Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy Three Kings Day! Happy St. Lucia Day! Happy Yalda! Happy Solstice! And a Joyful Yuletide to all!
I hope you're all comfortably ensconced and ready to settle in for a happy holiday season. The longest night is passed and we can now buckle down to celebrate the slow but sure return of the light. Now if only February didn't stand between us and summer. *sigh*
I LIVE for feedback so please give me a little Christmas prezzie by leaving some. What do you think of all this? Is the whole intrinsic pack idea working for you? Who do you think the killer is? :-)
Due to holiday madness it may be a week or two before I can get the next chapter finished and out to you. So, I'll see you all in the New Year.
Chapter 11
Ann stopped dead in the doorway when she arrived some thirty minutes later, her eyes widening with sudden concern.
Greg rose and went to her. Sherlock was once again focused on the files before him and ignored them both.
Taking the shopping bag she had brought out of her hand and leaving it on the floor beside the door, Greg pulled her to a waiting room just down the hall where he could watch the door to Sherlock's room but still talk to Ann without interruption.
"Greg, you can't be in there, he..."
"We have much bigger problems than my response to Sherlock," Greg said. "And as it turns out, that's the one problem we don't actually have."
"How…?" she began then stopped. "Okay, explain."
Greg took a breath. "He's mine. Intrinsically."
Ann opened her mouth before shutting again. She repeated that a second time before taking a deep breath herself. "Okay."
Greg just waited for it to sink in. He couldn't blame her for the shock. He was still struggling to get used to the idea himself.
After another moment Ann finally looked back at him. "You know, I supposed I should have seen that one coming."
"Well I certainly didn't," Greg said.
Ann gave a little laugh. "With how you are with him? Inviting him into our home as you did?" She shook her head. "No it makes sense now that I'm looking at it. Still, I have to admit that I don't see him being willing to acknowledge..."
"He did," Greg interrupted. That stopped her mid-sentence again and she looked almost more shocked this time. Greg couldn't blame her for that either.
"He did?" she demanded. "When did all this happen?"
Quickly, Greg went through the events of the evening.
"And the first thing he said to me after that was to tell me that there was no way I was going to be telling him what to do," he ended.
Ann pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture Greg recognised as one of his own. Then she laughed.
"Oh hell. Of course he did. No one who actually belonged to you would be the type to put up with a controlling alpha." She shook her head before slipping her arms around his waist. "You know, there was a time when all of that would have surprised me but after the last few months... Greg, love, when did mysterious government people, drug addict geniuses and intrinsic packmates become a part of our lives?"
Greg chuckled, wrapping his arms around her and breathing in the comforting scent of her. "When I started working with Sherlock apparently. Sorry about that."
"You know what's really sad about it? At this point, I'm not sure I wouldn't miss hearing about your run ins with shadowy types and the lattest insanity Sherlock had got up to if this ceased being a part of our lives," she said, pressing a light kiss to his lips. "Although, I could deal with less time spent in hospital rooms. Do you think that that may have been the mysterious Mr. Holmes?"
"I'm sure of it," Greg said. "I couldn't figure out just where I'd heard his voice before until after he left. Stupid of me, but I wasn't really thinking straight with Sherlock upset and feeling as though he was being threatened." Greg shook his head. "But that was definitely him. I'd be willing to bet good money that we have him to thank for the private room as well."
"That's a bet I wouldn't be willing to take," Ann replied dryly. "What does Sherlock have to say about all of this?"
"Nothing. He's refusing to do anything but study those damn files."
Ann rolled her eyes. "I know you don't like ordering people around but you're going to have to learn to be more forceful with him." She pulled away with another quick kiss and marched back to the room. Greg followed and shut the door behind him as Ann snatched up the bag she had brought.
"The man who was here earlier, what is he to you?" she demanded putting the bag down directly on top of the file Sherlock was studying. He glared at her but she simply stared back, entirely unfazed. "Clothes," she said motioning to the bag. "I thought that you could probably use some new pants and pyjamas at the very least."
"I do not require..." Sherlock began with the brittle haughtiness Greg knew all too well at this point.
"We are pack," Ann snapped, annunciating each word carefully as she cut off his automatic objection. They'd had this fight before over the boots and then the socks and finally the backpack, so she knew exactly what he was going to say. Now, however, she had an unassailable comeback. "There's no such thing as charity between packmates. Now, who was that man here before?"
Greg leaned against the wall by the door amused but also keenly interested in the answer.
Sherlock scowled at the bag in front of him before glancing between Greg and Ann.
"My brother," he admitted with bad grace.
That surprised both of them.
"That guy is your brother?" Greg demanded.
"Or so Mummy insisted," Sherlock muttered, poking into the bag before him as though expecting it to be packed with explosives rather than pants. "I always preferred to think he had been left on the doorstep before my parents managed to conceive me."
Ann snorted. "And thus the fervent hope of younger siblings the world over," she said, sitting down. Greg couldn't help a twitch of the lips even as he tried to keep a straight face. The idea of little brother Sherlock... He just couldn't wrap his head around it.
"How much older is he?" he asked.
"Seven years," Sherlock grumbled.
"And who exactly was the woman at the station when Bradstreet arrested you?" Greg continued, not willing to back down when Sherlock seemed in the mood to actually answer questions. "Antonia, or whatever her name actually is."
Sherlock shrugged, finally deigning to look into the bag in front of him. "One of his minions."
"He's the one who called me," Greg told him. "He told me where to find you the other night."
"Of course he did," Sherlock snorted. "I knew that as soon as you told me what had happened."
"And you didn't feel the need to tell us this why exactly?" Ann demanded.
Sherlock just gave her a look.
"Why should you care who called you?" he muttered in Greg's direction.
"Why should I...?" It was Greg's turn to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Sherlock, this man has been invading my business, the yard's private files concerning me and he has my phone number. Something that you can't get easily as the private numbers of police officers are supposed to be confidential. And, as of a couple of weeks ago he has apparently begun invading Bradstreet's privacy just as thoroughly."
Sherlock shrugged. "It's what he does. I did warn you that he was dangerous."
"Yes," Greg conceded. "But you also said he was a government operative out to hire you."
"He is," Sherlock snapped, clearly affronted by the suggestion that he had somehow lied. Then he wilted slightly under Greg's glare. "It's just that he's unfortunately family as well."
When Greg continued to glare Sherlock pushed away both files and bag to glare back.
"You have no idea what it's like," he snapped. "Mycroft has the kind of power you can't imagine. He can do pretty much whatever he wants, have pretty much whatever he wants. He's inherently evil. And he's always been there, always breathing down my neck. It's not just that he wants to force me into some awful government job where my brain would stagnate. He's..." Sherlock made a frustrated gesture as though at a loss for anything bad enough to say. "If he had his way I'd live in some little box somewhere, a miniature him." Sherlock's tone made it clear he could think of no worse fate.
"Mycroft?" Ann asked, latching onto what Greg felt was probably the least important and yet somehow most interesting bit of Sherlock's tirade. She shook her head. "Mycroft and Sherlock. Your parents were strange people."
Sherlock gave her a disgusted look. "Mummy chose them. They're family names." His tone suggested that if his mother had chosen them then there could not *possibly* be anything wrong with either name.
Greg tried to imagine the kind of mother who could have produced children like these two. His mind came up blank.
"Where are you parents?" Greg asked, deciding wisdom lay with not pursuing the topic of the Holmes brothers' names.
"Dead," Sherlock said, poking into the bag again. "Father died when I was very young and mother when I was in my teens." His attempt to sound utterly indifference to these facts failed miserably.
"And who was your guardian then?" Greg asked, already knowing the answer.
"Mycroft, of course," Sherlock said unhappily.
So, sometime during his teenage years he had lost a mother he'd clearly cared about and been left in the care of a significantly older brother, Greg thought. There were still large gaps between that and Sherlock ending up a homeless drug addict by the age of twenty-five. Still, whatever may or may not have happened between the two brothers in the past, it was clear that Mycroft was trying to help Sherlock at this point. It was just that he didn't seem to go about in a way that made a great deal of sense. But then again, if he was Sherlock's brother he probably was not exactly a model of normalcy either.
As a police officer, Greg had seen plenty of dysfunctional families. This one, however, seemed to need a whole new category.
"But you do have family," Ann said. "You even have family that cares about you. How did you end up on the streets?"
Sherlock said nothing, grabbing the bag Ann had brought and escaping into the closet-like en-suite. Ann folded her arms, looking annoyed and Greg knew she had no intention of allowing this to drop. He thought about asking her not to push but decided against it. So far, Sherlock was answering their questions and he was going to take advantage of this oddly cooperative mood for as long as it lasted.
"Well?" she predictably demanded when Sherlock came back out. Flannel pyjama bottoms and plain, round-necked t-shirt should not have made him look younger than a hospital gown. They did anyway.
Sherlock flopped down onto the bed again and if it had not been for the fine trembling he couldn't quite seem to hide, one would have thought that he had done it entirely for dramatic effect, instead of because the walk to the loo and back had all but exhausted him.
"He thought it would teach me a lesson," Sherlock muttered finally. Then a grim sort of smile appeared, darkly self-satisfied. "He kicked me out after I sold an heirloom watch to pay for cocaine. He thought I'd come running back after a single night on the streets, lesson learned."
Greg rolled his eyes. Mycroft may have all the power anyone could want but he was clearly as given to stupid mistakes as the rest of them. Somehow that was comforting.
And only Sherlock could sound proud of choosing to be homeless.
"How long ago was that?" he asked.
This time the smile grew into a positively triumphant grin. "Almost three years ago," Sherlock answered with immense satisfaction.
~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~
"Sir?"
Greg stopped on his way back to Sherlock's room to see Dr. Aali motioning him over to where she stood by the floor's main nurse's station.
"I received a call from the Mech Clinic regarding Sherlock," she told him when he walked over. "I'm so glad you were able to get him in there. It will make a huge difference in the progress of his recovery to have him monitored by specialists at this point."
For a moment Greg could think of nothing to say and just nodded dumbly. The Mech Clinic was the omega retreat specialising in helping omegas going through withdrawal that Dr. Carmichael had given him information for when Sherlock had first arrived. Greg had called them, of course, but there hadn't been a chance of getting him in. They weren't taking any more new NHS patients until sometime next year and the waiting list for those openings was long already. Greg had asked without much hope how much it would be to have Sherlock there as a private patient. The answer had made him wince.
How on earth...? Then he realised. Holmes, it had to be. Like the private room here, there was no other reasonable explanation. Sherlock might insist that his brother was evil, and it was true that his form of care was decidedly chilly to Greg's mind, but evil he clearly was not. He honestly seemed to want to make sure that Sherlock got the best of care. That had to count for something. Besides, Sherlock had been quite adamant that he didn't want his brother anywhere near him. So, paying for the best facilities was about all the man could do.
Dr. Aali continued on, apparently unaware that Sherlock having a place at the Mech was news to Greg. "I'll be getting off at six this morning but I'll leave a note for Dr. Carmichael. As the primary physician in charge of Sherlock's care here he'll need to sign off on the transfer. An ambulance will be ready to take him to the Mech at eleven tomorrow morning. Although I have stated that the EMTs must be betas or omegas it will still be best for Sherlock to have a good dose of a strong masker. I'll leave instructions that he is to be given it forty minutes before he leaves so it will be at full effect during his transfer. However, I want you to be aware of this so that if someone is not by with his dose by 10:30 you can ring for a nurse."
While she spoke Greg was able to pull himself together and he held out his hand to the doctor. "That would be great. Thank you for all your help."
She took his hand with an understanding smile. "I'm happy to do whatever I can."
Before Greg could head back to the room, Dr. Aali spoke again. "He has a long road to recovery in front of him. But he clearly also has a good alpha and a supportive pack. That can make all the difference."
"Thanks," Greg replied feeling an odd mixture of pride and embarrassment. It still felt odd to think of Sherlock as pack and he sure as hell didn't feel like a good alpha. The kid had nearly died only a few days ago. And for all that he was pushing forward as though Sherlock were going to get clean he had no reason to believe that that was the case. He hoped it was the case, prayed it was the case. The fact that Sherlock was still here was promising but the simple fact was that he was still an addict.
As Greg turned the corner to head back to Sherlock's room he saw a young man hesitating outside Sherlock's door. He turned at Greg's approach and Greg reassessed the visitor's age downwards. A boy. Thirteen or fourteen at most. Probably younger. While he was observing he was also being observed and he knew the moment the kid made him as a cop. He turned and ran in the opposite direction, trainers skidding on the linoleum.
It was automatic and unthinking to give chase. The boy threw himself around the corner at the end of the hallway and Greg swung around it after him, his own shoes barely able to keep purchase on the too slick floor. As he did, however, he saw that his pursuit was for nought. A nurse had just stepped off the elevator and was nearly knocked over by the kid skidding into it. He must have hit the button to close the doors as they began to shut immediately and Greg had no chance of stopping him. He slowed to a stop and fielded the nurse's incredulous surprise with a shrug.
It was possible that the boy had been an alpha drawn by the scent of early heat but Greg doubted it. For one thing the scent was not strong enough yet to extend much beyond the room Sherlock was in. As long as the door was closed, there was little evidence of it outside that one room. And they had been very careful about keeping the door closed for that very reason.
Besides, Greg reflected as he headed back the way he had come, it was well past visiting hours now. What would he have been doing here in the first place? That and the fact that the way he had been dressed, worn jeans that were clearly too large for him, a hoody far too big for him over what had looked to be a smaller hoody underneath. Trainers that looked like they were held together more by duct tape than fabric... That was more the kind of cloths of someone who lived rough rather than someone who would be visiting friends or family in hospital. Particularly so late at night.
Ann was reading when he finally did make it back to the room and gave him a questioning look, obviously seeing something in his face which spoke of his confusion. He just shook his head.
Sherlock had finally fallen asleep a little while ago and now lay with pages of one of the files spread around him on the bed.
Greg began gathering them up, placing them carefully back in the folder they'd come from. This particular body had not been found until nearly a week after death and had, therefore, been in an advanced state of decomposition. While it clearly didn't bother Sherlock, Greg doubted the nurses would particularly want to see the pictures when they came to check on him.
It was late and as much as Greg worried about Sherlock, both he and Ann needed sleep.
He cocked a head toward the door and Ann nodded, gathering up her purse, coat and book.
On the way home he explained both about the clinic and the visitor.
"One of Sherlock's contacts?" she asked.
Greg just shrugged. "How would he have known where to find him?"
"Well, I imagine it's not unknown that he was taken away in an ambulance. I doubt that there was exactly an attempt to hide it."
"True," Greg agreed. "But unless they know his full name, or at least his last name, how were they going to find where he was in hospital?"
"Maybe some of them do know his last name," Ann said.
Greg just shrugged. It was possible even though it grated to think that Sherlock would have been willing to share information with his various homeless contacts that he hadn't been willing to share with Greg. Which, he reminded himself, was a damn stupid way to feel.
After a time Ann sighed. "At least that brother of his is useful for something. I'll feel better once Sherlock is in that clinic."
Greg couldn't have agreed more.
