Sherlock woke up in the middle of the night, seeing that the clock only read 2:26 AM. He had gone to bed a little after midnight, which had been early for him, especially now. He had never gotten out of that university student mentality of going to bed extremely late. Well, until Alice. She had tempered that and had gotten him to go to bed around midnight at least. But now he rarely slept, and when he did, he dreamt of Moriarty, of Magnussen, and of Alice. He could tell that she was still alive (or was that misguided hope?), but it was getting harder and harder to believe as time ticked by. It had been two weeks. Two weeks since he had wished her goodbye and good luck. What was the last thing I told her?
He stood, nearly tripping over Chester. The dog had taken to sleeping on the floor, next to Sherlock's side of the bed. He still took a while to settle down every night, since one of the two people he checked for every night had been missing. Sherlock sighed, running a hand through his hair and grabbing his dressing gown.
Mary had been missing for a couple of days now too, but he and John had been tracking her down, plotting moves on a map and trying to predict where she would end up. Now they just had to wait on plane tickets that coincided with when she would be there. Mary would be fine. It was just a waiting game.
Sherlock looked over to Alice's side of the bed, which was still made the way she had left it two weeks before. He sighed again, thinking of the way she would have reached over and grabbed his arm, telling him to go back to sleep. Or she would sit up, give him a hug, and ask what was wrong. He went out into the sitting room, looking through the bay windows, out onto Baker Street. Every time, he would hope that he could see her walking down the street, heading him. But she would never be there. Instead, he would see the darkened road, or one or two people heading to night-shift jobs.
As the clock struck 2:30, he turned to head back to his room, but something caught his eye. It was something Alice had thought she'd gotten rid of long ago, something that had grown more and more tempting every day that she was gone. He had been itching for it, but had resisted for so long now. It had been buried among his science equipment, which is probably why she didn't notice it. He reached out for the silver needle, holding it gently. It was tempting. He was itching for the rush that it gave him, the blurring of reality, the feeling that there was nothing that really needed to be worried about. Just do it. You need it. Look how much stress you've been under. Do it, Sherlock.
"No," he whispered to himself, striding over to the window, wrenching it open, and dropping the needle into one of the bins set outside, watching it shatter as it hit the bottom. He dropped into the closest chair, smiling wearily to himself. He had beaten it, at least for now. Alice would be proud.
Alice too was awake at 2:30 in the morning, but not by choice. She had been woken up by the guards repeatedly for the past few days. Eurus hadn't been down to visit, but she was often played on the television screen, at least in recordings. "Get on up," one of the regular guards spat, tossing her out of bed. "You're going to talk."
"What do you mean?" She stood, wrapping the blanket around herself to shield against the freezing air. Eurus had never turned the temperature back braced herself as the guard swung, knowing that she had violated the 'don't speak unless spoken to' rule. Again.
"You're going to read exactly what we tell you to, and give no indication that you are in trouble," he instructed as another guard came down the stairs with a video camera. He began to set up a tripod as a chair was pulled over. "We're going to send a message to the government, and you're going to be the one to do it."
They took turns holding up cue cards as Alice read them, coughing in between takes. She had felt sick for a day now, something she attributed to the cold, the low nutritional value of the food they had given her, and the constant stress of being woken up and commanded to work. When the were satisfied, the lights abruptly went out and Alice was told to go back to bed.
She lay awake for a while, thinking of the flat, of Chester, of Sherlock. She pulled her wedding band out of her pocket - it was the only thing she had been able to save from being confiscated. As she had been knocked out, she'd stuffed it into a tiny pocket in her jeans. While all of her weapons had been taken, and her phone had been confiscated, that was the only thing she had left. She'd gotten into a pattern of only wearing it in the dark, so none of the cameras (which she still assumed were there) would pick up on it and the guards wouldn't take it away. She twisted it on her finger, thinking back to when she would have been able to wear it every day. It had only been two weeks - two weeks and a day now.
Eurus had been nearly begging for some sort of emotional response from Alice, but she wasn't going to get it. She would only let herself feel anything at night, when the cameras weren't watching. She would don her wedding ring and let herself think back to the flat, wondering if she was going to ever see it again. Of course she would. She would have to. There was no way she was going to let some madwoman kill her, not now.
She was worried, of course. Worried that something would happen to Sherlock, who would be frantic by now. And worried about the baby. She was sick and hadn't been given a lot to eat, which she knew was bad. She would have to get out soon.
Every time she was woken up, she would roll over, thinking for a second that she would be able to reach over and feel Sherlock there, or at least feel that he had gotten up and was out and about somewhere in the flat. But that second of being half awake would soon end when she felt the void next to her and the freezing air of her basement room. Yes, it must have been some sort of basement. There was nothing there, but the air conditioning worked well, and it had one outlet. It was probably part of a factory, something hidden underground for storage.
Alice closed her eyes, thinking back to their wedding. She and Sherlock had been exhausted by the time the reception was over, and had yawned tirelessly on their way to the hotel. They'd changed into pajamas and dropped into bed late that night.
She and Sherlock were sitting there watching murder documentaries and eating dessert. They'd been so busy at the reception that they really hadn't had time to eat much, and "why not have dessert? It's our wedding."
Sherlock smiled as Alice jumped into bed next to him, a plate of chocolate cake in her hand. "Thank you."
"For what?" she asked, her mouth half-full of cake.
"For marrying me. I never thought I'd find anyone I could actually live with and get married to," Sherlock admitted, getting up to get his own piece of cake. "I mean, I'm out at all hours and all of my life is wrapped around my work. I'm not a people person, and I'm not a… well, I'm not like most people are, and my, er, well, my philosophy is that the best use of a bed is for sleeping."
"And for cake and murder mystery marathons," Alice added with a grin.
"And for cake and murder mystery marathons," Sherlock agreed, sitting back down and wrapping an arm around her. He kissed her forehead, taking a bite of the cake. "You know I love you."
"I love you too, Sherlock," Alice told him. "I love you so much."
"I love you so much," Alice mouthed, sitting up on her cot. In that moment, she would have given anything to be back in that hotel room, with Sherlock. And an actual warm bed. And food, real food. Chocolate cake. Her stomach growled as she thought back to memories of Baker Street. Alice bit her lip, trying to stop the flow of tears, but there was no way they could be stopped. "I miss you, Sherlock."
Sherlock was exhausted the next day, but he was instantly woken up by an envelope that Mrs. Hudson brought in. He and John had been sitting in the living room, working out flight plans to intercept Mary, when she came in with the mail. "It's a bit late, I know, but the shop took forever. You've got a few letters, Sherlock, and an envelope with nothing written on it." She handed everything over, Sherlock dropping the rest of the mail on the ground and ripping open the unlabeled envelope.
Inside was a DVD, simply labeled "watch me" in permanent marker. He nearly leapt off of the sofa and turned the television on. As a picture of Alice flickered onto the screen, John asked if he should stay. "It's a personal thing, I know. You're sure you want me here?"
"You're family," Sherlock insisted. "And she's your friend. Stay."
He was silent as they watched, but John could tell that eh wasn't too pleased. Alice looked sick, much paler than usual, It looked like she was freezing, even wrapped in a blanket. He couldn't make out much of her stomach, but it looked like she was still growing steadily. "Hello, Sherlock. It's me. I'm alive, I promise." Her voice was flat, like she was reading from a script. "They're telling me to say that… that you shouldn't come looking for me, or you'll be in much more trouble, I'll be fine, but when they want you, they'll make sure you know. You'll meet them soon enough. I'm fine, I promise. We're fine."
Sherlock was watching her eyes, seeing if she was blinking anything out. There was no code there, but he could somewhat see the reflection on her glasses, and sure enough, they were feeding her lines. "Do not come looking for me. I'll be let go once they… once my usefulness has worn out. Don't worry about me, Sherlock. I know you're going to analyze this to see if it's a fake, so they'll show you the television in my room in a second, with the time and date stamp and everything. And so you know it's me - what does that say?" There was a pause while someone in the background gave a distorted answer. "Tell him something personal?" She looked right into the camera, saying, "Vatican cameos. You know what that means, Sherlock. Vatican cameos."
She took a breath and added, "I'm sorry I'm not there, but I'll be fine. Tell the others not to worry, and that you all will be contacted when they need you." The picture cut out abruptly, turning to the television screen scrolling the time and date. Alice's voice could be heard in the background, asking if they were done.
Sherlock leaned back in his chair, John turning to ask if he was okay. "Fine," Sherlock answered, twisting his wedding band on his thought for a second before jumping up and exclaiming, "I need it frame-by-frame, but I just might have a lead." As he strode over the table, Mrs. Hudson and John exchanged a look.
"You're sure everything's alright, dear?" Mrs. Hudson asked, Sherlock stuffing the DVD in his coat and reaching for his scarf.
"Yes, Mrs. Hudson," he told her patiently. "The game is on!" John nodded, following him out the door.
Lestrade was at his desk, on the phone with another division, when Sherlock burst in, demanding that he watch the DVD he was waving around. "I'm sorry, I've got to be going," Lestrade said into the receiver as quickly as he could, hanging up and turning to Sherlock and John. "You got one too? It's all addressed to you, right? They sent a copy here too. I've already sent it down for video analysis."
"It's a factory or a warehouse," Sherlock determined a few hours later, standing in front of one of the images, blown up a hundred times on a projector screen. John and lestrade sat in folding chairs a little bit away from the screen, taking in the entire image. "Look at the walls. They're coated in metal, like they're using a rudimentary way of keeping the room cold. It's a lot more likely that they took over an old building than built something like this themselves, especially if they want to avoid attracting attention. There's one light, from what I can tell, which means it's got to be some sort of storage area. And you can see her breath - that means it can get cold, very cold. Not quite a refrigerated room, but something close to it. Or it is a modified refrigerator." He turned to look at the others, announcing that, "I need a list of every abandoned warehouse or factory facility in London."
Lestrade scoffed. "That'll take days. And they told you not to investigate, that they'll release her soon. If you do this on your own-"
"We can narrow them down from right here. I just need a list -"
"Sherlock," John interrupted as the detective continued, looking at his phone.
" - of all of the abandoned warehouses and factories, limited to the ones that could possibly have a refrigerated-"
"Sherlock," John interrupted again, Sherlock turning to look at him in annoyance. "She's gotten on a plane." He held up his phone, a small dot on a map moving steadily away from Europe. "We need to go."
"I'll handle things here," Lestrade promised, standing to switch off the projector as John got up. "He needs you."
Sherlock immediately objected, sounding pained. "But Alice -"
Lestrade interrupted him. "Alice is strong, Sherlock. And you know John can't take on Mary and the man that's following her on his own. Go. I'll make sure she gets back here okay. You'll only be gone for a few days, and it'll take that amount of time to set up a rescue operation, even if we manage to find the place. He needs you. Go."