Clock

The handcuffs around her left wrist and right ankle are wet with blood and water, blood from a previous injury and water from the drip above her makeshift bed. She cannot feel her feet inside her thin ballet flats; she cannot move her right arm without intense pain.

Her shirt has ridden up against her back and the coarse grimy blanket pricks her skin in a thousand places. She would turn over, tug her shirt down, rub her numb feet with both hands, but Moran is staring down at her through the brilliance of his penlight. Her skull feels as though it is splintering apart.

Sebastian Moran's eyes are floating black splotches in a white miasma.

She thinks she sees him blink as he moves the penlight from one eye to the other, watching her pupils flit back and forth as she tries to scan his face. She knows he is tan, tall, blue-eyed, red-haired, but there's nothing to see now but the blinding light and the circle of blackness around it.

He's hardly spoken to her, except for the initial encounter.

"May I sit here?"

"You may." Her polite smile.

His bland interest. "Have I met you before?"

Shaking her head no.

Then the shuffle of his newspaper and suddenly the killer's blank stare in his eyes.

"You knew Sherlock Holmes, didn't you?" His voice a hiss.

No smiling from her now.

The gun had pressed into her side. Irene's mind had fled far away, so far she couldn't remember what happened to people in this very situation. She should have stood up and shouted for help. The driver would have stopped the bus, the riders would have scattered in dismay, perhaps one of the larger men would have tackled Moran to the black rubber floor.

But someone would have died, and it would not have been Moran.

Now he's checking her vitals. He does it every morning and night. He wants to keep her alive. The gash in her arm was a mistake, she'd realized, after her second escape attempt had ended in blood dripping on the floor and his stricken eyes darting around the room for towels, bandages, the knife drooping from his hand.

The long cut is wrapped carefully in gauze; the cuff around her left wrist is padded with the same. Her feet are cold; this basement is filthy; the ceiling drips. Moran does not concern himself with her comfort. He simply needs to keep her alive.

He says she's the bait.

She doesn't believe him. Sherlock is dead. Soon she will be too.

The penlight flashes off, leaving her blind. She closes her eyes, listening.

Irene hears him straighten, a bone clicking in his shoulder, his clothes whispering as he moves away. The floor crunches and grinds under his boots. She would say something acrid, but her taunts faded away days ago, along with her energy.

She hasn't eaten anything substantial since Monday night. A bag of peppery crisps and an apple before Moran had gotten on the bus. She'd been heading to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Shakespeare's birthplace. Originally, she'd planned to go with John and Mary, but Mary had called the night before about a family emergency, and John had said he thought he should stay with her. Irene had agreed. She'd packed her suitcase and left.

Really, though, she'd been relieved. She was still grieving, and she was afraid that if John and she had gone together, even if Mary had come along, they'd spend the whole time gazing at houses and landmarks and signs and saying to each other what Sherlock would have thought.

None of them would have been happy, and John was happier at home with Mary. She couldn't have begrudged him that, not after everything that had happened with Sherlock.

There's a click in the corner of the basement, and a tiny red light glimmers into existence. Moran passes in front of it, a black mass, and then the light pops back again.

"Smile for the camera," Moran says. His light voice curdles her stomach.

Grunchh. Grunnnch. Boots over dirty stone. The door shuts and he's pounding up the stairs.

A slight breeze, moist earthy air, passes over her from the closing of the door.

She looks in the direction of the video camera. She would say something to it, but she's positive it's only Mycroft sitting on the other side, his mouth turned down. And she's already told it everything she knows.

Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's sniper and second-in-command, wants Sherlock to come here, thinks he's alive, doesn't believe her about his suicide. She's in a basement. Either the pipes are leaking or it's raining heavily outside. Was upstairs once, at night: she's trapped underneath a large manor house. Judging from the décor, she's probably still in England. She's been here for six days.

Moran has promised the viewers eight. Then he'll kill her, if Sherlock doesn't show.

"It's Sunday," she tells the camera. "I'm still fine. I know you're doing everything you can." She imagines Mycroft's left eyebrow rising, his piercing eyes. "You still have time. Please be careful." Now Mycroft's face is incredulous, skeptical. But there's nothing she can do about it.

There's that stubborn catch in her throat again. She won't cry. She knows Moran watches these things; he's upstairs right now on his laptop, she's sure. She can't imagine his expression. Wary, encouraged, focused? None fit his shadowy face, the eyes that gleam out at her from darkness.

Carefully, she slides two fingers into the blanket, withdraws the tiny nail. She works it into the cuff's catch, slowly enough that her hand isn't visible over the folds of the blanket, even though the basement is almost completely dark. An overturned tin can with pinpricks in two places: the video camera's light, and the grey bulb flickering over her head.

Moran likes to turn the actual lights on from time to time, so the whole room becomes a white box and destroys her vision for a good minute and a half. That was how he'd stopped her first escape attempt, but not the second.

The second time, she was creeping to the door on noiseless feet, the blanket piled up in imitation of slumber, handcuff open against the wall, links trailing down to the floor. He'd woken just then, she later decided, because when she opened the door, her right hand raising a chunk of rotten wood, his sudden knife had cut open her arm.

Then he'd hit her under the chin and the world had dropped away.

Some fighter she was.

The third time she'd made it up the stairs, her hand flat over her mouth to silence her breathing, her injured arm tucked into her side. He was standing before an open refrigerator, one hand on the door. There was a carton of milk next to his thigh.

"Go back downstairs," he said. He could have been talking to a dog.

Irene picked up a glass paperweight from a table and flung it at him, whirling in the same moment. The windows in the next room were wide and dark and barred. She ran, her shoes slipping on thick carpet. Behind her glass crackled under Moran's boots.

The hallway was so long she was afraid she was hallucinating. Her breaths were heated metal. She couldn't hear anything behind her, she couldn't find the door.

Right turn into another hallway, this one lined with little snarled rugs and dainty side tables, reaching for her as she ran. Left into a circle of mirrors. No, back up, go out, hurry. Can't hear anything but my own breathing. Sounds like the ocean pounding in my ears. Where is he, probably inches away, must know this whole house. Hurry up.

Stupid shoes, no traction on polished wood. Can't run very fast anymore. Arm is banging into my ribs. Bleeding again. Press it against the jacket; must not allow him a blood trail. He's playing with me, I know he is. No stop it, no hysteria. No. I'm going to get out of here. Find the door.

Then there was the rush of movement, too fast for her to follow. All of her planned defences fell away, useless against the impenetrable torso, slam of stone shoulders, held against the wall. Her head pinned to the cold of a mirror, frame digging into her spine. Eyes looking up into his, squirming, can't find his groin with her knee. The ugly smell of old dairy and citrus wafting into her face.

How ashamed Sherlock would be of her. All of his careful instruction gone to waste. Tears prick her eyes at the remembrance. A wail of misery in her head. I miss you. I'm sorry. I would do something but I can't. Moran's holding her off the floor. He rears back.

Crack of fist against chin.

An added shackle for that attempt, the careful examination of walls and floor and bedding. But he hadn't found the nail. She'd driven it up into her hair, a messy knotted braid, thick with dust and plaster shavings; worked the nail into the elastic band. Stupid of him, not checking her hair.

Or maybe he knows; he's playing with me, toying with me. Toying: cruel soft word, reminds me of puppetry.

After he'd gone she'd managed to claw her hurt arm up behind her head and pull it out. It had taken her hours. Luckily there'd been a split seam in the blanket so she could hide it.

Now she presses it into the catch, breathing as evenly as possible, eyes on the ceiling, never her wrist. The bent end of the nail catches against the clasp, clicking loudly, and she holds her breath. She can't be certain if her perception of sounds differ from Moran's, if the video picks up every slight noise.

A minute passes, then another. She counts the seconds in her head until she reaches five minutes. There. She begins again.

Thumping on the stairs. Irene shoves the nail back into its seam with trembling fingers (stomach scrabbling at itself, eyes burning), watches the door. Her right arm feels bloated, swelling against the bandages like a sausage over the fire. Please, not an infection.

Moran opens the door, closes it behind him, goes to the video camera. Irene stiffens behind him, watching his back. This is new and wrong. What is he doing? He always leaves the camera on at night; he doesn't touch it again until the morning, when he brings it upstairs. Maybe he's gotten tired of her updates, maybe he's going to give "Sherlock" more hints, maybe he's –

"I'm sorry," Moran says to the camera, and he sounds like he is. Irene blinks. "But I'm done waiting for Sherlock Holmes."

She sees the bulge in the back of his shirt just before he turns.

He goes out, one foot holding the door open, and drags a battered wooden chair inside. He pulls it in her direction. Dust sprawls into the air.

Irene watches him without moving, aware of so many things at once: the matted hair bunched and bothersome under her head, the dripping in the corner, the blinking red light of the camera. Moran's movements, slowed down because of her shock. She feels as stupid as she'd been on the bus, angry and fearful and useless.

I'm so sorry, Sherlock, she whispers in her head, pretending, hoping somehow something of him can hear her. I couldn't do anything. You were right; we're stupid, I'm stupid. Mindless idiots. Our little heads filled with sawdust and clutter. You knew I'd end up this way. You just didn't know it would be so soon.

He's speaking again. "Sherlock Holmes, here and now, or she dies. Ten minutes."

Panic.

Tugging uselessly at the handcuffs. Moran's eyes flat as they look at her, the light vanishing under the door as it closes. The gun darker in his darkening hand. Never thought she would be so helpless. Hates him so much. May as well tell him how she feels before she goes.

"You think you're so competent, level-headed," she says, voice a croaking snarl, head buzzing. "But you're insane. Out of your mind. Moriarty – he had nothing on you, and I thought he was a total loon." The words are so hard to fit together. Every insult falls flat.

But he's surprised: his eyes fly wide and black under the shifting bulb-light, his body twitching as if from tiny impacts. Earlier she'd chosen her words so cautiously, afraid that somehow he would be more capable of hurting her if she'd given him her true thoughts.

She has nothing to lose anymore.

"You know he's dead," she tells him. "Sherlock. He's dead. I saw his body."

She can't believe she's saying this; she whispers apologies in her head to her ghost-Sherlock, her pitiful memory of him, washed-out and drained of colour, like an old photograph. The words should stick in her throat.

Oh Sherlock, I can't have you dead, not you.

"Body double," Moran says, leaning down. He's got the gun pointed at her head. "Or someone switched him when you weren't looking."

"Don't be an idiot," she snaps, the word breaking as she realizes it's one of Sherlock's. She coughs, her throat suddenly full of knives. Her arm thuds against the blanket with each spasm. Ricochets of pain, like fireworks. The moisture here is rather thick. During one of her monologues to Mycroft she'd hacked for a while.

Moran sits back, expressionless, swivels to the camera. "Nine minutes."

Irene finds her breath again, swallows spit and pain. Time to try another tactic. Participate in his delusion and you might live longer. "If you shoot me, you'll have no guarantee he'll show up. He won't come if I'm dead."

"If I shoot you in the head." He moves his hand. "But in the kneecap? He'll be here."

She can't help herself, she inhales sharply, her whole attention focused on her twitching leg.

Moran moves the gun back to her head, looks to the camera. "Are you listening, Sherlock? I won't cripple her if you show in five minutes."

Surely Mycroft would have found me by now – maybe John is coming – Lestrade – swarms of policemen, agents, soldiers, sweeping through the gardens, shrubbery, forests, over hedges, lights dancing across windows. They're opening doors, prying up floorboards, feet silent, inserting tubes, sleeping gas spreading across the whole basement, knocking Moran out and me into slumber. They're so quiet that I can't hear them yet. Won't hear them, because soon I'll be sleeping and then back home.

She rouses to find Moran pacing the basement, gun at his side, walking like a soldier, like John.

Not like Sherlock, with his manic energy, so full of life. Practically dancing. He would have solved this case by now, if she and Moran had been his case. He would have been here, his coat flaring, striding into the basement. Door banging against the wall. Hair curling over his white forehead.

The quick flurry of fists, focus and anger and precision, gun gone, flung into the corner against the tripod.

Moran diving for it: Sherlock's snapped kick into his ribs, Sherlock's step on his wrist, Sherlock sweeping the gun away. John at her side, calling for keys to the cuffs, warm and worried, firm hand on her pulse. Her eyes on Sherlock. Moran on the ground. Unconscious, head fallen back.

Sherlock's quicksilver eyes on her. Fierce intelligence. Deducing. Always right. Here. Clear as day.

"Two minutes."

Moran has moved the gun back to her head. His fingers are slick and shining. She can see every hair on his blanched knuckles, pale-red needles. A forest of red cypresses. This is his last chance for Sherlock; she can feel it in his tense body and close sweatiness and harsh breath. Madness. Sherlock's dead. She's dead. Moran will be dead if Mycroft finds him. Or before. But Moran will go to John, next. John or he? Which one dies?

She can't think.

No, Moran's grieving. This is his last chance, he's thinking. He won't last two days. She bets on suicide; everyone's doing it now, it's all the rage.

"You should find a nice tall building," she's telling him, "maybe that hospital where your boss pulled the trigger. Gun to the head in emulation, perhaps." Words dancing all over the place, her head filled with doorbells, every one ringing at the same time. There's someone at the door, Sherlock! A case for you.

Help me. Please help me.

"Half minute." His lips move like floppy castanets.

"Or you could just jump off, save the bullets. Less waste that way. But you might land on a car, so I'd aim for the sidewalk." Is she really saying this to him?

There's a growing tremor in her ribs: heart, maybe, malfunctioning in terror. Sherlock got his heart burned out of him – no, stop, please no – hers peters out like a bad clock. Tick tiiiiick tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick till it freezes.

She closes her eyes against Moran's fraying stare. Enough of this.

John props her up against the wall, soft murmuring to console her. Then John's gone, and Sherlock's long hands take hold of her head, brush her cheekbones, cold and dry. She presses her face into his coat, finally allows herself to relax. Scarf slipping across her hair. There's a button on her lips.

He's whispering:

It's alright. You're safe now. It's alright.

His voice like old honey. Dark and warm.

Safety.

Outside her dream she hears a clatter, far away. Moran's speaking again. She has seconds left. She will slow them down into hours. There will be enough time. She turns her face away, to months ago, days ago, miles and choices and words ago.

[I lied to you, when you asked me that day. You were being cruel. I wanted to hurt you. No, I didn't care for you, I said. You were just a friend. A bad friend, at that. I was proud of my quick nonchalance.

You looked at me with those eyes.

I said. I said. I wish I had said

I do care.

But the words were so stupid. And you didn't care. I thought.

But now.

Yes. I care. I cared. I have cared. Will care. You are dead. I still care.

(John always knew. Of course.)

I care for you, Sherlock. But the word I mean is

love

Please, don't turn me away now]

Then the bright blinding light and she thinks: Dead. Sherlock.

Nothingness. So afraid. Sound of an explosion–


Hands quick and lithe on her face, forehead, touching the cold shackles. Soft low breathing.

"Ah!"

He's found the nail, whoever he is. She feels him slip it into the wrist cuff, hears the tinkle of falling tumblers.

"Irene."

She can't mistake the voice. She's dead, then, but no, because her arm is throbbing. She tries to pull it closer to her side. It must be a recording, that voice. But then who is crouching over her, who is undoing the cuff around her ankle?

"Don't go," she whispers. It has to be Moran. But she can't stop the words. He's playing a trick on her. There was no countdown. He's moving her to another house.

"Don't be an idiot," the same voice says. Her words. His. She opens her eyes.

She can't see anything with clarity. The basement seems to be lit with lightning. A man-sized blur crouches at her feet, black, soft-edged and spotty. The cuff falls away from her ankle, and she drags her legs away, pulling at the crumbling wall to sit up.

The blur is slowly gathering detail. Her eyes fill. She drops her head into her hands and breathes grit. Cautiously shaking, mindful of the tremors, for her arm is a massive inflamed blister.

"You're dead." It's a whimper. She can't really speak.

Irene peels her slimy hands from her face and peers over the grey swell of her knees.

His hair is trimmed short and dirty blond.

Behind him Moran lies blue-faced, scarlet, propped against the legs of the tripod, slack arms flattened on the floor. The red light is still on.

"No," Sherlock says. His eyes find hers and she feels her whole body tremble. "I'm sorry."

Tentatively, she lifts her good hand, reaching.

His fingers link around hers. Sweating fingers, bonier than she remembers, his grey-blue-green eyes almost hollowed out, lips dry and cracking at the corners. She'd forgotten those eyes, the way they changed in the light, the dark. No coat, only a thin black T-shirt and wrinkled jeans. Blood crawls in little drying patches up the inside of his paper-pale neck.

She drops her forehead into the crook of his shoulder, feels his muscles bunch and smooth, his hand travel across her back. No words left.

He's alive.

"I'm sorry," he says again. His voice, breaking, runs through her like a current.

Irene lets her tears leak into his shirt, doesn't move. She is falling asleep to the sound of his breathing, to his nearness, warmth. Her fingers curl into his shirt.

I love you.

She won't say it.

They have time.