Sherlock stared at her door. She hadn't come out in nearly a week, and he had to do something. He had heard thumps and bumps letting him know she was still breathing, but other than that, he had no idea what her state was. He thought leaving her alone would allow her to heal; she was always one to bounce back, but there seemed no end this time. He reached out a hand and made to knock on the door but shook his head and turned back toward the stairs changing his mind. He paused on the first step before he turned back again and finally knocked on the door. No one replied, so he knocked again.

"Ginny, you have to come out." There was a mumble on the other side of the door. It was incoherent, so he found himself bumbling in hopes she would come out in some way. "It's not… healthy for you, or so John claims."

"There's nothing for me out there," she called out in a much clearer way. He tisked at the reply.

"If this is about all of London thinking you're a serial killer, you're not," he attempted to assure her. What did one say to comfort people? He knew Jen; he knew what made her laugh, what made her sad. He could do this, he affirmed.

"Doesn't matter if I'm not," she uttered. She sounded miserable making his stomach tighten and begin to roll around. He felt like he was going to be sick.

"London is a parade of idiots," he reminded her. "You shouldn't care what they think." He heard a thump, and the door was opened so he could see a slip of her in the crack of the door. The shadows under her eyes were darker than usual. Five days, she hadn't slept in five days.

"You may be happy alone in your own delusional little world, but I'm different. I need human affection and acceptance. All of London thinks I'm a murderer. I don't want to be where… I can't come out." She went to close the door, but Sherlock stuck his foot in the crack preventing her from closing the door. He had learned that trick from his mother, and though it annoyed him, he was happy to have it in a moment like this.

"Ostracization has given us dozen of brilliant minds," he argued with her trying to find the positive in the situation for her. "Aristotle, Socrates, Dante, Galileo, Einstein, Da Vinci, Pythagoras… Jesus."

"You're an atheist," she grumbled leaning against the door putting all her weight on closing the door, but Sherlock's foot remained unmoved.

"Actually, I'm a deist," he replied quickly, "but that's not the point. The point is you have to come out. You don't have to leave the flat. Just come down shower, eat." She said leaning her head against the door with a sigh.

"If I do, will you leave me alone?" she asked just wanting to be alone with her thoughts, her misery.

"Yes," he answered, but he was sure it was a lie.

"Fine," she answered before she opened the door and passed him to head to take a shower. She showered, and as soon as she was done, she went back up to her room leaving the plate of food Mrs. Hudson had made on the table. Sherlock sighed and took it up. He knocked on the door.

"Go away," she told him.

"You need to eat."

"I'm not hungry." With a sigh, he easily picked her lock and pushed the door open. He paused in her room to observe it. There were paintings drying in several places around the room as well as older paintings piled in the corner. Sketches and books littered the ground in a careless fashion, and her closet was complete chaos. She was sitting on her mattress that laid unceremoniously on the floor among a shamble of sheets. It was a much different sort of place than when John once inhabited the room.

"Where's the bed frame?" he asked trying to find something to strike up the conversation. That was the first thing that his eyes happen to fall on.

"I broke it ages ago," she answered leaning against the wall. He wondered if she broke it one of her ever so enthusiastic fits. She seemed to be lacking those lately, and he sort of missed it.

"You need to eat," he told her sitting down on her bed with her. He shoved the plate in her hands. She looked at it in disdain before she stabbed the chicken with her fork in irritation. As she ate, Sherlock looked at each painting and sketch. There were many of people he didn't know, but he saw many more of those he did. He saw Irene and Peter and even Robbie as well as Lucy, Mark, Molly, John, Mary, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and of course, himself. He went through each carefully as he wandered the room. They just laid there collecting dust, serving no purpose, and it was a shame. "You should try and sell your paintings," he told her going through one of the older piles.

"No one wants my art," she grumbled shuffling around the remaining food on her plate.

"I would buy it," he told her before pausing on a painting. He pulled it into the light with distaste. "When did you paint this one?" he asked flatly. She looked at the painting of Moriarty, and he looked back at her realizing she was wearing his jacket again. Moriarty... why did he play a shadow in her life? He had suspicions but nothing substantial. Still, it nagged at him as if he should know the answer but refusing to see it.

"The days following his death," she told him offhandedly. Her eyes roamed over the painting. If she was being honest, it was one of her favorite paintings. "It shouldn't surprise you I painted him."

"It doesn't," he answered. "It surprises me that you painted him so… human," he spat. She looked at the painting again. Moriarty was hunched over in a chair in it. His blood spattered jacket was off and thrown on a desk behind him, but the crimson liquid was heavily contrasted on his white shirt. He had his blood dripping hands gripping each other, and his elbows rested on his knees as if he was agonizing over some murder he had just committed.

"Every story needs a good old fashion villain," she told him, "and every good old fashion villain has a story. He was human as much as you were."

"He tried to destroy me and is still working to destroy you," he replied venomously before he threw the painting back against to the wall before he turned and left her in a rather agitated state. She sighed and let her head fall back into the wall. There goes one of the only friends she has left.

"Oh, there you are dear," Mrs. Hudson smiled as Sherlock entered with John. They had been out on a case. "You have a client waiting for you." Sherlock and John ran up the stairs and opened the door to 221B to see a rather small woman sitting in Sherlock's chair. Her dark hair was as straight as needles. Her height extended by heels better suited for a goth teenager than a full grown woman. Her black jeans were tucked into them, and a sheer white top that did nothing to hide the black bra she wore under was partially tucked into the jeans. Her lips match her nails in the shade of red, and her eye makeup matched her dark hair. She filled the room with sex as much as she did power.

"Evening, Mr. Holmes," she mused as she finished off the cup of tea she helped herself to as if it were her home and not a stranger's.

"A fan," Sherlock said irritated as he hovered over her. She smiled up at him.

"Oh, absolutely, a fan," she told him before she tossed her teacup to John, who caught it on instinct. "Be a gentleman, and get me drink," she demanded with a pleasant smile. John gapped at her, and she gave him a tight smile. He shuffled off to the kitchen before she looked to Sherlock. "Sit," she pointed at John's chair across from her.

"You're in my chair," he hissed. The only person who dared to sit in his chair was Moriarty, and this insignificant woman was not even close to his caliber of genius.

"I know," she purred. "Now sit unless you'd like to sit in my lap. I won't object." He finally complied and sat down. "I've been dying to meet you."

"Your name?" he questioned her as he began deducing ever fiber of her being.

"Raine Aigle," she replied, and the name didn't spark any memory. Sherlock had never heard Ursa's birth name. How could he know in front of him sat one of the most dangerous women in all of Europe? How could he know that this woman was sitting in Sherlock's chair the same way her former lover had, that she was in fact James Moriarty's equals? She hide herself from his prying eyes well.

"In my experience, there are only two type of fans, Miss Aigle," he told her. "Catch me before I kill again. Type A. And Type B: your bedroom's just down the hall."

"Go on then," she told him as she snatched the cuppa from John, who seemed a bit flustered by the woman's behavior, and that was a rare event since he had lived with Sherlock Holmes. "Which am I?" Sherlock scanned her. The way she had dressed and angled her body to him, the batting of her eyelashes, the smile, the sexual energy.

"Type B," he told her already bored with her. "Not interested."

"Actually, I'm Type A and a half, Mr. Holmes," she answered tapping on her glass.

"And what's Type A and a half?" he mocked. He didn't know why he was humoring her.

"The kind who would jump you in a second," she smiled again looking at him through her eyelashes, "but respects your intelligence too much to do so. The kind that wants to throw around a word or two with you."

"I doubt a mortician has anything interesting to say," he replied annoyed with her presence.

"A mortician?" John asked.

"It's obvious," Raine replied biting back a smile that he was easily fooled.

"Is it?" Sherlock asked now just a tad bit interested.

"Slight smell of embalming fluids no matter how I try to cover it up," she laughed. "Leaves few other options."

"Yes," Sherlock said taking another look over her. There was something that was... off about her that he was trying to discover, yet she seemed to wear a veiling sufficiently hiding from him. "Have we met before?"

"Oh believe me, you would know if we met before," she told him with a smile before she stood and slowly began making her way around the room observing every little object that seemed to be in her view. "Why do you do what you do, Mr. Holmes? Surely, there's something more interesting than detective work?"

"Why do you want to know?" he asked her watching the woman circle the room. She paused at the photographs on the table that Jen had put out, and Sherlock had yet to address. She picked up one with an interested hm; it was a picture of him and Jen.

"Curiosity," she replied simply putting the picture down and continuing around the room pausing at the doll's house.

"Didn't curiosity do something dreadful to the cat?" he inquired offhandedly. She made another interested noise before moving on and replying to his comment.

"Killed it, but that's a bastardized version of the real phrasing. Over time, it was warped into curiously, but originally it was care that killed that cat. Fitting for you," she mused before lingering on the skull. She tapped her finger against it confirming it was real. "So detective work," she clapped her hands together and spun to him. "Why? Does it have anything to do with that pretty little woman upstairs?"

"Ginny came down?" Sherlock asked her glancing at the stairs.

"No," she answered rolling her eyes. "Read about her in the papers."

"Why upstairs?" he pushed farther.

"Clothes on the stairs," she gestured. "I don't think you're a drag queen on the side, Mr. Holmes."

"What would make you think it has anything to do with, Ginny?"

"Well, serial killer you're in love with… become a detective make sure she stays out of jail." Sound reasoning, but reasoning he didn't care for.

"If you're going to insist she's a serial killer, you're going to leave out that door or through the window. Your choice," Sherlock told her darkly as he stood. She chuckled.

"So defensive," she mocked him sending shivers down John's spine. There was something about her that made him uneasy. "Who we chose to keep in our company is very telling?" She spun around to look at him. "You keep a sentimental man as your friend. You keep around those with qualities you lack, Mr. Holmes. Sentimental drabble really."

"And how could a mortician possibly know so much?"

"She observes," she told him with a smile. "I watch people, and I've watch you and Doctor Lorraine for a while. I've watched long enough to know that you keep her around for what you desperately want."

"The more you talk the more I think your Type A," he warned approaching her. She smiled seeming very pleased with the assessment.

"Don't you want to know what you desperately want, Mr. Holmes?" she asked him. There was a glint in her eyes that unsettled him, that put him on edge. This woman was not Type B. She was as far into Type A as one could be.

"What's that, Miss Aigle?" he questioned.

"Acceptance and love," she told him. "You are a human, who strives to be a God, yet you fall prey to humanities flaws. You crave affection as much as you crave her; you long for her touch." He failed to notice her hand sliding up his arm and cuffing his neck. She seemed to have him in a trance till the hand moved against his neck. He ripped her hands from her.

"I suggest you leave," he ordered. She laughed.

"Is that a threat?" she asked giving him a mocking smile as she took a step to him, so they were practically touching. "Nothing's as romantic as a man, who knows how to make me afraid."

"Masochist."

"Sadist," she smiled biting her lip before her face fell, and she looked at the clock. "Well, this has been fun," she told him ripping her hands from him. "Time for me to go." Sherlock grabbed her arm as she made to turn away. "Yes?"

"Who are you?" he asked her confused at his deductions. He was sure everything he had just deduced was wrong; he was sure she was a dangerous. A red flag was going up even for him.

"A challenge," she grinned before tearing her arm away and leaving the two.

"What the hell was that?" John asked finally able to breath properly. Sherlock shook his head at a complete lose for once.

He sighed and slumped farther in his chair staring at the staircase. John had left him, and now he was left thinking about Jen and for a reason unknown to him, Raine Aigle. He made to get up, but then he collapsed back in his chair deciding against it.

"How is she dear?" Mrs. Hudson asked pushing her way into the room with a tray of tea and biscuits.

"I said some… not good things to her," Sherlock told her.

"Then, you should go apologize to her," Mrs. Hudson encouraged. "She has enough enemies with what the newspapers are saying about her. Poor dear is probably miserable; I remember when my husband was arrested the first time for killing a man everyone snub me even my closest friends."

"Mrs. Hudson, do shut up, and go away," he told her making the woman 'Oo' at him before she left the flat. Sherlock took the tray of tea and biscuits and started up the stairs. He didn't bother knocking this time and simply entered to see her sleeping her bed covered under all the blankets. He stepped to her desk and sat down pouring two cups of tea preparing hers the way he knew she liked it, and he waited knowing that she wouldn't take long to wake up.

Her eyes blinked open not long after he had entered the room having felt the additional presence. With a stretch and a slight moan, she threw her quilt off her and rolled to face him covered only in a sheet having discarded her clothes earlier on.

"Sherlock?" she asked seeing him through her cloudy vision. She pulled herself up so she was sitting up in front of him. She seemed a bit incoherent. "Why are you in my room?"

"Tea?" he asked giving her the cup. She leaned up and took the cup exposing her bare back allowing to see one of the few tattoos she kept from her rebellious days. Seven small birds, seven not eight not six, seven. His dream came back to him in full force. The Jen he knew had turned into seven magpies, and that's exactly what there were: Magpies. He quickly filtered through his mind trying to decide when he may have seen that tattoo and what significance it had. He found the memory of seeing the tattoo. It was the only time he saw her completely bare quite by accident: during the Baskerville case, but he couldn't find the significance, so he was forced to ask. "Why seven?" he asked.

"Hm?" she asked looking up at him before she absently reached to her back where the tattoo was. "Oh… you know the old rhyme about Magpies? One for sorrow, Two for luck; Three for a wedding, Four for death; Five for silver, Six for gold; Seven for a secret, Not to be told; Eight for heaven, Nine for hell, And ten for the devil himself."

"So seven," he repeated thinking back to the dream, and the possible meaning that rattled in his mind palace. "For a secret never to be told. A secret I know?"

"No," she answered with a smile. "A secret not even I know."

"How can you not know you own secret?" She gave him a cheeky smile making him scoff. He put this small piece of information on a shelf in her room in the mind palace before changing the topic. "John and Mary's wedding is in a week; they can't postpone it again," Sherlock informed her of what she already knew, but he wished to know her intentions.

"I don't want them to; they postponed enough for me," she replied sipping her tea. They had already postponed twice because of the events involving the Carver and his sister.

"So you'll go, then," Sherlock pressed. "Mary's picked out a dress for you as her maid of honor."

"No," she told him flatly.

"Ginny-"

"Sherlock, I… I will start coming out of my room. I'll try, but I can't go," she shook her head trying to bargain with him. "I adore them, but… I can't do it. It's too much; I go out, and… and Lestrade be there-"

"We'll uninvite him," Sherlock told her making her smile.

"Sherlock, I can't. I need more time; I just… they shouldn't have people wondering why there's a murderer at their wedding," she answered finishing her tea. "Please, tell them that."

"You can tell them."

"I'm not feeling up to it; I feel tired like I haven't slept for days," she told him curling back up in her bed.

"You haven't though," he reminded her.

"Course I have," she yawned. "That's all I have been doing." She turned on her side. From under her quilt, she peeked at him. His chair slid back, and her heart started to fall as she watched him stand to leave. "Stay?" she asked quietly from under the thick blanket. Her voice practically cracked. He paused and looked down at her. "Please, I don't..." She shuffled a bit, so that the quilt was wrapped around her, but she was properly facing him. "I don't mean to sound so... needy," she said flatly, "but I... I don't want to be alone." She looked away from him to the floor. She suspected he would mock her and leave, but instead, Sherlock removed his suit jacket and shoes putting them both on her desk chair.

"If you're forcing me to stay, I may as well catch up on my own sleep," he told her gesturing for her to move over. She oblige, and he slid into the bed next to her.

"Did you not sleep last night?" she questioned him quietly as he settled so that they were as far as they could be from each other.

"The last few nights," he assured her not telling her he was pouring over Moriarty's history as well as her own trying to find the inevitable moment that she had fallen into Moriarty's grips, but James Moriarty's history was not easily tracked, and as it turned out, neither was Jen's. So instead of lining up events, he was lining up missing pieces in both people's lives, and it was exhausting.

Without another word, Jen slid her arm over his chest and rested her head on his shoulder. He shifted feeling slightly uncomfortable with her bold action. He could feel every contour of her naked body pressed against his side, and he was doing his best keeping his mind intact and piling everything he could in front of a small hidden, bolted shut room in the mind palace that contained his most primal thoughts about Ginevra Lorraine.

"Relax," she breathed feeling his body go rigid. "I'm not trying to seduce you; it's just sleep." Just sleep, he told himself. Sleeping with someone is proven to be better for you; it's just sleep. People sleep naked all the time; people sleep together all the time. Yes, just sleep. Sherlock relax evening his breath pushing the small of her back, so that she was closer to him. She smiled as his eyes went heavy. Perhaps sleeping next to someone had its benefits, he mused as he fell under. After all, he had never fallen asleep so fast.

"She won't come down," Mary told them staring at the stairs with her arms crossed. "The wedding's in three days."

"She won't go," Sherlock assured Mary as he began rechecking everything for the wedding. He was getting anxious and nervous and wanted this whole thing to be done with. If Jen had been there, he would have had someone to share the misery of a wedding with.

"Has she come down at all since?" Mary asked worried about her.

"We have an agreement. She comes down to shower every other day, and I take meals to her in the mornings and evenings," Sherlock told her absently. "She came down to play monopoly with me. She's a cheater."

"You take meals to her?" John asked.

"We eat together. If I eat, she eats, that's the rule," he answered. "We've discussed the wedding, too many people, too many eyes, too much judgment."

"This is ridiculous!" Mary shouted ready to go up the stairs, but Sherlock put himself in her way. "Sherlock, get out of my way!"

"She's healing slowly but healing. I'm not going to have you guilt her into something that will just reverse her recovery." Mary raised her eyebrows in surprise at him.

"Maybe we can postpone," John offered.

"No, she doesn't want that," Sherlock replied. "Just leave it be, Mary. You can punish her when she recovers."

"You're damn right I will," she replied leaving him.

The flat was chaos at first with Sherlock running around trying to get everything together. She watched him wearily curled in a ball on the couch.

"Okay, okay, that's everything," he muttered to himself before spinning around to her. "Are you sure you won't come?" She slowly stood and walked to him her feet padding against the wood floor. Gently, she untied his tie and began retying it in a lazy fashion. "Where'd you learn this skill?" he asked watching her hands. She smiled gently.

"I fucked the academic team in school," she told him.

"Ginny," he reprimanded knowing a lie when he heard one.

"Christopher used to wear ties," she told him quietly fidgeting with the tie. "Whenever I would see him, it was tradition that I scolded him before I ripped off his tie and tied it myself. While I tied it, he would lean into me, and just sort of nuzzle me, and I tried to keep him at arm's length to tie his stupid tie, but sometimes we ended up entangled on the floor." She sighed. "It's one of the only fond memories I have him."

"You never talk about Christopher Black," he mentioned feeling his stomach tying in knots.

"I've been thinking about him a lot lately," she admitted finishing tying.

"Why?" he asked. She sighed and straightened his jacket gently.

"I was comparing the two of you in my head," she replied fidgeting with the jacket slightly ashamed.

"Find anything interesting?" he asked trying to appear nonchalant.

"Hm… I trust you more," she told him.

"Do you?" he asked.

"With Christopher, I always felt like there was a part of him that I couldn't trust, and I was right. With you, I don't feel that way. I trust you with my life."

"A terrible mistake that may get you killed," he answered making her smile fondly. "Are you coming? Mary even left a dress," he pointed to a long purple dress hanging on the door. "She said she'll have two maids of honor if you show, but she didn't mind."

"I'm not going, Sherlock," she replied kissing his cheek gently. "Have fun." He lingered a minute longer before he heard the sound of a car horn.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," he told her leaving her as she collapsed back in her chair to watch crap television. It was only a few hours later when the doorbell rang making her groan in her chair. Everyone was out at the wedding leaving just her to answer.

"Go away!" she shouted. The bell rang again, and she stood from her chair and shuffled her way to the front door. She peeked out to see the woman, Carter, she had met while incarcerated.

"Hi, Jen," she smiled causing Jen to open the door.

"Hi, Carter," she told her. "Come in." Jen stepped out of the way. "Tea?" she asked as they walked the stairs.

"Yeah," she nodded as Jen poured her a pot she had made just minutes before the door rang. "Thank you." She smiled as Jen took her seat. "So this the famous Sherlock Holmes's flat… where is he? Where is anyone?"

"Wedding," she answered. "John's getting married."

"Oh… why aren't… you there? Hate the fiancé?"

"Mary? No, I love her. We met years ago working together," she replied. "No I… uh… I've become a sort of recluse. I go out, and people… they're scared of me. Mary and John don't need me there, and… I don't need me there. It hurts too much."

"That's a bit selfish of you," Carter told her shaking her head.

"I'm sorry?" she answered.

"Well, I mean they're your friends; they want you there, and you don't go because you're uncomfortable."

"Yes, well, they have Sherlock-"

"And even bigger reason to go," she argued. "If Sherlock's what you say he is, he is likely agonizing over this, and his best friend is getting married. He'll be alone for most of the night."

"He has friends."

"It's the end of era, and he has no one to cope with over that," she told her making Jen fall flat. "You love him, and you left him out to dry." She hadn't thought of that; she hadn't thought of the man panicking over his speech and over the night when Mary and John go off dancing and he's left…

"Do you want to help me with my dress?" she asked knowing what was obviously the right decision. Carter grinned in affirmation.

A/N: Make up for the ridiculously short chapter. Hope you enjoyed the very small amount of fluff. We will be seeing more soon! Yay! See you all Saturday.

Thanks to reviewers: SR, hannahhobnob, and Cereza101.