"Go on, then."
It was meant to be a gentle urge, but he heard the impatience nonetheless-heard the rubbing of fabric against fabric that meant his leg was bouncing with restless energy. He didn't move from his stance at the window, nor did he stop fiddling with the strings of the violin he hadn't touched in months, but he didn't have to in order to feel the pair of eyes boring holes into the back of his head. People tended to do that.
"Sherlock."
Ah. There was the quiet plea, the I'm here for you, let me in. He regretted giving in to his friend's attempt at therapy, but it had seemed the only way to get him to shut up at the time. He regretted making friends at all, let alone growing to love another person to the degree that he loved John. Hadn't he learned his lesson on that subject during primary school?
But John Watson was going to get his way—because that was what he did—so Sherlock reluctantly lowered his violin and turned to where the doctor was sitting in his chair, that look of eternal patience and concern plastered on his face in a way that made Sherlock feel like a child attempting to explain where it hurt to the pediatrician.
"You've read my file. You know what happened." He stated curtly, knowing even as he spoke that it wouldn't be enough to make John go away.
But the older man reached under his chair and brought out a thick file folder with the words "Collateral Damage" scrawled across the front. It landed with a dull thud on the coffee table between them. Unopened. Untouched.
Sherlock glanced from the folder to John's face and back. His side of the story, then. He should have guessed as much.
"I don't want to read something some other bloke wrote about what my best friend went through," John said with the determination that usually accompanied a case. "I want to hear it from you, and don't spare me the details."
"You realize that this is putting me in a situation in which I am highly uncomfortable—" Sherlock started.
"Only because you don't like dealing with emotions," John fired back.
"I do not—"
"Don't say it." There was a warning in his tone now. "Don't even say it."
Regret seeped into Sherlock's mind once more; the memory of John's face when the doctor had discovered him in a state of considerable malnutrition and exhaustion flashed across his vision and he internally cursed himself for allowing his friend to see that. What John didn't understand was that simply because dwelling on the details of his most recent "case" had led him to neglect his bodily necessities for longer than was per usual did not mean that there was any emotion attached to the incident. He was gripping the back of the nearest chair now, so hard that his knuckles had turned white because he did not feel it he did not he did not he did not.
Collateral damage.
"Is that what they're calling it nowadays?" he asked, slowly releasing his grip on the chair back and settling into the one across from John instead. He watched the older man's brow furrow for a moment, but then he glanced at the name printed on the file cover and comprehension dawned without having to ask.
"So it was more important, then," he prompted.
Sherlock was silent for a moment, stretching out his senses so that he could hear Mrs. Hudson making her fourth cup of tea downstairs and the couple arguing across the street about who was supposed to pick up the dry cleaning, voices drifting up into the air to twist with the ever-present smell of carbon dioxide emissions from some enormous truck or another. London was constantly in motion, making it so easy to be swept away and forget that just a month ago the sound of car horns was replaced with the sound of gunshots.
"She wasn't collateral damage," the words spilled from his mouth before he was conscious of them, dragging him back to the flat where the man he never thought he'd see again was waiting for him to speak. He watched John's eyebrows reach for his hairline as he spoke.
"She?" he repeated, probably without meaning to.
Sherlock ran a hand over his face; a habit he had picked up from John whenever they were working on a particularly stressful case. With her name rose a lump that he had only felt once before in his life—while talking to John through the phone while standing on the roof of Bart's Hospital.
...
"Lily Brimmings."
342536unmarriedorphanoldersisteronecatanxietyperfectmarksmanshipdoctorwhofanblackbelttrainedassassindemocrat20/20childhoodleukemiasecrettattoo-"Sorry, what?"
"Do try and focus, Mr. Holmes," An unmarried man with two small dogs and diabetes was glaring at him from behind spectacles, and Sherlock very nearly wrinkled his nose. He had recently developed and inexplicable hatred for spectacles. "I was just introducing you to one of our finest agents. This is your partner for this mission, Lily Brimmings."
Lily Brimmings. Orphaned as a teenager from a relatively affluent family with a public school education and singing lessons. Staring at him—no, calculating him—with violently blue eyes and bright blonde hair that suggested Russian—no, Scandinavian—descent.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes," a false English accent meant easily fluctuated identity and creases in the shirt at the ribs and wrists suggested a recent bout of deskwork. A trained assassin—one of their "finest agents"—doing deskwork?
Violation of protocol. Recently taken out of the field only to be put back in on a fatal mission.
"I was under the impression that I was to take on a one-man mission," he said to Spectacles, ignoring her. She had been holding out a hand for him to shake, but she dropped it now, blinking a couple times. Oh, right, that was probably rude.
"Ah," Spectacles replied, shifting uncomfortably and withdrawing a handkerchief from the same pocket in which he kept his inhaler, "Yes, well, the circumstances have changed. I'm sure you're used to hearing that."
So he knew, then, that the assignment was to prove fatal to both of them. What could she have messed up so badly that she had been selected to die where she needn't?
"Anyway," clearly uncomfortable, Spectacles beckoned them over to the nearest computer, where he swiftly brought up the floor plans to what appeared to be a grandiose hotel somewhere deep in Eastern Europe. Head of an organized crime associated with a tendency towards terrorism would be staying there for the next month; apprehend him and bring him in for questioning.
"That simple, yeah?" Lily muttered, lips twisting in the manner of someone fighting a smile.
Spectacles shot her a look and said, "We're putting our faith in you two to make it so," before carrying on with his wealth of useless information. They would lie in wait for a few days, make their move, fail, and be captured within two weeks.
Sherlock wasn't listening, staring at her expression of rapt attention and wondering what it would look like when it fell slack with death. The way Magnussen's head had snapped back with the impact of the bullet played over and over in his mind's eye. He'd known that killing the bastard would bring about his own death, and he'd do it again, given the chance.
But it was meant to just be him, not a petite blonde killing machine who had an actual life to live with actual good to do. Sherlock Holmes had earned himself a reputation of sorts for his self-destructive tendencies. Now, despite the desperate efforts on the part of the good doctor to stop the inevitable, said habits had effectively linked around him like chains, and there was nothing left to do but face his impending demise with as much composure as possible. But the knowledge that in leaping into the pits of hell he had unknowingly dragged someone else in with him made the task more difficult than he had anticipated. Imagining the look on John's face if he found that out was nearly enough to turn his stomach.
But John wouldn't find out, could never find out, and there was no use dwelling on the righteous indignation that would well up in the conscience his best friend was known for and had more than once accused Sherlock of lacking.
Crystalline blue eyes met his, and he nodded. They had a country to die for.
...
Author's Note:
Terribly sorry for any inaccuracies on any front; if you see any, let me know. I'm also vaguely terrified of adding in a new character where the preexisting ones are already perfection, so please feel free to comment on what you think of Lily thus far!