Chapter 1
Six months later
"Sherlock..." DI Lestrade tried pleading with the childish man in front of him.
"No." The man adamantly refused to be reasoned with.
"Look, Sherlock. I know you don't like it but we have a very dangerous man on the loose. Any help we can get brings us closer to catching Moriarty."
"Absolutely not."
"Sherlock, I'm not asking you. She's working this case. Trust me- if anyone can find his digital footprint it's this woman."
"I am perfectly capable of catching him myself Lestrade! I hardly need the help of a common criminal."
"She's not a common criminal. She's the best hacker I've ever seen. If she hadn't left that little trace on her latest hack we would never have found her!"
"She got caught Lestrange. How does that make her qualified?"
"And you got yourself blown up in a public pool! How does that make you qualified?"
"I am by far more intelligent than some... ridiculous hacker."
Lestrade sighed, running a hand over his face wearily. "Sherlock- she's working this case. End of story."
Lestrade watched as the man in front of him pouted unashamedly. He was saved from any more arguing by Sally Donovan. She knocked on his door and poked her head into his office.
"Hullo Freak. Sir, she's ready for you."
"Thank you Donovan. Sherlock..." he pleaded with the man.
"Fine! But I will analyze every aspect of her, and if I get even a whiff that she's not who she says she is..."
"Then I won't let her on the case Sherlock. Just... don't let your paranoia get to you, ok?"
Sherlock merely sniffed at him, steadfastly refusing to admit how much the incident with Moriarty had affected him. He was now paranoid about everything and everyone, excepting John and Lestrade.
Lestrade headed to Donovan's desk. A young woman sat there, chewing her nails. Her feathery brown bob was pointing every which way and her large green eyes were obscured by round-framed glasses. She was wearing a frumpy brown sweater with a hood and a pair of khaki cargo pants, all at least two sizes too big for her petite frame.
She started to get up when she saw him, then made to sit down, staying in limbo for a few moments before plonking back into her seat. She slouched low into the chair and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Miss Taylor, I presume." Lestrade asked as he smoothly slid behind Donovan's desk.
"Yes." Her voice was clipped.
"I assume that Sergeant Donovan has explained your situation to you."
"I help you catch a dangerous criminal, you don't press charges."
"Yes, well. That's sorted then. What's your answer?"
The woman threw him an incredulous look. "I don't really want to go to jail. Orange is not really my colour."
"Good. Oh for-! Sherlock!" Lestrade let out an exasperated breath.
The man in question had swooped down on the young woman and promptly begun probing her with his eyes. He could see the man cataloging every detail about her. The woman, to her credit, merely looked vaguely unnerved by this and turned questioning eyes on him.
"It's all right- he's with us. We just need to be sure who you are, before we let you help with this case."
"So he's what? Going to stare the truth out of me?"
"No, I am going to use the information gathered by staring at you to tell your entire life story. Does that make you nervous?"
"Uhm, yeah. Isn't that kind of... creepy?"
"No. It is my job."
"Creepy job then." She muttered, hunching over even more as she tried to ignore Sherlock.
"Right then, Miss Taylor..."
"Chris. Everyone just calls me Chris."
"A nickname undoubtedly alluding to your lack of womanly curves and tomboyish tendencies. Not to mention the fact that your father always rather wanted a boy, and so pressured you into doing things a son would do. You are a Dan- second or third level- in capoeira, you were a national schools champion boxer and you also have extensive experience in fencing."
"Your mother died when you were young, and your father remarried. You have a younger brother, but you're not close. You hack because you enjoy the challenge, not for the money. You have a successful business which does tech support for several banks, and you recently signed a contract for the government."
"You have your own business because you despise being told what to do and when. You're also rather a good actress, Drama having been one of your favourite subjects in school."
"You're kidding me, right?" Chris turned to Lestrade.
"No. He can actually tell that from the way you do everything."
"Hm. Not an open book, but hardly a particularly interesting one once you've cracked it." Sherlock sniffed.
"Excuse me? Are you calling me boring?" Chris asked, clearly insulted.
"Don't worry. He thinks we're all boring." Lestrade hurried to assure her. She shot Sherlock another baleful glare.
"I am not boring."
"Yes you are. Dull, boring, run-of-the-mill." The consulting detective flipped his hand dismissively.
"Why you...!"
"So, I take it she can work the case then, Sherlock?" Lestrade jumped in before there could be any bloodshed.
"If she has to." The detective grumped.
"Good. Now, play nice children. That includes you, Donovan." He ignored her outraged spluttering and handed the file over to Chris. "Here, we need you to find this man."
Chris gave him an incredulous look. "What- just like that?"
"I thought you said were the best?" Sherlock ribbed her. She turned a glare at him.
"I'm brilliant, and yes, I am the best. But I need this thing called time. And preferably somewhere I can start tracking the guy."
"He left messages on Sherlock's blog." Lestrade told her.
"How long ago was that?" She asked.
"Around six months ago."
"Six-? You are aware that in computer terms that's like... mesozoic era long ago. Right? I can't do anything with information that old."
"Then what use are you?" Sherlock snarked.
"Excuse me, but I don't see you being any more useful. Or closer to finding him."
"I can be useful."
"Yes. As bait."
"Excuse me- but no. Sherlock is never going to be bait. At all. Ever." Lestrade interrupted them.
Chris turns her green eyes on him, her mouth forming a slight 'oh'.
"I think that is a decision I can make for myself, thank you!" Sherlock grouches.
"No Sherlock, you can't. Because you insist on making stupid decisions like going to meet a criminal mastermind in a public pool with highly classified information and getting blown up!" Lestrade ranted at him.
"... I'm missing something, aren't I?" Chris asked.
"Yes. But the point is, Sherlock is never bait. It ends badly. Trust me."
"I can't. I have serious trust issues. Nothing personal." She shrugged at him.
"Yes, well. Let's just leave it at that."
"Well... We could always set up a dummy blog."
"A what now?" Lestrade wondered out loud.
"A dummy blog. We pretend to be Sherlock and blog about... whatever you would blog about. But the site would automatically log and ping everyone accessing it. That way, if he posts again I'll at least be able to identify his digital fingerprint. After that it's a lot easier to track him."
"How do you know he's after Sherlock?" Lestrade asked in suspicion.
"After that little speech? Hardly a large leap in logic." She shrugged it off. Sherlock snorted in agreement.
"I already have a blog." Sherlock said, bored.
Chris turned to him again. "Really? Well, then I can build a dummy blog over the current one. It'll take some time, but it will be worth it. You'll need to lie low until it's finished, though." She gave him a hard look.
Sherlock threw Lestrade a disgruntled look.
It seemed he didn't like the new member of the team.
NX-SH-NX
The moment she got to the apartment she was renting for this mission, Chris got herself out of the frumpy jumper and cargo pants.
Yes, she knew they were necessary, but damn. Sometimes she was just a little too good.
She threw on a promotional t-shirt for World of Warcraft which was at least four sizes too big for her and grabbed the bottle of vodka from her shelf as she headed for the couch (a space invaders one that was surprisinly comfy) she had requisitioned from Olliver's apartment.
If there was one thing that Christine knew about creating a new identity, it was that it needed to have all the major parts of your personality incorporated into it. It was the little details that made it work- small mannerisms were far more easy to learn. Changing your entire personality was a lot harder- easier to fuck up.
The result was that she was leasing this apartment, and had been living in them for the past five months. Ever since her first big 'score' as a hacker. She'd been sitting around catching a rather terminal case of geek from the guys in the tech department every damn day.
They'd made her watch Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly. They'd started her on one of their old Ataris and worked her up to the new gen consoles (her favourite was the Wii- but Olliver had insisted that after Assasin's Creed she'd go for the PS3). They'd had her playing Counter Strike and World of Warcraft and just generally anything that they deemed necessary to her cover.
They'd taught her to build a computer from scratch and made her practice it until she could assemble the whole bloody thing in under half an hour. They'd told her in no uncertain terms that anything pertaining to Nickelback and Shania Twain and most classical music were to be left behind for the likes of Metal bands. And the only metal band they could agree on was Nightwish- apparently all the best hackers listened to Nightwish.
They'd drilled basic code into her head until she wanted to scream.
She had a sneaking suspicion that they'd enjoyed themselves a bit too much, especially since she was pretty sure Sherlock Holmes wouldn't get half the references...
But the real fun had been going shopping for nicknacks for the apartment.
Olliver had been adamant about doing the shopping online. At a place called 'This is why I'm broke'. Chris had balked at the idea of shopping for her living environment online. She liked lazing around in physical shops, thank you.
That was until she saw the coffee table aquarium.
Somewhere during this whole thing she'd realized that she might have been supressing a bit of geek in her, but the coffee table at least seemed more bachelor pad like. So she'd bought the damn thing. She needed to keep a tad bit of sanity, she thought as she reached for the fish food.
The point being, they'd all rather enjoyed shopping for various pieces of geek memorabilia. She seemed to have a lot more Star Wars paraphernalia though, if only because Lego had a lot of models to build and she was a sucker for model building. By the time they were done she was settled into the geek equivalent of heaven.
On the suckers she robbed's bills of course.
Once she'd settled onto the couch and poured herself a liberal amount of alcohol she pulled her green Alienware laptop towards her, from its position on the coffee table, and settled it on her lap.
Hm, a dummy website. She'd already figured out (with a lot of help from the techies at the office) that a dummy website would be their best bet. But now she had to figure out which programming language would be best to set up the dummy site.
She threw a glance at the coding help books that had seemed to pile up in the six months she had been living here. It was starting to look pretty much the same as all her other apartments- messy. With books pertaining to her current personality crammed into the single bookcase, stacked on her bedside table and on the floor.
Another glance at the books and she opened her IM.
Olliver- what language should I use on the dummy site?
A swig of vodka and then her computer beeped at her.
For websites? Html or CSS.
… Which one. I'm tired, been trailing SH and the Yard all day.
HTML.
See- that wasn't so hard, was it?
Yes, yes. Big bad agent. I have a life too you know.
Then go live it. I give you my permission. :D
Ass.
Chris grinned as she exited the IM window and leaned over to retrieve her HTML code manual, covering her ears with her pink Skullcandy earphones. Seconds later Nightwish blared from the speakers.
It was time to get some serious programming done.
NX-SH-NX
John Watson knew, from the moans of the violin upstairs when he came home from the surgery, that he was in for a hellish night.
Mrs Hudson gave him a sandwich to give him strength to handle whatever was awaiting him upstairs and then shooed him up there with a hint about her not being able to sleep, even with her soothers.
"Uh, Sherlock, everything, uhm, good then?" John asked as he poked his head into the living room.
"No it bloody well is not!" Sherlock exploded at him, the bow in his hand immediately pointing at John's solar plexus in a guilt-placing manner. "And where have you been?"
"I... Sherlock, I was at work."
"Ugh, work, work, work, work! How boring! Do you not see John? Can you not understand? Can none of you understand? Am I the only intelligent person left upon this earth?" Sherlock went into a dramatic tyrade before he threw himself onto the couch.
"... This is something about Moriarty, isn't it?"
"No." Sherlock continued to sulk.
"Right. I'll just put the kettle on then." John shrugged. Heading for the kitchen, before it occurred to him that perhaps it had something to do with Lestrade- if so the man would probably have texted him a warning.
The problem with that was that John hadn't had a chance to check today, since he'd been stuck staring at post-nasal drips and jumping at every shadow.
John rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. Sherlock had been a true trial these past months. He'd been constantly on John's case, loaded gun at the ready at the slightest shadows, saying things about how Sarah could be one of Moriarty's agents.
Sherlock, of course, refused to admit to any of these problems. Wouldn't hear a word of what John was trying to tell him, because it was absolutely unacceptable that he should have read anyone so wrongly, but having an emotional fallout because of it was simply not done. It was unacceptable, and completely outside of his frame of reference- Sherlock had always been smarter than anyone else. Oh sure, they might have been able to play the game for a while, depending mostly on how much of a head start they'd had on the Consulting Detective.
But he'd always won.
And he never read people that wrongly.
Well, obviously he had, and they had both nearly gotten killed when the pool was blown up... But the point was simply that normal people knew that they were going to screw up. They learned from an early age to get up, dust themselves off and go on without losing too much faith in themselves.
But Sherlock... well. He'd never learned those lessons. It was his first truly spectacular failure- other people got drunk or tattooed or pregnant- but Sherlock put a huge dent in London's real estate and caused people to die.
When he'd explained it in that way to Sarah- bless her, she was a brilliant woman, though obviously somewhat insane herself for still being with him- she'd just given him a thoughtful look.
A few hours later she'd given him the phone number of a Dr M Morstan, the UK's leading expert on socio-paths. Though, she'd later explained to him over the phone, she rather specialised in helping the family of the socio-path.
It was perfect, and he had his first appointment tomorrow. Sherlock need never know.
But John needed to do something about this new, skittish Sherlock.
This wasn't the same brand of madness that had first drawn John to him. This was something much closer to breaking point- and Lestrange had agreed with him on that point. He'd even pointed out his fear that Sherlock may turn back to drugs.
That had shaken John to the core.
So now the two had a spoken agreement: They would keep Sherlock occupied and in their sight as much as possible.
Finally taking out his phone John saw that there was indeed a text from Lestrade waiting for him. A guilty flush flooded his body before he reminded it that he had the right to a life damn it.
Sent him home- he's in a bit of a snit.
GL
John sighed. Sure, the D.I. got him into a snit, and John had to deal with the fallout. He wondered what the man had done to Sherlock, who had been even more child-like in his sudden uncertainty than before. It was like he'd suddenly regressed to a frighteningly brilliant two year old.
Still, no use for it. He had to get in there and convince Sherlock to go back to Scotland Yard tomorrow.
He made their brews of choice and headed for the living room, where Sherlock was once again staring morosely at the ceiling.
"He's replacing me John."
For a moment the comment caught him off guard- the question of 'Who?' was on his lips before he remembered the text Lestrade had sent him.
Cold rage doused John at the thought that Lestrade could do something so mean and callous... until he remembered that this was the man who had admitted to John that he was afraid of once more losing Sherlock to the streets and the drugs.
"What makes you say that?" John had learned this particular trick from Sarah, who had taken a course in trauma counselling once.
"He's brought in my replacement! Made me meet her! Pretended that he was merely getting her help on the case! Pretended to listen to my analysis." Sherlock promptly turned his back to John, who had taken a seat in the chair with the union jack on it. "They're all laughing at me." The mumbled words came to John, a strange reluctance in them.
John sighed again. "Sherlock, has it occurred to you that we're scared?"
That set the other man off again- causing him to jump to his feet. "Yes! Scared because I cannot protect you! Scared because my greatest weapon has been beaten! Scared because I am... I am... intrinsically flawed." The man deflated back into the couch cushions.
John opened his mouth to retort, but promptly shut it again. "Sherlock..." He tried, before he cleared his throat. "Sherlock, you're not intrinsically flawed. You're not broken and you are still the single most brilliant man I know. This was not your fault-"
"Don't say that! It is an inherently common and dull phrase!" Sherlock snapped.
"Then what do you want me to say? It's the truth Sherlock! You're human! You make mistakes!"
"I lose the game! I... I lose the game. I cannot lose the game John."
"Sherlock, you're going to lose sometimes. It's just one of those things. Other people have t just move on with their lives!"
"Other people's lives are boring, nothing of international interest happens when they lose!"
There was silence between the two men for a moment and then...
"I'm going out." Sherlock said. And John couldn't think of a thing to stop him.
NX-SH-NX
Meanwhile, in the non-existent offices of a very much non-existent government agency, Daniel Davies was cracking his spine after having spent the afternoon getting to grips with his paperwork from his last mission.
And Chris's paperwork from her last mission because she'd claimed that she was getting metacarpal syndrome from all the 'geekiness she'd been exposed to'. They hadn't mentioned the fact that she was supposed to have handed in this paperwork before she'd started her current mission.
So now he'd done two lots of paperwork, and he was frankly tired. He'd go home to his fiance early today, maybe even do some things that would make Chris happy to be living vicariously through him.
That thought put a smile on his face and he switched off his computer, turning around only to realize that Mycroft's PA (Aurora today) was standing behind him. Her eyes left her Blackberry for all of five seconds and he knew immediately that something had gone terribly wrong.
She turned around and walked him to the same incident report room where Chris had received her assignment all those months ago.
Mycroft Holmes was standing in front of the big screen again.
Daniel gave up on his plans for the evening.
"Sir, you wanted to see me?" He asked, unconciously falling back into his military pose.
"Ah, Mister Davies. Indeed. It would seem we have a... situation." Mycroft sniffed, as though such things caused distress to his delicate sensibilities.
"Indeed sir?" Daniel queried.
"Yes. It would seem one Mister Taylor has escaped."
A/N: Dun dun duuuuuuun... :D Okay- I have to admit that I enjoyed imagining Chris's apartment. Probably more than I should have. But I don't think an apartment can be a Mary Sue... Right?
Thanks for my reviewers! Hopefully my first foray into Sherlock fanfiction will not irreparably cause psychological damage.
As to Sherlock and John's scene... Well, I think that Sherlock would probably react in that he'd become more paranoid and a little less certain of himself. Remember that he analyzed Moriarty completely wrongly- that's bound to cause uncertainty and paranoia which he doesn't know how to handle.
And Dr M. Morstan? Yup. You guessed it- Mary Morstan will make an appearance in this story.
Next chapter: How long can Chris listen to Nightwish? Where does Sherlock end up? Will John and Dr Morstan fall instantly in love? Why is Moriarty laughing? Coming up next!