Disappearing Act 2
Not as long as the last one but I figured it would be as good a place to stop as any. A bit of a cliffhanger but hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter out fast. Also, this is for the tumblr people because something in here ought to sound extremely familiar.
Sherlock=Me no owny! Godtiss and the Moff do! And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, because he is god. We need him back. He was fun!
"Should we pop in on Mrs. Hudson? I don't want to give the old girl a heart attack but I think she'd kill me if I didn't." Sherlock said as they drove towards Northumberland street.
John snickered. "That's funny. Unfortunately for your redeemed honor, Mrs. Hudson is in Wales visiting her sister. You'll have to wait until she gets back."
They pulled up in front of the restaurant and got out. When they stepped through the door, Angelo was clearing off a table. The wine glass in his hand fell to the floor and shattered. "Sherlock!" Angelo cried as he seized Sherlock in a bone-crushing hug. "Oh I knew it! I knew the great Sherlock Holmes couldn't be dead! Especially not after they cleared you."
Sherlock gasped and tried to tap out on Angelo's back. John was having a coughing fit that could have been hiding laughter. When Sherlock was about to pass out, Angelo released Sherlock and ushered the Consulting Detective and Doctor over to "their table" in front of the window. He handed them both menus and went to get a "more romantic" candle.
They ordered and Sherlock sipped his water. "So, how did I get cleared? I missed the initial coverage and just keep forgetting to research it."
"How could you have missed it? It was all over everywhere. Where were you then?" John asked.
A Taliban cave in the Pakistani mountains, but John didn't need to know about that. "Oh, nowhere. So, how was my name avenged?"
John chewed his lip, as though searching for a place to begin. Then, he spotted something leaning against the wall; it was a poster. John beamed at it a moment before turning it to reveal the subject to Sherlock. A spray-painted portrait of Sherlock with his eyes covered by a label that read in all capital letters: "MORIARTY WAS REAL" stared back at him. The caption benieth stated for all to see: "I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES" The bottom of fthe poster had been cut into pieces; all of which had been ripped off but the one on the end where "I BELIEVE" was printed.
"These were all over the place. And not just these ones either. You were famous. Remember all those readers I had on the blog? Most of them were teenagers and they went bat shit nuts when you supposedly confessed and killed yourself. They figured it all out. Like I said, there were quite a few of these. "Richard Brooke is a Lie!" and "Moriarty was real!" A few of them even got a picture of Lestrade that said "Trust Your Instincts." But I think my favorites were the "Watson's Warriors. Are you one of us?" Those weren't just posters. They made shirts and bags and hats. But they put the posters up everywhere; billboards, newsstands, tube stations, benches, everywhere that could be glued got one. Remember your spray paint friend? He led a marauding band all over London and tagged everything that could take the paint. But it wasn't all just graffiti and public unrest. They found proof, Moriarty's hideout, all of it. Things even Mycroft could never find. You would not believe the resources these kids have. They petitioned the courts and all. Your name was cleared in oh…two years I think. As soon as the news broke, they all volunteered to clean up. Not many of the posters are still floating around; mostly just in places the kids go like coffee shops and vintage stores. I'm surprised Angelo still has this one, but then again, you were always his favorite person. And Martin still tags for you on the already covered spots like the skate park and the bridges."
Sherlock was…pretty much speechless, a rare occurrence. "But…but why?"
John shrugged. "They liked you. More importantly, they respected you. You gave them hope that not all adults are as stupid as they seem. They seemed to like how you figured everything out too. It intrigued them; they wanted to be able to do it too. But they couldn't so they lived vicariously though you. They'll love knowing you're back." John hesitated a moment. "I can tell them, right?"
Sherlock nodded. "I'm back. For now."
John tried hard to keep the hurt he felt at those words off his face but didn't know if he'd succeeded. "So, why?" he picked up a roll from the basket on the table, "Why'd you do all that? Fake your own death I mean. And where'd you go? What'd you do?"
Sherlock settled back in his chair and looked out the window. "You had a sniper pointed at your head. You, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, everyone I accidentally let too close. I almost had the code to call them off when-" he mimed Moriarty eating his gun, "All I could do was what he'd told me to. Luckily, I'd already had a hunch he would require something of that nature before we could be free of him and had a plan. Back before we met, when I was still a junky, I overdosed on cocaine once. My heart stopped but they were able to revive me. It's a peculiar quirk of that particular narcotic. Still I'd had the experience and now the knowledge. I never thought I'd have a practical use for it however."
"Wait," John had to make sure he'd heard that right, "y-you purposely OD'd on cocaine?"
Sherlock nodded. "I had to make sure it was believable, that you knew."
"B-but the blood—. No one could stand a fall that far…"
"I jumped for the garbage truck in the street. It wasn't too bad. Then, before the drugs took full effect, I jumped out of the truck. Hit my head on the concrete when the drugs kicked in but it worked. You and the snipers saw my dead body." Sherlock's voice had grown quiet, as though the memories hurt.
Or maybe it was just John. His friend's voice sounded far away as John recalled his own memories. Sherlock's last words; "Goodbye John."; the confusion as they talked over the phone; the terror as Sherlock fell; barely being able to cross the street; people trying to pull him away; holding Sherlock's hand and feeling…nothing; no pulse, no warmth, no spark of life; throwing himself back, away from the horrible red liquid as they got Sherlock on a gurney and rolled him into St Bartholomew's; then the funeral; years of mourning. There was sadness, so much pain, and it threatened to overwhelm him. But there was anger too, and that kept him afloat.
"How many people knew?" he ground out through clenched teeth.
"What?" Sherlock asked, a quiet tinge of fear in his voice at John's sudden anger.
"How many other people knew?" John took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm himself down.
"About faking it. Someone else had to, besides Mycroft. Not even you could pull that off by yourself. So, who else knew?"
"Only one: Molly. She faked my death certificate for me. And I didn't tell Mycroft. He figured it out before Molly had even put on her scrubs. He dumped eight gallons of ice on me to wake me up." Sherlock explained.
"Ice?" John asked, brows knitting together in confusion.
"It is by far the rudest way to wake someone in my position up. He had Molly forge the death certificate anyway and air-evaced me to his private hospital in West Oxfordshire. After I recuperated from my conclusion and cracked ribs, I started on my mission."
"Which was?"
Sherlock's eyes were full of determination. "To take down Moriarty's network."
Their bubble popped. The little bubble that had formed around them burst with Angelo's arrival with their food. They remembered that they were in a semi-crowded restaurant in the middle of London. John wondered why none of the other patrons were looking at Sherlock or himself oddly. They'd been talking of court trials and faked deaths, cocaine and stopped hearts. Then he realized that one of them cared. These events, which had been so large in John's life, were nothing but news stories to them, these so called normal people. And now, unlike when these events had happened, he didn't envy them their normalcy. He'd had a normal life for the last seven years. Now, he stood on the threshold of odd again and felt like he was returning home.
"So that's what you've been doing this whole time? For nine years, just taking down a criminal network?" John asked, just a touch disbelievingly. He knew Moriarty had been connected, but certainly not that connected.
"It wasn't just any criminal network!" Sherlock exclaimed. "It was the crème de la crème of criminal networks!" The manic spark was back in Sherlock's eyes. "I found American politicians, European business men, Russian Mafia agents, Portuguese plantation owners, Middle Eastern Sheiks, and more minor criminals than I thought possible. I found General Shun too. Moriarty had her killed after her run in with us and had been running the Black Lotus by pretending to her. It really was very masterful." Sherlock had been impressed. Even if Moriarty had been the devil in disguise, he had been very well organized. He gave a new meaning to the name of Organized Crime.
Sherlock hesitated. What he was about to tell John would not make him happy, but he deserved to know. "But it didn't take me nine years."
"What?"
"It didn't take me nine years to destroy Moriarty's network. It took me three and a half." It took John a moment, but he realized what Sherlock was saying. And it felt like he'd just been punched in the gut. Sherlock rushed to explain. "But by then you were already married with Jaimey on the way. I couldn't just march back into your life. It wasn't that I didn't want to or that I'd forgotten; I just wanted you to be happy. And it seemed like you were. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy… I'm so sorry…" Sherlock's voice trailed off. John's eyes were squeezed shut and he was trembling. Sherlock wanted so desperately to reach out and touch John, to comfort him, tell him everything would be okay, that he was there and that he wouldn't be leaving again. But he couldn't for fear that John would lash out at him. Where the years of being apart from the one person Sherlock had let into his heart hadn't, for John to lash out and reject him would destroy Sherlock.
But after several agonizing minutes of watching his only friend in pain, Sherlock had to say something. "John?" he almost whispered.
John took a deep, shuddering breath and opened his eyes. The deep blue orbs swam with tears, but John's smile was so much more. "It's fine. It's all fine." He said in a hoarse whisper. "I forgive you." He'd forgiven Sherlock when he opened the door, was it really only last night, and saw him standing on the front step.
Before Sherlock could do more than beam, his mobile went off. It was Lestrade. Sherlock pressed the phone to his ear. "You found them?" He asked expectantly. Sherlock's eyebrows knit together and John knew something was wrong. "What do you mean there's a problem? Okay, fine, we're on our way." John was already throwing fifteen quid on the table and standing up. They ran from the restaurant.
XXX
"So what exactly is the problem with the evidence?" Sherlock asked as they barged back into the New Scotland Yard building and Lestrade's office. There was an evidence box on Greg's desk with "Mary Susan Watson: COLD" written on the label. Sherlock strode over and flipped off the lid. He bent over to examine the multitude of pictures and written descriptions of the crime scene. "I don't see a problem. But where's the physical evidence?" Sherlock asked, looking up at Lestrade.
The D.I. sighed. "The physical evidence is the problem. It's gone. All of it. There were two boxes on file and we only found one. We're still looking of course but…"
Sherlock looked up. At the look in his eyes, Lestrade felt like taking as step back. "Say that again."
"We can't find the other box with the rest of the evidence. It must have been mislabeled when it got transferred here." Greg was trying to explain but Sherlock wasn't listening.
No, that wasn't it. The box hadn't been mislaid or mislabeled. Greg Lestrade and the rest of the team were not the type of people to mislabel something of such personal importance to them, especially not after requesting it be transferred specially to their division. Why else would it be there? No…it had been stolen.
"That's it!" Sherlock almost yelled, causing Greg and John to jump, and started digging through the photo evidence.
"What's it?" Jon and Greg asked together.
Sherlock spoke as he examined each photo carefully. "The rest of the evidence isn't anywhere in this building. The killer stole it. No one would mislay a case so directly linked to John. Not in this squadron anyway. But they only took the physical evidence, which means we're supposed to look at this stuff here, which means it's a message. For one of us," he was talking about John and himself. "Its less likely to be John because the murderer went to what appears to be great pains not to disturb or harm Jaimey in any way, other than the intense psychological damage that could have occurred if he'd found the body. So it was meant for me…" he trialed off, tracing a spiral drawn in blood with his fingers.
"Sorry, but everyone thought you were dead. How could the murderer have left a message for you?" John asked.
"Obviously someone made a very good guess." Sherlock muttered but his further musings were cut off by the ringing of John's mobile phone.
"It's Jaimey's school…" John murmured before answering. "Hello? Yes, yes, this is John Watson. …What? He did what?"
R&R Dearies!