Chapter Eleven: Sherlock's evil twin

The following morning,

I tap on Sherlock's bedroom and enter the room. Sherlock, please. I beg of you. I can hear Mycroft speaking on the phone. The familiar sounds of 'Do you hear the people sing' is playing in the background. He must be watching Les Miserables with his parents. But from the tone of his voice, he was definitely hating it and was trying to get Sherlock to take over. You can take over at the interval.

Sherlock is in front of the wardrobe mirror and attempting to button his jacket with one hand. "Oh, I'm sorry, brother dear, but you made a promise." I step up and button his coat for him. "There's nothing I can do to help." He smiles at me, and rests his hand on my hip. "Thank you."

But you don't understand the pain of it he gasped out. the horror!

Grinning, Sherlock ends the call and turns towards me. "Hello."

"I guess Mycroft has no appreciation for the arts."

"Look who's talking." Sherlock said. "I got you the movie Les Miserables, with Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe and you laughed throughout the whole movie!"

"Sorry! But, I'm used to Alfie Boe, Michael Ball, Ramin Karimloo and other famous singers. What else am I supposed to do when I hear the actors butchering the music?"

"Be silent and enjoy their interpretation and technically, they are on key."

"I'm the singer, you're the detective, so shut up." I smile and pat his chest. "Come on. John and everyone is waiting."

Sherlock groans. "Who cares?"

He leans forward to kiss me but I notice John approaching us and evade Sherlock's mouth. "John's coming."

"I'm never going to get the chance to kiss you properly." Sherlock groans again. "Why does he have such terrible timing?"

I give him a quick peck on the lips, turn and walk away. "Come on." John says. "You'll have to go down. They want the story."

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock walks past him, in pursuit of me. "In a minute."

We walk into the living room where Mary, Mrs. Hudson, and Greg are all sitting, holding an empty champagne glass. Sherlock pops the cork on a new bottle and walks across the room with the bottle and two glasses.

"Oh, I'm really pleased, Mary." Mrs. Hudson chirps. "Have you set a date?"

"Well we thought May." Mary says.

"Oh! Spring wedding!"

"Well," Mary blushes. "once we've actually got engaged."

"Yeah." John says.

Mary looks pointedly at Sherlock. "We were interrupted last time."

I frown and shake my head at him. "That's Sherlock for you."

"Well, I can't wait." Greg raises his glass in a toast. Sherlock puts down the glasses he's just poured, stands up and walks across the room to where I'm standing by the window.

"You will be there, Sherlock?" Mary asks.

Sherlock makes a face. "Weddings…not really my thing." He winks at Mary and she smiles.

I smile. "He'll fuss, complain, kick his heels, come up with three hundred different reasons why he can't come, then he'll show up." I smile as he hands me my glass of champagne. "But he won't miss it, he wouldn't miss the wedding of his best and only friend's wedding for the world. Thank you."

He clinks his glass against mine and whispers in a low voice. "Here's to us."

I frown. "Sherlock, not our moment."

"I can make it our moment." He slides his arm around my waist. "I'd prefer to wait a bit longer though Tammy. So, here's to us."

"All right." I shake my head and touch my glass to his. "Here's to us."

He wiggles his brows at me before taking a sip. The alcohol warms me and I feel it slide down my throat and nestle in my stomach. I'm not a major wine drinker, even though I love champagne, I can't help but have my off days. "Hey." He murmurs and I look up at him as he lowers his mouth to mine. I smile as the alcohol fuels the kiss and Sherlock slips his tongue inside my mouth, gently teasing me. I allow it for a few seconds, Sherlock, sensing my guard down for a few moments, takes advantage of it before breaking the kiss. I can feel everyone's eyes silently on us, watching us. Sherlock smiles and runs his thumb along my chin. "Lovely as ever."

The flat door opens and I turn, flushing brightly, to see Molly enter. "Hello, everyone."

"Hey, Molly." John says.

I approach her, to observe that she is happily holding hands with the man accompanying her. "This is Tom." John stares at her boyfriend, and we both do a double take; we both turn back and look across the room towards Sherlock. Mary is oblivious to our surprise. "Tom, this is everyone."

Tom nods. "Hi."

John continues to stare at him in surprise. I study the man, he wore makeup and the makeup was done right, he could be Sherlock's double. He is tall, has dark curly hair that is a little shorter than Sherlock's. He has large eyes, prominent cheekbones, he's even wearing a dark coat with the collar turned up and a scarf around his neck.

Lestrade approaches and shakes his hand. "Hi."

"It's really nice to meet you all." He looks at John. "Hi."

John is able to pull himself together. "Wow. Yeah, hi. I'm John." He shakes his hand. "Good to meet you."

I turn towards Sherlock, who is looking out of the window. "Tammy?" I turn at Molly's voice. She gestures and I realize that Tom is standing in front of me.

"Hi." I say uneasily. "I'm er, uhm, Tammy Holmes."

"Mrs. Sherlock Holmes?"

I shrug. "I honestly don't know."

"Ready?" Sherlock asks.

"Ready."

Tom turns to meet Sherlock, who catches sight of Tom for the first time. He stops dead and his eyes widen. Tom looks at him equally wide-eyed as Sherlock gives him the once-over from his feet upwards. I hold my breath, expecting Sherlock to do one of his rapid-fire deductions. But he doesn't, he remains silent, that in itself is unnerving for me.

"Champagne?" Lestrade says to Molly.

"Yes."

Sherlock's jaw drops a little and he turns towards John, who grins back at him expectantly. Finally Sherlock holds out his hand to Tom, and they shake hands. I exhale deeply as Sherlock walks in between the couple and out of the door.

Greg hands Molly a glass of champagne. "Thanks."

I turn and follow John and Sherlock. Once on the landing, John walks over to Sherlock, who is looping his scarf around his neck. John points back towards the door. "Did you-

Sherlock responds quietly. "I'm not saying a word."

"No, best not." Sherlock looks down at his scarf that he's finished tying around his neck, only to make a face as he realizes that Tom ties his scarf in the exact same way. There wasn't anything that Sherlock wore that Tom didn't imitate.

"Well, since you two know something I obviously don't know, why don't you share with the rest of the class?" Sherlock shakes his head at me and I step in front of him. "And you're not going anywhere until you tell me. I mean it Sherlock whatever-your-middle-name is Holmes!"

Sherlock exhales. "When she strings my name up together like that she's serious. Fine." He leans forward and whispers. "You remember the little girl who was abducted by Moriarty?" I nod. "Everyone assumed she reacted like that because I was her kidnapper. But I deduced Moriarty must have found someone who looked very like me to plant suspicion, and that that man, whoever he was, had to be got out of the way as soon as his usefulness ended. That meant there was a corpse in a morgue somewhere that looked just like me."

"Hold on, wait a minute." I say. "Then why did the boy lie to me? He went through that whole trial and everything."

"Mycroft. He explained to the family that everything was under control. Since you were dead set on clearing my name, thank you for that, to go ahead and clear my name. The real kidnapper was dead. We actually did find a corpse that looked like me and Mycroft presented them with the evidence, proving that I wasn't the kidnapper. He then coached the boy into saying the proper things."

"And I gave him your hat!"

He smirked. "He actually was a fan of mine, so wise choice. He wasn't totally convinced that I was the kidnapper. Mycroft says that he did notice a few things about him that weren't right."

"Well,' I shook my head. "so, did I actually win the case, or was that rigged as well?"

"Oh come on Tammy," he said rubbing my shoulder. "you're a brilliant little fighter. I saw the footage, quite impressive, I was actually moved," he tilted my face up towards his. "very much." He leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the mouth.

I sigh and push away from him. "And…now Molly's engaged to the actual kidnapper. Wonderful. And I tried to introduce her to Charles! But of course, she would fall in love with your evil twin!" A sudden thought strikes me and I sober instantly.

Unfortunately for me, Sherlock notices. "What? You've thought of something else?"

"Not really."

"You're a bad liar Tammy. What is it?"

"I'm a good liar, I just don't want to tell you."

"You better tell me or I am going to publicly grope you out there!"

"Fine!" I glower at him. "I think that Molly's in love with you!"

As usual, I got a bigger reaction from John. "What?"

"She is." Sherlock shrugged. "I've known it for a long time."

I stare at him. "What? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You're a woman. I thought all women had a sense of these sort of things. Besides, I never felt anything for her."

"I hate to change the subject, but I'm still waiting." John said, trying to steer us clear of a pending argument. "Why did they try and kill me? If they knew you were on to them, why go after me…put me in the bonfire?"

Sherlock picks up his coat. "I don't know. I don't like not knowing." He trots down the stairs with John and I following. "Unlike the nicely embellished fictions on your blog, John, real life is rarely so neat." He stops at the bottom of the stairs to put his coat on. I follow him all the way down but John stops a couple of steps from the bottom. "I don't know who was behind all this, but I will find out, I promise you."

"Don't pretend you're not enjoying this."

Sherlock doesn't even turn around. "Hmm?"

"Being back. Being a hero again."

"Oh, don't be stupid." Sherlock says.

"Quote. Don't make people into heroes John. Heroes don't exist and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them. Unquote."

Sherlock shakes his head. "Well, you actually do listen to me."

"Shut up."

"You'd have to be an idiot not to see it." John points out. "You love it."

Sherlock turns to face him. "Love what?"

"Being Sherlock Holmes."

"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean." He turns and puts his gloves on. "You have everything?"

"Sherlock, you are gonna tell me how you did it?" John asked. "How you jumped off that building and survived?"

Sherlock pauses but turns around. "You know my methods, John. I am known to be indestructible."

"No, but seriously. When you were dead, I went to your grave."

"I should hope so."

"I made a little speech. I actually spoke to you."

Sherlock finally turns to look at him. "I know. I was there."

"I asked you for one more miracle. I asked you to stop being dead."

He nods and speaks softly. "I heard you. I heard Tammy too." They look at each other for a moment, and then Sherlock draws in a sharp breath. "Anyway, time to go and be Sherlock Holmes."

I watch as he hesitates, and then reaches for that deerstalker hat that's hanging there. I hold my breath as he slowly puts it up on his head. "Oh my God!" the words slip out before I can stop them. He turns and looks at me as I shake my head in glee. "You're actually putting it on."

He shrugs. "People like it." He takes my hand and drags me towards the door. "Let's just go and get this over with."

"Are you sure you want me out there?"

"Of course I do." He stops and turns towards me. "I'd be lost without my wife."

I pause. "Wait a minute. Sherlock, what if…they know that our marriage is dissolved?"

He shrugged. "Just leave that to me."

"I know! And that's what I'm worried about! God alone knows what's going to come out of that mouth of yours and I'm certain He even starts breaking a sweat when He knows what you're going to say!"