Rush Hour

In which we meet Lana Heart, Sherlock is late, and John does the unthinkable

Regardless of what else you might have to say to him, Sherlock Holmes's relationships are off the table for conversation topics.

And it really shouldn't be a surprise. Because honestly, Sherlock knows that all the people he associates with either think he's gay and at once assume he and John are together, or else they assume that he's straight as a ruler but is completely devoid of any form of human affection (Sally kindly pointed that out 5 out of every 6 times she saw him) and Sherlock is getting pretty sick of it. He honestly doesn't care what people think of him, but if someone starts bringing up John, he begins to lose interest, and if someone brings up Lana, he starts to lose a bit of control. So unless you want an abrupt end to the conversation, potentially with a sword across your neck, don't even try bringing up his relationships with anyone. Including the skull. Don't even think about bringing up the skull.

Got that out of the way? Yes? Good.

So, to Sherlock. The brilliant, dark-haired, awkward, high-functioning sociopath. Thirty-four years old, and he was still as ignorant about relationships as a twelve year old boy. He never seemed to think that knowing how to treat people was necessary information, and somewhere along the way had deleted it from the cold, heartless hard drive that was known as his brain (again, thank you Sally). This possibly important information was instead replaced with some other form of data he had needed for his latest case. Which, in this situation, was choosing the right route to take home in order to get back to Baker Street before rush hour. Up to his neck in a serial murder case, and in no mood to sit in a cab for three hours, Sherlock jumped out of the taxi, thrust some money into the cabbie's hands, and waded out of the middle of the road and onto the sidewalk. He had miscalculated; his plane home had been late, and he had been so wrapped up in the blood samples sitting in his bag that he never bothered to notice he had boarded the plane two hours later than he should have. He also didn't bother to notice how packed the streets were until he found himself trapped in Piccadilly in the middle of the evening rush. So, disregarding the angry honking of the other cars and cabs, and cursing under his breath, Sherlock heaved his traveling case out of the cab's boot and hit the streets. Walking would be faster than sitting through this mess.

An hour and a heavy rain shower later, and still dragging the case full of chemicals, spare shirts and blood samples behind him, Sherlock gave himself a break. Leaning against the nearest wall, he pushed back his black hair and wiped the rain off his high, pale forehead. It had somehow refused to tan even though he had just returned from the latest murder victim's home in the South of France. John would laugh, and Sherlock knew it, but he did want to get home and get it over with quickly so that he could have the rest of the night to test the blood. They had been collected from each of the ten victims that had piled up in the past few weeks. The case was intriguing, and if Sherlock had it his way, he would have checked himself into the nearest hotel and spent the night there. Unfortunately, he knew that failing to arrive back home tonight would put John in a bad mood for the next few days, and he really didn't want to deal with that when he needed help on this case so badly.

Sherlock looked at his watch. It was six thirty already, and John would be annoyed if he walked in and just started working again, and he still had six blocks to go, so he heaved the case right side up and just kept walking.

There was very little moon that night, and the lights of the shops he passed left patches of reflected color along the puddles on the sidewalk as he walked. His mind was churning as usual, but in a convenient twist of fate, he hit a pause in his thought process at a moment of total silence. For a brief second, no sounds echoed down that line of shops, giving Sherlock the silence and time he needed to hear something.

It was coming from the alley, whatever it was, and it wasn't until Sherlock stopped in that moment that he heard two words that grabbed his attention. The words were a name, but a name that Sherlock knew well, considering he had spent the past three days looking at the person's body.

"Mike Heart."

Pausing at the alley's mouth, Sherlock tuned out the sounds that had restarted around him and strained to hear more. It was clearly a woman speaking, and judging by the shaking of her voice, she was angry, afraid, and ready for a fight. Sherlock couldn't see who she was speaking too, though he could venture a few guesses. And due to an overactive imagination and a tendency for making stupid decisions, he abandoned the case beside a dumpster at the alley's mouth and crept farther into the dark. The woman and two others were standing about halfway down the alley, so Sherlock dove behind two huge crates and stuck his head over the top.

And that was when he first saw Lana.

Of course, he didn't know who she was just yet. All he saw was a woman, the source of the voice, backed against the dirty brick wall. She was tiny; her small frame surrounded by a raincoat two sizes to big for her. The long brown hair was spilling out around her, still shiny from the shower. An open window high above cast a beam of light down onto the scene, throwing into sharp relief her angular features and heart shaped face.

Two men had her cornered up against the bricks, both big bulky men with rough features and brass knuckles, and it all would have looked like a usual mugging and rape not worth Sherlock's time, were it not for the fact that the girl was holding a semi-automatic pistol and looked intent on using it.

It was then that Sherlock became intrigued, in that moment when Lana had the tables turned on the men twice her size. She was five foot two at most, and couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and yet she was holding off against two men with at least eight inches and two hundred pounds on her. Without realizing it, Sherlock suddenly found himself not only listening for information, but also fulfilling his burning curiosity to see how this would end.

The woman waved the pistol back and forth between the two men. "I know you two killed him. You left your mark on him and I traced it back here. But there's something else too; all of these murders that have been happening have a similar mark in common along with the unique murderer. So don't you lie to me; why did you kill Mike Heart?"

The two men said nothing. Sherlock stared at them through the moment of silence, before turning his attention back to the girl, who had cocked her head and smiled.

"Ah, I see. You don't know why you killed him; you only killed him for the money. Clearly your boss doesn't like getting his hands dirty so he's making you to take the dirt for it because he made you leave your mark on the body, but they still want some credit for the killing, so they made you leave another mark on there as well. So," here she cocked the pistol and pointed it between the first man's eyes, "are you going to tell me who you work for, or do I have to kill you and then ask your friend over there? He seems to be more of the talker."

Again, there was total ringing silence.

And then the second man moved like lightning. With a swipe to the face, he knocked the girl away, making a grab for the gun as she twisted sideways and rolled across the ground. The girl managed to keep her grip on the pistol, and as the second men moved toward her, she took careful aim and fired a well placed shot into his leg. He collapsed, howling in pain, and his partner ran forward, vaulting over one of the trash bins and catching the girl by the hair. She cried out, and the gun skittered across the ground to the other side of the alley, where it stopped two feet in front of a very shocked Sherlock Holmes.

It wasn't that Sherlock hadn't expected some sort of fight; quite the contrary, he could tell the girl wasn't planning on going anywhere until she got what she wanted. His surprise was twofold; first, that the gun was loaded. Considering London's crime rate, he knew most women from abroad had the sense to have some sort of weapon on them, but he would never have suspected this girl had the guts to pull a loaded gun on two men.

The second thing that Sherlock noticed had nothing to do with the gun.

Meanwhile, it seemed the girl's attackers had gotten the upper hand. While one held her down, the other one dragged himself over to her, blood still pouring out of the wound, and was proceeding to beat the girl senseless. Each blow from the brass knuckles tore at her skin, leaving long scrapes and red marks with every punch, and yet she kept fighting them. Eyes open, muscles convulsing, she still managed to scream out a string of curses for every blow they landed. At least until they landed a punch to the throat. With a gasp and a choked wheeze, the girl's cries were cut short as she went limp in the first attacker's arms. Slowly deliberately, the second man produced a switchblade and began to carefully trace it across the girl's shirt.

Is was odd for Sherlock to show much human emotion; ask John and he could talk about it for hours. Aside from Sherlock's rare form of compassion that he eserved for John in moments of dangerous situations and snap decisions, he generally preferred to treat the world was an unfeeling collection of facts. But in the end, the dark-haired consulting detective could only pull a few facts from this situation because he was so busy thinking about…something else.

Fact- this girl was getting beaten to a pulp for a reason that connected to his serial murder case, and Fact- she was probably going to be beaten to death unless someone came and stopped the men, and Fact- this girl had information that he needed to solve the case, but

Fact- she wouldn't be any help unless someone helped her.

Oh yes, and

Fact- Sherlock had a fully functioning weapon sitting in front of him.

The whole thinking process took about five seconds, and, after considering this data, Sherlock made his second reckless decision of the night.

….

Meanwhile, Lana's sight was going black. She could feel her attacker's blows racking through her body, but couldn't life her arms to try and block them. The world was swimming before her, but she fought to keep her eyes open, glaring at the men with all the rage she could muster. Blinking blood out of her eyes, she chanced a glance up at the stars above, calmly observing her death as though they got this every day. Lana would have sighed, but she didn't seem to remember how to breathe anymore. The world had turned fuzzy and red; tilting this way and that as her attackers suddenly threw her to the ground. She felt the blow to the head, and her face was angled suddenly toward the alley's mouth. Unable to move, and aching with something more than physical pain, Lana saw with surprise that her two attackers were running down the alley and into the night. A shot was fired somewhere nearby, or maybe it was a car backfiring, or maybe it was just her brain screaming in protest. In any case, Lana's head was pounding so badly and her senses were so fuzzy that everything she heard could have been anything else.

As the red world went black, Lana knew she only had a few minutes. She searched for something, someone, anyone to help her. But all she saw was a figure, death probably, heading her way. She caught only a glint of metal and a flash of pale skin before everything went dark.

….

It was seven thirty, and John Watson was pacing the floor, alternating glances at his watch and the still closed door. He knew he shouldn't be concerned; Sherlock had been late before, but that didn't stop John from worrying about him. He knew that Sherlock could take care of himself; after all, he had gambled his life plenty in his line of work; but still, Sherlock was known to take these risks to the extreme.

John threw another glance at his watch. It was seven thirty-three; Sherlock should have been back hours ago. Sighing, he threw himself into the nearest armchair and did something he hoped he would never do; he swiveled around and addressed the skull sitting on the mantle.

"Why does he always do this?" John asked the empty bone. "I know this is important, but still; he could give me some warning if he's going to be late like this. And I just know that he's going to burst through that door and order me to do something ridiculous."

It was at that moment that the door was thrown open and John, whipping around from his little chat, saw Sherlock standing in the door way, carrying what looked like an old raincoat with something large inside it. Normally, John would have ignored it; Sherlock was always bringing home new objects to study and dissect, but this time John leapt to his feet and headed toward him, because rather than merely looking windswept and tired, Sherlock leaned against the doorway panting, holding the strange bundle and wearing a suit coat that was coated in blood and rain water.

John raked him up and down. The blood wasn't just on his jacket; it was on his hands, in his hair and mingling with the sweat on his neck. Streaks of the crimson liquid had traced lines down his pants and left spatter marks on his shoes.

As John stared, horrified, Sherlock let out another heaving breath, scratched his black curls and simply strolled in as though he had merely been out for a walk.

"Evening, John."

"Sherlock, what the hell-" but Sherlock had moved across the room and was striding past John into the kitchen. John watched in mingled disgust and fascination as the detective began shoving books, laundry and scalping equipment off the kitchen table, clearing a space for that strange-looking bundle wrapped in the raincoat. As he began to undo the buttons that that held whatever it was inside, he explained, " still don't have any leads yet, the flight was late, traffic was madness and I got," here he began to pull away the coat, "sidetracked."

Sherlock motioned for him to come closer, so John stepped from his place by the door into the kitchen. As he drew closer, he began to see the stains of blood seeping through the coats fabric. He began to get a little worried but still stepped forward and deliberately pulled away the jacket.

He wished at once that he hadn't. Because when John pulled away the rain coat, he was sure he had fallen into a nightmare.

Up next- Blood on the stairs

In which there is stitching, Mrs. Hudson worries, and John must improvise.