Part Seven.
She was reading in her father's armchair, and John was in the kitchen making tea for the two of them when the indecipherable shouts came from Sherlock's room. The doctor glanced to her with raised eyebrows before setting the kettle down and walking to the detective's bedroom. Thea closed her book and uncurled her legs from under her as she listened carefully to what seemed to be a small argument.
Then her father clumsily called, "Thea!" and she stood and set down her book on the seat of the armchair. She hurried to his room and found John awkwardly rubbing the back of his head as Sherlock stumbled cumbersomely around the room, as if looking for something. At the sight of her, he seemed slightly relieved.
"Thea," he slurred, trying to keep his balance, "Where is she?"
"Who, Papa?" she asked kindly, though she knew whom he was referring to.
"The woman – the Woman woman!" he stumbled slightly as he asked, his brows creasing as he struggled to keep his thoughts straight.
Thea took his arm to steady him and replied, "She got away." He turned and gripped the windowsill before looking out, as if searching for her. "She hasn't been here." Then he seemed to turn too quickly for his body to keep up, and he fell heavily to the floor, straining to pull his body across the hardwood. She made a noise of pity before she and John kneeled to help him. "C'mon, back to bed, Papa." He resisted them slightly but with enough coaxing on his daughter's part, Sherlock let them settle him back in bed.
Thea sat on the bed as she turned to John. "I can take it from here, Dr Watson. I'll let you know if something's wrong."
He nodded and squeezed her shoulder in comfort before leaving the room and closing the door behind him. And there, hanging on the back of the door, was her father's peacoat.
She felt her stomach clench uneasily, but her father groaned beside her and she pushed away the burdensome thoughts before turning her attention to him. He was lifting his head to look at her, trying to shift in the sheets to roll onto his side, facing her. She helped him to adjust as he muttered incoherent phrases, and then he settled with his face buried into his pillow, his body contorted strangely though he uttered no complaint. She brushed his wild hair from his face and his eyes searched for her through bouts of rapid and tight blinking. When they did, he seemed to relax slightly.
"I'll be fine," he murmured quietly and mostly into his pillow.
"Of course, you'll be fine," she affirmed soothingly, and she laid down next to him and rubbed tiny circles on his upper back. "But I'm here anyway." He blinked once at her, and she gave him a small smile. "You used to lay with me when I was sick. You didn't know how to make soup, so you'd just give me tea and biscuits and hope for the best."
He mumbled in recognition as a smile pulled at his lips, and then he closed his eyes. Thea watched him fight the sleep for a moment, and she started humming one of his violin compositions to ease his inner battle against the drugs. When he was finally asleep, she felt herself relax.
And suddenly there was the sound of a woman moaning in the heat of orgasmic pleasure. Thea sat up and looked toward the sound, seeming to come from her father's coat. Curious, she stood and fished through Sherlock's coat pockets until she found his phone, now lit up with a message from an unknown number.
'Til the next time, Mr Holmes.
Though it had no name attached, Thea could practically hear the Woman's sultry tone wrapping itself around her, suffocating her. In anger, she quickly went to delete the message, but she stopped herself just short of it. She took a deep breath and swore under her breath before shutting off the phone and setting it on the nightstand beside her. She leaned against the wall and ran her hands through her hair as she exhaled a harsh breath. With a glance at her father's sleeping form, Thea wondered if they were getting involved in something over their heads.
But she trusted her uncle, despite it all. She had to believe he'd never put them in harm's way. Mycroft wasn't one to show fondness in traditional forms – he opted for spying on them to make sure they kept safe. But that was their normal. It was to be expected.
With a sigh, Thea walked back to Sherlock's bed and slipped in beside him. She rubbed small circles into his back until she felt her eyelids grow heavy, and before she knew it, she fell into a deep sleep beside her father.
Thea scooped another forkful of her breakfast into her mouth as her father flipped through the morning's newspaper, completely recovered from his drugged state. Her pompous uncle stood unhappily next to the table, just over John's shoulder as the doctor read from another newspaper with a faint smile etched into the lines on his face.
"The photographs are completely safe," Sherlock assured his older brother from behind the newspaper, not lifting his eyes from it.
"In the hands of a fugitive sex worker," Mycroft quickly retaliated dryly.
Thea rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, "Irene's not interested in something so trivial as blackmail. She wants protection for some reason. I take it you've stood down the investigation into the shooting at her house?"
"How can I do anything while she has the photographs? My hands are tied."
She scoffed and muttered, "She'd applaud your choice of words, Uncle."
When the elder Holmes scowled at her, John laughing quietly, Sherlock inserted calmly, "You see how this works: that camera phone is her 'get out of jail free' card. You have to leave her alone. Treat her like royalty, Mycroft."
John looked up from his paper and added, "Though not the way she treats royalty." He punctuated his words with a sarcastic smile up at the human embodiment of the entirety of the British government.
Mycroft returned the smile with a tight-lipped, equally humourless smile, though it didn't last long as the sound of an orgasmic sigh perforated the air, turning all of them into statues. John and Mycroft shared twin frowns as Thea pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Her father was putting down the newspaper and trying to appear nonchalant.
"What was that?" John asked quizzically.
"Text," the detective answered in a blasé tone.
"But what was that noise?"
But Thea's father had already stood and walked to the phone from the small table beside his chair, his eyes skimming over the screen. Thea took the opportunity of her uncle being suddenly interested in her father's texts to grill him.
"Did you know there were other people after her too, Uncle, before you sent the three of us in there?" she started, sitting back in her seat and glaring at the tall man, "CIA-trained killers, at an excellent guess." As he opened his mouth to answer, she held up a finger and glowered, "And be careful how you answer, as I suspect Gran and Grandpapa would be very keen to know exactly how much danger their sons, specifically their eldest, put their only granddaughter in."
John turned and glanced up at the elder Holmes brother as he gave a sarcastically enthusiastic, "Yeah, thanks for that, Mycroft."
Sherlock came to sit back at the table as Mrs Hudson bustled from the kitchen, placing a full plate of food in front of the detective. She placed a hand on Sherlock's shoulder and said sternly, "It's a disgrace, sending your little brother and your niece into danger like that. Family is all we have in the end, Mycroft Holmes."
"Oh, shut up, Mrs Hudson," Mycroft snarled in a rare flare of his temper.
"MYCROFT!"
"UNCLE!"
"OI!"
The residents of 221b glared up at the personification of entitlement, and he glanced around at them with a look of distaste before it quickly faded. He cleared his throat, straightened, and cocked his head toward Mrs Hudson in a motion of contrition. "Apologies."
The landlady nodded once and moved back toward the kitchen, "Thank you."
Thea and John looked back down at their plates as Sherlock picked up his newspaper, and the detective threw over his shoulder, "Though do, in fact, shut up."
"Papa," Thea hissed through her teeth as she kicked him under the table, her eyes narrowed in his direction. He shrugged and was about to answer when another moan filled the room.
The detective's daughter tightened her jaw and reached for her tea as she asked tightly, "That noise is a bit rude."
Sherlock flashed his eyes ironically at her as he picked up the phone from the table. "Awfully contradictory of you." He glossed over the text before turning his next words to his brother, "There's nothing you can do and nothing she will do as far as I can see."
"I can put maximum surveillance on her," Mycroft countered.
But his niece snorted. "Why bother? You can follow her on Twitter. I believe her username is 'TheWhipHand' – quite predictably."
He rolled his eyes as Thea stuck her tongue out at him, "Yes, most amusing." His phone began to ring, and he fished it from his pocket. His eyebrows furrowed, and he muttered a quick, "Excuse me" before turning from the room and pressing the mobile to his ear. "Hello."
Thea and her father watched him suspiciously before sharing a knowing look. He'd said hello as if he'd been expecting the call, and he was now talking in a low voice. It was an important call, and with her uncle's line of work, it usually meant something big.
"Why does your phone make that noise?" John asked the detective suddenly, and Sherlock broke from his trance to look at the good doctor.
"Sorry, what noise?"
"That noise – the one it just made."
"It's a text alert. It means I've got a text."
"Hmm," John hummed in dissatisfaction, "Your texts don't usually make that noise."
Thea stood and walked her plate to the kitchen, setting it on the counter as Mrs Hudson gave a quick wave before bustling back downstairs to her own flat. "Somebody got hold of Papa's phone and apparently, as a joke or a flirtation, personalised their text tone."
"So every time they text him…" John mused, but right on cue, another sigh filled the room and he raised his eyebrows in wonder. Thea sighed and began washing her plate with a small amount of aggravation.
"Honestly, Papa."
Her father had picked up the newspaper again and muttered in defiance, "It's hardly my fault, Thea."
"And yet, I see no initiative to change it. How strange."
John interjected, "I'm wondering who could have got hold of your phone because it would have been in your coat, wouldn't it?"
Sherlock raised the newspaper to obscure his face as he replied quietly, "I'll leave you to your deductions."
The doctor gave a satisfactory smile and began reading his own newspaper again, and Thea sat in her father's armchair as she pulled out her own mobile to browse through her social media.
"He's not stupid, Papa. No point in acting as if he hasn't got a clue," she scolded inaudibly.
"Where do you get the idea that I think he's stupid?" he fired back just as softly, and she threw a very sardonic look his way. But her uncle was coming back into the room, and their conversation melted away.
"Bond Air is go, that's decided. Check with the Coventry lot. Talk later." He ended the call and stuck his mobile in the inside pocket of his jacket. Sherlock and Thea examined him with no small amount of scrutiny.
"What else does she have, Uncle?" Thea questioned, cocking her head at him. "The Americans wouldn't be interested in her for a couple of compromising photographs of a member of the royal family."
Her father stood and faced Mycroft, "There's more. Much more." When her uncle didn't reply with anything but a tightened jaw, Sherlock stepped closer so there were no more than mere inches between them. Thea stood, ready to defuse any argument that might arise, "Something big is coming, isn't it?"
Mycroft's expression remained unchanged as he said dangerously, "Irene Adler is no longer any concern of yours. From now on you will stay out of this."
John and Thea glanced at each other with worry lines creasing their brows, but they exchanged no words. Sherlock locked eyes with his brother and challenged, "Oh, will I?"
"Yes, Sherlock. You will."
But Thea's father shrugged and turned away. "We'll see."
His brother sighed and looked to his niece, "Please be sure he stays out of trouble. I'd hate to have to send my spies after him to babysit."
She shrugged and stuck her hands in the back pockets of her trousers, "I can't make any promises. If a case is interesting, there's no stopping him. You know that as well as I do."
Mycroft's jaw twitched but he made no further comments on the issue. Instead he announced, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend."
Sherlock had picked up his violin and now turned to face his brother, "Do give her my love." Then he put the violin to his chin and began playing "God Save the Queen", earning him a stern look from Mycroft and plastering a grin on John's face. Thea suppressed her smile and motioned to her uncle that she would walk him down the stairs.
As they reached the first landing of the stairs, Thea turned seriously to her uncle and stopped him on the stairs, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall. "You never answered my question. Did you know what we were walking into yesterday? And spare me the long, complicated answer – yes or no will do just fine."
Mycroft sucked on the inside of his cheek and looked at the wall just to her right. "I had suspicions, but I couldn't confirm anything. We knew she had… sensitive information. We just didn't know whose information."
His niece nodded once and motioned for him to continue down the stairs ahead of her. She opened the door for him and before he stepped over the threshold, he mentioned, "Oh, yes. It seems Mr Hemingway is looking for a new flat. My sources inform me that Kensington is a wonderful neighbourhood and has a few flats available by the end of the month." He flashed a knowing smile toward her and she shook her head in surprise.
"Kensington?! Uncle, Hem's barely a year out of uni, I don't think Kensington is within his limits, especially on his own."
"Will he be on his own?" he quizzed, and she opened her mouth to respond, but couldn't think of anything witty. The thought of moving out of Baker Street and in with Hem hadn't even crossed her mind. It wasn't an unwelcome idea, just something she'd never considered. Then her uncle touched the side of his nose and walked out to the pavement, leaving her with another eye-opening thought. She closed the door behind him and quickly ran through a list of pros and cons for moving in with Hem. She was still thinking of them as she walked up the stairs, though in her heart she knew she wouldn't be able to leave Baker Street for some time. What she and her father had in that little flat was more than she had ever hoped to have with him, and she wasn't going to give it up so readily, not even for Hem.
Thea walked through the door and watched as her father set his violin on the table as John continued reading the paper. The pretty picture didn't last long; John glanced down at his watch and stood, humming in the back of his throat.
"Sorry, I've got to dash. I'm supposed to be meeting Sarah," he hurriedly said, and he walked to the side table beside his armchair and grabbed his wallet and mobile.
Sherlock made a noise of disappointment and thought aloud and offhandedly, "She's not interesting."
The doctor paused as if he might have offered a counter against the statement, but instead he waved it away and continued out the door, muttering angrily under his breath. The detective's daughter crossed her arms and looked sternly at her father, but he shrugged as if she were making too much of a fuss of the whole thing. Just as she was about to scold him, the orgasmic sigh filled the room again and she clenched her teeth.
"I don't trust her."
Her father furrowed his brows and leaned over to grab the phone from the table. "I thought you liked her."
"I've changed my mind. She had benzodiazepine in her possession and used it against you." She crossed the room and sat in John's armchair as she rifled through a nearby book, trying to find something to distract herself. "I think she's connected to Moriarty somehow."
Sherlock made a small noise of amusement and sat across from her in his own armchair. "You're jumping to conclusions, Thea."
But she slammed the book into her lap and huffed, "I'm not. Moriarty used the same drug against me less than six months ago. I don't think it's a coincidence."
"Moriarty doesn't have a cornerstone on the market of benzodiazepine; it's readily available to anyone with access to medical professionals and their stockrooms," Sherlock argued with a stern tone, eyeing his daughter with a small hint of reprimand, "Ms Adler has proven she can please a wide variety of officials – I'm sure one of those authorities is well within the medical sphere."
She looked at the mantle and crossed her arms over her chest, thinking it over. "Fine, maybe you're right. But I still think she's hiding something."
"Of course, she is," Sherlock admitted, gripping the armchair tightly and letting a half-smile pull at his lips, "Which is why your uncle Mycroft is preposterous to think I'd actually let him have all the fun in beating her at her own game."
Thea let herself smile and flashed her twinkling eyes at her father, "So long as it doesn't involve a bedroom and any sort of bondage. I'll leave that as your personal pursuit." She laughed as Sherlock rolled his eyes at her and sighed, then she stood to go to her laptop at the table. She sat and pulled her hair into a loose bun to keep it off her neck before gleefully saying, "Right then. The game is on!"
AN: Hello, hello, hello! So sorry this installment took so long - I hate doing filler chapters and I've been absolutely swamped at my new job so I've had little time to actually sit down and write. Hopefully, I'll be able to take more time through the weeks to continuously work a little bit at a time in the upcoming chapters. I think they'll be coming a lot more quickly since they're all chapters that I've been itching to write! So thank you for your continued support, I know I'm a tad unreliable and I appreciate your positive feedback so much!
To all my new followers, welcome! I'm so glad you've stopped to give my little story some love. I know this chapter isn't all that great but I promise it's all better from here!
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