Crossing the bar

Summary: - Three days. That was how long it took for Molly Hooper to snap. On Wednesday afternoon Sherlock Holmes died, by Saturday morning he'd been told that he needed to find a new place to stay.

AN: - Now, I was going to wait before I published this story but I thought I'd test it out on you guys now rather than later. I've got more chapters all ready prepared (yet to be edited and nit-picked) and I'd just like to know if there's any point in publishing them really! Please review and tell me what you think, constructive criticism is always lovely!

Chapter one

"I'm not saying you have to get out immediately, just, well, I need my own space! Surely you can understand- Sherlock? Sherlock! What are you doing?"

"What?" Sherlock threw down his satchel- not very practical but the best he could find at short notice- and all his books slid to the floor. He span around to face Molly, "You said go! I'm going, see? I'm packing! Unless you'd like to keep my note books and wash bag?"

Moly frowned "You're just being childish, Sherlock." She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and pulled in her pale blue dressing gown, letting out a long slow breath. "Look," she started, softening her tone a little, in a desperate attempt to sound like the normal Molly Hooper instead of the three day baby sitter of an extremely sleep-deprived and irritable Sherlock. "Just stay one more night, get everything in order. Okay?"

Sherlock harrumphed and sat down the sofa, his make-shift bed, yet to actually be slept on. "Everything's as in order as it'll ever be."

She sighed again, now looking down on Sherlock. "Where will you go?"

A long pause.

"The homeless-"

"Sherlock, no. You cannot stay with your homeless network. You need somewhere to sleep, you need something to eat, you need-" she froze mid-sentence, what Sherlock needed wasn't as simple as food and a bed. What Sherlock needed was-

"Impossible." He looked up and met Molly's eyes "It's impossible. It's hard enough to find someone to house a fugitive in this city, I'm dead! I need to stay that way."

Now as she spoke her voice was barley a whisper. She wanted to help, god damn it, she wanted to help so bad, just- she couldn't. She couldn't watch John, and Mrs Hudson, and even bloody Mycroft suffer while she knew that the answer to their prayers was sat on her sofa, drinking her tea, chewing her biro's and very much still alive. "Forever?"

Even Sherlock didn't know the answer to that one. He looked down to his hands again and frowned, the flat was filled with the sound of his careful breathing; "It's not safe. It- Moriarty's men will kill… all of them."

She took a seat besides him and briefly considered taking his hand, before deciding the safest plan was to put it down besides him. "When will it be safe?" she keeps her voice level, the two of them had been skating around this topic for too long. "What, exactly, are you going to do?" she closes her eyes, not entirely sure that she wants to know the answer. "What's the plan?"

"Who says there's a plan?" after yet enough pause he look up to Molly's raised eyebrow and snorts, "Okay, okay." He digs into his coat pocket and pulls out a black Nokia C1-01, taken from his secret stash at home. You never know when you'll need to phone someone from something untraceable, and with a cheap one you can just throw it away once you're done. He flipped the phone over in his hands and frowned, "Do you really want to know?" She gave a small, slow nod and he reached down to pick up his notebooks. Two small black ones and a dark red one, "Three men, three assassins." he placed them on the coffee table as he spoke, leaving the red one until last. "They needed to see me jump- or at least have reason to believe they saw me jump. Otherwise they would kill them. Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, John." He tries to keep his voice level while saying John's name but it still gives a little, thankfully Molly pretends not to notice. "If they see me alive, they'll finish the job. They'll shoot, and I'm sure they would be more than happy to get me out of the way too. So, I need to- eradicate this danger.

"I have one name so far: Moran." The first black book. "Lestrade's assassin. It seems he's been working at the Yard for quite sometime now, a shame we haven't been formally introduced. In fact, I thought I might call by his house on Monday. Ask him a few question, maybe even take a little walk. After that, after that I'll deal with the other two. Then it will be safe." He paused and licked his lips, "It's a win, win situation. If I kill all three then everyone's safe, if one kills me that everyone's safe, too. Either way, he's safe."

Molly stays silent, she knows that to point out Sherlock's mistake in saying 'he' would be suicide, but she was finding it hard not to mention the matter at hand at all. She'd been struggling with it for days now. She spoke quietly and chose her words carefully; "What if they get to him first?"

Sherlock's head snapped up and he rose from the sofa, the room that had felt like it was dangling off a cliff's face now plummeted back down to earth and he spoke fiercely, loudly. "That won't happen. I won't let it. They will all stay safe, and alive, and this time I'm going to win." although he was facing away from Molly she could still see the anger building up inside of him, like a balloon about to burst any second. She opened her mouth to question him, to ask what he meant by winning, or perhaps how he was going to keep them safe, but she then shut it again quickly. She stared at Sherlock's shoulders as he remained facing the other way, breathing slowly and apparently trying to calm himself down. After a few minutes he turned back to her and shoved his book into the satchel, "Thank you, Molly Hooper, for your hospitality. However, I fear I've outstayed my welcome."

"Sherlock, I-" she didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could say. Was it too late to tell him to stay? She wanted to ask Sherlock where he planned on going, she wanted to tell him that attempting to kill three trained assassins completely alone was suicide, she wanted to explain to him that what John wanted wasn't to be safe and alive, but to see Sherlock again. She wanted to explain to him that it was what he wanted too.

But she couldn't, and she didn't. She just watched in stunned silence as Sherlock Holmes opened up her back door and started to descend silently down the fire escape. She let him go, and for this she knew she would never forgive herself.

An assistant walks in and places a cup of coffee down on the table, receiving no more than a simple hand wave in returns. For a brief moment she stares down at the four other mugs on the table, all now gone cold, before turning and leaving the room in silence, doing the job she was paid to do. Take messages, buy groceries, bring coffee, keep yourself to yourself, and most importantly, stay quiet. This is how it works with Mycroft Holmes, how it always had; however, lately it's become increasingly difficult to not comment at all as he sits in his chair and stares at this laptop screen as if it has wronged him, taking miniscule sips of coffee and eating only when his stomach rumbles enough for occupants of the next room to hear. He's been watching everything, everywhere. Waiting for Sherlock to appear from behind and old pretzel stand, or jump an elderly couple demanding they tell him everything. Because, you see, Sherlock wasn't dead. It just wasn't possible.

On Thursday afternoon, the day after his brothers supposed 'suicide' Mycroft informed the higher-up's (not that there are many people higher up than Mycroft) that he would be taking some time off. He didn't tell them why he would be taking this time, but simply said that he required his assistant to ensure he was always supplied with enough coffee and rich tea biscuits. Since then he hasn't moved from his arm chair as he watched security videos, checked out every email that could possible relate to Sherlock at all and listened to every single phone conversation of anyone and everyone related in any way to this brother. He needed something, anything. He needed proof that Sherlock was fine, he needed proof that he had not killed his brother.

Because really, it was his fault, wasn't it?

Mycroft didn't stop looking, not for one moment. He stayed exactly where he was for the best part of four days, appearing to be physically disgusted with himself each tome he took a comfort break or accidentally dozed off. Early Monday evening, his resilience was rewarded.

Around six o'clock his assistant, Amanda, burst into the room with a DVD in her hand. "There's been some vandalism, the CCTV footage was on its way over to the police but I thought you might want to take a look first." She placed the DVD on the table and left as quickly as she came, Mycroft inserted the DVD into the drive and sat back in his chair as the image of Sherlock's grave appeared on the screen, the digital clock in the corner read 4:55. A tall slim figure (around 6") appeared on the screen carrying a Beretta 92FS Inox, odd, a gun isn't normally one's first choice of weapon for a spot of vandalism. The figure, clearly a man (Mycroft refuses to think the impossible, not until he's certain), raises his gun and shoots the stone three times, changing what originally read 'Sherlock Holmes' to 'Sh- -mes'. The figure than dug around in the ground to retrieve the bullets before turning to leave, just at the last minute changing his mind and turning back to the camera. Mycroft sucks in a breath sharply as him brother stares down at him and points at the grounds keepers' house. Then, he runs.

The message is simple; Sherlock is at the cemetery, and he wants Mycroft to come get him.

Mycroft calls for a car then gets in quickly, usually he'd leave a job like this to Amanda, but this time it was different and everyone knew it. It was quarter past seven by the time Mycroft pulled into the cemetery, not only has he threwn the driver out but he'd taken all of the back roads due to paranoia. He parked the car then jumped out, remembering not to the lock the doors behind him. He strode up the front door of the grounds keeper's house and knocked three times, beaming at the little old man as he opened the door.

"Good evening!" he positioned his body so that the man couldn't see the car and tried to sound as carefree and normal as possible, unfortunately he wasn't as good at acting as his brother. "I'm Mycroft Holmes, and I was just passing by when I thought I'd pop in to see my brother." He laughed, as if visiting one's dead brother was even better than going to the cinema. "But, idiot that I am, I can't seem to find him anywhere?"

The man went quite purple. "I, er, there was an, er… incident. I could, er, show you, er where he's buried, er…"

Mycroft frowned for a moment, as if thinking really hard, then shrugged. "Oh, no, never mind. He was always a complete git anyway. Sorry to bother you!" the old mans eyes grew to the size of saucers and he started to stutter a response as Mycroft simply turned and walked away. He sat down in the driver's seat and started to head towards his house, once again, taking the back roads. The car was silent for the entire journey and Mycroft started to doubt anyone was actually in the car with him, but sure enough as he walked up the drive he heard steps behind his, and the minute the front door was locked his visitor spoke.

"I really don't think that you going around telling people I'm a git is particularly advantageous to either of us, Mycroft." He smirked and turned to face his brother, eyes widening at the state of him. He has large bags under his eyes, making his face even more peculiar looking and angular than usual, his shirt had only two buttons remaining and the bottom of this left trouser has been torn off, revealing his bloodied leg. From the looks of it Sherlock hadn't eaten or slept properly since his 'death' (and probably not much in the days leading up to it either) and had recently had a run in with someone dangerous, the question was, who? Sherlock spoke again, clearly reading his brothers mind. "I went to visit a friend of Jim's today, some Sebastian Moran. He's been working at Scotland Yard for four months. Thing is," Sherlock grimaced "He's not there anymore. Not at his house- he's nowhere. Gone. Just like that." He waved at his left leg and Mycroft took a closer look; it wasn't blood, it had been burnt. Badly. "I decided to take a look around his house, see if I could find anything suggesting where he might have gone. Then I smelt something. Gasoline. The whole house went up, I got out by the scrap of my teeth. I was being careless and I got caught. He grabbed me by my shirt, I threw a punch, he shoved me towards the house. My leg got too close to the fire, but he was absolutely fine. I got burnt but he got… nothing. I had a gun, damn it. A gun!" he threw his coat down and sat on the first chair available. Mycroft ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth.

"Why me?"

"You're my brother."

"Why me?"

"I can't fight them alone."

"Why me?"

Sherlock exhaled and ran a hand through his hand, "Just a few days, please."

Mycroft nodded and walked to the kitchen, he got out the butter from the fridge and slid some bread into the toaster. Sherlock watched dubiously from the door as the kettle boiled and two cup of tea (decaf) materialised on the kitchen table. Mycroft sat. "You will sleep in the spare room, you will at least attempt one meal a day, and you will not take anything as long as you stay here. Do you understand?" Sherlock winced but nodded, apparently too tired to even comment. He joined his brother at the table and inhaled three slices of toast.

Around nine he stood to leave the room and Mycroft again stared at his leg, now clearer in the light. He sucked in his breath and called after his brother as he slowly started to ascend up the stairs, "Christ, Sherlock. You need a doctor."