Open to irene_adler (BBC's Sherlock)

[mmkaternater]

Whenever feasible, Sherlock Holmes preferred to travel Europe by train, rather than by aeroplane.

This predilection, to which Dr. John Watson was only enlightened as he attempted to squeeze two valise cases into the overhead compartment of a sleeper car (Holmes did none of the lifting), had several sources. Holmes was particularly sensitive to the idea of airline security in a post-9/11 society, where a man who could identify who you were sleeping with (just by looking at the cuffs on your sleeves) attracted a worrying amount of attention from border agents. (Holmes had once been stuck in a holding room in Lisbon's Portela Airport for thirty-six hours merely because the pilot's shoelaces had been of a particular interest.) Holmes also approved of the thrift of the railway system and, in spite the success of Watson's blog and the celebrity it attracted, preferred a private train car to a noisy, elbow-to-elbow aerorplane cabin.

They had taken a lightspeed rail from Charing Cross and reached the southern tip of France in just under three hours. After breakfasting in Céret, they had boarded another, hardier train for the one thousand mile journey north to the provincial town of Lille where they were to begin their latest investigation. Watson had settled down almost immediately, sinking into the plush seat like a winter bird fluffing its feathers. Holmes had gravitated toward the smoking car (itself in danger of becoming an anachronism in an increasingly anti-smoking society) which he found blissfully unoccupied. He spent most of the northward journey with his back to the window, watching the passengers as they traversed up and down the corridor. He did not smoke. He seemed merely content to be in a position to do so if he chose.

Their present commission had been set to them by a doctor named Roubaix, a noted physician and medical celebrity, whose latest research seemed to indicate that he had found a cure for all forms of malignant neoplasms -- cancer. He was mere weeks away from making a formal announcement when he discovered that his research notes had been stolen from a locked safety deposit box, itself protected by a two-foot-thick steel vault door in the city bank. The security cameras had recorded nothing of the incident; no alarms had been triggered and none of the employees had access to the safety deposit boxes, save the manager, who had been away on holiday in Nice.

"These papers are priceless, Mr. Holmes," Roubaix had pleaded, wringing his hands as he sat in the sitting room at Baker Street two days earlier, "the police launched a formal investigation but turned up rien, nothing. You must come to France. I do not want to be melodramatic, but the future of the human race may depend on it."

"Never let it be said that I did not do my part for humanity, Watson," Holmes said as they stepped onto the platform at Lille, the steam of the engine swirling around their ankles.

"Oh yes," Watson replied dryly, "Sherlock Holmes: our last great hope."

Holmes narrowed his eyes shrewdly. "You're irritated with me."

Watson dragged the last of the two cases down from the train and heaved them onto the platform, puffing for his effort. "No, no, not at all. I'll just get these heavy suitcases myself. What have you got in here, cement bricks?"

"Safecracking equipment." And he set off across the square at a brisk walk.

Comments

[elementarysaidhe]

Sherlock arched an eyebrow. The two words set him on the backs of his heels, as if he had absorbed a dull blow. He narrowed his attention to the confidence he saw written in her expression.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking that Jim Moriarty is capable of feeling, Miss Adler. He is not. To him, people are either obstacles or stepping stones. Means to an end." He scrutinized her face. "You have earned the distinction of being both, I think. But nothing more."

[irene_adler]

Irene's smile didn't falter, her hand returning to the pocket of her robe. Her eyes dropped to the screen while she scrolled through her archive of text messages, finding the one she chose to read aloud.

"Have you been to Venice?"

"Rome is rather nice in the springtime."

"Your performance was stunning."

"Won't you come by?"

"Meet me for dinner?"

[elementarysaidhe]

"Artifice," said Sherlock, dismissively. "He knows you are susceptible to flattery. A certain amount of ego stroking and what can't he get you to do for him? I hope you didn't take him too seriously."

[irene_adler]

"Funny, that." Irene dropped her phone into the safe nest of her pocket again. "For all his flattery, he's gotten nothing of me." The files were in her possession, but Moriarty wanted more than files.

[elementarysaidhe]

"Your bravado is astounding." He may have been truly impressed. There were few people who believed they could go toe-to-toe with one of the world' most dangerous criminals. Then again, Irene Adler was not most people.

"Don't make the mistake of believing that you are the one in control of the game."

[irene_adler]

Her mouth tucked into a smile again and another lift of her chin gave her a better view of the hard, blue eyes. She'd first appeared to this man completely naked, and it had brought about nearly more than a flicker of an eyelash. Sherlock Holmes was different, without question.

"He wants me, Sherlock. Covets, the way some men covet expensive cars and lavish suits. The way a man can covet a woman whose attentions he doesn't have."

[elementarysaidhe]

"Why?" he asked immediately. "Why would he want you?"

[irene_adler]

Had it been any other man, Irene's manicured hand might have connected sharply with a curved cheekbone. But they weren't in the bedroom, and this was another matter entirely.

"Why do you think he would? Why would Moriarty pursue me with such insistence, such drive?"

[elementarysaidhe]

Sherlock was silent. He was reading her face; the flat; the libretto of the opera she had performed only hours ago. Data rose up in his mind like a great wave, parsed out and zinging own neural corridors, making connections. He courted theories, only to dismiss them a microsecond later. And then --

the Vermeer.

The cylinders locked.

"Because you were enough to attract my attention."

[irene_adler]

He figured it out. Irene's mouth held its subtle smile, but her eyes moved across his sharp features. Watching him think and calculate and compute and finally know. Moriarty had manipulation on his mind, but if he could possess that which held the attention of Sherlock Holmes -

"And it's very arrogant for a man to think he can use me as a weapon. I don't take too kindly to it."

[elementarysaidhe]

"And yet you agreed to play a role in his deception," Sherlock countered. "A leading role, at that. You agreed to the corporate espionage, lured Roubaix into your confidence and stripped him of the one thing that mattered to him in the wake of his tragic family loss."

Sherlock mustered a small, cynical grin.

"Oh yes. I can see why Moriarty was weak in the knees."

[irene_adler]

Her teeth caught lightly against her lower lip, and the distance between them closed by another fraction of an inch. The warm spill of her breath crossed his skin, a slow blink of her lashes bringing his eyes back into view of her gaze.

"Roubaix will have his files back in no more than a day's time. I certainly won't be handing material like that over to the waiting clutches of a madman. I happen to like this world, Sherlock, and I have no desire to see anything ill befall the human race."

[elementarysaidhe]

She surprised him.

"A conscience," he murmured. "The most dangerous handicap a criminal can possess, next to sentiment." He knew, as she did, that not delivering the notes was tantamount to suicide. Moriarty did not set up his chess pieces to have them start making moves on their own. Irene Adler was about to openly defy the man who had blown up a block of flats just to keep from being bored.

"Your keeper won't be pleased," he said, giving voice to his thoughts.

[irene_adler]

"I'm not a kept woman."

She did know that not giving Moriarty what he wanted would likely be a fatal maneuver on her end. But she was also counting in some capacity on the man's desire to have her (and she wasn't being delicate or polite) overshadowing his desire for the information. Information could be recovered, but if Moriarty put Irene Adler in an early grave, there would be no going back. Death couldn't be undone, even by one of the best known criminals in the world.

"Moriarty doesn't know where I live. He thinks I'm twelve streets up from the flat John overturned tonight. There's a property there in my name, and he thinks that's where I call home. I don't have the notes because Moriarty wants them, Sherlock."

There was another reason. A deeper one, and yet simple.

[elementarysaidhe]

A sharp turn of his cheek was enough to register his disdain for her cavalier attitude. Incredible. She was playing Jim Moriarty like he was one of her clients from Home Office. I know what he likes. That had been her M.O. in London, and apparently she had been foolish enough to bring it with her to France. That she thought Moriarty would turn over as easily as a cabinet secretary was galling; insane.

It was exactly something she would do.

"He knows exactly where you are." There was a darker tone in his voice; an undercurrent of what sounded suspiciously like frustration. "If he's as taken with you as you claim, he'd leave nothing to chance."

[irene_adler]

What was that she heard in his voice? Concern? Irritation, anger? Looking for something blended into the fabric of her intricate plan, something that he either didn't see yet or didn't want to see. But whatever she heard wasn't enough to draw her back from their proximity. Instead she tilted her head just slightly, her fingertips finding their way to the back of his hand again.

"No one knows about this place," she murmured. "You think he'll find me? Come and take me if I won't go willingly?" The tip of her nose brushed his cheek.

[elementarysaidhe]

"I think he'll kill you," the detective deadpanned, having gained back some of his sangfroid. He turned. "You must leave France immediately. Leave the memory stick with me. Tell no one where you're going, not even me." A pause. "Especially me."

[irene_adler]

Her hand lifted to meet his turned face, touching her fingertips to the high curve of his cheek. The touch was featherlight. "I haven't come this far to run away now."

[elementarysaidhe]

He felt the warmth of her cupped palm hovering over his cheek; a bangle on her wrist slipped down her white forearm and disappeared within the cuff of her robe. The dynamic had changed. He could sense it. Improbably, the thought of her imminent death had made her reach out to touch him, as if he were a physically grounding force.

He remembered John being the same way, following the incident with Moriarty at the public swimming pool. Once the laser sites had disappeared and they had confirmed that Moriarty had gone, John had put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder and squeezed. Hadn't said anything. That had struck Sherlock as especially curious. Death, however inevitable and inescapable, had the effect of producing the strangest reactions in people.

"I suggest that you start, Miss Adler."

[irene_adler]

The idea of running wasn't foreign to her. Irene had come and gone from different cities and countries over the past months with nothing but her own survival in mind. She'd seen what had happened when a game went too far, when something spun just enough out of control that there was no way back. What it was like to be beaten, to know you had lost.

Her hand relaxed so her palm caressed his cheek, following the high arch of his jaw. It was the most she'd touched him in the time they'd known each other. He'd taken her pulse and she'd worn his dressing gown, but they hadn't been this close before.

"Oh, Mister Holmes. When will you see what's right in front of you? What's so very clear?"

[elementarysaidhe]

"I see a woman who is consciously walking toward her own death because she allowed herself to be emotionally compromised. The next time you want to get my attention, drop a letter in the post. Ultimately less messy."

[irene_adler]

"I'm not going to die." And I am not emotionally compromised died on the back of her tongue, not because there was no point to say it aloud but because from this proximity she could feel the in and out of his breath.

Irene tilted her chin another fraction of an inch, her lashes dusting bluish shadows across her cheeks.

[elementarysaidhe]

She'd been sure of herself before. Sherlock had seen otherwise. When she'd been kneeling in the middle of that road just outside of Karachi, the bleat of pidgin Urdu on all sides of her calling for her death. He had seen fear in her eyes and there was nothing more revealing of character than when death and fear coincide.

Irene Adler was human, like the rest of them -- ultimately, she did not truly believe that she was immortal.

"No," he said, in a low, dark voice. "You're going to survive. It's what you do." His long fingers closed around her wrist. "Run," he whispered, with urgency.

[irene_adler]

The human body was a strange and wonderful combination of sensations and chemicals all tripping over each other for dominance. He had touched her only briefly before, once to take her pulse, another to move into her immediate space and unravel the tapestry of her deception. Now, tonight, his touch took hold of her wrist once more, and if he took her pulse now, he'd feel it accelerate. If he looked into her eyes he'd see the dilation of her pupils, uncontrollable reactions of the human body to love.

Love. The damning, impossible emotion.

"Not tonight." Her voice was a whisper, dancing its path across his lips, and for a wild second her heart thundered rebelliously against her ribcage.

Irene closed the remaining slight distance between herself and Sherlock and, with a featherlight touch, brought her lips to his. The barest, lightest of kisses.

[elementarysaidhe]

Despite the rumors that prowled around Scotland Yard, Sherlock knew about sex. He knew its biological function, the physical response it provoked, and the method by which it was initiated and performed. He understood Man as a tactile animal, one that required emotional as well as physical gratification. He'd seen men covet. He had seen men with women who were half their age -- and then some. He had deconstructed their elaborate motives into simple cases of want-of-flesh. He had seen John's browser history.

Sex was a distraction. Love, doubly so.

He had her captive wrist between his fingers. When she stretched up on tiptoe to press her mouth to his, he did not move. He had the distinct impression of heat rising up from his collar. Bemused, bewildered -- he had been about to ask Why? when he was saved by a vibration in his coat pocket. He released her wrist to answer his phone.

"John." His voice was half husky. He kept his eyes on her face. Listened. John was speaking animatedly. It took Sherlock half a second of delay to catch up with what the other man was trying to say; when he understood, his composure returned immediately. He hung up without a send-off.

"Roubaix is dead," he said, returning the phone to his pocket. "And your former flatmate has been taken into custody under suspicion of murder."