The last thing Jane needs is a crisis.
AN: Warnings ahoy: Unresolved Romantic Tension.
So sorry. not sorry at all HAHAHA! ahem.
I hope you all like it! And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your comments. Things have been a little rough for me for a while, and writing is pretty much my only outlet. I am so glad I found this community that I can be a part of. You all are fantastic. xxHoney
Sherlock struggles to keep up with Jane as she strides up to New Scotland Yard, practically leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. Her behaviour is…interesting, and part of him is intrigued. He half expected her to be upset or distraught or — well he didn't know exactly, but angry? Furious even? It was unexpected.
After the ambulance finally came for Soo Lin, Sherlock assumed Jane would feel relieved. Instead she rattled off the injuries, and helped the EMT's as best as she could, before marching angrily to the side of the road and demanding Sherlock hail them a cab back to the station. She didn't say one word the entire journey, and for once Sherlock didn't badger her. Partially because he wanted to observe her reactions objectively, and partially because she reminded him of a small powder keg. (He didn't want to be the one with the fuse in this scenario.)
Luckily for him, Jane apparently already had a target in mind. He watches bemusedly as she storms up to Inspector Dimmock.
"How many people will it take before you admit that this maniac is out there?" she accosts the young DI. His back is to her, and he hunches his shoulders, busying himself with idle paperwork for a minute before he turns around and sits at his desk. Jane smacks her hands down on top of his desk so he is forced to look at her. "A young girl was gunned down tonight, so that makes three people in three days. You're supposed to be finding him!"
"Based on what?!" Dimmock shouts getting back to his feet. "A suicide, a – a contaminated crime scene, and a shooting?"
"Come on, Inspector!" Sherlock steps in. "You honestly don't believe that Van Coon's murder was just another city suicide. You've seen the ballistics report. And what do you mean the crime scene was contaminated? Lukis's?"
"Yeah. Over half the evidence has been tampered with," he says.
"Sod the evidence!" Jane yells. "You've been fighting Sherlock from the start! That's why your victim count keeps going up!"
Jane's face suddenly pales, and she sits heavily in one of the leather chairs across from Dimmock, her head in her hands. (Still not over the concussion and the shock it seems.)
"What's going on out here?" Lestrade says coming around the corner. He spots Sherlock instantly. "Oh should have known it was you."
"Lestrade," Sherlock says making his way to the small water cooler he was stood by. "Tell your colleague how to do his job." He fills a paper cup and brings it over to Jane. She takes it silently, her face still ashen.
Lestrade then notices Jane, and he is likewise at her side. "What's all the shouting?"
"I assume you heard about the incident at the Museum that took place earlier tonight?" Sherlock says.
"I — yeah that poor girl," he says, understanding creeping into his expression. He looks at Sherlock, and Sherlock nods slightly. He kneels down by Jane's side. "Hey? All right, Janey?"
"Brian Lukis and Eddie Van Coon were working for a gang of international smugglers — a gang called the Black Lotus operating right here in London under your very nose," Sherlock snarls.
Dimmock pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yes, but can you prove it?"
(The heel of the foot. The mark of the Tong. All who haul should have one.)
"We need to make a trip to St. Bart's," Sherlock says moving to the door. "I'll have all the proof you'll need. Come on, Jane."
"She'll catch up with you later, Sherlock," Lestrade says getting to his feet. Jane's head is back to resting in her hands to where he can't see her expression. Lestrade places a protective hand on her shoulder.
"But —"
Jane raises her head wearily, but she gives him a tired smile. "You go on Sherlock. I'll meet you back at the flat. I think I am in need of a pint," she says, aiming for levity but falling short.
He nods sharply, and whirls out of the room, Inspector Dimmock on his heels.
…
Molly wasn't in her office. (Annoying. Inconvenient.) He looks down at his wrist watch: 9:45pm. She usually takes a lunch break around this time, so after instructing the DI to stay put, he heads off in the direction of the hospital canteen.
He spots her over by the entrées, and has it in his mind to shake her and demand she get back to the morgue, but he stops the impulse and for once, thinks about what Jane would say.
'You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,' is what she would say. (Ridiculous adage. Who would want to catch flies anyway?) (But the meaning isn't lost on him regardless.) Frustrated, he wavers, uncertain on how to proceed with getting what he wants in the most efficient way possible. This was Jane's area: dealing with people. He never really found merit in the subtle approach, but ever since their acquaintanceship he grudgingly admitted that there were certain benefits to patience, and manners. (Apparently.)
He makes his way up to Molly, and clears his throat.
"So what are you thinking? The pork or the pasta?" He says aiming for small talk even though it makes his toes curl.
"Oh!" she starts. "It's you!" She blushes and traps a nervous grin by biting her lip.
(Yes of course it was him. Who else?)
He tries to rein in his patience. "This place is never going to trouble Egon Ronay, is it?" (Was that humour? Hopefully it was. What ever the case it was lost on her anyway given her blank look. This was going swimmingly.) He tries not to roll his eyes. Mostly at himself. "I'd stick with the pasta. Don't want to do the roast pork — especially if you're slicing up cadavers." It was out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about what it was he was saying. (Honestly, what was wrong with him?) He has the sudden urge to smack a hand over his eyes. This awkward banter — he still couldn't see the point in it other than being an enormous waste of time.
Molly smiles timidly, trying to hide her alarm. She swallows, "What are you having?"
"Oh I don't eat when I'm working. Digestion slows me down," he dismisses.
"You're working?"
"Need to examine some bodies."
"'Some?' More than one?" she asks. (Now they were getting somewhere.)
"Eddie Van Coon, and Brian Lukis."
The recognition crosses her face, and she pulls out the clipboard her tray is resting on. "They're on my list."
Sherlock tries to school his face into one of diffidence. "Could you…wheel them back out for me?"
"Oh well…the paperwork has already gone through…" she says apologetically. (Damn. Damn it all.)
He frowns as she turns back to surveying the food in front of her, an awkward silence stretching out before them. Sherlock clears his throat aiming for a different tack.
"You, um, changed your hair," he says. (Was that right? It was different, wasn't it?)
"What?" she says looking at him with a mixture of surprise, and, ah yes, delight. It seems as if he was on the right track, finally.
"The – the style. It's different. You usually part it in the middle, but now it's off to the side."
"Oh er, well…" she stammers, suddenly unsure. She twirls the end of her pony tail around one of her fingers.
"It's good. It suits you better this way," Sherlock finishes lamely. (God. This was just — downright painful.) He forces a smile.
It has the desired effect, however, and Molly blushes, a pleased grin tugging her lips. She switches out the plate on her tray for a takeaway box. "I'll just pay for this, and then we'll take a look at your body…er, bodies," she says, blushing even more. Sherlock nods amicably, and when she turns her back to help herself to the pasta his smile fades.
"Just the feet," he says following her to the register.
"The feet?" she says stopping in her tracks. He rolls his eyes and steers her forward.
-oOo-
"Are you sure you have time for this? I mean, I'm not interrupting some…thing? Important?" Jane stammers as Lestrade guides her to the table in the corner of the pub where they had a least some semblance of privacy.
"Absolutely not. I'm calling my shift early," he states. "Besides, this is important." He motions for the barkeep to get them a couple of pints.
She sinks into the plastic booth with a sigh. She feels numb inside, and is grateful that Lestrade also orders a couple of shots of whiskey to go their drinks. The burning warms her as it travels down her throat. It makes her eyes sting, but it eases the knot in her bad shoulder from holding herself so tense. From compressing Soo Lin's wound for so long…
She shudders.
"How ya doing kiddo?" Lestrade says, his eyes soft.
"You haven't called me kiddo since I was twelve, Uncle Greg. I must look like shit," she scoffs bitterly.
"What happened tonight?"
"Sherlock said you knew," Jane says, her eyes sliding to the table where she observes the dings and scratches on the wooden surface. She really didn't want to talk about it…about how she almost lost her cool tonight.
"Yeah I know what happened, but I also know that look, hey?" He tugs her chin so she's looking at him — directly into pale brown eyes that remind her so much of her father it physically hurts. She presses her lips together in a tight line, her resolve crumbling. She leans back in her seat breaking eye contact with him, and heaving in a deep breath.
"I left her, Greg," she finally admits on an exhale. "I was supposed to protect her, and I – I don't know what I was thinking. I heard the gun shots, and I thought the worst, so I abandoned her to go after Sherlock." Her breath comes out ragged, but she's at the precipice and can't stop talking now. "I told her to hide — god why didn't she stay where I told her? — and then I left. She was defenceless, and scared out of her mind, and I bloody left her." She clenches her left hand as the tremor returns with a vengeance. "I left her for him."
"You two have grown awfully close in these past months," Lestrade says, concern fretting his brow.
"Yeah, well — no, not like that!" Jane says finally picking up his meaning. "We just…go well together. You could say we balance each other out."
Lestrade eyes her, unconvinced. "I could say it, but I wouldn't believe it. That man is all sorts of chaos. Not too long ago his 'balance' came in the form of a chemical."
"He's not like that anymore," Jane says rising to Sherlock's defence.
"How do you know? He's a veritable hurricane even when sober," Lestrade scoffs.
"True," she concedes almost smiling. "but I would know if something were amiss. I know him. We – we know each other."
"How do you mean?" he says picking up on those subtle threads of that something more that existed between her and Sherlock, seemingly from the moment they met.
"He — I almost lost it tonight, Greg," she confesses, her voice barely above a whisper. "The gun shots, and the – the blood. For a moment I was back…there." She presses her thumb into the palm of her left hand trying to massage the juddering tremor away. She blinks hard a couple of times, feeling exposed and vulnerable at the admission.
He reaches out and gently takes her hand, taking over her ministrations.
"The war?" he asks.
She nods as he curls his fingers into hers, holding her hand. It's steadying somehow, and she swallows. "I've heard about them — flashbacks, you know? — from people down at the VA clinic. They're not uncommon, but they've never happened to me until tonight. I could actually feelthe hot air on my face and the sand digging into my knees. Christ." She swipes a traitorous tear from her face with her free hand as Lestrade continues to hold her left one.
"Ah, sweetheart," he whispers sympathetically and brushes his thumb over the back of her knuckles. The endearment should rankle her, but for some reason it's nice to hear for a change. There was a time when she was younger that her family was really close to the Lestrades.
Back before her father died, there was always dinner at their house every third Sunday, and it was always something she looked forward to. She remembers the one Boxing Day she fell out of their tree in the back yard after Harry dared her to try and climb to the top. It was Greg who scooped her up in his arms and drove her to all the way to A&E and waited there until her parents could come and collect her. He sang her Christmas songs to get her mind off the pain…
She closes her eyes, and squeezes his hand back. "It was Sherlock. Sherlock who brought me back," she says.
"Sherlock?" Lestrade says, and she looks up at him though her lashes.
"He talked to me. About bees, and aerodynamics, until my head was back in the present," she releases his hand so she can smooth back her hair. "That man is a nightmare when it comes to social niceties and general appropriateness, but for some reason he can read me like a book, and he's always there with what I need." She takes a breath. "I was," so alone "just an invalided soldier, and I" owe him so much "am grateful that my life has purpose again. Sherlock — what he does, the life that he leads — makes that possible." She meets her uncle's eyes.
"Only you can give your life purpose, Janey," he says sternly. "And do you know what I see?"
"What?" she asks hesitantly. She almost feels like a little girl again under his admonishment.
His gaze softens again. "I see some one who just saved a girl's life tonight. I see someone who is vital and necessary to more people than she's aware of." He becomes more serious at this point. "I just…you give so much of yourself, Jane. So much of your heart; you always have. Be careful when it comes to Sherlock Holmes."
"I am. I will," Jane says a little weakly. She digs her thumbnail into a groove on the table. "Sherlock is my friend. That's all there is to it," she falters. It sounds lame even to her own ears, and for the first time she wonders why that is: why she's the one she's now trying to convince.
She wipes a hand over her face. This was the last thing she needed at the moment, some sort of crisis.
"It's getting late," Lestrade says. "I've got an early one tomorrow."
"Yeah I should be going too," she says. She reaches for her wallet.
"Nope. It's on me tonight. The least I can do," he smiles.
"Thanks, Greg. I think I needed this more than I thought," she says, and they both stand.
"This was nice. Hey what say you to dinner next Sunday? Kathleen would be chuffed to meet you. Ever since I told her you were back and living in London she hasn't stopped pestering me to bring you 'round. I'll also have the kids that weekend too. You can see how much they've grown."
"Oh yes because I just love being reminded of my age," she teases. "That sounds really nice, actually."
"Yeah? You can even invite Sherlock if you want," he says.
Jane looks at him as if he sprouted another head. "You sure about that?"
"No, but let's just blame it on the whiskey, hey?" he winks. She laughs, and he pulls her into a bear hug reminiscent of when she was younger. "Stay out of trouble, all right?"
"You know me," she grins, and makes her way back to Baker Street, feeling a bit lighter and more at ease than she was before.
…
She barely slides her key into the lock before the door is yanked open, and she's being dragged up the stairs by her mad flatmate.
"It's not just a criminal organisation, Jane! It's a cult!" Sherlock says bounding up the stairs. "But there's something else too. Think about it! Why did Zhi Zhu need his sister's help?"
"Er…?" Jane is left standing in the middle of the sitting room looking for all intents and purposes like she's just been dragged through a whirlwind. Which might be more accurate than not when dealing with the lunatic.
"Come on, think!" he says turning back to her. "Why did he need her expertise?"
"She worked at the Museum?"
"Exactly."
Suddenly something clicks. "Oh yes I see. She worked with antiques."
"Yes, valuable antiques, Jane." He pulls out his laptop. "Ancient Chinese relics most likely purchased on the black market. China's home to thousands of treasures buried after Mao's Revolution. And guess who's selling them?"
"The Black Lotus," she says.
"Look at this," Sherlock says sitting at the desk and typing in an address on his computer. An auctioneer site pops up on the screen with the title Crispian's, and Sherlock clicks the field that narrows the search down to Chinese/Asian art works recently sold. He scrolls down and enlarges a picture of a set of ornate vases. "See the date? Arrived from China four days ago, but the vendor is anonymous. Now why would that be? Surely in ordinary circumstances the person who found two undiscovered treasures from the East would want at least some credit, don't you think?"
"There's two of them — fragile and tightly packed you were saying? One for each of their suitcases?"
"Precisely. They're stealing these precious relics back in China, then slowly feeding them to Britain. There's been others too: paintings, a small statue, an ancient alter made of brass. And look at the dates."
Jane leans over Sherlock's shoulder, the dates leaping out at her immediately. "Hang on…" she reaches over and snatches Lukis's diary sitting on a stack of papers. She flips through. "Each of these auctions corresponds with Brian Lukis traveling to China."
"Yes, exactly. Same with Van Coon." He looks at her, positively beaming.
"Brilliant," she whispers.
Sherlock's smile slowly fades, replaced by curiosity and a subtle kind of awe, and she finally realises how close they are. He looks into her eyes, and Jane feels a spark of fire tingling at the base of her spine. We're just friends, of course we are, she thinks to herself, however she can't deny the sudden electricity suspended between them. It pulls her in, and she leans forward at the same time he tilts his head up. They stare at each other for a moment more, and she doesn't miss how Sherlock's eyes dart down to her lips and back up, his pupils dilated making the blue irises look like crystal. He breathes out steadily through his nose, and she can smell his unique scent of expensive cologne and chemicals: the same scent she woke up to that morning when she found herself in his bed.
She gasps a little when she realises that this is the smell she has begun to associate with safety — when Sherlock holds her in the middle of the night and keeps the terror in her memory at bay; and with the familiarity of home — the fact that 221b would just be another flat without this larger than life man to occupy every corner of her world. Of her…heart.
She tilts her head to the side, and he moves in until their noses are almost touching, and the danger she's grown addicted to causes her heart to pound. Like the first day she met him, Jane finds herself teetering back upon that precipice, only this time she knows which side she hopes to land on…
"Hoo hoo!" Mrs. Hudson's knock comes at the door, and reality comes crashing back into her. They spring apart guiltily, and Sherlock clears his throat. Jane can't seem to figure out what to do with her hands, so she snatches Lukis's diary again and buries her nose in it.
"Hello, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock says snapping his lap top shut and rising to his feet.
Jane doesn't have to look up to feel the suspicious look their landlady is giving them. "What, um, what can I do for you?"
"Oh, Sherlock, dear. I'm sorry to…interrupt, but I was wondering, are we collecting for charity?"
"Charity?" Jane says for lack of anything else to contribute. She could feel her cheeks heating as she tries to look Mrs. Hudson in the eye. There is a knowing twinkle in her eye that is extremely hard to ignore. Thankfully, she chooses to continue on in neutral territory.
"There's a young man at the door with crates of books."
"Yes, they're mine. Send them in," Sherlock says, and turns his back to the rest of the room. He catches her eye briefly in the mirror, then looks away.