Okay, so I've not made my self imposed deadline of being done this story, but hopefully the 2500+ words of this chapter make up for it ;)
xxxxxxxxxxxx
The atmosphere in the car has been strained for the last few hours and once the train arrives at St. Pancreas station the tension cranks up even further. John and Mary silently sharing only a few glances back and forth as she carefully drives to a car park near Baker St. Once parked the silence stretches out and clings to them. As though speaking would jinx their efforts, or jar them awake to see they are actually still in the fishing boat. The palpable sense of foreboding swells till Mary has to speak, "Have you texted him yet?"
A hushed, "No." the only response as John continues to gaze out the side window toward the entrance.
Mary's lips purse for a moment to form the 'w' of 'why?', but she stops as the question becomes mute; John's waiting for a reason. The question is which reason is it? Did he think they had been followed? Did he have some reason for waiting till later afternoon? Was he waiting for full dark? Or was John simply afraid?
Taking her time she looks on as John stares fixedly out the window waiting. He sits there rigid in the seat, his shoulders squared off but leant forward at an angle, looking very uncomfortable. His arms are crossed over his abdomen the mobile clutched in his right hand, knuckles gone pale with exertion.
"John, why are you worried? No one knows we are here, we don't look at all like ourselves, there is no way we've been tracked."
She watches as a shudder runs through the muscles of his back, "What if this is the wrong thing to do Mary? Maybe I should have stayed well away." His voice is rough and low, "I knew he was alive and working - so happy - I should have left well enough alone!"
"John..." chidingly, "how could you say that, he's a gaunt wreck, much like yourself, there is no happiness in him!"
Turning around to her, anger snapping in his eyes, "And what if I get him killed today Mary? What then? If I hadn't come back he might have gone on and learned to be happy again, he..." swallowing fitfully, John gamely tries to keep talking, but after pulling in a few deep gasping breaths the sobs trapped in his chest break through. Shaking violently he hangs his head and sobs, shoulders quivering under the ferocity of the emotions.
Mary watches in shock as John falls apart for a moment, then, before she has had time to do more than raise her hand off her lap to comfort him it all stops. Once more he's chained himself beneath that iron clad will; his military training shoved ruthlessly to the fore. His left hand comes up and with the base of his thumb he scrubs the tears away before sitting ramrod straight and activating the burner mobile clutched in his right.
With numb fingers, correcting himself frequently, he begins a text,
'Plans changed, I'm done with the sight seeing, going to head back north. Can you warn your friend that I might be interested in the flat in as few as ten to fifteen days. Do you think that would suit?'
Not daring to breathe John sits frozen staring at the burner mobile in his hand. Only to jump slightly when a response comes through, the device buzzing gently in his hand. 'Sounds great, might give them time to spruce the place up a bit, lol. It needs it! Catch you later, I'm just in classes at the mo.'
In a quick motion he levers himself out of the car and goes around to the trunk, pulling out a duffle bag he packs some of their warmer clothes and then heads off to the ticket machine. Taking the parking slip he scans the leaving procedure and pops it in his wallet.
"Come on then, I need a better way to hide my appearance." and with that he makes a beeline for the dark back corners of the parking garage, out a fire exit and into the alley. After a few minutes of trailing after John, Mary speaks up.
"John? Where are we going? I thought you had to go Baker street now?" Though she tries to keep her tone steady and calming, the confusion, irritation and frustration do colour her voice, and add an edgy shrillness around the words.
Grunting John slows to a stop beside a lump of rubbish and random things. Mary shakes her head, wondering if he's going to pick through the litter when he speaks with a thick German accent. "I have a good thick jacket to trade, some socks too. You interested?"
To her surprise a youngish girl unrolls from, what she assumed was rubbish, but now sees is a carefully constructed hide for her. A fairly tidy young lady rises to her feet to inspect the articles. "What do you want?"
"Just something to blend in a bit better, so the locals won't look twice."
The three of them stand there as the young lady looks them both up and down silently. Eventually she nods shallowly, "I can switch out with your friend, but we'll have to go over to Bobby to find something to cover you mate. If you can pay entry to the club that is."
As Mary look on, her eyebrows twisted up in a look of bafflement, John hands over the clothes as well as several of their hundred Euro bills, "Sorry they aren't sterling, but I was in a rush to get to London."
Dropping the smaller bits and shoving them under her pile the girl smiles crookedly, "No worries mate, I can change them up easy peasy." Then spinning away with an incongruous air of entitlement, "Come on then lads, this way!"
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sherlock hasn't moved since the text came in, his right hand frozen holding a scalpel while his left is grasping the phone and just staring at the words.
Inside one of the rooms of his mind palace he is calmly and carefully counting out the seconds to every minute till John would arrive, in another he is frantically throwing things around in sheer agitation and worry. Suddenly a fine tremor runs through his body, like a calm ripple across a mill pond and he's carefully packing up the cross sectioned bones with one hand and texting Mycroft with the other.
That completed he becomes a whirlwind of action, carefully - if terrifically quickly - putting his samples and sharps away, rushing through the flat collecting everything he needs, shoving it haphazardly in various pockets, into his room wrenching open his window and scarpering down the fire escape.
Knowing someone has eyes on his flat he moves to the deepest, darkest spot in the alleyway, wraps his scarf around his face till barely the small slit of his eyes remains visible, his huge bellstaff curled tight to him, leather gloves hiding the blinding white hands, he presses into the brick and settles his motion in a relaxed manor he can maintain for hours.
His care for detail is not in vain as less than five minutes later an man pokes about in the front of the alleyway muttering into his phone with a thick Florentine accent. Sherlock tilts his head forward a touch when his back is turned so the white bridge of his nose is shadowed and focuses everything in on what the man is saying.
"Yes boss, I know we should have moved faster, nothing told us he was on the move, after all up until five minutes ago he was working on those bone fragments." There's a long pause as the mobile spits out words at a volume Sherlock can almost hear. "Yes boss, I know the alley has three exits, I know he could be running. I'm sure we'll s..." the rest of the sentence is bitten off in a loud spill of vitriol, in which Sherlock is sure he hears a few choice words about the mobile's owner having his kidneys removed via blunt trauma. The Italian looking around grimly passes a few meters from the detective, listening silently, without noticing him at all.
His count down room reminds him he has between three and eight minutes to get across the street. Consideringly he glances at his mobile looking to see if Mycroft has responded, whilst another part of his brain considers routes around to the opposite street a text comes through with it's quiet buzz.
There is no identifier on the message, just, 'Pick-up far end of alley, thug went right, assume a double back pattern, three minutes to meet.'
With a grin Sherlock pulls himself from his shadow and begins striding down the alley swiftly. Going around a dogleg at the end of the street he sees the usual black car waiting a few meters away, with a door open and a young lady walking back and forth behind the car, seemingly on the phone. Sherlock identifies Anthea and scrunches down to carefully clamber into the car without rocking it on it's suspension and give away the ruse. Moments later she follows and gives curt orders to get them to the house across from 221 without being followed or seen.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
John and Mary have been sitting on a stoop a few doors down and across from 221 for three minutes now and Mary is getting sick of the smell of her 'new' jacket. Sighing in irritation she shifts again, trying in vain to find a less frigid patch of concrete to perch on.
"Stop that, you look like a newby and yet your clothes are hard worn, you need to portray calm cool nonchalance."
Shooting John a look Mary is further frustrated by the fact that he isn't even bothering to look at her while he chides, he just stares down the street.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" not bothering to wait for a response she barrels on, "I mean, no one knows we're here, why can't we just wander up to the flop house and get inside?"
John spares her the, 'don't be stupid' look and just lays out the facts, "Sebastian will have eyes on the flat if not have embedded personnel on or near the property. I said I'd be there at a specific time, so we don't approach till then. Gives Mycroft time to get people in place and set up."
Mary blushes in frustration and embarrassment, "Fine, but why are we sitting on the ground?" Irritation making her voice creep louder and louder as she gestures aggressively, "Especially when there is a bench right over there!"
Grumbling under his breath and turning his body towards her, unconsciously John counters her aggression by leaning in close, his movements clearly controlled and not the frantic energy of Mary's. John looks down on her, holding her gaze till she slumps relaxed again, frenetic energy gone, "This isn't the park Mary, people would notice two street people sitting down next to the midday commuters. We'd have to take hours we don't have to set that up so it would look natural, so we sit on a stoop of a pub, a common place for vagrants to gather as this pub dosen't open till 4PM." Looking at his watch and then back down the street, "Besides, only a moment or two left, by the time you got resettled it'd be time to go."
Mary nods, shifts again and stuffs her hands between her abused cold butt cheeks and the concrete. Closing her eyes she tries to rest a bit and wish away the time remaining.
Suddenly someone is looming over them, in a loud voice the burly man curses them out, "Damn ingrates, git off me stoop!" then in a low voice, "Boss is round back, next alley connects." Mary still in some degree of shock allows herself to be pulled along off the stoop and around the corner into the depths of the alley. In the darkened corner just before the turn of the alley John slows to a stop dropping the duffle beside his feet as he cranes his head around the corner to look at who is there.
Seeing Anthea standing there ear pressed to the phone as if taking a call John then falls to the zip of the duffle and starts undressing. "Quick, jacket and disguise off." Offering a carrier bag to her open, "Stuff it in here."
As soon as their jackets are in the bag, John drops it and pulls out a packet of wipes, roughly sawing at the edge of the bald cap and his face in general. Tying in vain to remove some of the layers of grime he's developed in the last 24hrs!
Mary tisks, "Here, let me do your face and you do mine, it's a lot easier if you can see the face your cleaning."
John hesitates a second then offers her the packet whilst pulling the bald cap all the way off. His mind and body are buzzing with energy and there is a sickly feeling in his stomach, he's only minutes away from seeing Sherlock again. Mere moments.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sherlock paces through the lower floor of the building, the vagrants in the area have been treating it fairly well, there is minimal tagging and the remaining furniture is still well intact. He knows that a good number of his people would rather be off the streets for comfort, but don't want to be found for one reason or another.
Stopping short and clenching his fists to his temples Sherlock tries to stop his brain from leaping around noting all the traces of actions, benign or not, that he can see in the room around him. Pressing in harder and harder he blocks everything out in a desperate bid to retain his composure.
Not once does it occur to him to just 'read' the room and get it over with, seeking the calm from knowing what has happened. He knows that if he picks up the thread of so very manny stories he'll be helpless to keep from following each and every one of them till he has all the answers. 'Maybe I'll come with John after all this has been dealt with and look around again.'
He hears movement in the back, low pitched voices and his body is instantly thrumming with adrenaline. Furious with the reaction he chides himself, 'It's probably just Anthea and one of the other agents.' But his body doesn't listen, the sabotage (of his body over his mind) dumping of chemicals in his system continues and he remains rooted to the spot, one hand lowering the other clutched in his hair at the temple now. Feeling his body tremble he cranes his head around at the feel of a hand gently touching his elbow.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
John and Mary make their way toward the back gate of the property and Anthea, who is grinning at them. "It is good to see you both made it this far. Ms Morsten would you like to come with me to the kitchen? I've brought in some food and teas to make this op a bit smoother."
Mary looks toward John, but he's already staring into the building, like a birddog on point, so she turns fully toward Anthea and smiles, "Yes thank you, we haven't had much in the way of solid food for a while." With a knowing smile the agent leads her into the kitchen area as John follows the creeks in the floorboards from the front rooms.
Coming around the door frame he sees Sherlock for the first time in over three years and his breathing catches and his heart rate kick up as palpitations make his stomach swirl with adrenaline. As he moves forward he sees his love has lost all the weight John had managed to get on him, and then some, his shoulders seem stooped as though exhausted, though the way he's standing is as practiced as his old swagger. 'So it's a constant exhaustion,' John reasons, 'like me, so tired of trying to live alone it's like gravity has increased, drawing us down constantly, but just for us.'
Jarred out of his observations on his lost love by tremors running through the lanky frame, John is suddenly afraid Sherlock is hurting himself the way his hand is yanking at his hair. He takes that last step and reaches out to his elbow. In a flash those silver green eyes are looking into him as Sherlock looks over his shoulder and then slowly unwinds, physically and energy wise, in front of him.
They stand, staring at each other, blank faces scanning the other for information, till the smile forming on John's face is reflected in Sherlock's. Who chuckles, "Really John? A bald cap?"
Laughing John grabs the man and pulls him into a tight, slightly desperate hug, "Oh shut it Sherlock, god I missed you."
Clinging desperately to the smaller man in his arms Sherlock swallows several times to control the tremor in his voice, but is ultimately unsuccessful. "I love you too John." The two of them stay there holding each other tightly basking in the sight and smell of the other unknowingly thinking the exact same thing, 'If I die before this is over it was well worth it.'