John closed his eyes.
"What do you mean?" Anderson snapped and he heard the soft click of her shoes on the hard floor. Her voice was cold, fraught with suspicion and anger.
Sherlock growled, the low sound making John snap his eyes back open, refocusing fast on his husband. The detective's own eyes were blazing a bright pale grey and he was raking his hands through his dark curls in sharp, agitated motions before releasing his hair and balling his hands into fists.
John shifted, muscles tensing slightly, old army training for being physically ready for a tense situation coming back to him.
"I mean he's giving us a choice. Tomorrow at two pm, we can either be at the Greyfriar's Bobby statue or at the war monument and we'll either get information about where the girl is buried or about our killer. One or the other, not both. Because he wants us to decide between which is more relevant, and there's only one choice we can make."
John saw it in Anderson's face, the instinctive reaction to make the choice she couldn't. He understood. He wanted the same thing.
He'd told Sherlock to take the case to help find a missing and murdered girl.
Now they wouldn't be able to.
Anderson sucked in a deep breath, her entire body rigid, and John switched his focus to her. There was a long moment when he could see her fighting herself for control, fighting against the rage that reflected clearly on her face.
"We don't know which is which," she pointed out, her voice strained under the effort it was taking not to shout. She took two more deep breaths and John's eyes flickered back to Sherlock.
"Yes, we do. He's been communicating with us in sayings and nursery rhymes and stories. You said it yourself, Inspector, there are likely many stories associated with the war monument, but you don't know them. I don't know them. John doesn't know them. If there's a specific story there, it's unknown to us. But the story about the dog… We can identify that. A loyal dog, guarding the grave of his owner. And a loyal father hoping to find his daughter's body. You and my brother still looking into this case after ten years with the hope of somehow resolving it. All manner of loyalties, but all of them to a grave. That's where the information about Kelsi will be, Inspector, and we can't be there."
Anderson stared at him incredulously for a moment, then turned on her heel and stalked toward the door, yanking it open.
"Sir!" she bellowed up the hallway and John saw Sherlock start slightly at the vehemence in her voice. He didn't blame her for the tone.
He remembered the feeling from Afghanistan.
Sherlock drew a deep breath and John saw the tension fall away from him so he seemed almost weightless for a moment. John recognised the acting skills but it still impressed him. Only a single breath to get the anger off of his face, out of his body, not visible even to John behind those grey eyes.
But it wasn't gone, no. John knew that.
Kipling came in a moment later, narrowing his eyes at the expression on Anderson's face.
"Sir, you have to hear this," the inspector said, her words clipped and sharp.
She gestured at Sherlock and Kipling gave him a glare for good measure, which the detective ignored. With patience that seemed almost superhuman to John – especially given how Sherlock normally was and how worked up he'd just been – he explained the situation again to the CI. Kipling stared at him a long moment after Sherlock had finished speaking, then glanced at Anderson then back again.
"Fine," he said. "We set up on both sites and send you, Holmes, to the war monument and Anna to the dog and catch this guy and find Kelsi Murray."
John couldn't repress the stab of relief even though he knew it would be too easy if it worked that way. Sherlock's eyes slid to him and there was a flash of an apology in them, too brief for anyone who wasn't John to catch.
"No," he said and Kipling's eyes narrowed again. "Sorry, Inspector, but no. That's not how it will work. No, stop, you misunderstand me. I'm not saying this isn't how I want it to work. It's not how he wants it to work. The information will be given to me. Not to anyone else. Wherever I am, that's where we'll find what we're looking for."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Kipling demanded.
"It's about me," Sherlock said unapologetically. "For nearly ten years, Inspector Anderson and my brother have each been getting the same letter with no deviation from the pattern. As soon as I'm meant to be in Edinburgh, Anderson receives a letter with a different message, instructing her to call me. I start receiving letters and these are substantially different than the messages from the previous nine and a half years in that they actually contain potential information. It isn't that we have to decide, I have to decide. He wants me to choose between finding him and finding the body because he knows there's only one choice that I can make."
"Why you?" Kipling asked, his voice dark. Sherlock hesitated then responded only with the smallest shake of his head, his curls shifting slightly. Kipling opened his mouth to retort, but Anderson beat him to it.
"He's right, sir. Every letter we got was addressed to him except the one for me that had his phone number in it. Even the roses weren't for me, they were a message to get him up to Murrayfield. The connection was through me, that's all. We can set up as many people as we want at Greyfriar's tomorrow, but we're only being given one choice."
And he won't show up, John thought suddenly. He looked at all the faces and saw that knowledge reflected there. He wouldn't show up because that would be utterly stupid and he had them trapped. They couldn't choose locating the victim's body over finding the man who'd killed her. Without an arrest and conviction, the case would never be solved and a murderer would still be out there.
It was possible for the police to let Sherlock himself go to Greyfriar's and get the information on where Kelsi was, but John knew they couldn't take that risk. What if the killer really did turn up and Sherlock was somewhere else? He'd slip through their hands.
He wouldn't be there, but what if?
It's like playing the lotto. You know you're going to lose but you still hope you won't.
They couldn't let him walk away. They couldn't even allow for that possibility.
Whims, John thought. That's what Sherlock had said. Neither of them had known how right he'd be.
He felt a sudden stab of guilt and anger at himself – he'd brought them here.
Yes, spectacularly brilliant, John, well done. Take the case, Sherlock. Think about if it were me and take the case.
"You'd better bloody be kidding," Kipling growled and John refocused.
"I'm not," Sherlock said flatly.
The CI glanced at Anderson again and she just nodded, looking utterly resigned.
Ten years, John thought. So close. Now this.
"Well, we're going to both places anyway. I don't care if this lunatic wants you in a dress uniform accompanied by our pipes band, I'll give it to him if it gets us any information. But we're not letting the Greyfriar's lead slip through our fingers because some maniac's taken a special shine to you. You three, with me. Detective, Doctor, as far as I'm concerned, you are both officially under my command now and you will do exactly what I say when I say it without question. If this is going down, it's going down officially and organised. I'm not going to have a single officer there who doesn't know precisely what he or she is doing and why and when and how much of it they're supposed to do. Come on."
"Five minutes, please," Sherlock said in a calm, quiet tone and John was startled by the "please", which he usually only reserved for wheedling John into sex when John was feeling reluctant but willing to give in with the proper amount of encouragement.
Kipling sucked in a deep breath.
"Five minutes," he agreed. He gestured to Anderson with his head and she shot a quick look at Sherlock who nodded that he did not need her. She spun again, following her CO out the door, and John heard the rattle of blinds covering the interview room's one-way glass window.
When he glanced back at Sherlock, the faked calm was gone and he was rigid, his muscles taut, the tendons on the sides of his neck standing out. John closed the space between them and reached up – he'd never done this in a potentially public place before, but he actually needed it as much as he suspected Sherlock did.
He laced one hand into Sherlock's hair on the back of his head and stroked his husband's scalp with his thumb.
Sherlock tensed even more and growled low in his throat, his shoulders twitching like he might brush John off, which he'd never done before. But he managed to still himself and then dropped his head back slightly, even as he said John's name with a slight snarl in his voice.
John felt some of the tension ebb out very slowly, just enough to settle the tendons in his neck, not enough to do anything about the way he was holding himself, the knife-bright edge etching his muscles.
"You're wrong," Sherlock said, his voice low and John blinked, confusion coursing through him.
"Wrong about what?" John asked.
"You feel guilty for insisting I take this case and now you feel responsible for it leading us here. It's misplaced and unnecessary, John."
"Would you have taken the case if I hadn't told you to?"
"No."
John's lips twitched as he fought down a reply.
"But I could have said no to you as well."
"You didn't, though."
"No, no, I didn't. I'm a grown man fully capable of making my own choices regardless of your opinions and I made the decision to take this case. I'm making the decision now to give up the lead on the girl's location for information about the killer we aren't going to get because that's the option he's forcing upon me. This isn't you, John. Don't be selfish about it. I need you to be focused here and now – I need you at your best. You're never at your best when you're feeling sorry for yourself."
John bristled slightly then forced himself to calm down because Sherlock was right. He could beat himself up but it was pointless – and he was less useful when he was doing so. A little acknowledgement that maybe he was due some self-deprecation would be nice, though.
But it was not how Sherlock saw it, it really wasn't.
Sherlock reached up and disentangled John's hand slowly and carefully, ensuring that John knew the motion wasn't a rejection, just the need to be free. When John broke contact with Sherlock's head, he saw the jut of the tendons in Sherlock's neck again for just a moment. Sherlock curled his fingers so tightly around John's hand that John felt his bones grinding together. He couldn't quite suppress a small grimace but didn't say anything.
Sherlock dropped his hand and strode away from him, as far as the small room would let him move, then spun back, raking his hands through his hair and then pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
"He won't be there," he said flatly, echoing John's earlier thoughts.
"No."
"Even if he were, even if we could catch him, he would never give up the location of the grave."
"No," John agreed again.
Sherlock stared at him, then crossed the space between them again, grabbing John's face in his hands and bending down to lean his forehead against the doctor's. He exhaled in a rush so that John swallowed the warm breath on his own startled inhale. Sherlock pressed his head more firmly against John's, his eyes closed and his lips still parted. His fingers flexed slightly – tightening against John's face, fingertips digging into the skin – then relaxed again, easing up on the pressure minutely. John covered Sherlock's hands with his own, gripping hard, keeping his breathing in counterpoint to Sherlock's.
He could say "enough" right now, he knew. Sherlock would listen. He'd dislike it, but he wouldn't be angry or resentful. They could walk away right now at a word from John and he was well aware of it. It was just a moment, a few scant minutes, but he recognised it for what it was. He'd felt it before, but so very rarely. Sherlock would do this, if John asked.
He didn't ask. He couldn't. Not while they still had the smallest of chances.
They stayed that way, locked in their silent embrace, until Anderson rapped on the door and there was no more time for doubts, no more time to decide, no more time for anything.