Chapter 6

A Different John

Routine. It was something they established since John returned home from hospital. Four months later and he was fully recovered, minimal scarring resulting from his near-death experience. He'd been taken care of by the best surgeons and medical doctors available to man thanks to Mycroft. He hadn't had to be roughly patched up in the desert with limited available resources like the first time he'd gotten shot.

John continued to make tea, coaxed Sherlock into adopting healthier eating habits, and watched crap telly together. The violin music was something he was immensely glad to have filling the flat, even if at times it came at ungodly hours of the night. He never thought he'd hear another one of Sherlock's musical pieces again.

His blog was something he wasn't motivated to continue. He didn't care to put forth the effort when he felt so useless for his friend. It still bothered he hadn't confided in him his plan on that rooftop.

Sherlock continued to work on cases, John assisting him from home until he was well enough to go to the crime scenes with his partner. This time set John back on his undercover work and his handler was unhappy, essentially leaving him to the job himself. His handler waited to hear for when he produced tangible results. Not the most ideal situation, but he would deal. He always dealt with what he had to.

Days passed relatively peacefully. There was no sign of Moriarty since he all but threatened John while in hospital, and the tension between him and Sherlock at least lessened. Things weren't the way they were before because he couldn't get it out of his head that Sherlock lied to him. His best friend kept him from knowing he was planning to fake his suicide, hadn't trusted him to know and help him out.

He told Sherlock it was okay. Said the words out loud that he'd forgiven Sherlock for jumping and pretending to be dead. But they both knew it wasn't true. After all, when Sherlock jumped off St. Bart's roof, he killed two people that day.

A tad overdramatic? Perhaps. It was how he felt though. There was just no trust for Sherlock anymore. How could there be trust when his flatmate couldn't even think him intelligent enough to ask for his help when he'd been threatened. It was why his current mission for the NSA stayed a secret. It was his own work that he'd been doing successfully for months, and Sherlock would likely only insult him and then try to solve things. This was his thing now, not Sherlock's, and life was fine that way, just fine.

/

Here they were at a fresh crime scene, everything as usual. Lestrade was there, Donovan, and unfortunately Anderson, too. Okay, all wasn't as usual. A certain criminal mastermind was present. He'd shown up after four straight months without anyone hearing a peep from him or any crime that could have possibly been connected to him, right inside the station. He waltzed up to the desk and asked for DI Lestrade, who found him waiting with a grin on his face and a request to attend the crime scene he asked Sherlock Holmes to consult on mere minutes earlier. Aside from that minor detail, things were fairly normal.

Gathered around the body, Sherlock was busy doing his thing. John watched, enjoying the detective consultant once again being absolutely brilliant. Detective Inspector Lestrade stood near the wall by the door, eyes continually flickering from Sherlock examining the crime scene and James Moriarty. The consulting criminal who insisted on accompanying them to the crime scene. Anderson stood outside the door with a couple of other forensic specialists, looking a little less annoyed than usual. It probably had something to do with a very bad man standing in his crime scene.

Moriarty was not someone to mess with and once the entire police force realized they'd been duped by the mega criminal in a big way, most of them had become weary, worried, and generally unhappy. The man was a criminal of the worst kind, his work planning crimes for other would-be criminals added to the danger. The absolute worst thing was they couldn't prove any of it. London knew of Moriarty's existence and his guilt, but there was no evidence. Were there to be evidence, it was likely no one would risk touching him for fear of reprisal from his large network of criminals.

It did not escape John's notice when Moriarty moved closer to the body, and in effect, him, Sherlock positioned himself between them. He did do his best to ignore what that could mean, focusing his attention on the case at hand. The detective glanced in the criminal's direction, then moved into a crouch beside the deceased man in his thirties. His eyes scanned the body and John was almost prideful of his associate.

"Taking a bit long to come to conclusions, aren't you?"

Everyone ignored the criminal. He wasn't supposed to be here anyway. Another minute ticked by. The same voice spoke up.

"You're slipping. Should have taken that fall for real, Sherlock. Then you wouldn't have to endure living long enough to become more idiotic, like the people you choose to spend your time solving crimes for."

He was eyeing the police in near vicious fashion. A look John could read as willing to do anything to them, whether they labeled themselves law enforcement or not. He wondered if the criminal would really be willing to make a move against the police in a room full of witnesses and believe he could get away with it. It was sickening to consider such a man as Moriarty could get away with such an act. Especially if he used his snipers which were undoubtedly outside the building somewhere and claimed they weren't his. No proof. That was ever the problem.

Sherlock's eyes had never stopped roving over the body and the room itself as he straightened to stand. He probably didn't even hear Moriarty's taunting as he was looking rather pleased with himself.

"Suicide."

"What? Are you sure?" Lestrade questioned.

Anderson seemed more put off than the detective inspector. "Not possible. This is my crime scene, Holmes, and it's clearly homicide."

"Don't talk, Anderson. I can feel the brain cells dying in my mind while subjected to hearing your voice's particular, obnoxious frequency."

Moriarty chortled, Lestrade hummed, and Donovan busied herself glaring between Sherlock and Moriarty. It was possible she was contemplating whether there was some kind of diabolical partnership occurring between the pair of them. Absolutely ridiculous, but absolutely plausible for someone as convinced of Sherlock's eventual decline into darkness as she always had been. John blocked it all out to hear the deduction. He never got tired of listening to Sherlock solve a case with his deductions.

"The first knife wound inflicted was shallow and in the upper chest, non-lethal. He hesitated. The second wound is an inch lower, hardly any deeper, but it drew enough blood to stagger him, observable by the spray on the floor here." After motioning to the matching spray, he went on. "He stood in this exact spot for precisely ten seconds, gaining the will to continue. Now that the proper motion of his body against the wall to achieve the desired result was deduced, he threw himself against the wall twice more, inflicting the third and fourth knife wounds here and here."

Lestrade followed Sherlock's motioning as he resumed crouching by the body before springing up and striding to the wall he'd apparently been referencing. He pressed up close to the wall and searched with his sharp gaze and adept fingers, finding what he wanted. He pointed and stepped aside to allow Lestrade to come close to see.

"Here. He stuck the knife handle into the widened seam here and thrust his body against it until he'd done enough damage to successfully bleed out. He shoved the knife all the way through the crack with his hand to conceal the weapon."

John crouched down by the corpse and took hold of the man's arm after applying gloves to his hands first. He lifted the right hand palm up to expose the cut from shoving the knife farther into the wall by the blade's end. He smiled, a slightly forced, but genuine smile.

"Amazing."

Moriarty made a disagreeing noise, but he pretended not to hear.

"Well I don't understand. Why kill himself in such a painful manner? There are far easier methods to end one's life," reasoned Lestrade.

Sherlock smiled broadly. "Well of course there are. But he wasn't betting on my presence at his crime scene and you called me here for a reason."

"Yes. No evidence of an intruder, no evidence of anyone else present in this apartment in the last few weeks. It was unusual."

"And you were right to call me here. Otherwise you'd have Anderson's foolish conclusion this was homicide."

Anderson opened his mouth to argue and Sherlock went right on going. "It's suicide. Quite obvious really. The man stabbed himself repeatedly with the knife and hid it away in order to make you people think it was homicide."

"Which..it's not..." Lestrade carefully concluded, Sherlock swiveling around to give him a look until he appeared more confident about said conclusion. "But why, Sherlock? Why would he want that?"

"Check the life insurance policy. I guarantee he has a wife, or more likely a child, who is set to inherit a large sum of money should he die. He wanted to kill himself, but he wanted his offspring to benefit from his death. Pointless now. Suicide nullifies the policy. The child will get nothing."

"He killed himself in a horribly painful manner to try and do something for his kid. It's sad," commented John, shaking his head at the choice. "Maybe if he spent more time with his kid, he wouldn't have fallen back on a misguided idea, leaving the child without a father."

"Hm..yes, sad indeed. Perhaps he should have given ol' Jim a ring. I would have helped him do it good and proper."

Sherlock glared over his shoulder at Moriarty, eyes searching for any sign he had something to do with this. It did sound a lot like a crime scene that would pop up, should someone ask the consulting criminal for help with insurance fraud. John was the single one of the bunch to not give a reaction to Moriarty's remarks since he was doing his level best to ignore the hated man.

"Sir, I tried to stop them," Donovan breathed, coming into the sitting room behind a man in a long brown coat and two uniformed PCs.

"Inspector Dimmock, what are you doing at my crime scene?"

The detective scanned the room, eyes landing on one of them and staying there. "Step away from that body, Dr. Watson."

John looked up at Dimmock uncertainly. "What?"

The man narrowed his eyes, squared his shoulders, and approached. "John Watson. You are under arrest for the murder of Martin Lanscade and his daughter, Sophie Lanscade. You are also a suspect in at least a dozen other missing person cases, really, suspected murder cases."

"Have you lost your mind?" Lestrade demanded, looking positively offended at the accusations the other was making.

Meanwhile, Dimmock turned John around and put him against the wall, pulling his arms behind him in order to apply the handcuffs.

"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Handcuffs applied, a general body search given, Dimmock turned him round again in order to look him in the eyes for what he had to say next. "I'll personally see you hanged for what you've done."

Sherlock appeared beside his friend and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him away from the unfriendly investigator. "I won't let you say such things. Where's your proof to such a ridiculous accusation?"

"We have all the evidence we need. You care, then you can follow us to the station, but I'm taking Dr. Watson now."

Reluctantly, Sherlock loosened his hold and John's jacket sleeve slipped out from his fingers. Inspector Lestrade escorted him out and the room was left in confusion, body all but forgotten. Or so John imagined. None of them had done anything to prevent John from being arrested and walked out, not that there was anything they could do. He didn't behave how an innocent person would behave. He was surprised when the police showed up to arrest him but he wasn't surprised by the accusations of murder. His failure to be shocked and appalled gave him away. This made things much more difficult.

/

At the station, a sizable crowd of people gathered, acquaintances of John Watson. Inspector Lestrade had to tell them to sod off before he lost it, and he was already so close. The people who knew Dr. Watson were confused and uncomfortable with their confusion. Anderson and Donovan were close on the heels of their boss, who was close on the heels of Sherlock Holmes, who was practically breathing down Dimmock's neck as he led his suspected killer to the nearest interrogation room.

His suspect refused an attorney or a defense of any kind. Instead, after saying he wanted no legal counsel and signing the appropriate forms, he sealed his lips tight and adopted an expressionless mask. Before entering the interrogation room, Dimmock removed the handcuffs now that they were in the center of police headquarters of London. He gestured for John to go in, spinning to place a hand on Sherlock's chest.

"Oh no, I don't want you anywhere near my suspect."

"Suspect? It's John!"

Dimmock solidified his stance and waited. Giving his close friend one final glance, he looked to Lestrade bordering on desperate. The older man slowly released breath he hadn't realized he was keeping in and gave the consulting detective a rope to hold.

"There's a viewing room on the other side of this wall. We can see and hear the interview there. Come on, Sherlock, yeah?"

Sherlock's fists tightened, but he looked at John and they released. "Fine."

He didn't sound fine but he followed Lestrade and Anderson into the viewing room while Sergeant Donovan managed an invite into the interrogation room at Lestrade's insistence. Moriarty trailed in after Sherlock, disturbingly quiet. Perhaps aiming to be present, yet forgotten. So far, it seemed to be working.

/

"Sixteen. That's where I have your body count so far. Accurate? Or are there more we don't know about?"

John sat stiff and silent, staring blankly ahead, avoiding eye contact with the two occupying the sparse room.

"What I want to know is what went wrong this last time. How come you left the bodies when all those other times, you've been almost perfect at cleaning up the scene of the crime and removing any trace of the body?"

Silence. DI Dimmock didn't appear to mind. He began laying out crime scene photographs and files, victim files. A list was read off to John of people missing in the last year, their last known locations completely wiped clean of anything possibly construed as evidence. Last to be set out were photos of the two murdered most recently, a month ago to be precise.

These crime scenes had bodies. The father dead on a second floor landing with a bullet straight through the front of his forehead. The other, a young teenage girl, was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the flight of stairs, two bullets in her chest. John glanced over the files and folders when Dimmock insisted he do so, then went back to staring at a spot just over the detective's shoulder.

Dimmock slammed his hand down on the table beside where John sat. "Do you care so little about the lives you stole? That little girl was only fourteen years old! Is it you find no point in denying what you know to be true? We found fingerprints and blood DNA at the scene where father and daughter were callously murdered. There is no point denying. We have everything we need to lock you up for a long time."

"Tell me, do you have any usable evidence connecting those two murders to the rest?"

Donovan started from where she'd been leaning against the far wall. The detective inspector looked surprised and then pleased at his progress. He lowered himself into the chair across from John, finally managing to get the man to look him in the eyes.

"We'll find it, and even if we don't, that double homicide where you left copious traces of yourself behind will be enough to lock you up for life. Hell, it's probably enough to get you hanged."

John shrugged and leaned back in his chair, the picture of calm and unaffected. The man across from him took this as an invitation to lean toward his suspect.

"All this time, pretending you were a person who cared. They often say the real psychopaths are the quiet, unassuming folk. You fit the bill there, Dr. Watson."

"This isn't right. John is stable. Far from a psychopath. This can't be."

The primary accuser glared her way and then returned his attention to his person of interest, who was now smirking a bit.

"What? I fail to see the humor in your situation."

Nothing from John, which angered Dimmock this time. He stood suddenly, slamming his palms down on the surface of the table.

"People are dead! We have two bodies, fourteen others we're pretty sure you've killed and made disappear, and you sit there smiling? Find something amusing about people dying?"

John did look amused. From behind the one-way mirror, Lestrade lit up a cigarette. Serious as the situation was, Sherlock managed to send an irritated glance the other man's way.

"What are you doing? You don't smoke..anymore."

Lestrade didn't look at him, taking a long drag. "The day John Watson becomes a serial killer is a good enough day for me. Fuck-all with my habit. Leave me be."

He let him be, all right, when John's response to Dimmock's irritation was utterly cold-blooded.

"People die every day."

Sherlock peered at the shorter man standing a little ways to his right observing the interview along with the rest of them. Moriarty once screamed at him that dying was what people did. John's words echoed the criminal mastermind's own far too closely. Was it a message? Or just evidence of how much he'd never seen in his friend? It was impossible. He saw nearly everything there was to see. He knew his only friend, his good friend, well. John as a remorseless killer was inconceivable, impossible.

"There were more after her," John supplied, smiling that foreign smile of his promising wicked things in the future. A very un-John Watson smile. "There will be more again. You can't stop me. You'll only end up dead, too."

"I have stopped you. Your days of freedom have ended."

John laughed out loud and Sherlock began to cry. Silent tears streamed down his cheeks and he so rarely cried. He didn't understand what was going on one bit. He understood everything that went on to a point he didn't even like on some occasions. Why was John acting this way? He wasn't a murderer. He wasn't. He couldn't be. He was John.

Embarrassingly, the tears tracking down his cheeks had not gone unnoticed. Moriarty was practically grinning at him in his enjoyment of seeing such pain. Lestrade was speaking. He wanted Sherlock to leave, to go home. That was nonsense. John was his home and he was right here. He wasn't going anywhere. Actually, he was, but not where the inspector wanted him.

He pushed past Lestrade and made his entrance into the interview room. John had resumed his silence and Dimmock was red-faced angry. So much for controlling one's emotions and personal thoughts during an interrogation of a suspect. When Sherlock walked in, John looked up and met his eyes by accident, seeing untouched wet cheeks. He averted his gaze but it was enough for Sherlock. He'd seen the walls go up. John was keeping him out.

"Hey! This is my interview. You can't be in here!"

"Oh let him be."

It was Donovan who'd spoken in his defense and he gave her silent gratitude with his eyes, He stood beside where Dimmock sat across from John. He was going to get what Dimmock needed while getting what he needed at the same time. Answers to what they both believed were the right questions.

"Why do any of this? Surely you have employers. It's clear you were hired for each of the jobs since the men and women that went missing all held government jobs."

John cocked his head and glanced up at Sherlock. He was avoiding looking directly at him.

"I specialize in making people disappear. Apparently they've decided they need a fall guy. Probably for my..slip up."

"The girl. She wasn't supposed to be a casualty."

"Wrong place, wrong time. So I took her out, then took off. Left a mess behind."

Sherlock made sure he did not flinch or give anything away, no matter how shocked he was at the cold, unfeeling manner in which John was supplying his answers. He had to get to the bottom of this.

"Why run?"

"She surprised me. Caught me off guard. That never happened before."

"Yes, but why not clean it up? Make her disappear too?"

"You think it was a sign I cared? Some kid gets shot once in the head and someone like me loses it? No. I left no trace of myself at that crime scene. Like I said, my employers have apparently decided I'm to take the blame. I ran because killing the girl was not my orders. Self-preservation."

"She was shot twice."

For the first time, the real John faltered. "What?"

"You said the girl was shot once in the head, but she was killed by sustaining two bullet wounds to the chest. The first from a distance and the second at close range. Shouldn't the one who killed her know a detail like that?"

John waved it off. "Slip of the tongue. How long are we gonna do this? I'd like to have some time alone before..well."

The abrupt end caused Sherlock pause. "Well what?"

"I told you, I specialize in making people disappear. They've decided I'm expendable. They'll make me disappear."

He said it like he didn't even care. Dimmock threw up his hands in annoyance and shouted over his shoulder he was going to get coffee and would be right back. Donovan hesitated but followed him out, unsure of what she could do for John. Sherlock didn't leave. He wasn't finished.

Planting himself in the seat vacated by the detective inspector, he stared John down. He counted the time passing until he reached seven minutes. A flash of something new appeared in John's eyes and he glanced up and to the right before meeting Sherlock's eyes for the first time.

"We're not ourselves."

The words were spoken so quietly, he instinctively leaned closer. "What did you say?"

"We're not who we are."