Welcome Back, Sherlock

It was a dark room, a room with only one long flickering light, an iron table and matching chair located God-knew where, and in the middle of it sat none other than Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective and, as luck would have it, it's only deceased consulting detective as well. But Sherlock Holmes was far from dead, and here he sat, waiting for whoever it was that had drugged him and locked him up in a concrete bunker.

He had long since been exonerated for his supposed crimes, originated by the very man whose network of underground criminal activities had continued to proceed despite his absence. James Moriarty had been a smart one, to be sure, but Sherlock Holmes had already established that he had out-witted the psychopath within his own homeless network. They had, after all, assisted him in the faking of his own death.

To be honest, he hadn't been back to London in some time, and Sherlock allowed himself to wonder if any of those in the network was behind this. He highly doubted it- he would never allow himself to be so careless- but every aspect of it had to be considered.

And, of course, every possible aspect he had been considering as fact flew out the window with the opening of a locked door and the sudden appearance of his very own brother.

"Lovely to see you again, Sherlock," Mycroft Holmes sighed drolly, sitting down in the seat opposite of his and leafing through a manilla envelope. He looked his younger brother up and down, taking in his disheveled appearance. "You look well."

"'You look well' 'Lovely to see you again, Sherlock', Good Lord Mycroft, cut the formalities!" Sherlock snapped, rolling his eyes and looking away in disgust. "We both know it's just an act."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow in amusement, ignoring the entrance of his assistant Anthea and the gun strapped to her hip. She was on her phone again, about what Mycroft didn't even want to know, but he was absolutely sure that if Anthea had her gun on her and didn't even greet him when she walked through the door something wrong. He turned back to Sherlock.

"Anthea, Sherlock. Sherlock, Anthea, my assistant."

"More like bodyguard," Sherlock snorted. "She's highly trained in Krav Maga and can take an armed guard down in three seconds, one and a half if he has weak knees."

Mycroft stared at him as Anthea looked up, nodded and returned to her phone. This obviously didn't trouble her as much as it troubled him. "How did you know that?"

His brother shrugged. "It doesn't take a genius to look past the pants suit and the gun." Mycroft frowned and returned to his file. "I assumed as much. That's why I hired her, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Obviously." Sherlock glared at his brother with open distaste. "What I don't know is why I'm here. I've been undercover two years Mycroft; that's half as long as we ignored each others existence. You didn't miss me, did you?"

At this Mycroft Holes became quite nervous, and he folded up the file before sliding it across the desks. "People are dying Sherlock," he said simply, swallowing hard. "Good people, innocent people. All over London, once a week. Twice if he's feeling lucky. There aren't bodies, only blood, and there's too much of it for them to still be alive. He's slaughtering them, Sherlock, like animals-"

"And who is he?" Sherlock wasn't amused. "Mycroft, I'm the closest I've ever gotten to bringing down Moriarty's syndicate, and you have Anthea- which isn't her real name, by the way- drug me and drag me into a concrete bunker to talk. A serial killer can wait; this can't."

The elder Holmes sibling;s jaw dropped. "How did you know she-"

"It doesn't matter how I know. Now, if you don't mind, I'll be on my merry way." Sherlock stood up and walked towards the exit, but four simple words stopped him dead in his tracks.

"He almost killed Molly."

Sherlock's blood ran cold. He turned slowly on his heels and stared him down, trying to get a read in his play but accepting at once it was the truth after seeing to look in Mycroft's eyes. "Where is she?"

"Fine now, she's in our protective custody," Mycroft replied matter-of-factly. "The 'serial killer' as you so eloquently put it broke into the morgue after hours, tried to kill her with a serrated blade. Lestrade was handling the case before us, but after the attack happened and she came to us I took it over. The only reason she escaped was because she started carrying a revolver in her purse after she helped you die. Knows how to use it too, took one shot and nearly killed him. Got away of course, or else we wouldn't be coming to you..."

Sherlock let his brother drone on and on, but all he could think about was Molly Hooper with a gun in her hand, staring her would-be killer in the eyes with a calm expression on her face as she fired. He entertained the idea of a moment, and if the situation hadn't been so dire he would have laughed. "Good girl," he murmured. He turned back to Mycroft and crossed his arms definitively.

"If I come back, help you solve this, you never mention my name to anyone. No press, no outside contacts, not anything. I go right back where I came from, no exceptions."

"Agreed."

"What do you need me to do?"

Mycroft pushed a small notepad containing a simple address in his direction. "The killer, he sent this to us two weeks ago. He specifically asked for you."

The warehouse in SoHo was far more intimidating than the concrete bunker was, but Sherlock ignored the growing feeling of wariness and dread in the pit of his stomach. In earlier years he didn't have this feeling, whatever it was. Usually John had been the voice of reason, however irritating it was, always telling him that something was a bad idea and to go home or call the police or let the government do its job. He'd been underground for two years now, without John, and Sherlock supposed he had developed the conscience in his absence, a substitute for what couldn't be. He sometimes missed his old friend, and wondered where he was now. Probably married, maybe with a kid, dong nothing out of the ordinary and going on no such adventures.

Sherlock crept past several auxiliary pillars and continued on into the darkness, the shadows creeping up and clawing at his coat with their slender claws. What little light at the end of the row danced across the floor, its ruby red reflections smoothed over the surface of the ground and splattered in contrast to the walls.

But while there was light at the end of the warehouse hallway, it wasn't in the slightest bit red, and the moment Sherlock reached the point where it started he knew it was actually blood. There was a lot of it too, split all across the way like a thin silken blanket. Sherlock's stomach twisted, and he blinked slowly, trying to absorb it all.

"Mycroft was wrong,"he said to himself as he backed up away from the horrific sight before him. "This didn't start a year ago. That's too soon for all of this. He's been killing for months, at least two years. So much blood, so little time..."

"Well aren't you Captain Obvious?"

A sarcastic voice echoed through the rafters, snapping Sherlock to attention. The consulting detective whirled around to see a dark figure standing in the doorway, what little light was where outlining his frame. Sherlock stepped back and felt liquid brush up against his heel, and he did his best to ignore it. The figure laughed. "Didn't expect to see me so soon, did you?" he chuckled darkly. "That's fine, to be honest I really didn't expect to see you. It's funny how things work out, isn't it?"

Sherlock held his ground as the figure stepped forward, his face still hidden even though he made to attempt to the contrary. "Don't play games, you knew I would come. You went to all this effort to draw me out, what do you want?" He pulled a gun out of the folds of his coat and aimed it at the figure's heart, whom he was sure was now a man as he continued to approach him. "I'm armed."

The man just laughed, a maniacal, sophisticated sort of laugh that would send chills up your spine and ice over your heart. "I wouldn't expect anything less. Really, if you hadn't I would have been so very disappointed. This is more fun, wouldn't you agree?" A bloodied knife slid out into his hand, and he dangled it in between two stubby fingers as he continued to laugh. Sherlock adjusted his aim.

"You knew I was alive," he said loudly, as if challenging the man. He knew people like this; they wanted the fight, the final confrontation, a showmanship of their work, and to hell with him if he was going to give it to him. "You knew, and you killed all these people to lure me here. Do you think you can kill me too? Has it crossed your mind that perhaps you've finally outdone yourself, taken on something so unpredictable you can't master?"

"Oh, but I can!" the man replied haughtily, grinning and revealing a thin line of white teeth. "I've known all about you for quite a while. Knew you, in fact."

"I make it a point to never associate with murders like you," Sherlock's lip curled, his eyes narrowing sharply. "It doesn't suit me."

"And yet you managed to have an entire conversation with James Moriarty on a rooftop with complete and utter civility!" the man snapped back, the anger apparent in his voice. "And you jumped, even after he was dead, without even caring about what people thought about you after you were gone, what they'd say about the people you loved!"

Sherlock could hear the hurt, but for once in his life he couldn't place the voice. It was almost familiar, but it wasn't worth the bell, and Sherlock realized that if he was to get anywhere with this man he would have to play a game of cards. Still holding the gun, he turned completely towards the figure and looked him in the eyes. "Do I know you?"

Laughter again. "Now he asks the question! Oh, isn't this fun! Of course you did, have you forgotten so soon? Perhaps all that time away from Baker Street made you forget who you are, but I'm still as sane as the day you died!"

He finally stepped out into clear view, and Sherlock's blood ran cold. The gun shook violently in his hand, and he didn't even bother to steady it. The figure smiled darkly.

"I couldn't bear the thought of you being dead. For three years I thought everyday would be my last. So many times staring at my gun, then the rope, and the roof. But then I realized just how stupid it would be for me to take my own life, so stupid because I knew, deep down, you were alive. Out there, somewhere. I waited, I really did, but for some bloody reason that's beyond even me, you never came. So I decided to lure you back in the only way I knew how, and only thing that even you couldn't resist and only you would ever find. Funny thing is, I didn't expect Molly to know I was coming, and after your idiot of a brother got involved everything was all too easy for you, but hey, you're here now, aren't you?"

He waved his hand around the room, his eyes glittering savagely. "What better way than this?"

"No," Sherlock whispered, too shaken for words. "It can't be..."

The face of John Watson smirked, knife in hand, a pile of dead and decaying bodies lying at his feet. "Welcome back, Sherlock."

End

Written with the help of Abznormal and a Tumblr prompt. Hope you like it. I know John's really OOC here, but then again, that's kinda the point.

R&R!

Rellimmes