Chapter 6: THESE TALKS

Sherrinford expected the Doctor to come around soon, and by his calculations he only had a good hour before Mycroft sent some field agents after him.

He sat quietly reading the unconscious Doctor's blog, might as well catch up on a few things. The eldest Holmes ran over the memory of his two brothers today, the way the two men (strangers really) had acted.

Mycroft and Sherlock had grown a heart and for John Watson. They sincerely were concerned for the ex soldier. Sherrinford thought he might find some clues to his brothers and their change of attitude somewhere in the blog of John H. Watson.

Instead he found himself laughing, sitting on edge and even quietly contemplating his own lack of sentiment.

"You write very well Doctor Watson." Sherrinford glanced over the top of John's laptop.

The Doctor sat up slowly holding his head in hands, squinting at the man sitting comfortably in a large chair holding a familiar laptop.

"You should really reconsider your password." John rubbed his eyes with the palms of his shaky hands.

"Where?" His voice was hoarse.

"There's a water bottle on the nightstand, I suggest you drink some. It might help with the headache and sore throat."

John rolled his eyes reaching for the opened water almost suspiciously.

"I didn't poison it and if it's any consolation I didn't drug you either."

"He wont let this go too easily."

"Who? Mycroft? Or Sherlock?"

"What do you want? If you think using me as bait will get you what you need then you're sadly mistaken."

"Please enlighten me?"

John winced after shaking his head, he took his chances with the opened water.

"Who are you working for?"

"Does it matter."

"Guess not. I just-" John sighed "You should just give up and leave. I'll wait an hour before calling Sherlock and Mycroft."

"You would give me a head start? How very honorable of you Doctor Watson."

John sat back against the headboard of the bed, leaning back he closed his eyes.

"Still not going to take it huh?"

"Why do you care?" Sherrinford was truly curious at this point.

"You seem a good enough doctor, colleague and man. A shit kidnapper."

"I didn't kidnap you. That mess was someone else. And I'm not sure what part you play in all of this."

"Right. How about I just leave and when I get home I tell Sherlock I don't remember a thing. You can sit here and think about stuff."

"Contemplate my sins? Do you think your wife did much of that? Contemplated her sins? I wonder just how my brothers never even thought to look into Mary Mortsan. Or well that wasnt her real name. But do you think, do you think she sat and pondered her luck."

"You want to be shutting up right now." John replied quietly, his eyes still firmly closed.

"I bet she thought her new life was all too good to be a forever thing. A past never stays buried. You knew that, I can tell, you knew who she was. Yet you still loved her. How is that?"

John remained silent and Sherrinford closed the laptop, crossing his long legs and folding his hands under his chin in an all too familiar movement. One that the glaring Doctor Watson recognized immediately.

"You trusted her even after she would have lied to you to gain access to your life. Even after she had decided that you knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes and the suspicion that Holmes was very much alive. Moriarty's network was crumbling within of course Moran thought something was screwy, the man wasn't a complete idiot."

"She was hired to do a job and of course she couldn't. Funny how it turned out, she married her target." Sherrinford focused on the faded cheap brown carpet of the hotel room. "I just wonder if she ever knew just how lucky she was? Why would you accept that? You knew she was a murderer? Yet you chose to marry her, and to have a child with her. "

"What can I say, I'm an adrenaline junkie."

"You did love her though?"

John didn't want to discuss this with a stranger, well at one time he considered his kidnapper a friend. However the usually stoic Doctor Morgan was just another assassin in disguise. John shrugged, somehow knowing he wasnt going to be killed. Well at least not by this man.

"Mary was beautiful, clever and funny. She had a big heart and a quick mind. She would have made a protective mother."

"And Sherlock or Mycroft what did they think about your assassin wife? I can't see Sherlock Holmes playing babysitter."

"You don't know him at all. He googled and researched everything from developmental stages to what colors stimulated an infant's mind in their first months of life. He helped Mary paint and repaint the damned nursery." John smiled sadly, "Mycroft wasn't any better, however he was a little better at hiding his interest."

"How so?"

"He had his men install a security system for the nursery. Complete with sound, night vision and infrared. He claimed it was a gift to ease Sherlock's ridiculous concerns. The bed could monitor the babies breathing patterns as well as heart and lungs. And it all looked like an ordinary crib. "

Sherrinford couldn't help but laugh, Mycroft used to sneak into Sherlock's nursery and nudge their slumbering infant brother needing to make sure he was breathing.

John hadn't spoken about the baby or Mary in so long, however he couldn't stop himself.

"That baby would have had the best protection. She would have been loved and would have never known anything else."

John smiled, "They are good men. Precisely why I wont allow you to use me against them."

" Tell me about that day John. "

"What?"

"Please, and leave no detail out. Just tell me about that day and I'll let you go. I'll let you walk out of here. Back to your life."

"Why is it so important?"

"Please." Doctor Morgan's voice had an edge to it, one of a mad man demanding from an eye-witness for his account on the crime.

"It was a day like any other day-this is crazy. I'm leaving." John stood up swaying momentarily he started for the door, sure now that his colleague slash undercover assassin wasn't going to kill him. He just knew this like he knew that his flatmate would come storming in through the door at any moment.

"She was beautiful my wife. She was smiling on the day she died, beaming really. We were in a car, I was driving, there was some rain but nothing too unmanageable. She was telling me about her day and how wonderful it was working with the orphans at the small clinic. She had such a big heart. Even now I can't say her name." Morgan looked over at John. "She was the only one who knew me, inside and out. I confessed my sins but she silenced them. She said my past was not her business just our future. I was driving that day when the light turned green, it happened so fast. " Morgan shook his head, standing up, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit.

"I survived and she-she was gone. Just a freak act of god. Because you see John I had wondered for too long if fate would decide that a mistake had been made and I truly did not deserve happiness.

That day she was taken from me and my son. I have been running from that, until a year ago, when I met you. I have traveled with the missionaries and at first I thought perhaps I had been discovered by the British Government after years of running. But it wasn't that at all. You were like me, hiding from her memory. So to be safe I followed you. John the day my wife died there was a small detail I told no one. Except my closest cousin. He kept tabs on me when my whole family had me written off for dead. He's a good kid. However he was fixated on another similar accident where a cab had gone through an intersection on a busy London street when the light malfunctioned.

You see I had told him that my wife had thought it was her lucky day because she'd won a new mobile. She had no need for it, she was going to give it away in a raffle, to raise money for the clinic. She turned that mobile on in the car. You see it's a tiny detail except my cousin told me a similar story. He was highly suspicious, and unlike the first incident this time he had the phone to pick apart. As well as the traffic light. He found something."

John clasped his eyes shut, his hands in fists at his side. Sherrinford couldn't help but admire a man who could stand at attention for so long.

"No-"

"There was a device in that mobile that signaled the lights malfunction. It was like a ticking time bomb."

John shook his head, "No. It was an accident a freak random accident. "

"John, it was confirmed that it was set up. However I don't feel that you were the primary target. Considering the mobile you had. It wasn't yours was it?"

John was going to be sick, "It was Mycroft's." He whispered. "Sherlock had stolen it from his brother, and after he'd accidentally experimented on mine with boiling water he offered it to me. He'd nicked it from his brother."

John sat on the bed, his hand over his mouth, trying to lock in the words wanting to flood out, the bile that raised to his throat and the rush of air.

"It wasnt your fault."

"Oh, god Mary." John's shaky plea was a testament to the man's heart."I killed her. I killed her."

"No, John. Not you."

"Who then?"

"I'm trying to figure that out John."

"Tell me-"

"I don't have that information. However i believe my time is up here. I'll be taken into custody."

"You'll tell me who killed her-who killed my wife and child!" John grabbed the taller man's shirt front forcing him down to his level.

"I can't tell you what I don't know! " Sherrinford tried to detach himself without harming the younger man.

"Then tell me what you have! You suspect someone! Tell me!" John gave the man a hard shake, just as the door burst open.

Sherrinford slid around the doctor with the precision that years of experience taught him.

John stiffened feeling the cold barrel of a gun against the side of his head.

Sherrinford expected someone else, not Sherlock, instead the youngest Holmes looked like a demon in his black coat, eyes darting around madly. Those signature curls were ruffled and he held a gun in his leather gloved hands.

"John?" Sherlock sounded breathless as if he'd run the whole way. Sherrinford realized then, that his little brother had in fact done just that. Sherlock had beaten Mycroft's men, but why did he care? Why ?

"Sherlock, don't be an idiot. Both of you put the guns down."

"Are you hurt?" Sherlock looked over the slightly bruised face of his best friend.

"Just a bit sore, nothing I'm not used to. Sherlock put the gun down, Doctor Morgan isn't going to hurt me. He's a friend."

That was a surprise to both Holmes. "John you're obviously not thinking straight."

"Sherlock. Put the bloody gun down. I said he isn't going to hurt me."

Sherrinford read indecision in his youngest brother's face, odd he, Sherlock bloody selfish Holmes, was actually torn.