Holmes did not make it back to his rooms until well after eleven that evening. A few minutes after leaving the theatre the rain arrived with gusto. Great sheets drove down onto the cobblestone streets, flooding away any traces of evidence that may have survived from the previous night. Holmes shivered and drew his coat collar closer around his neck. The trudge to John Street was uninteresting, the streets got narrower, darker, thicker with human stench and garbage. The night denizens were out now, teeth chattering in the downpour, huddled around open fire grates and the semi-warm entrances of dim bar rooms.

Holmes spent an hour slogging up and down John Street. It was poorly lit and mostly unpopulated. One or two men in torn clothing stumbled through; ignoring the numb women in heavy makeup leaned against a free section of wall or a slightly dryer door jam. One woman cast an appreciating eye over Holmes, but he ignored her, scanning the ground instead, the sooty walls, upper windows that might have housed a witness of the events of last night. Everything looked closed up and dreary. He could find no doorways that showed heavy or more than frequent use.

Finally accepting defeat, he hailed a cab on the corner of Vine Street and headed back to his flat. The rain was slowing by the time he got there, mist creeping into damp gutters and up brick walls.

There was no spring in his step as he mounted the hall stairs, shedding his overcoat and frock coat before he was even in the door. He unlocked and kicked it open, tossed his coats onto the settee, and slammed the door behind him.

Where was she now? Was she in more pain, or less? Had Mycroft stayed with her? He, Sherlock, should have stayed. He should have climbed back into the cab with her and kept her shorn up with his shoulder the whole way to…wherever it was Mycroft was taking her. He thought of the women he had seen tonight, faces twisted into obscene parodies of themselves. This is a welcoming expression. This one an expression to entice. This one to make you feel wanted. Holmes shook himself to get rid of the images. It was out of his hands now. She was gone, and it was up to Mycroft to keep her safe.

He fell into bed, barley taking the time to change into his night shirt, closed his eyes tight and kept them that way, even as her image crept back to him - the look on her face when he had closed the door between them, a picture of dismay, and reproof.

Something woke him. Some sound in the other room, hidden on the other side of the bedroom curtain. Holmes willed himself to lie still, straining his ears. It came again, a soft movement by the fire place. He drew in a deep breath, testing the air, and a groan escaped him.

"It is very early Mycroft."

"Yes, Sherlock. Thank you. I believe I am still able to read my own watch."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I am here to tell you that there is a cab waiting for us downstairs."

Sherlock opened his eyes and threw the bed clothes off, taking a cigarette from the case he kept on his side table and lighting it before swinging his feet to the floor.

He shuffled out of the alcove into the main room to find Mycroft at the fire, looking over his assorted knickknacks. The elder Holmes pointed to a small jewel-encrusted dagger that had pride of place in the center of the mantel.

"Is this a Phurba?"

"Yes."

Mycroft turned to him, mouth open to ask the obvious question concerning just why Sherlock might have a Tibetan ceremonial dagger in his living room, when he stopped, drawing himself up at the sight of him. "Dear God, Sherlock. Don't you have a dressing gown?"

"No."

Mycroft seemed to rock back at this, as if it were a physical blow.

"But I did see the most wonderful one at Gamages the other day," Sherlock continued, pretending not to notice. "Mouse coloured."

Mycroft rolled his eyes, lowering himself down onto the settee. "Will you be so good as to get dressed, please? We are running later than I would like."

"And where are we going?"

"Come, Sherlock, you know how I do love surprises."

"Almost as much as I do." Sherlock grimaced, knowing full well that no amount of complaining would get an answer to his question. Mycroft was maddeningly obstinate at times.

He crushed out his cigarette in the pot of his aspidistra and huffed back into his room to get on his working togs.

A quarter of a hour later they were seated comfortably side by side in a hansom, watching the neat pavement and manicured hedges of High Holborn give way to narrower streets, Fleet lane, Cannon Street, the drab brickwork, and dingy bed-sits stacked one on top of the other. Sherlock found his fingers tapping on his thigh. Finally he laced his fingers in his lap and asked, "How is Miss Rushford?"

"Hmm." Mycroft did not look in from the window.

"Have you seen her?"

"Hmmmm."

"Meaning?"

"She is a brave woman, Sherlock. Quite remarkable. And damned pretty." He shifted his attention inside the cab, and Sherlock was worried by the serious look on his brother's face. "Her hand has been re-set," Mycroft finally conceded. "She spent the night in a private hospital. I was able to secure her a spot." Holmes let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as his brother carried on. "She was too sedated to be taken home and left alone."

"And the doctor is…positive?"

"As can be expected. It is now only for her to rest and allow herself the best chances of healing. Something you are going to help her with."

"Excuse me?" Sherlock felt a drop in the pit of his stomach as an inkling of his brother's intentions struck him.

"Well, obviously, Sherlock. Miss Rushford is at a disadvantage. Someone must attend her and render her much needed assistance and care."

"Someone like a nurse, you mean?"

"Ah, and will you be paying for this private nurse, Sherlock?"

"You know I can't."

"So I am to pay then, am I? Pay for your foolishness once again? And have you escape Scott free of consequences once again? No. I simply won't have it. Not while you're here and able-bodied."

"Mycroft, I am in the middle of trying to track down her attacker."

"Something you wouldn't have to do if you had listened to her in the first place."

Sherlock's jaw muscle twitched. Something that Mycroft acknowledged with a smile. "Yes, Sherlock, Miss Rushford has told me all about your first meeting. It strikes me as quite negligent of you."

"Mycroft, she cannot stay with me, or I with her. Think about it. I am a bachelor. She is an unmarried woman without family. It would be ruinous to her reputation, not to mention mine."

"Thank you, Sherlock, I am aware of the concept of propriety. I'm not suggesting either of you do anything so rash."

"So what are you suggesting?" They were pulling to a stop. Sherlock looked around, struggling to get his bearings. "Where are we?"

"Bread Street, near Upper Thames."

They were parked at a storefront. The length of the street was mainly bakeries and pie shops, though the smell of Old Fish Street drifted to them from across Five Foot Lane, only a few hundred feet away. This storefront, however, belonged to a tailor. Meerhelm & Sons Fine Tailors and Haberdashery. Sherlock frowned. "I do not require a tailor, brother."

"We can discuss that misconception at another time. There is a certain room, rented out by my department when we are in need of hiding someone away for a short spell. It is a rather squalid place, but then, that suits our purposes rather well. It happens to be located in the back of this building on the third floor."

Sherlock grudgingly followed Mycroft out of the cab and around the building. A rickety wooden set of landings and ladders ran up the back wall, draped with laundry. The Holmes brothers trudged to the top, Mycroft having a significantly harder go of it than Sherlock. By the time they reached the correct door, the elder man was huffing and blowing loudly, much to Sherlock's pleasure.

"I take it the Diogenies club is not riddled with stairs?"

"I stay on the first floor, as any gentleman would." Mycroft straightened his four-in-hand tie and opened the door without knocking.

Sherlock followed him in, ducking to avoid the low jam. The inside was dingy, but not horrendous. There was a small sitting area to the left of the door that had a few cupboards for dishes and pots, plus a cast iron parlor stove that gave off a cheery heat. A short hallway lay straight in front of them with a door on either side, terminating in a linen closet at the end. Sherlock stepped into the sitting area, tossed his hat and coat onto one of the two upholstered armchairs and crossed over to the stove, which only came up to his mid-thigh, holding his cold hands out to warm them

"You see Sherlock? Perfect for a young couple just starting out. You and Miss Rushford will fit the bill quite nicely. Especially with your flair for costumes."

Sherlock snapped around to face his brother, his chest puffed out with indignation.

"They are disguises, Mycroft."

"Just as you say."

"Why would it be necessary to do such a thing anyway? Why can't Miss Rushford convalesce in her own home? Reputation aside, I'm sure we could find someone to look in on her. She has a friend at the theatre that could…" He trailed off as he considered the absurdity of asking Lucy Tilby to do anything that required discretion.

"You were the one who pointed out her need for safety, Sherlock. And oddly enough, I agree with you. Until we know if this is a random attack or whether she was specifically chosen, we can't be sure the bastard might not try again. And from what I hear, if she was being followed the week prior then, well…it doesn't sound good does it?"

Sherlock blinked at his brother. Bastard? Mycroft never swore. Miss Rushford must have done something particular to ingratiate herself to the elder Holmes. What had he called her? A most remarkable woman? Sherlock felt his hands tighten ever so slightly into fists at his sides.

"This is preposterous," he spat. "Even if she was in need of aid, Miss Rushford would never be able to stay in such a place as this for any length of time. It is devoid of useless frippery and things pertaining to…female…mental stimulation."

"What the hell are you on about?" his brother cried, "She's not a cat, for heaven's sake!"

"She will be bored, Mycroft. Bored and petulant and begging to go home in hours. Women have no staying power, and it is useless to explain to them any matter undertaken for their own good. They have no interest in adventure and stoicism. Deprived of their hair-tongs they experience lack of direction, malaise, faintheartedness and a tendency to panic and cling. She'll never agree."

Mycroft stared at him for a moment from under his eyebrows. "Let's ask her, shall we?"

Sherlock took a deep fortifying breath and turned to find Miss Kit Rushford, replete in bandages and a new arm sling, standing immobile in the room's open doorway.

"Miss Rushford," Holmes ground out.

"Mr. Holmes," she replied.

Mycroft took a step back from the pair.

"I was unaware you were here," Holmes said at last, hating the heavy silence even worse than her heavy, knowing stare.

"Yes, well, bereft of all my usual frippery and stimulating hair tongs I fell into a dead faint in the bedroom, where I was when you arrived. However, as you can see, I have re-gained myself, and am ready for your next delightful insight."

"The bedroom?"

"Yes, sir. The room at the end of the hall. With the bed in it."

"I meant as in there is only one?"

Both parties looked over at Mycroft, who drew himself up in indignation. "Well, it is a government funded safe-house, not a luxury hotel. Sherlock will sleep in an armchair."

"I will not."

"Oh, stop being such a brat, brother. Of course, you will."

Sherlock gave up his last vestige of politeness. "I cannot be a hand-maiden to Miss Rushford! I cannot follow her around dressing and feeding her and wiping up little messes. It is demeaning and ridiculous"

"And I cannot be trapped for days with only this small-minded horse's ass for company," Kit rejoined. "I have no need to be fed or dressed, and the only mess I see around here is you." Her finger stabbed at the detective, who flinched away, and then, as if an afterthought, sneered at her instead.

"Enough!" Mycroft thundered. "Sherlock sit down and stop being such an ill-mannered ninny." Here he pushed his brother into the nearest armchair for emphasis, then turned to the woman still fuming in the doorway. "And Miss Rushford. I understand my brother routinely triggers thoughts of manslaughter, but please try and refrain. You do need help."

"You're joking, sir."

"No, my dear, I am not. I'm very serious. You cannot even hold a utensil at present, let alone prepare food, open the door, or hold a book. What exactly to you propose to do in here all by yourself?" She and Mycroft exchanged a look, one that it was Kit who finally surrendered to a sheepish sigh. "I do enjoy reading a great deal," she agreed. "And I have developed a great partiality for eating as well."

Sherlock felt sick. He laid a single finger across his lips, the tip alongside his nose, and glared at them both keenly. "I see. And who exactly will be doing the washing and dressing, while I am busy with delightful domesticity and secretarial work? Or am I to render these services as well?"

Kit felt the colour drain out of her at that, and the spark of something that must be fear light in the pit of her stomach. How odd that this fear felt so much like excitement.

Sherlock had regained his feet and strode over to point his own accusing finger in her face. "Is that not what every female longs for, really, a subservient to answer any capricious whim? If this is to be the case then we might as well marry, so that we might at lease save me the discomfort of having to endure nights alone in the bloody armchair!"

In the agonizing silence that followed, Kit's eyes narrowed. She tilted her chin up to look the detective full in the face. For the first time since she had seen the flash of what she had mistook for aggression at the hospital, the two searched each other's eyes, neither willing to retreat. Kit was alarmed. What she had at first assumed was a primitive urge to possess, was in fact a much more complex and dangerous trait. Sherlock Holmes, it seemed, was a passionate man, and terribly desperate to hide it. Yet it was there as plain as a signpost if one only cared to look. His eyes had gone almost entirely black, their dilation was so wide, his breathing rapid. The fine muscles in the sides of his jaw twitched, and the fists clenched at his sides she knew were to hide the tremors in his hands.

As far As Holmes was concerned, the world could have burned up and gone to hell for all he cared. His attention was so honed on Kit's face he could make out the slight pulse ticking in the side of her alabaster temple, an when her tounge tip peeked out for a moment to moisten her bottom lip, he felt the hair prickle at the back of his neck. He knew he must say something, or God knows what he might do. The urge to trace her dampened lower lip with this thumb was almost unbearable.

"I apologize, Miss Rushford. That was an unforgivable thing to say."

"I agree. Yet it seems I have no choice but to forgive you."

Mercifully, she unpinned him by withdrawing her gaze and crossed to sit in the armchair by the stove. Mycroft, suddenly remembered and very much still in the room with them, grunted and put on his hat.

"I have arranged for a woman to come in the morning and evening to assist with the more …delicate of Miss Rushford's necessities. As to the rest, I leave it to the both of you to work out the details." Mycroft crossed to the door and stopped after opening it. "You seem well on your way to doing so already. Just remember, please, that there are neighbours, and though you don't need to portray a nauseating amount of wedded bliss, you might want to stop short of having them actually call the police to break up the arguments. Good luck, brother." He removed his hat and bowed to Kit. "Miss Rushford, a pleasure. Please let me know if there is any other way I can be of service."

"Thank you Mr. Holmes."

Mycroft trundled through the door and pulled it firmly shut behind him, leaving Sherlock and Kit to stare past each other awkwardly.

Which they did.

Finally Kit relented and pointed Holmes to a chair. "Good Lord, Mr. Holmes, if this is how were going to spend the next few days then we might as well do it sitting down."

She sank down into the armchair by the stove, and Holmes reluctantly took up a place across from her. There was a clock working somewhere in the flat. Its movement was the only sound. He took his cigarette case from an inside pocket and held one up.

"May I?"

"Please. At least we can count it as doing something."

Holmes lit the cigarette and exhaled a long slow cloud of smoke, watching her intently. She kept her eyes on the fire. "This is farcical," he informed her. Her face twitched with a look of disappointment, but it passed so quickly he couldn't be sure that he had seen it. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Are you…comfortable?"

She smiled at him wanly. "Not really, but I do feel better than I did yesterday. It would have been easier…"

He leaned forward. After a long moment he felt the need to prompt her. "Yes?"

"It would have been easier if you had been there."

He felt his stomach tighten. "Nonsense."

"Very well." She shrugged. "Then it is nonsense. Perhaps it was better not to have you there, ruining the wonderful experience of being terrified and in pain all by myself."

"I assumed Mycroft…"

"Had a dinner engagement. But you are right, he very kindly looked in on me this morning."

Colour flooded his face, and he dragged so hard on his cigarette that he nearly choked. He opened the stove door and tossed the butt into the fire.

"Did you have any luck at the theatre yesterday?" she pressed ahead, disappointed with herself for feeling so pleased to have made him uncomfortable.

"Some slight amount. I have become a props assistant."

"Did something happen to Mr. Carlyle?"

"He has an engagement at the Strand for a few weeks."

"Ah. His mistress wants him to take her to Brighton again."

"What?"

"Jeffey Carlyle is a very dependable man. He has been for all twenty years of his incredibly boring marriage. However, once every few years he needs a break. He takes it with Mrs. Laura Childers of Woking. They go to Brighton for a week. He tells his wife he is visiting a cousin, and work that he's over at the Strand. Everyone knows, but sees no reason to cause him any distress. He's very diligent at his job."

Holmes cleared this throat, lighting another cigarette. Kit bit her lip, realizing that somehow she had made it worse. Was it any reference to emotion that put him on edge? How did he maneuver through the simplest of conversations if that was the case? She took a deep breath and tried again. "When are you going back to the theatre?"

"This afternoon. I have to learn the particulars of my new position. "

She nodded. "I will come with you."

"Absolutely not."

"But why? I can not use my hands just as comfortably outside as cooped up in here."

"Miss Rushford, I am working. I have inquiries."

"That I could help you with. I won't get in your way, I promise."

Holmes barked out a dry laugh. "Miss Rushford, there is no way a woman can be of any help to me. I would be forced to divert my energies into looking out for your welfare, and not able to focus on the task at hand."

"I can take care of myself, Mr. Holmes."

"Evidence indicates otherwise." He replied dryly.

"Are you saying," she kept her voice very calm, "that you are unable to be in my presence without losing your ability to focus?"

Her eyes challenged him. He could feel a flush creep up his cheeks. The smoke from his cigarette hung in the air between them.

"That is not what I mean, Miss Rushford, and you know it."

"I most certainly do not. Pray, Mr. Holmes, please tell me what you did mean."

His fingers danced on his thigh. "It is not that easy…"

"May I suggest you make us a cup of tea, relax in your chair, and try."

His brows furrowed over light grey eyes, getting steadily darker. "I do not make tea."

"And I do not 'wait here'."

Holmes stood, and she matched his movement, stepping closer to him before he had a chance to retreat. Her eyes fell almost at the level of his mouth, causing him to tilt his head down to see her. Without thinking his eyes darted down to her lips, and when she tilted her head back again slightly, he found himself tracking her movement, unconsciously adjusting his own lips even closer to hers.

Her scent overwhelmed him. Something delicate, like soap and fresh linen. His could feel his mouth wetting with saliva in sudden eagerness to taste her. She must have been chewing that damn bottom lip for it to look so warm and velvet.

"You will have to learn, then." He tried to sound calm. Final.

"I think it would be easier for you to learn to make tea instead."

That muscle in his jaw twitched again. He was determined not to be the one who flinched. This game they were playing was becoming far too dangerous. He must show her exactly who was in control here.

She leaned toward him again, and infinitesimal movement that allowed him to hold his ground. Apples. Her breath was warm, with a hint of something like apples. She cocked her head slightly to the side, and he countered, still confident, still self-congratulatory, right up to the moment she pulled away again. He followed her without pausing for thought, intent on closing the final millimeters between them, when she suddenly tilted her head up and to the side, causing him to pull up short.

A split second, and he had lost. She had turned the possibility of her surrender to his phantom kiss into a revelation of his own need. His request, hers to deny.

A low growl started in Holmes throat, and before she knew it, he had twisted way from her on his heel, grabbed his coat and hat off the chair and yanked open the door.

"Follow me to the theatre, and I swear, I will give you cause to regret it."

He slammed the door after him. The walls shook with the force of it. Kit sank into the couch, careful not to brace herself with her hands. They were throbbing now, and her throat felt tight and dry. Tears stung behind her eyelids, but she did not permit herself to cry. Instead she pressed her lips together until they were bloodless and did her best to hate Sherlock Holmes.

A right cross landed squarely on the corner of Holmes' mouth, splitting his lip. He took a few steps back, raising his gloves to guard his face while he tongued at the line of his bottom teeth, pressing hard to see if any were loose. They all seemed to be in their proper places. He weaved left to avoid a sloppy jab and drove his curled fist with all his might into the left side of his opponent, just under his ribs. The bigger man grunted and collapse over himself, hooking a right wide around to connect with the thinner man's ear. Holmes deflected it easily and drove a hard left directly into the man's right cheek, sending him stumbling back tripping on his feet to land with an almost comic sitting motion on the turf ground of the ring.

The hum of the boxing gym started to die as more and more of the men abandoned their bags and partners to watch the fight. The place stank of sweat and oiled leather.

Holmes panted, tasting blood. He watched his opponent struggle up, weave forward to toe the scratch again. Fine, Holmes thought, take all the time you need.

He had considered going home after his meeting with Miss Rushford but knew it would be a useless endeavor. In the mood he was in he was far more likely to tear the place to shreds, and it wasn't even ten in the morning yet. He couldn't distract himself at the theatre, so he had turned in the direction of his boxing club instead.

The man in front of him raised his gloves again, tensing his large chest. His intentions clear: to pummel the smaller man into a stain on the floor. Holmes smiled. His fist lashed out mercilessly into the man's face and stomach, driving him back against the ropes, landing a series of right and left cuts that sent the bigger man's head snapping back and forth, blood and saliva arching from his mouth onto the ground.

Holmes could hear himself almost sobbing for breath. His legs shook, his forearms trembled from strain. Sweat dripped down his chest from his shoulders, across the expanse of his naked ribs. His hair fell forward, wet and unruly across his forehead. He couldn't still his heart rate.

What did she want? How could one person send him into such turmoil? Sherlock Holmes, fetching tea! Making himself useful!

His opponent righted himself, dragging his gloves up to guard his face. Holmes slammed him square in the nose, stepping off as the man collapsed into the turf, dragging himself along the roped to get more distance. Holmes walked back to the center of the ring, giving him space.

A gentleman waits.

The man refused to stay down, though. Soon he was staggering to his knees, then his feet. He spat a spider web of blood in Holmes' direction, bringing his gloves into position again.

And is this what you call a mastery over yourself? Holmes sneered at himself grimly. He was unsure whom he was more angry at, the man vile enough to have attacked Miss Rushford, to have laid a violent hand on her and stolen the joy from her life, at Kit, for the effortless way she seemed to scratch through each and every one of Holmes' protective layers and gloat at what she saw beneath, or himself, for making it such an easy job for her.

He landed a solid left into the bigger man's chin, following it immediately with a hard uppercut to the sternum. The man's breath left him in a blast.

Sherlock's arm reached back, he felt something in his muscles twinge and lock. He was ready to breath smoke, to purge every ounce of anger out of his taught body, to take this itchy dizzy feeling and push it out as far away from himself as he could. His fist connected just below the eye, splashing blood and sweat back into his own face as the big man's head spun, taking his shoulders around with him. He stopped for a second with his back to Holmes, and a long breath whistled through the watching crowd. Slowly his knees buckled and he crashed to the ground, hand scrabbling out to find some way to drag himself towards the edge of the ring, away from the smaller man standing over him.

"Oy, Mr. Holmes." Sherlock looked over to see the club manager leaning his hip against one of the posts, curling his fingers through his waxed mustache. "Queensberry Rules, sir. I'm afraid you can't just punch him to death any more. He's obviously out."

Holmes dropped his gloved hands to his sides. He felt suddenly limp, sated. Several men scurried forward to help pull the bloody man out of the ring.

"What's eating you, man?" the manager called, wiping his neck with a handkerchief pulled from his pocket. "You're usually far more technical than that mess."

"Nothing. I just need…." He let his head hang forward, lungs burning, scanning the faces of the men watching him.

"Need what?"

"Something I can't have."

Holmes turned on his heel and stalked from the ring. "I have to go make a cup of tea."

Kit had not moved from the couch. There was a book resting against her lap now, her strained hand laid across the pages to keep it open. Her heart-rate had returned to normal, but her throat still hurt from the strain of unshed tears. She fumbled with a page, turning it clumsily.

The main door opened and closed. She could smell pomade and aftershave. She closed her eyes briefly, angry at herself for the liquid pull she felt deep in her stomach. He was here. However angry she was with him, however rude he was, the feeling of safety that suffused her was intoxicating. She kept her eyes on her book as the blur of his form crossed the room. Water sloshed. Metal tinkled on metal. Then the shuffle of feet. His body, waist down, came into view in front of her. She sighed inwardly. Eventually she would have to look up, or this would become unseemly.

Before she had a chance, he crouched down in front of her, and she caught sight of those eyes again, peering up at her. They were storm at sea eyes, captivating, and unsettling at the same time. He'd been back to his rooms, she realized. He was still wearing old work clothes, but he had washed, his face shaved smooth as glass. A sound escaped her as she noticed a raw split in in the corner of his lower lip, a red bruise already blooming around it. She put her free hand out and her fingers came to rest there gently.

Carefully, he removed her hand with his own. "It's nothing."

He was holding something out to her. It took her a moment to realize what it was. A violin case. His violin case.

"Miss Rushford, I cannot allow you to accompany me today. But I can offer you this. For you to practice with. Slowly. Until we are able to see about replacing your own."

He flipped open the case and she saw the Stradivarius laying there, the wood warm and honeyed with age. He gently took the book from her lap and handed the violin over in such a way that she could grasp the neck carefully, for now simply resting the chin guard on her sling. She fitted her bandaged fingers over the strings. It hurt. She was unable to close her hand as much as was necessary, but even the act of trying made her feel better. She looked up at him with gratitude, just in time to catch a glimpse of something unfathomable in his look again before he glanced away.

"I have put the kettle on," he said. "Do you take milk or lemon?"