Ashes, Ashes

Open Eyes

- c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   s i x -

Emma, if she hadn't been carrying several objects within her hands, would've crossed her fingers upon approaching Sherlock's hospital room. She wanted to hope that he was asleep and get luck on her side - if he was asleep, then she wouldn't have to carry on a conversation with him.

At least he was alive, she supposed. She'd gone into quite the destructive spiral when it came to finding out he was dead. Then, of course, he turned out not to be dead - it was a miracle, that much was certain. No one had expected him to survive such a wound. The bullet was just out of place, enough to be fatal in almost every case except Sherlock Holmes, of course. He was the one exception to the rules, as usual.

She wished she didn't have to be so near to Sherlock at this particular time - she hadn't come to terms with what happened herself, and therefore it would be difficult to set eyes upon him because she'd been so devestated over his death. She never wished to admit it, but he would likely siphon it out of her.

As soon as she took a single step into the room, however, it seems her prayers about him potentially being asleep went entirely unnoticed. Sherlock wasn't exactly sitting up straight in his hospital bed, alert and ready to leap into action at any given moment, but he certainly was miles and miles away from being unconscious.

"Damn it," she whispered to herself, not bothering to think if he could hear her comments or if they were more or less impossible to hear from his angle. At this point, it didn't really matter all that much.

Emma avoided his eyes which scanned across the room and focused in on her and what she was bringing in to the room. While he wasn't nearly as frightening as Magnussen, she still loathed the way his eyes managed to remove her outer armour as if it were made of paper and could simply be peeled away.

"You're bringing a rose for me?" Sherlock asked. It was the simplest answer to what was going on, even though it did have some gaps. Emma was carrying a rose, and therefore it would make sense if she was bringing in such a thing. He couldn't think of precisely why she would do so such a thing, after all.

Emma ended up scoffing at such a thing. Sherlock's judgement must have been clouded from all the painkillers pumping into his bloodstream. Certainly he must understand that such an idea was ludicrous, after everything the two had experienced with one another.

"I couldn't come up with something so elegant," Emma said. "Why would I bring you a rose, anyways? I don't think you deserve a rose from me. After all, I already tied my ribbon for you."

"Ah, yes, of course," Sherlock said. "You believe you've already shown me enough kindness for the two of us to be even for the next century. I suppose I should be glad that I am not in debt to you at all."

"Not in debt to me at all," Emma echoes, rolling her eyes. "I didn't think you would consider my tying of a symbolic ribbon something which put you in debt to me. I suppose I would be wrong in that respect, of course."

(She nearly continued speaking, ready to go off on a tangent about how Sherlock always managed to cause her to be wrong in just about every respect, about how she was always wrong and he was always right and that was simply how the word worked...but instead she stood there, poised and prepared for Sherlock to give his response.)

"I suppose I should have known you wouldn't get me a rose, of course," Sherlock said, giving a dry laugh. "Why would you have any reason to give me a rose?"

"If I'm the delivery woman, then I suppose I'm the one to give you a rose," Emma said. "There has to be a sender, though."

"It's from the Woman, then," Sherlock noted. "She wouldn't dare appear here herself, so she sent you in her stead...but, of course, that means you must have been in contact with her to begin with. I thought you would have banished her from your mind and life entirely."