Chapter 11-Obessions and Endings
It only takes a millisecond and Sherlock has the front door lock picked. The door swings open slowly and then stops about halfway, the outside light behind them only slightly illuminating the room. John notes that the carpet is a soft grey color and it seems very plush as he walks in behind his partner.
Without warning, there is a loud crash and Sherlock crumples to the floor. John whirls around and notices several things at the same time. One, he can hear a muffled yell just behind him. Two, there is a slight bead of blood dripping from Sherlock's temple down his cheek. Three, oh and is this the important one (he will consider later) that he is yet again staring at someone who should be dead; someone who should have been dead over twenty years ago. He considers for a moment that he's getting too old for this shit, and shuffles about to kneel down beside his partner. He quickly inspects Sherlock's head with his fingers and palm. There are no broken bones, just a slight swelling where a bruise will no doubt come up later. No way to tell if there is a concussion until he stirs. John leaves a hand lying on Sherlock's shoulder and turns toward the woman he believed to be dead until a minute and a half ago.
Irene Adler gazes down at John through hooded lids. She is breathing heavy like a wild animal caught in a cage. She has aged, as have they all, but the years have not been as kind to her. She is still quite well-built, though has started padding out in some places more than others. Her hair, still raven black, is now about half silver and worn on her head in a tightly wrapped bun, though some of the hairs have slipped out messily. She is wearing a black turtleneck and plain jeans.
Her eyes pierce through him. If he had to describe her on his blog (and he probably will do much later after the dust has cleared) she looks quite deranged. She stands over John, breathing heavily and still holding what appears to be a police baton in her upraised hand. She lowers the hand holding the baton and hisses through clinched teeth.
"How dare you?" Her voice is high, insistent and very angry. Her eyes have gone cold. John turns so that his body is shielding Sherlock's. The detective is starting to moan and John can only hope that when he comes around he will be lucid enough to help out.
Irene raises the baton again and makes as if to strike out at John. John is up just as quickly and has her on the floor, both arms pinned behind her back with one hand. His other hand holds the nape of her neck. Irene is screeching against the carpet with such a sound that John can only make out a few words, but they sound amazingly like "mine" and "Sherlock." What the hell?
Irene tries hard to buck him off. He retaliates my sitting down, hard, on the middle of her back. She gives a grunt and then goes still. Time has not erased John's memories of this woman who is as a beautiful and dangerous as a black mamba.
Sherlock has pushed himself up into a sitting position. From the sounds he's making, John is pretty sure that Sherlock's world is spinning. From his seat on Irene, he speaks calmly to his partner.
"Sherlock." Sherlock himself goes still, closes his eyes against the dizziness and gets himself together. John takes just a second to look at the other man and can see that the blood along his temple has dried and no more seems to be forthcoming. He makes a small sound of relief. Irene takes advantage of the situation and deftly flips over. John makes a startled cry as the woman slashes at his face with her long red fingernails. He grabs at both of her hands and once again she stills.
"Sherlock, when you feel like you can stand, I need a better way to hold her." John says quietly to the room at large. Irene hisses again and John tightens his hold on her hands. Though he's flat on his back on the ground with Irene looming over him, he has control of both of her hands. Anger is pouring off of her in waves. John slowly pushes Irene's hands down toward the ground and then stands as she kneels. He's not about to let go again.
Sherlock has gained momentum again, shaking his head slowly as the world goes back to normal. He watches John's struggle with a woman that he has quickly deduced is none other than Irene Adler. Though he will admit to being completely perplexed as to why she is here. He runs a hand through his hair and stands up. Out of the corner of his eye, he has noticed movement towards the back of the house. A young woman is standing with her back to a bedroom door. Her hair is short and her eyes are wide with fear. Almost under her breath, she mumbles.
"Sophie…Sophie…I think they are…here." She pushes against the door and another face, a beloved face, peers around the door. Sherlock opens his arms wide as his daughter steps out and almost runs to him. She buries her face in his neck and sobs. The other girl has not moved but Sherlock already knows who she is.
As he wraps his arms around Sophie, he speaks quietly to the other girl. "You are Irene's daughter, yes?"
The other girl shakes her head and whispers "Heather." She stares at him, afraid where her mother was simply angry.
Sherlock nods. Sophie has stopped sobbing, but is still holding her father tightly. She turns in his arms. "Papa, she has been taking care of me. She got the other woman to let me into a bedroom instead of…of where they had me before." Sherlock hears the word left unsaid. He can see that Heather has had very little part of this and is probably the reason Sophie was able to send the text message in the first place. He nods at the other girl and turns back towards the sitting room. Sophie steps away from her dad and Heather follows them.
John is still standing in the middle of the room, both of Irene's hands caught in his own. She is kneeling and her head is hanging toward the ground. In the scuffle, her hair has completely come undone and is wild down her back. Heather quietly steps up behind her mother and lays her hands on Irene's shoulders. Irene slumps back against the girl and John finally lets go of her hands. Sophie almost runs to her Daddy and wraps him into a tight hug.
When they finally step away from each other, John's face is wet but he is smiling at his daughter. He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to his side. She leans her head on his shoulder and they all just stand still for a moment. Heather puts her hands under her mother's arms and helps her to the sofa. John makes no move to help them and Sherlock just stands his guard. After a time, he walks through the house to ascertain that there is no one else home.
He then walks to the front door and throws the dead bolt. He reaches over to a floor lamp and switches it on. Sophie steps out of John's embrace and nods towards the kitchen.
"Tea?" She asks. Heather and John murmur their agreement. Neither Irene nor Sherlock speak.
John watches his daughter walk to the kitchen and then turns towards Sherlock, who is staring holes into Irene's bowed head.
"You knew she was alive?" John's question is quiet, calm, but seems all the louder in the room for it.
"I saved her life, John. They were going to execute her." Sherlock speaks quietly but firmly.
John has no argument for that. The waters of so many years have smoothed out the edges of some hurts. He isn't surprised, exactly, but the idea does not get to him like it would have before. John knew Sherlock cared more than he ever let on at the time and he will not fault him for it. Not when it has meant so much to so many other people.
Both men turn their faces toward the woman who lies crumpled on the sofa. Heather sits behind her, rubbing her shoulders.
"Who are you?" John asks the young woman.
"Heather, Irene's daughter." Sherlock speaks for her. John nods and then does a quick calculation in his head. He doesn't recognize any of her features. Somewhere in the back of his mind he breathes in relief, no way does she belong to Sherlock or a certain psychopath they used to know.
Irene has finally looked up at both men. Her eyes seem clearer than they were just moments ago. She makes a vague gesture towards the other chairs in the room. John sits, one leg over the other, hands resting on his thighs. Sherlock knows at a glance that his partner can move from that very position very quickly if need be. Sherlock does not sit down, even after Sophie reenters the room carrying a tea tray laden with cups and a kettle.
She carefully sets the tray down on the round table in front of the sofa. No one breathes for a moment, they all seem frozen in time. Sophie pours from the kettle and hands around the cups. Its an odd sort of ritual, full of everyday comfort. Neither John nor Sherlock accept a cup. They are both focused on Irene instead, watching her as if she were a cobra behind glass at the Zoo. What will she do next?
When Irene finally speaks, her voice is small and broken. Her throat is hoarse from screeching. "Sherlock I would have done anything for you." She gazes at him, following his movements with her eyes. He assigns to meaning to her words. She continues: "I would have given up my life for you, my world. But you would always look at me and see….him."
Yet another dead man brought back to life, but only for a moment. The eyes of Jim Moriarty are gone from this world. A tarantula brain crushed to a death by its own insanity.
"Why did you save me, Sherlock? I meant nothing to you, I had betrayed you. Yet you let me live." Irene's eyes were pleading now. "And now, now when I could have you…all of you…you love him?" She spat, turning in John's direction and making like she was going to stand up and tossing her little tea cup to the floor where it bounced off the carpet and rolled under the sofa. In a flash, John was standing in front of her, hands at his sides, ready to take her down again if need be.
Heather pushed away from her mother and moved across the room. She had dealt with her mother's ever changing moods since she was a tiny child and she was finally starting to see where it had all begun.
It was unbelievable to her how long her mother had carried this poison. She had never even known her father, and yet her was a man that had never even touched her mother apparently and that was who she was pining over?
Heather stepped backwards until her feet hit another chair. She dropped into it, stunned by her sudden revelation.
"I just want it back." Irene said in a small voice.
"You cannot have it." Sherlock replied, almost in a growl.
"What do you mean I can't have it? It's mine, I want it back!" The last word filled with venom, Irene rushed John, her arms flying out as if to push him away.
"Irene," Sherlock said to the room in his best you-are-an-idiot voice. "I no longer have it. It is currently residing in an evidence locker in the basement of New Scotland Yard as I understand the situation."
"What?" Irene's screeching was enough to drive any man insane, thought John as he stubbornly kept his body between the two adversaries.
She stepped backwards and dropped back to the sofa. Sherlock could see some of the tension leave John's shoulders but he stood his ground. Irene pushed herself back against the arm of the sofa and glared at Sherlock, who was finally standing still.
"Irene, tell me. What else was on that mobile phone besides blackmail photos?" He stared down at her, his eyes cold.
"No." The woman on the couch whispered, crossing her arms over her chest and hanging her head. Sherlock stepped in closer to her and grabbed one of her wrists, pulling her arm away from her chest. With another screech, she slashed at his chest with her nails. Her grabbed at her flailing hands while John tried to pull her off of his partner from the other side.
Sherlock could not take much more. He drew back and slapped her full across the face before he even knew what he had done. Irene froze and one hand moved to her face. She dropped back down to the couch, boneless and burst into tears.
"I love you. You bastard, I loved you. I would have given up everything for you. I was wrong about the plane and the…." She sobbed into her hands. "I…I, there's something else, Sherlock. I waited for you. When you jumped…when you jumped, part of me did finally die. Then you were back and I had nothing. Do you understand me?" Her voice rose again in pitch. Heather and Sophie just stared at her. Sherlock stood over her, watching. John felt strange waves of shock roll over him. It had been so long, but somehow he knew what Irene was describing. He remembered those feelings well.
Then Sophie had come along and changed everything. Not just his life but Sherlock's life; and Sherlock's heart….the one that was supposed to have only been a fable.
"I gave it all up, Sherlock. All of it." Irene addressed her hands. She had broken three nails on Sherlock's chest but seemed not to see them as she wrung her hands in her lap. "BUT YOU!" She stared in John's direction. He stared back. "You took him .me. You did this!" She was angry, but seemed to no longer have the energy to move from her seat.
John calmly gazed at Irene, once a successful dominatrix and worldwide troublemaker. Somewhere in the region of his chest, he actually felt sorry for her. "Irene, Sherlock never loved you. You knew this." He said to her as quietly as he could muster.
"Yes he did, and with you out of the way, he will love me!" With absolutely no warning, Irene reached down under the sofa and withdrew a tiny pistol. Sherlock and John both jumped back at the same time. Irene pointed the pistol in John's direction but Sherlock stepped in front of his partner before John could protest.
"Ah, you aren't going to fix my puzzle for me this time, Sherlock?" Irene made a clicking sound with her tongue on the end of Sherlock's name. "I brought your dead whore's daughter here and still you won't solve my puzzle? Fine then, come with me. That band on your finger means nothing to me, Sherlock. Nothing."
Sophie tensed up on Irene's words calling her dead mother a whore. Everything she new about Irene she had read on Daddy's blog or in his notebook. None of this was making any sense. Her head quickly moved from side to side as she watched the interchange taking place. Heather seemingly was having the same problem. Both girls were horrified when the gun appeared, Sophie even more so. Unlike Heather, she had no idea what Irene was capable of.
"Irene, you have never killed anyone."
"John, you ass. How would you even know?" She glared at him, still keeping the little pistol raised in the air between them. "Maybe I should just shoot your big lover then, shall I? If I can't have him after all this time, then why should you?" She moved her thumb to pull the trigger and her eyes glazed over. Sherlock turned his face toward John and in that second, Irene saw the truth.
It all happened in slow motion. Irene's entire expression changed to one of acceptance and her hand turned the pistol away from John and towards herself. She closed her eyes and tears rolled down her face. Heather had jumped up from her chair and was reaching out to her mother as if to grab the gun. Sophie just sat, stunned, in the chair. Sherlock and John, always the team, had moved together towards Irene to do something, but even they could not stop a bullet once it was fired.
Irene never opened her eyes again as she placed the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. In an instant, it was all over. Blood spray on the back of the sofa, a body slumped against the cushions and a young woman holding her dead mother in her arms, sobbing.
Sophie moved to her Daddy and Papa. Both men wrapped their arms around their daughter as Sherlock used the other hand to pull out his phone to call the police. Sophie stared at the dead woman for a few minutes longer and then turned her face into her Daddy's chest, feeling the soft jumper he wore beneath her cheek.