A/N: Right. Wow. Hundredth posting. It has happened before, of course. So why do I still get surprised I got here? -csf


VI.

Another speeding train whiplashes the stationary room with a rush of wind. Greg Lestrade grimaces and bites down the dormant pain that threatens to awake as he's being jolted about. He suspects he's inside a very darkened, hollowed out train carriage, his back flat against hard metal, his hands scraping against some heavy duty flooring. Right now he feels like a matchstick in a rattled matchbox, according to the inspector.

Maybe there are better metaphors, but he's not a writer, John is. Of course, John would solemnly defend he's definitely not a writer either. It doesn't help that he lives with Sherlock, the man who always picks apart John's metaphors, grammar, narrative sequence and anything else, just so he can claim creative direction when John uses Sherlock as a muse in the blog. John is not fooled, as Sherlock will throw a full tantrum if he's ever neglected to be mentioned in a blog entry.

Two fools as they may be, Greg would welcome their incessant bickering just about now.

His wrists feel raw and his left leg is dormant. His wound is making him weak, and the freezing night air setting over the train tracks is a serious risk of hypothermia later on in the night. The wound just makes it a near certainty.

There's a time limit to get rescued.

He's been attacked and subdued over two hours now.

Greg is due quite a chunk of overtime from work. He wished he had taken some holidays now, instead of bowing to the pressures of a global pandemic. It might be ongoing and making the future unsettling, but criminals don't pay it due notice.

At this point, he hears the detonation of the first gunshot. It shatters the dark night's urban noises with its discordant violence, making the inspector's blood freeze. He ducks like an accosted man, held back by his condition and the bindings on his wrists and ankles.

He wonders if he has somehow learnt to recognise the sounds of John's very illegal gun as more shots follow closely.

.

'Keep down!' the former soldier hisses at the detective who has taken cover next to him in a cargo carriage, with its sliding doors open and falling off its hinges. They hide behind a bulky grate, in the duskiness of the open cargo train.

It's as if John had foreseen it; that for the end target to get Sherlock's attention, the Curfew Killer would come out personally to once again set up a deadly trap. Only this time the main victim is not the DI at all, the bullets are quickly showering Sherlock and John.

'And shut up', the army man snaps coolly at his companion, even before the detective says a word. Sherlock is immediately ready to strike back, indignant, wounded in his pride, hurt, but John exasperatedly focuses on the lanky detective. He actually grabs Sherlock with a cupped hand on the scruff of the neck, and smashes their two foreheads together to have all of Sherlock's attention on his deep blue orbs, marred by sandy flakes, flashing in the darkness, captivating all of the other man's attention. John looks deep into those grey-green eyes, anchoring himself in their familiarity.

'John?' The consulting detective's voice is tremulous, wondrous. The doctor is the epitome of the unexpected, once more.

The doctor's answering tone is sharp, contained, controlled. 'Sherlock, I'm going to need some absolute silence here. Think you can do that for me? I need to hear where the bullets are coming from, so I can have a chance at one clear, single shot. I can't do it twice, after the first shot he'll go for cover. Can I get silence, please?'

Somehow Sherlock knows this is one of those details the conveniently vague writer will leave unclear in his blog's narrative. Another mysterious benefactor shooting into the scene and clearing off before they can be found. Sherlock makes a mental note of stop pointing out those plot holes to John. He seems to know what he's doing.

Sherlock shuts his eyes and takes a deep steadying breath. Why is John such a brave idiot?

'It's too dangerous, statistically it's a 1.4% success rate shot, and you have a 47% chance of getting shot—'

John is thrown for a loop – when did Sherlock compile those statistics? – but won't let go of their connected foreheads.

'I'm still going to try', he says, releasing Sherlock.

'Just drop it, John.' Sherlock holds John's head in his turn, between his gloved hands, trying to impress the strength of his gaze in the gentle hold of his hands.

'Sherlock, chances are I don't get shot, right? You've got to admit it's the right call, and we can't discuss this all night.' The doctor softly disentangles his friend's long fingers from his short blond strands.

'But— you're John—'

Unfairly – as if to spare Sherlock from further worry, or plain exercising a deep sheathed death wish – John won't wait for Sherlock to finish his protest, he gets up in one fluid movement (that seems to contradict age and denounce unsuspected physical agility), gun stretching out the straight line of his right arm, eyes narrowed in deep concentration, and his careful finger presses the trigger just once, all in one instantaneous, fluid motion.

Sherlock tackles him down, as John's gun hand is still being jolted by the weapon's kickback.

John goes down willingly, in blind faith, as if Sherlock's rescue had always been a part of his suicide mission.

They both hit the wooden platform hard, Sherlock covering the doctor's smaller body with his own, his ragged breaths near sobs, directly thrumming into John's back. Time stands still for long, stretching seconds that defy the laws of physics in Sherlock's world. The detective isn't surprised. John can do these sort of things; bend time and space with his presence.

'I'm not hit', the near suffocating smaller man prompts from under the blanketing detective.

'Not yet', the terrified brunette on top mutters darkly. He could definitely hit the man he's protecting with his own life right now.

John giggles – he damn well giggles – at that. As if he had no sense of self-preservation, or mocked Sherlock's intent, or—

Sherlock's raspy, throaty chuckles join John's surely deranged giggles.

'I won't do that again', John struggles to say. 'I'm way too old to jump up like that anymore. I think I bloody pulled a tendon in my calf.'

Sherlock would have thought John was too alive to do that anymore, he was no longer a soldier in a battlefield, desensitised by constant injury and death around him to do self-sacrifice at the first available opportunity. Instead of expostulating about John's excessive bravery, Sherlock does the only thing he can to reach the doctor, he wraps his arms around the violently pounding heart in the solid ribcage and holds onto the soldier.

He hugs John, therefore. Not really intent on ever letting him go again.

John relaxes fractionally after the first two seconds, more grounded, adrenaline still bubbling in his veins. He blushes as he takes in what he has actually done.

'One point four percent chances of success, huh? Not shabby at all.'

'Two point seven percent now. I revised my earlier estimate, John.'

The former soldier grins openly.

.

'There could be further shooters, Sherlock. Or secondary traps', I alert Sherlock as our footsteps dig into the crunchy gravel along the old train tracks. The wooden beams, steadily distanced, hold the marks of previous oil and dirt spills. The metal rails are tarnished by lack of use, rusty and dull.

We jog on in the dusky nightfall, from where we found the Curfew Killer's body, dead from a "mysterious" bullet to his brain. Sherlock's ultimate nemesis (or the latest in a long series of contenders to the title) was only a grubby man, unshaven face and scarred hands, lying dead on the other side of the tracks. I rushed over to check for a pulse, even if the head wound was a sure giveaway. Sherlock and I pushed the latest corpse away from the tracks it was laying on, to a secure place. Not the first time Sherlock and I personally handled a dead body – of our making or not – and this time I found the detective oddly solemn.

There was something akin to a loss in Sherlock's viewpoint. I had to hit back, get us safe, but this mirrored tormented soul, this bored negative vortex genius, was now a lost puzzle to my friend.

It's as if Sherlock lost the opportunity to complete his investigation, so close to the end. To make sense of the full picture. Of himself through another.

No time to dwell on unsatisfying successes. We need to find Greg. We won the game, we defeated the serial killer, but we can't claim victory if we lose our inspector!

I glance at Sherlock, his eyes are squinted and he's getting himself right ready to trip and fall face first on the tracks. But I know what he's doing, he's desperately trying to deduce where our friend is being kept captive.

I terminated the impending threat upon us, as was the priority at the time we were being shot at. Now my marksmanship has silenced the mastermind of these elaborate plots, he can't tell us where the inspector is.

'Greg!' I call out instead, unable to sustain that tension anymore. 'Greg, where are you?'

Some carrion birds fly away from tree branches near the tracks, but that's all I get in return.

Sherlock stops abruptly, stretched out hands each side of his head as he trembles under the sheer pressure of making his brain work faster, deduce better, finish this quest. He crouches on himself as the intellectual effort takes over his physical strengths.

What if we can't find Greg in time?

The thought freezes my insides, makes me queasy, and I need to turn away in order to collect my wits and steady my breathing.

Of course we'll find Greg.

We have to.

'There!'

Sherlock points out to a lonely train carriage rusting nearby in a disused stretch of the tracks.

.

I force the door open in the second impact, and get sent flying into the tiny room. Sherlock walks in after me, impassive as ever in his long coat. We both look down to the huddled figure on the dirty floor.

'Sally?' Her name is forced out of my lips out of stunned recognition.

'John?' She looks equally surprised. Restrained by ropes, she doesn't appear hurt.

'What, Sally? No, that's not right!' Sherlock looks like his hard drive just crashed.

'Inspector Donovan to you', she returns with an eye roll. 'Are you two going to stand there and watch, or are you getting me free?'

I put away my gun and bend down at once, hunting those knots and checking her health.

'Was that a Browning? How did you get a Browning?'

I smile roughly. 'It's amazing what patients bring inside the surgery nowadays, Sally. I'm just keeping hold of it until it's reclaimed. Hold still, I'm almost done.'

'John, I can't ignore—'

I roll my eyes behind her back.

'Sherlock, maybe you want to give me a hand here? You're the one with strong lean musician fingers, and these knots are very stiff and—'

The consulting detective hasn't moved yet. He seems mesmerized by the turn of events. It's not much like him, lightening speed brain and all.

Suddenly a small gasp snaps my attention back to Sherlock. Shocked, I realise he's tremoring with a deep chuckle. What the hell—

'Oh, I've been blind! John, you mustn't blog about this case, I forbid you! I will not have you make a fool of me; I do enough of a job myself!'

I blink. 'Can you help me with Sally while you explain?' I ask, short on patience.

'Oh, forget her, she's the decoy!'

'What?' We both glare at Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock is pacing madly in all directions, crisscrossing his path, he'll get all topsy-turvy by this unruly behaviour. 'We changed the rules of the game, you said so yourself, John! And when was that? Just before he got you, John. Always look for the previous case, before the criminal breakdown pattern, turns it personal on you, they're usually trying to detract attention from something they've done. A mistake. A signature.'

The knots are finally giving in. I admit: 'I don't get it.'

'The twin, John, the twin!'

I blink. 'Do you mean the takeaway place owners?'

Sherlock smiles, relieved. 'Oh, good, you follow.'

'Ugh... no, I don't. Which of the twins do you mean?'

'Now you're mocking me!' The consulting detective takes offense.

'I'm not!' I defend, utterly confused.

'I mean him', Sherlock identifies determinedly by the expedient of a pointed finger towards the dead man's vicinity outside.

'He's the dead man's twin? He didn't look like the corpse we saw, Sherlock. '

'Why do you all assume twins must be identical twins? You're a doctor, you've heard of dizygotic twins.'

'But why would he kill his brother?' I protest.

'Seriously, John? You have to ask? Who cares? He was bored, John. Bored! He inserted himself in the investigation. Two victims? Why the shift in the pattern? It became the new norm. One dies, one lives. One dead twin in the alley, one alive in the basement. But we never care about the alive ones unless we can use them as witnesses, John. We didn't pay enough attention. I was blind as a bat!'

'No, wait. Who was my second? I survived, no one died.'

Sherlock smirks victoriously. 'The Curfew Killer wasn't unbeatable, after all. We both live.'

I shake my head, slowly, looking far away into the distance, to the killer's body.

'You're saying he's—'

'The rescued twin. He inserted himself in the investigation, he wanted to analyse us. We never even came close, ignoring him for his murdered brother. That's how he knows of Lestrade. And why he targeted Sally, she's the twin's surrogate.'

'Wait, if Sally is alive and well...'

'So are you. Nothing's changed. We must find Lestrade before it's too late.'

I shake my head to clear it. 'Sally, how did he get you here? Any idea on where Greg may be?'

She shakes her curly head, a bit bewildered. 'The boss is missing?'

I could feel for her. Instead of the miraculous rescue she was dreaming off, she got thrown in headfirst into another kidnap.

'Don't bother with her, John, she's useless. He would have kept her in the dark. I already beat him once, he couldn't let that happen again.'

The sergeant demands, rubbing her wrists and getting up from the shabby floor: 'We need to find the Curfew Killer, make him tell us where the boss is.'

Sherlock sighs mockingly. 'He's dead, can't help us now. But you know Lestrade. Talk to me about Lestrade.'

'What? Why?'

I intervene: 'It may help, seriously. Please, Sally.'

She huffs but her loyalty lies with Greg, and to rescue him she knows she must unite forces with Sherlock Holmes. She purses her lips, gives us some attitude in a contemptuous shake of curls, but starts where she can:

'He's divorced, with shared custody of the kids. He likes pubs and football matches, and always supports the underdog team. He's great fun at a party or a pub, not the same if he's not there. Last year, he got—'

Sherlock starts abruptly:

'Come, John, I know where to find Lestrade.'

Sally protests, we're already running out the door: 'Wait, what about me?'

I shall over my shoulder, no time to waste:

'Call the team! There's a dead body by the tracks!'

Sherlock adds:

'No idea who put it there!'

I nudge him on the ribs as soon as we get outside into the pitch black night.

.

Once a youth club, now just one more abandoned structure on the outskirts of a neighbourhood where the youngsters occupy themselves in other ways, the shuttered up building is dark, cold and silent.

'The lock has been changed recently to a high secure lock', Sherlock points out. I nod curtly. Something in the air tells me we're very near the solution to this case. I pull out my gun and hold position guarding the detective picking the lock. The night is eerily still. The cold metal lock resists. Sherlock plows on through with nail files, to little or no avail. I tap him on the shoulder. He glances up enquiringly. I flick my gaze away. He huffs without meaning and steps back. I get my gun out and shoot the lock. He tries the door, impossibly still standing strong, and steps back again.

Well, if I must. I'm sure we keep extra ammunition in the coffee tin at Baker Street. We don't drink much coffee anyway, and when we do our coffee is extra strong.

The door collapses before our eyes.

We blink, trying to adjust my eyes to the near perfect darkness inside.

'...Sherlock?' the inspector calls out in a haggard voice.

Finally! The inspector is bound on the floor, his back to a wall of lockers. At a distance a train goes past, shaking the locker room.

'Took you long enough, you mutters!' Greg protests roughly, as we urge to set him free and assess his wound.

.

I comment, pointedly: 'Good thing I read the papers for you, Sherlock.'

He dismisses at once: 'You read the paper editions, I search online specifically for information I may need, cross reference it and establish its veracity, there's a difference, John. And you also read the tabloids.'

I shrug. 'Sometimes. However, you've got to admit, if I hadn't read Greg's comment about the train tracks, we wouldn't found Sally, who told us Greg likes football, and you had long deduced Greg used to coach little league football matches.'

'Yes', the consulting detective deceptively agrees: 'Do try not to get kidnapped again, Lestrade. John's usually inattentive, and his blog is all the mass media drivel I can take as it is.'

'Ha-ha, very funny', I return, drily.

'All in all, it was such a promising case, only to become commonplace like all others', Sherlock laments. His genius still standing alone, isolated at light years distance from mankind.

'Commonplace?' the inspector challenges at once.

'Absolutely', the consulting detective maintains. 'I won. That's a commonplace occurrence.'

On the back of an ambulance called to the scene, the inspector has been looked over and his wound has been remedially patched up. I've had a supervising role over the procedure and we've already assured the inspector we're going with him to the hospital for the more in depth check-up. I don't expect serious consequences, as the wound seems to have missed major organs, the bleeding wasn't profuse, and apart from some strain and dehydration, our friend should make a full recovery in time. We'll get him home before long, I'll make him a nice cuppa and sit up with him to watch the sun rise again.

I look on to the paramedics conferencing with sergeant Donovan and a few other Yarders outside the ambulance.

Sherlock comments off-handedly: 'I thought you had been born in France, inspector.'

Lestrade's eyes are a bit less haunted, and the brown looks warmer, calmer, as he retorts, amused: 'Read that on your highly specific internet searches, did you? Or was it the name that gave you that idea?'

I'm about to butt in on that conversation when we spot the paramedics returning. Busted. I try to step back, get some distance between me and the patient.

Greg stops me at once, convinced I'm being modest.

'I'm a Scotland Yard inspector, remember?'

Yeah, Greg won't recognise this particular ambulance attendant. He wasn't happy at the Curfew Killer's last crime scene, when I took over the emergency stash in the ambulance so to service myself and get the hell out of there faster, dragging Sherlock with me.

I guess my day of reckoning has come.

'Oh, look who it is...'

Echoes of Old Anderson hang in the air after the attendant derides me as soon as he lays eyes on me. 'Have you come to play paramedic again?'

Greg is amused, in the least. Sherlock is snarling silently and only the inspector's appeasing gestures stops the younger man from correctly identifying me as a certified doctor, and an army captain on top. And a "veteran of Bart's hospital", whatever that means; I said it once, Sherlock won't let go of the epitaph.

I assume my best well-behaved schoolboy stance, hoping to defuse hostilities.

'Not at all... It's a very nice ambulance. A well organised ambulance. Ugh... carry on.'

Greg looks at me as if he can't quite reconcile the former army mate who took charge just minutes ago, from this apologetic mild-mannered person standing by the gurney, fading into the background.

There's a time and place for everything, Greg.

Please remember my innocent looks when Sally tells you about the dead serial killer we left by the tracks...

I glance at the friendly inspector. He winks. Sherlock deflates, going all smug.

Yeah, those two may have known each other for years before I came along, but I'm definitely part of the gang now.

Let's get Greg to hospital. I intend us to deliver him home before dawn.

As if reading my thoughts, Sherlock twirls on his finger the ambulance's engine keys.

.