Here we go, the longest part to date and what will probably be the longest one in the series. Consider the scene with Jeanette deleted (and possibly the last sequence as well, but that's up to you). I'd like to thank Ariane DeVere for writing a transcript on the episode that's been a life saver whenever the characters start to mumble.

Also, please help me make the story better- write a review!

Scandal in Belgravia

1.

"You realize this is a tiny bit humiliating?" John's voice is distorted a bit by the speaker in Sherlock's laptop.

Sherlock comes out of his bedroom, yawning and dressed in only a sheet. He grabs a coffee cup before picking up the laptop. "It's okay, I'm fine. Now, show me to the stream."

"I didn't really mean for you"

"Look, this is a six", Sherlock says sharply. "No point in my leaving the flat for anything less than a seven, we agreed. Now go back. Show me the grass."

Over in the field, John does as he is told. He's not letting this go, however. "When did we agree that?"

"We agreed it yesterday. Now stop! Closer!"

John is still isn't convinced. The picture on Sherlock's laptop swivels until John comes into the picture. "I wasn't even at home yesterday, I was in Dublin"

"It's hardly my fault you weren't listening."

John is bemused. "Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?"

"I don't know" Sherlock lifts an eyebrow. "How often are you away?"

John gapes at him. "How is that even-" He cuts himself off, then takes a calming breath. "Never mind." Sherlock takes up the whole bed anyway, so it's not really surprising that he wouldn't notice.

2.

The pair are huddled together on a sofa, giggling. They've been kidnapped, flown into Buckingham Palace, and Sherlock isn't wearing any pants.

John tries to regain some composure. "Buckingham Palace" He clears his throat and sighs. "I'm seriously fighting and impulse to steal an ashtray." He shakes his head at himself while Sherlock is sent into another fit of giggling. John clears his throat again. "What are we doing here? Sherlock, seriously, what?"

"I don't know", Sherlock admits.

John ventures a guess. "Here to see the queen?"

Sherlock gets the perfect set up as Mycroft rounds the corner just at that moment. "Oh, apparently yes." The two of them collapse in laughter again.

Mycroft is far from amused. "Not much of a joke, coming from you of all people."

John sits up straight, having managed to calm down a little "You have to admit that it was a bit funny."

3.

When he wakes up, Sherlock is back home in bed and someone has dressed him in his pajamas. "John? John!" He manages to heave himself up, but falls promptly to the floor.

John appears in the doorway, seemingly as calm as ever. "Are you okay?"

"How did I get here", Sherlock slurs.

John scratches his ear "Well, I suppose you don't remember much, you weren't making a lot of sense. Oh and I should warn you, I think Lestrade filmed you on his phone" John pulls a face.

Sherlock doesn't seem to listen. "Where is she?"

"Where is who?"

Sherlock straightens up a bit and stumbles aimlessly across the room. "The woman, that woman."

"What woman?"

Sherlock spreads his arms "The woman! The Woman woman!"

John finally catches on. "Oh, Irene Adler? She got away, no one saw her" He adds "She wasn't here, Sherlock" As the drugged detective starts searching for her in the room.

Finally, when Sherlock drops to the floor again to look under the bed, John has had enough. "What are you- what? No, no…" John grabs him from behind and, with some swearing, manages to get Sherlock back into bed. "You'll be fine in the morning. Just sleep."

"Of course I'll be fine, I am fine", rambles Sherlock. "I'm absolutely fine!"

John doesn't argue. "Yes you're great. I'll be back in a minute, just yell if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

"No reason at all."

4.

Sherlock finishes playing and bows to Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and John.

"Lovely, Sherlock, that was lovely!"

John agrees. "Marvelous"

Mrs. Hudson laughs "I wish you could have worn the antlers"

Sherlock gives her a skeptical look. "Some things are best left to the imagination, Mrs. Hudson." Looking up, he sees Molly coming up the stairs. "Oh, dear lord…"

Molly comes in, weighed down by heavy clothes and bags full of presents, but smiling nevertheless. "Hello everyone! It said on the door just to come up..."

John takes Molly's coat and she's greeted by the rest of the group, as Sherlock comments with an eye roll.

"So, are we having the Christmas drinkies, then?"

Sherlock puts away his violin and sits down to busy himself with the computer. "No stopping it, apparently"

"It's the one day of the year when the boys have to be nice to me, so it's always worth it", Mrs. Hudson notes.

Molly turns to Lestrade, who's handing her a drink. "I wasn't expecting to see you; I thought you were going to be in Dorset for Christmas?"

"That's first thing in the morning. Me and the wife are back together, it's all sorted." Lestrade grins.

Sherlock barely glances up from his computer. "No, she's sleeping with the P.E teacher."

Lestrade's grin freezes. Trying to change the subject, Molly turns to John. "John, I hear you're off to your sister's, is that right?"

John nods. "Yeah"

"Sherlock was complaining-" the man in question looks up at her "- saying…"

"First time ever she's cleaned up her act." John raises his glass in a half toast. "She's off the booze!"

"John!"

"Hm? " John Walks over to Sherlock by the computer to read over his shoulder.

"The count on your blog, it still says 1895."

John smacks his hand on the table in mock outrage. "No! Christmas is cancelled."

Sherlock ignores him, gesturing to a picture on the blog. "And you've got a photograph of me wearing that hat!"

"People like the hat."

"No they don't", Sherlock pauses, making a calculation. He looks up at John, slightly scandalized. "You do!"

John starts, but decides he doesn't want to touch that one. He pointedly sets down his beer by the computer "Here, Take this." he sets his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, leans in and lowers his voice conspiratorially "You need to take a day off."

Sherlock doesn't get a chance to reply before a loud moan is heard.

Lestrade pulls a disgusted face. "Guys really-"

"It was my phone." Sherlock pulls his phone out to find another text: Mantelpiece.

John frowns. "Fifty seven."

"Sorry, what?"

"Fifty seven of those texts, the ones that I've heard."

"Thrilling that you've been counting." Sherlock stands up and walks absent mindedly over to the fireplace. He picks up a gift placed on it. He looks at it for a moment. "Excuse me." He turns and starts walking towards the bedroom.

John is visibly alarmed. "What's up, Sherlock?"

"I said, excuse me."

He goes into the bedroom to examine the gift closer, with John calling after him.

5.

John looks at Sherlock by the window, then turns to Mrs. Hudson. "Listen, has he ever lost anyone? Grandparents, a dog, anyone he cared about?

Mrs. Hudson shakes her head. "I don't know."

John sighs. "How could we not know?"

"He's Sherlock. How will we ever know what goes on in that funny old head?"

The two smile at each other. They both look at Sherlock for a moment before John says his goodbye and goes out, only to find a black car with tinted windows waiting for him.

6.

"It's for his own safety"

"So is this: tell him you're alive."

"I can't."

John has to take a deep breath. "Fine. I'll tell him. And I still won't help you." He turns on his heel, starting to storm off.

Irene Adler calls after him. "What do I say?"

John turns around again to face her, finally snapping. "What do you normally say, you've texted him a lot!"

Irene is unfazed. "Just the usual stuff."

John has calmed down a bit, deciding to logical route. "There is no usual in this case."

Irene reads from her phone. "'Good morning.' 'I like your funny hat.' 'I'm sad tonight, let's have dinner.' 'You look sexy in crime watch, let's have dinner.' 'I'm not hungry. Let's have dinner.'" She looks up at him.

John frowns in disbelief. "You flirted with Sherlock Holmes."

"At him, he never replied. Are you jealous?"

John glares at her. "He's my boyfriend, of course I'm jealous!"

Instead of replying, Irene holds up her phone to show him the new text she's written. "There. 'I'm not dead. Let's have dinner'" She hits send with a smirk.

John has to look away for a moment, trying to collect himself. "You really have no boundaries, do you? You seriously think it's okay to go after someone else's partner like that?"

Irene shrugs. "It's my job, remember?"

John doesn't have a reply to that. There is a short silence, then suddenly there's a moan from somewhere behind them.

7.

"So, she's alive then. How are we feeling about that?"

Sherlock doesn't have to answer, as bells conveniently start ringing at that moment. He looks out the window. "Happy new year, John."

John persists. "Do you think you'll be seeing her again?"

Changing tactics, Sherlock turns around, walks over to John. He takes his drink, setting it down on the table. John gives him a puzzled look, but then the detective leans forward and kisses him. John stills for a moment, before deciding to let it go. Instead he wraps his arms around Sherlock and pulls him closer, kissing him back.

8.

Molly takes a closer look at the screen. "Is that a phone?"

"It's a camera phone."

"You're x-raying it?"

"Yes, I am"

"Whose phone is it?"

Sherlock's gaze is still fixed on the screen. "A woman's."

"Does John know about it?"

Sherlock blinks. "You think I have a sexual relationship with this woman because I'm x-raying her possessions?"

Molly shrugs and smiles nervously at him. "Well, we all do silly things…"

Sherlock stills, and slowly looks up from the computer to Molly. "Yes. They do, don't they? Very silly…" He gets up to get the camera phone.

9.

"Hamish"

Irene and Sherlock turn to look at John, who is sitting by his computer and fuming.

When he speaks again, it is with rather unsubtle sarcasm. "John Hamish Watson. Just if you're looking for baby names."

Sherlock frowns at him in confusion, but doesn't have time to process it as John gets up and stalks out of the flat.

Irene seems completely unfazed. "There was a man. An MOD official, I knew what he liked." She starts to fiddle with her phone. "One of the things he liked was showing off. He told me this email was going to save the world, he didn't know it but I photographed it. He was a bit tied up at the time." She hands the phone over to Sherlock. "It's a bit small on that screen, can you read it?"

Sherlock takes the phone and sits down in John's recently vacated chair to study it. "Yes."

"Code, obviously. I had one of the best cryptographers in the country take a look at it, though he was mostly upside down, as I recall. Can you figure it out?" Irene leans over his chair. "What can you do Mr. Holmes? Go on, impress a girl." She leans in.

Sherlock's mind is already racing, mapping patterns in the sequence given to him, grouping letters together. By the time Irene kisses his cheek, he already as an answer ready.

"There's margin for error, but I'm pretty sure it's a flight 747 leaving Heathrow tomorrow at 6:30 in the evening for Baltimore, apparently it's going to save the world. Not sure how that could be true, but give me a moment, I've only been on the case for eight seconds."

He looks up at Irene, realizing that she's not following. "Oh come on, it's not a code, these are seat allocations on a passenger jet." He holds up the phone to her. "Look, there's no letter I because it can be mistaken for a 1. There's no letters past K, the width of the plane is the limit. The numbers appear randomly and not in sequence, but the letters have little runs of sequence all over the place, families and couples sitting together. Only a jumbo is big enough to need a letter K or rows past 55, which is why there's always an upstairs. There's a row 13, which eliminates more superstitious airlines and there's the style of the flight, number 007; that eliminates a few more. Assuming it is of British origin, which would be logical from the original source of the information, and assuming from the increased pressure on you lately that the crisis is imminent, the only flight matching all criteria and departing within the week is the 6:30 tomorrow to Baltimore from Heathrow airport."

Sherlock pauses. "Please don't feel obliged to tell me that was remarkable or amazing, John's already expressed that in every possible variant known to the English language."

Irene doesn't take her eyes off him. When she speaks, her voice is husky. "I would have you right here, on this desk, until you begged for mercy twice."

Sherlock's tone is dismissive. "I've never begged for mercy in my life." He turns to the computer and starts searching to verify his idea.

"Twice."

Sherlock suddenly stops, though not because of Irene. He frowns at the screen. "I was right, flight 007… Flight 007? …007… 007... What..?"

10.

"Coventry."

"I've never been. Is it nice?"

Sherlock stares at Irene for a moment. "Where's John?"

Irene frowns slightly and blinks at him in disbelief. "He went out, remember? Actually, he went out, came back, then went out again a couple of hours ago."

Sherlock glances around the room, a bit skeptical. "I was just talking to him"

"He said you do that."

11.

"I am about to go and inform my brother- or if you prefer, you are - that she somehow got herself into a witness protection scheme in America. New name, new identity. She will survive, and thrive, but he will never see her again."

"Why would he care? He despised her at the end. Wouldn't even mention her by name, just 'the woman'."

"Is that loathing? Or a salute? One of a kind, the one woman he met who was at his own level?"

John raises his eyebrows. "You think so? She lost to him, why would he do that?"

Mycroft straightens. "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about how he thinks?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. But initially he wanted to be a pirate."

12.

"Is that her file?"

"Yes, I was just taking it back to Mycroft. Do you want to…?"

Sherlock sits down and looks into his microscope again. "No."

John hesitates for a moment, then starts to say something, but he is interrupted by Sherlock.

"However I will have her camera phone." He reaches out his hand.

"There's nothing on it anymore, it's been stripped."

"Well I know but I... I'll still have it." He keeps staring into his microscope, with a hint of sadness in his eyes.

"I've got to give this back to Mycroft, you can't keep it." Sherlock doesn't budge. John tries to reason with him again. "Sherlock, it's the government's now, I can't just- "

"Please" Sherlock reaches out further.

John ponders it for a moment, then finally hands Sherlock the phone.

"Thank you."

"I'd better take this back."

"Yes."

John turns away, then changes his mind. "Did she ever text you again after…" he inclines his head. "All that?"

"Once, a few months ago."

"What did she say?"

"'Goodbye, Mr. Holmes.'" His voice is shaking ever so slightly. John nods to himself, hesitating. Then he puts the file down, walks around the table to stand behind his boyfriend and wrap his arms around him. Sherlock stiffens a bit at first, but then relaxes into the embrace. Neither of them say a word.