A/N: A change of pace - an interval, if you will
John H Watson`s Blog
Private Message from: when_i_say_run
Doctor Watson, I am hugely enjoying `The Late Sherlock Holmes` thread – how illuminating and entertaining for (almost) all. I don`t wish to be public about this, but it would be rather fun if you could alert Sherlock to the message I sent to his Science of Deduction Blog a few moments ago. It relates very much to your topic, and he will have an inkling as to what I am referring. I cannot, however, guarantee he will want to share the tale with you, but you now, at least, have the chance to ask. He was late, and I leave it to him to decide if that was for the best or not.
Choosing is the new sexy x
X
In the south east of Serbia, the city of Niš is an important crossroads between central Europe and the Middle East, and assumes the central position in the Balkan peninsula. The city is also a major regional railway junction and these railway links include international trains from Thessaloniki, Greece to Ljubljana, Slovenia, via Skopje, Belgrade and Zagreb, as well as Istanbul. The trains are slow, not very clean, and still in the seventies style, but tickets are cheap, the scenery is sometimes beautiful, and sleeping cars are usually an option. Irene Adler sits in a squalid brushed nylon seat on one of these trains. She is clammy, overheated, fidgety and in need of a cool drink, but she sits, because she believes.
She believes in Sherlock Holmes…
When a man you really, really fancy sweeps in and saves your rubbish old life, you feel you might just owe him an obligation. He`s distant, brilliant, unreachable, has devilish cheekbones and appears to hate you – what`s not to love?
You have hurt him, hurt him very badly – you have played a game with a very bad man, but you knew it meant less and less, until it melted into nothing. Your beleaguered heart aches because you know that the man you were supposed to dupe was the man you wanted to save, and his Icelandic eyes cut your heart in two when he said:
"I've always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof."
Then, when he slices through the neck of the man who has a knife to your throat, you know what is meant by `the final proof`.
Sherlock and I played a mighty game. We met, we flirted; we met, we hated; we met, we murdered … you can see how addictive that kind of relationship might be.
He was, and is, the sexiest man I have ever met. Men are not my first choice, but when I saw Sherlock Holmes, I recalibrated my heart, because he was someone I wanted to let inside.
And I never let people inside. Never.
My role is that of a controller – a person who says what, when, how, who etc. etc…. but when I saw that man in that sheet, I genuinely and utterly, wanted him to notice ME…
So, when he said `run`, I ran … as fast and as far as I could go. I didn't look, breathe, hope or plan – I just ran. And Sherlock found me, and he held me, and he looked into my eyes, and I think he forgave me.
And I needed him to.
I had been the bitch of Jim Moriarty, but Sherlock Holmes lodged so deep inside my brain that I just played the game without realising what that meant. Sherlock gave me the chance to live another life and to be someone better, and I sat on that train and I waited for him, since he said he was on his way.
Alabaster skin, sea green eyes, dark curls, spare, lean physique - lovely … but what does all that matter when you sit on the train and the man doesn't appear?
The station clock ticked on, and Eastern European station guards, with their own Slavic cheekbones, blew their whistles, and the jig was up. Engines rumbled into life and the train moved slowly but inexorably along the platform, building speed with every second, taking me away –
Away from any kind of a chance.
And I turned away from the window, humiliation complete. No dominatrix the world over had ever elicited a shame so heavy. To him, it hadn't been worth it.
I hadn't been worth it.
I looked ahead, to the wall of the carriage opposite. A mirror reflects my pale, luminous face, with blood red lips, right back at me.
Idiot.
I can still see the platform, edging further and further away, reflected in that scratched and battered 1970`s mirror. A sea of heads, bodies, faces, luggage – a mighty throng converging from a station, where the East meets the West, and everyone is just passing through. Then, without warning, my heart almost stops and my breath hitches in my throat… a dark head, a good measure above the shorter folk passing him by. A pale glare and a face, turning, searching, looking, watching my train pulling away.
If I expected a dramatic sprint along the platform, a door wrenched open and a declaration of devotion, I would have been disappointed, but truthfully, I did not expect that. He watched my train go and I saw a kind of sad curiousity behind those Icelandic eyes; an element of regret for something he didn't even know he wanted; an interest piqued, then lost, like a child with a new favourite toy.
And I was gone.
X
Forgive me for contacting you, my darling, but I simply could not resist a final communication. You didn't know that I saw you, I`m sure, but I want you to know that I did. Dr Watson`s silly little challenge brought back to me the day that Sherlock Holmes was late. I don't know what caused your tardiness, but I imagine you to have vacillated around your true motives for meeting me. I am still not sure what my motives were for meeting up with you, other than the fact that I just – wanted you.
I suppose a small part of me always will.
Well, this has been a pleasure. I don`t want you to reply – I know all about the obligations you have acquired – hard to believe of someone so damaged and delusional, but there you are. This is how I want you to remember me now, Sherlock, the Woman you were late for…
Sorry about dinner. X
X
Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes lie across her double bed; his head at the headboard and hers at the foot. Lights are off, but the open curtains allow a cool breeze and a full, brilliant moon to filter into the windows of 221A and illuminate the crumpled sheets and their skin with a translucent glow. Molly`s bedside alarm is tick, tick, ticking and barely a car passes in the early hours of the morning. It`s as quiet as you can ever get in central London.
Molly Hooper is thinking very carefully. She suddenly gasps and speaks in an excited whisper:
"Stella won no wallets!"
"Bravo, Molly," rumbles Sherlock, "not bad at all for your first try."
"It`s taken me about fifteen minutes!" squeaks Molly.
"Did it? I must have fallen asleep."
She rolled over and hitches up to his half of the bed, puts her chin into the crook of his neck, and touches the end of his nose.
"Nah, Pinocchio, you weren't sleeping, you were thinking."
"I do do that."
"Yeah, you do, but I happen to think I know to whence your thoughts were drifting – "
"Your grammar makes my teeth ache, Molly."
"Deflection! Anyway, I am a scientist."
"As am I, but – standards, please."
"Pedant."
"Accuracy costs nothing."
"Deflector!" She pokes him in his bare ribcage for added emphasis, which elicits a tiny and uncharacteristic shriek which serves to both horrify Sherlock and ensure the snorting laughter of Molly Hooper for the next few minutes.
"Oh, God!" She is wiping her eyes, "we are going to wake the boy…why can`t we sleep? Oh, I know – it`s with all the loud thinking going on in here."
Sherlock, occasionally, knows when he is beaten. He rolls over onto his stomach and looks carefully at her.
"I need you to understand that any relationship I ever had with Irene bore no resemblance whatsoever to what I have here, with you."
"I know, Sherlock."
His surprise is evident. She still manages to surprise me, he thinks.
"You know?"
"Yeah, I know. Don't sweat it, Sherlock. I read the message and I understand, I think, the kind of relationship you had. Two, huge, brilliant egos discovering, assessing and admiring each other. It`s almost like you had discovered a giant mirror. So sexy and flirtatious and so much in common, and that's the problem – too much in common."
Sherlock is silent in admiration.
"I think it would never have worked for you two (besides the fact that she was gay and you don't particularly enjoy a good beating) because there would have been no room for anything except competition and admiration – it`s exhausting catwalking in front of each other all day, my sexy boy."
Catwalking?
Molly wraps her arms around his neck and curls her favourite little nape curl over her finger.
"I think that real love, Sherlock, isn't being there for the glitz, the glamour and the similarities – it`s when things look hopeless, and there are a million reasons to leave, to abandon someone very different from yourself, but you still look for the one reason to stay."
And as she kisses him, and he fills up with a warm, bright, golden light, Sherlock knows he has found his reason.
A/N: Arcoiris - a change of tone today, but silliness resumes asap!