Chapter 3

"A Great Game- Part III"

We ended up in the other flat Mrs. Hudson kept, but I forced Aurora to wait at Speedy's, my not wanting her anywhere near 221B in case there was another bomb.

The flat was just like the picture except for a pair of sneakers seated in the middle of the room. After warning Sherlock about the fact that they might be explosive, he moved to pick them up only to have all of us practically jump out of our skin when the pink phone rang. He had some sort of conversation on the phone, but all I could hear on the other end was a woman sobbing even as Sherlock hung up with the murmur, "And the curtain rises."

Aurora eventually returned to the flat on her own ambition, and I remained with her while Sherlock went off to Saint Bartholomew's to run some tests on those shoes. (I was to meet him there later.)

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Aurora?"

"It- It wasn't a gas leak, was it? It was a bombing, right?"

I nodded, not giving it much thought. "Yeah. Now while I'm off working this case, I want you to stay with Mrs. Hudson in her flat, alright? I'm not going to be around too often, and I don't want you to be alone."

Then came the onslaught of tears that had me thoroughly alarmed. I turned towards her instantly, my heart clenching painfully when she shook her head, hands moving to clutch at her hair. "No… Oh, God, no."

"Sweetheart, what's the matter?" I asked softly, placing my hands on her shoulders and gently turning her to look at me. "Are you alright?"

"He- He's back, Dad," Aurora stammered, face paling dreadfully to the point where I thought she was going to be sick.

"Who's back, Honey? Tell me who's back."

"Just before the explosion, I thought I saw him leaving the building. I- I played it up to a trick of the mind from my nightmares, but now I know."

"Aurora, who was it?" I questioned more sternly, using my hand to force her head upwards so she met my eyes. "Was it someone we know?"

"M-Moriarty."

I wrapped my arms more tightly around my daughter, making soft soothing noises when she began to shiver in fear.

"Oh, God. I'll give you my revolver, yeah? I'll even call Lestrade and have him put men round the perimeter of Baker Street. Sweetheart, I won't let him hurt you. You just need to stay here and stay calm, m'kay?"

"Just- Just catch him. Please? Make sure Uncle Sherlock gets him?" was all she asked when I left her at Mrs. Hudson's doorstep. She was holding my pistol tightly in her little hands, finger lingering on the safety. I placed my hands around hers to still the shaking and frowned at how cold they were.

"Do not hesitate to call me for anything, alright?" I insisted quietly, moving my hands to her shoulders once she calmed a bit. "If anything happens here, even if you think you hear the doorknob turn, call."

I sighed, pulling away slowly. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay until Mrs. Hudson arrives? I know the flat is open for you, but it'd be safer for someone to stay, don't you think?"

She shook her head, laughing bitterly as tears still trickled down her cheeks. "I'll be fine. After all, I've faced him once before."

"Be safe?"

"Like I could help it," she scoffed, waving goodbye with the gun-hand. "Just catch 'im, and I'll be fine."

I headed to the morgue without another word, sighing heavily with worry as I entered St. Bartholomew's. I informed Sherlock of everything that happened, to which I was given a glare.

"And you left her alone, John?" Sherlock hissed in disapproval, withdrawing his phone from his pocket. "As if those dogs at Scotland Yard could do anything to protect her. I'd better text Mycroft to send over more worthy guards."

"She told me to come and help you, y'know, and the sooner we get this done, the sooner I can hug the poor dear close and spoil her rotten," I dismissed. "So, who do you suppose it was?"

Sherlock, completely ignoring the fact that his phone had just buzzed, didn't even answer me.

"The woman on the phone. Who was she?"

He spared me a brief glance, scoffing lightly before he turned back to his microscope. "Oh, she doesn't matter. She's just a hostage. No lead there."

I tried not to register the full meaning of that, but I couldn't hold it back any longer and blurted, "Sherlock, I wasn't thinking of the leads!"

"Why? You're not going to be much use to her, are you?"

His phone trilled again, cutting off my next retorts when he asked, "Pass me my phone."

Then I decided against killing the bugger when I found out that it was in his damned pocket, and I spared no gentleness as I rummaged about his coat for it while he hissed at me to be careful.

"It's a text from your brother."

"Delete it."

"Why?"

"The missile plans are out of the country now. Nothing we can do about it."

I glanced at the message again, sighing in defeat. "Well, Mycroft thinks there is. He's texted you eight times. Must be important."

"Then why didn't he cancel his dentist appointment? Mycroft never texts if he can talk. Look, John, Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them, got his head smashed in for his pains. End of story. The only mystery is this why is my brother so determined to bore me when somebody else is being so delightfully interesting?"

"Try and remember there's a woman here who might die," I all but growled, my temper nearly breaking when he asked, "What for? This hospital's full of dying people, Doctor. Why don't you go and cry by their bedside and see what good it does them?"

"And so my crying at Aurora's bedside when she nearly died was unwarranted?" I snarled beneath my breath, fists clenching unconsciously at the memory whereas Sherlock let out a delighted noise in response to his experiment coming to a close.

"Any luck?" I looked up at Molly's voice, offering her a weak smile as she came over to look at the screen revealing the results.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to…"

Sherlock and I snapped alert at the new voice, my eyes narrowing as Molly exclaimed happily, "Jim, hi!"

Jim? Didn't Aurora say Moriarty's name was James?

"Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes and um… John Watson."

Jim's eyes were fixed on Sherlock's, his gaze filled with something akin to admiration while Sherlock seemed to come to same conclusion I had.

"So you're Sherlock Holmes," Jim drawled out, a tad too happily for my liking. "Molly's told me all about you. You on one of your cases?"

"Jim works in I.T. upstairs. That's how we met. Office romance," Molly giggled, and Jim gave her a smile.

"Gay," Sherlock muttered beneath his breath, not even looking away from his microscope, but Molly didn't seem to hear him, asking, "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," he dismissed, raising his head and giving Jim a smile even I knew was fake. "Um, hey."

"Hey." And that's when Jim knocked off a dish from the table, laughing nervously while he picked it up. "Sorry! So sorry!"

I face-palmed, knowing full well that would send Sherlock into an even more irritable mood. I was proved right when the idiot left, and Sherlock decided to ruin poor Molly Hooper's relationship.

"What do you mean, gay?" Molly asked in disbelief. "We're together."

"And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly. You've put on three pounds since I last saw you."

Sherlock also apparently felt the need to insult her figure.

"Two and a half, Sherlock."

"No, decently sure it's three."

At that point, all I could do was warn, "Sherlock…"

Obviously, his words had hit a mark when Molly denied, "He's not gay!" Why do you have to spoil everything? He's not-"

"With that level of personal grooming?"

"Because he puts a bit of product in his hair? I put product in my hair," I pointed out in a vain attempt to get him to shut up.

"You wash your hair, John. There's a difference. No, no. You see, tinted eyelashes, clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines… Then there's his underwear. It was visible above the waistline: very visible, very particular brand."

He paused, reaching for that dish Jim had knocked off and retrieving a card beneath it. "There's that, plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish here. I'd say you'd better break it off now and save yourself the pain."

The poor girl nearly broke into tears at that, dashing out of the morgue without another word while I was left to chew out the detective for just being downright rude.

He cut me off mid-rant, tossing me the sneakers from earlier. "Go on, then."

"Hmm?"

"You know what I do. Off you go."

I shook my head. "No."

"Go on."

"I'm not gonna stand here so you can humiliate me while I try and-"

"An outside eye, a second opinion. It's very useful to me," he drawled out expectantly, crossing his arms like the brat he was. "Really."

I rolled my eyes upon seeing he wasn't going to give in any time soon. "Fine. Have it your way, as always."

I glanced at the shoes, turning them in my hands absentmindedly. "I don't know. They're just a pair of shoes. Trainers, I mean."

"Good."

"Well, they're in good nick. I'd say they were pretty new except… except the sole has been well-worn, so the owner must have had them for a while. Uh, they're very eighties, probably one of those retro designs.

"What else?"

"Well, they're quite big, so a man's."

"But…?"

I glanced inside one show, opening them a bit wider to get a better look. "There are traces of a name inside in felt-tip. Adults don't write their names inside their shoes, so these belonged to a kid."

"Excellent. What else?"

I shook my head, just giving him the bloody trainers.

"That's it?"

"How did I do?"

"I wish Aurora were here right now; this would be so much more fun," was the only answer I received before he started rattling off facts, "The owner loved these. Scrubbed them clean, whitened them where they got discolored. Changed the laces three, no, four times. Even so, there are traces of his flaky skin where his fingers have come into contact with them, so he suffered from eczema. Shoes are well-worn, more so on the inside, which means the owner had weak arches. British-made, twenty years old."

"Twenty years?"

He nodded. "They're not retro, John. They're original. Limited edition: two blue stripes, 1989."

"But there's still mud on them, Sherlock. They look new."

"Someone's kept them that way," Sherlock remarked thoughtfully, setting down the trainers and glancing at me. "Quite a bit of mud caked on the soles. Analysis shows it's from Sussex with London mud overlaying it."

"How do you know?"

"Pollen spores. They're as good as a map." He nodded in direction to the screen showing the results from his test. "South of the river, too. So, the kid who owned these trainers came to London from Sussex twenty years ago and left them behind."

"So what happened to him?

Sherlock practically blanched. "Carl Powers."

I looked at him in confusion. "Sorry, who?

He wouldn't meet my eyes, gaze fixed on some unknown object in the distance. "Carl Powers, John. It's where I began."

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