Dib07: Hiya all, and yes, I know I am agonizingly late again! My original plan was to upload a new chapter every month, starting from March. But I didn't submit one in March or April! Dear me! Anyway, I hope this next chapter makes up for the lack of! BTW the reader feedback is STAGGERING! I have replied to you each individually to let you know how much I appreciate the time you take when you write a review! Your support has kept this story going and it's all for you!

Erica: Thanks! Yes I am a lover of detail! It really builds up the story, the characters and their emotions! Like Sherlock said himself, it's the little things that count! :)

Mulder: Hahaha! I am such a slow poke! Sorry for the delay and I hope you haven't thought I have given up on this story. If it wasn't for work, I would have wrapped this story up by now! XD

SherlockForever: I'm addicted to this story too, and as I see the end coming, I am tempted to start a whole new one based on the end of Game of Shadows with my same style of writing I have found writing this one. It's all exciting for me, and I love giving the readers something good to read out there! I am the sort of person that prints pages and pages off FFN from other people's stories so I can read them at work, giggling or crying!

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Chapter 7: Reaching out

It was best to check on Holmes after Watson had given himself a bath and had had breakfast while expecting Mycroft to drop in at any time. Mrs. Hudson did a fine job of course, there was to be no slating her. She checked on him at least three times in the hour, a few times more when he was awake (even though she beguiled that it wore her legs out because of the amount of times she had to trundle up and down the stairs), but Watson always loved to see him. Make sure he was doing all right. The morning had been a stroke of luck and shining fortune, though it was slim; because his small partner still breathed. As the golden light of the sun poked through the curtains, Watson had awoken with a stiff neck from sleeping on the chair all night. He hadn't realized he had nodded off to sleep quite so tolerantly and he had reposed with his chin resting heavily against his collarbone through the dark hours. Holmes had been sitting up in bed also, and perhaps had less sleep himself despite being the one in the bed. He had propped his own self up with the laced, feather pillows and had half lain, half sat reminiscing in the near dark and listening to the wind chatter outside and the late police officers trundle softly down the streets in their polished ankle boots. How long he had stayed awake for remained a mystery, but a crumpled up sheet of paper had been wedged in the claw of his hand as it lay across the blankets covering his bony knees. Watson had pried the sheet of paper off him with gregarious care but Sherlock continued to sleep, head listlessly snuggled in his upright pillow, his chin in the crook of his shoulder. A crook that looked more like a cave. He was thinning impossibly by the day, the muscles practically wasting off his body in layers and making the bones beneath more and more visible.

Watson had gently started to smooth out the sheet whilst trying to remember whether he had taken the sketchbook from Holmes or not. The actual book was on the floor by the chair, the page with the cleaver drawn on it feasibly tucked away in its countless sheets. This drawing was different, and didn't display a butcher's hand-tool. It was quite altogether something different. And insurmountably worse somehow than even the grinning, sketchy flash of a cleaver.

Watson seldom got really horrified or scared. Children got scared. Puppies and women knew more than he ever would about fear and its melancholy reaches. Death brought out that paralyzing terror of course; it was the sole divider. The shapeless horror of the unknown and of pain that split life and death in two.

A cold, chilling ache of fear had sloped its way down Watson's back, and made him shiver even though the temperature in the room had not dropped. Sherlock had drawn a dog. A short-haired, tall breed with a broad head and shoulders with a lean, high back. Its head was cocked forwards, the whites of its eyes infinitely staring into its audience like a motionless ghoul. Sherlock had shaded it in until the lead on the pencil had tried to mimic the shade of dark grayish black.

XXX

Mycroft Holmes had entered the house with not a trace of fear. He didn't seem governed by the supernatural like everyone else. He just saw it as an ordinary house not worth more than any other.

Since they had alerted Scotland Yard beforehand of their visit, there were more police officers posted outside like idle sentries. Even so, none entered. Superstitious maybe. But stupid they were not. They nodded at Mycroft, but only three officers had come. Watson expected more. The protection made him feel safer. Lestrade saw the case as solved and closed and did not see any need to post more needlessly. Watson in a way saw that Lestrade was probably right in acting as such. Perhaps the case was solved. Patrick had probably done it all. The killings. The rape. And then killed himself. He did respect Lestrade to some degree. In a way he had to. Lestrade was the Inspector and took almost every case under his wing so it was hard not to bump into him on occasion. They passed the main officers, while the one closest to the door unlocked for them. "We're putting the house on sale again come the spring." He said as though he were indifferent to the house's personal history. "This is the last time it can be reviewed, Dr. Watson."

"I understand."

They went in, the officer closing the door behind them.

"Can we have some light in here, John?" Mycroft was often sometimes direct and at other times not. "It's as dark as my toilet bowel in here."

"Delightful." Watson proceeded to light an oil lamp as he had done before. That same startling smell of repulsive stink wafted into his sensitive nostrils. "This is the last time I am coming here anyway, Mycroft. I don't care if you give me a hundred pounds. I've had it up to here."

Mycroft smiled as if he found it all amusing. Until he saw the bloodstains. Watson stayed close to the bigger man at all times. He did not consider himself as a weakling following a shepherd, but he hated this place beyond normal reasoning. He allowed himself the comfort of shadowing another. Besides, without Holmes he felt rather lonely and very responsible and was more than happy to tag along so long as Mycroft came out with some useful information or this trip was a total waste.

Mycroft saw everything John had seen the night before. The bloodied bathtub he viewed in greater detail, though he still had to produce his flowery hanky from his shirt pocket and drown his nose in its folds. "Dear God!" He didn't stagger out of the small bathroom though until his eyes had scrutinized everything there was to see. "Your constables did a spiffing job of cleaning up." His sarcasm was bright and clear.

"Evidence, you see." John returned tiredly, holding the lantern up to his face to help keep the imaginary boogey men at bay. "Anything?"

"Patience, my love. Me and my brother work at different speeds. I could really do with some tea though."

"Well, you won't get it here."

They worked their way through the house in deliberate caution. Finally they came to the landing outside the master bedroom. "Did anyone think to check the attic?" Mycroft asked, pointing his leather gloved finger up at the hatch on the ceiling.

"I should think they have. Lestrade and his team are usually rather thorough. Not as thorough as Holmes would have liked, including that other…detective that checked the place out."

"I see. Stool?"

John grumbled and went to get one. The lack of sleep had been really catching up with him. It didn't bode well to be impatient and snarky to Holmes' brother, but lately he had been snappy, upset and not his usual self. Mycroft didn't blame him for it. He was remarkably patient and seemed to take it all in his stride. Besides, he more than knew Watson's reasons for being so distraught.

He came back with a little antique stool made from rich oak wood. From sinking paranoia, John had checked it twice for bloodstains. There was none but his eyes kept falling to it in the lamp light in avid suspicion, sure that he would see something bad and terrible even on simple furniture.

Mycroft stood on it and unhooked the latch, pulling the little door swinging outward as it opened. A little step ladder unfolded out and descended down onto the worn carpet.

It was cold up there. With no lights to precede them, Mycroft used John's lamp and went upwards first. It was a simple, typical Victorian attic. Gnarled wooden beams accosted the arched roof. Mice scattered from the light. Some bird droppings, dry and white marked the wooden floorboards that creaked terribly as they paced their weight upon it. John came up, eyes trying to scan every dark corner at once. He thanked the stars that he had Mycroft here, now. The broad man made him feel surely safe, safer than a witch in a coven's den.

"From what I've gathered…" Mycroft used Watson's cane to shift objects aside as he peered around. Old vases wobbled on their cardboard boxes. More mice dived out of the way in terrific panic. There was a box filled with old lanterns, another containing soaps. A couple of broken candleholders gleamed in the light. There was a stacked pile of paintings, all of them done by unknown, unaffiliated artists who were probably nothing more than street workers. "There were two killers. Possibly a third, though of this I am unsure."

"Two killers?"

"Yes. At the very least." He tore apart a great big cobweb with the butt of John's cane that was hanging between the lower beams that guarded off another section of roof. The closed section was the unsafe part where the floorboards were slowly disintegrating from rot and damp. "One of them came here to escape."

"How can you be so sure? And why escape?" John stayed near the ladder hatch. The frigid cold up here was almost as unbearable as the bloody stench below. "There were handprints on the glass window." He pointed with the cane at the only window in the attic.

"Yes." Jon concluded, folding his hands over his elbows as he hugged his arms to his chest. "The police couldn't get it open. It was wielded shut."

"Well that explains it."

"Explains what?"

"The window was sealed shut. The seal along the bottom of the window had been taken out. The suspect used glue, and once he was outside and on the roof, he shut the window behind him. With the current weather being as cold as it was, it solidified the glue quickly making it hard to open, though not impossible. I say, John, is everyone this incompetent in London?"

John decided to humor him. "Yes." He paused while Mycroft continued giving the attic space a good poke-around with his cane. "So there's two killers? And Patrick?"

"Patrick was in on it. He had to be. Or it started off as such. There may have been a quarrel and he was dropped as the side kick. He was nothing but a face for the door. That clump of stuff you found under the bed you showed me was his disguise. However this other killer wanted his identity completely untarnished and hidden. He made good his escape through the attic."

"What makes you think there is a third suspect then?"

"Patrick was dead. Stone cold dead close to Holmes as you said, and so the criminal report also states clearly. Who then closed the attic hatch? It cannot be done from above. Someone else folded the stepladder back again after the killer left while this other gentleman stayed behind. Patrick may have also been stabbed by him. These are my assumptions, however."

"Can you work out any gain as to why these…killers…" John thought on his reply and could think of nothing other than something put into simple context. "Did this? All of this? The butchery? The… sexual orientation?"

"Probably voodoo or witchcraft. Either that or these profound killers could only achieve orgasm through these heinous acts. Men can be butchers, you see. Which makes me prone to believe that these…people may have worked in an animal factory or a workhouse first to start an insatiable desire for sex. They must have been homosexuals, driven to slaying handsome men perhaps or something forthwith." He paused, as if in terrible realization of the mistake too far that he had said too much. Upsetting Watson was not what he had intended, so he quickly changed the subject. "What tea do you serve at home? I'm famished."

"Oh, Earl's Grey." He retorted limply. Mycroft always had an airy calmness about him. John found it all rather unsettling. "With crumpets if you prefer."

"Delightful."

On their way back, passing the hallway, both of them now covering their noses in their handkerchiefs, the chief officer opened the door for them when John knocked twice on the door, making sure to use the head of his cane. Touching anything was a definite no-no. Only when they were in the fresh air, away from the ripe smell of swelling offal and blood (the house, said the officer, was to be thoroughly cleaned the day after tomorrow, giving the flies even more time to lay their eggs) Watson asked, "so what do you think about your little brother drawing the picture of the cleaver that I showed you? That is the only thing he has ever shown or even come close to giving me an example of his experience. Well?"

"Sherley is in shock. Maybe his mind could only process one image at a time. You're the doctor, Doctor. What can you tell me about the cleaver?"

"Is this a game we're playing?" This time he did sound angry, and he was angry. "Holmes is on the edge of hysteria. In fact, I think he might just be crazy, and why not? Your brother has been raped and all you can do is expect me, me! To figure things out! Yes, you looked at the house and noticed something different, but time is running out! I have been looking after Holmes as he gets weaker and weaker! I need help! He needs help!"

"I meant no offence." This time Mycroft did look hurt and morally deflated. They had stopped walking and were now standing by Fisher's Cod shop. "Look. I want to help. Really, I do. He may be my biological brother, dear boy, but you know him better than I do. Better than I could ever have known him. and he trusts you more than he lets on. Think, John. What does the cleaver tell you? What did it mean when Sherley, out of everything else he could have drawn, drew you that? Why?"

"I don't know why!" John shouted; reproachful, hateful. Downright bloody angry too. A few men walking past with their fancy canes gave them wide births on the street and keeping their watchful eyes on them. "I don't know why." He repeated, still angry and confused, but no longer shouting it in Mycroft's puzzled, bewildered face.

"Perhaps if you weren't drinking so much…you would have already seen the answer long ago."

"Is it really that obvious?"

"Yes. If I were you, I'd drink too. Listen… John…" He sighed and rolled his eyes down to the pavement that was cracked at their feet in two dozen places. Concrete spider webs, Holmes would call them. "Tonight, I want you to be there for him. I want you to sit quietly with him and not say anything. Hold him. Do all the brotherly-bonding you two usually do. And be patient. He needs someone to simply be there for him, even if he doesn't know it himself. Men can be hard to read, as I'm sure you agree."

"I do. And what shall you do?"

"I'm renting a room the Cleveland Overlook Hotel down by the lake out of town. I might even try and find Miss. Alder..."

"You're not coming back to Baker Street with me?"

"No." Mycroft looked even more demoralized and withdrawn. "Seeing my brother this way is more than enough for me. I don't have the courage when it comes to… to family getting sick and dying. It's not in my blood to withhold pain like you can. The only reason I am staying…well…you already know. Don't you?"

John turned brusquely round, face narrowing into thin, boiling anger, eyes blazing like dark fire. He marched back towards home strong and determined, but by the time he had rounded the corner, Mycroft safely out of sight, he nearly collapsed with rage and despair. Oh, he knew why Mycroft was staying. For the damn funeral.

XXX

Watson hung his frockcoat up on the clothes rack, leaning his bowler's hat on it too. Inside the flat was warm and there came the soft, promising rattle of tea cups. Mrs. Hudson came to peer at him from her ground floor room in the open doorway. "He was awake last I checked on him." She said. "His f-fever's got stronger and he's sweating. There was blood on the sheets…"

"Blood?" Watson gasped, lurching forwards with his cane.

"Yes, where he wet the bed. I've changed them for new ones, doctor, but does he usually pee red?"

"No." He scrunched up his nose, a good tactic to ward off the first prickling onset of tears. "Make him a hot water bottle and bring it up as soon as it is ready."

"Yes, I shall."

Watson trundled up the stairs as fast as his limp would allow him, sure that the actual staircase was growing longer every time he used it. It wouldn't have surprised him if this was the truth and that common steps had indeed defied physics. But when he came up to Sherlock's room and pushed the door wider that was already open, what he saw really shocked him to the core. Ice filled his blood. Horror roiled in his gut like bad indigestion. "Holmes! What in good Lord are you doing?"

Holmes was in fact out of bed and standing fixedly at the closed window by the chair and desk. He was using one of Watson's spare canes to support himself with from the store that John always kept in the back of the wardrobe in case the one he was using happened to break, get lost or stolen. Holmes himself was as straight as a post, and equally as still. John had heard of the term, 'being as taut as wire,' and didn't believe it until now. And when the shrunken detective didn't rouse or start at Watson's shocked rebuke, the doctor pounded across the carpet and over to him. All he wanted to do was shake Holmes out of it, but when he came to stand by his side, he couldn't help but not just notice but see how terrified Holmes' eyes looked. It was as if he had spotted a lurking monster somewhere down on the street below.

Concerned, Watson looked out of the window himself, discerning nothing out of the ordinary. A paper boy was running after a customer who hadn't paid with the correct change. Hansom carriages, poor or middleclass stagecoaches trotted past through the late afternoon fog and damp. Young rain was pattering raised umbrellas as black as coal bins. It was an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. "Holmes? What are you looking at?" And what grabbed your attention a trifle violently that it made you leave your bed?

Again, Holmes' cryptic eyes, often closed and dark when he was in that other plane of concentration and study, was unreadable. Rarely could Watson see the true emotions hiding beyond his secretive waters. It was only until Watson touched his partner on the shoulder that Holmes jerked into animation. He seemed to remember himself and lose his balance all in the same instant, the cane dropping away from limp fingers. Legs strengthless and stupid, he began to fall. Watson slung out an arm and caught his back before he could reel away from the window. Steadily still crumpling to the floor, Watson had to catch one armpit in his hand and hoisted Holmes back up. His garments sagged around him like fluttery paper. "W-Watson?" He said, voice milky with sleep and fragility. "Where…were you?"

"Never mind that now. Let's get you back to bed, old boy. You're shaking." He half carried, half led him back to the bed. The sheets were indeed spotlessly clean and smelt of fragrant cotton and lavender. He felt a warmth of pride for Mrs. Hudson.

He gently guided Holmes onto the mattress and got one leg up for him, then the other. His limbs were hard bone beneath the soft touch of cloth and Watson got a chill of dread every time he felt his emaciation.

Just when he was about to sling the covers and all-manner of snug blankets back over the detective's form, that was when he spotted the dark ruby stain covering the garment over his crotch. It wasn't just rape. It was mutilation.

"W-Watson? May you c-c-close my c-c-curtains?" His shaking was so bad that it was a struggle for him to issue the words, despite only a minute ago being as taut as wire by the window.

"Yes, of course." He walked over to the window and saw the stagecoaches passing one more time before he shut the meddling daylight out. He lit a few candles to compensate, though the afternoon light coming through the curtains was still plenty to see by. He came and crouched low to Holmes. "May I see where you're bleeding?"

"No." The answer was a strict negative without the stutter.

"And why not? I'm a doctor too as well as a friend, in case it's slipped your mind."

"It h-hasn't slipped my m-m-mind."

Mrs. Hudson came in with the hot water bottle as promised and a mug of warm chamomile. Watson thanked her immensely before she left again.

Easing the hot water bottle over Holmes' shaking stomach, Watson got the covers back over him again, not done yet with the argument of seeing where he was bleeding. "Relax into the heat. That's it."

"You s-sound like a h-h-housemaid."

"Do I?" He joked softly, smiling just a little. He rose the mug and got Holmes to drink a few weedy mouthfuls.

"Watson…there's a b-box over by my l-left chair under the floorboards. The box contains all my life s-savings…please…please…t-t-t-t-take…"

"Shhh." Mycroft's wise words floated into his head like truthful grains of sand; 'Tonight, I want you to be there for him. Hold him. And be patient. He needs someone to simply be there for him, even if he doesn't know it himself.' "Don't you ever concern yourself with things like that again, you hear me? You're not going anywhere, so why would I need to burrow your life savings, hmm?" He whispered into his ear. Holmes' breathing was heavy, quick and oxygen-desperate. Sweat was sliding thickly down his temples and chin. He was so white he was going blue in the face now. Eyes more sunken than yesterday and with breathing that rattled as though he had something loose in his chest. He was dying. That fact was undeniable as well as it was unmistakable but despite all the odds against Watson, he was going to do everything to keep his beloved friend alive.

"W-Watson…don't play g-games with me… You know as well as I know that t-t-things are less than desirable right n-n-now."

"You're doing fine, old boy. You're holding down your food and…and you like daydreaming out of bed!" The smile felt so false on his lips that he wanted it to be slapped off him. He let Holmes drink more chamomile and then pulled off his boots and slid in beside his friend under the dry covers. Without speaking, he pressed the hot water bottle gently against Holmes' left side, warming the bruises there. He thought about the cleaver and what Mycroft meant. Holmes, tired and wheezy, naturally and without distrust leaned into Watson's chest like a child wanting the comfort of a parent. His body shape was a perfect fit in Watson's arms.

Holmes had drawn a single object. It wasn't just an image. It was a message. I used that cleaver. The message said. I used it to save my life. But not in the way you think. It's also what haunts me the most. Isn't it amazing Watson, what tools are capable of when they are wielded by hands of a man? And the dog I drew? Ah yes, that dog was in the house with me the entire time. Never taking its white eyes off me.

"W-W-Wat…"

"Shhh, try not to speak. You really don't have the luxury of energy right now to do so." He ran fingers through his hair. Holmes was in pain. Pain that drugs couldn't touch. Not this pain. This pain that ran deeper than roots from a tree. "You must sleep, dear Holmes. Your body needs to heal." And for a time Holmes did close his eyes, his rough, struggling breaths easing a degree as he dozed in his friend's embrace, the hot water bottle spreading its soothing warmth.

Then…

"W-Watson…?"

"What did I tell you? Hush."

Holmes opened his eyes but didn't move from his friend's hold. "If you check me down t-t-there…you won't think any less of m-m-me will y-you?"

"Why would you even think that? You know I wouldn't you silly man."

Tears began to well in the detective's eyes. "I'm ready."

"Ready? For me to…?"

"Yes, and y-yes to your earlier request as well. I'm going to tell you e-everything. I d-don't think I h-have much time l-left…but you need to k-know."

Watson was taken aback. Now, in Holmes' unraveling condition, more poorly by the hour, he didn't want Holmes to spend the last energy he had left to recount the horror. But this was what he had wanted to hear, all along. This was what had driven him to sleepless nights and hangovers. This was it. And he didn't want it anymore.

"No, dear Holmes. Rest. Please."

"I cannot rest until I t-tell y-y-yo-you. Please, Watson. Let me speak."

Watson closed his eyes, stung with regret and a seasoning of anger and impotency too. Gods, why did it have to be like this?

He could hear the ticking of his pocket watch as it lay discarded with its chain on the lamp stand. He could hear horse hooves leaving their mark on the cobbled stones outside and the ring of market bells. He could hear Holmes' strained chest somehow finding the will to keep inhaling.

"Don't keep an old man wa-waiting, Watson."

"All right." The agreement felt too final. Too fatal. Too much. "Tell me everything if you can find the courage inside yourself. But please, do not force it out and please don't exhaust yourself." Funny really, to say these things to Holmes; the clever, integral character that was always up for a challenge. That never turned away, lost resolve or got distracted. He was always a dynamite of loose energy, yet was directed when needed to be. Now he was a shadow of the mess left behind. A mess that held no structure or self-reliance any longer. And he was about to tell him his final anecdote.

"It all began when I left for Street Five Avenue at Barley Taverns." Sherlock Holmes began. "And it w-w-was raining. I was just about to…"

Dib07: Sorry if there are any spelling or grammer mistakes. Sorry again for those of you who are 15 and under too, because the next chapter, chapter 8 to be exact is going up to an M rating, so those of you who are 16 and older can read it if they wish, but Sherlock's POV upcoming is not for the terribly young. See this as an early warning just to be safe, and I'll warn you all again when the new chapter arrives, because it won't be pretty, as many of you are already suspecting. So yeah! LOL! Think about poor me, I gotta write it! XD Anyways, I'm signing off now, and please review if you liked this chapter! The support is wonderful! Pure drugs for me, I kid you not! Anyway, have a good day/night!