Chapter 10

'Are you sure you're not coming with us? Liz invited you again this afternoon,' John texted, before he got up from his desk and went to the bathroom to refresh himself a bit, as he would go straight to the pub from the hospital.

When he returned, Sherlock had answered.

'I can't. Our plane leaves very early and I still need to make sure that I will be able to track down Jenny Smith quickly once I'm there. SH'

'Alright. I'm not sure when I'll be home tonight, so I may not see you before you leave. Have fun and a good trip. And be careful,' John answered, then pocketed his phone and straightened his hair one last time before he left his office.

A small group of people had already collected around Liz when John arrived at the pub. He smiled and waved at her when he caught her eye.

Liz smiled back and waved him over. "Hi, John," she said. "Come meet my friends." Her friends turned out to be a group of three girls and one man who, it seemed, was together with the short redhead to Liz' right.

"Hi," John said, smiling. "Nice to meet you all."

They all shook hands with him and then made room so he could join them at the small round table. Liz ordered a round of drinks and an hour and a half was spent swapping funny stories from work and about mutual friends, though Liz made sure to keep John included, filling in some information here and there so he would get the jokes.

When the other guy, David, and his girlfriend had gone to get another round, Liz leaned over to her friend Dana and said, loud enough for John to hear: "Too bad John's friend couldn't come. He's quite the character. Gorgeous too."

Dana giggled and smiled at John. "Oh," she said. "A friend? Or a... friend?"

"Oh, no, he's really just a friend," John answered. "I'm just staying over at his place until I've found a flat of my own."

"How did you and Sherlock meet anyway?" Liz asked. "He's obviously not a doctor and... he doesn't look like a soldier either."

"Sherlock?" Dana said, staring at him. "Sherlock Holmes? He's your flatmate?"

"Yes," John said, a little surprised. "He's a detective and he contacted me for a case when I was in Afghanistan. You know him?" he asked Dana.

She seemed about to speak, but then, as the others returned with drinks, she shook her head. "No," she said. "I've just heard of him. Once." She shrugged. "It's the kind of name you remember, isn't it?"

"Yeah," John nodded, taking a sip of his new drink. "Quite unusual. Just like him."

The talk turned to other things for a while, but when it was starting to get late and the table was filling up with empty glasses and bottles, Liz leaned over, put her hand on John's knee and whispered - or rather tried to, but her judgement seemed a bit impaired, so everyone at the table probably heard what she said: "That friend of yours. I hope he can join us some other time. Maybe just the three of us." She giggled and winked, leaving little doubt as to what she had in mind.

John couldn't help but starting to giggle too, as he had had his own share of the drinks. "I'm sorry," he said. "He won't want to. Got a boyfriend."

"What?" Liz said, pouting slightly. "Sherlock's got a boyfriend? You're pulling my leg."

"No, I'm not! He's with James. Wait, I can show you, they've nicked my phone last night. I left it in the living room and suddenly I found a whole new set of pictures on it." He rolled his eyes and almost dropped the phone as he took it out, making him giggle again.

When he showed Liz the most decent picture, she let out a loud "Awh," and took the phone. "Aren't those two precious?" she said, showing it to the others. Dana screamed and dropped her glass, which smashed on the floor.

"That... That man..." she stammered.

John stared at her with wide eyes. "Okay, Sherlock can be scary, but that's usually only when he starts talking..."

"Not Sherlock," Dana said, her voice trembling as she pointed at the picture. "That one... Murphy. I've seen him before. He... He works for that thug... Moran..."

John felt himself sobering up at the shock. "How do you know about Moran?"

"I..." Dana said, hesitantly. "I had a friend who... knew him..."

"God. What happened to her?" John asked.

Dana looked down at her hands. "She died," she whispered.

Liz, who was the only other one to hear this, gasped. "Oh my god," she said. "What happened?"

"Moran happened, probably," John frowned.

She shook her head. "No," she whispered, not looking up. "Moran had gone. That's why she thought it might be safe to stop hiding. But he might come back. So she wanted out of the country. Needed money. So..." She made a sound kind of like a sob. "She tried to make a deal."

"What kind of deal?" John asked softly.

"She said she had some information. That would make it impossible for Moran to ever return. She'd offer to keep silent if they gave her enough money to move away. She'd swear never to tell or return to England. If they didn't pay, she'd... go to him." She pointed at Sherlock's image.

"God," John said, shaking his head. "She should have come to him right away."

"That's what I said," Dana said, looking up at him. "But she said that he didn't seem quite... trustworthy. So she got in touch with him instead. Murphy. He said he might be able to help."

"But he doesn't work for Moran anymore, right? That's what he told Sherlock, and he must have good reason to believe him," John said.

Dana shrugged. "I don't know. He said he could help her. Or knew someone who could. I'm not sure. She went with him and we never saw her again. Thought she'd gotten her money and split. But then that police bloke showed up a week later." She sniffed and Liz pulled her into a tight hug.

John bit his lip. "James should know something about it, then. Why did he never tell Sherlock?"

The subject had quite effectively killed the mood and Liz offered to take Dana home, while David and the other two women wanted to move on to a nightclub they knew. The look Liz gave him, told John that it might not be his kind of club, so he declined their invitation and went home.

When he arrived at the flat, he wasn't quite sure what to do. It seemed important to tell Sherlock what he had learned, but everything was quiet at the flat. Probably he was asleep, preparing himself for the case abroad, when he wouldn't allow himself to sleep much. And it was only a few hours before he would have to leave. John decided he wouldn't wake him up. He could tell him later, in a text, and ask him then if James had indeed never told him that he had met Jane Levington. Right now, John wasn't up for much talking anyway. Going out this late after a day of work had exhausted him, and he was convinced that he would fall asleep as soon as he hit his pillow.

Yet when he was lying in bed, the thoughts popped up again. If James was still interfering with Moran's business, the colonel and his boss would surely come after him and Sherlock at some point. And even worse, if James was still working for Moran… But surely Sherlock would not make a mistake like that. He saw through everyone and everything. Only a genius like himself would perhaps be able to fool him.

It was almost an hour later when John finally fell asleep.

...

A man and a woman were standing in a hall. She was talking to him, looking earnest, but he was just grinning all the time and obviously not listening to what she said. He looked familiar, but it took a while before John realised whom he reminded him of. And even then, something was seriously off. One moment it looked like it could well be him, but then that insane flame returned to his eyes, and he didn't even look one bit like James. And then, without any warning, the man jumped the young woman. She fell back, and he turned into an animal, devilish looking and dragging off pieces of her flesh with his teeth and claws. And John was screaming, he couldn't stop, but he had to watch it all. And then finally the man had finished, leaving the body like Sherlock and John had found her at the crime scene. And the man, crouched next to the body, took a step back and looked up at John, smiling. It was James' smile, but his dark eyes were completely dead.

John woke up with a jolt, breathing hard. His throat was raw as if he had indeed been screaming, and he groaned as he rolled onto his back. He couldn't even remember having a nightmare that wasn't about the war. What had all that been about? None of the crime scenes they had been to had affected him so, and this one had been some time ago. It didn't make sense, anyway. James, Sherlock's sweet and sensitive boyfriend, committing a murder like that? And Sherlock had been certain that the killer was Moran's boss, anyway. So what was James doing in his drea… Oh. It would take a genius to fool Sherlock Holmes. God, no. That couldn't be true.

Within the second, John was out of bed, but a quick glance at his alarm clock made him wince. Sherlock had probably already arrived at the airport. He tried calling him as he dashed down the stairs to barge into his bedroom, but his flatmate was indeed gone and he didn't pick up his phone. Damn it. John ran back up to his own room and jumped into his clothes. He had to reach Sherlock before he took off. It had only been a dream, he could still be wrong. But he needed to at least warn his friend about what he suspected, before he was out of the country with James. He couldn't let him take the risk. If he put everything together, it looked more and more like it hadn't been a coincidence that Murphy had been around to pick up Sherlock, back when he had just escaped from Mycroft. Maybe he had checked Sherlock's identity long before, and simply waited for his chance. The more John thought about it, the more what he dreaded started to make sense.

At the airport, John jumped out of the cab and almost forgot to pay, so he was called back and lost a precious minute. Then he ran into the entrance hall and looked up at the notice board. To his relief, Sherlock's flight had not yet started boarding, but it couldn't be long now. For a moment, John hesitated, then he rushed to one of the desks.

"The cheapest ticket you have. I don't care where it's going," he said hurriedly.

Unfortunately, the woman behind the desk seemed in much less of a hurry, asking him one irrelevant question after another until John was almost squirming where he stood. When he could finally turn away with his ticket, the notification of Sherlock's flight had changed into 'boarding'.

John groaned at the sight of the security queue, but there was no other way to get to the other side and reach Sherlock. Time was running short by the time it was his turn to go through, and of course the buzzer went off as he walked past the metal detector.

"Sir, can you please go to the left for…"

He didn't have time for this. He leapt for the belt, grabbed his phone and wallet, and ran.

People were shouting after him and he heard that someone was chasing him, but he didn't look back and sprinted in the direction of Sherlock's gate. The signs led him to a descending escalator, but his pursuer was still following, so he kept running, holding onto the railing so he wouldn't fall. Then suddenly, below him, he caught sight of a familiar head of messy curls in a long queue of people.

"Sherlock! SHERLOCK!"

Sherlock looked up, frowning in confusion at hearing his name, before he spotted John's mad waving.

"Sherlock, wait! There's something I need to tell you!"

Sherlock held up a hand to his ear and shook his head, indicating that he couldn't hear what John was saying.

The security woman had caught up with John and grabbed his arm. "Sir, if you would be so kind to come with me," she ordered, but John kept struggling. "Please," he said quickly. "I need to reach that man. He's in danger." Then he turned away from her again to look down. "Don't trust James!" he shouted.

Sherlock gave another little shake of his head and then shrugged at James, before both of them waved at John and stepped out towards their plane.

John's shoulders sagged. He had been too late. The woman was dragging him along now, but he hardly noticed, still staring down at Sherlock's gate.

…

It took a few hours and even more warnings before the airport security finally let John go. They had been suspicious at his explanation, but in the end the fact that he wasn't carrying anything illegal made them give in. To his horror, the woman who had run after him walked him out with a lecture about when she herself had been lovestruck and did silly things, but how he shouldn't let it influence other people and make them feel unsafe at an airport.

Sherlock was well on the way to Mexico now, sitting next to possibly the most dangerous man they had ever met, without having a clue. And what would happen when they arrived there, if John was right?

He took his phone out to check for messages, since he had simply pocketed it right after he got it back from security. Two missed calls from an unknown number, but no voicemail messages. Frowning, John tried calling back, but he was immediately directed to an unpersonalised voicemail. He sighed, wishing he could call Sherlock, but he wouldn't be able to reach him now he was on the plane.

His next thought was to call Mycroft. But then, he still couldn't prove anything against Murphy, and Sherlock absolutely wanted to avoid Mycroft's control on this particular trip. John could call Sherlock as soon as he had landed, but James might notice that something was off in Sherlock's reaction, which would endanger Sherlock even more. And John had seen often enough how James leaned in to read along when Sherlock got a text, so that certainly wasn't an option.

None of that gave Sherlock any back-up, anyway. There was only one solution that could really make a difference. If only the security would let him pass a second time on the same day and wouldn't accuse him of stalking.