A/N: A bit smaller, but I think it's enough for one chapter.

I may not show up on Saturday as it's been a tough week. -csf


4..

'It's not all lost yet, John. Trust me.'

I take Sherlock's words to heart and let them give me new strength.

'What now? We can't go back ever again. We can't stay here. We've got no home', I whisper, harsh and tense. Hurt and lost.

He nods to let me know he heard me, but his expression tells me of wild stubborn determination.

'So, they've got the crown jewels? I say we go steal them.'

Greg hisses at once:

'You can't just steal the crown jewels!' and he silently begs for Mycroft's support by his side. The older genius shrugs and assures:

'Fine by me, they're glass anyway. The originals got sunk with the Titanic, when a foolish young royal offered them to a chorus girl as a token of his undying love.'

I brush Sherlock's help away, feeling stronger on my own. The detective returns to his speech, arrogant and full of hot air just like the old Sherlock:

'Of course I can take the crown jewels, I wouldn't even be the first.'

The inspector scowl. 'Jim Moriarty? He doesn't have them now, the three most powerful men in the nation do, and they made Moriarty's shenanigans look like child's play. They're not just about to hand them over if you say "please"!'

'Not unless we make them hand them over, then', Sherlock maintains his determination.

'Do you even have a plan?' Mycroft queries, acting bored.

'Yes, I believe I do', the detective answers solemnly.

I smile sunnily. A good day. There's still hope.

.

We cross the streets carefully. I try to keep a low profile in my camouflage print and envy Sherlock and Greg's shabby but civilian clothing. Mycroft, the bastard, probably kept a collection of dozens of pristine three piece suits from his heyday and doesn't look the least out of place even now. I take cold comfort that he's got a sizeable green icing smudge on the back of his thigh that no one has informed him of yet. We're heading towards Buckingham palace. We've been there before, three of us at least.

Penetrating one of the best guarded premises in the world is paradoxically made easier by the publicity stunt and media circus and frenzy parked just outside. No one seems to pay us enough attention. There are reporters here from the state news and from all over the world. There's even a bunch of scouts boys making a journalism piece to earn a badge.

'We split', Greg volunteers the suggestion. 'Have a good look around. We meet back here in ten.'

Mycroft takes the crowd, mingling with ease. Sherlock and Greg head towards the back of the fenced gardens, I go the other way round.

Armed guards, electric fences, possible landmines behind the fence. All 100% unknown and 100% plausible nowadays. Fear itself is the main deterrent here. It will take a brave soul to breech the perimeter.

I come across my mates quicker than I expected. In fact they are doing such a lousy job that I just about sneak up on them. They are talking quietly before I announce myself and something in their tone of voice tempts me to eavesdrop.

'So why now, Sherlock?' Greg is asking. 'John says you two have been part of this underground resistance from the start. Why not settle in the part of renegades, it suits you both well, you know? Why take so much more of a risk now?' I hear the inspector insist. There is curiosity, but also a fatherly wish to advise and guide the impulsive detective's choices as always. I follow their footsteps, synchronizing with mine. They don't even turn.

Judging from his wool coat contour, in high contrast under the dying day's sunlight, the younger detective fakes a shrug. 'It was overdue, Lestrade.'

'Don't feed me lies. I'm risking my life by your side, give me the truth, Sherlock.' Greg is adamant. He's earned the right.

Sherlock nods, his back looking broken as his shoulders sag some more. After a few fortifying seconds, Sherlock elaborates:

'John had it the worse', he admits quietly, in a subdued voice, 'in those Reintegration Camps. Sometimes because he was standing up for me. What they did to John', he shakes his wild mane of curls by the light of the sunset, 'he's not over it yet. Physically, I mean. Torture, I think. John won't admit it, but eventually even an ordinary person like I am now can put two and two together.'

'Go on... I'm listening.' There's an uncertain edge to the inspector's voice now. I silently hate the inspector for not challenging the detective's self-doubt at once. I'm not important here, Sherlock is.

'John's heart is not as strong as it used to be. Some days, I see he struggles to get up in the mornings. As if he was accustoming itself to that deadly stillness in sleep. During the day, his heart often starts racing wildly and all colour drains from his face in a desperate last act to preserve life. Then there are dizzy spells and dead faints... I hate that he has to go out, that he keeps his job as a state's doctor. I can't stand not being there with him, not knowing if his heart has decided to beat for its last time miles away from me. You can't begin to imagine what it's like to be afraid one morning John is not going to come down anymore... I'm an idiot, I've let John matter to me.'

Lestrade dares to put his arm around the trembling figure of the once overbearing detective.

I close my eyes tight, stopping in my tracks. Never thought he'd know. I smile proudly, then. But he's Sherlock, of course. There's no keeping a secret from Sherlock Holmes. And if I tried to keep it a secret it wasn't to take advantage of the diminished detective, it was to protect his heart, so that it could keep a steady beat for the both of ours.

'John, you're there!' Greg notices suddenly. 'Mate, are you okay?' he worries the next moment.

He caught me a bit flustered, and my eyes never stray from my best friend's honest face. I want to tell him I'm alright, that there is nothing to fear, I want to abate those harried lines from his youthful features.

Instead of accepting a white lie from me, something wild takes over Sherlock's expression. He scans quickly around, finds a young reporter in a tailored skirt-suit in a live satellite connection to somewhere remote, far beyond our confines, and he paces forward on a mission.

Greg just misses his arm by millimetres, failing to hold him back.

'Hello', Sherlock accosts the journalist with an angelic smile and a perfidious plan. 'Sherlock Holmes, I'm the expert you're interviewing for your piece...?'

Whether she believes the agency sent him, or she recovers quickly for an advantage, we'll never know.

'Mr Holmes, yes...'

'The news of my retirement have been greatly exaggerated.' And his smile turns goofily overdone.

By my side, Greg mutters angrily: 'What does he think he's doing?'

I don't know. Expect the unexpected, with Sherlock Holmes. Just like old times. Whatever happens, this is the Baker Street detective returned to his rightful glory. He's fully present, and engaged, and clever, quick, arrogant and vulnerable. He's Sherlock.

'Mr Holmes, what do you think of the joyous occasion?'

'It's terribly sad. We're all prisoners here while the crown jewels have been sold to a foreign power and their glass replacement are on the hands of those three pillars of society filmed plundering the loot!'

'You're jesting, surely', she says, glancing nervously at the cameras. 'England is a free land, blooming under the current regime. Exports are—'

'We're not allowed a voice. In fact, see the guards running up to us right now? Oh, don't look so frightened, they'll know you aren't in on my devious interruption of broadcasted propaganda. In fact, I—' He stops short as he sees the guards rapidly surrounding not only him, the self-sacrificing genius, but also me and Greg.

Worse than that, the crowd starts booing Sherlock Holmes.

I step out in his defence at once.

'My god, can't you see?' I look around in utter disbelief, gesticulating broadly. 'He's right! We've been sold peace of mind at the cost of our freedom! Sherlock's right!' Faces turn away. Closed off, heavy faces that show no sympathy. Why won't they listen? Is the realisation they've been wronged to harsh to face? I scrutinise particular faces in the crowd, searching for answers. Some look sheepishly back at me, then face away. Not in refusal of my ideas, but in refusal of their power. We're lost because individually we are powerless. Oh, why won't they listen?

The taser gun's discharge hits me with its convulsing grip. Instantly I'm on the ground, twitching painfully under its commanding force, powerless to move an muscle of my own accord. Gorily dancing to a dead man's song. My eyes roll back, darkness takes over, and my last second of consciousness is marked by pure relief as the torture ends.

I exhale one last breath, my body is absolutely still as thought vaporizes into the ether.

'John!'

Terror emboldens that familiar voice, as a rhythmic thumping fills the darkness and the loud drenching sound of blood rushing through my veins again jolts me back to half-consciousness.

'Fight, John!'

I can hear the tears drenching those words, even as I lay in the limbo between realities.

'I need you, John!'

My eyelids flutter open as more blood flows up to my brain, an erratic but trustworthy breathing is taken over automatically. Someone has been looming over me, they stand back.

I feel sore, heavy, exhausted, and have a migraine I brought back from hell.

'Don't you ever do that to me again, John.'

Are really those tears in the great consulting detective's eyes? He reads the confusion of those raw, unprocessed sensory memories from moments ago, only he can make sense of the rising bile, the kaleidoscopic colours still floating in front of my eyes, the pain in every gasp, the gingerly movements of my twitching muscles.

'Your heart, John... The taser gun's discharge... I thought I lost— Your heart stopped beating. Mine may have stopped too.' His lips tremble onto a valiant sketch of a smile. 'They have both been successfully restarted, I can assure you. You taught me CPR, remember?' he adds with a crinkle of relieved humour in his eyes.

My gaze wonders about in the odd scene. So this is what victory looks, sounds, feels and tastes like. The ferric taste of blood still in my mouth. A crowd of strangers and guards gaping at us, unabashedly.

Sherlock places a warm palm gently cupping my cheek and that attracts my gaze back to source. I look Sherlock in his hauntingly green eyes.

'Sorry', I whisper with difficulty.

He chuckles, as if he half-expected the words, in half-disbelief as well, and feels he needs to shut his eyes tight before the rising tide behind them spills with the force of a tidal wave.

I think I've terrified Sherlock.

He's given his break when someone forces his way over in the bewildered void created by a shocked crowd, and with Greg Lestrade fronting the incomers, more and more people pour in the tight inner circle.

'John? Sherlock!'

I close my eyes, breathing evenly. My heart beating steadily to Sherlock's own rhythm. His resting hand never leaves my chest, measuring, studying, reassuring us both.

Too bad I'm still laying on a filthy pavement. I'd be touched by the nice caring around me if I wasn't the wretched ragged form on the ground.

'Keep it going', the journalist hisses at the cameraman that almost drops the apparatus.

The guards are bewildered, the crowd is confused, and Sherlock is venomous as he helps me up from the ground, I'm too sore to stand up straight. I do my best, though, out of useless pride, and am rewarded by a sharp collective breath as I fully extend at last. The crowd's eye is on me. It's as if they remember me suddenly, as Sherlock's authorised biographer and journalist.

'Doctor Watson', a voice says.

'Captain Watson', someone else corrects.

'John, from that Baker Street place', someone settles for. 'We know him.'

'He's an honest man. That posh bloke, he's all smoke and mirrors, but this guy, he's just a regular bloke like the rest of us. Hey, let John do the talking!' a guy demands from the crowd. The journalist who lost all control of her piece decides that's fair game. Other man and women, crowd and professionals alike, come closer. The guards hesitate to display force in such public manner. Their ear pieces buzz with short, tense orders. They stand ground, then start lifting their guns, aiming them at Sherlock and I.

Sherlock holds me up as my knees almost give in suddenly.

That little flicker of movement, of little consequence – for Sherlock always supports me and I support him – changes the whole atmosphere. One of the guards, that had his gun rudely pointing at my face, lowers it slowly.

'Captain Watson. I served under you in Afghanistan. I trust you to respect your orders. We're to go inside the palace... captain.'

I nod. A fair invitation is refreshing. Perhaps a bold new sign of changes to come.

Suddenly more guns drop. The mood starts to drift to a more natural, united stance.

A polite request, if I ever saw one. How could I refuse?

By my side, Sherlock's lips valiantly attempt to tug themselves up.

.

TBC