entering her eyes again. "How are you feeling?"
He waved her off. "Fine. Sore, that's all." He didn't want her worrying over him. She had her own concerns.
"Your vision is fine, and all that? I'm worried you might have a concussion," she said quietly, raising her eyebrows at him just a little.
"Yes, you have expressed that concern once or twice," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "I'm fine, Harrison. Honestly."
"Okay, just checking," she placated, getting up and moving to sit next to him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. "Scared the shit out of me, that's all. Plus, it's nice having someone else to worry about other than Jim."
He smirked, wrapping his arm around her. "When do you ever worry about him, anyway?"
She rolled her eyes, giving a tired laugh. "I worried about him for the twelve months I was trapped in hell with him, that's for damn sure. Differing states of worry, but worry nonetheless."
He nodded just a little, sighing and closing his eyes. He just wanted to forget all of that.
That had been a long twelve months, and either one of them bringing it up was never any fun. But it was their most recent memory, at this point. It was hard not to think of it.
He eventually caught himself falling into silence. It was a habit he was working to break- she seemed better when she was distracted. "How was your appointment, aside from Adler?"
"Pretty unremarkable," she shrugged, leaning against him a little more. "The anesthetic is starting to wear off, but you know, it's pretty small fry compared to what I'm used to."
He nodded. Her pain tolerance was higher even than his at the moment. Maybe it would be forever. Those sort of memories were slow to fade, and twelve months of habitual agony could dull a person's senses in that area a touch. "I can get you painkillers if you need them."
She shook her head. "No, I don't need any. It stings, but I barely notice it," she murmured, sighing. "It's just a scrape, honestly."
He nodded a little, reaching for the arm where they had first started the treatment. The skin was beginning to lose the over-pink, sunburnt look it had possessed over the last few weeks. It was almost normal. Here and there there was a divot or a crease, barely visible even in the bright mid-day sun, remnants of scars too deep to remove completely. But much of it was gone, leaving behind nothing but smooth, normal skin. A freckle by her elbow that she always had - or at least had for as long as he'd known her- was gone. It felt strange, like driving through an old neighborhood and noting the absence of a favorite old restaurant. It was a small price to pay to help her feel whole again. Most anything was.
She let him examine her without any resistance, vaguely pondering over the patch of skin with him. It was interesting, seeing it. She didn't recognize it anymore. But it had been so long since it had been unblemished that she wasn't sure whether or not it was the same anyway. It didn't matter. It wasn't bumpy or ragged anymore, and that was all she cared about.
"You're alright with how this is turning out, right?" he said after a few moments, fingers tracing absent patterns on her newly unmarred skin.
"Yeah, I am," she nodded, her voice quiet, focus on his touch. It was odd to be touched without the accompanying feeling of fingers bumping across scars, however light the touch was. "It's just kinda odd, you know?"
He nodded. "I imagine it must be. I'd hate it." His fingers eventually stilled, hand curled loosely around her arm. It was even smaller (thinner, he supposed) than usual, even though she was gaining back weight. If he had wanted to, he could have easily made his fingers touch around her arm without brushing her skin.
"Well, with your circumstances I'd imagine as much," she agreed, nodding a bit. "But I dislike my scars. Getting rid of them is like a dream."
He nodded a little, turning his head and kissing whatever his lips encountered first, which turned out to be her ear. "Good."
"I love you," she murmured, reaching to interlace her fingers through his. "Thank you for this. Really."
"I love you, too," he returned, quietly. The words came easier after the twelve months they had had. He had regretted not saying them more, before.
She fell silent, content not to say anything for a bit, not while she was this content. Very idly, she wondered what Jim was up to. She had spent a year knowing what he was up to at almost all times; it was odd to have her autonomy back. She wondered how he was handling the heroin cravings.
He was quiet, too, grateful for the silence. He was naturally taciturn, and the past few weeks had been, by necessity, full of conversation.
Those twelve months had changed her, she thought. Where she had once been eager to fill up silences with idle chitchat, she now sat silently. She found that she simply didn't find talking as fulfilling as she used to. Silence was the new norm. She wasn't really sure how to get back to how she had used to be.
Eventually he decided he needed more painkillers, or at least a drink, and rubbed her arm a little as a warning before sitting up slowly.
She watched him go, just to make sure what he was doing, then closed her eyes, tired.
He took a swig of vodka, before setting it aside and considering her. "That chair can't be comfortable. I can't carry you to bed right now, so you'd better move before you fall asleep."
She groaned, but got up and dragged herself over to the bed in then next room, flopping back down without taking off her street clothes.
He came in a few minutes later. He gently removed her shoes and trousers, careful of sore skin, and then climbed into bed next to her, intent on sleeping.
Half asleep, she shifted into his side and then fell under completely. Time had not changed the fact that he put her to sleep like two Benedryls and a shot of NyQuil.
He held her close, and drifted off, finally able to relax now that she was back safely.
It was the next day when she took advantage of Sebastian's brief absence in the shower to look up the license plate of the man who had hit him, and as soon as she knew how to get to the address listed, she closed the tab and cleared her search history. Now all she had to do was find an excuse to leave for a little while, and make a pit stop. That wouldn't be hard.
His headache was slow to fade, but that, other than the occasional vertigo at first, was the only blatantly detrimental effect of the crash he noticed. His words, of course, were a separate matter entirely. As much as he tried to convince himself that the absence was fine, it still gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he saw the blank absence where the scars had been.
The day after that, she went for her daily treatment, and on the way home, during the time she promised to be picking up something for them to eat, she made a detour. She didn't knock on the door of the man's apartment, just unlocked the door with the key she'd had made the previous day and stepped inside. He would be home in half an hour. She waited for him on the sofa.
The man came home a few minutes early, singing along quietly with the music in his headphones, humming where he didn't know the lyrics. He fumbled for a few minutes to get the door unlocked, and then came inside, closing it behind him as he absently danced his way through hanging up his jacket and messenger bag.
He didn't notice her at first, but then paused suddenly as he registered her presence, before scrambling to remove his headphones.
"Who are you?"
She smiled, sickly sweet. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. I only have the one sin to bring to your attention, though," she said, still sitting, her posture relaxed. "Do you remember your accident, two days ago?"
His eyes widened in realization. "You're the woman- get out of my flat! I'm going to phone the police!" he said, fumbling for his cell phone.
She stood, walked over to him, and dislocated his wrist. The phone clattered to the floor, and she stomped on it with her heel of the two-sizes too large boots, which she'd worn for the occasion. "Yes, I am the woman. And the man you hit is mine. You hurt him, Rajesh. I don't appreciate that."
He let out a surprised cry of pain when she dislocated his wrist, snatching it back to his body and cradling it carefully, eyeing her with a mix of anger and fear. "I did not intend to hit him, he was in the middle of the road!"
"You were driving recklessly, Rajesh," she said, a scolding tone to her voice, her eyes dark and focused. "If you hadn't come around that corner at full speed, you wouldn't have hit him in the middle of the pedestrian crossing. But you did. And now we're here. See the path of events?"
"What are you going to do?" he asked. He tried to demand it, but he seemed to be getting a sense for exactly how much shit he had stepped in, and his voice wavered.
"I'm going to ensure that you never hurt him again, through some wildly improbable cosmic joke. I'm going to exact revenge for something that may not have happened yet," she smiled, stepping closer to him, her gloved fingers curling into the fabric of his collar. "You've made him relapse on a problem that we thought was largely gone, and I'm rather furious about it. It will make us all feel better if you simply... cease to exist."
She slid a knife out of her sleeve, gripped it in her hand, and neatly reached around him in a mockery of a hug to stab it into his back, the long blade grinding against his rib and then jumping in her hands as she shoved it into his heart.
He stared at her with wide eyes as his heart attempted a few stuttering beats around the intrusion. His expression was one of surprise. He hadn't planned to die just then. Hadn't accepted it yet. In his eyes were thoughts of love and children and grandchildren, weddings and funerals (not his), and old age under a flowering tree in a beautiful garden.
The thoughts died with him as he slumped forward onto her.
She left the knife buried in his back, locked the door behind her, and ditched the gloves five blocks over in a filthy creek that stank of cattle manure. She picked up the takeout she'd ordered forty-five minutes ago, and made it back to the hotel room while it was still hot.
Sebastian was cleaning his guns when she came in, and smiled eagerly at the sight of the food, standing up to grab the bag from her. "Fuck, this smells good," he muttered, setting the bag on opposite side of the table from his weapons and pulling out cartons. "I'm fucking starving."
"Me too," she grinned, sitting down at the table with a glance towards his weapons. She was glad to see it, it meant that he was in control. It was good to see him happy.
He started digging into his food immediately, one hand on the fork, the other passing her her box with a close-mouthed grin as he chewed. He'd spent the day doing whatever exercises didn't hurt his head, and had burned off a lot of pent-up energy. Now he was eating good food, and looking forward to a good night with Lorna. He was in an unusually cheery mood.
She was glad that the television was off, even though she kinda wanted him to know what she had done. It was akin to the time she'd beaten the hell out of Riordan. She ate her food in silence for a few minutes, then looked up. "So what did you do today?"
"Not much," he said, shrugging. "Worked out, mostly. It's cramped in here if you're stuck here. Had some energy to burn. You?"
"The appointment, got food, you know, boring stuff," she shrugged casually, forking another chunk of food into her mouth.
He nodded a little, falling silent until his phone alert went off. He glanced at it. It was an update from his police scanner app, and he absently read over the details before turning raised eyebrows on Lorna.
She cleared her throat a little, and gave a small shrug, not really looking at him. "Okay, so I made a small detour."
"So it would seem," he said, glancing over her attire. "Did you wear the shoes into the flat?" he asked, sizing up her heels.
"No. Pair of oversized hiking boots I got on the way there. Threw them into a dumpster on the way back here, made sure to get rid of the socks, too," she shook her head, taking a sip of water from the bottle she'd picked up at the takeout place.
He nodded in approval, leaning back. "You didn't have to kill him." But he wasn't complaining. There was a hint of amusement in his gaze.
"And you didn't have to kill the man who stared at me," she pointed out, raising her eyebrows at him. "But you did."
He laughed at that, just quietly. "Fair enough," he muttered absently. "So. Knife to the back, hm? Nasty bit of business... Give me the details?"
"I didn't want to deal with blood on my clothes, so I grabbed him by the collar and stabbed him through the back," she hummed, shrugging a little. "His heart nearly wrenched the knife out of my hand. He didn't want to die."
His eyes darkened just slightly at the thought of her wrestling with the knife in the man's back. "An embrace of death... amusing." He gave her a toothy grin and went back to eating. "I wish I could have seen it."
"We'll do the next one together, then, shall we?" She suggested, smirking a little. "Then fuck each other in an alley?"
His grin widened slowly. "You know me so well."
"That's why you begrudgingly love me," she laughed, giving him an amused wink.
"Very begrudgingly," he groused good-naturedly. "That and you bring Indian food."
"We're in India," she scoffed, half scoffing. "That one isn't exactly a stretch. You not even considering killing me? That's a stretch."
He smirked, rolling his eyes. "I haven't considered killing you in at least a month," he teased.
"Wow, that's gotta be a record of some kind," she laughed, leaning back in her chair.
"Call Guinness," he deadpanned as he put down the last of his food. He sat back with a content sigh, closing his eyes.
She got up and took care of the takeout containers, taking a whiff of the lingering spices in the air before she let the lid on the trashcan shut. "Indian food smells so good. Why does English food smell like an old fry pan?"
"Mostly because it's made in an old fry pan," he smirked, opening his eyes and standing, walking over to kiss her shoulder, arms sliding around her waist from behind.
She leaned back into him, carefully resting her hands on his wrists, thumb brushing over the skin of his good arm. "Gross," she chuckled, mentally visualizing it. "Our train stations are better, though."
"That is very true. Though we're tête-à-tête on the homeless problems." Her head barely made it to his chest, which never failed to amuse him in some small way. He was quiet for a bit before saying "How many more treatments do you have? Seems like it shouldn't be too many..."
"I'm not sure," she said, lifting her arm in front of her to look down the length of it, at the newly healed skin. It was so smooth. It was hard to believe it was hers. "Maybe a week?"
He nodded just a little. "Good. Then you can heal up and I can get back to fucking you properly," he muttered, nipping the shell of her ear with a small smirk.
"Aw, have you been holding back? Poor you," she smirked, glancing up at him teasingly. "I don't know how you've even managed to survive."
"Neither do I," he muttered. "Restraint is my specialty, but you're the exception." He slid a hand down her thigh, then pulled back. "I should finish cleaning my guns."
"Yeah you should," she chuckled, washing her hands in the sink real quick before stepping back and leaning against the counter. "I wonder how Johnson is doing..."
He laughed as he sat down, picking up the pistol he'd abandoned for dinner. "He might be able to hobble around by now. Probably still talking a few octaves higher than usual."
"I don't know how your department is handling the news that I'm not the building's bicycle anymore," she snorted, rolling her eyes.
"Well, as of when we left, I'd say they're becoming fairly accepting of the idea." His concentration was on the gun, but the corner of his mouth twitched in the barest hint of a smirk.
"Well, they better be," she smirked. "They all got to see the emasculation that ensued. I don't think bitching about it will earn them any favors."
"No, I don't think so either," he agreed, reassembling the gun carefully and setting it back into its case. "You weren't really ever the building's bicycle that I remember."
"Mmmm, I fucked a lot of people in my first couple years," she hedged, sucking air through her teeth, "I don't think I was really on your radar back then."
He nodded a little. "Fair enough. Well, the point remains that that isn't the case any longer." He put his guns in their cases back in their duffel and wiped his hands on a rag.
She wondered if it ever bothered him that she had a history of being promiscuous, but knew better than to ask, at the risk of starting a fight she didn't feel like dealing with. Instead she nodded and just watched him pack up.
He tucked his guns back into the closet where he kept them, and locked the door, tucking the key into his pocket. "So. Who shall we murder, on this spree of ours?"
She shrugged, drumming her fingers against the counter absently. "I don't know. I suppose we should decide whether we're going to go random or personal."
"Random is safer," he said quietly. "We already have two rather clear motivations leading to us... Not really something to repeat."
"That's very true," she agreed, pushing off the counter and turning for the bathroom. "Speaking of which, I ought to shower. Who knows what's hidden itself away in my hair."
He nodded in agreement, smiling a little. "With a knife to the heart I'm surprised you don't have blood up to the wrist, to be honest."
"You should have seen my glove," she called over her shoulder as she entered the bathroom, stripping down the rest of the way and turning on the shower. "Had to turn it inside out so I wouldn't leave a blood trail on the way out. Carried it like a doggy bag."
He smiled, taking a slow breath and leaning back in his chair. He closed his eyes, picturing her like that, the man gasping to death in her arms. "Now if that isn't a wonderful picture."
She smirked, stepping into the shower and letting out a quiet, relieved sigh at the hot water on her now always-sore skin. "Good thing you weren't there. We would have contaminated the crime scene."
"Absolutely worth it, I should think," he said cheerfully. "I can't wait to kill someone with you again. To see you covered in blood, see the look in your eyes when their light goes out..."
She pictured it too, pictured him with his arm forearm deep in her own father's chest, the way his eyes grew dark and focused, though animal-like in intensity. This was where they were truly a match made in heaven. She was distracted enough that she forgot to answer him for a moment, and then just decided to let the moment pass, and be pleasant for both of them.
He relaxed there for a while, just picturing the situation, then turned his mind to other ideas before he needed a cold shower. He stood, walking through to their bedroom and pulling up a map of the city on his computer, starting to study it quietly.
When she was finished with her shower, she walked back out in a towel and sat next to him on the bed, pulling her wet hair over her mostly smoothed shoulder. The next day's appointment was for the jagged scar across her face, and she was impatient to be rid of it, even though it was giving her an odd feeling in her stomach. It was a familiar embarrassment by now, and it would be strange to have it gone. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "What exactly are you up to?"
"I figured if we're going to do this, having a good knowledge of the city would be a good idea. In case anything goes pear-shaped." He shifted the laptop so that she could see the map more clearly.
"Always prepared for the worst, aren't you?" She chuckled, scanning the map. "How do we get back to England if we're barred from the airport?"
"Leave the country by train, boat, car, foot, whatever makes sense at the time," he said, leaning back. "In this country especially, you can get lost in the crowd. Worst case scenario, we go to ground for a few weeks. Wait for things to clear up."
"Jim would not be pleased if it came to that," she pointed out. "And I don't know how steady the ground we stand on with him as is. Let's avoid a manhunt."
"That's always the plan, dearest Lorna," he sneered. "It just doesn't always work out that way. Besides. We've been on shakier ground with him than this." He leaned back against the head of the bed.
"Except we're on nearly the other side of the world while Jim is recovering from a year in a hell labyrinth. He likes to be alone when he licks his wounds, I know that, but we've left a lot of responsibility on him when he actually might need help," she sighed, rubbing her eyes wearily. "I don't know. I only know the version of him that was in there. You know this one far better."
He was quiet for a while at that.
"Is there a this Jim?" he asked after a bit. "You might know him better than I do at this point. But this is a moot issue. We're smart enough to work the system."
Her response was quiet. "It's a moot issue, but still probably worth thinking about, if to just be prepared for when we go back."
He shook his head. "There is no being prepared with Jim. We'll just have to take him wherever he is, and go from there. Any plan we might come up with will go to shit in the first few seconds."
"Yeah, I guess that's true," she muttered in agreement. "Besides how unpredictable he is, he's also full of spite. Can you imagine what he would do if he thought he had some sort of plan?"
He shrugged a little. "I think it's the we that would bother him. He's used to each of us scheming individually. Together we present a united front. I think that would threaten him more than he would care to admit."
She nodded. "Yeah, that would bug the hell out of him. Maybe he'd even do something drastic, I don't know. I don't want to find out."
"Likewise. The point is, we shouldn't bother him. Just let him be to heal on his own. Maybe when we get back we can check on him separately. See who he responds to more effectively."
She snorted a little, but nodded. "Yeah, although I'm 100% certain he'll respond better to you. Never in my life have I been stuck with a person so long and we didn't even make out. I don't think he finds me very... hell, interesting."
He shrugged. "To be honest, he very rarely takes women to bed. You just may not be his type." He closed the laptop and set it aside, smirking. "It's a pity though. I think after a week of watching the two of you snog, I would have been jealous enough to just berserk my way through Mycroft's complex and get us all out."
She grumbled a little, adjusting her cheek against his shoulder. "I'm used to being everyone's type, so that's frustrating," she muttered, drumming her fingers against her thigh. "I can't do anything about it, either. He's immune to anything I can throw at him. It's honestly scary, for someone like me."
"You've encountered gay men before, I'm sure. I don't know if I'd say Jim is gay, mainly because I'm not certain Jim is anything, but if he were human, he would be. Or close, anyway. I don't think he scares you because you can't touch him. No one can touch him. I think he scares you because he's Jim. Which he should." He closed his eyes, relaxing.
She sighed. "It's not really that. Gay men, straight women, any iteration in between that isn't interested - I can still interest them with something. Find someway to make myself irreplaceable to them. But not with Jim," she shook her head.
He hmphed slightly in understanding at that, a finger tracing patterns on her shoulder, where he knew a healed patch of skin was. "I suppose that makes sense. I can usually intimidate people into never screwing me over again, but not with Jim. But that doesn't scare me as much as it makes things interesting. Your response sounds saner."
"He's never casually considered killing you, though. If he had, you might be a little more cautious. Christ, when we were undercover with Mycroft and I had to sneak away to report to him about you - I saw him twitch towards his gun. You're not inches away from death at all times like I am."
He raised an eyebrow. "No, I suppose not. Though he did throw me in prison for a few months for a lark. Still. His unpredictability with me is less deadly."
She gave a tired chuckle. "True. He's willing to make you suffer. For me, though? I'm not important enough to waste the energy. Better than suffering, I guess."
"I think we can safely say that his threat towards us is equally horrible, just in different ways," he said with a small smirk. "How's that?"
"I suppose I can live with that," she sighed, shifting so she could lay her head in his lap. "He fucks me when you're around," she said, coming back around to that topic again. "But no interest otherwise. Sorry, this just bugs me."
He smiled a little as her head found his lap, his hand moving to her hair, fingers combing through it slowly, absently. "So one person out of seven billion that you can't control. It's not the worst record, Lorna," he pointed out glibly.
She shut her eyes as his fingers slid through her hair. "I don't want to control him. I mean that's part of it, but... What is it about the brilliance of the Holmes brothers or Jim that puts them above it?"
"How would I know?" he asked with a soft laugh. "I'm one of the dumb, malleable ones, remember? I don't know how his brain works any more than you do, I just have an extensive trial-and-error list."
She chuckled, squeezing his leg. She loved that laugh. She rarely heard it. "I like you anyway."
"Well, thank goodness for that," he said dryly, though he was smiling. "What sort of man would I be if I didn't have to put up with a grifter 24/7?"
"One who has infinitely less sex, probably," she quipped, grinning. "Or at least, way less fun sex. What other girl have you fucked that you didn't get tired of?"
"Keira's mother is really the only one I can think of," he said, with considerably more truth and less snark than he realized the question probably deserved. "But she was much less sarcastic and troublesome. You have the best of both," he said dryly by way of recovery.
She was surprised that he'd answered truthfully. That was unusual of him, but appreciated. He must have really been in a good mood. "You should be grateful she wasn't as sarcastic and troublesome as me; could you imagine Keira having two parent's worth of those?"
"No, and I don't want to," he snorted. "She survived, by the way. She's interning in hits. I looked at her culling reports... She's definitely mine, if that was ever in question."
"No, I don't think that was ever in question," she laughed, "But at least you know the murderous gene is dominant. Thank god I have a uterus. No surprise children for me, ever."
"That is true. Though I can't get pregnant, nor does my body remind me on the regular that I haven't gotten knocked up yet," he retorted with a laugh. "I'd say both have downsides, but at least now I have another murder minion."
"You already had plenty of murder minions," she shook her head, still chuckling. "Now you just have one that you may feel a little more compelled to protect."
"I'm wounded that you would think me so susceptible to genetics," he muttered, rolling his eyes and ruffling her hair gently before straightening it out.
"I said may," she smirked, rolling her eyes at him a little, then letting them close again. "I know you're a ruthless bastard, c'mon."
"Says my one living weak spot," he muttered under his breath, brushing her hair behind her ear and starting to trace the shell of it absently.
She squeezed his leg again, letting that stand without touching it. He could say those things, but he didn't always like it when she did. Right now, she just wanted to enjoy his company. And his soft touch.
He let the conversation lapse into silence, his fingers continuing to trace through her hair and over her skin with no particular pattern, just relaxing. He wondered if they'd ever done this before. Relaxed together in such quiet comfort... He didn't think so. He also didn't mind.
Moments like this in her life were rare. Just lying there, with someone else, not planning or scheming or waiting for them to fall asleep. She wondered if this would have been possible before she'd been stolen away from him for a year.
He eventually drifted off into a relaxed doze, his hands drifting into stillness in the warm sunlight. For once, he felt safe. Completely relaxed. It was weakness, but for the moment he allowed it.
She fell asleep after he did, warm and comfortable and not craving heroin too much. If only she could stay feeling this way.