Flickering Light

Disclaimer: I do not own these wonderful characters. They belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and, in this case, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. What also belong to them are the small references to The Reichenbach Fall. Thank you so much BBC! I owe them so much for bringing these characters to my life! The story however is completely made up!

A/n: this is the sequel to my first story Shadows so if you are reading this and haven't read my other story, I would strongly recommend you did. I will be referring to it often and it will stop you getting confused. However you can just read this one if you want to, I think I finished Shadows in a way that it doesn't really matter much.

But anyway! Here is the sequel as promised guys! I really hope it was worth it and you enjoy the first chapter! X

Chapter 1- The Letters from No-one

JW

It started with the letters.

Well, actually, no, it started with Mycroft's phone call- Sebastian Moran had escaped.
But after then, a week after then, that's when it really started.
That's when the letters had started appearing.

The first one came the week after I was released from the hospital, and after limping back to our flat carrying that week's groceries, I'd spotted it stuffed rather roughly in the letter box. I remember being curious, dropping the Tesco's bags on the floor and pulling it out, unfolding it, squinting at the barely legible words.

Burn you.

Needless to say it sent shivers down the length of my spine, and brought back more than enough painful reminders.
I'd ran up the stairs as quickly as my injured thigh could allow, shopping swinging painfully from my wrists.
"Sherlock!" I'd yelled at the empty room, waving the paper around wildly, "Sherlock I've found something!"
And he'd appeared from his bedroom, immediately snatching the paper from me. He'd unfolded it; stared at the words, face impassive.
"What is it?" I'd asked, shaken.
"A warning,"
And he'd tossed it in the bin without a backwards glance. I didn't manage to get anything else out of him for the rest of the day, and spent most of it putting the shopping away and reading the newspaper for the umpteenth time.

The second one Sherlock had found, exactly a week later. I had just come out of the shower and got dressed and I remember hearing him swear quietly from his place at the kitchen table.

"What is it?" I'd asked sharply, going over to him.

"Nothing," he'd said quickly, I'd seen his hands move, and my eyes had zeroed in on the piece of crinkled paper he was holding in them.

"What's that?"

Before I could look at it, he'd thrown that one in the bin too.

But I'd fished it out later.

The same words.

Burn you.

By the time the third one came, I was seriously worried. It had been found in my bedroom, on the bedside cabinet. The same words.

Burn you.

We knew who it was, Sebastian Moran. And we had a pretty good idea why he was doing it. It was just unnerving. Like being in the dark, flinching at every noise you heard. With every one, he was getting closer, more personal. The letter box, the kitchen, the bedside cabinet. Closer and closer. How the hell was he doing it?

I sat at the table, cradling a steaming cup of tea. The hot vapour warmed my face and was a relief from the sub- zero temperatures we were currently feeling in the flat, due to Sherlock 'accidently' blowing up the boiler in mid- winter.

I mean, really, Sherlock didn't just accidently blow things up. He's a bloody genius, for Christ sake! He knew exactly what he was doing when he added 10 grams of potassium to the water in the boiler. Even I knew that!

But, in any case, I'm freezing!

In front of me, the latest letter sat, the forth one, staring at the ceiling. We'd found it on Sherlock's pillow. I stared at it for a moment.
"What are we going to do Sherlock?" I said finally, my greatest worry finally coming through.
He looked up at me blankly, from where he sat opposite me. Well he thought it was blank. I knew him well enough to see the stress this was putting on him in his eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asked calmly, silvery eyes fixed on me. I sighed.
"You know bloody well what I mean, Sherlock," I indicated to the letters, "these! They're from Moran aren't they?"
Sherlock squeezed his eyes together.
"Most likely,"
"why are you so scared of him?" I wondered, eyes narrowed. That was one thing that struck me about the whole 'situation'. Sherlock was acting scared. And if anything, that was what scared me the most.
He glared, "I. am. Not. Scared,"
"what do you call this then?" I waved vaguely at the space around us, and feeling immediately stupid.
"this," he said, mimicking my hand movements, "Is air, mainly composed of oxygen, nitrogen and-"
"don't be a smart arse," I said through clenched teeth, my temper, a lot shorter than usual, coming to an abrupt end, "I can tell that you're worried!"
He sighed again, running a hand through his curls, "worried, a little, scared, absolutely not,"
"why?" I asked curiously. It was not like Sherlock to 'worry' about an escaped murderer. He usually hailed a break out, as a way of venting boredom.

Another reason why this situation made me uneasy.
I reached out; picked up the letter again. The words were the same as the others.

Burn you.

"He sounds like Moriarty," I mumble, suppressing a shudder.

"I think that's the idea," Sherlock said, snatching it from my hands. He crinkled it up into a ball, and launched it across the room to the bin. Amazingly, it went in perfectly, "he's trying to intimidate us, he wants to finish what Moriarty started,"

"What, destroy you?" I asked dubiously, "but you're still in hiding, sort of, most people still think you're -" I paused, swallowing painfully at the memory, "think you're dead," I finished in a whisper.

He glanced up at me, eyes haunted, but said nothing.

"What?" I felt incredibly self- conscious.

He appeared to be thinking, chewing on his lips.

"What?" I urged, irritated.

He shook his head minutely, "nothing,"

I stared at him for a moment, and then decided to drop it, knowing I wasn't going to get an answer. Sherlock got up from the table and headed across the room.

I sipped my tea gently. It was the perfect temperature now, and at least my fingers weren't frozen anymore. I silently cursed the lack of heating.

I looked down at the table again, to the space where the letter had sat. I thought back to the last three weeks, when it had all started. The worry, the uneasiness, Sherlock's strange silence.

"What are we going to do?" I repeated again, staring into my cup.

He was silent for ages; I started to wonder if he had left the room. But then:

"There's nothing we can do, not yet, but we will John, we will,"

A/n: Omg I'm actually scared at how this first chapter turned out! I hope that it's ok and that you enjoyed it! A review or two would be lovely! Just let me know what you think! Any ideas, comments, etc. are welcome! And I will try to stay in past tense this time (thanks for pointing that out in my last story alpacamama):D

Oh and please don't expect really fast updates like Shadows. This may take longer because I'm going to need to do lots and lots of revision for my maths exam in January.

Anyway, a review or two would be lovely! Xxx