Sherlock knew the effect that Magnussen would have on Elizabeth. If the truth was told, then Sherlock was also very intrigued as to what Magnussen knew about his daughter. What was it that he knew? Elizabeth was a private person. She hardly shared her life online and sometimes Sherlock struggled to know what she was thinking, despite the fact that she was his daughter. Watching her as she sat on the sofa, the remote to the TV in her hands, Sherlock knew she was trying to act brave.
She had cried out of fear earlier and Sherlock knew she felt weak. She hated the feeling of being weak, but he wanted to tell her that he was nervous. He longed to tell her that Magnussen was a man who made him fear things, but he kept silent. He needed to be strong for everyone involved in this mess.
Folding his scarf around his neck, Sherlock looked to Elizabeth as she grabbed hold of her glass of water from the coffee table and took a long drink. He shrugged into his coat before speaking;
"I need to go out this evening," he informed her. "I am meeting Janine. I have a feeling I need to break things off with her."
"So weird," Elizabeth muttered. "Do you intend to tell me what you are doing?"
Sherlock nodded, suspecting that it would be best for her to find out now instead of later when he returned, no doubt with a red cheek from being slapped by Janine.
"Janine is Magnussen's PA," Sherlock said and Elizabeth shook her head, placing her glass back down before burrowing her forehead into the palm of her hand, her elbow bent on her knee as she doubled over. "I have been involved with her for the sole purpose of gaining information. I intend to go to her work place this evening and sneak into Magnussen's office to see what it is he knows about Lady Smallwood."
"This is madness," Elizabeth said.
"I know," Sherlock said. "The fact that you and John possibly thought that I was in a relationship with her is ridiculous."
"Not that," Elizabeth shook her head, waving her hand before nodding. "Well…yeah that too," she mused, "but the fact that you dated her to gain information on her boss. Dad, do you ever consider anyone's feelings?"
Sherlock's brow furrowed. "Of course," he said.
"Anyone other than me and John and Mary," she responded.
"Oh," Sherlock mused.
Moving to her feet, Elizabeth folded her arms over her waist before looking to her father with worry. It was another moment before she dared to step closer to him as she spoke, not wanting to lecture him, but feeling slightly annoyed with what he had just done.
"Dad, I might not like Janine," Elizabeth said. "In fact, I think she is quite cringe worthy and self centred, but she is still a person. She still has feelings and she thinks that you genuinely like her. She thinks that you actually have feelings for her."
Sherlock frowned. "Well, yes," he agreed, "but I do not intend to tell her that she has just been part of a plan."
"Well, that should make her feel better," Elizabeth scoffed. Before Sherlock could say anything further, she held her hand up to silence him as she moved into the kitchen and he followed her, standing in the doorway. "Just be nice and gentle when you do break up with her, okay?"
"I will do my best," Sherlock said in response. "Just as I know you shall do your best not to think of what he said to you earlier."
Elizabeth gulped and began hunting in the fridge for something to eat. She kept her gaze fixed on the contents of the fridge. "Nothing scared me," she said, the lie coming clearly from her. "He…he was trying to scare me, but I am fine. Honest."
"You are a terrible liar," Sherlock responded. "Elizabeth, you do not need to hide from me."
"No," she agreed, "but I do need to try to be stronger. First Moriarty and now Magnussen…all these men seem to want to do is ruin my life and I will not let it happen again. Magnussen has nothing and I know he has nothing. I am boring and my life is pretty dull nowadays. He was bluffing."
"I should suspect so," Sherlock said with a nod of his head.
"And he can't win," she responded. "He won't win. It is as simple as that, dad."
"Indeed," Sherlock responded with a nod of his head. "Anyway, I need to go, Elizabeth. Can I trust that you will be fine by yourself?"
"Yeah," Elizabeth shrugged. "I'll see you later. Did you want any dinner saving?"
"No, thanks," Sherlock responded. "I get a feeling I won't be all too hungry when I return."
…
Elizabeth didn't know what was running through her mind once she had ended the phone call with John and he had told her what had happened. She had rushed around the apartment, a feeling of dread and sickness taking hold of her as she moved. Her hand held onto her stomach as she leaned over the sink for a moment and contemplated vomiting her dinner back up. Nothing came. Nothing came except for tears down her cheek.
She grabbed hold of her coat, shrugging into it before taking hold of her bag. She made sure she had her purse and keys before leaving the flat. Rushing down Baker Street towards the main road, she did her best to hail a cab, her arm flailing into the side of the road before one finally stopped. She instructed the driver to take her to the hospital where her father was before looking out the window.
The cabbie didn't bother to make small talk with her as her leg tapped up and down and she cursed every red light they came into contact with. As they approach the hospital, she grabbed hold of her debit card and paid for the fair, struggling to care about the cost. Moving from the cab, she looked up to the hospital before she saw John stood by the entrance, his hand holding onto his phone.
"Lizzie," John sighed her name as she approached him, her face pale and her eyes wet.
"Where is he? What happened?" she demanded from John.
"He is in surgery," John said. "He was shot…I don't know who did it or why. We went to Magnussen's office and his bodyguard and Janine had been knocked unconscious. I stayed with Janine and your dad went off. I heard the shot and called the ambulance."
"How bad is it?" Elizabeth fretted.
John gulped. "There…there was a lot of blood. I put pressure on the wound while we waited for the ambulance. I don't know if I did enough."
Moving to place a hand on John's arm, Elizabeth nodded at him. "I am sure you did more than enough," she assured him. "Come on. We should go and wait for him."
John led her back to the waiting area where he had been sat. She continued to pace around the clinical looking room, hands on her hips as she went. John sat down, his foot tapping up and down as he chewed down on the inside of his cheek. Looking around the room, John did all he could not to think the worst. No one had been to them in over two hours. The waiting area was empty and the magazines on the coffee tables were untouched. No doubt people had very little interest in the latest celebrity gossip while waiting to hear news of a loved one.
"Miss Holmes?"
A surgeon dressed in a blue set of scrubs poked her head through the door, her hair hanging in a low ponytail and her eyes tired as glasses perched on the end of the nose. Elizabeth nodded and the woman entered the room fully, her hands in front of her and her fingers laced together.
"My name is Rachel Fines," the woman declared. "I operated on your father this evening."
"How is he?" Elizabeth asked as John stood by her side.
"I am not going to say that he is out of the woods just yet, but we managed to remove the bullet. His wound was internal and the bleeding was quite substantial, but your father was lucky. The bullet didn't pierce any of his major organs, nor did it too much damage to muscle or tissue. Whoever happened to shoot him was either a very good aim or a very lousy shot."
Elizabeth didn't care about any of that as Rachel continued with her evaluation.
"We have stitched him up and he is currently sleeping. We will keep him sleeping until morning and when he wakes we will need to make sure that everything is fine. He is going to be monitored and on morphine. I have to say that rest is key for him now."
"And can I see him?"
"Of course," the woman managed a kind smile before leading the way through the hospital.
Entering the small room, Elizabeth didn't know whether to cry with relief or faint with horror at the sight of her father. He was laid on the bed, a tube in his mouth and wires connected to his body. John took hold of her hand tightly as Rachel stood on one side of the bed and Elizabeth and John moved to the other side.
"He's very stable," she informed them as she looked to the monitors, clearly able to make more sense of them than Elizabeth or John could. "You should be alright to stay with him until morning when we have him breathing on his own."
"Thank you," John spoke to the woman.
Leaving them alone, she left the room before Elizabeth sunk down into the chair by the bed. Perching on the edge of it, she took hold of Sherlock's hand as John moved to grab the chair from the corner and drag it towards the bed.
"You idiot," Elizabeth whispered to her sleeping father. "Can you hear me? You are an absolute idiot. Do you not understand that I thought you were dead once before? If you…if you really leave me…"
"He won't," John whispered. "He's going to be fine, Elizabeth. You will see."
….
Standing outside the room that Sherlock was in, Mycroft let his eyes roam through the glass and land on his brother and niece. Elizabeth was curled up in the chair, her neck at an uncomfortable angle as she rested her cheek against a pillow and her body was covered in a blanket John had thrown over her.
"He is breathing on his own," John informed Mycroft as they remained stood outside. Mary had arrived and left for the cafeteria when she had seen Mycroft approach. "The doctors think he will be awake by tomorrow morning."
"Good," Mycroft said.
"I take it you are trying to find out who did this to him?" John questioned.
Mycroft's brows furrowed as he nodded his head, his eyes still set on the room despite the intense stare John was directing his way.
"I am," Mycroft said in a soft voice. "My search has proven to be inconclusive thus far. Do not fret, John, whoever did this to Sherlock will be caught. In the meantime, I worry that my brother might have a bigger problem."
John frowned then. "He was just shot. What is his bigger problem?"
"A scorned lover."
…
Elizabeth was fuming as soon as she found out. She was even more fuming when she saw the woman enter her father's room. Moving to her feet, she knew full well that she looked a mess. Her clothes were in disarray on her body and she hadn't showered, brushed her hair, or changed in that time. As Janine entered the room, Elizabeth pointed back to the door.
"Get out," she demanded from the woman.
Janine managed to look slightly nervous before she shook her head.
"He needed to pay for what he did to me."
"And he did, didn't he?" Elizabeth demanded. "He's lying in a hospital after being shot. Was that not enough for you? Did you need to twist the knife a little deeper?"
Janine rolled her eyes. "He is going to live," she said. "Besides, he played me. I genuinely thought he loved me."
Elizabeth sneered. "You know, I felt sorry for you when I found out," she said. "But now I know what you are: a self-centred, greedy, narcissist."
"And your father isn't?" Janine wondered back.
"Get out!" Elizabeth yelled at her as Janine tossed the papers onto the end of Sherlock's bed and backtracked towards the door. "Get out!"
Janine left the room as Elizabeth turned back to look to the bed where her father was laid. She was about to sigh in defeat before she saw him. Sherlock had his eyes opened, his gaze set directly on his daughter as he nodded to her.
"Well that was an interesting thing to wake up to," he informed her.
Elizabeth almost let out a laugh in relief as she moved back to her chair, taking the newspapers with her. Sitting down, she gulped once and shook her head as she straightened the newspapers on her lap and looked down to them as Sherlock observed her.
"Trust me, you're going to want to fall back asleep after reading these," she informed her father who arched a brow. "Janine went to every newspaper she could think of and told them what you did to her and more…she…let's just say they're not exactly nice things that she wrote."
"Did she drag you into anything?" Sherlock enquired.
Elizabeth scoffed. "Only to say that I was a nice, if not slightly broken, young woman," Elizabeth answered.
"She had no right to do that." Sherlock muttered.
"She had no right to do any of this," Elizabeth responded.
"No," Sherlock said. "She can drag my name through the mud, but you are not me, nor should you suffer for what I did. I shall speak with her at a later date about that."
Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth tossed the newspapers onto the bedside table before watching her father for a moment as he closed his eyes, clearly in slight pain before he opened them and looked to the ceiling.
"How long have I been out for?"
"Approximately forty hours," Elizabeth answered him. "I guess when you're shot, you need a while to recover."
"Indeed," Sherlock answered back.
Shifting on the edge of the seat, Elizabeth whispered to him; "Who did this to you?"
There was a brief moment of worry that crossed Sherlock's face, but he concealed it after a moment. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and looked Elizabeth in the eye.
"I don't know," he answered to her. "Whoever he was, he wore a mask."
"But why?" Elizabeth whispered. "Magnussen lived and so did Janine and that bodyguard. Why did he only shoot you?"
Sherlock shrugged again. "I cannot pretend to know the workings of a stranger's mind, Elizabeth," Sherlock told his daughter. "Believe me, if I knew then I would be the first to tell you. I do not entirely appreciate being shot."
Elizabeth scoffed again, bowing her head. "Yeah, join the club."
Sherlock saw the look on her face then. She was pale, her eyes still wet and bags forming underneath them. She looked exhausted and her clothes were creased while her hair was slightly greasy and in limp locks down her back. She hadn't moved from his side since he had arrived, no doubt. Then again, he would not move from her side either.
"Elizabeth," Sherlock called for her gaze and she glanced over to him as he moved his hand from the bed and rested it on her arm. "Go home and sleep."
"I'm fine."
"Your face tells me a different story," Sherlock responded. "I am fine. Nothing is going to happen to me. Go home and get a few hours sleep and a shower. I will be in this bed when you return."
"I-"
"-It isn't up for debate," Sherlock interrupted her and she felt her lips quirk before nodding and moving to her feet.
Bending down, she hastily kissed her father on the cheek. "Don't scare me like that again," she urged him and Sherlock nodded.
"Never," he assured her before watching her grab her coat and bag and leave him alone.
As soon as she had gone, Sherlock moved then, knowing exactly what he had to do before it was too late.
...
A/N: Do let me know what you think!
