Russell watched Charlotte's slightly hurried retreating figure and asked nothing. He simply followed her in silence.
He could tell she had something she wanted to say.
But every time the words reached her lips, she swallowed them back down.
It didn't really matter.
If she wouldn't say it, he wouldn't ask. Whenever she felt like telling him, she would come out with it on her own.
Until then, all he had to do was wait.
It was a kind of unspoken understanding.
The two of them kept walking, and after a while the familiar outline of Baker Street finally appeared at the far end of their view.
When they stopped in front of 221B, they were surprised to find that Mrs. Hudson had left the door for them.
It wasn't locked, only pushed to.
Through the gap, they could just make out the light seeping from the sitting room, warm and bright.
Russell reached out carefully and eased the door open, meaning to slip inside quietly so as not to wake Mrs. Hudson, who was probably already asleep.
But he had barely set one foot over the threshold when Mrs. Hudson's voice, thick with drowsiness, drifted out from the sitting room.
"Russell? Charlotte? Is that you two, back at last?"
Both of them stopped mid-step at the sound. Then Mrs. Hudson leaned her head out of the sitting room, two cups of hot milk in her hands.
"Mrs. Hudson," Russell said, taken aback, "you're still up?"
"I couldn't sleep, child." Mrs. Hudson yawned and came over to him.
"Lestrade rang me. He said the pair of you had gone and got yourselves into trouble again. How on earth was I supposed to sleep after that?"
Still grumbling, she pressed the milk into their hands.
"Go on, drink up. It'll warm you through."
Russell and Charlotte took the cups, and Russell said, "Sorry. We made you worry."
"At least you know it," Mrs. Hudson said tartly. Then her gaze settled on Russell.
When she got a proper look at his filthy clothes and caught the strange smell coming off him, her brows knitted together again.
"Good Lord, Russell, what wine cellar did you fall into?"
"Er... a small accident," Russell said with a rueful smile.
"Go and have a hot bath, then put on something clean."
The old woman shooed him along, her voice full of fussing concern.
"I've kept the fire going in the hearth. Get yourselves warm by it, and don't catch cold."
Russell murmured his agreement and went briskly up the stairs.
By the time he came back down, washed, Charlotte was still sitting on the sofa in the sitting room, facing the fire.
She had changed into that oversized dressing gown of hers, and she cradled the hot milk in both hands, sipping at it in small mouthfuls.
The flames in the hearth danced, throwing shifting light and shadow across her pale face.
She glanced up when Russell appeared, but said nothing.
He walked straight over and sat on the sofa beside her, tilting his head toward the fire to dry his hair faster.
"So," Russell said, still leaning forward, eyes on the carpet, "what was it you wanted to say earlier?"
Charlotte's hand paused around her cup.
She didn't look at him. She only lifted the milk to her lips and took a quiet sip.
"Nothing."
"Really?"
Charlotte was silent for a moment. Then she raised her head, and her gaze came to rest on him.
His back was to her, his head lowered, his face hidden.
Which cut both ways. She couldn't see him, and he couldn't see her.
She couldn't see his expression, and he had no way of seeing her eyes.
They were very bright. Brighter than the firelight.
She stared at him without blinking, as though she meant to lock him away inside them.
"Next time..."
Charlotte began slowly, her voice soft, like something she had hesitated over and rehearsed for a long while before finally letting it out.
"Don't take that kind of risk."
Russell blinked, then explained without thinking, "He was hiding in the dark. I reacted about as fast as anyone could have..."
"That isn't what I mean," Charlotte cut in.
"I'm talking about the cellar. When Pilsen had that gun pointed at both of us."
"Oh. That." Russell paused. "Don't worry. I knew what I was doing."
"You call that knowing what you're doing?" The girl's voice rose a notch.
"Pilsen had a gun. He had a knife. He was an old soldier. And you just charged straight at him. If something had..."
She stopped halfway through.
"If something had what?" Russell lifted his head and turned to look at her.
Charlotte pressed her lips together and didn't answer. She turned her face aside instead, pretending to watch the flames leaping in the hearth.
She didn't want to admit that the moment she saw Pilsen draw the gun, her heart had skipped half a beat.
Nor that when Russell threw himself forward without hesitation to draw the fire, her mind had gone blank for one whole instant.
And least of all that when the shot rang out, she had almost stopped breathing.
But he had dodged it.
The bullet had only grazed the hem of his coat. It hadn't truly touched him at all.
"There won't be any 'if something had.'"
Russell's voice came from beside her, gentle and utterly certain.
"Try trusting me just once. How about it?"
He was looking at her, smiling.
Charlotte turned back and met those black eyes of his.
She looked at him, at her own reflection in them. Those eyes, always so lazy and offhand, were full of nothing but seriousness now.
As if what he had just said wasn't some hollow scrap of comfort, but a promise she really could believe in without condition.
Charlotte's lips parted. She wanted to say something, to answer that promise somehow.
"All right."
In the end, that was all she managed to force out of her throat, and then she looked away again.
It was a poor answer. There were probably better ones, more fitting ones.
But she couldn't think of any just then, and even if she had, she wasn't sure she could have said them aloud.
Russell watched her, laughed softly, and stood up.
"Get some rest," he said, and stretched.
"Mm," Charlotte answered, without turning around.
"Goodnight, then."
With that, he turned and walked toward the stairs.
His footsteps were light. So light that Charlotte never noticed the moment he went up.
Only the sound of a door closing told her that Russell had gone back to his room.
The sitting room belonged to her alone now.
She sat quietly before the hearth, holding the cup of milk that had already cooled, until everything settled back into silence.
The last ember in the fireplace flickered once in the dark, then went out completely.
Only then did she slowly lift the cup and drink it down in one go.
The girl murmured, so softly that perhaps only she could hear it.
"Goodnight."
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