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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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"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."

That's - an obnoxiously specific answer. The kind she might expect him to give someone who wasn't paying attention.

"What particular?" she asks. "He didn't send a vampire gang after you? Or he sent something else after you?"

Sherlock is at least not denying that Obadiah was the type to send something lethal after someone.

"Assassins, on at least two separate occasions. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be coy."

Bella wrinkles her nose, pushing her irritation away. Perhaps the phrasing he used wasn't too difficult to follow, if you're Sherlock Holmes.

"It's okay, I misunderstood.

"Assassins." She thinks back on what she learned about Stane and his relation to the Stark family, both personal and professional, during her research into the Starks. She hadn't prioritized any of that, but it had stayed with her.

Bella isn't very good at forgetting things that are relevant to information she's been especially focused on these days.

"After Tony. You would have been collateral damage."

And, in his double's case, inexcusably ill-considered and stupid collateral damage. Had that Obadiah Stane wanted to die horribly?

She does not bother to try and keep that line of thought off her face.

Edited 2016-10-26 15:49 (UTC)

"Yes. I imagine the other Obadiah did not actually instruct the vampire gang to turn the other Sherlock, unless he was going for some overelaborate revenge tragedy scenario where the vampire Sherlock tortures Tony to death, and I don't believe that would appeal to him at all."

"The lesson here," Bella remarks, "seems to be that anyone who wants Tony dead had better be ready to see to it themselves.

". . . I'm glad he's no longer a threat."

And that he doesn't seem to have been much more competent in regards to assassination than his double had been.

He smiles slightly at the first part, and nods to the second.

"As am I. Ah... it would be kind of you to avoid bringing up Obadiah's darker nature around Tony. I was on the point of telling Tony about my accumulated suspicions when Obadiah got himself sucked into Hell and rendered the point moot. Since then it's seemed like telling him would only cause him a great deal of pain to no good purpose."

Bella cannot imagine not wanting to know something like that herself; it is a fairly important thing to know about someone, not to mention the time and energy that would be saved on grieving for a person who did not deserve it.

But she also knows very well that not everyone is her, and not everyone wants to know the things she would want to know. Not to mention that Sherlock knows, probably better than anyone, what Tony can handle and what he can't, and if Sherlock of all people is advocating keeping something like this secret . . .

Bella nods.

"I won't say a word to him," she promises.

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

Bella glances out the nearest window. It's late in the year and the days are getting shorter, but they're not that short yet; there's still plenty of time until sunset.

And far too much time until Charlie gets home.

"That entity," she says suddenly, looking back at Sherlock. "Is there anything I'm - more equipped to know about it now than I was before?"

She doesn't think he held anything back, but even just hearing the same things again could be useful now that she has a better context for them.

"...It calls itself the First Evil and I have no way of verifying the truth or falsehood of that claim," he says. "It's known to have approximately the set of abilities I described to you: it is completely insubstantial and can mimic the voice and form of any dead person, but its impersonations are often flawed. Mr Mayer - he is well-informed about these matters - tells me that the best defense he's heard of is ignoring it until it goes away. Easier said."

Bella blinks at the mention of Mr Mayer's name - the most interesting thing about him up until now has been the link between has accent and Sherlock's. He's an adequate teacher, not the worst she's had and certainly not the best, friendly enough with his students, and never seems to be around to answer questions between classes.

She is just going to have to find a way to ask him questions anyway. There's no reason for Sherlock to be her only resource if she has access to another.

"Yes," she says, "that doesn't seem as though it would have been very effective for any of you."

(It pretended to be my dad, was all Cal Chandler had been willing to say about his experience, more interested in fiddling with a lighter than meeting her eyes, and she had had to be content with that.)

"It could at least be partially filtered out. Headphones with the music turned up."

"A reasonable strategy in theory, but... somehow I doubt I could manage it, myself."

Bella isn't much surprised to hear that; she remembers the state he'd been in when he'd first told her about his encounter.

"You could consider it practice," she suggests. "Beginning to teach your subconscious that an entity that cannot physically harm you doesn't suddenly become dangerous just because your full awareness isn't focused on it."

A first step toward getting rid of that fear of being watched sleeping that he has.

"I see what you mean," he says. "I'll think about it. Or - whatever it is people say when they mean they are actually going to think about something. Perhaps there isn't such a phrase."

"I don't know if there is," Bella says, "but when you say it, I'm inclined to believe that you mean it."

He smiles at her.

And then -

"Did you have any further observations about my vampire double?"

Bella pauses for a second to reorganize her thoughts back in that direction.

"He didn't have that scar," she says, gesturing to her own neck, "which I take it means that it's a product of Sunnydale."

She will actually ask about it at some point, now that she has an idea of its origin, but not right this second. For now, she sticks with the topic at hand, admitting,

"I didn't look for other scars; it wasn't foremost on my mind. I didn't actually realize it wasn't there until I saw yours.

"He also dressed very differently. More" - she pauses to search her vocabulary; a lot of people would probably go with flamboyantly, but it isn't quite the word she wants - "dramatically. Like he didn't have to dress with practicality in mind, but didn't want to go full Creature of the Night, either. Black leather and purplish-grayish silk, tight jeans. Knee-high boots."

. . . which, come to think of it, she had really liked. She's never given knee-high boots much thought, but they wouldn't be nearly as terrible an idea in Sunnydale as they would in Phoenix, would they? She has a lot more sartorial options available to her now.

"He also . . ." There's something else, something intangible about the smile and the clothes and the way he'd confirmed his identity. "When I said who he was, he said, 'In a manner of speaking, yes.' He was - performative."

That's the word she wants, or if it isn't, then the word she wants either isn't in her vocabulary or just doesn't exist.

"He was performing Sherlock Holmes, but also - not. You don't perform Sherlock, you just are. Maybe that continuity you mentioned isn't as concrete as he'd like it to be."

She sighs a bit, because that still doesn't feel quite right. It's hard to analyze other people properly without her notebooks.

Edited 2016-10-26 22:08 (UTC)

"Hmm," muses Sherlock. "'In a manner of speaking'... there are a number of possibilities lurking behind that phrase and I am not at all sure which one is the reality. It could be that he feels more distant from the identity of Sherlock Holmes because he is not quite the same person who chose it; it could be a way of obliquely acknowledging that he doesn't think he's quite the Sherlock you're looking for; it could be some sort of private joke that I don't have enough context to fully pick up on; it could be any combination of those things."

"He was exactly the Sherlock I was looking for," Bella objects, "because he was the one I was speaking to."

Which she knows isn't quite what Sherlock meant, but - ugh. She hates not knowing things.

"I'll pay closer attention if I run into him again. At least I won't be distracted by any vampire-related revelations."

"Even distracted, your observations were useful," he says.

Bella relaxes, smiling a little.

"Thanks," she says, then,

"You are going to be very good for my observational skills."

She can only hone her skills by herself so much. Having someone to keep up with is going to be a whole different story.

He grins.

Bella grins back, and allows herself to enjoy the moment.

"So how did you get that scar?" Someone else would tack if you don't mind my asking onto that question; Bella doesn't bother. If he minds her asking, he won't be offended, he'll just tell her.

Bella understands the role and importance of niceties in society, but she's finding that she really enjoys having a friend she can just skip them all with.