Yes, I know it's been a shamefully long time. For all the people still reading, thank you very much for sticking with the story.

I'd like to thank Kilimiria particularly, who, with her amazingly awesome tumblr GIF-set (which can be found here: image/53054079102), got me out of my hibernation period and back to continuing this story.

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Irene's eyes widened as she listened from the staircase. She hadn't dared to go into the main living room area in the disguise she had come in, but had instead stayed at the top of the stairs, pretending to text if anyone walked past her.

Even so, she had listened carefully, needing to know why Sherlock was acting the way he was. She knew he was here on a case involving this mythical hound, having traced his phone and having seen the documentary about the area once she had figured out where Sherlock was. But she would never have imagined that Sherlock would have been this worked up over something she had been certain was only the product of someone's imagination, only used as a method of financial gain and publicity.

Slowly she crept downstairs, nearer to the back door, holding it slightly ajar, but still trying to discern Sherlock's voice from the casual murmur of the other guests' conversations.

She could faintly hear him talking in an agitated and heated voice, before there was a short silence. She bit her lip and crept forward, closing the door softly, wondering what had happened, and had only a second to turn around and press herself against the wall as she saw John walking towards her. For a moment she thought he was looking right at her, but he walked right past the crowded bar where she had hidden herself and exited through the back door.

Irene breathed a sigh of relief, but the worried feeling that was nagging her didn't go away. She had had plenty of time to witness John and Sherlock's relationship, and understood how complex it was. John knew Sherlock and understood how his mind worked, so Sherlock must have really offended the army doctor for him to storm off like that.

Shaking her head, she quietly crept through the back door after John and watched him take a secluded path through the muddy fields. His posture was rigid and straight and he marched determinedly away from the inn. She saw him head up towards a hill where some flashing lights had apparently intrigued him and smirked slightly. She had passed by that spot on her way to the inn and had a fairly good idea of what John would find up there.

Outside, hidden by the shadows of the dark, looming trees she simply stood and waited for Sherlock to make his appearance. There was no way he could stand to stay in the bar area, it was too full, and she knew that he preferred privacy when he had to deal with things that confused him. He wouldn't go into his bedroom; she was supposed to be in there, after all. No, the only place he could really clear his head and thing was out here.

Irene sighed to herself and shook her head. The only time she had ever seen him doubtful or nervous was when he was with her, during her betrayal and afterwards in Karachi. She knew he had feelings for her, despite his irritated behaviour around her earlier. With a smile she thought of the night in Karachi; he had been cold and cynical there too, but the second he had let his shields down enough for her to kiss him his behaviour had changed drastically. Even so, the morning after had been awkward. Sherlock hadn't understood what he felt towards her, or rather, he hadn't wanted to. She suspected it was the same here. If he was scared, the anger and frustration at himself for even allowing the thought of those emotions to enter his head would make him even more agitated.

She didn't have to wait for very long.

Only minutes after John had exited the inn, Sherlock followed suit. In the faint yellow light that filtered in through the windows she could make out his expression. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw set. She had never seen him this agitated in her life.

The worse thing was how unfocused his eyes were. This was the man who prided himself on being able to pick up on every single detail, yet he hadn't even seen her yet. Understandably, John had been blinded by anger and so it was easy for him not to see her, but Sherlock's continued oblivion was certainly new.

In the end, unable to bear the silence, Irene stepped towards him, into the glow of the light. "You shouldn't have said that to John, you know."

Sherlock spun around, eyes widening slightly, before an angry expression took over his face. Irene used the moment to inspect him. She understood that he was agitated, and he was only agitated when he was annoyed, scared or nervous. In this case, it seemed like a combination of the three. She also knew that his ability to think clearly and objectively had been impaired. As someone whose mind thrived on rational thinking, his behaviour to her and to John wasn't really surprising. But she still didn't understand what the cause of his behaviour was. She stepped closer, and saw his dilated pupils. She frowned thoughtfully to herself for a second, a vague suspicion forming in her mind, but she filed her observation away for later, knowing that jumping to conclusions in this situation was the worst she could do.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped, repeating his question from earlier that evening. Irene fixed him with a steady gaze. Normally, he wouldn't even ask such a question, much less twice. He would have figured out everything for himself, her motivations and reasons. But today…

"You were supposed to stay in the room." He said, frustrated with her silence. He wanted answers, he wanted to understand, and her calm gaze infuriated him. He wanted a reaction from her. "You could be seen. The risk…"

"There is no risk and you know it." She said finally, and he was surprised at how firm her voice sounded. There wasn't a trace of playfulness anywhere in her features. She kept her eyes on him, and in the end, he couldn't stand the continuous eye contact.

"What happened, Sherlock?" Irene asked, just as he was about to turn around and go back in.

"Something in the forest, am I right?" she continued when it became clear that he wasn't going to answer. "Probably while you were investigating this hound thing with…Henry Knight? Obviously something that both scared and surprised you, and something that you can't find any sort of logical explanation for, which is why you're acting this irrationally and so completely without reason.

"Henry Knight recently appeared on a documentary talking about having seen footprints of a hound, which he believes killed his father 2 decades earlier, in the area. So - what did you see, Sherlock?"

Sherlock's anger grew slightly at Irene being able to read his emotional state so precisely. Under any other circumstances, he would have been impressed. But right now, he hated being so obvious.

Irene didn't gloat about her deduction, she just kept regarding him. Strangely, Sherlock suddenly found his anger fading when he looked at her, though he was still scared. Irene saw the bitterness in his eyes fading and stepped closer, until she was only a few inches away from him.

"I don't know what I saw." Sherlock quietly admitted at last. Irene knew what it cost him to say something like that, especially to her. Sherlock swallowed and looked at her, feeling relieved when he saw no judgement in her eyes. Paradoxically, the way she was looking at him now (which would have infuriated him only minutes ago) suddenly calmed him, and the need for physical contact with her suddenly overwhelmed him. Irene only saw something in his eyes for the briefest second before he kissed her, but immediately understood that she had succeeded in breaking down the wall he had put up to protect himself from her and John this evening. So she put her arms around him, drawing her closer to him and kissed him back.

When Sherlock finally drew back, the anger in his eyes had completely dissipated. He didn't say anything, but Irene knew what he was feeling and so only smiled at him and took his hand, leading him back inside.

They had a mystery to solve.

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As soon as they were upstairs, with the door locked behind them, Irene sat down on the bed, leaning comfortably against the headboard, while Sherlock paced around the room. The tension from the evening had suddenly vanished. Somehow, and Sherlock really had no idea how the woman did it, she had made him realise that what he had been thinking was nonsense. Through her deduction and, most importantly, by making him admit the realisation which he hadn't even properly dared to admit to himself-I don't know- she had made him aware of the fact that what he had seen couldn't possibly be real. Somehow, completely against his expectations, the woman had restored his ability to think rationally and logically once again.

She was truly The Woman.

Now he paced about the room, organising his thoughts. Now that he knew what he saw couldn't have been real, it was just a matter of figuring out what it had been. While the task would probably be hard, he had the fundamental basis of knowing that whatever was in the woods, whatever he and Henry had seen, was not a real hound from hell. And now that he had Irene to help him figure out all the possibilities- he knew that they would get to the bottom of this.

Irene watched him patiently, waiting for him to finish organising and sorting through the numerous possibilities. Based on his behaviour earlier as well as bodily symptoms, she had come to a vague conclusion of her own, but she knew too little of the case and the turn of events to be able to come up with a correct answer. She needed to hear Sherlock's side first.

He still looked frustrated as he paced, finding it hard to rationalise every little detail he had seen. It had all seemed so vivid and real.

"Why exactly were you in the woods?" Irene asked after a while, deciding that if he just began talking he would he might stumble across the answer a lot quicker than if he kept trying to find the logical side to everything. Just as she had expected, Sherlock immediately started recounting everything, also deciding that her simplistic approach would probably work best.

"You were correct that we came here to help Henry Knight find a supposed hound that apparently killed his father 20 years ago. The fact that he said 'hound' and not 'dog' when he asked me to investigate the case intrigued me. We decided that if the hound really existed ,we would not only find clues of its existence, but it would probably attack one of us if we went to the woods. And if it didn't - well, then it wasn't real, in all probability.

"And John didn't see it?"

Sherlock shook his head, trying to remember the exact sequence of events. "John went off on his own fairly quickly as soon as we entered the forest. I don't know why, he must have seen something suspicious which turned out to be a dead end. I think he was trying to tell me about it earlier…" he trailed off.

"Morse code" Irene supplied, having heard snippets of their conversation. "I think he mentioned the initials U.M.Q.R.A".

Sherlock regarded her with raised eyebrows. Irene sent him a challenging gaze.

"Sherlock, you didn't seriously expect that I wouldn't try to follow you, given the state you were in."

Sherlock sighed slightly as if to say 'of course not', but his lips twitched slightly at the comment, betraying that he wasn't annoyed with her this evening.

"Right, so he saw someone signalling Morse code..." he frowned again when he saw Irene suddenly smirk, before her gaze was once again neutral. She grinned more openly when she saw the silent enquiry in his eyes.

"What John saw wasn't a lead. I think he's actually pursuing it now, but the poor dear will end up rather disappointed with his detective work."

"Care to share, Miss Adler?" Sherlock asked, and Irene was relieved to see that he really was okay, if he was teasing. His question only made her grin wider.

"He saw car headlights."

Sherlock frowned, failing to grasp the connection.

"The Morse code John thought he saw was people dogging."

"And the definition of dogging in this scenario would be…?"

Irene quickly choked down a laugh, and though she kept her expression as neutral as possible, she was certain that he saw through her poker face.

"Never mind. It's irrelevant, as you would say."

Sherlock accepted her answer with a shrug and moved on. "Henry and I went down to the hollow. We heard a growling sound and suddenly…there it was."

While Sherlock showed no signs of returning to his previous state of panic, Irene did see a trace of fear in his eyes.

"What did this 'hound' look like?" she questioned leaning forward intently.

"It was…immense" Sherlock murmured, almost to himself, trying to recall the details of the hound's appearance. While they had been almost crystal clear an hour ago, now the details were suddenly blurred and vague. "It's face looked fierce and monstrous…" he stopped, shuddering slightly.

"That's all you remember?" Irene asked. "Not its size, its colouring or the breed?" She sounded as dubious as he himself suddenly felt.

Sherlock shook his head.

Irene got up and stood next to him. "So we've established that you saw something out of the ordinary…or rather, your brain interpreted something you saw, in a way it generally wouldn't."

She could see Sherlock's distaste written all over his face as he turned away from her. "I've always been able to rely on my senses" he muttered to himself, but she knew that he meant for her to hear, seeing he was admitting his feelings out loud. "And today evening, for the first time…for the first time, I can't make a rational connection between what I saw and what was actually there."

"I don't know if it was the first time." Irene said slowly. Sherlock spun around to face her intently.

"What?"

Irene smiled at his surprised tone. She greatly enjoyed being a step ahead of Sherlock.

"I'm sure it's the first time that it's been this extreme." She admitted. "But come on Sherlock, you understand chemistry and biology. Your senses, while they are certainly accurate, don't provide you with what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell. The brain does."

Sherlock stayed silent, but he followed her movements intently with his eyes, and Irene knew that he was giving her his full attention.

"The brain will always interpret images in a way that might not correspond to what they actually look like, or rather, how another person sees them. Not to mention that the brain can be easily manipulated."

She saw something flicker in Sherlock's eyes. Approval? Regard? She wasn't really sure, but it pleased her, nevertheless.

"You already have a theory." He murmured, as she stepped closer to him. She smiled.

"Is attempting to seduce me a way to prove your theory?" he asked in a somewhat huskier voice, when she continued to step closer.

"Attempt?" Irene asked, a wicked grin playing on her features. "You make it sound as if I'd never succeeded." She took another step closer, putting one finger on his cheek, before staring him directly in the eyes and stepping away.

"And to answer your question, no it's not. I think I just proved my theory."

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Sherlock's eyes widened very slightly with her new revelation, covering up the small twinge of disappointment in his eyes when she had stepped away.

"Would you mind elaborating?" he asked, noting that she was enjoying the advantage she currently had over him far too much. While it irritated him, he was definitely impressed. His thinking had certainly been in some way damaged, but that was no excuse for his unawareness.

She smiled at him, but he saw that there were still no signs of gloating in her expression, although she had every right, for the way he had treated her this evening.

"I don't know if I'm completely right." She told him. "But from what I've seen, and from what you've told me, it seems like the only logical explanation."

Sherlock nodded, signalling her to go on.

"In the television documentary that Henry appeared in, the general theory was that the hound Henry saw kill his father was an escaped genetic experiment from Baskerville. But that was never proven, and Henry was only a young child at the time. Did he describe the hound to you?

Sherlock nodded in response. "He said that it was huge…with coal black fur and red eyes".

Irene nodded. "It's not a very detailed description, just like yours, but he was only about five years old at the time, and the experience must certainly have been traumatic. But even so…" she frowned for a moment, considering something, and continued. "There is a small chance that it may have been a genetic experiment, but I doubt that. Baskerville has tight security" (at this she smiled at him) "and while you certainly managed to get in, I doubt they would ever let anything out."

"Besides, and I'm sure you've already reached this conclusion yourself, if it really had been an escaped experiment, why would it reappear now, after 20 years?"

"It's not a coincidence." Sherlock confirmed. This he already knew.

"Exactly, and we've established that this current monster dog doesn't exist. But if it also didn't exist 20 years ago, then Henry's father either died in some sort of an accident that Henry doesn't remember, or…

"He was murdered." Sherlock said grimly. Of course. "Henry did mention that his father was always questioning what was going on at Baskerville. He could easily have made enemies at the facility that way-especially if he was trying to uncover something big.

"Conveniently letting a genetic mutation escape to apparently murder Henry's father would certainly be a good plot in some sort of novel, but in this case, it's way too dangerous and dramatic." Irene supplied.

"But now Henry's seen this hound again, he even got the media involved. And now you're involved as well, one of the few men who could unmask what's really going on. So something had to be done to make both you and Henry believe that there is a hound out there, in the forest, to cover up what really happened 20 years ago."

"We were manipulated." Sherlock said, realising the obvious. Irene smiled grimly.

"Yes. That's what I was referring to when I talked about how the brain interprets images, and how easy it is to manipulate that process. Your ability to think clearly has been impaired, you're seeing things that aren't there, you're jittery and agitated, and your pupils are dilated. Knowing your past, those symptoms should sound familiar."

Sherlock's eyes widened as the realisation hit him with full force, and he realised that Irene was right, it was incredibly obvious. He was almost embarrassed that he hadn't seen the signs, because he had experienced them firsthand when he had been addicted to cocaine. Of course.

However, the fact that he had been so blind only overwhelmed him for a second, before relief, staggering relief washed over him in waves. He wasn't crazy, what he had seen really hadn't existed, at least not in the form he and Henry had believed, and there was a perfectly logical and rational explanation. And Irene had figured it out.

"I was drugged".

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Thank you for reading! x