Of all the clubs hidden in the side streets and alleys of London, La Bohème was the probably the filthiest, at least in its radius of ten miles. Grime coated the walls of it, and various clippings of newspapers, cigarettes, joints, and other such memorabilia were stuck to the matted filth. Here gathered the whores, the dealers, the pimps, and the addicts, and also many of Mycroft's "rats". It wounded his pride a little to admit the brilliance of his brother's term, but the image was fitting. When the ship began to sink, the rats began to leave, scurrying across the city, across the country, across the world, and, in the case of a prominent art thief, politician, and saboteur, to La Bohème.

Lord Bennet, a somewhat shrimpy man with a shrewd expression twinkling in his eyes and a tightly drawn face that seemed to angle downward to a point, following the sharp angle of his nose, did not seem surprised to see Mycroft Holmes when he sauntered into the club with his cane. Well known to the owners, they had learned long ago not to interfere with the business of the British Government, should it stroll in of an afternoon, cane in hand, chin elevated, eyes cold and calculating, and so there was very little of an interruption to the usual activity of its inhabitants as he entered in, lowering his head to avoid the low threshold, eyes adjusting to the darkness of the club from the brilliant sunlight outdoors.

The club was nearly empty aside from a few lonely blokes seated at the bar, heads hung low over their glasses of brandy, whiskey, vodka, whatever the strong stuff was that could, at least momentarily, lift them from their grimy misery, and they did not raise their eyes at his entrance. The bartender only nodded his greeting, eyes shifting uncomfortably, then turned back to wiping down a few glasses with a rag that almost seemed to increase the filth caked inside of them. Mycroft winced perceptibly, and scanned the room for the face he sought.

He spotted Lord Bennet from across the room, and it was then that he realized something had gone horribly wrong. While he had known that the lord would expect him, as the meeting had been arranged by him, Mycroft had not anticipated the fact that Lord Bennet had reserved them a small alcove, hidden by a gauzy red curtain, shielding them from watchful eyes. Whatever the knowledge Lord Bennet had to impart was, it certainly wasn't something Mycroft would enjoy, he realized. There was the faint tugging at Bennet's sport coat, a pistol tucked somewhere away in the depths of his pockets, and so Mycroft moved forward with as much nonchalance as he could muster, but the unsettling knowing look that lingered in Bennet's eyes was enough to put a light wobble into Mycroft's step, and he began to eye the room about him, noting any possible exits should the need arise.

Lord Bennet kept his eyes fixed on Mycroft all the while he approached, unwavering, a small mocking grin on his thin, wolfish lips till they neared each other, and he held open the curtain, gesturing inside. Mycroft met his eyes as he came to a halt before the lord, and fixed him with an intent, hard stare, before smirking, and ducking into the alcove.

He settled into one of the booths before the table, and watched with mirror-like eyes the entrance of Lord Bennet, who lowered himself into the booth opposite and fixed him with a searching look. There was silence when the rustle of the falling curtain stilled and they were immersed in the crimson haze of the light that poured through the thinning fabric. Mycroft met the gaze leveled toward him with the same cold disdain and fought hard against the tightening in his throat. Since Eurus and her experiment, nothing had been the same, as if the well-preserved mask had fallen, and for just a moment, the world had seen his face, long enough to memorize it, before it was hidden once more. With the eyes of Bennet so intent upon him, he could not help but wonder if Bennet was one such person, and so he kept a careful hand on the cane leaned up against the booth.

"Well?" he said, cocking his head to the side, voice drawling, mocking.

Lord Bennet shifted on the seat, glanced through the gauze. Mycroft was quick to follow his gaze with a faux languidness. Little moved in the club, unaltered from the state it had been moments before.

"I'm not here on my business," the lord said then, looking back and meeting Mycroft's eyes in a flash of something almost recognizable as emotion.

"Then whose business is it?" Mycroft straightened his posture, his gaze unwavering. Lord Bennet smirked at this.

"To tell the truth," he said. "I don't know." He shifted in his seat, and Mycroft raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed.

"And what am I supposed to do with that?" he asked drily.

Lord Bennet smirked, gave Mycroft a curious look, and shrugged rather anticlimactically. He leaned forward, fishing within the pocket of his coat as he did so, a cryptic smile on his lips. Mycroft suppressed the tension in his shoulders, let his hand fall gracefully to the latch in the cane, from which he might retrieve the gun hidden there. Lord Bennet did not seem to notice, too engrossed in his efforts, till he pulled from within the inner pocket a single slip of paper, and slid it across the rough surface of the table. Mycroft extended his hand to take it, slowly, cautiously, and Lord Bennet smirked.

The paper was heavy in his hands, nearer to card-stock, but not so cheap as that, of French make, genuine French make by the patterns of its surface, and handled only once, with great caution, by the original owner, then by Lord Bennet, whose fingertips Mycroft had noticed after only a short time of watching him, were eternally dirty. Lord Bennet had stored it for nearly the entirety of his possession in his coat pocket, which, based on the fresh color of the ink bleeding through the back of it, could not have been long, though the indentations on the edges of the note, the frayed corners, suggested it had been sent to Lord Bennet through the post. He took it slowly from the lord, glanced up and met his hungry eyes once more, before looking down to the slip as he flipped it delicately over between his fingertips.

Mycroft paled, and his heart dropped, and he looked up to meet the eyes of Lord Bennet, fumbling for words, letting the paper fall back to the table. In the light of the dim lamp that hung over the table could be glimpsed two words, the ink a glare against the paper.

Lingchi. -M

The 'M' was huge, taking up a majority of the space, the royal blue of the ink spiderwebbing out as it seeped into the grains of the paper where the writer finished with a flourish, and Mycroft sat back, staring it down with a hard look, the color slowly returning to his features, the once cold eyes now suddenly dark with suspicion and fear. Before him, Lord Bennet sat back, and something of a chuckle rippled through his chest as he noted the terror that had passed through the man before him, the man he had once so feared, but the silence was shattered with a shout from the bartender, and the two of them jerked their gazes in the direction from which it had come, alarm spasming through Mycroft.

"Get down!"

Without a second thought, Mycroft slipped the note from the table, into his pocket, and threw himself down from the bench, ducking his head when the explosion happened, roaring and ringing out, a thunder-crack, tearing through the atmosphere, blasting apart the club, barely patched together, fire soaring through the air and along the rafters as Mycroft fell still beneath the booth, the debris falling with heavy thuds over him, and all went black.

- - -

He woke slowly, his eyes flickering open till, with woozy vision, swimming in pain and disorientation, he was able to observe the world that had transformed about him. The open sky was above now, but choked with a heavy black smoke that billowed up from the skeletal carcass of what once was La Bohème, the barstools and furniture tossed about, the gauzy curtain that once shielded their alcove from unfriendly eyes now smoldering, the edges caught fire, burned up nearly to what was left the roof. With a muttered curse, Mycroft shifted his weight, gasped at the pain that surged from his arm, and let his eyes slowly fall to observe the damage.

It was broken, twisted at a horrible angle, almost unrecognizable with the burns that disfigured it, for he hadn't been swift enough to pull it beneath the booth with him, but there were more pressing matters, and he steeled himself, forcing his gaze to pull itself up from the mangled sight to observe the remains of the club. From what he could see, there was no movement from around him. He hadn't been out long, then. But the bomber had to be somewhere, and he swallowed past the ash clogging his throat at the thought that the bomber himself could be one of the corpses tossed back from a blackened crater in the floor, bodies ripped to shreds or contorted into disfigured, mauled forms that might once have been men. He averted his eyes from the severed leg leaking blood like a stream across the floor toward the crater, and began to extract himself.

The wood of the booth was hot to the touch, and at his first contact with it, he pulled away, hissing in pain, then reevaluating his approach, searching with his good hand for a hold in the cracked, shattered concrete floor. There was a ledge where a rift in the floor had opened up, and he pulled at it, groaning against the effort as he dragged his numb, weak body from beneath the booth and into fresher air. The difference was barely perceptible, but his lungs gasped at the oxygen not so tainted with smoke and ash, and the desperation gave him strength. Renewed somewhat, he began to move faster along the floor, hauling himself out with his one good arm as far from beneath the booth as he could make it, glancing up to realize that the table had disappeared, vaporized by the blast, and then his eyes drifted downward.

Vomit rose like a torrent from his gut, and he began to choke on it. Lord Bennet was impossibly dead, blood spurting from him, his skin boiling and tattered with burns, bones barely peeking through, his eyes glazed and open, mouth gaping in an agonizing wail of pain, cut short, the skull cracked open and bleeding heavily, staining the ground beneath him, pooling there, the crimson stream inching toward Mycroft. With a cry of horror, Mycroft leapt to his feet, backpedaling from the sight, and then he turned, fell against a wall, crushing his mangled arm and hiding his eyes as he doubled over and retched, his body racked with the heaves for minutes on end till he could straighten.

The wail of sirens came from a distance, and he cursed, glancing about for the exit. There was a back one; he'd used it multiple times, but in the unearthly haze of the desolate wasteland that was once habitable, he could not find it, and he cursed again, stumbling through the dust and the raining ash in the direction that he was convinced was correct, working hard against the ringing in his ears and the numbness in his brain, desperate to stay awake, desperate to get out, to fresher air, till he placed a hand on the familiar boards set into the wall, and pushed, falling off into the cool darkness of the stone passageway that lead to the back alley through the restaurant behind the club.

At the falling in of the door, Mycroft was suddenly debilitated by choking, and he stumbled down the first few steps, leaning back against the wall, gasping for breath against his rebelling lungs, clutching at the wall with his good hand till he could breathe once more, and with a start, realized the sirens were much closer. With a hiss of pain, he returned to the door, heaved it closed, and started down into the long dark of the corridor, eyes bent on the rays of daylight that peeked through the cracks in the wood of the exit, his good shoulder supporting him against the wall as he fumbled through his pockets for his phone, a profound thankfulness surging through him at the fact that, other than the ash and the tattered remains of the sleeve of his ruined arm, his clothes were relatively unharmed.

Finally feeling the recognizable form beneath his fingertips, he pulled it from his pocket and fumbled with the screen, his trembling fingers wrestling it under their control till he had typed in the passcode and found the contact he was so desperate to find. With urgently shaking breaths, he pressed it, and let loose a long sigh of relief when the phone began to dial the number, and the familiar picture stared him down.

Lady Elizabeth Smallwood picked up almost immediately, and Mycroft noted with some form of amused exasperation the mocking incredulity in her tone.

"I never thought you'd use this number," her voice said over the line, and he could picture the smirk on her lips, the knowing look in her eyes.

"We need to talk," Mycroft said then, his voice echoing out in the dim tunnel, dry, deadpanned, a forced calm as he fought against the pounding in his head. "Meet me at St. Bart's." He paused, glanced about himself, listened to the sirens coming closer. "Alone," he added.

Lady Smallwood took a breath, and it came through the phone, a doubtful, hesitant one. "May I ask what's happening?"

"We need to check on our Baker Street friend," he answered, voice lilting with a sarcastic tone.

There was bated breath over the phone, and then Lady Smallwood responded. "Alright," she said, and the line fell dead.

Sucking in a trembling breath, Mycroft pulled from his pocket the heavy, expensive paper, now marred with ash, but the words still shining in the rays of light that broke through the door before him. He swallowed.

"Lingchi," he said to the darkness, the word heavy on his tongue as he pressed on toward the exit, slipping the note back into his pocket. "Lingchi."

- - -

"Well," Jordan said, breathing out an incredulous laugh. "At least it's cheap."

Alder smirked, her back to him as she rifled through the drawers of her desk beneath the steady eyes of Socrates, cursing herself for not better organizing her things. They would be late soon, she knew that, and she was grateful for Jordan's patience, which she had soon learned was never an assumed, farcical patience, but she refused to let Jordan pay for another meal, not if she could help it, and so it was with a triumphant "ha" that she pulled from the deepest depths of her drawer the wad of pounds and straightened, spinning on her heels to meet the amused smile on his lips.

She paused, faltered. "What's cheap?" she asked, surprised at how fast the words came to her lips. They had not come so easily even two weeks ago, when she'd first arrived.

"The apartment," Jordan gestured to the room. "Does this count as an apartment?" he laughed the question. It was rhetorical, she realized, and smirked, not unkindly, rather in understanding.

"Affordable," she corrected.

"That's fair," Jordan laughed, the clear ringing laugh that had first settled her about him. He noticed the pounds in her fist, and rolled his eyes. "I can pay for it, you know. It's not like I don't make much."

"And it's not like I don't have money," she returned, raising her eyebrows, then following him as he strolled to the door, held it open for her, letting her out into the hall.

"I can be generous, you know," he told her, and she let out a low chuckle, pulling from her jacket her keys and jiggling them into the lock, wrenching them in a twisting motion as she forced the non-cooperative lock into submission and turned back to face him. There was laughter in his eyes.

"I know," she said. "And when I need you to be, I'll ask you to be."

Jordan rolled his eyes, gestured down the stairs in a grand "after you" motion that she nodded her acceptance of, and then she trotted down the creaking steps to the door below. Throwing her weight against it, she pushed it open and stepped out into the chill air of the coming winter. Already, she could feel it creeping in her bones, and she involuntarily let her hand slip to graze the bottom of the tote bag hanging at her side, feeling the familiar cylinder of the pill bottle. She reconstructed her smile when she heard Jordan jerk the door closed behind him.

"The door's not much better," he commented when he'd finished his battle, and she laughed, throwing back her head and letting the cool breeze slip gently over her features, feeling the flush in her cheeks as the warmth of her veins combated the temperature of the atmosphere.

As she did so, she caught sight of the figure in the window across the street, and she froze then, her laughter falling into a contemplative silence. He was playing the violin again, in the button up and slacks, replacing the jacket for the silk bathrobe in a fashion statement she had decided she found to be quite endearing. She tilted her head a little to the side in a dreamy smile, wishing she could hear the music he played. She'd tried to the night before, opening her window both to let in the cool air as the pills reacted with her bloodstream and brought the ravaging, acidic, feverish heat to her body, and also to try and catch the notes he swayed along with.

"What are you looking at?" Jordan asked, when he realized she had grown silent, his gaze having fallen to Speedy's across the street, where Mr. Chatterjee was wiping windows. He looked to her, then followed her gaze to the man. A laughing smile spread across his lips.

"He plays it every night and every morning," she told him then, glancing up and then noticing his expression. She elbowed him in the side, drawing a playful gasp of pain from him as she screwed up her nose and lips in mock offense. "I just want to know what it sounds like."

"Oh, I'm sure," Jordan returned, the sarcasm heavy in his tone till she elbowed him once more.

"Fight me," she laughed, her voice rich as she set off with lengthy strides down the street, and he jogged to catch up.

"Where are we going?" she asked him then, shooting him a look out of the corner of her eyes, still crinkled in laughter, and Jordan chuckled.

"Fish and chips sound good?" he asked, and she shrugged, nodded.

"Why not?" she laughed, and they hurried on into the night.