EXAM HIATUS (SORRY, BUT I HAVE TO)

Unfortunately as I'm in Year 11, which in England means a whole bunch of exams in May/June on everything I've learnt in the past two years, I won't be able to publish any chapters until my exams are over.

Chapter Eleven won't be published until the 12th June. Trust me, I want it sooner, possibly more than you do (I know what happens in the next few chapters, after all...) but I can't get it out before then. Because exams. Sorry.

AN: I'M SO SORRY I DIDN'T PUBLISH ON THURSDAY. Like, really sorry. I was planning to, but I was only halfway finished by then and I couldn't do it over the weekend because I had an English Lit mock yesterday and a German speaking exam today and basically I was so busy revising and preparing and whatever that I didn't have time to write.

A couple people have asked whether we'll see the video of Sherlock from chapter five. The answer is yes, John will see that. In the next chapter, to be exact.

As far as this week's chapter goes... I hope y'all are good at science.

Due to the wide time span of this chapter (12th - 27th April) I have included the date at the beginning of each 'section' as well as the thingy under the chapter name, so as y'all don't get so confused.

Disclaimer from previous chapters applies.

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It's A Long Way Back To Baker Street: Chapter Ten

One More Miracle

Tuesday 12th April - Wednesday, 27th April 2011

Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

TUESDAY, 12th APRIL – Midday

He stood in a narrow aisle stocked with the tackily coloured packets of cheap, artificially flavoured food. Bright lights pierced the air above his head, surrounding everything around him with a cold glow that was usually only seen in places like hospitals. A child begged his mother for sweets on the other side of the shelves, his voice getting more and more desperate. Edward wanted to laugh at him. Wasn't everything so simple, back then? Back when sweets, of all things, were the make-or-break of your day.

The mother dragged her boy away, up to the counter to pay, and still he screamed for sweets despite his mother's best attempts at getting him to shush. Edward wanted to scream, too, though over much more than sweets.

Just over eight hours ago, his phone had rung. He'd pulled it out to find that the caller – his brother, little Georgie – had already hung up.

One ring, then hang up. It was a pre-arranged signal, used only in emergencies if one of them thought they were about to be arrested. If it was a false alarm, they'd call back as soon as possible.

So Edward now held his phone clutched tightly in his hand, and, as the child screamed for sweets, he hoped for his brother's call. He wandered down to the end of the aisle, and down the next, away from the noise of the child and his mother.

It could still be a false alarm, Edward knew that, although the chances of this ticked away with every passing second. It was very possible Georgie was being held at some grim, dark police station right now, having been arrested and detained. Hopefully, he'd had a chance to dispose of his phone first, somewhere where the police couldn't find it, but where George could get it again if necessary.

Just then, he heard the sound of the door swinging open. A male voice said "excuse me, ma'am," and the mother answered "sorry." The child was quiet now, and a moment later, they were out of the shop.

Edward strolled down the aisle, his eyes scanning over the newspapers and magazines to his right. Broadsheet newspapers sat at one end, before the tabloids and then the magazines. Edward stopped at the tabloids, grazing them with his eyes, before stooping to pick one up. It was today's issue, from the date at the top.

He flicked through it absent-mindedly, not caring about the numerous celebrities the tabloid was naming-and-shaming this week with their half-false stories. A crime story caught his attention – if only due to how different it was from the rest of the articles – and he almost stopped to read it before he realised it was about the same painting everyone had been going on about ever since it had disappeared.

All the same, he scanned through it quickly.

COULD SHERLOCK HOLMES SAVE THE REICHENBACH PAINTING

Kitty Riley | 12th April 2011

Just over two weeks ago, J.M. Turner's "The Falls of the Reichenbach" painting was stolen and, in desperation, its owners turned to amateur 'consulting detective,' Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes's impressive knack for solving quick cases – undoubtedly why he, and not the police, was the first choice of investigator for the owners of the painting – is archived on his flatmate's blog, "The Blog of Dr. John H. Watson." Police and independent clients alike have been turning to the amateur to solve their trickiest cases for years. It seems that finding the painting would be incredibly easy for the likes of Holmes, and in fact a friend of mine is of the opinion that he would find the case boring, no matter how high profile it is – which is why, perhaps, he chose to hunt down London's newest serial killer, a case that was offered to him at almost the same time.

Anonymous sources tell me, however, that the culprit for these murders has been caught, and it seems possible Holmes will turn to the Reichenbach case next; the pressure is certainly on him to do so. The question is, however, can Sherlock Holmes, impressive as he is, find the painting after giving the theif a two week escape period – and therefore a massive chance at getting away.

He stopped there, although there were a couple more paragraphs after it. His eyes lingered on the words London's newest serial killer...could the article be talking about him and Georgie? And when it said the culprit had been caught... His fingers tightened around the phone he still held in his hand.

He took the tabloid with him, ignoring the shopkeeper's yells of "Aren't you going to pay, Sir? Sir? SIR!" and jumping into the front seat of his car. He remembered their newest victim, still chained up in the van, barely conscious but not dead, not yet, and a plan started to form in his mind.

He stared at the picture which took up most of the page which the article was on. If this man was, as the article implied, the reason Georgie had been caught, then something had to be done. And, Edward realised, he was close to Scotland Yard too. He was the perfect bargaining chip.

The plan evolved quickly, and Edward knew exactly what he was going to do. Smiling slightly, he stepped on the accelerator, and the car jerked into motion.

Edward's plan was perfect.

Everything was in place. The first thing he'd done was park the car by the entrance to St. Bart's, and set up his camera to stream footage to his laptop, in the van. He'd then driven the van to a street nearby St. Bart's and dropped his victim off, placing an anonymous call to 999 from a nearby phone box so he could be sure they'd come in time. He'd then driven the van away, watching the video footage for hours until he finally saw Scotland Yard turn up at St. Bart's. Holmes was with them.

He was planning to just observe today, to get as much as he could from what he could see, get Sherlock back on the case and possibly lead him into a trap later. But when Sherlock stepped outside the hospital, alone, guard down, a cigarette in hand, he knew the best time would be now. So he drove as quickly as he could to St. Bart's, and, pulling on his black ski mask and grabbing the sedation he kept in the glove box for emergencies, he jumped out of the van.

TUESDAY, 26th APRIL

"John!" Mrs. Hudson called, "there's a letter for you!"

John didn't respond, and Mrs. Hudson ended up having to climb the stairs up to his and Sherlock's living space – or just his now, she supposed – to give it to him.

"John," she said again.

"Yeah," he responded, looking up and reaching out for the letter. She handed it to him, watching him open it and pull the paper inside it out.

It was an article from a tabloid newspaper; the copious amound of colour used was consistent with the colour used by tabloids. A large picture of Sherlock took up the top half of the page. John's heart beat faster as his mind tried – and failed - to process the image. Instead, he sat there staring at it numbly. The mug in his hand slipped, pouring tea over the newspaper on his lap.

The picture of Sherlock looked exactly like John remembered him. A blue scarf was wound around his neck and his coat collar was turned up, accenting his cheekbones. His hair was a curly, messy mop on top of his head, and drawn across his face was a wet red 'X'.

It didn't take John long to realise the 'X' was drawn in blood.

Molly looked up as Lestrade came into her lab. She could immediately tell from his face that something had happened, that something was wrong. "What is it?"

He held up a newspaper article. Sherlock's face stared out at her from the paper, obstructed by a large red 'X'. "Delivered to Baker Street this morning," he informed her. "No return address. No way of contacting the sender at all."

She reached up, her gloved hand taking the article from Lestrade's. "It's still wet," she mused.

He nodded. "Fresh?"

Hope danced through Molly's mind, but doubt followed closely behind. Fresh blood would mean Sherlock was still alive. Fresh blood would mean Sherlock could come home. Fresh blood would mean Molly's analysis of Sherlock's finger had been wrong, off somehow...

Had she been wrong?

She shook her head, slightly enough that Lestrade didn't notice. Her analysis had been sound, she knew that. She'd checked thouroughly, holding out hope – foolish hope – that she'd gotten it wrong the first several times. Eventually, though, she'd been forced to conclude that Sherlock was dead, no matter how much she'd wanted to find the opposite.

But was there any chance that - ?

Molly cut her thoughts off before she could hope too much. She had to stay objective. She couldn't be praying for an outcome she knew to be unlikely. After all, there were other ways this blood could be hydrated and still not be fresh...

"I'll tell you tomorrow," she said to Lestrade. "After I've analysed it."

WEDNESDAY, 27th APRIL

Molly's eyes scanned over the results again. It wasn't as if she hadn't expected this... But still, these results were a fatal blow to the hope she'd held out since Lestrade had come to see her the day before.

"Molly. You said you had the results?"

Looking up, Molly saw that Lestrade had entered, followed closely by both John and Mycroft. The three men watched her expectantly, waiting for her to give them the news they, like her, so desperately wished would arrive. The news they'd come here hoping to hear.

She couldn't give them that news. Instead, she simply said, "I'm sorry."

Mycroft's face stayed expressionless, almost uncaring, but Molly got the impression that this was an act. It had become more and more obvious, over the past few weeks, how much Mycroft actually cared for his brother.

Lestrade's reaction was a simple aversion of the eyes and a slight change in expression to something a little less optimistic. John's eyes scrunched up for a second, until his face flattened out into a hard mask. His eyes were the only holes in this mask; emotion poured out from them. Hopelessness. Loneliness. Pain.

The last thing Molly wanted to do was continue, but she did. She had to get this over with. "It's definitely Sherlock's blood," she informed them. "There's trisodium citrate in it – that's an anticoagulant preservative. It stops the blood clotting. It's used in storage – not the best option, but not difficult to get hold of, either. I've seen it sold on ebay."

She took a deep breath, referring back to her page of results before she continued. Lestrade, John and Mycroft were listening intently, probably to find some loophole in her results, some way Sherlock could still be alive. Molly had already checked, though, and she knew there wasn't any such loophole.

"The pH is lower than usual – due to a build-up of lactic acid – and there's haemolysis too," she told them. "From the state of the blood, I'd say it's been in storage for about two weeks."

She didn't need to say that two weeks was the exact same time period that Sherlock had been dead. They all knew that.

"He's playing with us," Mycroft said. "He wants us to react. He wants us vulnerable."

Nobody said anything.

Mycroft was right, of course. McCabe wanted them to release his brother, and until he did, he was going to throw everything he had at them. He'd planned it from the beginning, that much was obvious. He'd killed Sherlock and now he was going to rub that in their faces until they couldn't deal with it any more, and then he'd promise that if they released George then he'd stop the taunting.

"I've got to go," Lestrade said. "McCabe would need storage facilities. I'll see if I can track him from that."

Molly nodded, and Lestrade turned and left. Mycroft followed closely behind; he would most likely be helping Lestrade out this afternoon, as he had been many times over the past few weeks. The door banged shut behind him, and Molly was left facing John.

"Molly," John began, and then stopped abruptly. There was a short pause before he started speaking again. "Is there any chance that... That you're wrong? I mean, not you, but your equipment."

Molly opened her mouth to reply, but before she could work out what she was saying, John was talking again.

"It's just that... I don't know. I thought maybe... Maybe there's still a chance. Maybe he'll still come home. Maybe miracles can happen, I don't know. But I hoped that this -" he gestured towards the article laid out on Molly's lab table "- was, well. It. The miracle. One more miracle to add to everything Sherlock's done so far."

Exhaling softly, Molly stepped closer to John and placed her hand just above his elbow in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. "John," she said, "I want him to be alive to too. But I checked – I checked every test I did."

John shook his head, refusing to absorb Molly's words. "There's got to be some chance that he's still..."

"I don't think so," Molly said. "I hate to say it, John, and I hate that this is happening, I do. But..." She paused, gathering her answer. "The results I got from analysing his blood – it's consistent with when he died."

John wasn't listening. He was too busy going over every theory he'd come up with over the past two weeks, every detail that meant Sherlock could somehow be alive. "McCabe's messing with us," he recited. "He wants us to think Sherlock's dead. He thinks it'll help get his brother back."

"John," Molly said gently. "Remember the finger we found? You never asked why I said that was post-mortem."

"I – and?" John questioned.

"You're a doctor," Molly told him. "You know what an ante-mortem fracture looks like. There's signs of healing, cell regrowth, repair. I found none of that when I analysed Sherlock's finger. With a peri-mortem fracture – an injury that happens at the time of death – the tissue is still alive. It's not dry or brittle, so it splinters. Sherlock's shattered, John. It crumbled. The tissue was dead. It was post-mortem."

John looked down, but he had no response. The part of him that had clung to the tiny sliver of hope that Sherlock was still alive detached, and he felt it float away. He was left with only a reluctant certainty that Sherlock was dead.

Sherlock was gone. He was never coming home. The statements felt strange, kind of surreal, in John's mind, although he'd been saying them to himself for over a week now. Now, though, he knew they were true. He had no arguments. He had nothing to place his foolish hopes on.

Nothing except finding Edward McCabe.

Nothing except justice.