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After that, there are two conversations Bella wants to have very possibly more than she has ever wanted a conversation in her life.

One of them is going to have to wait until Charlie gets home, and that will be hours yet. (It's also the one she wants to have the most, but there is very little she can or would do about that, so she is putting it very firmly aside for now. Just because she knows about vampires now doesn't mean Charlie is in any more danger than he has been every other night he's worked. There is no logical reason to try to drag him home now. She can and will wait.)

(She's always known his job was dangerous.)

Prior to Milliways showing up, Bella had just arrived home after dropping Sherlock off; giving him a ride from school when he wants one has become routine.

She jumps right back into her truck and very carefully does not speed on her way to the Stark residence.

The other conversation she wants, she can have right now.

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"Hard to say," he says. "With that sunset curfew of his, he's at least paying more attention than most people. I don't know him well enough to say more."

"I'm going to talk to him tonight," she says firmly. "As soon as he gets home."

If, somehow, he doesn't know, then he will very soon. She doesn't have any actual evidence of her own, but then, she shouldn't need it. Charlie's entire job is evidence enough.

If he doesn't know, she will fix it.

Bella grew up with Renee for a mother, after all. She's used to the idea of having to take care of her parent now and then.

He nods. "Good luck."

"Charlie is smart," she says. "It will be fine."

With Renee, maybe, that conversation would be a struggle, but Renee isn't sensible the way Charlie is. It's one of the reasons their marriage didn't last.

"So of course I have no intention of breaking curfew on purpose, but in case of circumstances outside my control, what else do I need to know to defend myself?"

(Her gaze flicks, briefly and without her permission, to Sherlock's scar.)

He takes a laser pointer out of his pocket and offers it to her.

"This is an ultraviolet laser. Shine it on a vampire's bare skin and they will catch fire. If they don't manage to put themselves out within a few seconds, which they almost never do, they'll go up in smoke. A vampire cannot enter a living person's home without an explicit verbal invitation from a resident, but once invited can return freely afterward until disinvited by an expensive and tedious ritual. They find crosses aversive and are scalded by holy water. I abstain from commenting on the theological implications."

Bella accepts the laser, studying it with interest.

(Unlike the last person Sherlock gave one to, she does not need to be warned that shining it into her eyes would be unwise.)

What an impressively useful thing to have.

"Thank you," she says.

. . . judging from her expression a few seconds later, she also has no use for theological implications.

"It would be interesting to know why it works that way, though."

"Wouldn't it just," he agrees.

Edited 2016-10-26 02:44 (UTC)

She gives him a little smile.

"I guess we'll have to figure it out."

With the afternoon she's had, the idea of researching the effects of Christian symbolism on vampires and why those effects exists seems almost normal.

Her definition of normal has become very flexible as of late.

...he grins.

"Do let's."

She grins back, suddenly feeling much better about - well.

Everything.

(Speculating on the timing of that coinciding with the timing of Sherlock's smile is going to have to wait for the relevant journal entry.)

"If you'd like more information about all this supernatural nonsense, I have plenty available. I could email it to you."

"I would appreciate that," she says promptly.

"Did you gather it all yourself, or did you have other sources as well?"

It would be helpful if she had an idea of where to start looking.

Edited 2016-10-26 03:00 (UTC)

"I'll include all the citations where applicable."

"Thank you."

How useful. Sherlock really is the best friend she could have made here.

"Delighted to be of service," he says, unintentionally echoing his alt's phrasing.

Bella laughs a little.

"I thanked your double for giving me the last piece I needed to figure out about vampires. Or, to realize what I already knew, anyway. He said the same thing."

"Well, we are in a sense the same person, after all."

"Yeah. I guess I might have expected -"

She shakes her head a little.

"Even without the vampire thing. Cal's double was pretty different from him." (Even without the gender thing.) "And yours seemed different enough at first that I almost wasn't sure for a few seconds. With different realities being different, it would make sense for the people to be more different too."

"How similar was he? What are your observations?"

"Physically identical," she says, "at least in terms of -"

What's the best phrasing?

"- inherited characteristics."

She'll get to the differences (another unintentional glance at his scar) in a minute.

"His mannerisms were the same too, adjusting for how much more graceful he is as a vampire. The accent was the same - no," she corrects herself, tilting her head slightly in thought. "Almost the same. Yours sounds just slightly more like Mr Mayer."

She'd had rather more important things to think about once he'd sat down, and the difference really was very subtle. Not something a person - or at least, not something she could pick up on from a sentence or two.

But she has time to think about it now, and that difference was definitely there.

Edited 2016-10-26 03:38 (UTC)

"...oh, fascinating," he says.

She thinks so too. She's known from the start that he used Mr Mayer as one of however many models for his accent.

"He didn't know me," she says thoughtfully. "I didn't think to ask about Cal, I really should have - maybe he and his Tony never came to Sunnydale?"

There isn't just one difference between their realities, necessarily, but that could potentially be a very big one.

Never mind that it's entirely reasonable that it never occurred to her, she still wishes she'd asked.

"That would certainly explain the lack of you or Mr Mayer in his life."

"And if his reality's Obadiah Stane wasn't here to get sucked into hell -" she begins, then cuts herself off.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm assuming yours was the type to send a vampire gang after you without having known him."

Not two minutes after talking about the differences she'd expect between doubles, too. She supposes she can forgive herself for such sloppiness after the afternoon she's had, but she'll have to watch herself to avoid any relapse. For all she knows, this reality's Obadiah Stane was a perfect gentleman.

. . . unlikely, given Sherlock's lack of perturbation over his fate. But still. That by itself hardly tells her everything about the man. A person can be highly unpleasant without also being a potential murderer.

"He did not send a vampire gang after us," he says, "in particular."