Jim

Three missed calls, and two gone to voicemail.

The first message starts with a string of swearing fading off the rings. To pick up where the bulk of the foul language leaves off, "…fuck's sake, boys! Listen, he's here. MI6, I mean. So yeah, I'll play it with no support, fine, I'll manage, but you can't argue with me afterwards, you pair of fucking tits! Jon, for fuck's sake, pick up. I could give a shit less about the other one, but please, Jon, call back so I can get you to come and help. I can call you and there's a man on the roof where you can get him and you could help me, maybe? I've got about two minutes, tiger, call me back."

And by the second message there's no swearing at all. In fact, Danielle's voice has gone hollow, and can hardly seem to manage her sparse, broken sentences. "Jon… Christ, Jon… Changed my mind, okay? Don't come. Fucked up, mate… Serious trouble… Tell Jim to call me… Don't care how he feels… You can convince him… Okay?"

By which stage, I'm already ringing her. That message was the call we missed while Darcy was putting Hugo in the cupboard.

It all sounds to me like Jon has done something. I can't quite believe that, so the next logical conclusion is that they've told her Jon's done something. But I can't quite believe that she'd believe that. So I'm forced to believe that she's in real, proper trouble, that the words 'fucked up' are not just her usual vulgar overstatement. That it's perfectly alright that Darcy doesn't have to 'convince' me; I just call.

"Hello?"

"Jim? Is Jon still there?"

"Yeah. Do you want to talk to him?

"No. God, no… Is he with you, is he listening?"

Me being the smart and frequently gentle soul that I am, I would lie for him. Only Jon doesn't give me the chance. He grabs the phone off me and starts asking what she's talking about, where she is, they can work it out, everything's fine, don't stress, Dani… In the course of which, Dani hangs up.

When she calls back, I say, "Yeah, yeah, he's here."

"Am I off speaker, now?"

"Yes."

"I'm back at my flat. Where I got ready for the opera, remember? Can you come here?"

"Danielle, what the fuck's going on?"

"You know that alternate universe where you work for clients? Pretend this is it. I need you to. Please?"

"…Half an hour."

"Hurry."


Sherlock

She left. Really very quickly and muttering about my surname being Holmes. For a while she thought it was all some elaborate set-up. Even when she realized it couldn't have been, it only made her worse. The world was out to get her and that was all I was – a part of the world, a paranoid nightmare.

She left first. Mycroft made sure of that. It protects him, stops the man on the opposite roof getting any funny ideas about who's in control, who to shoot. But that didn't give me the second with her that I wanted. Because I wanted to ask her if there was a reason she had come to me. There must be plenty of places she could have gone, plenty of ways to attract official attention. Why me? I'd done a lot for her and her appreciation of it was genuine. I'm convinced of that. I saw that in her face last night. She was grateful to me. So what brought her back here, of all those places? Why me? If she didn't know who I really was, didn't know it would bring her face to face with her great nemesis, then why come here?

Mycroft is sitting in my armchair, with his legs crossed and his fingers tented. Staring out over them like somewhere in the middle distance he is trying to do a jigsaw puzzle with only his gaze.

"Do you want my considered opinion?" I ask him.

"No."

"Mies and Darcy mean you absolutely no harm. The only mistake made in the whole operation was your decision to have them killed."

"It wasn't my decision, Sherlock."

"If you'll pardon my strength of feeling, Mycroft, bollocks it wasn't."

"Not mine alone."

"Oh, but someday, dear brother, hm? Someday, if you can mop up nasty little spills like this one, someday that'll be your decision, all by yourself, won't it? Someday you'll have climbed up high enough to have sole access to the lever of the guillotine, yes?"

Finally looking away from his puzzle and suddenly, piercingly, at me, "Tell me, dear brother, have you taken a moment to look at yourself in all of this? You're awfully vocal," he says, "Awfully… defensive." I have absolutely no idea what he's on about. None whatever. The best I can do is allow him to continue until I know what I'm arguing against. He takes my prolonged silence for weakness and continues, "What did Mies say to you, Sherlock? Why did you think you could hide her here?"

Still with his fingers tented, still staring over them, but turned now towards me.

Like a psychiatrist, and all I can hear in my mind is the echo of a much-repeated question, and the one he's really asking me now –

And how did that make you feel...?


Jim

Danielle looks dead. Worse than the first time we met when she was still suffering the National Gallery. Looks like the beating and the exhaustion have all caught up with her, and empty and speechless like she was on the phone.

She's sitting on the iron spiral staircase that winds up to the bedroom on the mezzanine. There's a colourful scatter of empty Starburst wrappers around her. There's black coffee on the stove, untouched, and a Magner's bottle on the stair by her side, nearly empty. She started out straight and sensible and wanting her wits about her, certainly, but the allure of stupor was too much to resist.

Jesus, I hate this place. I itch. It's all her, all her smell, all her hairs in her carpet, her cat's abandoned litter tray starting to stink by the bin. It clings like a thick, hot day. But she's sobbing on the stairwell, holding her head, so I have to at least step inside and shut the door.

"Jesus Christ, kitten…" Fuck, where did that come from? That was a term of endearment. That wasn't even a sarcastic one. I've never heard a sarcastic 'kitten' in my life. It's just all this tiger talk, more than likely. It's just the thought of Treadstone all on his own, wandering around Soho. Maybe he'll find his way back to that skanky place she sent me for the drawings and be alright. Yeah, that's all it is.

"Jim?" By the time she says my name, even that half-second, there are no more tears. Nothing. Not a hint of him, and all the evidence dragged away on the cuff of an outsized sweater. "So you did come…"

"Yeah. I think it was the bit about alternate universes that really nailed it, y'know? Nothing like a bit of science-fiction to bring a fella running to your aid…"

"I'll remember that. I'll wear my Uhura smock next time." She doesn't mean to make a joke. The joke breaks down, first into laughter, which gets gradually more desperate, and then into one wet choke before she puts the crying away again. "I fucked up, Jim. Because… because he said… He said I had to-… And he wasn't going to take no for an answer. It was one of those things – I thought I'd be able to think of a way around it. But… But I can't think of anything, y'know? It's not me, for once. For once I'm safe… But it's Jon. You won't do it for me. I don't know why, but you won't… But will you help me help him?"

She's practiced this.

I bet she's practiced this.

It's too fucking effective for her to be being honest.


Sherlock

"If you're trying to say something, Mycroft, I'd much rather you just said it."

"I just don't like to see my own flesh and blood manipulated-"

"Oh, please-"

"-And humiliated."

He continues, by the way. I'm not really listening, but I can hear him and he continues. Goes on about 'humiliation'. "That," he says, "is just exactly what it is." Goes on to explain to me why I should be feeling embarrassed and used, why I should despise her. He continues. I try not to hear him. And there's no craving just yet, so there should be no trouble putting up the usual filters. And yet I hear him. I hear every word. He tells me about the way a mind like Mies' works, that some people see others as nothing more than stairs and bridges.

He says he didn't send a raid team in here to simply apprehend and kill her because of me. Because somehow he thought this would be easier for me. This, he says, will give me more closure. Their conversation, the way she ignored me from the moment he arrived, that's supposed to teach me about the sort of person she really is and why she was here.

It's awful.

It's very, very difficult to listen to.

And the worst part? He says it all as if I didn't know it already. I knew she wasn't here just to be nice. If Mies had genuinely wanted to hide she could have shacked up anywhere. I knew all of this and yet he sits there and tells it to me and I can't tune him out. Try as I might, I can't. I sit and listen to him telling me how Danielle Mies made a fool of me and just agreed to sell out her own childhood friend in her own defence.

I listen to it, and because Mycroft says it, it has to matter. I forgot last night. I chose to. For a moment, just for a moment, I forgot.

How does that make me feel? Just for a moment? I wasn't junkie scum.

Was it worth it? Well, that's not my problem anymore. It's gone now. One way or another, whether she does what she said she would or whether Mycroft has her killed, that's all gone now.


[A/N - Hey guys. Getting kind of close to the end now. I'll probably take off for the rest of the week, get it all figured it out, make it perfect for you. Hence the three chapters today - one for you lovely people, one to see me off, and one in celebration of the Most Deserved BAFTA Ever! I really, really hope you're all still enjoying this (hint-hint) Back Soon, Sal.]