"For Lydia" seems to be very quickly becoming our motto/theme song thing. I approve strongly, because in a chapter that may or may not exist in theory, "For Lydia" is an incredibly appropriate theme. We should make it official. It's a very simple pair of words that carry a huge amount of meaning.

Such as this chapter… you asked for Mäsiar and Moriarty.

Some Wounds Never Really Heal

25

In the solitude of his dormitory, Mycroft pressed his fingers to his eyes.

"You had to go and die, didn't you?" he muttered, entirely forgetting he was talking to a ghost. "You're the only one who's actually reached him, for Christ's sake, and you had to go and die? Do you realize how fecking selfish that was of you?"

He rubbed his hands over his face, fully aware he wouldn't sleep tonight. The two Holmes brothers were connected on a deep, irrevocable level; when one was unsettled in mind, the other felt it.

"You're not here," he said. "And he is. Don't you know how that's going to torture him, Lydia? Don't you know he's never going to be the same? He begged you not to die, and you did it anyway. Sherlock never begs. Ever."

Suddenly furious, he lowered his hands. "What the bloody hell am I supposed to do?" he demanded. "What the bloody hell am I supposed to do when my brother barely makes it through the door, when I think he's been murdered trying to avenge you, and he's half-dead anyway, his wrist broken, and the word checkmate carved into his arm with his own knife? What the hell am I supposed to do with that, Lydia?"

**

"There were… changes to the plan."

The voice on the other side of the phoneline was silent for a moment.

"Meet me, then," it said. "As soon as you can get there. The Dragon's Roost."

When the line when dead, Radovan nodded involuntarily, forgetting the voice couldn't hear him.

*

He stood stiffly, his hands in his pockets, fingering the hilt of one of his many knives. Radovan Mäsiar loved knives: the way they can in a variety of shapes, and yet all properly-made ones had a common characteristic, a straightness to them that was frank and didn't lie. I could kill you. Use me wrong and I'll kill you; use me right and I'll kill for you.

His steel-grey eyes burned in the dark as he probed the shadows with them, wariness in his every motion.

"I don't particularly feel like playing games," he called. "And I can hear you."

He could practically hear those eyes rolling, but the overheads flicked on suddenly. Radovan had been prepared, and blinked rapidly to clear his vision.

"As I said," he reported stiffly. "There was a change in the plans. Several, in fact."

Click. Click. Click. Click. The shoes made that sound against the concrete, over and over and over again. The figure stopped ten feet away from Radovan, aware that physically, it was outmatched. It was also aware that if he didn't step outside the meeting place unharmed, Radovan would be captured, tortured, and slaughtered.

Radovan was also aware of this fact, but as the business relationship had been a beneficial one to him, it was not worth his while at the moment to kill the other.

"Such as?" the figure asked.

Radovan lifted his head, squaring his shoulders. He was taller than the other, and would not so much as allow the smallest give of control. In the hands of the Spider, the smallest give would be the greatest mistake.

"I told you how we were being hunted."

"Yes. I told you to ensure that you lost as few of your followers as possible."

"Lino was the first. He disappeared delivering a substantial amount of iodine, and ended up in a cage. I have told you this."

"Yes."

"Lukas went into the wind shortly afterward. We believed he had been warned; that he had been spying on us for some time."

"You have said that as well."

"I told you how Francesco was captured, and how the fighting was growing increasingly violent, compared to Lino."

"Very much so."

"I told you of Sergei, how he was captured, and how Lydia turned on him."

"I do remember just such a thing."

"And I told you of Dagmar only hours ago. I told you how his snake was slaughtered, and I watched Lydia take him down myself."

"Yes. The girl had grown into a threat. I expect you taught her a lesson."

"More than that. Our laws are absolute, and do not allow exceptions in any form whatsoever. I told you I had my suspicions of who she was working with. You agreed with them, but told me to find more evidence. And so I did."

Radovan stepped forward, seizing utter control of the conversation. "I came here, this time, to give my final report. I came to tell you that Lydia Martensson sought me out only shortly ago and tried to trade her doomed life for someone else's. I came to tell you that this mysterious person apparently worthy of her sacrifice was no other than He Who Walks Alone, Sherlock Holmes."

The figure raised his eyebrows.

"I came to tell you that Holmes and his brother had followed Lydia. That he made a mistake, and revealed himself to me. That he would have begged for her life, no doubt, as I held her against my chest as a human shield- I do not regret it- and realized something that changed everything."

"Oh?"

"They had fallen in love. She would have given her life so that he could live."

"Most interesting."

"Yes, I thought so myself. It was very entertaining to deliver a death blow, stabbing her heart, and watch from the shadows as he begged her not to leave him. It was most amusing when she asked him to finish it, for her, and when he agreed. It was delightful when Mycroft tried to stop him, and Sherlock raised his knife and said that if he didn't let go, he'd cut him just as deep as he would me."

The figure grinned, and then actually laughed, the sound echoing and mutating. "Oh, how I envy you, Radovan."

Radovan's lips twitched. That was all he allowed himself. "It was quite amusing when he pursued me and fell for my little trap, breaking his knife and then proceeding to use it even though the handle had snapped, an action that ended up cutting his hand to the bone. He fought desperately, insanely, and scored several hits, but in the end, I bested him."

"Is he dead, then?"

"As far as I know. I broke his wrist without getting a reaction, and knocked him out by smashing the pommel of my sword into his head."

"Nothing else? I'm disappointed."

Radovan smirked. "Not quite. I carved the word checkmate into his arm. Paired with this…" He pulled out his phone, showing the Other the text he'd sent. "It is very fitting, is it not?"

"Oh, aye, very fitting," the Other said reverently. "Magnificently done, Radovan. Magnificently."

"He might live," Radovan said indifferently, shrugging as he put the phone back in his pocket. "A miracle might happen, and he might live. He's been known to be infamously hard to kill. If that happens, well, I've bested him once, haven't I, when rage when in his blood and murderous fury in his brain, when the grief for his one true love was fresh?"

"Quite," the Other said softly. His accent was strange; something looked upon as odd even by those who were from the same area as him.

"I took one," Radovan insisted. "I can take the other."

"He failed to save her," the figure murmured. "Oh, how that will torture him…"

The brown eyes lit suddenly, turning back to Mäsiar. "But first, one more favor-"

"Doparoma!" The Slovakian curse was spat suddenly, with the added effect of Radovan spitting to his right. "By the gods, I've done enough for you! The payment did not cover the cost of taking two lives, of fighting and spilling blood. It was good fun, but where is my reward, Moriarty?"

Moriarty's eyes glinted in the light, a recognition of two equal evils. "What if I promised you…" He named a figure, and several bonuses, that had Radovan raising his eyebrows.

"There has to be a catch," he said coolly. "Nobody would give that much for two kills and a favor."

"A job, Radovan," Moriarty returned. "A more permanent position, higher-up ranking, much more prominent. You'd be at my side, having nearly as much power as me at my left hand."

Radovan tilted his head. "And who would be your right hand? Don't take me for a fool, Moriarty."

Moriarty lifted his head. "Come on out, Seb. He should know."

The third person stepped out of the remaining shadows, making straight for Radovan, who stiffened at the sight of the rifle strapped to his back.

"Sebastian Moran," said he, offering a hand, which Radovan took.

"Radovan Mäsiar," he replied smoothly, and hedged a guess. "Ireland?"

"Aye," Sebastian agreed. "Jim and I knew each other back home, and kept our friendship going here. You've got a liking for knives? I prefer the rifle, myself. Allows more breathing room."

Radovan thought, consciously, of the empty sheath on his hip. A gun is cowardly; a kill from a distance has no effort. "A knife will always serve you proper, if you treat it right; a gun can backfire."

"Not if you treat it properly," Moran debated. "Conversely, make a mistake with a knife and it'll be the end of you. It's all about how good you are with your weapon of choice, I suppose. How about I teach you how to handle a gun, and you show me how to handle a knife in return?"

"Sounds fair," Radovan agreed.

He looked to Moriarty.

"So, when do we begin?"

His grin was fiendish.

"Now."

**

In the end, Mycroft did the thing that made the least amount of sense.

He went to Molly Hooper.

She answered the knock on her door quickly, showing that she hadn't been sleeping, either.

"You have blood on your clothes," was the first thing she said.

Mycroft looked down at himself, vaguely surprised. "So I do. It's Sherlock's. He made it back. He's fine. Actually, he's not. I don't know what to do."

Molly fell back against the wall, making a vague motion with her hand for Mycroft to come in. As soon as the door was shut, she let off a nervous laugh, in way of relieving tension.

"Neither do I, because you know what? I envied her. I was so damn jealous of her, Mycroft, because he fancied her and not me. And I can't help but think, if I'd been a little more cooperative, a little less stupid, if I hadn't forced us to show our hand with Dagmar Zajic, would she still be alive? I watched Sherlock plead with her as she died, and by God, I wonder if it's my fault."

As thoughts of the same tune were chasing each other in Mycroft's mind, he only shrugged.

"He came back with the word checkmate carved into his arm. It'll scar, permanently."

Molly's eyes widened. "Jesus," she whispered.

"Broken wrist- right side- and mild concussion, as far as I can tell," he continued, reciting the facts, feeling anxiety somehow lightening on his mind. "It looks like a blunt object was slammed against his head to make him unconscious. The message is too clear for him to have been awake for it to be inflicted; he would have fought, even if he'd been held back, and they'd be jagged, but they're perfectly smooth."

Molly rubbed her temples with her fingers. "So what do we do now?"

"That's what I came to ask you," Mycroft muttered.

Sighing quietly, Molly pulled herself away from the wall's support.

"We go and see him, I suppose."

**

He was on the very verge on entering- Sherlock would have heard his footsteps- when he paused.

"Do you hear that?" he asked.

"Yes."

Quietly, the sound of a violin playing quivered and sang, a pure transcribing of utter grief and mourning into sound that no word could hope to accomplish. The tone raised, a subdued wail of sorrow, before plunging to an incredibly low note and ending.

"Do come in, Mycroft," Sherlock's voice came. "It would be warmer in here than out there, I imagine."

As they entered, he gave Molly a small nod of acknowledgement. Mycroft, unnerved, gave her a look that was reciprocated.

Sherlock was acting far too normally. He was Sherlock. He never acted normally.

By the way his (bloodshot) eyes avoided looking in a particular direction, it must have been something visible that was driving him out of his mind…

Mycroft looked over to the desk, and instantly understood.

The scimitar sat there, almost innocently, blood covering both the blade and the pommel. On the blade it had dried to a dark, almost black shade; on the hilt, it still glistened faintly, holding on to a vestige of red.

Molly's breath caught, and she quickly looked away, instantly matching the blood pattern on the hilt to the still-present mark on the side of Sherlock's head that was slightly hidden by his hair.

As Mycroft gingerly picked it up and shuddered at the black feeling that raced into his fingers as if the knife was the essence of evil, Sherlock watched him.

"I wouldn't do that," he said, very quietly.

It was quickly returned to its original place.

"What are you going to do with it?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock stared at the swordlike thing for a minute before answering.

"I think I'm going to keep it for the rest of my life," he confided, bringing the bow back to the strings of his violin and beginning a new, equally grieving series. "I couldn't throw it away. It'd be like… throwing her away, the marker of what she did for me, and how I failed her. I can't forget that, Mycroft. I have my memories, but I need something physical. This is it."

He didn't mention the envelope that had been tucked into the drawer of his bedside table, containing a silver necklace with a ring on it, a simple-yet-complex figure adorning it in lieu of a gem.

A soaring phoenix.

**

I was fully prepared to make Moran Italian, or Slovakian, and then I Google "nationality of the name Sebastian Moran" and it turns out the sonofabitch is Irish. It was irresistible.

Lydia's phoenix necklace… something I've been thinking about and remember, deciding to throw it in there. I… quite like it. It seems fitting. Somehow.

Yes? No?

(I realized that the ring could actually play a part in a future chapter, "Phoenix Rising". Well, we'll just have to see, won't we? New plots are constantly being created…)