A little more than an hour later, John and Sherlock were in a black cab headed to Heathrow Airport. The detective was slouched in one corner of the back seat, his eyes just visible above his high collar as he typed furiously at his phone. John, feeling ignored and not a little peeved at the situation – though usually he would not complain about a holiday on some else's bank account – stared out the window at the darkening streets. The football match started in about an hour and, by that time, he and Sherlock would be dragging their luggage through customs and nagging each other about the relative size of each others' suitcases.

Lestrade had even been planning to stop by before the game started and they probably would have ended up watching it in a pub together.

"Oh, dammit," John said suddenly. "Lestrade. I forgot to tell him we were leaving."

"I already did," Sherlock said in an even voice, not even looking up from his touchpad. "Saw him yesterday at the station and mentioned it to him."

"You what?" John sputtered. "You just went ahead and assumed that I'd come with you on this crazy trip? And what if I hadn't?"

Now Sherlock looked up and cocked an eyebrow. "I'm sure Lestrade wouldn't have minded you changing the plans on him a second time. Especially if it meant you accepting the invitation that I just rescinded for you."

"And just what is that supposed to mean, Sherlock?"

"You know that the inspector will jump at the chance to spend time with you, Doctor Watson."

John rubbed his forehead. He could feel the beginning of a headache coming on, and they hadn't even faced the crowds at the airport yet.

"I can assure you, it's not like that at all."

"If you say so," Sherlock said smugly.

John sighed loudly. "So, when are you going to tell me where we're going?"

Sherlock unbuttoned his coat and reached one gloved hand into an inside pocket, pulling out a long envelope and handing it to John.

"Open it," he directed. John took the envelope and found two plane tickets inside.

"New York John F. Kennedy airport," he said, whistling under his breath. "How did you get first class tickets, Sherlock? Mycroft pull some strings?" He smiled. Christmas in New York was an idea that he could get used to.

"My client has arranged everything for me and my partner," Sherlock said. "And if you must know the reason, it's this: she believes that there may be multiple bomb attacks in Manhattan on New Year's Eve."

"Terrorists?" John asked. Sherlock nodded. "Since when did you become a counter-terrorism expert?"

"I'm not," Sherlock said. "But there may be a link to Moriarty. And Mycroft thought it would be best if I were there, to consult with his friend – that's our client – to be on call, as it were, in case they turn up some link to Moriarty that needs to be explored more thoroughly."

"Are you absolutely nutters, Sherlock?" John asked. "I thought we wanted to be alive this New Year's. At least, that was my plan. Chasing after Moriarty in the middle of a possible terrorist threat in New York, on New Year's Eve – do you know how many people will be in the city that day? It will be a madhouse."

"I am quite aware that a considerable number of individuals congregate around 42nd Street each New Year's Eve, John. I couldn't imagine a worse way to spend a winter evening than rubbing elbows with one million tourists. But we won't be anywhere near there. We'll be at the opening gala for the Enchanted Island."

"For what?"

"The opera, John," Sherlock said very patiently, as if he were speaking to a child. "I already explained that to you. The new suit, remember? We're going to the New Year's Eve gala at the Metropolitan Opera."

"But what does this have to do with your new case?"

"Nothing," Sherlock admitted. "But I love opera, and it was either this or Butterfly on the 30th, and while I'm sure I'd appreciate Minghella's set, you must agree with me that Puccini is a bit overplayed these days, isn't he?" Sherlock looked up at John again, smiling slightly at John's exasperated expression. "But think about a Baroque opera—a retelling of The Tempest—an enchanted island—sounds quite a bit like the two of us wanderers, landing on foreign shores."

"Manhattan is an island, too, did you know that?" John laughed. "I should have figured that you'd take me to an enchanted island for a case."

"New York is quite bewitching in the winter, John," Sherlock said.

"I'm sure it is," his companion said. "But do we really have to go quite so far to get away from Mycroft? Couldn't Ibiza have done just as well? A bit warmer, too."

"Hah!" Sherlock snorted. "Beach and bikini vacation, not on. But no time to change our plans. Here we are." The cab pulled up to the airport. Sherlock opened the door and climbed out gingerly, his long coat brushing against his legs as he stood and waited for John to exit.

Monday, December 19

Twelve hours later, on American soil, John found himself pulling both his and Sherlock's suitcase behind him as Sherlock took a phone call – from Mycroft, judging by the agitation on Sherlock's face – and then dashed away from John to get a head start in the taxi queue outside of Kennedy airport.

"I thought you said that Americans didn't form queues," John quipped when he met up with Sherlock.

"They don't," Sherlock said blandly. "They form lines."

"Excuse me," John said. "Going all Yankee on me, are you now?"

Sherlock inhaled deeply and looked around them. "Can you smell that?" he asked.

"Smell what?" John asked, wrinkling his nose.

"Tobacco," Sherlock clarified, turning around. "I forgot – that's why I like New York. It's still not considered outré to smoke a fag or two around here."

John shook his head. Of all the reasons to like New York, only Sherlock would rank smoking as one of the city's chief charms.

The cab ride to the hotel passed by uneventfully. Even Sherlock was impressed by the sight of Manhattan's skyline, glittering in the morning light, as the cab made its way across the Triborough bridge. Sherlock had instructed the cabbie to avoid the Midtown Tunnel, and the view that met their eyes as they crossed from Queens to Manhattan was magnificent, the whole east side of Manhattan laid out before their eyes. John could see buildings that he recognized from American films and telly, but he couldn't say what it was that he was seeing.

"There's the Chrysler Building," Sherlock pointed as they crossed the bridge. "And you see that tall box of a building next to the river, by that bridge? That's the United Nations. We'll be going there tomorrow."

"We will?" John asked, surprised.

"Yes, that's where our client works," Sherlock explained. He turned to speak to the cabbie again. "Cruzemos Harlem por la ciento veinticinco."

"Sí, señor," the cabbie responded. "¿Usted vive aquí en Nueva York?"

"No," Sherlock continued in Spanish. "Pero había una época cuando pasaba mucho tiempo aquí." To John he explained, "Judging by his accent, our cabbie is Puerto Rican. I'm asking him to take us across Harlem's main street. There won't be much besides traffic at this time of day, but it is considered one of the city's more historic neighborhoods. We'll go by the Apollo Theater and the Cotton Club and you can see where Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder got their start, if you like that kind of thing." To the cabbie he continued in Spanish, "Luego nos bajamos por la Henry Hudson. Nuestra salida está en la cincuenta y siete."

"¿Tu compañero no habla español?" the cabbie asked, pointing his chin in John's direction.

"I speak French. And a little Pashto," John said defensively. "And I understood that much at least, Sherlock. You can tell him that."

"Él dice que le fascina el español," Sherlock said. "Ya lo aprenderá."

"Usted es de España?" asked the cabbie. Sherlock laughed and corrected him.

"Soy inglés," he said. "He thinks I'm from Spain," he whispered to John. "It must be the way I talk. I just can't drop that pesky Castilian lisp, even after all that time I spent with the Dominican drug mafia in New Jersey."

"I didn't even know that you spoke Spanish, much less that you could pose as a Chicano drug lord," John whispered back.

"Not Chicano," Sherlock said patronizingly. "Dominican, not Mexican. We're a long way from California, John."

"Dominican, Mexican, What's the difference?" John asked, puzzled.

"I'll pretend you didn't say that before you offend our cabbie by referring to Puerto Rico as a state."

"Isn't it a country?"

Sherlock shook his head. "John, John. It has commonwealth status. Meaning it's an American colony, basically."

"Ha! Since when do you know so much about American geography, Sherlock?"

"Just because I don't know the solar system doesn't mean that I'm completely ignorant of the state of the world," Sherlock said. "I told you, I spent some time infiltrating a Dominican drug gang a few years ago."

"That must have been a delight," John said sarcastically. To himself, he wondered if that particular operation had taken place before or after Sherlock had got clean. And just how did Sherlock speak Spanish so well? And why had he never mentioned to John that he'd lived in New York City?

Almost as if he heard John's thoughts, Sherlock continued. "I lived in Manhattan, yes, but the gang was running drugs from Jersey, over the George Washington Bridge. We'll be able to see it once we get on the highway. Ah, see, now we're turning south. See the river? That's the Hudson." The long shore stretched out before them and, on the other side, the high wooded cliffs of the Palisades. "Now look back, to the right." John turned and saw, behind them and up the river, a long gray bridge slung high above the water. "New Jersey is on the other side," Sherlock explained. "And the Dominicans live in the Heights, the northernmost neighborhood in northern Manhattan. So it was natural that they'd want to control the traffic that was coming across the bridge."

"Naturally," John agreed. "And so you had to get involved and stop them?"

"Something like that," Sherlock said. "Now, would you rather have Turkish or Mexican food tonight?"

"I thought you said there weren't any Mexicans in New York. And right now I'm more concerned about getting to our hotel and taking a nap than about planning what I'll eat in ten hours."

"Naps are so pedestrian, John," Sherlock said.

"Maybe so," John said. "But as I had no idea that I'd be travelling across the Atlantic last night, the least you can do is let me sleep a few more hours before we get down to business."

Sherlock nodded, preoccupied with the view of the river out of the window of the cab. John fell silent as well, taking in his first impressions of New York.

He shouldn't have been surprised by Sherlock's actions – he should have known by now that Sherlock was nothing if not unpredictable – but instead of the irritation that John had felt last night, as they jostled elbows with the crowd at Heathrow and he searched frantically for a television to view the Arsenal game, right now John felt only exhilaration. Sure, he knew that some of the high came from the lack of sleep on the plane ride over, but another part of him just couldn't believe that this was his life. Two years ago he had complained to his therapist that nothing ever happened to him, and here he was now, in another of the world's great cities, about to spend what would probably be the most exciting Christmas of his life. All because of Sherlock.

John sneaked a glance at his companion, who was back to typing at his phone. He felt a sudden surge of affection for the detective who, without even trying, had turned John's life around. When had John's respect for the other man turned to outright admiration? He could not say for certain, and nor could he say when that admiration had blossomed, almost imperceptibly, into affection and regard, and more recently, love.

He knew that Sherlock was still the most infuriating person he had ever met, but in the last year, and especially in the last few months, John had felt a growing pride in his unique ability to handle Sherlock's eccentricities. There was no doubt that Mycroft and Lestrade, and likely every other person at the Yard, were grateful that Sherlock now had a counterweight to his mad brilliance. Sherlock was a human whirlwind, and only John was able to find the silent eye of the storm and hold fast while all those around them were spun out of control by Sherlock's dizzying presence. Fortunately for John, he was the sort of person who, the more outrageous and chaotic a situation, the more he thrived in it. So it was safe to say that John was thriving at Sherlock's side almost as much as he had thrived in Afghanistan.

And even as John felt his own center come back into balance, felt his weight shift until he was comfortable in his body again, whether he was standing on the round, curving earth or flying high above it – even as this happened, he had sensed a reciprocal movement from Sherlock. Sherlock, who had seemed so high-strung and unpredictable when they had met, untrusting as a wild animal, rarely showed the whites of his eyes anymore. John couldn't remember the last time when Sherlock had relied on three nicotine patches to solve a case – two or even one now seemed sufficient. Furthermore, over the course of a few months, Sherlock's violin playing had gone from the dissonant sound of the wrong side of the bow hitting the strings (the technique actually had a name, John later found out: col legno), to more explorative melodies, tentative jigs and sorrowful laments that Sherlock called his 'oriental fantasies'. When John had asked him about the composer, Sherlock had admitted that they were his own improvisations, based on Andalusian folk music and gypsy waltzes, Mexican boleros and Klezmer dirges, with some inspiration from Vivaldi's violin concerti and Schubert's Lieder.

John didn't like to think of himself as the one who had domesticated Sherlock, but there was no denying that it was much more pleasant to come home in the evening to sounds that were reminiscent of a Turkish bazaar (or an opium den?) than to wake in the middle of the night to a song like a cat in heat.

John's sleep had improved in other ways, as well. His nightmares were practically gone; it was as if, by facing danger on an almost daily basis at Sherlock's side, there was no space left in his dream life for long-ago terrors. His therapist had told him once of the compulsion to repeat trauma, common in those who suffer the extremities of human experience. But, John had thought, if running the streets of London alongside Sherlock was just another way his unconscious had of circumventing his fears, then he saw nothing wrong with that. He hadn't healed his shoulder by keeping it still, after all. No, it had required months of painful physiotherapy, of tugging again and again at the tender new muscle fibers until he had bent them back into their rightful course of movement. It had been painful, and he had sobbed more than once after an exercise session, but in the end he had a fully functional shoulder. If he had not moved it at that time, if he had not experienced the raw burn of muscle against bone, then he would have had a stiff arm for the rest of his life. Similarly, John suspected that if he had not run out of Angelo's restaurant after Sherlock that first night on a case together, then he might never have put down his cane.

What was astonishing, to John, was learning that Sherlock already knew that about him. And not just that: Sherlock had intended for John to follow him, in order that John's brain might forget for an hour that he was supposed to be a cripple, so that his legs might do the work they were trained to do. John had run that night like he had never run before, pounding down the streets of London after the madman in the long black coat. God, he had loved it! He had loved the freedom of the city, the way the maze of streets resembled that other labyrinth, the desert. He had loved the intimacy of male companionship, knowing that the other man would match him stride for stride, and he loved that he could trust another human again, knowing that Sherlock depended equally on John for his own life. Following Sherlock when he went to meet the cabbie alone had not been a choice: it was a necessity, for John could not imagine letting his new companion leave his life just as abruptly as he had entered it. It was as if Sherlock's own wildness allowed John to put on a mantle of calm once again, to assume the role of protector and confidant and fighter that he had once carried with so much ease. For that, John had sensed an odd sort of gratitude from Sherlock, for, out of all of the people in the world, only John was strong enough to withstand Sherlock's destructive, corroding nature.

"We're here," Sherlock said, interrupting John's thoughts. "The Hudson Hotel." The cabbie pulled over and helped the two of them gather their luggage from the boot – the trunk, John reminded himself – of the car, smiling and laughing with John as he struggled with counting out the right bills.

"Gracias, señor," the cabbie said before pulling off and leaving them to ascend the dark escalators to the hotel's entrance lounge. When they emerged at the top, the space opened up into a large, well-lit atrium. Green plants spilled off of the walls and rafters, and purple orchids wended their way through branches and twigs, reaching for the light from above. Water gushed down one wall and John was astonished to hear the chatter of finches. He spotted a number of delicate wooden bird cages, à la chinoise, hanging over the reception area.

"We have a reservation," Sherlock said loudly, approaching the desk. A dark-skinned woman with fuchsia lips greeted him with a pleasant smile.

"Your names?" she asked in a clear, American accent.

"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson."

The woman typed at her keyboard. "Yes, here you are, Mr…?"

"Holmes."

"Mr. Holmes. You have the penthouse reserved until January 2nd, is that correct?"

"Correct," he said, brushing aside an invisible piece of lint from his coat.

"Will you and your partner require any additional services?" She inquired. "There's complimentary laundry and dry-cleaning, a full fitness center and pool area, access to Wi-Fi and the business suite. You may have visitors but they must be registered ahead of time here at the front desk. And, for a nominal fee, we can also arrange for spa treatments, transport around the city, and room-service delivery from select restaurants. Is there anything that we can do for you this morning?"

"Just a bed, that would be nice," John muttered under his breath.

"Dr. Watson." The chirpy receptionist addressed him now. "I think you'll be happy to find that we only use Tempurpedic mattresses and pillows, and the sheets are all organic Egyptian cotton, 500 count."

"Sounds very…restorative," John answered politely.

"Our porter will take your bags and show you the way up," she informed them. "Please let us know if there's anything else that we can do to make your stay more enjoyable."

John followed Sherlock and the porter, a short man with round glasses, to the elevators and up to the top floor. He should have expected as much from Sherlock, he reasoned to himself. Leave it to Sherlock to book them a penthouse suite in Manhattan. He could only imagine what Mycroft would say once his friend – Sherlock's client – received the bill.

As the elevator doors opened again, Sherlock turned to John. "Don't worry about the cost, John."

"What, me worry? I mean, it's perfectly normal to stay in the penthouse suite when one comes to New York for the first time, isn't it? You do realize that some of us have to work for a living, don't you?"

"I work," Sherlock said defensively, pausing to face his friend while the porter pushed past them with their bags, walking ahead to open the door to their room.

"Yes, you do, but you don't always charge people for your services. It's easy to forget about money when you have an estate backing you, Sherlock. And a title. In this day and age!"

"I told you, I don't concern myself about class differences and education and all that nonsense, John, and neither should you. You know that I consider you my equal." Sherlock looked down at him, suddenly tempted to run his fingers across John's cheek. But as he reached out his hand to do so, John turned away.

"Fine, just don't tell me that this is coming out of my army pension."

"It has all been paid for," Sherlock explained. "By our client."

"And just who is this client, may I ask?"

"The British ambassador to the U.N. Her delegation has this room on permanent reservation. She thought it would be adequate for our needs."

"I should say so!" John exclaimed as the porter opened the door and a rush of bright morning light hit their eyes. The suite was spacious, all warm wood floors and clean white furniture. John could see a door leading outside to an enclosed sunroom and another door leading to what he presumed was one of the bedrooms.

Sherlock looked around and smiled widely, clasping his hands together under his chin. "It's perfect," he said. "Isn't it, John?"

"Stunning," John said. Despite himself, he was impressed with the suite.

"Let me show you the bedroom," the porter said, leading them across the living room to the door beyond. He opened it to reveal a large, high bed, its eiderdown covering the same gleaming white as the rest of the quarters.

"Sherlock?" John asked, a bit nervously. "Is there another bedroom?"

The porter answered for them. "No, sir, this is the bedroom."

John swallowed and cleared his throat. "I think there has been some mistake," he said.

"What mistake?" the porter asked. "Aren't you the guests of the Ambassador?"

"Yes," said John, "but we need another—"

"It's fine!" Sherlock interrupted brusquely. "Thank you for showing us the room. Please inform the desk that we'd like two bottles of still water and an ash tray."

"This is a non-smoking room, sir," the porter said. "The whole hotel is non-smoking."

"Is it?" Sherlock said. "I didn't know. Can't you make an exception, just this once?" He smiled flirtatiously and John almost laughed out loud at the strangeness of seeing such a smile on his friend's face.

"If you go out onto the terrace, beyond the solarium, you can smoke there. Just don't leave the door open when you do so. Is there anything else that I can do for you?"

"No, thank you," Sherlock said as the porter turned to leave. "And now, John? I believe you said something about getting to bed…?" He winked at the doctor, a devilish look still on his face.

"Why didn't you correct him about the room?" John asked.

"John, I hardly see what the problem is. You know I don't sleep when I'm on a case. I'll kip out here in the lounge if I need some rest. You can have the bed. Now, go and get your beauty sleep, doctor. I'm going out. Shall we meet downstairs in the lobby at, say…" He looked at his watch. "Two o'clock? That should give you plenty of time to rest, and it'll be just enough time for me to get to a meeting at the U.N. and back for lunch."

"You won't sleep, but you will eat?" John asked, hopefully.

"When in Rome, John," Sherlock started. "When in Rome…" And with that, and a swirl of his long coat, he crossed the room in two strides and was gone.

John stood by himself for a minute in the center of the suite, examining the furniture a second time and scratching his head. Was he really so surprised that Sherlock had let his client book them a room with only one bed? Or was he more surprised at himself, that he had accepted it all so readily, with so little protest? Do as the Romans, John reminded himself. Do as the Romans.

And with that, he headed to the bedroom.