A/N: I am on a roll with this story! I just keep writing! Hope you enjoy the chapter! I always feel inspired when I get reviews! So keep them coming! Maybe a few questions are answered or maybe just more questions arise.
Chapter Seven
I'm not dead
Meet me upstairs
SH
John stood, unable to move. Emotions ran unstably through him. The sound of a car horn brought him back to reality, making him jump. He had been standing in the middle of the street when he had gotten the text, crossing it to enter the Kingsley penthouse. What the hell was this?
He looked around the lobby as he walked towards the elevator. Only the reception area was occupied by a uniformed receptionist. Waiting for the elevator doors to open, John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The ding of the elevator came and he flew into the small confines, pressing repeatedly on the top button to reach the penthouse.
The doors didn't seem to close fast enough so he pressed the button again, "Hurry up you damn thing!"
He fidgeted in the elevator as it rose to the penthouse, breathing shakily. When the doors reopened he was hesitant, not sure if he was having a mental breakdown and thinking his best friend (who was supposed to be dead) was waiting for him.
Stepping out of the elevator, he was met with the sight of a completely destroyed hallway. Glass was everywhere, the hall table was knocked over and there was large hole in the wall, from a gunshot. He immediately thought of Augusta, who had texted him not two hours ago.
"Augusta!"
He rushed into the study first only to find it empty. He ran down the hall, calling out Augusta's name, "Augusta!"
"In here," came her soft voice. There was a strain of pain in it. It came from the door just to his left. He rushed in, swinging the door open, "Augu-"
He stopped short.
Augusta was sitting on the edge of a large bed, rubbing her side as she winced. Behind her, looking out the window was a man, dressed in a police uniform, his back to them. Looking up, Augusta sighed, "John."
Looking at the man briefly, John turned his attention to Augusta, "Are you alright? What happened?"
She shook her head, sighing shakily, "It was a woman, John. A woman killed Mrs. Kingsley. She came back, came back for something."
He hushed her, "Calm down, Gusta. Alright?"
She closed her eyes and looked down at her lap before nodded, "Yes, thanks to Russell over there."
John turned to the constable, approaching him hesitantly, "Russell is it?"
The man tilted his head in John's direction before letting the curtain slid from his fingers that had held them back, allowing him to look out the window. He reached up and removed the hat from his head, revealing short, curly brown hair. He placed his hands behind his back and slowly turned around, revealing his face. John felt the room suddenly spin.
"Hello John."
John blinked, "Wha..."
Augusta, who sat in silence, watched as John slowly approached Russell. His face contorted in a mixture of disbelief and anger. Before she knew what was happening, John had lurched back and swung at the constable.
"John!" she cried, jumping to her feet, wincing as she grabbed her side.
"You son of a bitch!" cried John, taking hold of Russell's collar, pressing him up against the wall, "All this time! All this bloody time you were alive!"
Augusta wrapped her hand around John's balled up one that was prepared to swing again, "John, stop it!"
He let go of Russell and pressed the back of his hand against his lips, turning away from Russell and Augusta, who turned to Russell, laying a hand on his arm, "Are you alright?"
Russell merely wiped at the blood on his lip and spoke to John, "If you would let me just explain-"
"NO!" screamed John, turning on his heels to face them once again, "You don't just explain, Sherlock! You don't just explain why you've let everyone think you've been dead for six months!"
"Five, actually," Sherlock said, glancing at Augusta before turning to John.
John stared at him, stunned, "Why? Why did you do it?"
Augusta stood back and watched. So this was Sherlock Holmes. He wasn't dead after all. She knew it. She knew from the papers that he couldn't be dead. Her father had taught her how to read in between the lines and that's exactly what she did.
Sherlock stopped in front of John, hands behind his back, "I am sorry, John. I had no choice. Moriarty had you targeted. If I didn't fall, you would have been killed. Along with Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade."
Augusta straitened at hearing Lestrade's name but said nothing as Sherlock continued, "I had to be sure that his men were gone before I could return."
John licked his lips and stared at his best friend, trying to wrap his mind around what he was being told, "You did this...to protect me? To protect Mrs. Hudson?"
"Yes," Sherlock said firmly.
Augusta looked between the two men, unsure of how to proceed. She went to move but groaned when the sharp pain in her side returned. John looked over at her, "What's wrong?"
She shook her head, "Don't worry about it."
John looked over at Sherlock once more before walking over to Augusta and sat her down at the vanity, "What happened here, Gus?"
"Gus? That's a new one," she said as he lifted her shirt to see a bruise on her side, "Ru-Sherlock body slammed me."
"WHAT?" he screamed/asked, rising to his feet from where he knelt and turned to Sherlock, "Whatever for?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes before looking at his only friend, "It was that or let her be shot, John."
Augusta calmly stood and approached Sherlock, "Thank you by the way. May I have the perfume back now?"
He looked at her, feigning ignorance, "I'm sorry?"
She held out her hand, "The perfume bottle. I know you put it in your pocket."
He reluctantly pulled out the said perfume bottle and handed it to her, "You have a sharp eye, Ms. Prince."
She grinned, "Of course I do, Mr. Holmes. Though, I'm sure you know all about me. That is, if your reputation precedes you."
He raised an eyebrow, "Of course I do, it's my business to know."
John watched their interaction, not sure if it was flirtation or not, "Uh, for the moment can you keep in mind that not all of us have a massive intellect? Care to share what exactly is going on?"
Augusta felt like smacking herself in the head for ignoring John's concern, "Oh! Sorry John. Well at the lab I noticed that there was an outline on the back of the painting and that whatever it is must still be here. So with Russell, I mean Sherlock, I came back to look for it."
"Did you find anything?" John asked, still concerned for her injury. She was wincing frequently.
She lifted up the perfume bottle, "Nothing to do with the painting but I found this on the vanity."
John blinked, staring at the bottle, "It's perfume."
She rolled her eyes, "Look what's inside it, John!"
She pointed at the small red beads floating at the bottom of the bottle, "Do you have any idea what these are?"
John was at a loss, "Um, little red balls?"
She opened her mouth but Sherlock reached out and took the perfume from her, "Hey!"
He ignored her outcry and began speaking rapidly, "Abrus precatorius; also known as the rosary pea or the jequirity. Native to Indonesia. The seeds, as you see floating around, are toxic. They possess the toxin, abrin which to humans is incredibly fatal. It can be ingested, injected or in this case, inhaled. The toxin was absorbed into Mrs. Kingsley's skin, resulting in severe flu like symptoms leading to respiratory distress and organ failure. Mrs. Kingsley was known to have a heart condition, which upon autopsy it would reveal she has pulmonary edema; a sign of left ventricle failure, which coincidently is also a sign of abrin poisoning. It's quite clever really. The murderer, whom we now know is a woman, poisoned Mrs. Kingsley to make it appear she died from a heart attack resulting from the scare of a robbery."
He finished his explanation and handed the perfume back to Augusta, who had an impressed grin on her face, "That's it in a nutshell."
John blinked before breaking into a fit of laughter, "God, I've missed you Sherlock."
Sherlock's lips tightened into a brief grin before it disappeared, "Well, shall we inform Lestrade that I'm not dead? I'm long overdue for a case."
TOP
They made their way back to the flat where John tended to Augusta's side. Luckily, it was merely a bruised rib instead of a cracked one, "So what exactly happened that caused Sherlock to body slam you into a table?"
She winced as he poked her side, "When I realized that it was abrin in the bottle, I ran out of the bedroom and the next thing I knew there was this woman standing in the hall, aiming a gun at me. Sherlock came out of the bedroom and reacted, I suppose. He pushed me into the table sitting in the hall just as she fired. She ran after that."
John rose to his feet and crossed his arms, looking down at her where she sat in the leather chair, "Can you remember what she looked like?"
She looked up at him, "Tall, blond hair, blue eyes. Though she looked...deranged."
He raised a brow, "Deranged? How so?"
Sherlock came out of the kitchen, buttoning his black suit over the purple shirt he wore underneath, "She was talking to herself."
John turned around, "Talking to herself? What was she saying?"
Sherlock made his way to sit but stopped when he saw Augusta was sitting in his chair, "That's my chair."
She looked at him and chuckled, "Oh? I thought Sherlock Holmes was dead."
He bit his cheek as he glared down at her.
He sat in chair opposite her, crossing his legs as his arms lied on the armrests and looked to John, "She was talking about a man, 'He wants it. He'll be mad if I don't find it.' Whoever "He" is, he's controlling her. She's more likely to be a schizophrenic, with dependent tendencies. "He" is who we need to find."
"What is it that she's looking for then? You didn't find anything at the penthouse," said John, turning to Augusta.
Sherlock reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, "Probably this letter I found at the crime scene."
John furrowed his eyebrows, confused, "When were you at the crime scene?"
Augusta's eyes widened, "The officer knelling by the fireplace. I only saw the back of your head."
He titled his head, his eyes moving over her face, "Yes, that's right."
Sherlock pulled the letter from the envelope, "It doesn't appear to be anything of importance, just a mere love letter to someone named Lizzy."
Rising to his feet, he tucked the letter back in the envelope and the envelope into his jacket. He disappeared into the kitchen only to reappear, putting on his long coat.
"Where the hell did you get that?" exclaimed John, pointing at the scarf that Sherlock was tying around his neck.
Augusta blinked, "That stupid purple thing has caused poor John such a fuss!"
Sherlock looked at her with mild annoyance, "It's blue."
TOP
Lestrade walked into the lab with the intent to find out what Augusta had found about the painting. As he took a sip of the coffee he had just made, he looked up. He found himself chocking on the hot liquid at the sight in front of him.
Augusta was twirling on a stool in boredom as John leaned against the table next to her. But that was not what made him react in such a way. Looking into a microscope was Sherlock Holmes.
At the sound of his choking, Sherlock looked up, "Ah, Lestrade! Good news, I'm not dead. Though I'm sure Mycroft has already informed you. You are after all, my handler."
At this, Augusta reached out and stopped herself in mid-twirl and her head snapped in Lestrade's direction, "What?"
Her voice was cold and too calm for John's liking, who looked at her a bit uneasy. She rose from the stool and marched up to him, "You're his what?"
Lestrade reached out to lay a calming hand on her shoulder but she smacked it away, "You knew he was alive this whole time? And you didn't tell me?"
Sherlock removed the slide from under the microscope, "So did you, Ms. Prince."
She turned to face him as John did the same, "What are you talking about?"
He stood and walked towards her with a knowing grin, "You knew I was still alive, or at least, you speculated. When I met you earlier, you're body stiffened and you turned your back to me. You recognized me, yet you acted as though you didn't know me. Then there is the number of newspaper articles pertaining to me in your writing desk. Not to mention your laptop's history has John's blog and my website logged on it."
Augusta crossed her arms defensively, sighing as she looked over at John, "Sorry John, I didn't mean to hurt you by lying but I had to find out the truth."
John resembled a gold fish as his mouth opened and closed, "You knew about Sherlock all this time?"
She nodded, sheepishly so, "I did. Or as least speculated, as Sherlock says. I wasn't sure."
Lestrade set his coffee down on a nearby lab table and crossed his arms, looking at her accusingly, "That's why you moved here, isn't it? You came back to England to find Sherlock so that he would help you with your mother's case. I'm right, aren't I?"
She bit her lip but nodded, "Yes."
Sherlock broke the silence that filled the room by laughing. John looked at him strangely, "What in the hell is so funny, Sherlock?"
He sighed, "Remarkable! Absolutely remarkable, John. Ms. Prince has been able to figure that I faked my death yet she is unable to solve her own mother's murder!"
Augusta frowned and turned around to face him, "I have gone it over and over in my head, Mr. Holmes, as to why my mother was killed. For twenty years, I have tried to figure it out, but I can't. I was five years old. I'm smart but you are brilliant. It doesn't take a genius to read a newspaper and use common sense. What kind of judge dismisses a case involving a man trying to steals the crown jewels? It doesn't make sense!"
She approached Sherlock and looked up at him, nearly pleadingly, "Mr. Holmes, help me please."
Sherlock brought his hands together under his chin, in a prayer-like motion as he peered down at her, his eyes narrowing slightly, "Tell me how she was murdered."
Augusta swallowed and her eyes became watery, "That's the thing Mr. Holmes. No one knows how she died."
"How is that possible?" he asked, still staring at her.
She sighed, "The only thing that was found was blood. Her blood. It was painted on the walls."
He tilted his head ever so slightly before dropping his hands, "Hmm, interesting."
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