A/N: Apologies for the delay. I fell asleep last night before posting, but ended up re-writing parts of this chapter anyway.
-Chapter 21-
Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes were different in as many ways as they were alike. To Mycroft's cold calculation, Sherlock answered with bounding, enthusiastic deduction. Whilst Mycroft navigated the rigid formality of upper class British social life, Sherlock struggled mightily to avoid offending the people he cared about, and didn't even try to avoid the people he didn't. Where the younger brother could not abide any idleness and sought out every opportunity for stimulation, the elder was moved to action only when unavoidable.
But as anyone who spent time with them knew, Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, two of the finest minds in Britain if not the world, were fiercely protective of one another.
As Mycroft stepped beside his brother, unsubtly obscuring the mother and child behind them from the sight of one James Moriarty, Mycroft said silently that his considerable power would now be brought to bear in the protection of Sherlock's small family as well.
"Why hello, Jim. Finally managed to claw your way out of the grave, I see. I've been missing you," Sherlock said with a saccharine voice.
"You've been missing me all over the place. Though I do thank you for clearing up that little problem for me. Dear Charles did try so hard, but he was just a bit too heavy-handed."
Mycroft, his expression neutral but the rapid branching and dancing of threads of information behind his eyes evident, casually reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his mobile, chuckling quietly when the screen lit up, showing the date. "You were off by three days, Sherlock. Slipping."
"Oh, he just never was that good, Mister Holmes," the Irish man said gleefully. "And now he's even got you dancing."
Mycroft's eyes darted, a bit too quickly, to Moriarty's face.
"And here I thought you knew better. The brothers Holmes; how disappointing you two turned out to be." He clapped his hands together loudly, smiling widely. "But I'm not here on a social visit! Business, business. How about you two lads meet me outside for a nice chat? I should think it goes without saying that this invitation is not optional."
He turned and left the doorway, appearing a moment later on the other side of the window to the corridor. He tapped his watch in an exaggerated gesture and pointed over towards the sliding door.
Sherlock turned to Molly, still seated in her wheelchair, her expression steely in its determination, but her rapid breathing and wide eyes belying the certainty of her face. "You said he was dead," she said darkly. "You said he was dead and you made sure of it and that he absolutely didn't fake his own death!" She turned to Mycroft "And you, did you know? Of course you knew, look at who I am talking to!" Her voice had become shrill by the last as the fear in her eyes turned to rage.
"Molly," Sherlock began, but Mycroft cut him off.
"There is a proper time to share information, Doctor Hooper, and you had no need to know," his forced formality made his pique evident. His mobile pinged, and he pulled it out, rapidly scanning the message. "Sherlock, outside. Now."
Seeing his brother's expression shutter, Sherlock did not need to make much of a leap to deduce what the text Mycroft received must have said. Mycroft walked out of the room without a backward look.
Sherlock turned to Molly, scrambling through his mind for something to say, but only able to see the anguished look on her face. He knew his own must be no different. He laid one hand on her cheek and laid a soft, desperate kiss on her lips, trying to communicate in one short gesture everything that he struggled so mightily to speak. It was so brief she had no chance to return the kiss, but met his eyes as he pulled away.
"Promise me you won't die."
Sherlock's eyes roamed the room, looking for anything that would indicate any immediate danger in this room. Seeing nothing, he said urgently, "Stay with Bennett. Do not leave, do not let anyone take him. Understand?"
"Yes. Please come back," she was almost sobbing now, exhaustion and terror causing her to give up any hope of reigning in her emotions. In a few long strides, Sherlock was almost at the door which opened at his approach.
"I will try," she heard him said quietly as the door slid shut behind him.
Molly looked around the room, seeing only the pleasantly coloured walls, the other isolettes, and a few open warming cots for the healthier babies. She felt almost as though the air had been sucked out of the room. But for the quiet tones of monitors and the soft click-whoosh of two ventilators, the ward was silent. She returned her gaze to her tiny son and saw that his eyes were open, wide and staring.
"Well, we definitely didn't need that after the day we've had, now did we?" She tried to smile at him, but could manage only a grimace. "Let me tell you a story…"
The Royal London was a solid, hulking beast of a building, and Sherlock had just been treated to a detailed description of just how many PE-4 charges had to be carefully installed to make sure it would come down just perfectly. Moriarty was quite pleased with himself for having gotten them into place so quickly.
"I think this one might be a record," he said gleefully. "Bit of a cliché, but I just can't resist having everything go out with a bang! It's a style thing, but you'd know all about that."
Mycroft looked around the back seat of the car they had been directed into during the madman's explanation of exactly how his people would take down the hospital if the brothers did not follow him. "You could have tried to be a little less obvious, James," Mycroft said casually.
"He is losing his touch isn't he?" Sherlock said in a disinterested tone.
"Oh, terribly. Look at the little man, Sherlock," Mycroft drawled. "Still thinks that he'll surprise us. How dull."
Moriarty's eyes narrowed slightly, but he rapidly returned his expression to one of indifference, looking between the brothers.
"Mmm, boring," Sherlock added flatly, in agreement with his brother.
"Here we are my dear Holmes bros! Out we go!" They stepped out into a dark underground car park. There were no other vehicles, only a door a few feet away. Moriarty tapped a card to the reader by the door and it opened into a clean, bright corridor. Mycroft and Sherlock fell into step behind the Irishman and followed him into the London headquarters of MeriCore Pharmaceuticals.
Sherlock had dropped his mobile in Molly's lap before he had walked out. Her own was in her room on the maternity floor. She wasn't certain whether to be relieved or terrified that he had left the phone, but as she heard John's calm, steady voice on the line, she was glad for it.
He spoke quietly to her, reassuring her that they were doing everything they could. He had alerted Lestrade who had apparently called in every law enforcement agency in Britain, judging from the number of sirens that had converged on the hospital and the helicopters she could hear in the distance. Their lights reflected off nearby buildings and even on the third floor, Molly could see clear indication of the size of the flock of emergency vehicles surrounding the building.
Even now, the footage for every CCTV in the area was being carefully reviewed to find any evidence of where they had gone. She heard the call wait tone and checked the screen. George (Mobile). Molly hit the call connect button. "Greg? Anything?"
"We're looking," said the Chief Inspector. "Nothing yet, but we're looking. Bomb disposal just cleared your floor. Looks good so far. Still checking the rest of the hospital." She could hear sirens even more loudly through the phone.
Molly had tears flowing down her face and her hands were shaking, but she managed to keep her voice steady. "Thank you for keeping me updated."
"We'll find them, Mols. Just you sit tight with that little boy," he said in his gentlest, most fatherly voice before he rung off. She hit the button to return to John's call, but he had already disconnected.
Molly kept her hand placed lightly on her son's thin arm, in some small way needing the physical connection with him, feeling almost as if she let go he would vanish if she dared let go. She sighed heavily and looked out the long windows, feeling utterly useless and more terrified than she had ever known.
"Tea?" asked Moriarty as he dropped into a leather chair behind his stately desk in the large, open office. Without waiting for their answers, he nodded to the man standing in the doorway. He stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him.
Sherlock and Mycroft each took a seat across the desk from the consulting criminal, each taking in as many details about the room as they were able. Vault behind the painting. Bullet proof glass on the tall windows. Shelves of books and curiosities. Sherlock recognized the jade pin on one of the shelves and couldn't help but smirk.
"You threaten us, we threaten you, someone doesn't die like they should. The usual, is it?" Sherlock asked flippantly as he sat in one of the chairs on the other side of his desk.
"I felt like a change. In this story, people actually die," he turned his laptop around, showing the brothers a camera feed. "Can't all of us have happy endings."
Sherlock's eyes darted to his brother. His features were a cold mask, but his eyes hardened almost imperceptibly and his fingers twitched as if he had barely restrained himself from clenching them into fists. The corners of Moriarty's mouth twitched up when he saw the small motion.
On the screen before them, Carter Morecome, face badly beaten, was quite clearly barely alive. He lay on a cement floor in a small room lit by what appeared to be a single, naked light bulb. His jacket lay discarded in a heap, and his tie was nowhere to be seen. The light blue shirt he wore was dotted with large, dark spots that could only be blood. He gurgled and spat out the corrupting froth from his lungs, barely able to draw a crackling breath before he coughed again.
"Thanks for that, Sherlock. Letting me know about your brother's little goldfish." He turned the screen back around but turned up the volume so that they could hear the dying man gag and cough. "What a perfect description of these ordinary people. Swimming around in their own filth, eating themselves to death given half an opportunity, too stupid to notice they're just going in circles. Around and around and around…" he made circles in the air with his hand, his voice trailing off.
"What do you want?" Sherlock asked, carefully schooling his expression into neutrality. He looked over at Mycroft and saw that his brother had been unsettled by the images on the screen.
"Nothing at all," he said, idly twirling a pen between his fingers. "I just missed our little chats, and thought I'd try to get to know mister Big Brother over here a bit better before I take him out. And I don't mean for dinner. Watch him squirm a little."
He stood abruptly and walked across the room, opening the door, and took a tea tray from the burly man outside. He set it on the desk and returned to his seat, crossing one thin leg over the other and leaning back.
"Oh listen to that. Just musical, that is. Perfect." Moriarty increased the volume on the laptop to its maximum, its tinny speakers relaying every crackle of Carter's lungs. He mimed an orchestra director's movements in time with the inhalations and exhalations, each clearly audible. "Oh he is good at this; hanging on, drawing things out. You picked a good one." Mycroft closed his eyes, breathing deeply whilst trying to control his expression.
For a moment, the sound hung in the air between the three men, interrupted only by the booming sound of a church bell from the seventeenth century basilica nearby.
Abruptly, Sherlock rose. "Predictable," he said with a theatrical sigh. "Really, you've completely lost your touch."
"Not half as clever as he seems to think," Mycroft added in a bored voice to his brother, rising as well, the pain in his expression falling away completely, the mask dropped.
Moriarty's eyes darted between the brothers, calculating, "Oh, you are trying aren't you? Even the Ice Man has thawed, though. I have your little toy. You care about this one, I can see that."
"Oh, certainly," Mycroft said dispassionately, "But you missed something."
"You always do miss something. Five years, my dear Jim, and you still insist on playing your little games."
"What did I miss?" Moriarty asked at a shout. "Your little toys are either dead or sitting on enough explosives to turn Whitechapel into a crater."
"No they're really not," Sherlock said with the hint of a laugh in his voice.
Mycroft buffed his nails in disinterest on his scrub top. "Your bombs were taken down as soon as they went up. Surely you don't think we'd be that oblivious."
"And your goon at the door. Bit of blood on his shoe, but no water so he hasn't been outside since it rained this morning. Carter is or was here in this building with us. Not enough time to have him anywhere else. We last saw him less than an hour ago and it takes some time to beat someone up like that." Sherlock was speaking at the rapid clip he adopted when explaining his deductions.
Mycroft continued Sherlock's deduction in a slower and far more self-satisfied tone, "No church bell in the audio feed and a few repeated segments of audio. You are watching a recording. Our people already have him, or he's already dead and you had to re-use the video." He looked up at Moriarty, expression flat. "Either way, that leverage is out of your hands."
Sherlock held up his arm, pointing to a spot by his wrist, the slightest hint of a dark spot was visible under the pale flesh of his forearm. "Lovely little thing, this. Implantable near field chip."
The criminal's eyes narrowed. "The door card readers," he said, realization dawning.
Sherlock and Mycroft wore matching, satisfied smiles. "Or any consumer mobile made in the last five years," Mycroft said. "You really shouldn't be letting your staff keep their phones during working hours. Lazy management. Our people knew we were here as soon as we entered the building." He held himself erect, straightening the turquoise scrub top he was still wearing.
"I have guns on you, of course," Moriarty drawled, gesturing to an unseen individual. "Simplistic, but effective. You won't make it down the corridor."
"Your people have been invited to reconsider," Mycroft said. He made a dismissive wave with his hand in the direction of the taller building next to MeriCore.
Sherlock smiled brightly. "Well, Jim, it's been a treat. Must dash, though." He extended his hand. Confused, Moriarty extended his own and took Sherlock's in a firm grip.
Moriarty frowned as Mycroft stepped over beside his brother, a small smirk on his face. "Indeed. Places to be, people to see. Wouldn't want to be late. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of you."
His eyes wide, Moriarty's gaze darted around the office, his body held as if ready to spring. "What did I miss?" His voice was mad, shrieking as the fact that he had been beaten dawned on him.
A small, red dot appeared on Moriarty's chest for a very short moment before blooming into the dark, red wet spot of a well-aimed shot to his heart, the soft thump of the impact accompanied by the crinkling sound of shattering glass.
"New windowpane in your office, courtesy of Her Majesty's Government," Mycroft said simply.
Years before, at the culmination of a days-long game of murder and mayhem, James Moriarty had praised Sherlock for taking part in his game, for providing him the amusement he sought at the cost of lives. As the psychopath fell back into his chair, eyes wide and face paling as the life left him, Sherlock leaned close and whispered into his ear. "Thanks for playing."
He turned back to Mycroft, a triumphant smile about his lips, just in time to see his older brother crumple to the floor.