A/N: Technically, it's the continuation of the continuation. I'll wrap it up in the next one, I think. -csf.
continuation.
'And so Sherlock Holmes became the infamous Baron Maupertuis.'
I shake my head, bewildered. 'It's like a bad take on "what did you do over the summer holidays", isn't it? "Who me? I ran a worldwide criminal web for a friend, and you?" Oh, Sherlock...'
'Sarcasm, John', he warns.
'Yes, yes it was', I retort.
Sherlock's face hardens as he scrutinises me over united fingertips of his long slender fingers. Finally he tilts his head.
'You are troubled, John. Long before the sterner parts of my narrative. I wonder if you can stand to listen to the rest of it.'
I set my jaw and glare at the detective. 'Mate, really? Think I'm a sensitive wallflower? Bring it on. Posh private school boy goes on mad gap year abroad and he's missing home, that's all I heard so far.'
His eyes turn mercurial cold as he pins me to my seat with rightful anger.
'That's not actually very different from how you reacted in my mind, John. I am all too aware that my imagination re-enacted you quite accurately.'
'What do you mean?' I question him with a dead weight weighing on my stomach.
'You loathed me, John. Because I stood and watched a man die, a man I was ready to kill myself, but gratefully I let someone else take the burden. I trusted her. It came at a price. She knew my secret, she could expose me as a fraud and destroy me in a second. My life in her hands. I also let her protect me. Guide me in Maupertuis's organisation.'
'I thought you were meant to bring it down.'
'I was. But I realised I hadn't gone high enough. Maupertuis was a puppet to some new master. I had to lay low, live the Baron's life, and identify the target to destroy.'
I smirk and shake my head. 'Right. I see. You were coerced to a life of luxury and crime away from London.'
'In a way, yes', he agrees, strangely subdued. 'I didn't choose. Could have been a spell among Tibetan monks or a fortnight pegged by jury duty in Germany. Not a choice I made. I went where the ultimate case lead me', he insists. Just before he smirks. 'But I did get my tailored suits back for a while there.'
'Yeah. Bet that made it up for any inconvenience.'
'Sarcasm, John.'
'Yes, Sherlock. Right again.'
He decides to avoid conflict, by elaborating some more: 'And while it lasted Moriarty was winning. He had corrupted me. Turned me to the dark side. In order to save you, London and bring down the last of a criminal network that could infect and destroy the world, I had to be Moriarty's pawn. Take the Baron's place. Little could I do. I sent mercenaries to the wrong locations, sparing targets in the police and parliament a couple of times. I pressured a few lone soldiers to give up their trade. I bought a shipment load of ammunition and had the warehouse destroyed by arson overnight. With every little action I tied the Baron's hands around the smoking gun. But that wasn't enough. I was living inside the circle of trusted criminals. In order to keep the Baron sabotaging their plans, I had to keep their trust, go to the needed extremes.'
'Go on', I whisper.
He shrugs, looks away, blanks his face as if he was discussing toothpaste brands.
'Drugs, alcohol, anything that would numb me to better perform the part.'
I get up. Upset, angry, spinning thoughts in my head like daggers. I spin to turn to him as if I could hit him with the wind whiplash. He reacts all the same, reconciling slightly.
'You don't get to do this, Sherlock!' I yell at him, forgetting how pointless it is to argue over events of the past. 'You don't get to act like what you were going through gave you carte blanche to destroy yourself! Nothing ever gives you the right to destroy who your friends and family love. Nothing, do you hear me? Nothing.'
'No', he agrees, gravely. 'You tried to tell me as much. So I muted you.'
I stop my wild gesturing and pacing the room. Sherlock is immobile, a hateful picture of calm and control as he throws me into a nosedive tailspin.
'Muted me?' Oh, that's grand, real grand!
A small smile fleetingly settles on his lips as he ponders me. 'More like mentally kidnapped you and kept you hostage in some dark corner of my mind, where your influence could no longer judge me – nor guide me.'
I dive on my chair, deflated. 'Is that how you see me? Your bloody conscience? Is that what I am to you?'
Sherlock acts aloof. 'In my mind you were more of a boring moralist, I suppose. I was yet to find out how we are so quick to appoint to others the flaws we find in ourselves, and if we turn away those who most want to help is so they don't see our own shortcomings. John. You had strong opinions on the Baron's lifestyle. I see now they were but my own objections projected onto your memory. In the end I pushed goodie-two-shoes intentions away. There was immediate recompense. I enjoyed it as a coming of age, a gap year to be wild and free as you said. I nearly lost myself. Somewhere in the process you became a fond memory, a closed chapter in my life.'
'Is that why you never got in touch with me? One simple message would have changed everything.'
'At first, yes. You weren't kind over my choices in my mind, how could I expect differently with the real you? Facing you would have made my resolve falter. I needed to keep you locked away.'
'But you came back all the same', I whisper. He did, he's here now. 'What changed you? What opened your eyes in the end?'
'I was betrayed by the only one I gave my trust to.' He smiles fondly at me. 'I learned not everyone can be my blogger.'
.
In order to be the Baron, Sherlock Holmes had to live like the Baron. It was hardly the time for a lifestyle change without drawing more attention to himself. And the endless party revelling was not wholly disagreeable, for it should be said Sherlock Holmes never drew a line at the type of companions he would keep. One minute surrounded by royalty when summoned to Buckingham, the next playing cards with the homeless under the London bridge.
When Sherlock found himself surrounded by petty criminals and hardened mercenaries, it only tickled his amusement, that he could so flawlessly fit in there too.
Before he knew it, the status quo would change yet again.
It had been a chilly autumnal day and the trees were shedding their last leaves, bowing to the upcoming winter.
When had it become day? What day was it?
Sherlock stumbles into the penthouse floor right out of the private lift, feeling a bit stiff in his legs, his back, his brain.
'Mother, I'm home!' he says, chuckling at his own joke.
The imperturbable cougar lady walks calmly out of the bedroom, a gun trailed on her fingers, and an incongruous party dress hugging her figure. She doesn't smile, not in the least when she holds up the early edition newspaper.
'What have you done?' she demands, cold.
He hiccups, blaming his state while she's so clearly... upset. Why is she upset? Did she find out about the diverted ammunition cargo in Gaza or the returned Vermeer in Florence? Unless Sherlock messed up and delivered the Vermeer to Gaza. Sherlock really hopes he was more sobered up than he is now.
'I need a lie down', he whines, bypassing the armed woman. Serious mistake, turning his back like that, but he trusts her too much.
'Who's this?' he asks, suddenly sobered up as he sees a tall ginger bloke coming in from the terrace double doors. Even now, just like a child, he's asking her to explain. Trusting her to make sense of the plot twist for him.
'He's you', she answers. Calm, cold, implacable.
'Me? I'm me, so he can't be me. I'm better looking than me! You can't replace me, I'm the Baron!' It comes out as a rant, and by golly, Sherlock means every word of it.
'No', the newcomer states coolly, a snarling smirk as he watches the state of the wreck of a man in front of him. The man who defeat Moriarty had ultimately defeated himself. 'You're not the Baron Maupertuis. I should know, I put the Baron in charge at Jim's request. You are not him.'
"Jim, Jim Moriarty? Hiii!"
Sherlock had just hit the jackpot. Unluckily for him, he wasn't as fully sober for this as he should have been.
The detective steps back reflexively, unable to contain his reactions as he normally would. He grabs his own hair and shakes his head, trying hard to focus, to reason, to be Sherlock Holmes.
To be who he has denied himself to be.
'I know you! You're Moran, dear departed Jim's BFF!'
Err, maybe he shouldn't have said that out loud.
Triggered, the tall blond burly man grabs Sherlock by the collar and easily tosses him across the room. Glass and crystals shatter along the way and Sherlock needs to shield his face to keep it safe. He's therefore still a bit stunned, a bit inattentive, when the burly man grabs him again and tosses him through the glass double doors. Sherlock rolls like a rag doll on the balcony, glass smithereens bouncing about in showered shards.
With one look over his shoulder the fake ginger looks the blond coronel straight in the eyes, before he leaps up and jumps off the balcony, five storeys high over Amsterdam's streets.
.
'You jumped off a balcony with your head clouded by drugs?' I surmise, stunned.
Sherlock seems to ponder the logic for the first time. 'Perhaps because of it', he admits quietly. 'Also because of one of the most dangerous men alive having me again at gun point.'
'Yeah, about that. He had a gun. Why not just shoot from the start?'
'Moran's a sadist. He enjoyed every bit the fear and pain he saw in me. Ultimately that gave me a break to run.'
'Jump a balcony, you mean.'
'Exactly. And John, if you'd care to stop interrupting me...'
.
Sherlock is climbing down the side of the building when the first bullets zoom past him. He's much too hyped up in his own adrenaline to take them seriously. Fluid moves trail him down the rope to a dark alleyway, it could almost feel like a different lifetime.
He recognises he hasn't been so much of himself as this for a long time. He's grateful he set up a long rope from the balcony as an emergency escape plan, back when he was still himself.
The hot searing pain that spears Sherlock is both a surprising painful hell and a kick to the system. His hands slide on the coarse rope, his heart skips a beat, and suddenly he's falling.
Estimate height, tree meters ten. This is going to hurt further.
He hits the concrete with his back, and it sags the breath out of him.
Sherlock dares to blink through the pain and shock to the balcony above. He can see shapes fleeing in pursuit. They will take the stairs, they will be upon him in less than a three minutes. Estimate, two minutes and fifty seconds.
Sherlock's breath rattles as he tries to gather all his strengths to fight off the killers, to run down the alley to the anonymous city. He almost loses consciousness just from trying to sit up.
In his mid section a deep scarlet stain spreads ominously.
Is this it, then? The end?
Sherlock Holmes as a dead body in one of those filthy crime scene alleys that the detective explored so many times before?
Dying alone, such as he lived?
"Sherlock."
The detective feels immense relief and warmth around his heart. Possibly the side effect of a mild concussion, but beggars can't be choosers. It is oddly touching that John – his faithful friend – would return in Sherlock's time of need.
'John? Is that you? Can't be you. It's Thursday, Lestrade has you going out for bowling on Thursdays. It is Thursday, right?'
"Sherlock, focus! I need you to focus. Put pressure on that wound – now."
'John, it's bad.' In a split second lucidity Sherlock realises he's bleeding out in Amsterdam.
"Back in hell, are we? Good, Sherlock. Focus, mate. Stay with me. I know it hurts and I know it's scary as shit, Sherlock, just listen to me. You're going to be alright. But first— you need to get out of here. Too exposed. Three doors, upper flank window, you could be in Piccadilly Square and it'd be all the same."
'I can't walk', the detective hisses in the presumably empty alley.
"You don't have to", John promises him, eyes full of admiration and care. The same John that Sherlock can still tune in so easily as if a part of himself. A part he realises now he has never left behind, he couldn't bear to do that. "Luckily, mate, I'm as clever as you are inside your head. Come, I'll help."
Sherlock rolls over and starts dragging his tense, raging pain, body along. 'You can't really help, you're not really here.'
"No shit, Sherlock. Did you work that out on your own or did I feed you that deduction?" John's confident smile is Sherlock's chosen lifeline, to which the detective grabs on tight.
.
'How did you manage to escape the alley before the shooters came down for you?'
'I didn't exactly leave the alley. I wouldn't have made it as far. Following your instructions, I dislodged the lid to a manhole, courtesy of the water company, plain centre in the alley. I managed to replace the lid just in time. I hid in a stale shaft, damp and manly, as I heard the searches being done on the street level for ages. Throughout I was nearly powerless as I tried to stop the blood loss. You, John, you kept telling me to keep pressure on the wound, to take deep breaths, that I was going to make it. I kept telling you to be silent, and you'd remind me that you weren't really there. My logic, my mind, was hard to make sense in my lancinating pain addled world. Your presence alone kept me sane, John.'
Back against the armchair, I'm trying to remember to breathe. I almost lost Sherlock. Again.
'I don't think I ever asked your conjured self in that alley to forgive me for pushing you away. I knew my John Watson. He forgave me anyway. Sarcasm filled and foul mouthed as I remembered him.'
'Sherlock...'
'And how did you spend your free time here in London, John?'
.
TBC
