A/N This one nearly got abandoned through a combination of real life and a crisis of confidence about the planned story. However, after a bit of a do-over plot wise and a thorough rewatch of both A Scandal in Belgravia and The Reichenbach Fall (not really a hardship) I think I'm back on track. Thanks for reading.
Consciousness bled in from the edges with the low drone and vibration, each breath dry and stale.
A plane. A plane via a hospital. He vaguely remembered the sterile tang in his nose and the sensation of latex gloves and cold metal on his bare skin. He became aware of the scent of new carpet and leather, fresh coffee and something else familiar, woody and old fashioned. A nice plane, a private plane. The sort of plane that... oh.
'We can tell you're awake Sherlock.'
As he opened his eyes, his brother sat opposite with a thick file propped in his lap. The top edge decorated with a confetti of index flags. The older Holmes looked exhausted, fraying, and it took a lot to exhaust Mycroft. In the right company he would boast of not sleeping for three days during an American state visit.
'Was this really necessary?' Sherlock shifted, trying to regain feeling in his stiff limbs.
'Of course. No one wants a repeat of March 2008.'
Sherlock had the good grace to blush, 2008 had been his last proper bender. Cocaine and God knows what else. He'd outwitted his brother across London for three days, sending a series of taunting and increasingly incoherent texts. The whole thing ended with a well placed drugs raid, Sherlock bundled into an unmarked car while the Met's best looked the other way.
It would be months before he realised how much Mycroft, and Lestrade for that matter, had risked. Sending government resources to retrieve a junkie relation from a drug den being the stuff tabloid scandals are made of.
'Look brother we don't have time to bugger about. I'm going to assume you haven't touched what I found in your pocket. I don't like to be proved wrong.' Mycroft didn't swear as a rule. He thought it a sign of poor vocabulary.
'It's time you came back anyway. I can get anyone to deal with Marrakech and Spain.' Mycroft dismissed a people and antiquities smuggling ring with an impatient gesture. 'This woman is a different matter.'
'You've not been watching John, not properly.' Something unpleasant and icy slipped across his skin at the realisation.
'Sherlock, there is only so much time, this happened rather suddenly and...' Mycroft broke off to rub his temple, he was a martyr to migraines.
'He's happy Sherlock. For a long time the biggest danger to John was John and I was grateful he was happy. I made an error of judgement and for that I'm sorry.' A look passed between them. The Holmes brothers didn't really do sincerity. Mostly they communicated via sarcasm and sniping.
'You went down a lot easier than last time.' Irene broke in. His head snapped round to where she sat. Coffee in one hand, newspaper (The Guardian) in the other. Out of the showy clothes of her previous occupation she looked smaller, slight even, but with a certain wiry strength.
The plane shifted around them as it prepared for landing. Sherlock looked out of the window for the first time. He was surprised to see an expanse of muted brownish green and a body of water, coastline in the distance.
'I thought you were taking me home.' He turned to his brother.
'As I'm sure you appreciate 'home' is a little more complicated for you. The Lodge seemed the most sensible solution until I can arrange things.'
'Sutherland? How long?'
'A week at most. Then I should be in a position to do something more permanent for both of you.'
Realisation dawned. 'She's staying with me?'
'I'm sure it's all very proper Sherlock, separate rooms to avoid a scandal.' Irene was smirking, they both ignored her.
'Of course. I can't be expected to find two safe houses at this short notice. Besides, recent history suggests you are rather good at looking after each other.'
###########
Karachi -3 years earlier
A lot of people owed Sherlock favours and Irene knew what a lot of people liked.
This made the practicalities of safe (if illegal) passage out of Pakistan and a secure place to stay until this could be arranged manageable if not easy. A few phone calls, the furtive collection of keys from a run-down shop and they were making their way up a narrow winding staircase and through a reassuringly heavy door. There wasn't much to it, a( thankfully clean) sparse space, a small bathroom. Not what The Woman was used to of course but the sigh of relief as she leaned against the locked door was the most human reaction he'd ever seen from her. But then what did he know about that?
They hadn't said much as they ran from the abandoned warehouse and drove away in a stolen car. They had worked their way back into the heart of the city on foot, picking up supplies as they came across them. It was only now as they sat down facing each other in the tiny stuffy room, showered and fed as well as the meagre accommodation allowed that she asked.
'Why did you come after me?' It sounded like an accusation.
'I was curious about where you'd go, if you'd throw yourself on his mercy. When I realised you weren't going to Moriarty I was even more curious.' He flexed the fingers of his injured hand and set about bandaging it.
'Professional interest.' She said, with a disbelieving raise of the eyebrows.
'Of course what else.'. He had been lucky, it was minor but a slight change in angle, a few seconds either way and he could have lost the hand. 'Very few people get close to besting Mycroft.' He added by way of further explanation.
'I still don't entirely understand how you found me so quickly .' He sighed as if he found the whole subject boring.
'I had your client list from the phone of course. Then it was just a question of narrowing it down. I discarded any name you had less than five appointments with in the last year. The connection would be too tenuous and, much worse, they were likely to be too poor to be of any use to you. That got rid of half. Then there was the government officials and elected representatives.' He smirked slightly at this.
'After what had passed you would know they would be under extra scrutiny from Mycroft, not worth the risk. That left me with twenty-five names. Most of whom were too famous to be of any use. Sports people, royalty, actors, musicians.'
'You knew who they all were?' She looked incredulous, pop culture was not his area.
'I looked everyone up.' He replied deadpan before continuing. 'Once I'd got to that stage one name stood out. Close enough to the royal family of the gulf state he came from to be almost comically wealthy but peripheral enough to operate under the radar.' She had come to sit beside him and had taken over the forgotten bandaging.
'I assume you didn't plan to stay there for too long. Six months perhaps. Repaying him in some sort of kind I assume.' She stopped the bandaging and looked up sharply.
'I don't judge, you did what you had to. There's always something though isnt there? You couldn't have known about the staff member who'd been radicalised. Who was offended by your presence.' He looked at her, her fingers still resting on his wrist, even though the bandage was finished.
'You're almost right. It was his cousin, the one who turned me over to them.'
'Like I say always something.' He tailed off.
'Thank you Mr Holmes.' She said kneeling beside him, serious, submissive. 'I didn't deserve rescuing, I made a fool of you.'
'Please, we both know that's precisely why I did come for you, anyway..' He regarded her for a few beats. 'Humble does not suit you.'
'Professional interest.' She repeated. 'You know I have professional interests too.' She turned his hand in hers, firmly stroking along the palm and pads of his fingers, up to the bones of his wrist. Testing reactions to pressure, tension.
'We both know I have no interest in any of that.' His words were dismissive but his tone wavered and he didn't pull his hand away. She smiled and pressed two fingers to his pulse point.
'I think you might, even if only in the interest of scientific enquiry.' She lifted his hand to her face and held it gently against her cheek. His thumb moved to brush across her mouth.
Just an experiment.
He felt his tongue move across his own lips in counterpoint and he sensed more than saw her shift subtly toward him before the phone buzzed shrilly on the table behind them. The complete shattering of the fragile moment loud in the airless room.
The next three days passed in a blur, he had the significant parts stored away in his mind palace of course, but they would remain untidy like the first draft of an unfinished essay. The nerve-wracking collection of fake passports from a group as dangerous as the one they had escaped from, the rising panic with every extra glance or gesture they received at each border crossing and finally their parting. Irene disappearing into the crowd with barely a backward glance at an Istanbul market.
It would only be back at Baker Street in his own chair, after he had regaled John with the fabricated account of a German aristocrat's stolen jewellery and his flatmate had gone to bed that he thought of it again. The warmth and promise of comfort in her gestures, the feeling that, they were something he could, one day,reciprocate.
Thanks for reading. A note on timelines- I'm assuming that the course of S2 plays out across a year after the last time he sees Irene.
