The rain started as Sherlock legged it back to Baker Street; by the time he burst into the upstairs bedroom and began pacing furiously he was flicking water over Doctor Watson at every about turn.
John was less than impressed, but he said nothing. He continued to say nothing as Sherlock finally fell still and stared at him for a long moment, dripping steadily into a puddle so big it was surely soaking through the floor and dripping away downstairs; he said it right up until Sherlock pulled a syringe from a drawer and started advancing on him with it. Then he broke silence.
"Whoa. What are you doing with that?"
The supervillain – looking super villainous with the needle in his hand – glanced at it distractedly. "I need to find out what I did wrong," he said, as though it were obvious. "For the silver not to have worked on Moriarty I must have made a mistake in the transfusion. I need your blood to work out what that mistake was and how I can fix it." He took another step forwards, which caused the doctor to retreat hurriedly until he was backed into the corner.
"Hang on," he said quickly, with the air of one running from a bull in a ring. "Have you ever used a hypodermic before? Is that sterile? I think you should calm down a little bit before you jam that in my arm."
Sherlock shook his head in irritation. "There's no time! It's sterile, I promise. He has Molly, and he's going to do worse. It could be Mycroft next, he'll hurt them, I have to do something!" John held his hands up in supplication. "I tried to stop him with the silver handcuffs, like I did to you at the Abbey, but it didn't work. Quickly, John! I have to find out why it didn't work!"
To Sherlock's consternation, John's face sort of crumpled a little at the recollection of what had happened, his whole manner deflating a little. "I don't think a blood sample is going to help that, Sherlock."
He shook his head, flicking more water in the doctor's eyes, and changed tactic. "Honestly, Doctor Watson, anyone would think you were afraid of needles. You're a doctor. It's just a bit of blood, come on."
John drew himself up to his full and thoroughly unimpressive height and metaphorically put his foot down. He couldn't do it literally because he was crouched like a child at the head of the bed, pressed against the wall. "Stop right there," he said firmly. Sherlock, a little shocked, stopped right there. "If you're going to force a hypodermic into my arm and experiment on my blood, I have some conditions." Sherlock blinked. "First of all, I insist on giving you a medical check. You've had two blows to the head in the past few days, not to mention been strangled into unconsciousness. If the fate of London really rests on you, you're not allowed to suddenly collapse because you have a concussion you wouldn't let anyone look at. And second of all," he reached out and snatched the syringe out of Sherlock's slack hand. "I'll do that. I'm qualified, you're not."
Sherlock glared at him reproachfully, not quite managing to resent the little smug smile on the doctor's face. That motherly little outburst had been quite unexpected. "As long as you talk me through it, in case I need to do it in the future," he countered warningly. Doctor Watson grinned.
"Done. Now come here." Sherlock swallowed heavily; John was actually asking to touch him. The edges of his limbs went slightly weak; it was disconcerting how badly he wanted to give himself over to the doctor and let himself be taken care of. "Come on. I just want to check you for concussion and look at those bruises – you've been leaning to the left a bit, too, so I want to check your ribs for bruising." John's face softened into something – was that a tender expression? "Trust me, Sherlock. I'm a doctor."
Sherlock wondered if it was strange that he did trust Doctor Watson, considering the amount of time they had spent being nemeses. But when he looked at Moriarty, calling John an enemy seemed foolish. Their rivalry had never been anything like this; they had been, in reality, children playing pranks on each other in the playground.
How different, really, are our enemies from our friends?
Mycroft had asked him that question once, when he was younger and childishly vindictive. He'd been shocked, thinking it was blindingly obvious. He liked his friends, and he hated Mycroft. Now he was older – now he had John – he understood what he had meant. When he had allowed himself the opportunity to spend time with John without blowing something up or kidnapping his girlfriend, they had made the incredible shift from enemies to this without even realising it was happening. Now they were almost friends.
Sherlock crawled forwards on the bed until John could take his head in his calloused military hands and prod it gently. The dark-haired man winced as the doctor's fingers skated over the bruises where Moriarty had beaten him almost senseless. John exhaled a long breath and Sherlock felt it play with his curls on its way out. "How could someone do this to you?" the doctor whispered.
Even in the fiercest of their battles, neither of them had ever really hurt the other. There had been a few well-timed punches on John's part every now and then, but they had been soundly intended to knock out, not to cause the pain that each of Moriarty's blows had. Their war had been one of intellect, of Sherlock devising new and fantastic mazes for John to navigate, most of which John blasted straight through instead. When he thought about it, maybe it had been like this all along, and it had just taken the death of Doctor Watson for him to realise it.
"John?" he murmured; the movements of those strong hands on his scalp were making him sleepy. "I'm not sorry I killed you. Not anymore."
John chuckled. "Okay. What's your full name, today's date, your birthday, your brother's full name and what day is Christmas?"
Sherlock sat up again, rolling his eyes. "I'm Sherlock Emrys Holmes, it's the thirteenth of December, Christmas is the twenty-fifth but my birthday's not until the seventeenth of July. I usually deny that I have a brother, but for the purposes of this interrogation I'm assuming you mean Mycroft Adwin Holmes, the government worker who follows me around on CCTV."
Another chuckle from the doctor. "All right. Follow my finger with your eyes." He waved his index finger around for a bit, then rested it in his lap. Sherlock kept his eyes on it in a contrary fashion and found himself staring at John's crotch. He stopped. "Okay. You don't have a concussion. Anyone else I'd prescribe a long rest and avoidance of strenuous activity. You I know will ignore that, so I won't bother. Now come closer so I can check your ribs." Sherlock obediently wriggled closer and held his arms out from his body while the doctor resumed his poking.
"Ouch."
John had touched a spot that had sent sharp pains lancing up his chest and caused him to double over slightly. He frowned. "Sorry. How bad was it?"
"Bad," Sherlock testified sullenly. "It hurt." John touched it again. "Ouch!"
The army doctor actually giggled. "Well, it's not broken. Same advice as before." He sat back against the headboard and Sherlock relaxed slightly. Then he remembered why he was in such a hurry.
"Thank you, Doctor," he mocked gently. "Now can you do the hypodermic? Quickly?"
John reached back for the syringe and pushed the sleeve of his jumper up past his elbow, showing the blue vein in the crook of his arm. "Right," he said matter-of-factly. "You can see the vein, right? Good. You're supposed to use a tourniquet but my sleeve will do for now." He presented the syringe with the bevel facing Sherlock. "Hold it bevel up and insert it into the vein. You can usually feel the moment it goes in, it makes a kind of pop feeling."
Sherlock watched in fascination as the doctor pulled back on the plunger a little bit and was rewarded with a spurt of blood in the syringe. "If you're injecting with something, you pull back anyway to check you're in a vein," John explained. "If you're just taking blood, you go full steam ahead." He pulled the plunger steadily back until the syringe was full. "Then you make sure the bevel is still facing outwards, and take out the needle." He did so, holding the silvery spike upwards and bending his elbow. "Here you go."
Sherlock took the syringe full of blood and watched as John pulled down his sleeve and clutched at his elbow where the needle had gone in to stem the blood flow. "Thanks." John waved him away, suddenly looking tired. Sherlock, feeling somewhat awkward, got up and made to leave.
"Sherlock?" The doctor was sitting on the edge of the bed when Sherlock turned around; he opened and closed his mouth a few times, clearly struggling with whether or not to say something. Eventually he closed it and sighed. "Nothing. Good luck."
Detective Inspector Lestrade, it seemed fair to say, was having the worst day of his life. He didn't think he could ever possibly have worse. Throwing Irene Adler back into custody had not alleviated the day even slightly, mostly because it was the same day she'd escaped. He'd run all over London in the rain from the Penitentiary to the Yard to the many scenes of destruction in the streets and not been able to do a thing about any of the situations he'd seen in their various stages of unfolding. He'd discovered that the man he'd slowly fallen in love with over the phone had been a fake and a phony and Sherlock Holmes' brother.
Now he was in the Chief Inspector's office talking to the Prime Minister and attempting to sanction a complete evacuation of London.
Things were not going well.
To be fair, the PM was being extremely understanding. Well, he was adopting an extremely understanding façade while effectively blaming Lestrade for the break-out and the riots and Jim Moriarty and refusing to co-operate with his suggestions that maybe it'd be better if they all abandoned-ship for a while until the whole thing had calmed down.
Lestrade would be the first to admit that he was getting a little frustrated. "Sir," he persisted, "Moriarty has already trashed the London Penitentiary. We have about fifty separate riots on our hands with all the arsonists, robbers and rapists walking the streets. You were worried when Sherlock Holmes took over, sir. I promise you the situation is already a million times worse than that. We need to evacuate now."
The Prime Minister, a short, sallow-faced man with enormous jowls for one so skinny, scowled at him. "I still don't understand how the Yard has allowed the situation to escalate to this, Detective Lestrade."
"It's Detective Inspector Lestrade, sir," he said through gritted teeth, hoping to convey a little more authority. "And with all necessary respect, the man has superpowers. He can fly. New Scotland Yard is just not equipped to deal with this and I don't see any way we can quickly and effectively remedy that. Please trust that this is the only way."
The PM cast an uncertain glance towards Chief Inspector Andrews, sitting calmly behind his desk. "Doug," the CI said firmly, his deep, round voice resonating sweetly in the glass office, "he's right."
"Didn't you actually have this Moriarty in your office at some point, Lestrade?" the PM snapped. Lestrade took a deep breath.
"We believed he might be able to help us to defeat Sherlock Holmes," he said stoically.
The Chief Inspector looked at him. "We?"
Lestrade suddenly felt choked with tears, struggling to breathe, trying desperately to look as though nothing had changed. We in this case had not meant him and Sgt Sally Donovan, and the CI knew it. We in this case had been him and his – and Mycroft.
Mycroft had encouraged him to let Moriarty do what he wanted. Did that mean that Holmes and Moriarty were in cahoots after all? Had this whole thing been a carefully-orchestrated lie? And yet, giving Moriarty free reign had resulted in Sherlock being hurt, twice. Was that all faked? Or was the situation even more twisted and out-of-control than he could imagine?
He tried to regulate his breathing before the others noticed. "Yes, sir. The rest of the task force was sceptical – and rightly," he added before the PM could shoot off again. "But we were slightly desperate. We've always been somewhat out of our depth in this investigation." They said honesty was the best policy.
Chief Inspector Andrews' desk phone rang shrilly. He waved at them to continue and picked it up. Lestrade sighed. "Sir, I know it's not ideal. But not taking this step is endangering the population of London. Wouldn't you rather be the leader that caused a major inconvenience than the leader who refused to do anything –"
"Lestrade," the CI interrupted. He turned around to see Andrews holding out the phone. "It's for you."
Frowning, he took it. "DI Lestrade," he said questioningly. There was a brief pause.
"Inspector."
Oh, God. Lestrade's knees went weak and his whole body began trembling violently. He thought he might be sick, and clutched at Andrews' desk to keep himself upright, knowing his face would have turned ashen and hating himself for the display of weakness in front of his superior. And the Prime Minister, for God's sake.
Without saying a word into the phone, he replaced the receiver on the cradle firmly, hanging up the phone. Both men looked at him curiously. "Who was that?"
Lestrade blinked a few times. Then he looked up at the security camera in the far corner of the room, suddenly remembering that Mycroft had been uncannily able to watch him wherever he went. How had he not managed to find that creepy? "Sir, I think we may be being watched."
The PM looked around in shock. "What? How?"
"The security cameras," the DI explained. He looked at Chief Inspector Andrews. "Sir, I know for a fact that Sherlock Holmes has access to the security feeds from Scotland Yard, and I believe CCTV footage as well. That," he nodded towards the phone, "was his brother, Mycroft."
The Prime Minister sat down heavily and put his head in his hands. "It's really that bad, isn't it?" he asked tiredly. Neither police officer said anything. "All right, Detective Inspector," he said finally. "Issue the evacuation notice and start helping people out."
Andrews stood up. "There's a press conference arranged at three," he said, and led the way out of the office.
Lestrade's cellphone rang on the way out; when he didn't recognise the number, he hung up without answering it.
Sherlock sat on a stool at St Bart's, peering in consternation down a microscope. The syringe of Doctor Watson's blood he had sealed, labelled, and stored in a box in the cupboard marked Molly Hooper. In front of him was a discarded syringe of his own blood, three test-tubes of something congealed and yellow, and two identical-looking slides under the microscope.
He'd been staring at these slides for the past ten minutes, since he had recreated exactly the solution he had injected into Jim Moriarty and imbibed the sample of his own blood with it. Usually Sherlock never devoted so much time to something that could have been done in seconds; theoretically, he should only have had to glance at the slides to see what was wrong.
But the two blood samples – the one he had taken from John and the one he had taken from himself and modified – were exactly the same.
Well, not exactly the same, one was very distinctly John and the other was quite obviously Sherlock, but the deoxyribonucleic patterns that made up the abilities characteristic of Doctor Watson were the same. From this sample, if John was vulnerable to the apparent effects of silver, then Moriarty should be, too.
Sherlock pulled the slides out of the microscope and threw them irritably onto the bench with just enough care so as not to break them, running his hands through his dishevelled hair and kneading his eyes with his palms.
Then, just as suddenly, he sat up with an abrupt intake of breath, grabbed the syringe and started a new experiment. If he couldn't figure out why Moriarty was invulnerable to the thing that caused Doctor Watson's downfall, he'd just have to try something else.
"In light of recent events, including the destruction of and breakout from the London Penitentiary caused by Professor James Moriarty, I am declaring a state of emergency over the city. We think that the safest route for citizens is to evacuate immediately and we will be distributing units around the city to help residents do so safely. We can confirm the reports that Moriarty has somehow acquired the abilities hitherto only seen by the late Doctor John Watson, and therefore caution people to stay well away from areas they may believe to be unsafe and under no circumstances attract his attention or that of his followers. We cannot confirm whether Sherlock Holmes is involved in this attack but there have been no official sightings that connect him with Moriarty. Any questions?"
Lestrade sighed as a million hands shot up. He'd always hated press conferences. There were always so many questions he couldn't reasonably be expected to know the answers to. "Yes? Shall we start with you?" He pointed at a lady in the front row.
"How long can you expect such an evacuation to last? Are the police doing anything to stop this Moriarty?"
He rolled his eyes. "Well, obviously we're doing as much as we can, but there's no way we can safely combat a man with superpowers and an army of criminals at his disposal. I'm afraid evacuating the city is the only option, and it is not a situation we ever thought we would be facing. We're not sure how long it might last, but we urge people to take only what is necessary with them and to treat it as a temporary movement only."
Sally Donovan coughed slightly; when he turned to look at her she held out her cellphone, indicating that he should read the text scrolling across the screen. He excused himself to the press.
Please inform Detective Inspector Lestrade that the situation is not what it appears to be and that I would appreciate the opportunity to explain myself. M.
He tried to look angry. He tried to tell himself he didn't want to hear what Mycroft had to say. But he couldn't help himself thinking that maybe the government official had some sort of excuse that could make all of this necessary and worthwhile, make the betrayal not so bad. He desperately wanted the chance to forgive him, and he hated himself for it.
He took the phone; Sally shifted forwards and assumed control of the press conference. "I apologise for Detective Inspector Lestrade, but naturally he is extremely busy orchestrating the evacuation. Allow me to take your questions in his stead."
Lestrade shot her a grateful smile and turned his back on the mass of the media. If there's something you have to say that will make an evacuation unnecessary, you need to come forward and say it. L.
He tapped Sally's phone impatiently on his knee. Please. Please let this whole thing be a misunderstanding, let this whole farce just be a wild imagining brought on by not enough sleep.
Unfortunately that is not the situation I meant. I was referring to the situation between you and I, which I am aware I seem to have botched royally. M.
A mere moment after the text arrived, the phone started to ring; Lestrade pressed the ignore button.
I don't want to talk to you. L.
He sat up, sighing, and Donovan handed him back the microphone.
Sherlock intently watched the mouse he had managed to lure into the lab with peanut butter and inject with superpowers. He was a little apprehensive that it might go rabid and become dangerous, but so far it seemed peaceful; all it had done was break the jar of peanut butter and singe a few holes in the desk.
It was also apparently impervious to silver. So far, so good; it was Jim Moriarty in rodent-form. Sherlock managed to pick it up by the back of its neck, but showing incredible strength – duh – it wrestled its way loose again.
Hmm.
After a few more failed attempts to capture it, he finally managed to get it in a position where it couldn't reach him with its legs or teeth. Panting, Sherlock picked up the hypodermic on the bench and slid it into the rodent's neck. The animal emitted a high-pitched and very loud scream as he gently pushed at the plunger and injected a second solution into its veins; its struggles against his fingers became dramatically less and less painful.
Within seconds, it was a normal mouse again. Sherlock crowed in delight, feeling slightly giddy. He'd done it. He was actually able to reverse the effects of his first experiment.
A syringe of the slightly green and gross-looking liquid clutched in his hand, Sherlock ran out of St Bart's as fast as he could. If he could get back to Baker Street, he could allow himself a breather and calm down enough to find Moriarty and make a proper plan. Mycroft had informed him of Lestrade's plan to evacuate the city, and he had to admit it seemed the best solution. But things would be uncomplicated immensely if he could finish this before the evacuation was complete.
As he ran, he thought about John. What would he do if he couldn't defeat Moriarty? He couldn't just leave Doctor Watson locked in a room by himself to starve. Could he trust the doctor to help him? Or even not to just defeat him again if he let him go?
And if his 'cure' worked on Moriarty, was there a chance that it might also work on John? It seemed unlikely, given that it was designed to attack the foreign DNA in the blood, and John was the source. And yet, all of Sherlock's tests had shown that John was essentially human – could it be that he was the product of someone's twisted experimentation as well? He could offer, at least, to try it. If John still wanted a 'normal life', Sherlock would give it to him, even if it hurt.
He was quickly coming to realise he'd do almost anything for Doctor Watson. As he rounded the corner into Baker Street, his eyes flickered to the window and he could see a flash of the back of the doctor's sandy head as he sat, probably tapping away at the laptop. Sherlock wasn't sure what he was doing on there, but he seemed to be writing something.
He made up his mind. When he got inside, he would tell John Watson everything; how he'd created Moriarty because he'd been so desperate to feel again what he'd felt around the doctor, so wild with missing John; how he felt now, like he never wanted to give the doctor up again, how he needed him, loved him; how he didn't want to leave him there in case he was walking out to his death, because even if Sherlock wasn't there to miss him he couldn't bear it if he killed John again; how he was willing to try to 'cure' the doctor if that was what he wanted, how he would give him whatever he wanted for ever and ever.
If John wanted him, John wanted him. If not, it would hurt, but he was used to it. He'd chosen the role of the villain right from the start; he knew by now that the villain was not the one who rode off into the sunset with his every romantic aspiration filled. That was tough, but it was too bad.
He stopped before the door to 221B, doubled over, gasping like a dying man, his heart racing, trying to calm himself down. He needed to be able to speak the words rationally, needed to prepare himself for failure –
Without warning, Sherlock felt a rough jerk on his orchid-petal collar and then he was being lifted into the air, struggling to breathe, while a familiar low melancholy laugh in his ears and the ground falling away underneath him. He tried to twist around; Jim Moriarty's gleeful face grinned wickedly at him. "Hello, darling."
Sherlock knew better than to struggle, not this high off the ground; but his rough jerking away from Moriarty's face dislodged the syringe from the inside pocket of his cloak and it fell, down and down until he could no longer track it with his eyes.
As he was pulled further and further away, his only thought was for what he hadn't managed to do; all of his being poured quite accidentally out of him as he opened his mouth and screamed.
"Joooooooohn!"