Kaelir and I are both standing beside ourselves with anticipation to see what our readers think of this next chapter! And though it may seem that things are coming to a close, 'tis not so just yet. We've still got a good five or six chapters left for you. Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty: Playing The Pawn

That's all it takes: one lonely, naive man desperate to show off... then give him a puzzle and watch him dance.

Almost immediately after John had related that nothing of consequence appeared to have occurred, Sherlock left the rather stifling atmosphere of the little room and instead made his way back outside to the street. There were fewer cars passing by now that the dark, early hours of the morning had arrived - not that it really mattered to him at this point. All of his attention was focused inward, running over the strange and rapid series of events which had led him here.

Sherlock could not rid himself of a nagging little feeling, almost an instinct, that something was out of place. This whole trail laid down by Moriarty had been a somewhat engaging diversion, admittedly, but in the end... what had been accomplished? What was the point? Just another game, another way to keep the consulting detective running around for the sheer entertainment of it? But it couldn't be that simple; Moriarty never did anything without a reason...

The only clue left now was the girl herself.

Turning up his coat collar against the cool night air, Sherlock pulled his phone out. It was a slim chance, he knew - the child had not publicly been reported missing to any authorities, but she had to have come from somewhere. There was only one person he could think of who might be able to obtain that information, probably by less well-known channels.

Frowning down at the little screen, he sent off a text to Mycroft with a picture of the girl attached.

Any idea who this is?
SH

The reply came only a few seconds later - positively unusual for Mycroft, who rather despised texting.

Yes. Come speak in person. IMMEDIATELY.
M

Sherlock tilted his head slightly, staring at the surprisingly quick and rather vehement response. His brother obviously considered this to be extremely important, then - he couldn't remember the last time Mycroft had bothered to capitalise an entire word.

On my way.
SH

For many minutes after sending the reply to his brother, Mycroft had continued to stare hard at the image on his phone, his brow deeply furrowed and his other hand clenched in his pocket. After that, he began pacing, walking up and down the length of his study with his hands clasped behind his back and a look on his face that would have made a thundercloud start searching for a new line of work. Every so often he shot a glance toward the door or out one of the tall, thin-framed windows, but always he would turn his eyes to the floor again, as though seeking answers that weren't there.

It was only when the study door was abruptly pushed open again that Mycroft ceased his pacing, and in the second that followed he was moving quickly toward it, already speaking. "Where did you find her?" His voice was sharp and urgent, and underneath, an abnormal note of confusion.

Sherlock eyed his brother calculatingly as he took a few steps into the room and shoved the door closed again behind him. "You could start by telling me who she is," he answered. "Something wrong? I don't even remember the last time I saw you this... irate."

"Irate is no word for it," Mycroft muttered back, giving his brother a look that was an odd mix of agitation and resignation. "We only realised she was missing a few hours ago, and -" He broke off suddenly, fixing Sherlock with a very sharp stare. "And you, Sherlock, how is it that you are suddenly involved in this?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Answer my question and I'll answer yours," he retorted, taking in the other man's almost painfully obvious tension.

Mycroft let out his breath loudly. "Her name is Miranda Allen - which means nothing to you, I imagine, nor should it. Where did you find her?" The repeated question was louder this time.

"She was brought to a park about ten minutes from Baker Street by a mutual acquaintance of ours," said Sherlock, after a slight pause. Even knowing how agitated his brother was didn't make him any more inclined to cooperate - at least not to the point of total submission.

"Sherlock," his brother said warningly, his mouth a very thin line, "this is not the time for a round of twenty questions. Explain. Now."

Sherlock stiffened slightly at the other's tone. "If you want me to explain how I found her," he said softly, "then youneed to first explain who she is - and why she's so important." But he could tell that Mycroft was already dangerously close to the end of his tether, which, while rather interesting in itself, meant that Sherlock wasn't going to be able to keep up such deliberate impertinence forever.

Mycroft drew in a very long, slow breath, his eyes going rather flat as he stared back at Sherlock; it was clear that he was just on the verge of shouting, and only many years of rigid self-control were preventing him from doing so. "I believe I just told you who she is," he replied, in a voice dangerously devoid of emotion. "If you're going to be so obstinate as to demand more - her father is one of our top agents in the Service. Was," he amended, in sudden disgust.

"Was?" repeated Sherlock sharply. "What happened?" From Mycroft's adjustment in tone and word choice, he gathered that the reason behind the verb's sudden tense change had not yet sunk in.

"He was killed," Mycroft replied simply, in the level tone he had long since mastered. "Less than an hour ago, from what I've been told."

Less than an hour ago...The significance of the timing did not go over Sherlock's head. He took a moment to ensure that his expression was as neutral as he could make it under the circumstances before glancing up again at his brother. "And why was he so important, then?" he asked, exhaling slowly.

From the way Mycroft's eyes were scanning his brother's face, he seemed to have picked up on something in Sherlock's reaction, but did not comment immediately on it. "Information, of course. I should think even you could figure that out, obviousas it is." He fell silent for a moment, abruptly turning to face one of the windows again. "Victor Allen had been undercover for many months, both domestically and abroad, before he contacted us again. I arranged to have him kept in protective custody until the knowledge he held could be put to proper use." He grimaced. "Unfortunately, no one knows what that knowledge was, now."

Sherlock felt his brow furrow, and he continued to stare hard at Mycroft's back when the other man looked away. "Protective custody..." he murmured, shaking his head slowly. "Something went wrong?" It didn't make sense - whatever faults Mycroft Holmes might have (and Sherlock could think of a lot), he was never careless. When he said something was protected, it was protected. So what had happened?

"Obviously," Mycroft answered, a sharp bite to his voice now, "or he would still be alive." He suddenly whirled on his heel again, facing Sherlock, and the expression on his face was very grim. "Now: tell me exactlyhow you came to be mixed up in this."

Rather taken aback by his brother's sudden movement, Sherlock moved a small step away, while most of him tried to maintain his composure. "I told you," he said cautiously. "The girl was brought to the park, where I was supposed to meet John..." His lip twitched slightly as he paused. "Instead, a certain James Moriarty showed up, with this unconscious child." He let out a short, frustrated sigh at the recollection, then went on, "He said she knew something that I needed to know..."

"Moriarty...?" The whispered word that came from Mycroft's lips was half question, half musing. Then he suddenly stiffened, and took a sharp step forward that completely counteracted the one Sherlock had take back moments before. The look he gave his brother was piercing.

"The only compromising information that Miranda Allen knew was a word - the one word that was the key to accessing her father. They arranged it secretly between them; even I don't know what it was."

Sherlock felt himself go suddenly still, and he let out a sharp breath that abruptly caught in his throat as Mycroft's gaze met his own. In the ensuing silence, his pulse seemed extraordinarily loud. It couldn't be... but no, it had to be...

"With you, there's no such thing as coincidence."

Sherlock's own words echoed mockingly in his mind. Everything - every hint, every little clue - was suddenly beginning to fall hopelessly into place. He stared at Mycroft, feeling stricken.

"Vienna." He could barely get the word out through dry lips, his brain whirling sickeningly. "That... that was the word..." He closed his eyes tightly.

The stare that Mycroft fixed his brother with then was burning. "And how do you know that?" he breathed. "How do you know the word that led to the death of Victor Allen? Sherlock Holmes, what have you done?"

Sherlock shook his head numbly and swallowed hard, his mind still struggling to work out the full import of what had happened. "I didn't know," he managed to whisper, very quickly, and aware of how inane that sounded. "Moriarty... he told me that he had a gunman watching Mrs Hudson... and that this girl had the word that would call him off..."

But there was no gunman, there had never been a gunman... and in his own stupid ignorance, he had allowed Moriarty to manipulate him completely... Sherlock spun away from his brother, dropping his forehead into the palms of his shaking hands.

"She had the word that allowed James Moriarty to kill her father," Mycroft corrected him harshly, turning on the spot to follow his brother's movement. There was an expression of barely-suppressed rage on his face now. "The word, if I am to understand your stuttering explanations, that you gave to him." Mycroft strode forward and in one deliberate movement wrenched Sherlock's hands away from his face. "And you, Sherlock - oh, let me guess: you were playing games again. You got so caught up in your personal vendetta that you didn't even think this might be more than just about you!"

Slowly, Sherlock raised his head, his hands almost rigid in his brother's grasp. There was an expression of something close to anguish on his face, a look of horror mixed with awful realisation, and behind it, a terrible anger that was on the verge of lashing out indiscriminately at anyone in its path - including Sherlock himself.

The consulting detective locked eyes with the other man for a moment, then abruptly jerked his hands away, at the same time turning his back again. He didn't know what he could say. A man with probably invaluable information had died because of him, but that wasn't even the worst part. What Sherlock could not escape was the fact that he had not only failed to hinder Moriarty in any way, but he had actually helped the man. He had been as much a pawn of the game as either John Watson or Miranda Allen.

If Mycroft saw the anguish in Sherlock's face, he gave no sign of it; his own features were tight with fury, and he didn't even react when Sherlock pulled himself roughly away.

"So - Moriarty played you like your own violin," the older brother spat out, each word distinct and sharp as a knife blade. "And you walked right into it and gave him exactly what he needed, without even stopping to think -" He broke off, hands clenched, and started pacing again, this time in a slow circle around Sherlock.

"Moriarty may have singled you out as his special playmate, Sherlock, but that does not in any way grant you immunity! Or were you possibly expecting that he would play by the rules?" Mycroft stopped suddenly, directly in front of Sherlock, his entire stance radiating hostility. "You've been manipulated beyond what even I thought possible - and I have seen the damage a man like James Moriarty can accomplish when he holds the right pawns."

"Don't - don't - tell me what I already know, Mycroft -" Sherlock screwed his eyes shut again, his body trembling with the effort of staying in one place, while at the same time he felt rooted there anyway. He could feel his brother stalking slowly around him, like a hunter examining the prey he had just cornered, and he flinched visibly when the other man's last few words lashed into him. Something inside him broke.

"Leave me alone!"Sherlock's voice was a hollow snarl. His eyes snapped open again, and he shoved Mycroft aside furiously, making for the door. It was as though the machinery of his brain had been caught fast by something, and was slowly overheating as it desperately tried to grind forward again.

"I won't - certainly not if doing so is tantamount to lending Moriarty a helping hand!" Mycroft's words cut sharply through the room, following Sherlock even as his brother took a furious step forward as if to go after him.

Oddly enough, the door to the study opened before Sherlock had even gotten to it. "Is everything OK in -"

John broke off, his expression slipping from puzzlement to deep concern in a matter of seconds as he looked from Sherlock's snarling features to those of Mycroft, which were tight and livid a few feet behind. Without even registering what was going on - and he honestly had no clue - John hurried forward, throwing out a hand to catch Sherlock's shoulder before he could leave the room.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, looking between the brothers with a feeling of shock. He was perfectly well aware that the two did not get on well, but never had he seen them at such odds as he did now.

It was a mark of how deeply this series of unpleasant revelations had stung when Sherlock hardly even paused to register that John had just walked in. All he knew was that he wanted to get out of here, away from Mycroft, away from anyone, and he didn't really care what would happen if someone got in the way of that. Thus when John grabbed his shoulder, bringing his stiff strides to a sudden halt, Sherlock reacted almost on instinct; he tore himself out of the other's grasp and deliberately knocked his hand away, hard.

For a moment, John felt a surge of shock, but it did not last very long. His face set, he whirled around and caught hold of Sherlock's arm, pulling him deliberately back into the room. "I'm serious, Sherlock," he said grimly, his voice low and warning. "Something's happened, hasn't it?"

"What's happened," called Mycroft, who had appeared content to simply watch the exchange, "is that my brother seems to have switched sides." His voice was practically dripping with bitter slowly, he came forward, and once again his eyes were locked on Sherlock. "Although - he's apparently too ignorant to have recognised the fact."

Sherlock only allowed himself to be dragged back beside John so that he could fix his brother with a murderous glare. Part of him was sure that the single thing keeping him from physically hurting Mycroft was his friend's hold.

"I - am not - his pawn," he breathed jerkily, his breath hissing from between clenched teeth.

Mycroft lowered his voice to match that of his brother. "Then why don't you stop playing the part?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

John opened his mouth to say something, but bit it back as he suddenly felt Sherlock go rigid within his grip. He tightened his hold; at any moment it felt as though Sherlock would try to break away from him and do - something - to his brother. "Sherlock..." he began in a low voice.

Sherlock, however, was completely ignoring anything John was trying to say; he had eyes only for Mycroft, and at the moment they were filled with something remarkably close to hatred. He started involuntarily, as though about to wrench himself free of his flatmate's grasp, but seemed to catch himself a moment later.

"Does this look like playing to you anymore, Mycroft?" he shot back, after several seconds of trying to find the right words.

"I'm afraid I can no longer tell when you're playing and when you're not, Sherlock, because it seems to amount to the same thing!" Mycroft had moved very close; their faces were only inches apart now, and John couldn't help notice the contrast - one pale, the other mottled with anger, but both tight and slightly desperate.

"Don't blame me for that!" Sherlock spat in reply, his features twisting. "I'm not the one who turned this into something more than a game!" He was breathing very hard now, and the trembling of his form was obvious.

Mycroft's reply was harsh. "I blame you for failing to realise it!"

Sherlock seemed to struggle with that for a moment, because in all honesty, he could think of no real response to what was essentially the truth of the matter. He had failed to realise it, and though he knew that Mycroft would not have fared any better, his mistake still felt like an open wound. Sherlock stared at his brother in agonised silence, then finally tore his gaze away, pulling himself from John's grasp in the same movement. Without another word he turned sharply and stalked away to disappear through the door.

John continued to watch Sherlock until he was out of sight; then, with a long, slow sigh, he turned back to Mycroft and gave him a hard, expectant look. "I think," he said, very quietly, "you'd better explain what's going on here."

We do not have happy Holmes brothers on our hands now, do we? As always, your reviews are most appreciated! May the Force be with you.