Such an incredibly stupid plan. Suicidal. Doomed to fail. But there was no other way out.

Sherlock concentrates on breathing, which is difficult work. Someone is in 221B and everything is telling him, screaming at him, that he should be there too. But someone needs to be here with a sniper rifle in case they succeed and carry John out that door. And there's no one else to do it. Such a laughably stupid plan. If only there had been another one.

He sees John crossing the living room and slipping into the kitchen, disappearing into the corner between the two doors. Good, that's a good defensive position. John has geography on his side, he knows this flat like the back of his hand and has spent the last couple hours rearranging furniture. He's a good shot. There have been approximately 20,000 total casualties in Afghanistan so far. Between 700 and 800 coalition troops, but not John. He served three and a half six-month tours before his discharge, including two tours in the Helmand Province. Colonel Sebastian Moran can't possibly be deadlier than the Taliban.


He should be able to hear footsteps on the stairs, but there's nothing. They're very good. Or did he imagine that sound below? No, there it is, the creak on the tenth stair. Pre-Sherlock, he would have known that one or two of his stairs creaked. Post-Sherlock, he knows that the tenth stair creaks low no matter where you put your weight, whereas the eleventh stair creaks – higher – only if you step in the middle. The fourth creaks only on humid days.

There's no more sound from the tenth stair, but you wouldn't expect the second person to make the same mistake as the first.

They've reached the top of the stairs. There's just the slightest shadow across the crack of light at the bottom of the door. And another. Two people, probably. So one will approach the door to the kitchen and the other the living room.

John counts silently and then spins to the left, kicking through the door to the landing and firing before he knows what's on the other side. He sees the woman's eyes go wide as her body jerks and falls back and partway down the stairs. He pulls back into the corner in the kitchen and listens to the footsteps approaching through the living room. The mannequin sways just slightly, disturbed by the movement of the person behind it. John throws himself around the corner to the left, running through the landing. Pain sears through his right leg. Real bullets this time; they might still be intent on taking him alive but they'll shoot his legs off if they have to. Somewhere in the back of his mind he's relieved; bullets, he understands.

He grits his teeth and ignores the pain in his leg. Once, he loaded several wounded soldiers into a truck and had started treating them before he realized how badly he'd been shot.

In the landing, he sidles against the wall toward the door to the living room. It's dead silent in there.

John waits.


A hit on the right thigh. He'd aimed for the knee, hoping to pin him to the floor, but the thigh is a decent start and it's more than a flesh wound. Sebastian wishes he could switch to the tranquilizer, but the man already took out his last soldier, so he's sticking to bullets for now.

He waits in silence.

If Jim were here, he'd be purring right now, driving his quarry mad with taunts and flirtations. Or he'd be bursting into song. Or reciting riddles. Or who knows. Doing something unexpected.

Sebastian has always been content to lie in ambush; he's good at it. He's brought down many men through his ability to stay perfectly still until the moment is right. It's so simple, and yet the simplest truths are often the most difficult and the most profound. Staying still comes easily to Sebastian and it's what works. It's expected.

He uncoils and springs from the kitchen and through the living room, firing and he leaps through the door. He sees Watson's left shoulder snap back and thinks he hit, but in the same moment he feels the impact on his own shoulder, then on his chest, then the familiar searing pain ripping through the left side of his body and he's flying backwards into the floor. He has no idea where the third bullet hits, only that everything is falling away, walls, ceiling, light fixture, John Watson's face are falling away like dominoes and being replaced by darkness tunneling in and the last thing he thinks is, funny, I thought it would hurt so much more.