Excerpt from The Woman (4/4)
I put this up on tumblr and figured that all of you lovely people who read my stuff on livejournal should get the same torture treatment. : D Enjoy!
Part One Part Two Part Three
“Did you ever figure it out?” she asks. The phone is heavy in her hand and her fingers wrap around it like it’s something precious. Her thumb hovers over the screen as she looks up through her eyelashes at him. ‘I AM _ _ _ _ LOCKED,’ the phone says, as it has since she left it with them.
Sherlock frowns. “No.”
Irene-Rose-shrugs. “That’s all right. I didn’t expect you would. There’s a story, you see, and you came in rather close to the end. Her thumb flicks down four times and she holds the phone up so he can see.
‘I AM T I M E LOCKED’ it reads. He sniffs. It’s gibberish to him, and for the first time in his life, now that he knows everything he finds himself more confused than when he began. She is a study in contradictions: hard and yielding, glass and steel, and the mystery of her has driven him near madness (that’s what love is, biochemistry and madness). In her presence, unmasked, he cannot help but feel small; like he has been caught on the edge of some great epic and pulled into its midst.
It is a strange and unfamiliar feeling. Always before he was center of gravity and others orbited around him-John, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, they each had a life, of course, but for better or for worse it centered on him. Being relegated to that position was distressing and overwhelming-and liberating.
“You’ve accomplished your mission,” he says finally, to break the silence and rolls his skull between his hands to give them something to do. She’s watching him with whiskey-dark eyes and those red, red lips and he’s never been a man to give into baser urges; he considers them beneath him, knows that they cannot compare with the pure aesthetic stimulation of the intellect-but she tempts him, oh she does. “What will you do now?”
A grin splits her face, the first that he’s seen. It’s nearly blinding with the sheer force of her joy. White teeth sparkle at him and her tongue touches the corner of her lips mischievously. “I’m going to Canary Wharf, Mr. Holmes. I need to see a man about a time machine.” She stands with practiced, fluid grace and he can read the combat training in her now, knows that it’s not for show. “Coming?”
Should he? He’s scolded John so many times about giving in to romantic impulses, about embellishing his accounts of Sherlock’s genius and lingering over unimportant details instead of sticking to the facts. He should say no, should dismiss her from his mind and move onto the next case (there is always a next case)-but he doesn’t. He would like to see this story ended, would like to learn what role he has played in a tale with all the markings of a tragedy.
“Yes,” he says. “Just let me ring John. I’m lost without my blogger, you know.”
He has a feeling that she does.
Part One Part Two Part Three
“Did you ever figure it out?” she asks. The phone is heavy in her hand and her fingers wrap around it like it’s something precious. Her thumb hovers over the screen as she looks up through her eyelashes at him. ‘I AM _ _ _ _ LOCKED,’ the phone says, as it has since she left it with them.
Sherlock frowns. “No.”
Irene-Rose-shrugs. “That’s all right. I didn’t expect you would. There’s a story, you see, and you came in rather close to the end. Her thumb flicks down four times and she holds the phone up so he can see.
‘I AM T I M E LOCKED’ it reads. He sniffs. It’s gibberish to him, and for the first time in his life, now that he knows everything he finds himself more confused than when he began. She is a study in contradictions: hard and yielding, glass and steel, and the mystery of her has driven him near madness (that’s what love is, biochemistry and madness). In her presence, unmasked, he cannot help but feel small; like he has been caught on the edge of some great epic and pulled into its midst.
It is a strange and unfamiliar feeling. Always before he was center of gravity and others orbited around him-John, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, they each had a life, of course, but for better or for worse it centered on him. Being relegated to that position was distressing and overwhelming-and liberating.
“You’ve accomplished your mission,” he says finally, to break the silence and rolls his skull between his hands to give them something to do. She’s watching him with whiskey-dark eyes and those red, red lips and he’s never been a man to give into baser urges; he considers them beneath him, knows that they cannot compare with the pure aesthetic stimulation of the intellect-but she tempts him, oh she does. “What will you do now?”
A grin splits her face, the first that he’s seen. It’s nearly blinding with the sheer force of her joy. White teeth sparkle at him and her tongue touches the corner of her lips mischievously. “I’m going to Canary Wharf, Mr. Holmes. I need to see a man about a time machine.” She stands with practiced, fluid grace and he can read the combat training in her now, knows that it’s not for show. “Coming?”
Should he? He’s scolded John so many times about giving in to romantic impulses, about embellishing his accounts of Sherlock’s genius and lingering over unimportant details instead of sticking to the facts. He should say no, should dismiss her from his mind and move onto the next case (there is always a next case)-but he doesn’t. He would like to see this story ended, would like to learn what role he has played in a tale with all the markings of a tragedy.
“Yes,” he says. “Just let me ring John. I’m lost without my blogger, you know.”
He has a feeling that she does.