for womanwhobeatyou: Waking up in Vegas---again.

[the_new_sexy]

Follows this.

It's surprising when morning comes. Sherlock rarely sleeps when he's on a case, and this entire excursion is really just a case in and of itself. Even more than that, he rarely sleeps an entire night. However, when he looks at the blinds in the motel room, he can see the faint hints of pink streaming through. Dawn, then. In the part of the world he used to live in, it would be nearly noon, if not very early afternoon.

He turns his head to look at the Woman, still sleeping next to him. She stayed.

She's different when she sleeps. He remarked on it to John when he found her sleeping in his bed so long ago. Not like an angel, of course, no one would ever think of the Woman as an angel. Instead, she looks like all of the things she's holding tightly together are relaxed, and she's comfortable. It's a strange thing, but beautiful in its own way.

He lets his hand rest on her shoulder. Are there people that find this sort of thing normal? Waking up next to a lover, watching the light stream in? Sherlock imagines there must be people who are accustomed to it.

Comments

[womanwhobeatyou]

She starts the car (sighing in relief that it's an automatic), and peels out of the parking lot, heading west. There's no thought in the choice; she's deliberately acting unthinkingly to keep from second guessing where the killers would expect them to go.

The car runs well enough, and the air conditioning that kicks on is pleasantly soothing, enough that the adrenaline begins to ebb and she starts feeling the throbbing pain in her arm, the raw sting of scratched palms and knees and the re-irritated wound from the day before high on her leg. "Then we go split up," she answers, her eyes on the road. "Give them two targets to chase, divide their resources."

That was the logical, smart answer. The correct answer. She knows this even as she says it, but the next words come anyway. "That or find somewhere to go to ground."

[the_new_sexy]

"I have a contact in Nassau," he says. "Well, I say I do, but it's Mycroft's contact. Hasn't seen Mycroft since before he started his love affair with baked goods. I think I should be able to play the part well enough."

He pulls a few pieces of glass from his foot. They bleed rather spectacularly, though he imagines with some staunching they'll be fine. It's nothing in comparison to other injuries he's experienced, and not nearly as deep as the knife wound in Montenegro.

"I did promise you a warm escape."

[womanwhobeatyou]

An upward tug at the corner of her mouth. "Use the sheet for bandages," she says. "I'd hate to have to dispose of this car too just because you bled all over it. One car fire's enough for a day, isn't it?"

Not that she's one to talk right now, but her mind is still pulling at the puzzle of the Chinese woman. Something was familiar and she wasn't certain what. Something about her cry of surprise and pain...

She's speeding along the road, but for the moment there is nobody else on the freeway with them, and she'd like to keep it that way.

The mention of Mycroft Holmes does bring to mind government, London. And the piece that had been tugging at her mind falls into place. "She spoke Cantonese."

[the_new_sexy]

"Probably," Sherlock says, distracted by the glass in his foot. He staunches the wound with some pressure against it, keeping the blood back with the sheet. He feels some sharp pain. Pieces still in there, then. Not good. He can handle it later.

"I didn't know you spoke it."

[womanwhobeatyou]

"British diplomat," she answers. She doesn't speak it, not with any skill. Just knew enough to hear the difference, but she doesn't correct him. A petrol station appears on the horizon, but Irene dismisses stopping. Still too close to the motel for her own peace of mind. And while at some point they would have to stop for medical supplies, she is going to push stopping as long as she can.

They, the carbombers, the assassins, would expect them to stop as soon as they could. The farther away they could get, the better then. "Spent years in the region and had a tendency to swear in it."

[the_new_sexy]

"Knew what she liked, did you?" Sherlock says. He'd picked up the fact that the would-be assassin didn't make it her day job from the clumsy action, and the political nature was obvious from her shoes. However, the specifics aren't something that Sherlock was able to deduce.

He shakes his head. "Someone who can recognize you. But why? Why send someone after us who can recognize you but not me."

[womanwhobeatyou]

She would have corrected him, would have said she and the diplomat had had common interests, but his unexpected statement about the would-be killer surprises her and Irene turns sharply to him.

"What?"

[the_new_sexy]

"They're here to kill me," he says. "Obvious. But they selected an assailant who would know you. Probably owed them a favor or money---more likely the former, considering her brand of skirt."

[womanwhobeatyou]

She chuckles darkly at that. But then he would not be Sherlock Holmes without that arrogance. It's almost comforting, in its own way. Familiar.

"Given their choice of tactics, I don't think they're quite that discriminatory about whether they kill you or both of us." Blood dripping down her arm is starting to irritate, to distract, and Irene lets go of the wheel long enough to wipe the worst of it on the skirt of her dress. One more thing to replace.

[the_new_sexy]

"Yes, but targeting me. Why would they focus on you? How could they know that you're alive?"

He shakes his head. "It's not good. Not as terrible as them knowing I'm alive, but still very problematic."

He is completely unaware of the fact that he's brushing her off, or really that he's being arrogant at all. In his mind, he's simply being observant.

[womanwhobeatyou]

"If they're targeting you, then by definition they already know you're alive," she cannot resist pointing out. Her eyes remain on the road, and a glint of sunlight in the rearview mirror catches Irene's attention.

It could have been a trick of the light, or the imagination of a currently overtaxed mind, or there was a car behind them, coming up over a rise in the desert road.

She isn't willing to risk it being the last, so she speeds up, casting an eye along the road. There is an abandoned gas station, recently closed judging by the state of the plywood still covering its windows and door, and she turns the car sharply into its lot, parking in the shadow of the abandoned building, careful to keep the car out of view of the road.

[the_new_sexy]

"Yes, obviously, and it can only be worse if they expose me," he says.

The car speeds up, and Sherlock doesn't need to glance in the rearview mirror to know the Woman sees something. He holds onto the side of the door as she turns sharply into the station. He glances over his shoulder.

"This is as good a place as any," he says.

[womanwhobeatyou]

Her attention is on the road for the moment, on cars that may or may not be coming down the road, not on bloody arms and lacerated feet, and when he speaks, Irene turns to him, momentarily confused.

"What?"

[the_new_sexy]

He lets out an annoyed sigh. "To stitch up your arm. If there isn't anything in the boot of the car, then there's going to be something in there, something that will suffice."

There's a rumble outside, and he watches as a blue car passes by them, headlights off. He gives a nod to the Woman.

"Well spotted."

[womanwhobeatyou]

"Sunlight reflecting off the hood," she answers idly as she finds the button that unlocks the car's trunk and climbs out.

She hides a wince as she moves, and walks around the car carefully. "My arm can wait, I'm not the one leaving bloody footprints."

[the_new_sexy]

"Mine's not nearly as deep," he says, wincing as he puts on his shoes. They're damaged beyond repair, now, but that's hardly important.

Nor is it as worrisome. And he finds her injuries worrisome. More dangerous, deeper.

"Stop arguing, let's take care of you, and then you're welcome to work on my feet," he says.

[womanwhobeatyou]

Maybe it was a symptom of the steady blood loss, or shock, or her own razor focus in not thinking about the car bomb, but Irene merely sighed in response and pulled up the trunk's hood. She wasn't particularly in the mood to be contrary. And perhaps that more than anything was a sign she was worse off than she'd initially thought.

"She learned English from a Briton," she muses, lifting up the floorboard in the trunk and picking up a tire iron. She glances over at the boarded up building. A few minutes out of the sand would be welcome, no matter what. "The woman. That narrows things down a bit."

[the_new_sexy]

"How did you meet her?" he asks. It's a sign of how much pain he's in that he doesn't try to simply deduce. There's also so little information, he tells himself. Asking is sometimes the better way.

"She wasn't a client?"

[womanwhobeatyou]

From the simple question, she should have realized just how poorly they were both doing, but Irene is too busy focusing on one thing at a time to recognize it, at least immediately. The tire iron is not as good as a crowbar, but it gives her some leverage, and shoving it between the building's facade and the plywood, she begins prying the wood away from the door.

"Who, the diplomat?" She applies more pressure, ignoring the way that it makes the wound bleed just a little more. "She was a client, but an interesting one."

[the_new_sexy]

He reaches out a hand to take the tire iron from her. HIs grip is firm.

"You're bleeding too much," he says. "You know that, Woman."

He can't deduce why she's ignoring it. He can act like a brat when he's in pain, and he can ignore his body when he's hurt. But she's too intelligent for that. She knows when to push, and she knows when a safe word is necessary.

"Your masthead said it best, and I think if you try any more, I'll have to carry you."

[womanwhobeatyou]

"You're barely in any condition to be walking," she points out before caving and leaning against the structure, against another piece of plywood, this one covering a window. She rests her weight against it a little more than she'd like to admit, but Irene forces her mind to stay on her words, rather than on the bleeding or the pain or the thought of the car bomb again. If she dwells too much on it, she would start shaking, and that is far more human weakness than she'd like to admit for the moment.

"Much less making any threats to carry anyone."

[the_new_sexy]

He looks at her leaning, and he looks at her arm. His mind begins to splay out small, white words over her face and body. Pale, weak. Signs of heavy blood loss. Her body weight, the amount of food they haven't consumed in the last day or so---

He's got to get her to a hospital.

"On second thought, this place isn't such a good idea, I've got a better one. Give me the keys."

[womanwhobeatyou]

His sudden change gets her attention, and Irene turns to look at him, her eyes keen and penetrating now that she suddenly has a new focus and isn't simply trying not to think about things.

"You're starting to act erratic, Mr. Holmes. Are you sure you haven't had too much sun?"

[the_new_sexy]

"We'll be getting far more if we get to the tropics," he says. "And as of right now, until we find somewhere safer, it's all still an if, so if you please."

He holds out his hand again.

[womanwhobeatyou]

She makes no move to give him the keys in her pocket.

"You're not in any shape to drive, and I'd rather pick a few shards of china out of my arm before I actually go into shock," she says irritably. She loathed that uncontrolled feeling. "This is our best bet for both."