Chapter Four: The Evidence Suggests It Was Dinner

A/N: An early update!

Disclaimer: You know the drill; I'm not making monetary profit off of this, so on and soforth.
Reviews and PMs are always welcomed and given a good home.

Acknowledgments: I have to thank all of the betas for helping me with grammar andpunctuation, brit-picking, suggestions and reminders of what they liked.Sloggingthrough this on my own would have been impossible. TheDubliner, MeiHitokiri, xXMildredXx, thisisforyou, SapphireElric, Sianco, Kanna-chan94, and LosGatos.

She kept up with his varying paces. He would speed up and begin talking soundlessly to himself before suddenly slowing while looking up at the London rooftops through the sleet. His facial expressions would change into a furrowed brow or a sudden smirk, then there would be a stretch of time that his face would remain tranquil and near unreadable. He didn't bother with an umbrella, instead he let the sleet stick to his jacket, melt in his hair and run down his face. By the time they arrived back at Baker Street it was nearly 1 a.m. Sherlock had gone where his feet led him and taken no direct routes. He double checked his watch.

"If you're hungry, there's a small diner still open a few blocks down. I'm afraid I don't have anything in the house with John being away."

Irene peered at him from under the umbrella. "Do they have something warm to eat?"

"So long as the stoves and ovens haven't broken down," he replied, chuckling to himself as they continued past 221B. Despite being as intelligent as she was, she still asked redundant questions, it was both annoying and endearing. And only endearing because it made her sound a slight bit innocent.

They reached the diner, a place Sherlock and John frequented. It was named 'Milo's'. The ovens and stoves were working, so Irene ordered a hot roast beef sandwich with soup. Sherlock asked if they were serving breakfast yet and if he could have eggs.

"Well... ummm.. Let me check," the young waitress who was working the graveyard shift said, scooting back behind the counter to ask the cook.

She came back and informed them that for them, breakfast was all day. "Tyler says he sees you and that other fella in here all the time, and that he likes to see regulars, be it out of convenience or not. How do you want your eggs?"

"Tell, Tyler I thank him and that I'll have Eggs Benedict please, but could I get the hollandaise sauce on the side?"

"Sure thing." She turned to Irene, "Anything to drink for you both?" She glanced back at Sherlock to include him in the question.

"Yes, a coffee for me." Irene replied.

"A coffee for me as well." Sherlock told her, looking around the diner. It was empty of any other patrons. Irene watched the younger woman as she went to get their coffees. She pursed her lips delicately and a small smile tugged at the corners. The young woman brought the coffees over and set them down on the table before she told them that if they needed anything to give a holler.

Sherlock watched Irene, he didn't need to look at the retreating girl to know what was going on for Irene. He didn't comment on it either. He moved his attention to the empty street and fixed his coffee with a bit of sugar. He wondered...

"Did you know them?" he asked her, still looking out onto the street.

"Did I know who?" she asked, sounding irritated.

"The case, the victims, did you know them?" He turned to look at her now. Her hand twitched around the coffee mug.

"I knew them indirectly."

"Through Lady K?"

"Lady wh- oh, of course. No, I knew her indirectly also."

He allowed himself a heavy exhale, she wasn't being very forthcoming. No matter, he would figure it out soon enough, he knew; he could feel it in the air, in his fingertips, the tingling down his back: he was close to breaking the case. He brushed his gaze over the woman across from him. "You've changed." He told her.

"I've been gone for some time. You've changed also."

"Yes."

There was a brief pause, then she said, "In a way, you broke my heart."

"I- yes, well." He couldn't deny that they're last public scene in London had been him tearing her heart(and her scheme) asunder when she thought she had won the game. Like he said to her then; she'd stopped playing the game and started playing on sentiment.

~You mean like what you're coming dangerously close to?~

"Had it been.." He grimaced; a heart is not physically broken by feeling, it can stop, or a heart attack can occur. But to break a heart...

"...broken before then?" he asked. It had been an attempt to ignore the question he had asked himself, but somehow it seemed to only give that thought more to feed from..

She took the time to think about it. "Not in that kind of way." She smiled then, as though the whole thing was a delight. Sherlock joined in her mirth as their food arrived.

"Sherlock," she said as she wrapped her scarf around her neck just before exiting the diner. She left the umbrella shut; it was past 2.a.m., not many would be out in this weather. Besides, it was only a short walk to 221B.

"Mhhmm?" He held the door open for her. They walked a few paces, she stopped him, reached for his hand and pulled herself nearer to him. She felt the warmth of him through his woolen coat, smelt his smell that was;

Sherlock
l
faint lemon→ his soap
l
chemicals→ experiments
l
cigarette smoke clinging to his scarf
l
Something she could only describe as 'him'

She brought her lips to his ear and whispered, "We just had dinner."

Clipping the words sharply for emphasis, he whispered back. "That was nothing like dinner."

She moved so that she could look at him while remaining close."How was that not dinner?" She asked with a smirk.

"Because," he disentangled their bodies and kept walking, though he did not let go of her hand, "It is the second hour of Saturday. Friday has passed; therefore, we cannot have had dinner, we had breakfast."

Irene chuckled her tinkling laugh as they walked back into the flat and upstairs, careful not to wake Mrs. Hudson.

"Where shall I sleep?" she inquired as they took off their wet jackets and scarves.

"Wherever you want," was Sherlock's nonchalant reply. He refrained from rolling his eyes. She was being obvious again.

"Are you going to sleep at all tonight?"

When he made no response, she closed took his arm and wrapped it around her waist as she began kissing him. He returned the kiss reluctantly.

He stopped her. It was uncomfortable.

"Your coat is wet."

The offending garment was pressed between them and was indeed, getting Sherlock's shirt wet. Irene threw her jacket atop his (which was laying on the sofa). She gave him a sultry look that named every one of his desires, sexual and otherwise.

He didn't immediately scoop her up to satisfy his desire. He picked their jackets up of the sofa and put them over chairs to dry.

She kicked off her shoes and started walking to his bedroom, brushing past him as she went. He reached out for her shoulder but ended up touching her lower back instead. She stopped and he smiled. There.

~What are you doing? This isn't you. You don't even know how to-~

He silenced the thought, whatever he thought he didn't know how to do would remain unknown. Besides, just because one thinks they don't know how to do something, doesn't mean it's true.

His unhelpful thoughts dismissed, he pressed his hand into her back and watched for the reaction. Her back was where she kept all her tension, her stress, her unreleased emotion. His hand being there was as deadly as pulling a trigger. When she turned to face him, the way their lips touched wasn't firecrackers and parades, wasn't the signature fire and control that Irene had become famous for. It was the slow, sumptuous kind of touch to melt chocolate. It was her letting all the masks fall.
Just because she was a dominatrix meant she was all masks. She really was a commanding, fierce woman, just not all the time.

The pair took their time getting to his bedroom, kissing and touching as they went. They took each other to the bed, his shirt wrinkling underneath the pressure of her body. Her hips steady, breathing quickening and pulse accelerating.

"I can't. The case, I-I can't be distracted," he told her once settling on the right words to use.

She kissed him roughly; as though she didn't want to heed his words. She pinned him with her gaze before rolling off of him with her feet on the floor.

"Alright, plenty of time before John gets back." She laughed as she unzipped her dress, let it fall and toed over to the door to hang it up before she took a silk sleeping shirt out of her suitcase. She came back over to the bed as she put it on.

"Goodnight, Ms Adler," Sherlock murmured as she slipped beside him under the blankets.

"Goodnight, Mr Holmes."

Sherlock didn't fall asleep soon after. He wasn't sure if he was going to sleep even. He could be up and working on the case, he could be working on his mushroom experiment, he could be honing a skill, but he wasn't. He was laying in bed, something he normally only did when he was sleeping. The weight of another body on his bed was strange. The sound of her deep sleep breathing was unfamiliar. He sat up and looked out the window. Illuminated by streetlamps on his street, he could see the snow as some of it turned to rain before hitting the ground. He thought back to when they had first met, the number of question marks she had inspired, the way they had played each other, and how in the end, she had proved to him that love was a dangerous disadvantage. Irene did not love him, she had said as much then. It was no matter; he didn't love her either. Love was not something they had. No, what they did have though, was admiration. He did not know if Irene was staying in London for good, and if she were, what did it mean for their mutual admiration?

Until next week my lovies! Hope you enjoyed it and I would love to hear (well, I guess read) your thoughts on it! What kind of soap do you think Sherlock would use?

A kind reader suggested that I ask for everyones emails in case of accidental account deletion/hacking, if anyone is interested in sending me a private message with their email address in it, I of course will not object. Don't feel obligated to though! I could always make a new account!

Sneak Peek;

Four Minutes
Sherlock kept going, accelerating once more. He took a sharp left, Irene on his heels. They sprinted through another alley and made a quick break as the traffic light they wanted to stay red turned green.

g in front of the oncoming vehicles. Horns blared and beeped at the two figures as they bounded toward a fence, Irene shouting, "I can't jump that in these shoes!"