Thank you for all your reviews!

This story will be fairly short I think, maybe three or four chapters. But that's only a rough estimate, because my stories mostly get out of hand and I end up writing twice as much…

Anyways, enjoy!

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Sherlock hadn't had a proper case in ages. The dead pig barely counted, that was simply tedious and so very simple. And all the cases before that had simply been very boring.

He missed Irene, too. Even when a case was so easy to solve that he wondered how the people who had hired him could possibly have not seen who the culprit was, she added a certain complexity to everything. She was a completely unsolvable puzzle, and even though the case was generally solved twice as quickly when she worked with him, he enjoyed every minute of it. Watching her manipulate people into telling her exactly what she needed was very entertaining, but also fascinating. Sherlock knew he could manipulate people, but quickly noticed that compared to her, he seemed like a complete amateur.

Whenever they were apart they would text. Not at regular intervals, like some sort of normal couple, (because their relationship was simply too complex to be considered normal anyway). Instead, she liked to surprise him and catch him off guard. He never wanted to seem eager, and always waited for her to text him.

Sherlock was relieved when Henry Knight finally came along with his hound problem, as John had taken to calling it. He had needed the distraction desperately, and the case looked very promising. Briefly, his thoughts flashed to Irene, wondering what it would be like if she accompanied him this time, but he quickly realised that it was better not to tell her about it. Even though it was outside of London it was still unsafe, and besides, John was coming with him this time. He quickly dismissed the thought of letting her know about what he was doing and told John that it was probably best if he didn't write up the case on his blog before he actually solved it. John had smirked at him, probably thinking that he didn't know what to do, but Sherlock just ignored him.

The case was interesting at the beginning. Getting into Baskerville was easy – Sherlock was sure his brother would find out about the card he had "borrowed" from him, but his brother owed him anyway. Not just for all the cases Sherlock had solved for him, but also the situation with Moriarty that Sherlock had so far refrained from telling John about.

He smirked slightly at how Irene would react if he told her that he had managed to break into Baskerville, and this thought kept him in a good mood for the rest of the afternoon.

Henry reacted with slight panic when Sherlock told him his simple but very effective plan ("We go to the moor, and see if anything attacks you."), but Sherlock barely noticed. He completely doubted that there was actually a proper dog, but the fact that Henry had only referred to it as Hound kept him intrigued – it was a puzzle his mind couldn't solve at the moment. He was careful not to come to any conclusion as to what this mysterious monster could be – conclusions faulted his objective way of thinking when he had actual facts and data.

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Sherlock was scared. No, more. He was, probably for the first ever time in his life, absolutely and completely terrified.

He had made his own way after returning from Dewer's Hollow, running and stumbling through the thick vegetation using only his torch for light. He had several scratches covering his arms and hands where his jacket had ridden up and exposed the bare skin. His shirt was slightly torn at the sleeves, the trees and shrubs tearing the material to get to his skin. He had tried to run away from his fear; to expel the horrible image of the horrendous creature that was now imprinted on his mind, but it didn't work. The blood red eyes haunted him wherever he looked, and even more so when he had closed his eyes.

John had gone back with Henry to his house, leaving Sherlock to return to the inn. He needed peace and time to think after what he had just experienced, not quite used to handling these particular emotions. He refused to sit in the main eating area with all the other people, who would probably all want to talk to him. He didn't want their attention, he needed time to process everything, and most importantly, gain control of his own body and mind.

It was with great surprise that he (shakily, he hated to admit) opened his bedroom door and found another person sprawled out on the bed. He simply stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head and went into the bathroom, turning on the tap and splashing cold water on his face. He had already seen things he hadn't expected tonight; perhaps this was just a side effect to fear: seeing things that weren't really there.

Of course he realised that he was seeing reality when she was still there, now staring at him in a more surprised way, her expression having turned from satisfaction and expectation to surprise and confusion in a split second. Sherlock was different to other people, certainly, but she had never seen this behaviour by him. She frowned, not speaking before she understood what he was thinking.

His mind was reeling. What was she doing here? And how could she possibly have known that he was here, of all places. He had been so careful not to drop any clues or hints as to what he was doing or where he was going. For all she knew (or rather, should have known), he was sitting in his favourite chair in Baker Street. And how had she actually gotten into his room?

"Surprised to see me, Sherlock?" she asked finally when he didn't respond to her or even acknowledge her existence in any way, except staring at her.

"What are you doing here, Irene?" he asked in a clipped tone, closing his eyes and quickly opening them when he remembered the horrid image of those blood red eyes. Irene frowned.

"Normally, you at least pretend you're pleased to see me, dear" she said a little scoldingly, but her eyes twinkled. She furrowed her brow when he didn't respond with a smile, mock annoyance or a sarcastic comment. Instead, there was only silence, with him still staring at her frantically, before he turned around, shrugging off his coat and running a hand through his hair.

"How did you find me?" he demanded suddenly, whirling around to look at her. Irene got up from her position on the bed, swinging her legs over the edge slowly and teasingly. His eyes briefly flashed down to the amount of snow white, exposed skin but then went back to her face, slightly unfocused, before he blinked slightly.

"Must we skip straight to the details?" Irene asked, suddenly smiling again. "I'm under the impression that there's a lot more we could be doing…" she trailed off suggestively, but was truly surprised when she got no response in return. Before Karachi this wouldn't have caught her attention, but now that she and Sherlock were on different and certainly more positive terms she expected some sort of answer, be it a physical or a verbal one.

Sherlock inhaled deeply once, his eyes no longer focused on her, staring at something she couldn't see. He was unfocused, jumpy and jittery. She had never ever seen him like this, and she doubted John had either. She no longer cared about the flirting (that was just for fun any way,) but there was something seriously wrong with the handsome and usually confident man before her.

"Sherlock?" she began tentatively; softly, and her change of tone finally caught his attention. He didn't even bother to mask the expression on his face, which was another thing that worried her. Even with her, Sherlock was still occasionally reserved with his true feelings and emotions, at least at the beginning. She understood that he was still relatively unused to the feelings he experienced with her (as was she with him, to an extent) so the fact that he hadn't come out from under his generally unaffected mask of indifference yet was a clear sign that something was very, very wrong.

"What's wrong?" she asked, cutting straight to the point. She wasn't about to question him if something was up, because she could clearly tell and mentally kicked herself for ignoring it in the first few minutes.

Sherlock shook his head, not ready to confront his feelings. He opened up to Irene more than any other person, and he had been caught off guard by his feelings quite a few times by her, but this was something different. Before, they had been feelings he had blatantly been trying to deny to himself, but his subconsciousness knew they were there, which made it easier to accept them. But this…this was something completely different. Fear, not just fear, but the terror he felt now was something he had never really experienced before, and he wasn't ready to admit to himself that now he really was just like any other man in terms of emotions. Sex and the feelings he felt for Irene could be dismissed, because with her, they weren't like the feelings other men experienced, they were so much more.

But such an inferior feeling as being scared…

It wasn't just the fact that he refused to accept the emotion coursing through him, but he didn't understand it.

"Excuse me" he managed to say, as he spun around and walked towards the door with a brisk step. Irene stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder, but the touch was unexpected to him, and he visibly flinched in fear at the contact, jerking away from her. Irene gaped at him, trying to understand what he could have seen to make him act like this.

"Tell me what's wrong" she insisted sternly but gently. Sherlock shook his head.

"John is down there" he snapped hurriedly, and left the room, leaving a shocked Irene.

He knew she couldn't follow him, she wouldn't risk revealing herself to John; it was one of the things they had agreed on. John was still with Henry, but he needed space and time to think, and he couldn't do that with Irene, so the lie had been necessary. He would simply have to sit down among all the people also staying at the inn, considering his bedroom was occupied.

He sat down in front of the fire. It was the only free spot in the room, and besides, he felt chilled to the bone; he needed warmth. He sat there and stared into the flames, but saw the hound chasing after him every time he blinked. He was almost glad to be disrupted by Billy.

"You look a bit tired there" he said with a smile, his sandy brown hair brushing his eyes. "Would you like anything to drink? Coffee? Or something stronger?"

"Stronger" Sherlock replied and was caught off guard by just how hoarse his voice sounded. Billy looked at him sympathetically, and rushed off to prepare his beverage.

"There you are" he said as he brought back a small glass filled with amber liquid. Sherlock accepted it with a nod.

"Sorry again that we weren't able to do a double bedroom for you two boys" he said again, repeating the words his partner had already spoken that morning. Sherlock barely heard him.

Billy paused, almost as if he hoped for conversation, possibly wanting to learn more about Sherlock's and John's non-existent gay relationship, before he noticed that Sherlock was ignoring him. With a sigh, he walked away, deciding that John was most likely the friendly one in the relationship.

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Thank you for reading. By the way,if any of you forgot, Billy is the sandy-haired owner/manager/innkeeper or whatever of the inn Sherlock and John are staying in.

Please tell me what you think.

Laura xx