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8. Emotions and Exemptions

He regained consciousness slowly and laboriously, as if struggling from under a great weight, and though he still felt utterly spent, something insistent and compelling was dragging him awake. For a moment his mind was clouded with fatigue and confusion, and there was no familiar data coming to him through any of his senses: not the surroundings he could see in the weak light, not the noise that woke him, not the scent of the room, and not the texture of what he touched. Nothing made sense.

Then abruptly several things snapped back into place all at once. The first was his memory of the previous night, which staggered him for a millisecond but was hastily tabled. He had no time to dwell on that with the plethora of other, more urgent thoughts vying for his attention. One of which was the (literally) pressing matter that apparently some time in the night he had shifted from a position on his side with his back to The Woman, on the opposite end of the bed, to a. . . more intimate arrangement.

Upon waking, he found that he had rolled towards the centre of the mattress and wrapped his body around hers, with his face pressed into her hair and his arms entwined about her figure, holding her to him securely. He'd obviously never woken up in such a circumstance, and he blinked repeatedly in bewilderment and lifted his head slightly to take in the surreal view, his mouth hanging slightly ajar. He began to rationalise to himself that since the air conditioning had finally kicked in during the night and the room had actually grown quite cool, he must have unconsciously gravitated towards her for warmth.

But that thought was suddenly cut off by his third, though practically simultaneous observation. The Woman's shoulders and ribs were shaking in recurrent paroxysms against his chest and biceps, and her abdominal muscles were contracting tightly every few seconds under his fingertips. One hand covered his where it held her, but the other was lifted up to span across her face. She was weeping, and though he could perceive that she was trying her best to remain as silent as possible, every so often a sharp gasp would escape, before she tried to silence it by momentarily holding her breath. This is what had awoken him.

He jerked his head up higher to look down on the unexpected and dismaying scene, and conflicting emotions clashed in his mind. "Irene. Irene, are you all right?" he asked at once. He was surprised at how concerned and urgent his voice sounded, but he'd had no time to think, just react, so it must have been an organic and genuine response.

At the sound of his words, she instinctively caught her breath and looked up, and he was shocked but also slightly fascinated to see how her eyes looked like a wild animal that was trapped in a snare. For the briefest moment he saw pure panic as she looked into his (presumably over the fact he was seeing her in such a vulnerable state), before the mask was snapped firmly back into place, and she jerked her other hand out from under his, every muscle in her body rigid.

Impulsively, and before he realised what he was doing, he slid his freed hand up her arm to wrap it tightly around her shoulder, and he exerted a bit of pressure to encourage her to turn towards him, but instead she turned away even further, still holding her breath.

His initial thought was that he was probably to blame for this somehow. This was not, after all, unprecedented. Regrettably but unintentionally he had made approximately a dozen girls and women cry in the past, and in practically all cases he hadn't even realised what was unfolding until it was too late.

The most recent example was just the past Christmas with Molly Hooper, and though she hadn't actually shed tears, he could hear the contracting of her glottis in her voice, which indicated the suppression of crying. And yet, just as in that case, he'd always been able to determine in retrospect how he'd been offensive. But now his mind was drawing a blank, and he felt vexed.

Then again, he had entered uncharted territories the previous night; who knew what type of nuanced emotional protocols existed, that he might have somehow violated? He wished she would just explain herself; he couldn't bear to be so in the dark.

"Irene, what's the matter?" he tried again, regulating his tone as much as possible so as to sound rational and logical, and encourage her to respond in kind.

"It's nothing," she said tightly. "Go back to sleep."

He ignored her. "Was it something I—" he started, in an attempt to better understand the situation.

"No," she cut in brusquely, then repeated, "Just go back to sleep." She sounded quietly furious, though with herself for showing any vulnerability, or at him for prying, he wasn't certain. He suspected that it was likelier to be the former. He'd always striven to divorce himself from the messiness of feelings, so he knew that if he were overwhelmed by emotion—as unlikely as that was from ever occurring—it would be exasperating enough, without the added humiliation of someone he respected bearing witness to it.

Nevertheless, curiosity overrode any sensitivity his insight might have fostered.

"Is this a common response?" he pressed. "Crying after sex. Is it some sort of reaction due to the combination of endorphins being released? It makes sense in theory but I've never—"

She interrupted him with a noise from the back of her throat and turned to look at him incredulously from over her shoulder. "You're quite the idiot, aren't you?"

He felt instantly stung and started to retort, then paused and reconsidered, taking in the developing situation and his complete lack of comprehension. "Perhaps about some things," he admitted quietly. "I think we've already established this is one of them."

Either because his confession softened her or because she was remorseful for her insult, her demeanor seemed to change and she slowly shifted back towards him, her eyes moist and her face still tense. She was working extraordinarily hard to maintain control; he could tell from the slight trembling in the muscles around her mouth and under her eyes.

"You really don't see why. . ." she said, scrutinising his face and shaking her head slowly.

His standard procedure when confronted with an unfamiliar scenario was to scan his memory for any analogous or partially comparable situations as a starting point, but this particular circumstance was unique; he had very limited experience holding an upset woman in his arms. There had recently been Mrs. Hudson of course, but his dynamic with this woman was quite a bit different.

Also, now that Irene had excluded the possibility that he was responsible, he had literally nothing against which to compare it. In this category, as with others he'd found immaterial to his life or investigations (such as politics, classical literature, or the culture of celebrity), he was perhaps even more ignorant than the average person. It was intentional—there was precious little space in his brain and he could usually use the internet as a massive auxiliary hard drive—but there were certainly moments when the gaps in his knowledge were problematic. Like when he was unable to immediately determine that the Vermeer painting was a reproduction due to its inclusion of the Van Buren Supernova in the Moriarty case the previous year.

And like now.

"No. . ." he finally concluded, then hesitated and added, "I'm sorry." He still sensed that that was somehow not adequate enough, and he inhaled through his nose then asked, "Will you explain."

The completely alien humility in his words seemed to break some sort of reserve in her, and without warning the mask she'd maintained since ever they'd met, and had only let slip a few times including last night (and only ever so slightly) dropped fully. Her face crumpled and she took another heaving breath, tears welling in the corner of her eyes again before sheening her cheeks.

Sherlock froze, completely unprepared and unequipped for such an onslaught, and he was caught between the equally compelling desires to escape from the room as quickly as possible, question her until she explained herself, and—most bizarrely—remain entwined in bed with her and try to provide a measure of support.

She took another shuddering breath and turned within his arms to face him further, resting her face against his left shoulder so that he could feel the moisture of her tears on his bare skin.

He stared down at her nonplussed, feeling completely paralysed with indecision and uncertainty. Was she ill? Was she injured in some way? What on earth was the meaning of this? Perhaps if he knew, he could offer the appropriate type of assistance.

Yet he suddenly became aware that he was rubbing the small of her back where his hand rested in soft, even strokes. It had been an entirely unconscious and absent-minded move; he hadn't even realised what he was doing. She was responding favourably though, he noticed.

She swallowed hard, and seemed to gather some self-control again, and he seized the chance to repeat, "What is the matter?"

For a long moment he didn't think she was going to respond to him, but then she leaned away from his shoulder and looked up into his face.

"I'm alive when I shouldn't be, and now I just keep feeling the metal of the blade where it would've. . ." she admitted in a wavering voice, reaching up to clasp the back of her neck, before losing her composure again.

Ah, residual anxiety from having sustained but ultimately survived a traumatic experience,he noted. Much more like the trouble with Mrs. Hudson and the Americans than he'd previously supposed—nothing to do with sex or emotions pertaining to sex. This made the matter marginally less ominous. Yet still, a strange and unfamiliar ache in his chest seemed to be reaching out in answer to her distress.

When he didn't respond, she minutely shook her head and inhaled shortly to regain a measure of self-possession. "But just a nightmare," she said, her voice hardening.

She moved to sit up, but he tightened his arms around her and her eyes warmed ever so slightly. He felt her relax against him again, and her breathing became more regular.

"It could have been my last night," she said evenly a moment later, although there was still a slight catch in her words.

"But it wasn't," he responded, trying to use logic as a way to provide some comfort. He knew that reasoning through things often helped him to alleviate stress, and he reckoned that, given other indicators, she functioned in a similar way. "You're adequately safe now and your position should be even more secure after tomorrow."

"But I didn't know that until the moment I heard my - that text alert," she countered, her voice tightening again.

"You planted clues so that I would find you," he pointed out. "You suspected that I. . .I care for you, and that I would track you to ensure your safety." So then, she must have had some hope.

"Yes." She raised her chin slightly and continued in a steadier voice, "Your reaction to my admission that I'd be dead within months without access to my cameraphone seemed extraordinarily callous at the time, even to me. But I later decided that you had been putting on a performance for the elder Mr. Holmes—and probably yourself to some degree, as well—since he had so scathingly condemned you earlier. You had to prove that you were decidedly above such things as sentiment and impressing a woman, therefore you acted as if you didn't care if I died. And so even though I wasn't one hundred percent certain of your own sentiment, I knew that I still needed to proactively chart my movements for you so that when, not if, the time came and I couldn't save myself somehow, you would know how come. You were my contingency plan all along."

Sherlock didn't know how to respond to her insights; it was strange and uncomfortable to have the mirror turned on himself, and he suddenly understood why John would sometimes get exasperated with Sherlock's own deductions and advise him to take a day off. He hadn't got it, before. And yet like John in those times, Sherlock couldn't deny that her observations had merit.

"But I was held captive for three weeks," she continued, "and there was no sign of you. I knew that if you had been following my whereabouts that would've been plenty of time for you to intervene. So the more time that passed, the less confidence I had in—" she paused briefly, "—my analysis."

Sherlock grew a bit defensive at this. "I knew that you'd been captured, by whom, and where you were being held within twenty-four hours," he informed her. He became aware that his voice was somewhat strident, and adjusted it to a more even tone. "But I also knew that I had to be very careful with how I extracted you. I don't want anyone to know that you've survived, particularly not my brother, and in some ways he's even cleverer than I." He made a face. "Much as I loathe to admit it. So the planning took longer, and I had to wait for the proper moment."

She was nodding, looking at a point on his right shoulder rather than at him. "I realise that now, and in the second week I told myself that that's what was causing such a delay. But at the beginning of the third week, and just when I was beginning to feel doubt, they informed me of my time of execution. I knew at that point that I had to redouble my own efforts to escape, and to hell with any plans you might've had."

She frowned and added bitterly, "Though of course none of them were successful; my captors were impervious to everything I have in my considerable arsenal to persuade a man, and I was too closely and securely guarded to try anything more clandestine."

"It's actually quite good that you didn't," Sherlock commented, passing over some of her more personal points to stick to tactical aspects. "As I said, our best chance for your continued safety is that you remained incarcerated right until the critical moment. Plus I would've had to waste all that time trying to find you again—and this time I doubt you'd have left any clues about, even any as veiled as they'd been for me."

They lapsed into silence again, and Sherlock wondered if she were going back to sleep, and if he should roll to the other side of the bed again. Yet there was something so pleasant and strangely decadent about the way they were intertwined, and he wasn't particularly inclined to move. She was warm and tangible in his arms, which made an agreeable contrast to the mere 'idea' that she had been, and whom he'd traced, for so long.

Besides, the whole experience, beginning when he'd disembarked from the plane at Jinnah International Airport, seemed vaguely surreal. In Karachi he was so distant, both physically and psychologically, from London—from Bart's, and black cabs, and Chinese takeaway, and his experiments, and John and his blog—that it was almost as if none of this were actually happening, as if it were just a particularly vivid dream.

This dim, serene, self-enclosed hotel room even further magnified the slightly unreal feeling that had followed him throughout this entire mission, and so there was a strange sort of logic that all this—the gaining of carnal knowledge, the talks, the revelations, the intimacy—would happen here. He couldn't imagine such events ever going down at 221B Baker Street—his home turf so to speak; the very idea was utterly absurd. But here, during this extraordinary operation? Apparently yes. . .

He snorted to himself, contemptful of the frivolity of his own thoughts, despite the ring of truth they held, and he started to ease back into unconsciousness. But just when he could feel the weight of sleep settling down on him, she spoke again, and it was evident that she had been deep in thought, rather than finished with the conversation.

"I suppose we could call this round a draw, don't you?" she asked in the dark.

"Mmm?" he asked, raising his head slightly from the pillow, only to realise that her face was resting only inches away from his. And though her eyelashes were still wet, she held an expression of engaged and slightly playful interest. It was the eloquence of her mind made visible on her face, and it was immensely appealing, and (he'd never before used this word in a non-ironic way) sexy. Taking it in, he felt fully alert again, although still quite relaxed.

"You saved me from a nasty end," she elaborated, and he tracked her face closely, taking in all its nuances, "but my theory about you was validated, and my investment in you paid dividends." She smiled a slow smile and added, "Although perhaps I did come out on top, all told, since you're clearly not thrilled to have to confront your emotions. I on the other hand am rather chuffed to have my head still firmly connected to my shoulders."

Sherlock didn't respond immediately, but reached unthinking to press his fingers into her hair and then drag his fingertips down the back of her neck and spine, to come to a rest on her shoulder blade, which he traced with the pad of his thumb. He sincerely regretted that she had to believe she was going to die, but it was for the greater good of his plan. And besides, he would've never let that happen—because she had been right, the words reasserted themselves yet again, glowing like neon in his mind.

At his initiating touch, she caught her breath.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he finally answered, his voice deeply timbred, and he felt his breathing grow heavier.

Yet for some reason, his now-predictable physiological responses didn't grate on him as much as they had before. Perhaps it was his recognition (or possibly justification; it didn't really matter) that this hotel room, and this trip were somehow exemptions from his 'real' life. Yes, it would be different in London, and he could and would go back to his normal routine, but while he was here. . . What was the harm? He couldn't discern any—as long as he ensured that this was just a one-off, and that it changed nothing in the long-term.

"You wouldn't. . .say this round is a draw. . ." she said, her own voice breathy and low-pitched in response, and her eyes flickered down to his mouth.

"I wouldn't say that you necessarily came out on top," he clarified, rolling them over so that she was pinned beneath him to emphasise his point.

Her eyes widened and she studied his face closely, before they narrowed again and she asked teasingly, "And what about 'it won't happen again'?"

"Sod what I said," he replied dismissively, watching her lips intently. "Be consistent, Irene. You're unlike everyone in so many ways—and they all listen to what I say."

"So. I shouldn't," she interpreted, and she wrapped one leg around his, bringing them closer together.

"Precisely," he said, his lips quirking into an almost-smile, before he leaned forward to take possession of her mouth again.

To Be Continued. . .

Update: Regarding sex, Benedict Cumberbatch recently said of his Sherlock characterization: "For me, Sherlock's not gay. He has a sexual appetite, but it's entirely swallowed by his work. He doesn't have time for it. . . That's really what is it. Not every man has a sex drive that needs to be attended to. Like a lot of things in his life where he's purposely dehumanized himself, it's to do with not wanting the stuff that is time wasting, that's messy. That goes for certain relationships, as well as sexual intimacy."