The door opened halfway through some woman's speech about her dead child. John had no idea how but was almost certain he'd found his quarry. He wasn't Sherlock; he didn't have a soldier's gait separated and identified in his mind; he didn't have eyes in the back of his head. He just had a damn strong feeling so he only turned as much as the rest of the crowd and turned back with them, never glancing at the man he might be shooting. He turned back to the speaking drunk and waited, feeling old habits sink back into his bones. He'd always been stupidly good at looking harmless, but he was dealing with a man that had once had him in his sights. He'd have to be damn careful. He already felt a target painted on his back.
He stayed with the crowd as they got up from the damn plastic chairs and headed over to the overly brewed, cheap coffee. A.A was like a really bad singles event afterward, all wax paper cups and personal questions. He turned to see Moran so that he could know for sure. It was him; there was no doubt.
"So, how long were you caught in it?" a woman asked, looking sympathetic as she glanced over at him from filling her cup. He'd already learned to stay away from the coffee to avoid conversations like this but today he needed it, needed to blend in, needed someone to wait with him or to walk him out if Sebastian Moran left first.
He wouldn't kill tonight.
"Awhile," he answered, doing his best to approximate his old harmless closed-mouth smiles.
Next week he'd get Moran before the meeting.
"It's your first day here, isn't it? I'm sorry, there's just a look people get. You know, when they've got nothing left? It takes some time to build your life up again," she stated. John glanced back at her, surprised. She was smarter than Sarah then, apparently.
He swallowed heavily.
"Seven months," he answered. Her eyebrows shot up.
Eight now, he corrected himself too late.
"Wow. My mistake. But it does take a long time. Three years sober now for me and I'm only just starting to actually be glad to be away from it," she said, glancing back at her cup in the machine and pulling it away before it overflowed. She moved to stand in front of him, blocking his view of Moran.
Perfect.
It was a strange rule of A.A meetings that one could ask about the worst, most debilitating time of another person's life and talk about the destruction of families but no one ever, ever asked what got them to drink in the first place. Family history was acceptable to discuss but never to ask for and almost no one mentioned the partner's suicide that started the whole thing. A strange etiquette John was absurdly grateful for.
~~/~~
John had done a suspect retrieval before, but only just the once. Interrogation was a fundamental part of an urban guerrilla war – there was no getting around it. It was one of those things that had soldiers coming home and referring to 'the things they'd seen'. No details. You just didn't tell your civvy girlfriend about this.
After a certain point, training didn't matter. It just wasn't that hard to kill someone, even up close. A safe capture was harder but he didn't have any questions for the man; Sherlock was dead and he knew where the other assassins were. Sherlock had already found their permanent addresses. That would make it easier. It was simply safer to transport a living man and kill him at the dump spot.
John waited in the alley by the front door the next week, hoping Moran would arrive so he could be done with the nastiness.
The A.A crowd slowly trickled in, not even glancing at the alleyway where he hid.
Damn it, but it was cold and his shoulder ached with it. He blew on his hands, knowing he'd need them warm, and shoved them into his pockets, hating how the cold made each breath into a visible little cloud, even through the ski mask. That hadn't been a problem in the Middle East. He'd just have to not breathe, when it came time.
John squinted at his watch in the dark. If it came time. Surely Moran wouldn't bother showing up more than twenty minutes late to an hour-long session.
Twenty minutes later John was starting to think it was useless either way. He wouldn't have much time before the speeches petered out and the parking lot was flooded with alcoholic witnesses again. Then a silver sedan pulled into the lot.
John waited, feeling a grim determination settle over him as he watched Sebastian Moran walk from his car. The sedan beeped twice and its lights flashed, and John was grateful the alleyway was too far away to be lit by it. John stepped behind the man just as he moved to reach for the building's door handle and pressed his needle into the clean-shaven neck. Moran grunted and started to fight but the tranquilizer did its job. John caught the body as it fell and pulled the man into his arms, doing his best to look like a friend with a very unhelpful drunk man. John leaned the limp form over the sedan bonnet, propping Moran up with his knee and left arm while he searched the man's pockets for his keys.
Keys in hand, John dragged the man into the back seat, sickly aware that unlike in Afghanistan, the whole digital world was watching him here; probably in glorious 3D, HD, surround sound. Still, he'd seen all the tricks that had puzzled Sherlock and utterly stumped the police and at the end of the day, the trick was to avoid leaving clues with fancy-ass games.
Sherlock couldn't solve the crime variant where a 'random masked man drugs a citizen, dumps him in his own car, and kills him'. He needed 'Rache' scratched into the floor, a damn cellphone password that made no sense at all. And Sherlock could still never give the police a 100% solved case rate, because there were simply too many murders, too many suspects, and too little evidence.
He just needed to make it take more than 48 hours to get them pointing at him and they'd never convict him.
He drove the body to the west, to the ugly part of the city where the tourists never went. He parked under a bridge and prepared a second vial of the tranquilizer. This wasn't going to solve the endless list of questions around Sherlock's death, but perhaps it'd keep Mrs. Hudson safe.
John found himself flicking the syringe and letting the drug dribble out to ensure against air bubbles.
How did it come to this? He wondered, reflecting on the prone body before him for a moment, though he knew he was not hesitating. Sebastian Moran would die in this car.
It's elementary, John.
John shook his head sharply, dispelling the voice though not the idea. This man held a gun to Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade, and compelled Sherlock to jump. It would be a great relief to see him dead.
It's not vengeance, he told himself. He was protecting Mrs. Hudson.
You're lying to yourself, he thought, trying to imagine Sherlock looking up from the couch to snarl at him, as he'd done so often.
It doesn't matter, John decided, and pushed the syringe into the man's arm. He waited a full forty five minutes, until he could feel the corpse start to cool, before he took off his mask and got out of the car. Death could be a hard thing to ensure with a tranquilizer.
He walked toward the train station, the ski mask in his pocket, and dumped the mask and syringe in the trash in the second underground station. It was going to take months to find the next body; he'd have to buy a new mask for the winter.
~~/~~
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
It didn't make sense, Sherlock thought, peering at the official photographs of Sebastian Moran. The man was clearly dead; liver mortis had long since set in and dyed the man's back the ugly purple of settled blood. Mycroft was searching for the killer, certainly, but he'd never find him. There was nothing to work with but a security tape of an average height, masked man that moved like a trained killer and drove the body away from any camera's sight. A hard feat, in London.
Two more and I could come back, he thought but cut it off. That was statistically impossible and he had to stop thinking about London, get used to New York, learn about the disintegration of cloth materials in the Hudson. But Sebastian Moran had had a powerful enemy in London. Somehow, he'd missed that.
~~/~~
He had the third shooter in his car, lying over the backseat, when he realized something was wrong. John stared at the empty syringe in his hand, trying to pick up on a faint thread of memory. There were too many questions surrounding Sherlock's death, far too many, and he had a feeling he'd just stumbled onto the last one.
The black-hair draped over the minivan's back seat, splayed over the side of the cushioning reminded him of the postmortems, Sherlock bleeding over the mortician's table.
Bleeding. Actively.
What the fuck?
He had to be wrong. This was the last one, the last kill and he could empty the rest of the tranquilizer vial into his veins. There was nothing left. He could not rejoin the army; there was nothing to keep him from it. Mrs. Hudson would suffer, that was clear and it made him want to break down screaming to think about it. He did not want Mrs. Hudson to suffer. However, he had always been a reasonable man and he knew, without a doubt, after this kill there would be nothing to stop him the next time he forgot something about Sherlock, forgot how he sounded or stood or smelled. The urge would come again and he had nothing left to fight it back.
Nothing ever happens to me.
But he had to see those pictures again.
~~/~~
Hope bloomed too damn quickly. John took a taxi to the hospital, cursing himself for the way the world seemed to rush around him. He was feeling hopeful. Thinking he could have his dead partner back by some fucking twist of fate and he couldn't take this blow again. He couldn't look at those pictures and see that he was wrong again.
Suicide, John? What's the point?
"Alright?" the cabbie asked, pulling over beside St. Barts. John glanced out of the cab, toward the five story building and swallowed heavily. He made himself breathe through his nose and forced his eyes open. He was fine. "Twenty six quid even," the cabbie announced.
John paid him and made himself step out. The cement was hard beneath his feet and John wanted to puke, glancing over at the large rectangle worked into the concrete to mark the bus stop. Eight months.
Fuck. Sherlock Holmes.
John started for the front door. He made his way down to the morgue, trying to figure out if he should do this. He couldn't take being wrong again.
It doesn't matter, he realized belatedly, staring through the doors into the empty morgue. He wasn't 'handling it' anyway. He wasn't healing.
Why not?, he wondered, stopping outside the morgue door. He could remember walking inside the first time, looking only for a flatmate to lower his rent. Stamford had described a friend of his, a scientist, and he'd hoped for a busy man who'd leave him alone. So, his friend had died. That had happened before. Why was his heart racing now, at this place he'd met Sherlock, at the thought that if Sherlock Holmes were truly gone, he wouldn't take much time to follow? He'd lost friends before. What more was Sherlock that his death meant so much?
I loved you, you idiot, he remembered texting. John closed his eyes, his stomach clenching at the thought. Surely not.
One more miracle, Sherlock. For me. Don't be dead.
John slipped inside and crossed to the cabinet Molly had filed the pictures in. She was nowhere in sight but he had lived with Sherlock for over a year. He knew how to pick locks, even if it did take forever.
Case # 135642585: White Male, 37 Years old, Sherlock Holmes
John skipped over the examiner's chart. It didn't matter now. If Sherlock was alive, Molly would have been in on it. She had signed the chart.
Don't try to think, John, it's not your area. This whole theory is asinine.
Actually, Sherlock, it's not, John thought, staring at the photos. Picture 17, time stamp 11:46:02. Sherlock's bloody arm, the bone sticking up through the skin. Picture 18, time stamp 11:46:54, The same arm, at the side of the picture, bloodier now, the bone sticking up through the skin. John flipped back and forth between the pictures, the bile in his throat starting to settle as his heart rate picked up.
Oh my god.
He was going to be like one of Elvis' sick fans, never believing in the actual death. But it was over; he'd never believe it now. That 'corpse' was still bleeding.
Molly, what did you do?
John felt determination flow through him. He had to talk to her. He had to know what the fuck had gone down on the top of that damn building.
Sherlock is alive.
John leaned a hand on the table and tried to breathe steadily.
Sherlock's alive. And I'm going to be furious when I calm down.
John flipped between the two photos again and starting searching through the others for any sort of greater evidence. Nothing. The man looked entirely like a corpse on a table. They'd managed it perfectly; but they couldn't keep him from bleeding.
They hid this for a reason, John remembered, flipping through the pages again and taking picture 17. He folded it up in his pocket quickly and filed the folder away.
He needed to talk to Molly, but first he needed to punch something until his knuckles bled, grab some food, and have a beer.
~~/~~
He couldn't talk to Molly, John realized, halfway through his second beer. If Sherlock was truly alive -fuck -if Sherlock was alive, they'd allowed him to mourn just to make the world believe Sherlock Holmes had died at the bottom of that building.
Which meant he'd just stumbled onto one hell of a secret. John leaned forward over the bar and nursed his drink. No. He had no proof, the pictures weren't that clear. There was a lot of blood on that table, more may have simply seeped to the appropriate side if the autopsy table were tilted and they sometimes were. But it made sense. Sherlock had seen the assassin threat coming, had planned on faking his suicide -fuck you Sherlock -and couldn't come back until the threat was eliminated. Which meant the rest of Moriarty's network, or at least the key players in it.
John smiled grimly around his drink. He had a whole folder full of them.
Wherever Sherlock was, he was fighting through the whole damn thing like a giant puzzle to unravel, when he could just cut his way through.
Best way to get proof, John thought, swallowing down another gulp. Cut through the folder and see if Sherlock Holmes comes back.
He couldn't do that. John stared at his drink, wanting to slam it down on the bar top. He wasn't a murderer; never had been. Most of Moriarty's contacts were guilty of extortion, burglary, destruction of evidence. He'd already dealt with the really dangerous players. If anyone else mattered, there was nothing more he could do, and if it'd only been the assassins, that job was done.
This is Sherlock's game.
John cursed himself and gulped down the rest of his beer. Sherlock was alive, he just had to wait.
And then kill him, John thought, turning his empty glass in his hand. Sherlock had faked his death, faked everything.
When did he start lying to me? John wondered, sighing heavily. He could barely remember the train of events that'd ended with Sherlock on that rooftop. But somewhere in there, Sherlock had guessed Moriarty's plan and started circumnavigating it, leaving John very much behind.
So I wouldn't get in the way, John guessed, slamming the glass down despite himself.
"Hard night?" the bartender asked. He was a short gruff man, and he looked concerned. John glanced up to see the quiet crowd staring at him.
"Sorry. Sorry," John said, grabbing his coat.
"Sure," the bartender answered and John left.
~~/~~
She was feeling guilty, Donovan thought, lying back in Philip's bed, listening to him shower. She'd always felt like shit about herself, that was hardly a change; she'd used Philip's wife's shampoo for God's sake, now that Sherlock wasn't around to sniff it out. Her life was the work, that was who she really was, so it didn't much matter to her what she did outside of it. But this time she felt guilty about her work and that bit deep.
But she had fuck all idea why. She hadn't done anything wrong. She was a good cop, and had proved that to herself those few months ago. Proved it to anyone who could ask that she'd put justice over her own career because god she hadn't done herself any favors accusing her supervisor's only friend -if Sherlock had even been that - of kidnapping and assault. Internal investigations didn't do wonders for anyone.
And it hadn't been her damn fault the man had gone and played leapfrog over a building. The fraudulent creep had already been mentally unstable and she'd sacrificed her career to get a psychopath off the streets. It'd been the arresting officer's job to fucking arrest him, rather than let him run off the hood of the car into all of London to go kill himself. That was on the arresting officers and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
Christ, but Dr. Watson. The man had looked on the verge of collapse when she'd seen him, after. His eyes did not track through the world right, like he'd already decided there was nothing worth focusing on and he no longer bothered. That wasn't her damn fault either. Sally rolled over sharply and punched her pillow. She was going to sleep; she had no business feeling guilty.
Philip's shower stopped. Sally tried to sink into the bed and groaned to herself. God, but she was tired.
There was nothing else going on at work. The homicide unit had the same schedule for every case. They'd get called in for a murder, figure out if it was the spouse or a drug relation, or find out it was neither, work for 48 hours straight, call it a cold case and go home. And after just such a spree -it'd been the spouse and they'd only just caught up with him – she should be dead to the world, not lying awake ruminating about things that weren't her bloody fault.
"You need to stop feeling guilty," Philip said unnecessarily, looking over from where he stood in a towel in the doorway. Sally groaned and ran her hands down her face.
"You did the right thing. You are a good cop," he said and Sally felt something lift in her chest despite herself.
"Thanks," she replied.
"You shouldn't have to hear it form me. Sherlock Holmes was creepy; he always was, and if there's anything I've learned in forensics its that the world really isn't that exciting. There aren't these great puzzles and masterminds. Cold cases, sure, but no one's that damned clever," he said, walking into the room and turning to his dresser to fetch his pajamas. Why a grown man felt the need to wear pajama bottoms she had no idea. She'd asked him when they'd just started and he'd joked that he never knew if Sherlock was just going to come barging in, shouting about Swiss cheese. She'd laughingly agreed it was a fair concern, at the time.
"I suppose I do wonder," Sally admitted, turning over again to face him better. "I mean, how could Sherlock have set up all of them? Not the more recent cases, but the normal, bland ones he helped with, finding the drug dealer's abandoned car, finding the victim's body after an obvious shooting, that kind of thing. I mean five years of boring cases? That seems almost as far-fetched as him being that stupidly clever and having a 'nemesis'," she admitted.
Still, she'd thought that before and looked into that and made her decision – maybe Sherlock was smart enough to solve those crimes but he'd obviously gotten bored. The Richard Brook fiasco had been his crime, not the murders. Just the bombings and the forged paintings. That was enough.
"Nobody is that clever," Philip repeated, shrugging as if that answered all the questions. Sally growled and turned over again. She was going to find a new colleague-with-benefits. Anderson really did lower the intelligence of the whole street, even if he was usually kind about it.
"I don't think he faked it all," Sally replied finally as Philip turned off the light. "I just mean the Reichenbach and Richard Brook thing. I didn't mean to imply anything more that that, not that that isn't enough."
Sally blinked. Philip had gone utterly still, halfway through crawling into bed. She felt him roll backwards, getting his feet back on the floor and he flicked on the light. He was standing by the bed, staring at her, looking about ready to be sick.
"What?" she asked and he reached for his phone.
"I just – I gotta look something up," he said, pulling his smart phone off the charger.
"What?" she repeated, concerned. He glanced up and met her eyes.
"I think Reichenbach is Rich Brook in German," he answered.
Sally blinked.
"Oh bloody fucking hell," she said, sitting up.
~~/~~
John wrestled his way out of his sheets, panting.
Fuck, he thought, sitting up in his cot and waiting for the spike of grief that always followed sleep.
Sherlock's alive, he thought and blinked, running a hand down his face, unable to believe it again. He pulled the folded up picture off of his bedside table and stared at Sherlock's horribly broken arm, remembering the second picture.
Sherlock's alive.
He sank back down to his cot for a moment to stare at the ceiling, trying to process that. Somewhere in the world, Sherlock was slinking through an alleyway, his eyes lit up with brilliance. John inhaled, feeling like he hadn't breathed in years, and swung his legs over the bed.
Fuck, Sherlock, I miss you.
And he was going to get back in shape, practice his sharpshooting, come alive again.
You made a plan based on the fact that I'm stupid? That turned out so well for you, you absolute dick.
I need to pretend to still be mourning you.
That was fine; John could still feel the harsh ache in his chest and throat he'd come to associate with Sherlock.
I'm used to mourning, now. It didn't feel like much had changed.
That's the shock. It'll pass. I want to feel this.
He went to Sherlock's grave.
He had some trouble finding it; the plot had grown over with grass and looked like it'd never been disturbed. The cut stone had sunk into the mud and could have been sitting in its exact spot for a hundred years for all John could tell. It looked, in other words, like an utterly normal grave.
He sat down, his back supported by the stone, and tried to remember that his friend was alive in the world somewhere. It made the loss so much more bearable, to know the world had not lost such a man. Still, he was starting to think Sherlock wasn't coming back.
The assassins were dead. John had done all that he could and tried to pretend like he wasn't living every day like the man was going to be the next one walking into the clinic, the bar, the flat.
It wasn't working particularly well.
:I keep waiting for you to come home. Every time a door opens. I can't keep waiting, Sherlock.: John tossed his phone into the grass, knowing the man wasn't going to respond.
God, Sherlock. John closed his eyes and rested his head back on the stone. He felt like a madman, clinging onto a useless hope. He wished he'd taken both photos from the morgue; he couldn't prove it to himself with just the one. John pulled it out of his pocket and straightened it out carefully. The folds had become worn and soft with time and were threatening to tear. As always, there was nothing to see in the photo but the blood-covered fractured arm of a corpse. John sighed and folded it back into his pocket.
He'd have faith.
But he couldn't kill himself, if the man was alive to suffer for it.
Damn it, Sherlock, then come home. You can't have it both ways, John thought, pushing himself off of the dirt. Mourning wasn't any different closer or further from the grave. The sun was setting; it'd be getting dark soon. He'd go home and not come back again.
He'd barely made it halfway home and was walking through an alley blocked by a badly-parked Crisco truck when a blow to his knees threw him from his feet.
He went down hard, scraping an arm across the sidewalk heavily. He rolled, moving to fight, when a kick landed in his stomach and a man leaned over him, pushing a syringe into his arm.
Right. John grabbed onto the leg as it kicked him again and punched up into its owner's bullocks with all his force, raising himself onto his knees as he moved. The man bent over with pain but another hand grabbed John's head by the hair and slammed him into the brick wall beside him. Pain smashed over the right side of his face and John wanted to roll around to protect his head but he resisted, twisting in the grip and letting his hair pull horribly to lunge at the man, getting his hand free as quickly as possible to reach for his gun. He didn't have long; his limbs were already feeling slow.
His stomach rolled. His head was summarily slammed into the brick again but he'd gotten the gun into his hand. He lifted it up and saw his hand wobbling horribly, worse than it felt.
Drugs, he realized and got his second hand up to help pull the heavy trigger.
The bang of the gun deafened him for a moment, and the man's stomach splashed outward over the wall. John tried to get his body to turn to the next man, even as his stomach twisted in his gut. He turned in time to see a gun pointed at his face.
"Drop it and lie down," the man ordered and John obeyed, feeling his stomach roll again as his eyesight started to narrow, like he'd stood up too fast and too early. His stomach rolled again and he fought to swallow, feeling feint.
Damn drugs, he thought as he obeyed the man's command and lowered himself to the concrete.
~~/~~
A/N: What do you think? How much does Mycroft know what's going on? I still haven't decided.