Sherlock thrust the crumpled note into his pocket with unnecessary force. He threw his weight around the tiny space of his room in frustration, sending the precarious piles of novels and paraphernalia tumbling to the floor with a satisfying aggregation of clattering. Sherlock spun on his heels, hands balled into quivering fists at his sides. He was used to a comfortable absence of emotion, and he had managed quite happily through life with a sufficient indifference and devastating level naivety in that area. That was until he fell in love with Irene Adler. This impossible woman, who had made him act as giddy as a school boy, and stupid, so, so stupid. Now he had all these feelings and he didn't know what to do. He made a sound like a dog in the back of his throat, a growl which expressed far more than words ever could, and flung himself dramatically onto his unmade bed with hopeless abandon. He breathed in deeply, face squashed and contorted with rage against the luxurious duvet where a trace of her Parisian perfume still lingered. Why did he even own a bed? He never even slept in it; at best it was a showy piece of furniture with the sole purpose of communicating the intended use of the room it occupied. Sherlock rolled onto his back, gazing unblinkingly at the particles of dust as they swirled like snowflakes against the beam of soft afternoon light from the high window, a blizzard of dead skin cells and fine molecules of cotton swarming in the haze.

All of Sherlock's clothes were expensive and a couple of his silken shirts probably cost more than the entire contents of his flatmate's wardrobe. His cologne was fragrant, illustrious and enticing; it aided him well when he was required to manipulate an uncooperative female witness or difficult client. John's skin was tanned brown as a nut, Sherlock's skin was soft and pale, a result of spending too much time fixated on a case, not going outside because the world offered him so little, such as social interaction and fresh air. Sherlock's pale, dead skin cells drifted serenely about the room. Inventing your own profession had its perks, nobody had any expectations, but being the only kind in your profession meant that one had to take a certain interest in appearances. When considered, Sherlock Holmes probably had the most pretentious dust in all of London.

With a long sigh he drew the piece of paper from his pocket once more; staring at the creamy, expensive stationary like it would divulge some explanation as to the motivations of its sender. As he unfolded the paper carefully the dog-eared photograph slipped out onto his stomach. It was a little fuzzy in the places that appeared lightest, almost as though it had been taken in a dream. The two subjects of the offending photograph smiled idiotically up at him, seated by the banks of the Thames in early summer some years ago. Irene, captivating and beautiful, her long dark hair swept back into a casual pony-tail, stray strands of wispy hair floating delicately about her face, sat with one leg crossed over the other, lady-like and glowing next to a younger, headstrong version of himself. Her face was turned towards him, about to press a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth, as he remembered, which was tweaked up in a shy and uncertain smile. He was wearing a white shirt, the cuffs rolled to his elbows and the top buttons unfastened due to the unseasonably warm weather. Cool, precipitating spring steadily crawling into English summertime. Irene wore a pretty mushroom coloured dress which fell just above her lightly tanned knees, her lips were rouged and her cheeks were flushed with a youthful exuberance, exchanged now for a desirable elegance, nerve, and unmistakable class. Sherlock's hair was shorter and wavy, his eyes startling grey-blue, bright and unfocused. He looked happy. Sherlock couldn't remember being happier than at that blissful time, apart from when he had met John. A lot had changed.

Sherlock resented his photograph being taken, but he had allowed her this one. 'Something to remember you by' had been her exact words, not really the most comforting of phrases, but his naivety had shielded the blow. Barely matured from adolescence, Sherlock was studying at Bart's, his glittering career stretching before him with Irene at his side, life was good.

He let the photo fall onto the floor, it rocked gently in the air in its decent like a dead leaf from a tree. Now, life was a bit not-good. He turned his attention to the paper in his other hand. The letter was written in the looping cursive script Sherlock had come to know so well. The sense of betrayal was overwhelming. He read it over again, scanning it for some hidden clue, any scrap of information that would give her away. Irene remained elusive and very much absent from his life once more.

Every time she left he would carefully rebuild the walls of isolation around himself like he had many times before. And then when she decided to come back as she always did, the walls that protected him for so long from any significant human interaction were demolished as he watched, leaving him standing amidst the rubble of his personal boundaries. And he let her do it of course; flitting in here, expecting him to be waiting for her, how did she know he wouldn't find someone else? He could get a girlfriend, if he so pleased. Sherlock could be nice to people, he assured himself. But in his heart he knew she was the only one, the only woman for him. She did too, and it was slowly killing him.

The letter read as follows;

'My Dearest Sherlock,

I will be gone before you read this, (Cliché. Sherlock thinks to himself, knowing she probably had realised it too.) I promised you I would never settle down, and this is me being true to my word. I never mean to cause any distress, but you seem so content with your life, and I can only bear to be around you for a short length of time before my presence starts to have an impact. You should know that I (Slight ink blot before the beginning of the next word, hesitation, indecision.) am coming back. Soon, I hope. Your work will keep you busy; you won't miss me at all.

Love to John also.

Yours as always,

Irene.'

John heard the emotional heavy sighs from the doorway as he arrived home with the shopping. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. He crept silently, like a burglar in his own home, and stuck his head around the door to Sherlock's bedroom. The detective laid prostrate on the bed, a broken man, his nose buried in a sheet of paper resting over his face. His eyelids flickered, John would have thought he was asleep, were it not for the occasional self-pitying whimper as he expelled the air from his lungs forlornly. John frowned with concern; Sherlock shouldn't be in pain again, he had taken the last pills only a few hours ago. "Sherlock" He said uncertainly.

"What?" The reply was almost a grunt.

"Are you, um, ok?" He asked. John knew this was a stupid question, but Sherlock smiled sadly, lifting the paper from his face and watching it flutter to the floor along with the photograph with an air of quiet resignation.

"No" Sherlock gave a small, sad smile. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked at John for a few long moments, John, his blogger, John his friend, who would never leave him. John Watson dropped the thin plastic shopping bags from his tired hands; the one with the slit in made a hollow thunk as it collided with the hardwood flooring, and crossed the room to sit awkwardly on his flatmate's bed. Sherlock rolled onto his side so he was facing him. For some reason John's subconscious made the decision to punch his friend on the shoulder; he had genuinely no idea why, something about needing to assert his masculinity or whatever. Sherlock looked confused for a moment, then the fog lifted and he extended a fist and thumped him back. Then Sherlock rolled away again, his back to John, and retrieved his letter of deceit from the floor. The letter felt heavy in his hands as he passed it willingly over to him. "She's gone, John. Irene's gone again." Then he turned his back once more, tugging his dressing gown around his shoulders and curling into a foetal position. John wished he could do something to comfort his friend, but there was nothing. He sat on the bed, letter in hand, listening as Sherlock's breaths became deeper and more even as he slipped into a miserable sleep. John read the note, a pang of sadness and pity swelled in his heart as he grasped the meaning. He cast his gaze to his friend on the bed, then, leaving the letter behind, stood and left Sherlock to his thoughts, closing the door quietly behind him.

From then onwards, Sherlock became increasingly distant to John. He hardly ever left the flat, it became a regular a sight to John, to see his friend when he arrived home, slouched in the sagging armchair as though he had become the piece of furniture himself. 'Sometimes I don't talk for days on end.' Sherlock had told him when they first met. He seemed to be exercising this little indiscretion to its maximum potential now, never uttering a word to John as he attempted to carry on his life around the moping Consulting Detective curled up in the far corner of the room. It went on for days; John was held in the fuzzy limbo between wakefulness and sleep every night as the tuneless screech of the violin rasped through the walls, shattering the peacefulness of the dark. John brought Sherlock coffee to stimulate his mind at this time, but returned an hour later to find it had gone cold, his offering neglected and untouched. What John Watson didn't know was that during this period of sulking, Sherlock was painstakingly revising and smoothing over the fine cracks in the walls of his consciousness that allowed him to maintain the facade of being a Sociopath. Sherlock wasn't a Sociopath, however high-functioning his mind was. Sherlock could love, and feel, and enjoy the company of others. Those others were just very specific and in an acute minority. He was tending to the raw, exposed feelings that always remained after Irene had occupied a presence in his life. It was like he was a small helpless snowman trapped in a snow globe. Irene took their love and manipulated it to her will, shaking up his life, leaving him to wait for the fragments of routine to settle into place. It could be argued that John had done just the same, except John wasn't the person disrupting his order, John was another little snowman inside the globe with Sherlock, and his life was being disrupted too.

Then, just like that, everything returned to normal. At precisely 13:51pm on a Friday two weeks after the letter had been recovered, Sherlock began to eat regularly again, to talk and move and even left the flat once to follow John to the supermarket for groceries. That was a memorable experience. Sherlock had trailed close behind John like a puppy, his calculative gaze scanning the isles of food with a puzzlement John found quite amusing. John decided he didn't like seeing Sherlock carrying a Tesco bag, it looked unnatural, he vowed to accept the chore of doing the shopping in future.

John would watch his friend as he ran out the door, in a fit of indecent glee after receiving information on a case deemed worthy of his time. He watched him hungrily devouring the food he offered at irregular mealtimes when he wasn't on a case. He watched as Sherlock deduced and insulted and set about causing wonder and confusion wherever he went. John watched from where he stood as his friend's shadow, not always noticeable but always there, basking in the warmth of the light Sherlock emitted, the brilliance of his mind so sharp and focused. John did not hear him refer to Irene Adler by her name for a long time. Although it was clear Sherlock thought of her often. John would sometimes catch him unguarded, staring wistfully out of the window of 221B like he was waiting for her, perhaps. He never communicated this to John, and John was content to leave the subject alone, for now. If ever Sherlock Holmes mentioned her at all, she was always, as she would continue to be, The Woman.