The Sign of Four Is Just the Sign of One Thing

A Sherlock Holmes Fanfiction

Chapter two

Somewhere in the middle of the case, a dead body turned up in Pondicherry Lodge, and they had no choice but to phone Lestrade. Sherlock acted all impatient and irritated, but John knew he was secretly pleased to have the chance to show off his genius again and rub it in Donovan and Anderson's faces.

And Sherlock did just that. John stood next to Mary in the corner of the room, careful not to touch anything –as Sherlock had instructed - and they, along with Lestrade and the whole forensics team, watched as Sherlock leaped here and there with those long legs of his, pointed to parts of the body and the room that nobody had noticed before and made the craziest deductions that would just sound delirious to a stranger, but everybody knew Sherlock enough not to ask questions or Sherlock would dish out the nastiest insults to them. He got quite vicious when he was concentrating on a case, what little manner he usually reserved in the face of commoners all forgotten. Lestrade wrote everything down on that small notebook of his, and Anderson did not cease to look daggers at him even for one second; it probably had something to do with what Sherlock had told him when he saw him appear alongside Lestrade. John hadn't heard the remark – most probably a colorful insult – and he was more than happy to stay ignorant about it.

John glanced at Mary from the corner of his eyes. She looked quite awestruck, staring at Sherlock with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open. It was an expression he was quite used to seeing when it came to the clients. Hell, he himself sometimes looked just like that at the crime scenes, but seeing Mary like that made him feel some extra emotions he hadn't experienced before; a little bit of pride and joy mixed with a little bit of . . . jealousy?

Jealous of Sherlock Holmes? John Watson, get your act together.

Sherlock was still speaking. John rarely followed Sherlock's path of reasoning these days. It was much easier, and really, much more productive, to wait for Sherlock to tell the solution at the end, and they'd deal with it then. Sherlock explained things much better after he came down from his highs anyway, and John was a patient man, if the events of the morning were anything to go by.

"Jonathan Small." Sherlock finally shouted out in delight.

And there it is.

"John, come with me." The detective said, well, more like ordered, as he ran out of the dark room, completely disregarding Lestrade's pleas to explain things a bit more. John looked at Lestrade who nodded his head in resignation and then looked at Mary with an apologetic expression on his face.

"Don't worry about me." She was clearly shaken but still managed to give him a small smile.

"I'll ask one of the guys to drop Miss Morstan home. It's almost midnight." Lestrade reassured him, and John nodded his thanks.

"John!" Sherlock's shout reverberated through the whole building.

"Right." John muttered as he followed Sherlock out the front door. "Where are we going?" But Sherlock was already on the other side of the street, hailing a taxi.

"Sherlock, wait." John ran to him. At these times, getting an answer out of him was practically impossible. He grabbed a bony shoulder before the consulting detective could get in the car and squeezed hard.

"Where are we going?"

Sherlock stood still for one second and took a deep breath before turning to John. His pupils were as dilated as they had been earlier in the morning when he was high on cocaine. It seemed like this kind of thrill brought him a level of pleasure that no other drug on earth would ever be able to, and it felt almost as good for John to witness it without having to worry about overdose or death.

The mad detective closed his eyes, took an impatient breath, opened them, leaned down so they were at the same height, and, in that urgent, impatient frustrated and irritated tone that only he could manage, said:

"The boat!"

So it turned out 'the boat' wasn't a metaphor or a code name or anything of that sort. They really were chasing after a boat and after some help from the Baker Street irregulars and some fantastic – and disturbing – acting from Sherlock to obtain some information from a poor, old woman who turned out to be the boat owner's wife, they ended up on a rented engine boat, looking for 'Aura'.

It was close to sunrise; the sky was lightening up, making it easier for them to look for the boat which apparently was red and black in color. Despite the exhausting day and night they had just passed, John didn't feel tired. If anything, he felt energetic and alive. He didn't need to look at Sherlock to know he felt the same way, but he did anyway. Sherlock was standing on the deck, fingers gripping the cold railings as he stared at the distance, searching for Aura with such intensity that only he could muster. John went to him, careful not to slip on the wet floor or fall into the freezing river –the motorboat was going awfully fast, water splashing everywhere as it cut through the river. The blasted cold weather was not making things any easier.

"How did you figure out it was Jonathan Small?"

"The artificial leg," Sherlock said without looking at him, it wasn't easy to hear him through theroar of the engine.

"He has an artificial leg?!" John shouted back.

"Obviously. The mud on the steps, John. The footsteps on the left were considerably ligheter than the ones on the right."

Brilliant; just brilliant.

But John knew better than to voice his thoughts out loud. Sherlock's ego was big enough already. A few more compliments and he'd probably explode.

John smiled at the mental image and turned his head to right to hide it from Sherlock.

"White flag, red and black in color. Sherlock, Sherlock! It's the Aura!" John gripped Sherlock's arm and pointed to the far end of the river.

"Yes, yes!" Sherlock turned his head to the skipper. "If we miss her, I'll kill you with my bare hands." Sherlock looked serious enough to mean it, and the poor man didn't need to be told twice before he sped up.

"They might be armed." Sherlock told him without taking his eyes of the boat ahead of them.

"I know." John said, hands already at his belt, taking his gun out. His heart was beating too fast in his chest, but he was too used to it to care. If anything, he kind of liked it.

"She's going way too fast. I don't think we'll catch her." The bearded man told them over the roar of the engine.

"We must!" Sherlock screamed and turned for a millisecond to glare at the man. "I'll catch him if it's the last thing I'll do."

As luck would have it, a boat turned up right in front of Aura. Because of the twilight, Aura had missed it and she had to put the helm down to avoid a collision.

"Jump when I tell you." Sherlock shouted next to him.

"Right after you." John gripped the gun harder in his hand.

The engineer turned the search lights upon her, and they could see three people on the boat, one of them clearly Small. John couldn't see any guns, but there was no point in making unnecessary risks. They were murderers after all.

Sherlock grabbed John's arm and pulled him closer to him to whisper something in his ear. "If the man with the baseball hat raised his hands, don't hesitate to shoot him." John didn't know the reason but trusted Sherlock enough to obey without a question, so he only nodded his head in understanding.

Aura was making straight for the bank, and they were very close, almost one yard away. A collision seemed inevitable, and John braced himself for the crash. The sun was out and there was no snow falling, which counted as a small mercy. The clash did happen, almost in slow motion – or at least that was how John felt – Sherlock shouted out his name, and John didn't hesitate to jump.

Aura's floor was slippery with melted snow, and it was an extremely difficult task to keep his balance, but he managed after a few small steps. He and Sherlock looked around the deck, but the three men were nowhere to be found.

"Where the hell are they?" John hissed at Sherlock as he tried to catch his breath. Sherlock gestured at him to crouch down and John did just that. It was silent for a few seconds before John saw a small movement on Sherlock's left. He saw a glimpse of a baseball hat and it was enough warning for him to shout out, and he and Sherlock both hurled down. Something whizzed past John's left ear –something that sounded like a dart- and he threw himself to the right; his foot slipped, he lost his balance, his frozen hands missed the wet railings, and he fell head first down into the Thames.

The height wasn't too much, two meters at most, but the water – bleeding Christ – John had never experienced anything as painful as that, and he'd been shot before. In one short second all his nerves went on fire. It was almost as if his skin was burned, and he took some glorious gulps of water before he managed to will his body – which seemed to be in shock- to move and swim upwards. It wasn't an easy task. In fact, it was one of the most difficult things he had done in his lifetime. The river felt heavy all around him, and the water in his shoes wasn't helping things at all. John managed to keep his head out of the water long enough to intake some necessary oxygen and shout out Sherlock's name. John was a decent swimmer, but he had never experienced freezing water in January. His body was not accustomed to such bitter cold and was disobeying his mind's commands.

"Sherlock!" John wasn't sure if Sherlock was hearing him. He could see flurries of movements on the Aura. There was probably some serious fighting going on over there. It took a few more gulps of water before John managed to spot the ladder on the side of the boat and hear Sherlock screaming his name and gesturing at him to reach it with wild, flailing hands. It wasn't easy. His whole body felt heavy and numb. All he could manage was to grip the first step with slippery fingers. Apparently that was enough for Sherlock. He reached down and grabbed John's wet coat with his hands – one of the perks of being tall - and hurled John upward. John tried to help, but at this point there wasn't much he could do except to grasp Sherlock's elbow and wait to be lifted up.

They both fell on the deck with a loud thump, with Sherlock's body weight over his back. John could hear heavy breathing, but wasn't sure it was his or Sherlock's. It wasn't easy to hear anything beyond the mad chattering of his teeth. He raised his head a bit, seeing two men knocked out and Jonathan Small sitting at the corner with hands above his head; their bearded skipper pointing a shaking gun at him. From the looks of it, their skipper wasn't quite familiar with guns. Then again, it didn't seem Small was either. So it all worked out just fine.

Sherlock sat with a grunt and turned John around. He felt like a heavy lump of dough, his hand resting uselessly on his sides.

"You good?" Sherlock asked, but he was smiling. John felt like he was about to die, teeth chattering, body not moving, all the nerves in his body on fire but couldn't help but to giggle.

"Ye . . .yeah. Ju . . . just free . . zing."

Sherlock stood up, grabbed his arms to make him stand up, and somehow they managed to get themselves on the shore with a few unsynchronized steps.

"You are freezing." Sherlock observed – not one of his best ones - as he helped him out of his coat.

"You're going to get pneumonia and die." Sherlock took off his long coat and draped it on his shoulders. John took the edges and brought it closer to himself, bending his head down so as to curl up in the pleasant warmth. Next Sherlock took off his scarf and wrapped it around John's neck with a painful knot, as if dealing with a naughty child. John couldn't help but to giggle again. This whole thing was crazy.

They could hear sirens approaching. Sherlock had called Lestrade then.

Brilliant, brilliant Sherlock.

There was an ambulance, too, and John watched with amusement as Sherlock screamed for blankets, snatched the red, ugly things from the poor paramedic and came to him, dropping them over his head.

"Sh . . . Sherlock!" They were heavy, and it took John a minute or two to get his fingers to cooperate to wrap the blankets around himself.

John watched shivering as the police carried out the knocked out bodies and Jonathan Small into the car. Mission accomplished then.

Lestrade came to him. "You okay there, Sherlock?" There was a smile on his face. If he was trying to be funny by referring to the scarf and the coat, it wasn't working.

"F . . .fine."

"We chased a motorboat all night. Almost got killed by poisonous darts. John nearly drowned." Sherlock explained to Lestrade as he beckoned John to him. "Of course we're fine."

"Jesus." Lestrade muttered under his breath, but John had a nagging feeling he wasn't really surprised.

Getting up and moving wasn't exactly easy, especially with all the extra weight. With the help of Sherlock, he managed to slump down in the corner of the ambulance with a heavy sigh and much grunting.

"Let's get you home, John. Tea will make you better."

" You're going to . . . make me tea?" John asked incredulously, his stuttering subdued a little.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'll ask Mrs. Hudson to make some for both of us."

John smiled.

"This was . . . good." John said and watched the paramedics as they asked Sherlock to get off the ambulance so they could close the doors, got forbid the great Mr. Holmes ever had a ride on an ambulance. What would the world think?!

Sherlock hopped down and shivered a bit. It was probably pretty cold without his coat on. He sniffed – a weird habit of his - and looked at John, and before they could close the doors, John watched as Sherlock gave him one of his rare, brilliant smiles and said, "yes, it was."

To Be Continued . . .