Hi everybody,
thanks for the nice reviews for my first fan fiction "Not enough". That was really encouraging.
So here is the sequel to "Not enough", because as mentioned in my final notes to that one - I felt quite guilty about how that story ended. So in this Sherlock and John are forced a bit closer together again. I couldn't keep them apart forever. I hope you will like it.
If you haven't read "Not enough" it might be a bit difficult to understand certain elements of the story, although I tried to make it readable as a stand-alone story as well.
English isn't my mother tongue, so if you see any mistakes, please tell me. Other feedback is of course also very much appreciated.
Disclaimer: The usual. I don't own Sherlock, I just like it and borrowed those characters.
Warnings: violence, mention of torture, major character death
Chapter 1 – Prolog
He watched it again and again, the pictures showing her with him. He couldn't believe it. He wanted John to be happy, even after all that had happened. He wanted to see him happy. He closed the pictures and started to watch the video surveillance material of John Watson and his wife. He looks different, Sherlock thought. Older. Well, it has been nearly three years now. Three years since he had last spoken to his former best friend. It was at John's wedding. He had been invited to said wedding. That was awkward and it was something Sherlock hadn't expected. After Sherlock came back from the dead, after two years of fighting Moriarty's criminal network, the reunion with John was not exactly welcoming. It was rather violent. In the aftermath Sherlock had felt so lost he didn't care if he lived or died and then he nearly died of a sepsis for real. And the few times they talked after they both felt uneasy. So they didn't part in a good way back then at the wedding, not in a big fight either, but definitely not in a good way. There was so much left unspoken between them, so much disappointment, so many regrets, so many unresolved issues. But neither of them wanted to address them and so they haven't been in contact after the wedding.
He tried to shake off the thoughts of those awful weeks. That was the past. He had moved on. He was now working for the MI6, sometimes he was kind of loaned to the MI5 or he worked on joint missions. It was good work, mostly not boring. It kept his restless mind occupied and it got his adrenalin flowing.
And John had moved on, as well. He had married, he was a father of a beautiful little daughter. He had a good job as a trauma surgeon at the St. Mary's Hospital. His life was good.
There was only one problem. Sherlock would shatter John's idyllic world. Again, he thought. Why hasn't he seen it before, when he met Mary the first time, at that damn restaurant, on the day he came back from the dead. Well, yes, he was too distracted to reveal himself to John as not being dead and then he was confused by John attacking him thrice and by all the things that happened afterwards. And at the wedding? How could he not see it then? Her appearance screamed "liar" all over. Didn't he see it or did he deliberately just ignored it, deleted that impression in a desperate attempt to distance himself from John, in order to not get involved. Sherlock has been to his mind palace a couple of times to find out how he was able to miss it or why he hasn't told it John, but he just couldn't find an answer to that question.
He huffed and rewound the video, taking a closer look at John again. How he smiled at his daughter, how he hugged his wife, his lying wife. Damn, Sherlock, concentrate. This will not work out well when you allow yourself to be distracted by sentiment.
He got up and walked to the wall plastered with evidence. He was determined to find a solution. He would find out what Mary Watson, nee Morstan, or better Angelica Grace Richardson-Adair, was up to and what connected her to Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's former second-in-command. He looked at the pictures displaying the blonde woman talking to the broad-shouldered ex-soldier. Why have the met, not only once, but twice in the last three months. This couldn't be a pure coincidence. The universe was rarely so lazy.