The next day, Sherlock flew back to London. He had missed the air, the black cabs, the tea, the criminals and all the people to whom he would never admit it, such as John, Mr. Hudson, Letstrade; perhaps in a very small amount even Molly. He went up the stairs leading to his living room, determined to pretend the past few days never happened. He let out a relieved smile when he saw John sitting in one of the armchairs, reading the morning newspapers.
John stood up to greet the detective with a broad smile on his face:
"Sherlock, hey! How was your trip? Did you solve the case? Mrs. Hudson is feeling much better; she's been asking about you every couple of hours, you know she doesn't trust the people from the mainland." John stopped his cheerful monologue when he saw the strange smile Sherlock had on his face; he may not be a genius, but if there was something John Watson knew, it was Sherlock Holmes. He normally didn't smile to John's reports, he quietly ignored them. But even more strange than that, he was never stiff in such a way; he never put any effort in fooling John or anyone else he felt in a certain manner. He just didn't care enough about social interactions to put himself through such trouble. John knew that Sherlock would never answer to a direct question, so he decided to just play along and see what happens.
They sat in their armchairs since Sherlock refused to have breakfast. Everything was apparently normal, they spoke a bit, John went out shopping, he came back, and he went out again. In the evening, when he returned from an afternoon tea date, he found Sherlock in the same place he had left him. There was something different about him; he didn't seem to be deeply focused as usual, staring in the darkness while he was deep thinking. He seemed blue, playing a sad tune on his violin. John knew Sherlock would never allow him to see this side of his, but he was so deeply consumed with his chain of thoughts that he didn't even hear the doctor coming in. John sat to have a conversation with him, deciding that the probably unsuccessful talk cannot be postponed anymore:
"Ok, what's going on? I know it something, don't insult me or deflect or whatever it is that you usually do to avoid answering my questions. You came back different, sad even, if I may dare to say so. What happened to you there?"
Upon hearing this question, Sherlock got himself back together and he regained his usual uninterested expression. He smiled at John in a mocking manner:
"What gives you that idea? Why would I be sad, you know I don't concern myself with such...human things?"
"My point exactly. But now I see clear signs of humanity all over you. What made them appear? Or who?"
Sherlock's outside rolled his eyes on these ridiculously boring things John was accusing him of. A flashback went through his mind as a reaction to these ridiculously boring accusations: her apartment, the fact that she made him dance, in every sense of the word, the illusion of time stopping, his fear for her life and the final blow, proving her position as the woman who beat him. He wasn't very good in this hiding of emotions, simply because he didn't have enough emotions to practice on. Ending the discussion, at least for the time being, he did what he did best when it came to personal talks; he deflected, changing the subject:
"There is a case I've committed myself to take in Amsterdam. Are you interested in accompanying me?"
John smiled, fully aware of what Sherlock was doing. He decided letting him go for the time being.
"Sure, when do we leave?"
Sherlock smiled back at him, silently grateful for what he knew John was doing. "Tomorrow if it suits you."
Upon exiting the gate on Schiphol airport, Sherlock saw Martin in the crowd of people waiting. Before their departure from London, Sherlock made a phone call to him:
"My colleague doesn't know anything of our mutual business with Irene Adler; as far as he knows, she is dead or as he prefers to put it 'in a witness protection program in America. I would very much like to keep it that way."
The two Englishmen approached their Dutch client.
"Martin, this is my friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson. John, this is our client, Martin Verdun." They shook hands and then proceeded towards Martin's car. The mere sight of the car gave Sherlock another flashback, which made him frown.
When they were comfortably settled in Martin's car, driven by a professional driver, John asked:
"So, what's the nature of the case?"
"It's quite a strange thing; I don't know whether to be ashamed of thinking about it in the first place. My real surname isn't Verdun; it used to be Van Der Buren. Mine is one of the oldest, most influential families in the Netherlands; our family is among the noblest in the country. Anyway, I own quite a large estate in the north of the country; the house is almost castle like. I grew up there, and my whole childhood I heard stories of a mysterious legacy hidden somewhere in the premises. It is my obsession my whole life, but I've been unsuccessful in finding it. I almost let the matter completely go, but then I heard of your arrival in my country, so I knew I had to consult you." He said, with a passionate glow in his eyes.
"A friend of Mycroft's introduced us." Sherlock explained quickly, preventing John from asking.
An hour later, they arrived to the gates of the large estate. This magnificent Iron Gate was already a sufficient proof of what Martin was saying.
"You live in a beautiful place, that's for certain." Said John, referring to the forest surrounding the road they were taking. Between the trees, they could see a part of the house, made of grey stones, with four towers, decorated with marble figures of lions. Martin was right; it could pass as a castle easily.
After Sherlock and John made themselves comfortable in a pair of rooms on the first floor, they descended to meet Martin in the main hall.
"I have to leave now, there is some urgent business I must attend to without any delay, but I'll be back in the evening. If you need anything, just call, but the servants will be on your disposal, so I doubt that you'll have any problems."
'Was Irene this urgent business', asked a small voice in Sherlock's mind? He did he best to suppress it, explaining t himself that even if she was, it was entirely not his business.
"Do you have any clues for us, as a head start?" asked Sherlock, trying to sound as not jealous as possible.
"Everything I ever discovered of the matter is in the library, but feel free to go through everything in the whole house; I would start from the west wing, it's the oldest part of the residence."
The documents confirmed the existence of some kind of treasure, very worthy to the members of this particular family. Legend has it, it was hidden somewhere in the house to be preserved from meddlers and enemy's of their blood line. It should provide them, it was written, wealth and prospers above all others.
"Completely understandable why he would want to have it." John joked.
Sherlock smiled, but then something else caught his attention while he was digging through the content of every drawer in the library. Between some old books, he found a photograph of the very woman he was trying so hard to forget the whole day. She lay on a wooden bench in front of the house they were in right now, looking relaxed and careless, probably on vacation; she wore a white, summer dress, and she smiled broadly to the camera. Sherlock knew that stealing this photo was pointless; if he wanted a photo of hers, he could simply download it from the internet, and he didn't want it at all. But she seemed so natural in this photo, like the Irene he met a few days ago, human, emotional. The inner urge got the best of him, so he quickly put the photo in the inner pocket of his jacket, before John could suspect anything.
Irene Adler sat in the same café where she met Martin the last time. She was impatiently waiting, so she almost jumped to her feet when he walked through the door.
"Did he return? How is he? Did he say something about me?"
Martin smiled. "Easy girl. I never saw you so jumpy about anything, what's gotten into you?"
Irene told him the whole story of Moriarty and her deceiving Sherlock.
"Irene, I'm sorry. I had no idea. He didn't say anything, he just asked me not to mention you in front of the guy that came with him, John, since he thinks you're dead as the majority of the people in this world." He supportively put his hand on top of hers.
"Its fine, I knew he wouldn't say anything. Just, keep an eye on him for me, will you?"
"As far as I can tell about him so far, the best thing to do is keep him busy, which I've already done. Oh come on, cheer up a bit, where's the tough Irene? Remember that businessman you left tied up naked in his own bedroom, and then his wife found him with a rubber duck in his mouth? Or the supermodel that tattooed your name on her lower back? Snap out of this."
She smiled. "You know what Martin? You're the closest thing to a John a normal person can have."
The search of Martin's castle-house brought Sherlock and John into the vine basement after they discovered a clue in the west wing Martin had pointed them to. Thanks to Sherlock perceiving barely visible pulling marks on the floor in front of a chest, almost erased by the amount of years during which nothing was moved, and John's help in moving it once again, they found a small booklet containing a map. After a few seconds of Sherlock's eye scanning of the map, they ended up in the vine cellar. Once again, John gave a case its final touch by accidently tripping and falling on a vine cupboard, one of the vines being the lever to open a secret compartment behind it. The legacy Martin looked for was a treasure indeed, for it related one of his far ancestors to the royal family. He was not mistaken; his family had a rich legacy, he just didn't know how rich.
"I think I can't thank you enough. It's not about the money; I have plenty of that, but the small satisfaction of having a percentage of royal blood, and of course, fulfilling a boy's dream. Thank you both!" he rose his glass in their honor, while they comfortably sat in one of his many living rooms, he and John teaming up to end a bottle of the finest cognac, Sherlock staying sober minded.
After a few attacks of hysterical laughter, John decided he had enough booze for one night. He excused himself to go to sleep, with bumping the furniture a few times on his way out of the room.
"So, you've kept your part of the deal, now it's time for me to keep mine. What interest you?" asked the blonde man, now that he and Sherlock were alone.
"It doesn't interest me." Sherlock responded calmly, forming a triangle with his fingers.
"Yes it does." Said Martin, smiling at him with certainty.
"You know, I never had the fortune or better said unfortune of falling for her, we were always just good friends. But everyone I knew everywhere did."
Sherlock remained silent. He didn't like to be categorized as everyone, especially not on the present matter.
"Alright then, I'll be a good host then and I'll just start talking since you don't have anything in particular to ask. We've met some ten years ago I think, when she was just recognizing the dominatrix within her. I've just completed my economic studies in England and I was so bored by the stiffness of your people; how cold they are, how restrained. She was dating one of my colleagues, well dating, if that could even be categorized as dating. She was using him to get her in the high society, which was working very well, and everyone was fascinated by her. She was an artist in manipulation; she could make people believe anything. And she could make them do anything, thus her career choice later on. The next part is familiar to you as I understand. And when she died to the world, I helped her to start over in my very own city so I could assist her."
"How kind of you." Sherlock simply stated.
"Not as kind as saving her in the first place."
Sherlock frowned again. He felt an urge to end the conversation, which Martin caught so he changed the subjects to criminals they both knew.
John and Sherlock left for England a few days later after enjoying Martin's hospitality a while longer then they first planed. Both of them enjoyed his company very much so they somehow forget that he wasn't always on the same side of the law as they were. None of the men mentioned Irene again during their staying.
Irene Adler dressed unrecognizably in a blonde schoolgirl with glasses watched Sherlock Holmes pass through the gate at the airport. As soon as he was out of sight, she blend in the crowd.
Many months after the events in Amsterdam, England was shaken by the scandal of Sherlock Holmes, the fraud detective, the former Reichenbach hero. It appeared that he, who called himself the world's only consulting detective up to the point, invented his arch nemesis, James Moriarty. He hired an actor Richard Brook to fill in the part of this criminal master mind so Holmes would have opportunities to display his intellectual powers and be the hero of the nation. His literal fall took place at the rooftop of St Bartholomew's hospital, where the alleged genius jumped into his death, disgraced after his deceit was discovered. The unfortunate actor met his death on the very same rooftop as the last victim of this madman who shot him before leaping to his end.
Irene Adler was reading the English newspapers on her laptop, as she did every day, to feel less homesick. The tea mug fell out of her shaking hand when she read the news of Sherlock's death. Never seeing him again was not an option, she thought, convincing herself that this cannot be. Her restless eyes flew over the whole text, in desperate search for something to hold on to, some last straw of hope. Suicide? Sherlock would never do such a thing, he was such an egocentric, his viewpoint to suicide would be 'I couldn't possibly do this to the world; it would substantially reduce the IQ of the whole planet." No, suicide was not on his repertoire, he was too fond of himself. She couldn't imagine what desperate circumstances could bring him to such a decision. Moriarty an actor? What the hell was that? Her heart finally slowed down upon reading the last sentence. Sherlock wouldn't kill Moriarty and then himself, that didn't make any sense. She smiled, trying to calm her nerves; he was alive, he had to be.
It took her nearly a month to find him. He chose a good hiding place, but she was highly motivated to find him.
She hiked to reach his hideout for more than two hours. She was breathing heavily, exhausted from the climbing when she reached her destination; the house on a very steep cliff. Without further delay, she knocked on the door.
Sherlock opened the door with a shock that could only be compared to seeing Moriarty in the apartment of Kitty Riley. He looked at her like he saw a ghost, a ghost of the past:
"What are you doing here?" he simply said, pale of surprise.
Hi! I tried to finish this in between chapter as soon as possible, so I can start the next one very soon :) In the next chapter I'll explain where Sherlock is hiding and how Irene found him, this ending is just an introduction to that. Please leave me a review, I was so delighted with how many I got for the last chapter! :)