irene_adler | Recent Entries

It’s a strange feeling, knowing you’ll never see the sun again.

For the past week, Irene Adler had not seen the outside world at all. Her world had consisted of a small, damp room with a tiny window too high to reach. More than once she had tried, even taken a running start from the other side of the room and jumped as high as she could (in bare feet), reaching in desperation for the iron bars. Her fingers had barely touched the edge, but she hadn’t been able to get hold. A moment later she had fallen, taking most of the impact in her right shoulder. She didn’t cry out when colliding with the ground, not because the fall didn’t hurt, but to avoid drawing attention to herself. Two armed men stood outside the door, their guns shouldered and ready for any unexpected sound (or potential escape attempt).

Almost five months had passed since Belgravia, when Irene Adler had fled with a hastily packed suitcase and adrenaline pulsing through to the tips of her fingers. Kate, devoted to a fault, had followed her employer up the staircase.

“Miss Adler, is -?”

“Kate, bring me the contents of my safe.”

“Yes, Miss Adler.”

Minutes later Kate returned, her hands filled with stacks of currency. A small furrow appeared between her eyes at the sight of Irene hurriedly throwing clothes and shoes into a suitcase. She nearly tripped over one of the Louboutin shoes that had been hastily discarded as soon as she entered the room.

“Here you are, Miss Adler.”

“Thank you, Kate.”

Irene took the money and buried it deep in the suitcase, dragging the zipper closed. A slight tremor in her hands prolonged the process, and she made a sharp sound between her teeth.

“Miss Adler, are you all right?”

“No.”

“Has something -?”

“Kate, there isn’t time. You need to leave the country now.”

“Miss -“

“There isn’t time, Kate!” Irene’s voice rose sharply, and she whirled to face her assistant. “You need to pack a suitcase and leave. Now.”

Kate turned quickly and left the room, her heels clicking rapidly down the hallway. Irene disappeared into her own closet, the black crepe dress and stockings thrown into a corner. Minutes later she emerged in dark pants and tunic, a pair of mid-calf high boots on her feet. She gathered her hair in one hand, twisting it up atop her head with the help of two pins. A black knit hat was pulled on, the edges rugged down to her ears.

There wasn’t time for anything else. Irene Adler fled into the night, shadowy in dark and discreet clothing, and she ran.

She’d run for months, never staying in one place longer than three days. The cities and countries began to blur together, initially only distinctive by their files on her (former) camera phone. A photo of a diplomat’s wife tied to a bed, the royal who preferred kneeling to being knelt before - nearly anything possible with anyone in a position of power. Irene Adler had collected blackmail (protection) on them all, and as a result there was nowhere safe to go. All she could do was run, and keep running.

Pakistan had been where her luck ran out. Irene Adler had been taken prisoner while trying to leave Karachi by boat, caught by both arms as a cloth bag was pulled over her head. She had fought, but the soldiers had been too strong and in too great a number. One struck the back of her head, and she had lost consciousness.

The days to follow had been a blur of interrogation, both verbal and physical. Irene Adler was kept in the same room the entire time, her only company the soldiers who yelled questions and struck her regardless of the answer. She was by no means a stranger to pain, but her previous line of work involved limitations, a mindfulness for the other person - consent. The soldiers didn’t care what Irene did or didn’t say. They knew she was vulnerable now - no protection, nothing to hold over anyone - and now they wanted revenge. Revenge that would be taken with canes, leather straps, a strike with a gun if they so chose - it didn’t matter, as long as a mark was left. Irene Adler’s neck, back and shoulders held an array of bruises and welts, and her side still showed the multicolored bruise left by a soldier’s boot where he kicked her. She had fought to not cry out.

When the door of her cell was opened, pulled wide to show the outside world, Irene had known something was different. The soldiers opened the door only slightly, not allowing any light in to keep her as disoriented as possible. If that no longer mattered, then something else was coming. And it was with that realization a cold knot of fear formed in Irene Adler’s stomach. Her Urdu was not strong, but it didn’t matter. Many residents of Pakistan also spoke English, and there was no mistaking the calls outside the door.

They were calling for her death.

Hands pulled Irene from the ground and dragged her outside. The sky was dark but the artificial lights were blinding, and after several days in the cell she was disoriented, squinting every way she turned. Her bare feet caught on the ground, causing her to stumble, but the soldiers pulled her onward and to the tarmac. There more soldiers waited, heavily armed - and the executioner, light glinting off his silver blade.

Unceremoniously, Irene was forced to her knees before the executioner. Guns were trained on her, but it didn’t matter. There was nowhere to run any longer.

One soldier spoke, his accent thick but his words clear.

“Final words, Miss Adler.”

“May I have my phone?” In that instant, knowing her death was at hand, Irene Adler’s voice did not waver. There was only the slight hitch in her breath before she spoke.

Some dissent rumbled among the soldiers - why allow her to have her phone? - but in the end, the one who addressed her had given her the BlackBerry. All navigation and tracking had been disabled on it long ago, but it still worked the way it had in London. Her eyes trained on the screen, Irene slowly pressed the buttons for a final text message.

Goodbye Mr. Holmes

The soldiers were becoming restless now, demanding the return of the phone, but Irene didn’t hurry. The outcome would be the same. Pressing the SEND button, she handed the phone back to the soldier and turned her gaze straight ahead. Behind her the executioner’s blade whistled as it was raised, and Irene Adler closed her eyes.

Goodbye, Mr. Holmes

The day of his funeral had been cloudless, but the day she had visited his grave, the rain had come. For a half hour it was a misty drizzle, but as time passed it became a steady downpour. Irene's hair had become lank and plastered to her forehead and water had snuck into the gap between her collar and coat. She had stayed there for over a hour watching the raindrops smack against the freshly chiseled letters, forcing and willing and demanding herself to accept the hardest thing she'd had to face in a long time.

He's dead.

He is dead.

Sherlock Holmes is dead.

Reading the news in the papers had been enough of a shock, but that hadn't convinced her. Words were easily spun to the benefit of the writer or the speaker, and falsifications could make it into the news all the time. But gradually as paper after paper continued to report the same story in different wordings, her curiosity rose higher and higher. It was a trip back to London that forced her to come to terms with the truth. Falsifying a publication was one thing, but falsifying a tombstone - well, that was another league of its own.

It had taken time, but she had come to accept that he was gone.

That didn't mean her life had stopped its moving. Irene Adler couldn't stay in one place for too long, for she was still on the run from the past - the decisions she had made were powerful ones and the consequences just as much so. Keeping herself safe meant moving often, from one continent to the other if necessary, whatever it took to stay ahead - and to stay alive.

For the present time, her home was Berlin. The Schlosshotel Im Grunewald was proclaimed to have luxury rooms, and anything that had been built in 1912 with the purpose of being a residential palace surely had to have its perks. Irene Adler had taken up residence in one of the luxury suites, boasting a private living room and a more than comfortable bed. Berlin itself was cold but the room was warm and pleasant. The only chill was the iciness that clutched at her heart now and again.

Karachi was far behind now.

It had taken six hours (or had it?) to escape, with a massacre of bodies left in their wake. The way Sherlock Holmes had handled a blade surprised Irene Adler, but not as much as his appearing behind her shoulder. The disguise of her executioner was astonishing enough.

There hadn't been time to think about why he had come for her, only time to run. She had watched his eyes, pupils blown wide in the semidarkness. All around her came the chants in a language she didn't understand, a blend of foreign tongues clicking together, all calling for her death. The blade had sung in the air behind her, and then Sherlock spun away to attack those would attack her. While the terrorist cell was armed, they weren't prepared.

That had been their downfall.

Now Islamabad was their solace, at least for the time being. Clouds had loomed overhead and thunder had bellowed its presence, but rain had yet to come. Irene had waited while Sherlock secured their accommodations for the night. The gauzy black veil was stripped away from her face with her right hand, then twisted around the fingers of her left before dropping away into the gutter. Fabric swathed her head and she tugged that down as well, night air catching in her long, dark hair. A tremor rushed through her fingers, and it wasn't from the stiff breeze outside.

For all her strength and bravado, Irene Adler is not invincible. Without her protection, the booby-trapped camera phone with state and government secrets by the multitudes tucked away in its files, the rage of her enemies had come chasing after her like the hounds themselves.

How very strange that her rescuer would be the last man she had deceived.

There are moments when an animal realizes it is in danger, when the whisper of a predator's presence hisses through the open air, silent to all except for the pricking ears who are listening for it without full awareness they are doing so. Fear has a flavor and a sound and a scent and it will not invade the senses outright, rather lurk quietly in waiting for the unsuspecting (or worse, the content) before moving outwards to stake and choose its claim. And when fear takes up residence upon the shoulders of its prey, it will likely remain there for a long time. Sometimes it's a result of paranoia, but all too often there is a reason to be afraid.

As there is now.

A cold breeze filters through the bedroom, lashing at her bare ankles. There isn't time to pack or collect belongings, for while he is soundly asleep now there is no telling how deep that slumber is. Sherlock Holmes might be exhausted (and satiated), but moving luggage about would likely result in waking him. Irene remembers John Watson and his good humored mutterings about the detective's sleeping patterns, or lack thereof. Irregular slumber could very well mean he rested lighter than others, even when he appeared to be doing the exact opposite. Now with sharp shadows filtering away part of his face here and there from sight and the even tempo of his breathing, Sherlock looks as if he might not be wakening for a few hours yet. There is a pallor even to his tanned skin, as if exhaustion finally chose to move in and lay its claim. Irene Adler knows she has had more than her fair share of hand in this, for having one another five times in the span of a few hours is no small act in itself. It is what will make this departure of hers easier.

And it will make it impossibly difficult, as well.

She is able to rise from the bed when the natural movements of sleep lower his arm from its place across her shoulders, and while there is a slight change in his breathing pattern when she rises from the bed (a moment in which she holds her breath and does not so much as blink) he does not awaken, instead remains asleep. It is a gift and a damning gesture in itself, and she is unsure as to which she places greater weight upon now. A moment passes where she gives herself the chance to hover her lips near his mouth, inhale the breath that parts from his lips. If he were to stir and awaken, he possesses the logic and reason (and rapid cadence of speech) to stop her from what she is about to do, and that is why he cannot wake up. Not until she has gone.

Even though leaving is the last thing she wants to do.

The favorite skirt is collected from its discarded place beside the bed, and a fresh blouse is drawn from the wardrobe's darkened doors. Her hair is swept back from her face into a loose knot, and her painted toenails are quickly encased in simple flat shoes. There isn't time for anything else. Since the explosion outside, the puzzle pieces have been falling into place in her mind and logic with reason at its heels has been commanding her attention until there is no other alternative but to listen, understand, and accept. Her hiding place has been compromised, and now someone is looking for Irene Adler. Which someone is irrelevant, and while she can name only a handful of people who would set off a bomb in the location she would have been occupying at that precise time of day (were she not otherwise occupied), she can't take the chance of waiting another few minutes. Waiting means compromising Sherlock's own safety, and that can't happen. There's nothing to say Moriarty's people aren't the ones after her as well, and that isn't a risk she can take.

She writes the note - three words long, no more and no less - on a sheet of thick stationary from the suite's desk drawer. The Darya-i-Nur is placed atop the sheet, and for a moment her eyes linger across his face. It would be so easy to stay now, to bend at the waist and touch her mouth to his, return to bed and stay there. But that would put him in danger, and sentiment has become a close companion to Irene Adler, as damning as it is.

Her steps carry her backwards to the door, and then she leaves silently, closing it behind her.

Morocco's temperatures were debatable in the summer and winter months, but in the spring and fall there could potentially be nothing other than a perfect day. Rain came and went, never choosing to stay for more than a few hours and leaving a pleasant, shimmering shine across the outdoor marketplaces. Nightfall was cool but not cold, and the windows of hotel rooms and suites were often left open to invite the temperature indoors.

For the past two weeks, Irene Adler had left her own suite windows open wide. The sun awoke her in the morning and the night air coaxed her to sleep at night, little pieces of paradise that came into her suite. Marrakech had become home for the time being, a length of which she had yet to determine, but there wasn't an end yet in sight. She had gone from France to South America, on to North America to visit New York City (and the lights of Broadway), then back across the ocean once more. Staying in one place for too long wasn't in her better interest.

And of course before Marrakech and other stops along the way, she had returned to England. The death of Sherlock Holmes was an impossible piece of news to miss, and Irene had visited his grave. The rain had fallen against her back and she had stood there for at least a hour, watching the glossy black grave stone spill off the water in small streams. Sherlock Holmes was dead. Moriarty had been behind it of course, as he'd been behind the entire scandal that had dirtied the detective's name. An elaborate scheme meant to destroy was far more crippling than any fatal injury, and Jim Moriarty had never been one for the simple way out. Better to destroy the credibility of his enemy than end his life. No matter what it looked like, though it had been labeled a suicide, Irene Adler would always believe that Jim Moriarty had been the hand behind the death of Sherlock Holmes. Because Sherlock wouldn't have taken his own life. Not in the way that the papers had painted him to.

The guilt had clutched at her chest ever since, a cold grasp of ice somewhere around her heart. If she had kept Roubaix's files in her possession, kept Moriarty on her heels like a cat chasing an evasive mouse, then Sherlock might have survived. But he had taken the files from her in France and put her on a plane to get her off the continent. Told her the fight wasn't hers anymore, that the part she had played was over.

And she knew Moriarty would kill him.

Irene disappeared after that, traveling continents for close to a year until she arrived in Morocco. The Baldaquin suite of the La Mamounia hotel then became her home. To the staff and patrons there she was Lillian Langtry, a name she had taken in a nod to the deceased actress of many years past. She passed her days walking in the hotel's lavish gardens and frequently ate at the small cafes not too far from the property.

The sun was warm against Irene's back when she crossed the square. The marketplace was filled with activity, small booths both covered and uncovered with a variety of different things for sale. If one knew where to look then there were treasures to find, but most of the tourists who came and went preferred the less expensive trinkets. Irene came to look and to converse with the locals who called Marrakech their home, but very rarely to make a purchase. While she looked nothing like a native in appearance she had chosen this city for her home for the time being, and she did what she had to in order to survive, and consequently be a part of its surroundings.