John groggily makes his way into the kitchen, having stayed up all night with Miyah, who had contracted one of her sudden fevers. Sherlock is sitting at their table grimacing at Chinese tea. He's wearing what John privately thinks of as his junkie clothes: baggy sweatshirt and dirty jeans.
"You look horrible," Sherlock says, looking up. John scowls.
"I was up all night. And look who's talking."
"I've been up all night too. How's Miyah?" Sherlock asks, changing the subject.
"Fever's down but it hasn't broken. I wonder when Shirley will start coming down with symptoms. They always get sick together," John groans, filling his cup and joining Sherlock at the table.
"So, judging by your, uh, transformation...you're going out," John says.
"Yes," Sherlock says, shutting the iPod off and laying it on the table. He follows the dust motes floating in the sunshine for a bit. At least that's what John thinks he's doing. He's probably doing something else.
John pours tea and pulls his computer over to him opening the London Evening Standard website as he does every morning. His eyes widen at the first headline.
"Rioting in London's South Bank"
Next to that, in smaller headlines, report after report of attacks, fires, chaos. Utter chaos.
"Jesus, Sherlock, did you see this?" John murmurs, his eyes wide with shock.
"The tea is altered just before it is packaged," Sherlock starts suddenly, completely ignoring the question. Of course he's seen it. "There are two packing plants in which the majority of British tea is processed.
"The entire process is automatic in both factories. Someone's been dosing the batches. Mycroft's people have uncovered the drug in tea packaged as late as last night. If Moran's seeding the tea himself, all I have to do is find out how, catch him in the act, and have him arrested… or abducted. Whatever it is that Mycroft does.
"The violence will only escalate the more the drug is consumed. I have less than 12 hours left before Mycroft will tell the British populace to quit drinking tea for a few days and they'll find another vector for the drug, one that's even less obvious. I'm not above admitting we got lucky figuring this one out so quickly."
"Then you've sunk a peg or two since we last spoke," John says, sucking down tea, thinking that Mycroft's ruined him for anything other than this probably hideously expensive pu erh stuff.
"In addition to limited time," Sherlock continues, pointedly ignoring John, "I don't have access my usual resources. Scotland Yard will arrest me as soon as look at me, and the homeless network drinks tea too. Pervasive stuff," he mutters.
"You know, that's about as close to saying you depend on other people as I think you'll ever get." John laughs. Mary walks into the room and all traces of his humour disappear as John makes a few quick deductions of his own.
She's wearing long black trousers, black boots, a black turtleneck and a grey jumper and carrying a long, narrow rectangular case in her hand. Not one stitch of brightly coloured clothing. Not one piece that stands out.
"No," he says quietly.
"Good morning to you too, love," she says breezily, putting her case down on the floor and pouring herself some tea from the pot Sherlock's made, nodding her thanks.
Sherlock covertly watches the John-getting-angry dance.
The metamorphosis from John-the-Blogger to John-the-Soldier had conjured the idea of a swordstick in Sherlock's mind the first time he saw it; an unassuming helpful crutch with a lethal-sharp secret hidden inside.
First, the military bearing returns. John's back straightens, his chin rises, his jaw firms, his shoulders square.
Then the smaller tells click into place in the same order every time. John's breathing slows, his hands relax, his nostrils flare, his head jerks sideways once, maybe twice if he's really angry.
Today is a three-jerk day. Sherlock clamps down on the smile and slides his gaze over to Mary who can read John's tells as easily as he can, and probably has added a few others to the list that he's not privy to.
They haven't been together long enough for Sherlock to have observed how Mary reacts to John in this situation and finds himself absolutely astounded.
Mary Watson doesn't change at all. She turns to John, scrunching her face up in a mew of sympathy and sits down with her tea, laying a hand on John's shoulder and kneading it.
"Mary, you can't-"
"Why not?"
"I can't-"
"Now we're getting somewhere."
"Please don't go."
"Someone has to."
"Then take my dog tags. They're lucky." John groans, surrendering, and the Soldier abruptly makes room for anxious-loving-husband-John.
"Can you find them for me love?" Mary asks, acquiescing.
John nods and walks towards their room.
Sherlock sips his tea, staring at Mary in fascination.
"How did you do that?" he asks. Admitting his ignorance is a small price to pay for a master class in John Watson management.
"When you realise that the only reason John ever gets angry at either of us is because he's terrified to lose us it becomes a matter of love rather than a battle. And I would lose a battle. He has the high ground since Leinster Gardens," she says.
"Brilliant," Sherlock comments. "Especially considering the fact that he can't come with us."
Sherlock slides the iPad over to Mary and she watches the newest instalment of Sherlock-cam.
This time it's more like John-Cam. John slamming a guy against a wall, John cold-clocking another guy from behind, John holding up the arm of a dead body at a crime scene, smiling past the camera.
"Smilig at a crime scene," Mary's tone drips sarcasm. "Well, I never"
"I'd just told him I'd make him dinner if he could find an entry wound-it was a tricky one. I don't know what he found funnier, the idea of me making dinner or the idea that I'd offer in public," Sherlock muttered.
"The former," John says, coming up behind Mary and placing his dog tags around her neck, tucking them into her turtleneck. Sherlock could see their faint outline under the fabric just above her heart. He feels his throat tighten. "You never did, by the way," John continues. "Cook me dinner. I'm still waiting."
"I'll consider it," Sherlock says blandly. "Why didn't I ever get lucky dog tags?"
"You never needed them. I was always there myself." John says seriously. There is still the shadow of the Soldier in his eyes as he regards Sherlock. There is also implicit warning and, if Sherlock is reading him right, a hint of hurt and not a little envy. Sherlock frowns.
"You know, John, you are gorgeous when you're manhandling fugitives," Mary says suddenly. "We should go on cases together, Sherlock!" She says, almost bouncing in her seat. John chuckles and the Soldier disappears again.
"People will talk," Sherlock says, grinning. John rolls his eyes.
"Call Mycroft and tell him to send someone to pick me and the girls up, Sherlock." John says, and it's really more of a request. Sherlock regards him in surprise.
"I assume he won't mind if we stay at his fortress while you two are off hunting." John continues, wondering if he's wrong.
"He'd better not," Sherlock says. Just as Sherlock palms his phone, John's buzzes. He looks at it and smiles.
"Great minds," John says. "He's on his way."
Sherlock scowls.
"Why do you feel the need for additional protection?" He asks. "It's hardly likely that anyone will attempt coming in here. Your presence is the required stimuli for aggression," Sherlock says.
"From what you and the news have been saying, this is not the safest place to be," John says. "Mycroft's fort is in an area of low population density. The children will be far safer there."
John is quiet for a bit, but Mary's staring at him too.
"Also, if one of you contacts me for help, I will be able to leave the children at Mycroft's." John says slowly. "Do. Not. Argue," he finishes, glaring at Sherlock who nods in agreement.
"A reasonable precaution."
"Where are you two headed?"
"Battersea plant first. The majority of the tea in London is shipped from there, and balance of probability has Moran at that location rather than the other, which is out in Sussex," Sherlock says. Mary nods.
"And you think that you're just going to traipse into the plant and snoop around to find what you're looking for do you?" John asks waspishly.
"Oh please," Sherlock says in disgust. "John, we broke into the most heavily guarded government testing plant in the UK in five minutes. What's a tea factory by comparison? Now if you'll excuse me, I need to fetch a few items before heading out. Pack up the babies, John, we'll see you later tonight," he says, putting emphasis on tonight.
John turns to Mary as Sherlock leaves the room.
"Is it this hard when I leave with him on cases?" he asks, slipping his arms around her shoulders.
"Yes. Every time. But it's what you live for, darling. It's what we both live for."
John buries his face against her neck as he draws her near.
"Promise me you'll both come back alive. I won't say unharmed, because that's too much to ask at this point. Just….alive," he murmurs.
"I promise. Sherlock will do whatever he can to keep me safe, you know that."
"Yes. The same can be said for you, Love. Take care of him. Blow Moran's fucking brains out if you have to."
Mary smiles with all her teeth.
"I thought we'd agreed on a pelvis shot. Good luck with the fever," she says, her comment perfectly timed with Miyah's fretful wail. John squeezes her shoulders one last time and hurries down the hall to his daughter.
The Battersea plant is huge. Massive. Gigantic. Confusing. Sherlock and Mary observe it from the car park, and Sherlock is chewing on his lip.
"No," Mary says, smiling.
"What?" Sherlock answers absently.
"Whatever scheme you're thinking up right now. No."
Sherlock has always exercised extreme restraint where Mary is concerned. He doesn't know why, but he ruthlessly curbs his impulses to lash out at her when she annoys him, something he's never consciously done for another person, even John.
He hopes she notices as he grinds his teeth together, creating a dam against a tide of vitriol that threatens to escape his lips. After a few seconds of breathing, he closes his eyes and says, "Since you're not telepathic, unless you are, in which case we'll have to have a long chat, you cannot know what I was planning. Your immediate refusal to co-operate makes further progress…difficult. Wouldn't you at least like to hear my proposed plan of action before…"
"Mmmmm. No. Why don't we just use these?" she interrupts, tossing a leather wallet at him. His eyes pop open as it hits him on the side of the head. He catches it. He opens it.
Inside is an FSA badge with his picture on it. In the picture, he has sprouted heavier eyebrows and a moustache and his eyes are chocolate brown. The photoshop job is impeccable. By the time he looks up at her, Mary has a makeup kit out and is already adjusting the line of her eyebrow, the shape of her eyeliner, bronzing the colour of her skin.
"Oh yeah, and here," She says, handing Sherlock a small case containing his moustache, beard, spirit gum and contacts. "You'll look like shite in a beard, but they'll make you wear one of those stupid beard net things and that'll hide your appearance even more. There's an ill-fitting suit in the back seat," she says, working dark eye shadow into the depressions above her eyes. "We'll fill your brows out with pencil."
Sherlock sighs, wanting badly to know where she got the badges but not wanting to give her the chance to look any smugger than she already does.
"We should have done this at home," he huffs instead.
"I didn't know what we'd find here. Now, hush while I make this call…" she says, whipping out a prepaid cell phone. She dials quickly and Sherlock listens with interest as he applies spirit gum to his cheeks.
"Yeah, hi, this is Hafsa Davis from the Food Standards Agency. May I speak to the plant manager on duty?" she says brightly.
Sherlock stops applying his moustache and glowers at her. He'd been banking on throwing people off by a sudden surprise inspection. She rolls her eyes, adjusting her eye shadow again and continues.
"Yes, Mr. Phillips, Hafsa Davis here, FSA Inspector. Did they inform you about my visit today? No? How typical, I do apologise. I'm newly assigned this district and they were supposed to schedule a tour for me today. Is there any way you can fit us in? This is an unofficial tour, seeing as though you just passed inspection, just so that I can get my bearings." Her voice was enchantingly disarming, a little scattered, beseeching but not obsequious. After a pause she puts on a little moue of regret.
"Oh, yes, it was a surprise for me too. Peterson took a rather sudden sick leave. I get the feeling it's serious but we've not been told anything. Whatever it is, it's best to let the family deal with it for a bit before sending any well wishes, that's what I think."
Another pause. "Thank you so much, Mr. Phillips, I consider this a great personal favour. My assistant and I will be there in fifteen minutes. Looking forward to meeting you." She hangs up.
"Why in hell did you let them know we were coming?" Sherlock shouts in exasperation.
"Oh you wanted to catch them off guard and scare them all to death with a surprise inspection?" Mary snaps, putting the final touches on her makeup.
She turns to him, and he's privately astounded at how very different she looks.
Eyes so dark they're basically all black glare out from beneath beautifully formed dark eyebrows that set off light brown skin, the powder perfectly fading into her natural skin colour by her ears.
She unwinds a long, dark scarf and began fashioning it into a hijab, stabbing pins into it as if to accentuate her next remarks.
"Since that worked so well at Baskerville? Sherlock, you may be a brilliant detective but you're a bloody awful spy. Take your lead from me and use that big, gorgeous brain of yours to deduce the hell out of this place. We're getting the full tour, stem to stern. How do I look?" She smoothes graceful folds over the neckline of her sweater.
Sherlock raises an eyebrow and plucks the pencil from her fingers and begins shading in his eyebrows, using the rear-view mirror.
"Unrecognisable, though you could have picked a better name. 'Lioness' isn't very subtle," he mutters.
"Hafsa's a beautiful name," Mary says firmly. "Besides, do you really think a tea plant manager by the name of Samuel Phillips the Third is going to know what it means?"
Though Sherlock strives mightily to contain it, a smile curves up the corners of his lips. Mary chuckles, relishing the tingle of adrenaline that courses through her veins.
Infiltrating a tea factory is a far cry from setting up to take out a government sanctioned mark, but it's also a far cry from putting the kettle on in the kitchen, and she's excited.
She can tell Sherlock is too. He finishes blending in the edges of his hairpieces and looks at her with a busy, distracted, earnest expression that is so un-Sherlockian that he is momentarily unrecognisable.
"Perfect," she laughs. "One last thing, though," she continues and Sherlock feels a frisson of tension scurry down his spine at the tone of her voice.
"If I see Moran, I'm taking him down," Mary states. "Not so as anyone will see. But I'm killing that motherfucker if I get the chance."
"Mary, you can't," Sherlock says quickly. "It's not just the bombs they planted below Baker Street. If you kill him before this plan comes to fruition he has assassins-"
Sherlock stops talking, arrested by Mary's narrow-eyed gaze. Her lips curve unpleasantly and she looks down at her hands and fidgets with her rings.
"There are four," she says quietly. "Maybe five people in this world that could take me down. Moran contacted only one. She... she owes me more-" and Mary cut off, swallowing her own voice. She pauses to gather herself, blinking rapidly. "Owed me more than he could pay her," she says quietly, and when she lifts her eyes to meet Sherlock's his heart clenches with the pain he sees there. Hafsa. Both name and disguise make more sense now.
"There is no other contract that means anything out on me or you or the rest of our family." She stares at him quietly. "Moran doesn't know that she is now…unavailable." Mary blinks rapidly again. There's no time to redo makeup.
Mr. Philips is more than co-operative. He's positively effusive in his willingness to help the FSA in any way possible. They start at the beginning of the plant and work their way down to the end over the course of an hour and a half.
By the time they make it to the last room, where the tea is portioned into bags, the light coming through the banks of windows stationed high on the factory walls finally dims to nothing. It's late, around 7:30, and the rest of the shift has already left.
Mary sees Sherlock's eyebrows twitch and his hand jiggle at his side as Phillips describes how gas is wafted into the tea packages as they are sealed to preserve the tea in its freshest state.
Mary feels Sherlock surreptitiously take her hand in his as Phillips continues with his explanation of this machine's functions.
Sherlock taps his forefinger and middle finger against the inside of Mary's palm in Morse code.
"Gas. Drug," he taps.
Goosebumps prickle along Mary's arm as she assimilates the meaning behind that. In the room directly below them, there is a giant tank of nitrogen that feeds the machine. And somewhere near, there is a canister of poison being mixed with the gas used to pack the tea and keep it fresh. It's the only way that makes sense.
Given the low dosage of the drug in every tea bag, the canister could be very small... indistinguishable among the other pipes and pieces and paraphernalia that make up the machines.
"So, that's it, from beginning to end," Peterson says, squinting proprietarily at the machinery in front of them.
"Thank you, Mr. Peterson," Mary says warmly, shaking his hand. "You've been so thorough and so kind to give up so much of your time to help me out. I wouldn't dream of holding you hear any longer. It's so late. Everyone else seems to have left."
"Yes, the plant slows down during the evening, but it never really stops. We have a skeleton crew of cleaners, mechanics and engineers that look over the machinery every night and keep it in good repair," Peterson explains as they make their way towards the exit.
"Night shift is rough," Sherlock says in the nasal, tenor voice he has assumed for this job. "Must see a lot a turnover."
"Yes, yes. Mostly with the mechanics though. Just hired two new ones last week in fact, to fill the gaps." Philips says, well pleased that his plant is operating at peak performance.
They arrive at the doors and Mary and John see a group of men and women filing into the plant, wearing tool belts and carrying the various implements of their trades.
Mary shakes Peterson's hand, aware of the sudden tension in Sherlock's posture. She strives not to succumb to the urge to watch the workers walking in across the room.
She and Sherlock leave through the exit with a last farewell and make their way towards the car, parked all alone some distance from the building. Sherlock flips out his phone and starts texting immediately after they are out of sight of the door.
"Updating John," he says quietly. "Since we won't be home for some time."
Mary nods, increasing the pace. "Moran?" she asks.
He nods curtly. "One of the mechanics. Third one through the door," Sherlock says, texting again.
"Did he recognise us, do you think?" she asks as she opens the car boot and takes off her grey sweater and puts on a great many other things, replacing her hijab with a black knit cap. Sherlock sheds the ill-fitting suit, revealing black shirt and trousers.
"Our disguises were adequate, but the presence of something out of the ordinary like unscheduled inspectors will almost certainly have alerted him," Sherlock says tensely. "I have alerted Mycroft, but we can't wait, Mary. We can't give him the chance to remove the device and disappear."
"So let's go," Mary says, checking the placement of her holsters one last time and starting back towards the plant. Sherlock takes his gun and follows her. His phone buzzes.
I'm on my way. Careful. Love you both. -JW
"Shite," Mary mutters, glancing down at her own phone. They move faster, each hoping to finish this before John gets there. They are an hour from Mycroft's. Mary catches Sherlock's eye. A lot can happen in an hour.
They skirt the building, not really caring whether they're seen or not. They enter through the rear service doors and immediately descend to the basement level.
Sherlock mentally superimposes the mental map of the plant he's built on what he's seeing around them and points to the left, toward the room housing the nitrous tank and Baskerville drug.
Mary nods and follows. There is mechanical noise all around them. The omnipresent whirring of parts and hissing of steam cloaks their sounds as they move carefully forward. Mary is uncomfortably aware that it also cloaks anyone else's approach.
She slides forward behind Sherlock, her eyes darting everywhere and her senses alert for movement.
She pauses momentarily, hearing a metallic scrape somewhere to her right. Sherlock puts distance between the two of them, not realising she's stopped. Mary's muscles relax in what, for her, is a cultivated reaction to stress.
She can sense the watcher, the follower or followers. She knows she's being stalked. The tenseness of Sherlock's spine, his clipped gait tells her that he feels the same way and that he's not able to do anything about it.
She moves forward to close the gap between them, her Walther in hand. Sherlock jerks suddenly to the right trying to dodge something that shoots out of the machinery to his left before staggering and dropping legless to the ground.
Mary jerks quickly and a dart flies past her cheek and hits the ground next to her. She looks up and to the left, still moving, retracing the angle of the projectile and sees a shadow dodge away behind the whirring equipment.
She leaves Sherlock, melting into the aisles of humming parts, silently moving, checking all points. She's not used to being on the defensive-not used to being reactionary instead of proactive.
She hefts a combat knife into her other hand. Close quarters could make a gunfight impossible. There is an odd eddy of air behind her and it is all the warning she needs. She abruptly pivots, pitching her entire weight backwards and feels her elbow connect satisfactorily with a sternum.
She throws her head back, assessing the approximate height of her attacker-short-and connects with the bridge of a nose. She doesn't pause but uses what's left of her momentum to spin, swinging fist and knife around in a controlled left hook.
Her fist smashes into the face of her attacker, the blade following its path, carving deeply across cheek and nose. He opens his mouth to scream but before he can even draw enough breath she's pulled her punch and buried the knife to the hilt in his throat. He drops with a gurgle and she spins again, gun swinging toward the inevitable second assailant closing on her.
She's a millisecond too late.
The tall man in front of her bats her hand aside, adding to the momentum of her swing by grabbing and yanking her wrist further in the same direction, causing Mary to spin towards the bank of machines on her right. The man closes in from behind, pinning her gun hand above her, immobilising her against the metal plates with his body just long enough to punch a dart into her neck.
He abruptly lets her go and backs away, but it's too late for her. Weakness surges through her muscles and her vision tunnels alarmingly. She sags against the metal. The last thing she sees before darkness claims her is Moran's cold eyes glaring down at her.