Your shadow I follow

Written by: MiraHerondale

Translated by: Iglublue12

Chapter 3: Outlining the Contour

Fleet's sewage system smelled of humidity, mud and dirty water. The seaweed and dirt accumulated at the edges, creating passages practically safe for those that wanted to adventure through them.

Or, they were by default, for those that really needed to transit through them.

"Remember me another time what are we doing here, in addition of being covered in mud and shit."

John pointed with the flashlight of his rifle towards one of the corners of the spacious suburban corridors of London, scaring a rat and making it squeal while it ran through the pathway until it reached the area filled with shadows again. The smell of the area was practically vomit inducing, but John was starting to get used to it. It wasn't the first time that he was destined to a place like that, so he was hardly aware of the pestilential stench coming from the stagnant waters and the algae.

"Jim has had another of his hunches."

John kicked a stone and waited for that to happen for a moment in his frustration. He was doing everything possible to make noise, discouraging anybody to come closer, and warning the dystopians that they could hide there if they moved aside when the group passed. Dimmock was, along with Ethan and Moran, one of Moriarty's faithful followers.

Once, John had known him as an important member of the resistance, but after being captured, things began to change. He began been seen with the groups made up of the 'pure', protecting the borders and standing guard on the bridges and the pipes of Fleet. That was certainly nothing new.

Sebastian Wilkes was at their heels, with the machine gun over his shoulder and a lit cigarette between his lips, illuminating with a red dot the darkness.

"Well, the next time that he has another of those lashes, he can look for another person. I'm not a clerk, neither a tin soldier," He complained, throwing the cigarette butt into the mud.

John continued staring, accelerating his steps a little to move ahead. He slipped through one of the corridors, which he knew, had no end. He walked slowly through the water, trying to not move it much, keeping each breath to a minimum, hoping to make the least possible noise. There was a strange smell in the hallway, something that had nothing to do with the natural stench of the area. It was something he hadn't smelled in a long time.

He ducked when he saw dark spots in the mud. There was some black dust that flashed dimly when he pointed it with the focus of the flashlight. He picked up a little of it with his fingers and rubbed it between his thumb and index before he brought a little to his tongue. He spit it out nothing more than trying it, with a strong grimace of disgust. It was gunpowder, without a doubt. He blinked, frowning. Why would gunpowder be there? He raised the flashlight of his rifle, pointing towards a dark corner of the other side.

"Is everything right over there Johnny?" Asked Wilkes. John could perfectly hear his laughter from there, bouncing off the damp brick walls covered with mould, as if they were in a horror movie.

John's eyes, which started to get itchy from being down there and the lack of sleeping hours, came upon several opened boxes where, probably, would have contained several tons of gunpowder. All of them had the biohazard symbol that the rebel dystopians used to employ to mark their cargoes. It was a small private joke. John's shoe removed all of the gunpowder in the ground and mixed it all up with the water and the mud, before returning to the group, trying to keep his poker face from faltering as he approached the main network.

That could only be the work of the resistance, from the crazy chemist, of S. He wondered what they were planning, and if they were, whatever it was, if it would occur soon. Every morning he woke up if that would be the day. If finally something would explode and destroy everything ahead. If someone would enter his room screaming that the Leader had died. If his wolf would appear there, looking for him out of his electrified cage in the old stables.

And in his most optimistic awakenings, if he opened his eyes and he found himself staring and a black raven and his dystopian.

After those awakenings, the reality tasted more like food made up of pure dry earth than any other day. But he took a sip of water and it seemed as if the ball stuck in his throat would fall slowly, freeing him at least a little.

He could already see the lights of the other two flashlights, and was able to listen to the conversation between the two militants, when he jumped, startled by the screech of a rat that he had stepped on its tail. He pointed the gun and almost came close to shooting at it.

"... and I swear that I would have fucked her."

"Who? You? Don't make me laugh, Wilkes," mocking Dimmock. He then looked at John and raised an eyebrow. "Is everything alright?"

John swallowed and nodded.

"Yes, everything in order. I stepped on a bloody rat," he admitted, wrinkling his nose.

Dimmock sniggered.

"Yeah right, like the others. Let's see if we can finish the round and we can–"

A loud explosion interrupted his sentence, producing a loud crash making the ground shake. They crouched, standing in guard, when the first explosion was soon followed by another. John's heartbeat quickened, and while a part of him wished fervently that it were Buckingham what had been blown in the air, his gut feeling was telling him that something horribly wrong was going on.

The gunfire was the next thing that they heard. That, and the sirens of the ambulances and the police. John's mind flew towards another direction, to other places, other possibilities. Perhaps, in his desperation, he had imagined that all of that was part of their plan, and this was just another isolated incident. A gas leak... it could be anything. However, the shots were clearly revealing. When there was a third explosion, John began to fear for other things.

The civilians.

He may not be in the "national army" by his own voluntary decision, but that did not mean that he was exempt his responsibility to ensure the good of the community. And not all of the 'pures' were guilty, at the same time that not all of the dystopians were good people. He could not fit everybody in a bag and simply wait he wasn't wrong with his decision when he set it on fire. Although he could go and find some justification for the certain small number of casualties and collateral damage, that was something he wasn't willing to play with.

The three ran towards the exit of the tunnels, going back over their steps, and climbed up the emergency stairs until they emerged through the passage that bordered the Thames, by the clean side of the city. When John stuck his head out of the hole and was able to look towards the horizon, London was in flames.

Not all of the city burned. Simply there had been periodic bursts here or there, big clouds of smoke in the night, and fire, lit fires that could be seen from where they were as if they were very close, despite the apparent distance between them. It took only a new detonation for him to understand what was happening.

The wall, the giant concrete wall that surrounded the city as a containment measure, was being demolished. And, by judging the reaction of the security forces under Jim's orders, it hadn't been his own idea.

John ran, holding the communicator that he wore attached to his shoulder, giving orders and receiving new data from the receiver in his ear. He held his weapon with force, giving orders while they were boarding a police van that was passing through there and was taking them towards the affected area of the first explosion. The preliminary report suggested that the explosion was caused by a large amount of Semtex and gunpowder, near the channelling of the Thames in the main wall. The wall was built to protect London during the first years of the government. Initially its existence had been justified with the idea that it was the best for everybody because it served protection against the external dystopians and against the armies of other governments that wanted to exterminate their way of life. In John's opinion, the wall was a fence to prevent them from escaping, besides the whimsical dream of a mad child. Who built walls like those in these days?

After they gave them the full report, the van stopped and John went out first. He didn't want to hurt the dystopians from the resistance if he could prevent it, but his cover had a priority, and not everyone had good intentions in mind. There was nothing that could assure them that it was an attack by the rebels.

After running through the rubble of what was once the London Wall, listening to the people screaming and the sirens of the ambulances and the police trying to stop the disaster, John stopped behind a considerably large piece of concrete. He checked his rifle ammunition, adjusting his uniform and waited until Dimmock and Wilkes came to his side.

"The plan is...?"

John poked his head to look over the coverage when he saw that someone was pointing towards them and hid in time to prevent a bullet in his head.

"To not die and to stop this, if that's okay. Dimmock, right. Wilkes, left. I'll go forward," he said, using his senior position to give orders. In the end, being close to Jim had helped him to quickly climb through several positions in the army. His medical training had been taken into consideration, although after the hours of practice and his obvious discipline, Jim had moved enough strings so that his beloved pet would be able to ascend to captain. He didn't have the same rank as Moran, who was a Colonel, but at least he was above many of the individuals with whom he worked with. And that made his life much easier.

While he went from coverage to coverage, trying to reach the other side without shooting or being shot at, John thought about Moriarty's strange behaviour with him. His visits had practically remained regular. If they didn't see each other once a month, it was at least because Moran was around. Everyone in Buckingham knew about the close relationship of his boss with Moran. And, that was one of the reasons why many of the soldiers and workers were treated harshly, they complained because of the special treatment that Sebastian received and which he, apparently, enjoyed greatly. It seemed that in that place full of crazy people, all of them were dogs that desperately needed a bone or a touch by their owner. And John really didn't mind being recognized as someone who had to be avoided if you would want to stay out of trouble, which made part of the team to hold a grudge against him. Molly was one of the few people that he could trust.

In his days off, and those few that matched with those that Moran wasn't on duty, John would ask permission to leave Buckingham and spend time with Molly in her apartment in the 'clean' side. There, they talked about almost everything that they discuss without fear of compromising the integrity of everything that they had built throughout the years. Molly had kissed him once, in her apartment. It was shortly after John had stopped going to the infirmary for her to attend to his wounds caused by Moriarty, the first time that he had stayed overnight in her guest room. They had been talking for most of the night, and Molly asked him how having a soul mate worked. Talking with her, John discovered for the first time the profound loneliness that plagued the hearts of the pure, the way that they themselves felt lost, like ships drifting in the vast ocean, without a port to where to anchor, traveling blindly.

After talking, Molly hugged him and kissed him. He didn't stop her. The little contact that he had had was with Jim, and although a part of him wanted to separate brusquely, to separate himself, horrified, the other part knew that there was nothing wrong with a kiss. Molly wasn't going to ask him more than that, and he knew. That is why he allowed himself to enjoy that kiss, even though it barely tasted, and somewhat bitter, it had nothing to do with Moriarty's kisses. It was something intended completely to comfort, rather to cause pain. It was something designed to show affection, not domination. John responded to the kiss awkwardly, unsure how to do it.

"If you weren't dystopian," she said, after that, as she hugged him. "Perhaps we could consider the idea that we are together."

John smiled and stroked her hair, embracing the pathologist between his arms.

"If I weren't dystopian," he answered. "It would have been a honour, Molly Hooper."

John wasn't entirely sure if Moriarty knew about his visits to the pathologist (he was sure of it), or if he knew that John was not a loyal follower of his regime. He often had the feeling that Jim could take apart his soul and read him as if he were a simple newspaper clipping. He wondered if, despite everything, Jim was still suspicious of him. And when he always went out in a mission, and it was him who chose at least one of his teammates, it made him think that there was something fishy going on semi permanently.

Would Jim know of his double game? That he wasn't as loyal to the regime as he wanted to make everyone believe?

Perhaps that was the reason why the leather collar was still in place around John's neck.

The skin of the area had hardened, and Jim had sent someone to sew the leather collar to prevent him to take it out. In summer it was a real ordeal. The sweat made his hardened skin cut itself and made sores. Finally, after several visits to the infirmary to heal his wounds located in his jugular, Jim got him a new one. It would be placed through the head and had various levels of pressure. At least, John could loosen it to sleep better, in the intimacy of his bedroom. Even though Jim would many times tighten it up until he choked when he was called to the office. At that moment he realized that Jim didn't do it for him, but for his own sick amusement. From that moment forwards, he understood that all of those presents that Jim gave him, all of those favours, all of those rewards, had another side that Watson could prevent beforehand. And although there could be a possibility that he wasn't right, he was prepared for whatever might come.

Moran had become, on the other side, a silent enemy, as it would have been a medieval knight: trying to replace him, get him away from the trophy, but maintaining a gallant attitude at all times and especially in public. Sebastian was an elegant, fierce, cunning being, and above all else he was lethal. John had thought that, to be willingly serving Jim, Moran had to be at least as crazy as he was, but nothing further away from reality. Moran was a survivor in the most absolute totality of the word. He had seen what was coming, and had managed to finish in the side where the largest amount of benefits would give him long term. And, of course, he was more than willing to pay the price that assumed his supposed freedom. A part of him enjoyed the situation, and anyone else that was within a meter and a half of the mercenary would know.

John suspected that Moran was even smarter that Jim. He was clever enough to be able to maintain himself under the shadow of the villain to not be taken into account. The operator number one in the shadow.

If there was something more dangerous than a tyrant that had lost his mind, it was an evil genius that was perfectly sane.

A part of him suspected that in the recent times, Moran had stopped seeing him as a potential threat, and that jealousy replaced it. John would place his hand on the fire because Sebastian knew that he had alternative plans in the deepest part of his being, where the blackened hand of Moriarty wasn't able to reach, and he feared up to a certain point that John could make those a reality.

He felt the cold of a gun touch his neck.

"Drop the gun the go and today there's a possibility that I won't blow you head up."

John tensed and did what had been instructed with, unwilling to die. The voice sounded awfully familiar, but he wouldn't turn around with fear that they might misunderstand it as an aggressive gesture.

"I am a friend. I won't shot. I'm giving in."

He heard a curse behind him, and a hand closed around his head, making him slouch forward and run while ducking until he was thrown to the ground. He blinked, suddenly blind, until he could turn around. The man that was pointing towards his gun at him, was hovering over him and had its back against the light. It looked like a dark figure wrapped around the shadows. John squinted, raising a hand to cover the sun and contemplate the face of his captor with certain comfort. He could feel the rapid pulse of his heart, the adrenaline rushing through his system like a shot of cocaine, slowing time and strengthening his muscles. He started tweaking the screws in his mind until his thoughts became quick flashes, the movements and acts in pure reflexes of action. The unpleasant smell of blood and gunpowder became forgotten in a secondary plane in favour of the salty touch of his own sweat. He growled when he felt the smoke guns dig into his ribs and the handle of the Karambit press against his spine.

"John? John Watson?"

"We are running out of time Einstein. How's it going?"

Sherlock turned around, with Hugin over his shoulder. Irene covered his back, firing her gun when one of Jim's agents approached enough for them to be able to see what they were doing.

They were in a hole, on the stairs that entered the tunnels of the Metropolitan subway line. Amersham station had been a key of the attack, as it just reached one of the more critical points of the London wall.

"I'm doing what I can Irene. Give me five more minutes. I can't control the network." Answered Sherlock, with his fingers flying over the keys of the computer, trying to infiltrate the security system of the police communication. Eliminating the security cameras of the perimeter had been a mere child's play, however the communications of the enemy forces were another matter...

After convincing the senior members of the Resistance that they had a plan to end with the government, Greg Lestrade, a certain Bradstreet, the very Irene Adler and Mary Morstan, and an ex agent of Jim that deserted him two years after the regime ended, who got terribly interested on his job and would collaborate with nearly anything that he would do. Sherlock, who had acquired an apartment in the clean zone of the city after finding out that his soulmate was in Buckingham, would send anonymous letters through Hugin to the secret bases of the resistance in the 'Lion's Den' with hopes that one of those would eventually make an impression on the allied forces, giving him the material and support that he would need to bring his plan into action.

While he was taking refuge in the relative security of 221B on Baker Street, under the vigilance and care of Mrs. Hudson (an old dystopian that was condemned to forced labour by the man who forced her to marry after she killed her previous husband, and who Sherlock saved in one of his escapades in search for food and other equipment in the clean side), tracing his plans full of vengeance and high treason, the Tetrad that controlled the movement of the rebels in the London subsoil received letter after letter of his advances and progresses, promising that, as soon he got their seal of approval, he would present himself there with the project in hand.

When he presented himself to them, after twenty-three letters without answers, the four commanders were completely astonished by his youth.

"We can't agree to the plan of a deranged child" pointed Bradstreet, an old man, of wide shoulders and a sullen face. "I'm not willing to lose years of works because an enlightened man who claims to be..."

"You lost your family in the first two years. You had never wielded a weapon until after shortly finishing puberty" began Sherlock, knowing that the only way that they could take him seriously was to scare them a little. The four of them stopped to listen, and Bradstreet's face turned white. "I calculate by your age that you were married, because of that and by the revealing mark in your fingers. Plus, you still have the ring, hanging from a chain next to your dog tags inside your shirt. She died alongside with your son. You carry his picture in your pocket. It's smudged, so I assume that you constantly take it out often to look at it. By the discoloration of the pigments I would say it was taken years ago. You served in Yard, for your formation. You walk upright, and you have calluses in the hands, of someone who is used to holding a weapon, although not the right one. You still hold the rifle as if it were a reglementary revolver, so there were years of service with the law enforcement. You deserted from them as soon as you understood where the shots were directed, although not fast enough so that Jim would not notice of your plans and send someone to have your family killed in retaliation. And, like everyone else here, you wish to send him personally to hell. Although, one doesn't need to be a genius to be able to see this".

He looked at all of them again. Lestrade looked impressed, Bradstreet was livid, and the two women observed him with an evaluative look that made him curious. In Mary he found someone brilliant and aggressive, ready for anything. In Adler, a brilliant and calculating mind, cold and beautiful as a icicle. I could go on with any of you, and I don't even know your names. Yes, I am capable of doing all of this, and believe me when I tell you that I know the way to end with Moriarty's empire. The only thing I need is collaboration and materials.

After that, the collaboration between both parts became much closer. The letters were answered, and the information swiftly and safely in the hands of Hugin, who dedicated himself in going across the routes that connected both points, preferably at night, carrying the messages with him.

Because of security reasons, none of them left the territory that they operated in. Even if it was only to avoid the stares and the indiscreet mouths that could send to hell all the effort, blood and hard work that had brought them there. Sherlock spent his sleepless nights trying to decipher the formula that would allow them to blow up into pieces the walls. He was trying to synthesize a poison, a virus, something simple to carry and place on the target, and were less destructive than a bomb.

He had been trying for a few days to synthesize a poison from mercury and tetrodotoxin obtained from the fugu fish. The easiest would be simply to grab some drugs and somehow manage to put on an overdose, but that would require the approach to be to close, therefore dangerous. It seemed so that the poison was the most practical way out. Simply he would have to pour it in his drink, place it in his drink or sprinkle it on the ventilation of his room, and end of the problem.

The problem was in the complication of synthesizing something so complex, although he was very close. The tests that he had begun to do with the rats were giving satisfactory results, but knowing how it was going to react with humans was a bit trickier. Sherlock was willing to try it on any hostage that they could get. At this point in the match, he had lost all trace of compassion that would ever remain.

Hugin shrieked, sinking his claws on his shoulder, making himself more tangible that he had ever been. Sherlock hissed, and finally got access to the control system. The communications from the police and military were intercepted by the system, and the program began to work, fluid and uninterrupted. Sherlock closed the laptop and placed it in his bag.

"Ready. Get me out of here. This is going to explode at any moment".

The explosions kept ringing, more and more distant. That piece of wall had been programmed to be the last to explode, the last in being knocked down, even though it only gave them a small margin of action. With the communications intercepted, they could now know exactly where and when their enemy was, just by accessing the program's database. The Trojan had been developed with some computer experts that had worked for the MI6, specializes in all types of firewalls and barriers of the virtual world. They might not be the best, but it was more than what they had had at the beginning. And that Mycroft had stolen the access codes had made the project more accessible.

Irene made him crouch down and escorted him quickly to the point where Lestrade was. Halfway through, he received a warning in his communicator, and they stopped a few meters from the meeting point. Irene leaned in to look at the panorama. He could hear Lestrade talking with someone under the crossfire, and Sherlock's raven seemed more nervous than usual, flapping his wings as if he wanted to fly away but something seemed to prevent him from doing so.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked when he saw the black tip of the rifle sticking out from the cover where Lestrade was hiding.

"One of the loads has been maladjusted. I need to go and repair it."

Sherlock cursed. There was always a problem. Always

He sighed. He knew that he would not come out from it alive. He had almost expected it. He took a deep breath. Irene took him by the arm tightly. Her face, pale as marble, was covered in dust and dirt. Her gathered hair made her features much more angular than usual. Her green eyes pierced him with fury, and the lioness that accompanied her wagging her tail with a lack of urgency, roaring under her breath. Sherlock could see the tail of Lestrade's badger looming behind the cover where he was. The conversation reached his ears, angrily. He looked at Irene directly at her eyes, aware that time was playing against them. All of the charges had to detonate, and the more time that they lost here, the more likely they would be trapped under the debris of the area that they were in.

"You're not going to move from here. We will send someone else."

Sherlock put away the communicator and pulled his pistol from his belt, shaking Irene's hand off.

"I have to go. I left instructions on 221B on how to manage the Chimera if something happens to me. My landlady has them." He explained quickly, inspecting the ammunition of his weapon, and that the hand grenades were accessible from where they were, hanging from the holsters on his hips. "Let no one touch it directly or inhale it. It's terribly toxic. Use the gloves and mask at the entrance to access the laboratory," Sherlock swallowed, and pulled an envelope from his jacket. He handed it to Irene, who took it firmly before putting it in her chest. "This is for me... If you see my wolf, give him this from my part. I hope... that he understands."

Hugin screamed at him as he did so, and rose violently, heading for the cover where Lestrade was, circling in the air.

"Hugin!" Screamed Sherlock, and was about to head there and follow him, when a shot stopped him. He returned to the cover and after several deep breaths, he ran in the opposite direction, towards the area of the wall that had not yet been detonated. He jumped through the rubble, hurrying towards an abandoned vehicle, intending to bypass it and drive him towards the area in question. He had less than two minutes before the last charge exploded, and, therefore, the covers would explode.

The co-pilot's door opened while he was trying to get the wires to connect.

"Damn it, Holmes. I will not let you get killed after all the effort I've done to keep you alive," snarled Irene, pulling up beside him and firing from the window at the two army soldiers that were approaching them. "Start this damned thing before they leave us as a walking sieve."

Sherlock gritted his teeth until he got the wires to make contact. The motor trembles and turned on with a roar. With both hands on the wheel, Sherlock stepped on the accelerator and turned around the car until it was right in front of their pursuers. He charged against them with force, and then backtracked to line up on the street to their destination.

"Put your seatbelt on. I'm going to skip a couple of traffic lights" he warned.

After flying through nearly all of the lights that were to cross London, they finally reached their destination. The area of the wall where the charges had failed.

"Good thing that they were only going to be a couple"

They got out of the car and Sherlock ran directly to the place where the terminal that controlled the detonation of the gunpowder that would make the Semtex explode was. And as he feared, it had been damaged and had to be activated manually, which would give them less than a minute to get out of the danger zone before everything flew to pieces. The minimum safety distance couldn't be met with so little margin time, no matter the possibilities.

"What do I do? What do you need?"

Sherlock took out of his backpack a pen drive with the codes and inserted it in the entrance of the portable terminal, hoping that with a restart it would be enough to reconnect the explosives with the correct sequence.

"Stay in the car and keep the motor running. When I activate the detonator we will have to leave this place at top speed."

Irene disappeared at a trot, and Sherlock heard the engine being turned on. There were fire trucks helping the nearby areas and if his city plans did not fail him, he knew he had minimum two minutes to fix that charge before the next explosion caught him too close. He waited for the charging bar of the terminal system to completely fill, carefully watching his wristwatch, programmed to countdown alongside the system of the last detonation. He had less than six minutes left. The would have to access the 'Lion Den' in a different way. Because Sherlock had no longer any plans to return to the clean side after the completion of the final plan, unless he had to collect samples. He hoped that Lestrade would be able to get him a subject whom he could use a pilot test before the final assault.

Sherlock thought in Hugin and his uncontrolled reaction. He felt the oppression in his chest that was characteristic of the distance, but it was diminishing, as if finally the raven had decided that it was useless to try and make Sherlock listen, and would have yielded in order to return with his owner to prevent further damages. His heart was accelerating, and he felt a ball in his stomach, heavy and uncomfortable. He wished that the day was finally over, more than ever, and an annoying part of him firmly believed that he was going to die that day. It was the first time that he was face to face with death in that sense. He had never before been in a combat zone, although he had fired a gun before, and definitely knew how to use a grenade. It would not be the first time either that he killed someone, or that he saw someone die. Simply it was the tension and imminence in the air, the atmosphere of danger and chaos that his plan had unleashed.

Of course that the plan itself wasn't very tactical, it had been to get a lay of the land.

To have the wall of London fall would serve to promote the escape of many of the dystopians that preferred to begin a new life away of London and with all that it involved, with less possibilities of suffering from reprisals of the government or Jim. But it was also an opportunity for the allied forces that were willing to help them in their cause.

However, the only thing that Sherlock had in mind when drawing up that plan had been to know the enemy a bit better. Undoubtedly Moriarty's activities and responses over the years had been more that revealing, but he could not help but see him as a complex matrioska. He seemed unable to predict Jim's movements exactly, despite thinking that he knew his way of thinking. To believe that he could get himself into his shoes, get into his head. He couldn't. Every time that he was able to pull a layer of what James Moriarty represented, he would discover that there was another layer and another one. And Sherlock knew that the easiest option to discover how many layers he had was not to pull one by one, but to cut him in half and observe the veins. So Sherlock had done that in a very figuratively sense. He had destroyed perhaps one of the few things upon which Moriarty had had almost complete control since the dictatorship began, and he longed to know his reaction.

Why was it important to know how Jim thought? Because that would help them destroy him, frankly. There was also a small part of frank curiosity, but would go to sleep every night when the fatigue was too much for his exhausted body, he would dream with Moriarty's grave. He would dream of his corpse, with blood running down his temple. He would dream with the day that the 'Lion Den' would become a habitable place, not the landfill of human waste that it had become. He would dream of the day when Moriarty was only a bad name, an old memory that he could forget over time.

Sherlock had reached the cold and inhospitable place where the vengeance was what made his heart beat every day with a little more force.

When the white bar was fully filled, and the familiar beep of the activation sounded, Sherlock extracted the pen drive and ran towards the car, jumping on to his seat.

"Where can we get there in two minutes?" asked Irene, driving towards the front, stepping on the accelerator firmly.

"Until... Elm Park at most. From there we can follow the district line until we reach Circle, and then cross under Tower Bridge to the 'Lion Den'. Circle hasn't given us any problems. It will be barely monitored.

The explosion was heard shortly after, and the car shook as the ground trembled. Sherlock felt the icy kiss of death on the back of his neck, as he felt her brush against him. He had escaped this time, but seemed to promise a second encounter. Soon, very soon... He shuddered, removing that thought from his mind.

They turned by one of the streets, and left the car parked in front of one of the tube station entrances that faced Circle and seemed to lack people.

They ran until they reached one of the corridors, where they accessed the ventilation tunnels. There were safer forms of crossing the tube system, but there were zones where the security guards passed more often than there, so that seemed a great choice.

They walked in silence, side by side, until they reached the barricade that separated the tube tunnels from the area of the 'Lion Den'. Sherlock was about to say something, when a flash of pain pierced his shoulder. He raised a hand to the area where sting was going through, and gasped, breathless, with his eyes filling with tears. He couldn't move. He could barely breathe. What was that? He looked at his hand, confused. There was no blood. He wasn't wounded. He couldn't understand how his neurons could register a pain that wasn't supposed to be there. But as much that he could not understand, he still could not move.

"Well, it seems that it hasn't been that hard, huh?" smiled Irene, hanging her rifle over her shoulder and the flashlight on. When Sherlock didn't answer, she turned, worried. "Holmes?"

The white, cool light of the LEDs illuminated him, in the darkness of the tunnel. Irene's lioness slowly approached Sherlock, rubbing her head against his side, but Sherlock still did not react. The pain was piercing, as if something was going through flesh. He found it hard to breath and thinking was impossible. His legs began to tremble and he fell to his knees. Everything went blank in his head.

"Irene... I can't..."

The aforesaid carried him over her shoulder, ready to drag him all the way if it was necessary. She knew that kind of pain. She knew that Sherlock did not have a physical would cause him such a reaction and that also it wasn't the mere separation from his spirit. Something had happened to his other half, she was sure. But she wasn't going to tell him unless he was capable of reaching to that conclusion by himself. She was not going to hurt him there, where he couldn't fall apart at ease. If it was what she thought it was, he would need support, and as he was, he would also need solace. But Irene could be wrong, of course. And she nearly prayed for it. Those reactions could also be due only of the soul mate being hurt.

She did not need to add two and two to realize that probably the other part of Sherlock had been within a few meters of them, when Hugin flew of the boy's shoulder until the barricade where Lestrade was. She hoped that, if that was so, that they had gotten rid of the explosion. How was it possible to not have seen a wolf? It must be huge and showy. She could not understand how, in the midst of a battle and with the senses in alert, something as big could have passed through her.

"Calm down. I'll bring you to the camp," she grunted, as she began to pace along the cleared tube tracks towards the surface. She pulled out her communicator with the other hand and dialled Lestrade's number. "Greg. Have someone pick us up at Surrey Quays. We're fine, the charges have detonated, but something has happened to Sherlock's dystopic. See you at the shelter.

Greg was carrying the stretcher where John was resting, bleeding profusely from the shoulder. Him and another of his men had dragged him into the tube tunnels when the wall exploded. John had inadvertently stepped between Lestrade and a bullet while he was trying to go back to their ranks, and they had hit him in the shoulder. With all the possible care, and the protection from the smoke of the debris produced by the explosion, Lestrade took out his knife and cut off the piece of John's ear that had the chip so that they could bring him to the 'Lion Den' without danger, the same that as they did with the other soldier that they took prisoner for Sherlock's tests. The raven had stayed rested on Lestrade's shoulder, with it's dark eyes fixed on John, convalescent and half unconscious while he was being transported. Greg's yew was hurrying on his side, checking the holes and dark corners in case someone hid there.

The way back wasn't more bumpy than usual, but it was faster. As soon as they reached the tunnels, they left John in charge of the few doctors that they had, prepared to attend the wounded after the mission. He watched as they applied gauze to the ear, cleaning the wound with alcohol, and how they performed an emergency operation to close the wound, although he was assigned to the small hospital that the 'Lion Den' owned, and that wasn't totally controlled by the government. There he would receive the necessary blood transfusions to save his life.

He was on the way to the medical centre when he received Irene's call, so he arranged for him to receive a transport to the hospital.

The last thing that Lestrade had expected to find in the middle of the mission had been John Watson. The last time that he saw him, he had been preparing an attack for one of the tube networks as a distraction, and that was years ago, when he was barely an adult. Now he even had a beard, and his body had adapted well to the life of a soldier. However, when he saw the leather collar around his neck, he quickly looked away. He was afraid of cutting it for what might happen latter; even if it was something he wanted. That was something John would have to decide for himself. And he doubted he would want to talk about the years with Jim when he came back.

He had passed information to them, of course. But they had never known his name. He was just another informant. An infiltrated that they had and who seemed committed to the cause one hundred per cent. They couldn't give their names in fear of the notes being intercepted, but a part of him felt guilty of not knowing about it from the beginning. Only John would be so crazy to take advantage of his captivity in his favour.

Greg thought, when he saw him in uniform, which he was hallucinating. That his tired mind was playing tricks on him.

Seeing him next to Dimmock, he believed that they had lost him forever. That he had finally succumbed to whatever they were doing to the dystopians of the other side. Lestrade preferred not to think too much of the rumours circulating about it.

The Stockholm syndrome had already claimed many of his own so most of them after a year passed were considered lost. John would have to pass through recognition and an exam before he began to join part of the resistance again. They couldn't leave any loose ends now that they were already so close in ending everything for once and for all.

All the same, Irene's phrase through the communicator was still resting in his head, while he looked at John and Sherlock's raven perched on his shoulder in an alternate fashion.

"Something has happened to Sherlock's dystopian."

Who was Sherlock's dystopian?

Translation of the original A/N:

Don't kill me, I promise to have a re-encounter in the next chapter. From here on everything improves, I swear it on Johnlock.

I already have a plan for Mystrade. Maybe you like the process, maybe you don't. But the ending will be good, seriously.

Sorry for having gone so slow with this. I had three versions of the chapter and none of them seemed good to me. XD

See you in the next chapter! Thanks for not killing me!

MH

PS: Did anyone get the joke on the chapter's name? XD It just happened, I swear.

Translators A/N:

I'm really sorry, m(_ _)m, I didn't have the time to just go through the translation. However, I will persist in finding my muse, who she will help me in giving you these lovely chapters.

A new chapter will come very soon! 2 weeks max!