post Reichenbach AU - lost and found again

[irene_adler]

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.

Comments

[elementarysaidhe]

The middle of the Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin. A steady rain had fallen all day, the old pavement capturing scoops of reflected light from the tower of the French Cathedral, prisms scattered everywhere. Berlin had been bombed quite heavily during the second world war. Architects in the ensuing years had restored much of the Gendarmenmarkt to its original glory, but every now and then the rain brought the smell of gunpowder and ruin seeping from between the cracks in the pavement. The city perspired its history.

Sherlock Holmes, formerly of London, formerly of the living, stood on the steps of the great concert house at the center of the square and allowed the city to set into his bones. He had been in Berlin for exactly sixteen hours, arriving first by way of Ingolstadt, and before that a series of inexplicably consonant-heavy burgs throughout Austria and Slovakia. It had been essential that he launder his location through as many different countries as possible, the idea being that a man -- even a dead one -- was harder to trace if he was constantly moving. Mycroft had been integral when it had come to obtaining the false documents that would allow him to travel in and out of countries.

There was just one problem: Berlin had not been on the list.

Vitsyebsk had been. Sherlock had been provided with a perfectly authentic Belarusian passport, a cover identity, and a set of strict instructions from Mycroft that he was not to deviate from the plan in any way, shape, or form. He had used those precise words: "Sherlock Holmes, do not, under any circumstances, deviate from the plan in any way, shape, or form." A multitude of potential threats for violation had followed, most of which involved grievous harm to the multitude of monographs, papers, and articles he had been forced to leave at Baker Street.

So. Vitsyebsk it was to be. Right.

Sherlock breathed deep the acrid smell of smoke and the city of Berlin, folding himself into the crowd of concert-goers as they emerged from the warm yellow light of the Konzerthaus, one dark drop of wool among the glittered and bejeweled. He had good reason for being in Berlin. He did not, however, have a German passport or cover identity, and it occurred to him that this might be an obstacle as he proceeded. He was six hours past his scheduled check-in with his brother. It would not be long before he was missed. He imagined Mycroft with a cell phone wedged between his neck and shoulder, waving a lighter over a pile of tobacco monographs.

It didn't matter. Sherlock had long ago digitized all of his scholarly publications.

He moved through the crowd like a shark over a reef, cutting past foot traffic, the lights of the Deutscher Dom splashing across his narrow features. No. There was nothing for it: a new identity was essential if he was to move on. Going to Mycroft was out of the question (who needed all of that nagging?), and though he had resources of his own, they did not extend all the way to Berlin.

Unless...

The Schlosshotel Im Grunewald was a great jewel box of a building, an enclave for the super-rich and well-connected. Sherlock Holmes entered the lobby and shook the rainwater off of his coat. A few patrons congregated in a lushly-appointed parlor, sipping drinks beside a fire whose grate was large enough to contain a small car. He caught his reflection in a wall of mirrors and shoved a hand up into his hairline, disrupting a rain of droplets. He had not altered his appearance since leaving London, and it occurred to him that he might have to do so once his business here was finished.

He climbed the great staircase to the third floor. His footsteps were hushed by the Moroccan runners that licked down the hallways like elaborate forked tongues. A door.

If he could not rely upon his brother to deliver the documents he needed, then he would have to depend upon the talents of the second-best forger he knew; a wunderkind of rotating identities: Irene Adler.

The Woman.

He knocked.

[irene_adler]

The knock took a moment to register to her, not because she was unobservant - anything but, at that - but because it was so completely unexpected. Being on the run and constantly on the move was one thing, but she was quite good at covering her tracks. Avoiding detection this long had led her to believe no one was following her anymore, either interest had been lost or she was believed to be dead - both serving her equally well. And while this theory didn't lead her to lower her guard, it did bring a great amount of curiosity as to why an unannounced guest would be knocking at her door.

Her shoes were side by side at the edge of the bedroom door, and so her feet were bare as she crossed the plush carpet. The bathroom door gaped invitingly, but the scented bath she had been planning to take in the claw foot tub was going to have to wait. It was highly possible that Irene Adler might have to relocate across continents before the new day dawned, and she might be washing up in Rome the next time she had the chance to do so.

It truly depended on who was on the other side of the door.

Irene's fingers closed around the small black gun resting on the nightstand. The Lady Hawk was more feminine than other firearms and had set her back a good three grand, but it served exactly the purpose she needed it to. Small, compact, and very, very good. Now her thumb nudged against the safety, coaxing it free, and she lowered the weapon to her side. The weight was light, comfortable in her hand.

With her other hand she twisted the knob and drew open the hotel suite's door.

[elementarysaidhe]

Eye-to-eye with the allegedly dead. If Sherlock Holmes had been capable of appreciating the irony of the situation (he wasn't), he might have made a joke (he won't) about the two of them starting their very own 'Resurrectionists Club,' complete with t-shirts. They were both well-versed in the art of playing dead, with Sherlock's very recent walk off a hospital roof receiving broad media attention.

Death had proven especially kind to Irene Adler, it seemed. Warm, buttery light bled around the edges of her silhouette when she opened the door; he got a peek at an Oriental rug that likely cost more than the commissions from his last three cases combined. She was barefoot, a head shorter than him, her hair swept up onto the nape of her neck. He counted approximately six new freckles on the bridge of her nose. She had recently been somewhere very warm. And, ah -- a warm greeting in the form of a 9mm with a carbon steel frame and Straight Eight sight, safety conspicuously off.

He glanced from her face to the gun, and back again.

"It's possible you don't remember me." Beat. "Sherlock Holmes. I need a favor."

[irene_adler]

A degree of calm has to come with being an actress or a dominatrix or whichever role she has chosen to presently play. One needs to be able to put on guises as though they were heeled shoes and move about in them with ease. This hasn't been difficult for Irene Adler, not for many of the years of her life. She had been educated on using whatever means necessary to get what she wanted by a man with salt and pepper hair who used a platinum plated wheelchair as transportation. Her past was glimmering, but with the lights of the Las Vegas Strip. She had learned well, and she had applied those trainings throughout her years.

She knew how to blow a puff of air onto a pair of dice at the craps table in a way that could make a man's knees buckle. But when it came to looking a dead man in the eye, she was - for once - at a loss.

Shock moved its way across her face, giving way to slightly parted lips and widened eyes. The palm of her right hand rested against the edge of the door, her body turned inwards towards the door's edge. Now the gun was out of sight, curled in her hidden hand and all but forgotten. All else had been forgotten, save for the man in front of her.

It wasn't possible, and yet -

"The name does ring a faint bell." Her voice betrayed only a slight note of bewilderment, the true shock being in her eyes. There was no veiling such wonder, astonishment, surprise - and, without question, joy.

"Do come inside." Stepping back from the door, Irene opened it wider to allow the man - Sherlock Holmes - inside the hotel suite.

[elementarysaidhe]

He swept theatrically into the room and stood there dripping on her expensive carpet, hands shoved into the great depths of his overcoat. It was in his nature to both evaluate the contents of the sitting room as well as to look for vulnerable points of entry.

"I need a passport and cover identity," he informed her, tone as detached as if he were reading a grocery list. "German. I assume that you are still operating the imagePROGRAF W8200 you used when you forged papers in Nanjing. Color replication is of premium importance. With the business I have, I can't lose time being stopped at a border station because of a discrepancy over ink."

Judging by the state of the room, Irene Adler had been in Berlin for a little over a month, long enough for her to have insinuated pieces of her personality into the decor. He recognized the ornate Rococo writing desk from her flat in Belgravia; moving it here must have cost a small fortune. There was a small pile of correspondence on the corner of the desk. It did not bear a name that he recognized. The printer that he had identified -- the W8200 -- slumbered in a corner. Her robe, a glossy floor-length affair in silk with an Oriental print -- lay draped over the back of the chair like a sleek skin.

He turned his chin along his shoulder to look at her: the first time he had done so since entering the room. Narrowed his eyes.

"You've colored your hair."

[irene_adler]

The door was closed quickly and immediately behind her, a sharp click sounding as the deadbolt was turned and slid into place. She had been taking that precaution on her own for a long time, but now it was even more important, what with two people on the run encased in the hotel suite. All the security in the world and then more might well be appropriate for holing them up and away from the public eye.

His request wasn't lost on her, nor was his observation - the verbal one, most specifically. There was no question about Sherlock's ability to see a dozen things with one glance, and that was if he wasn't trying. Of course her hair color would be noticed, and of course he'd come here with a purpose of finding her for a reason other than making known that he noticed it.

Irene lifted her chin a fraction of an inch, then tilted her head to the side to regard him more completely. He was thinner than she last remembered, and he had been thin to begin with. Now, though, there was a darker shade of shadow around his cheekbones and a hollowness beneath his eyes. Neither of these things was exactly surprising, given he'd been presumed dead for the past while, but they were still changes.

"Changed the shade to auburn," she said, responding to his remark first, without the gun leaving her hand. Her hair color had changed almost with the continent, either by wig or dye, but the deep auburn shade was the product of the latter. It was easy enough to maintain, and something she didn't mind. The blonde, however, had been a mistake of six months ago - but that was for another time.

"A dead man comes to my door asking for identity documents. However did I get so lucky?"

There's her familiar wit and charm laced in with the words, but she can't hide the wonder - and admittedly, the relief - in her eyes. He's alive. It's all she can do to not close the distance between them, to touch the pad of her finger to the sharp angle of his jawline. To let her truly realize he is here.

[elementarysaidhe]

Sherlock's lower lip retreated toward his teeth, slightly put off that she was not immediately moving to fulfill his request.

"Luck has nothing to do with it," he told her. "You and I are both egocentric enough to know that there's no such thing as luck --" he extended his chin out over the lip of his collar, separating the back of his neck from his damp shirt "-- luck is an excuse used by lesser people." It had been careful, systematic planning, not luck, that had saved Sherlock's life on the roof of Saint Bart's a few months earlier. The mechanics of his fall and subsequent continent-hopping escape had worked together like a Rube Goldberg machine, with each part facilitating the forward momentum of the next. Luck had been the last thing Sherlock had wanted to rely on.

"I don't imagine I need to press upon you the importance of authenticity. I saw your handiwork in Brno -- "Ykaterina Ianova," wasn't it? Marginally impressive. Enough to fool the Městská, at least." It was evident from his tone that he held the Brno Metropolitan Police Force in about as high regard as the unimaginative flatfeet at Scotland Yard. "I'll require a similarly thorough background," he continued. Beat. "And you should know that I won't be able to pay you."

[irene_adler]

The subject of payment wasn't an issue for her, at least not right now. There were multiple ways that Irene could be compensated for her services, none of them monetary. In fact, she was drawing up a list of at least twelve now, in the span of about six seconds. If even half of those were acted upon, Irene Adler would certainly be coming out ahead in the trade.

But they could get to that later.

Irene's feet were soft on the carpet, her bright, paint chip toes standing out against the plush white. She returned the gun to its home, a good sized wooden box with a combination lock (which she closed immediately and twisted for good measure). Then her attention was on his face, her gaze moving across the sharp jawline and impatient eyes all in her own due time. Looking upon him was something she never thought she'd be able to do again, and it was at this point a luxury. She wouldn't hurry about it.

"What you're asking will take time." A pause. "But of course I can provide it."

[elementarysaidhe]

Irene Adler was a veteran of at least six separate aliases across Europe and the United States. She shed identities like a hermit crab scuttling across the sea floor. Since the events on a tarmac in Pakistan, where she had nearly become quite a bit shorter, Sherlock had made it a point to keep up with her frequently fluctuating choice of faces: besides Ykaterina there had been Carmen Peralta (art dealer and claimant to one of the houses of minor Spanish nobility), Isabella du Maurier (artistic director for the Princess of Wales Theater, Toronto), and Kate Kelly who, inexplicably, seemed perfectly content to spend six months on a beach in Bimini rather than obtain any kind of vocation at all.

Each identity had been meticulously crafted in order to maintain maximum believability. The level of detail had even gone so far as to include elaborate backstories and employment records, complete with references.

Some men compose music. Others write novels. Irene Adler created phantom identities -- and she was very, very good at it.

"Fine," he said, dropping himself into a chair, "I'll wait."

[irene_adler]

It wasn't surprising in the least to her that he was choosing to stay. After all, at this point where else would he go? If there were anywhere else he might have chosen those courses of action first, but for now Sherlock Holmes is a man without a home, a country - or an identity, at that. Her hotel suite is perhaps the safest place he can be.

Safe from certain things, at least.

Instead of taking the likely anticipated course of crossing the room to her printer, Irene instead chose the opposite corner. A bottle and two glasses were retrieved from a dark wooden cabinet, and she then regarded him with a look that, in other circumstances, could have been called almost benevolent.

"Shall I pour us a drink then?"

It wasn't a question, as halfway through the amber liquid already began spilling into the glasses, guided by a steady, manicured hand.

[elementarysaidhe]

Always moving, the machinery of his mind going like some great steam-powered machine, Sherlock's mental process often manifested itself in physical ways. Now, for instance, he drummed the pads of his fingers on the arms of her expensive Edwardian chair, his heels alternating up and down. It was hard for him to sit still when he was mentally active, and he was always chewing on an observation or eight.

He didn't answer her; rather, he pulled himself up out of the chair and set about exploring the perimeter of her room, flicking the curtains aside for a peek out onto the inner courtyard.

"Berlin's a very public place for someone of your reputation." His way of finally responding. He dropped the gauzy curtain. Every one of his observations somehow ends up coming off as a criticism. It just had that tone.

[irene_adler]

"Hiding in plain sight can be the best way to hide."

Three ice cubes clinked into each glass, and Irene shook her head while crossing the room to push the hair from her eyes. A stray curl still twisted into her peripheral vision, but it wasn't worth setting down the glasses early for. Her attention wasn't much on her hair as it was. She was too busy silently puzzling out how Sherlock could have managed to falsify his own death in such a completely thorough manner - and at the same time knowing that no one else could have managed such a deception.

She didn't think he would have told her if she asked anyway.

Irene stopped a few inches in front of him, offering the second glass. Her lips were curved into a faint smile.

[elementarysaidhe]

He took the glass, holding it loosely by the rim with his spidery fingers. Scotch, he guessed, single malt. The amber liquid swirled with looping curlicues of sediment that reminded him of the great Eye of Jupiter.

"Or the easiest way to get caught," he pointed out, placing the glass on the sideboard and returning his hands to a comfortable knot at the small of his back.

[irene_adler]

Leave it to Sherlock Holmes to find a blunt way to throw a comment - but that was all right. She was still far too pleased with his being here - and, well, alive - to be put out by any jab he might throw. Especially since she had been able to sustain well enough with her own circle of contacts, and tonight brought Sherlock to her in search of help. That sort of thing could make a girl feel proud.

"And what about you, Sherlock Holmes? How have you avoided being caught all this time?"

[elementarysaidhe]

"Because most people are morons," he answered, with no more affect of feeling than if he had told her that the Earth goes round the Sun or that the sky is blue. "Once you've planted an idea in their heads it's incredibly difficult to shift it -- faking one's own death, for instance. I'll be riding that illusion for a considerable amount of time, I think. It will become entrenched; ordinary people are so charmingly sentimental." He said this almost wistfully, as if he pitied the lot of them.

[irene_adler]

That remark drew a laugh from her, one that was real and genuine. Leave it to Sherlock to sum up all of humanity in less than ten words. He was right, of course - many of the people they encountered were idiots. But he still had so many people looking for him, and it was surprising to her now that he had come to her for any kind of help. Sherlock did seem to pride himself on being above needing the help of others.

But for now, she wouldn't bring that up.

Irene swirled the scotch in her own glass before having another indulgent sip.

"So what sort of back story shall your new alias have? There are so many possibilities."

[elementarysaidhe]

"Oh, any standard dullard will do," he said. "I'm not interested in attracting too much attention; I require just enough credibility to allow me to finish the business I have in Germany, then get out without leaving too much of a shadow." He, too, had perfected the art of shedding skins. A name didn't matter, really. A name and a reputation could be forged, then abandoned when appropriate. Sherlock Holmes did not operate on the same plane of sentimentality as everyone else; he worked best in the dark, under the veil of anonymity.

"Like you, I imagine. Running from one cover to another. Although, your propensity for the theatrical -- and your taste for the luxurious -- are your Achilles heel. It took only rudimentary deduction to find you."

[irene_adler]

"Is that so?"

In the time it had taken for her to cross the room to the very printing equipment he needed her to use, Sherlock had managed to discredit her. It was a rather impressive feat, that he would put down the very person whose help he was seeking, but only further reason to agree he was far from typical. It was one of the very reasons Irene had been so drawn to him to begin with. The man was handsome, of course, but the mind of the man was one of the most seductive things she had encountered.

Now Irene regarded him from her place on the love seat, the equipment an arm's length away.

"Do tell?"