Isabella Marie Swan ✝ &quot;Juliet&quot;

She gets through that sequence, and the next one, improving almost as fast as she did the first time she started sparring with Sherlock and modifying her instincts in this way - with him alone her progress slowed down as low-hanging fruit was picked, but now apparently there is much more. "Now we just need to find a third vampire or otherwise durable Sherlock to join the party," she says, after meditating over another edit. "I'd get amazing. Maybe Shell Bell should stick her head out the door humming to herself for several hours to see if hers will wake."

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"If she has not already gone home," says Sherlock.

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"I think Shell Bell would drop by to hug us goodbye before going home. It hasn't been that long, she could be a while writing up notes or she could've run into somebody. But it would be about as unfair to make her stand there for hours as it would be to insist on breaking her arm."

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"...Would breaking her arm have some beneficial effect of which I am unaware?"

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"Oh. Shell Bell and a few others of us, but not me, have a form of magic native to Stella's universe, and it involves converting pain into wishes, which is really convenient if you have a masochistic significant other, which is also a fairly common Bell commodity. Different amounts of pain produce different size wishes. Shell Bell can make squares - she made me a whole lot of squares while she was visiting - but she'd be very unhappy about having to make a pentagon by, for example, breaking her arm. And she certainly can't make a hexagon, which is what it would take to turn me or my Sherlock into mints. A pentagon would be enough to wake up Shell Bell's Sherlock and get her to teleport in for some happier coinmaking, but I'm not going to torture my alt for magic."

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"I see."

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As if summoned, Shell Bell appears. "All written up," she tells Juliet. "Are you folks having fun?"

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"Oh, yes."

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"Well, there was no one in the Belltower, so I think I'm going to go home," says Shell Bell, "but first a proper goodbye, hm? I've already been to bid Tony goodbye." She holds out her arms to Juliet, and gets a hug, and then she turns to the soulless Sherlock; presuming this also yields an embrace, she offers one to his souled counterpart.

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Hugs all round.

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"Bye all! I'll see you later if I do and remember you always if I don't!" says Shell Bell, and she teleports to the door and lets herself out and goes straight to where her sleeping Sherlock and her sleeping Tony are being their sleeping selves and joins the pile.

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"Another round?" says Sherlock to Juliet.

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"Of course," she says, and she's improved enough that she takes offense this time as self-handicap and education-rounding.

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Meanwhile, Shell Bell determines by brainphone that there is nothing urgent going on in Atlantis, and settles in for a one-hour nap once she has found a comfortable spot curled up behind Sherlock and with her arm over both twins.

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sicaria

Sherlock snuggles back against her in her sleep.

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Milliways's time-fuckery means that there is no point to waking them and asking Tony to summon the door. Even if he got it on the first try, Juliet would be gone; they have just as good a chance of catching her on any future visit they may make. So have all the other minted Bells, which according to the guestbook is everyone except Juliet now, and at least one other Bell whose Whistle has visited but who hasn't been by herself. Even Golden now; she's taken the Joker home with her for the purpose.

She lets them both sleep as long as they like, and kisses her girlfriend's cheek when her hour's nap is up before she gets up to go about being the Empress of Atlantis.

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For certain values of "meanwhile", meanwhile, Juliet spars with Sherlocks. It is tremendously educational. "Hey, with-soul - is there something else I could call you to distinguish you from my Sherlock? He's 'Romeo' until something better comes to mind, to match my 'Juliet' - how constrained is your time here? Or for that matter not-here? You're useful."

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"My time is not particularly constrained," he says, "except by my desire not to be outside when the sun comes up."

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"Plus and Minus," Sherlock suggests whimsically.

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Sherlock laughs.

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"I don't know exactly what the sun's schedule at Milliways looks like," confesses Juliet. "But the house that Jarvis is at home is sunproof in the basement - if it's not terribly rude of me to invite a guest to a place that I don't live myself - and, since Jarvis is there now, you could leave at your leisure. Plus," she adds, giggling. "Minus, what do you think?"

(She's going to keep these nicknames straight more by leaning on the mine in "Minus" than by dwelling on who does and does not have a soul.)

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"Sounds like fun," says Plus.

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"Jarvis would love the company," says Minus.

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