Holmes Again

by LizzeXX

Sherlock/OC – Sherlock and Leena, newly married, are called back to London before their exile could even begin. With Moriarty seemingly back and taking up focus, will Sherlock miss the real danger lurking about? When tragedy strikes a beloved wife will it push him on or will the failure break him down? The East Wind comes for all eventually. Fourth in the Jackie Holmes Chronicles.

5. The Six Thatchers: Liberty

The Six Thatchers: Liberty

John was quite regretting popping into the one shop on the way of following Toby to buy a baby carrier now that he and Hamish were joining the case. He didn't want to run around the city, or however far they were running, with Hamish just in his arms. God forbid something happened, he wanted both hands to protect his son with. He regretted it, because he was standing there, Hamish strapped to his front, doing absolutely nothing.

Toby had plopped himself down near a phone box and was just sitting there, Mary holding the leash now, Sherlock and Leena standing around, all of them waiting for something to happen.

It had been fifteen minutes now.

"He's not moving," John remarked, bobbing slightly to keep Hamish occupied and content.

"He's thinking," Sherlock defended the dog.

Mary glanced over at Leena who was watching Sherlock crouch down to pet Toby as he'd done nearly every two minutes, not that anyone at all noticed. She gave the woman a nod at Sherlock, as though to ask if this was normal.

Leena glanced at him to make sure he was distracted, before mouthing 'It's Christmas' to her, which had Mary nearly laughing though she just managed to hold back. Toby whined when Sherlock stopped petting him, so the man, of course, had to resume. It was the law.

"He's really not moving," John repeated, getting a little antsy now. It was all well and good when they were rushing about and his mind was occupied, but standing there gave him too much time to think about how he probably should not be doing this with his son on his chest, investigating or tracking someone down. Any distraction at all right now that would keep him from thinking about how he was a terrible father for doing this he'd take.

"Slow but sure, John, not dissimilar to yourself," Sherlock continued to defend.

"You just like this dog, don't you?" John asked what they all knew.

"Well, I like you."

"He loves dogs," Leena spoke, leaning down to pet the dog behind his ears again, "Redbeard was wonderful."

Sherlock looked over at her for that. Whenever she brought up his beloved dog, it was different than when Mycroft did. Mycroft always brought up Redbeard to irritate him, to strike at him, hurt him or upset him in some way. Leena would bring up Redbeard with fondness, to make him smile at the good memories.

Though, now, when she did…his mind would drift to Blackbeard, the other figment of his Mind Palace imagination, locked away under the tight safe he kept for dreams and hopes for the future.

There were surprisingly few things left in the safe. Each year it seemed like Leena, being with her, made one more dream and hope come true.

"He's still not moving," Mary remarked with a yawn.

"Fascinating," Sherlock murmured, "He must be very focused."

Leena shook her head, moving her hand from Toby's head to the back of Sherlock's, running her fingers through his hair for a single pass before she moved them to her pockets.

"So," John bobbed a bit more, "What's the profile?"

"Hmm?" Leena looked up at him.

"Might as well," Mary shrugged, "Not much else to do while we wait. You've got one drawn up, yeah?"

Leena nodded, "Preliminary, but yeah."

"So what is it?" John asked, "What are we looking for?"

"There's a high chance it's not related to Moriarty," she began, deciding it would be better to get that out of the way first. It had the desired effect, Sherlock stood and frowned.

"A high chance?"

She nodded, "This doesn't match with the profile of him. I mean, it…COULD be him, because he could be trying to fool us, like he did when he pretended to be Molly's gay boyfriend, throw us off."

"But you don't think it is," Sherlock realized.

"I don't, Sherwood."

He took a deep breath and nodded, he'd had the sneaking suspicion that he'd jumped the gun to linking this to Moriarty, a part of him both curious for what posthumous game the mastermind might have come up with and wanting it over with so he'd know, without a doubt, that his family was safe, "What's the profile?"

She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it in apology that it wasn't the big game he thought it would be, "This doesn't have the same finesse as Moriarty, even as a planner he was very specific on the men and women he employed and worked with. Everything was to a T and this…this isn't quite the same level. The unsub is very observant, he studies the places he's breaking into. He doesn't want to be caught, he doesn't want the risk of being found. But he IS willing to risk his life to obtain whatever he's after that's hidden in those busts."

"Makes sense," Mary nodded along, "If I was going after something, I'd scope it ahead of time, learn the layout, the security, get in and get out, no muss no fuss."

Leena glanced at her a moment, continuing when Sherlock squeezed her hand, "He's highly trained," she continued, unable to help making connections to the profile she'd drafted and Mary's own skillset now, "But not in burglary. This isn't a person who's perfected their craft by robbing other people, there would have been evidence in other cases, a common thread building up to this. This one is new."

"So it's a…what, ex-cop?" John tried to guess, "Someone familiar with it, maybe from the other side of the lane?"

"Could be," Leena allowed, "But it would be easier to flash their badge or fake one to get into a house, come up with a false report or case and convince someone they need to confiscate their bust than sneak in and smash it. No, they don't want anyone to know they're looking for something. He'd be average height…"

"Given the window's height," Sherlock nodded.

"A bit stronger than the average everyday bloke, works out," Leena continued, "They easily got over the window, into the room, broke the light and ran out without being seen. Agile and used to being quiet, operating as silently as possible to not be caught. Has trust issues too..."

"How could you know..." John blinked at that.

"He works alone," Leena answered, pulling all that she'd learned profiling with the BAU into it, "A partner always makes things easier, but he's choosing to do this alone. He can't trust someone else to have his back, hence the extra care he puts in to not get caught. But his fixation on the bust...it's more than obsession. Whatever's hidden in it, it wouldn't surprise me if HE put it there. Likely also able to blend in easily."

"In order to watch the homes he's breaking into without inspiring suspicion or displaying stalker like behavior," Sherlock remarked, earning a small smile from Leena for how he was elaborating her profile, explaining how she'd come to some of the conclusions she had. It was a display, he knew, of how well they both knew the other and how much attention they paid each other. He knew she had picked up quite a few tricks on how to make deductions like he did, it seemed he too had picked up a few tricks for how to identify the criminal.

"I would also guess he has a very good memory," Leena added, "For an average person it would take more than one go or pass to memorize a location. He wouldn't risk being caught or noticed. One pass, maybe two, would have to be enough. I would say short hair, very short, this level of dedication means he would leave as little evidence, if any, behind, including DNA. Very specialized training."

"A rogue agent."

"Yes," she nodded, "Government is likely, if they know how to elude the police to this extreme. Hard to find that level of training outside the government or military."

Sherlock looked over at Leena for that, noting the glance she gave to Mary and catching her gaze when she looked back, 'You don't think…' his expression read.

The way she dipped her head to the side could only be, 'It might.'

She cleared her throat and continued on, "But that's not what I'm worried about," she looked at the Watsons, "This level of obsession gives way easily to desperation. Whatever he's looking for, he hasn't found it, and the longer he doesn't find it, the more unhinged he'll become. The more anxious and angry. He won't wait so long between break ins, he won't plan it out as well, someone will notice...and he will stop them noticing. He's going to escalate, and soon. And once he hits that point, things will get much worse and he will be harder to stop, because what he wants will be more important to him than secrecy or evasion or even his own life."

With the people before her, much like with her team in America, she didn't have to say out loud what she feared: next time, someone might die.

~8~

Eventually Toby picked up the scent of the blood on the plaster and began to lead them through the town, along the roads, near the shops, until they made it all the way to the Southwark area of London, right into the Borough Market…until he stopped, right before a large pool of blood on the ground that had sawdust covering it to soak up the slipperiness of it.

"The butcher," Leena sighed, seeing a door to the stall open, a man with a pig carcass thrown over his shoulder walking past. There were butchers everywhere, all walking across the pool of blood, which was a combination of all the different animals seeping out of their stalls. Already someone was there trying to sweep up the mess.

"Clever," Sherlock frowned at the sight.

Mary, though, shrugged, "Well, if you were wounded and you knew you were leaving a trail, where would you go?"

Leena glanced over at her for the remark, for how that was instantly where her mind went, adding it to the profile she was truly regretting making, before she caught Sherlock's eye for it.

'He could be rogue,' his expression read, catching the line of her thoughts for he was thinking the same in how similar Mary's reasoning and hypothetical actions were to their suspect's.

She shook her head, 'Moriarty wouldn't risk it,' she told him with the motion.

The person they were tracking could have been working for Moriarty, could have been deviating from the plan made before the man's death. But she didn't think it was. Moriarty would pick someone he knew would carry it out to a T, he was a narcissist, he wanted his plan done HIS way, with no chance someone else would get credit for it. No, this was something unique, something unrelated to Moriarty, she was sure of it now.

"Like hiding a tree in a forest," John quipped, unaware of their silent moment.

"Or blood in a butcher's," Sherlock sighed, crouching down to pat the dog on the head, "Never mind, Toby. Better luck next time, hmm?"

John nearly snorted at how he was showing more understanding to the dog than he had to other detectives who made mistakes. He really did love dogs didn't he?

"This could be it, though," Sherlock stood, "This could be the one."

Leena merely reached out to take his hand, knowing why, this time in particular, he was having a hard time accepting the profile and the idea that this wasn't Moriarty completely. He loved games, he loved, puzzles, the more convoluted and odd and complicated the better. But this was more than that. Anyone else would think he was just eager for the next great puzzle, the next challenge Moriarty could give him because it was bound to be stunning. But she knew better.

He wanted it over.

He wanted the threat of Moriarty finally dealt with and cleared.

He had faked his death for two years to dismantle the man's crime base so that he could come back to London, to a London safe for her and John, safe from Moriarty's threats. There was one last puzzle, one last game Moriarty could play, and he wanted it finished. He wanted the threat and shadow of a man who could truly harm the family Sherlock had built to be gone.

To find out this may not be the case he was waiting for…he really wanted that to not be true.

"But it's not Moriarty," John said, full belief in Leena's profile, "Jackie said…"

"There's always room for error," Leena tried to brush it off, knowing Sherlock would need true and real proof in front of him this one time to believe it wasn't Moriarty.

If there was a way to explain even a small part of this being connected to the man, Sherlock would latch onto it.

"It could be him," Sherlock muttered, looking around, "It's too bizarre, it's too baroque. It's designed to beguile me, tease me, lure me in. At last, a noose for me to put my neck into."

"Jacks…" John began, hesitant, when Sherlock strode away to see if he could examine more of the market for clues.

"He wants it over," she turned to them, reaching out to lightly grab Hamish's hand as he flailed it, smiling sadly at the boy and over to his parents, "We're not safe so long as Moriarty is a threat."

The Watsons nodded slowly, understanding Sherlock's rejection of the profile, his insistence that THIS could be the case. This was the only one that came up that was so wide spread, so connected to other distant cases. He wanted it to be the one, so he could solve it and be done with it, and know he'd protected not just his own wife and child, but his best friend and his as well.

"Then we help him," Mary determined, "Solve this, and solve the real one too."

Leena smiled at them, for John was nodding, serious and determined beside her, so very thankful that she and Sherlock had such wonderful friends.

~8~

Leena and Sherlock stood in a small room of Craig's house, the man at his computer, hacking away, while John and Mary went home to get Hamish his meal and put him to a nap.

"Have you heard of that thing, in Germany?" Craig asked absently as he typed away.

Leena laughed, "There's a lot happening in Germany, Craig, which one?"

"'Ostalgie.' People who miss the old days under the Communists. People are weird, aren't they?"

"If they weren't, we'd be out of a job," Leena remarked.

"Ok," Craig nodded, his search finished, "According to this, there's quite a market for Cold War memorabilia, Thatcher, Reagan, Stalin. Time's a great leveler, innit? Thatcher's like, I dunno, Napoleon now."

"Yes, fascinating, irrelevant," Sherlock waved it off, squinting at the computer readings, "Where exactly did they come from?"

Craig had been tracking the purchase orders for the three Thatcher busts, where they'd come from, who made them, when they were made, all of them from the same supplier.

"I've got into the records of the suppliers, Gelder & Co. Seems they're from Georgia," Craig answered.

"Tbilisi," Leena murmured, bringing up an image of a map she'd memorized in her minds eye, before something caught her attention on the screen, "Those three busts…they were the same batch!"

"Batch of six," Craig corrected, "One to Welsborough, one to Hassan, one to Doctor Barnicot. Two to Miss Orrie Harker…"

"She'll be next," Leena assumed, "He wants to find something, he has a better go when it's two for one."

Sherlock nodded, reaching into his coat to grab his phone as it rang.

"One to a Mr. Jack Sandeford of Reading," Craig finished.

"Lestrade, another one?" Sherlock guessed as he answered the phone.

"Yeah," Leena could hear the man respond.

"Harker?"

"Yeah," Lestrade repeated, "And…"

"Murder?" Leena cut in, leaning over to speak to the phone as well.

"It's murder this ti…how?" Lestrade sighed.

"Fits the profile," Leena sighed, "He's escalating," she looked at Sherlock, the man growing serious now.

Because if their suspect had escalated to murder now...and had gone through 5 of the 6 statues…there would be nothing, absolutely nothing, he wouldn't do to get to the last one. No property he wouldn't damage, no risk he wouldn't take, no person he wouldn't harm.

They had to stop him, because there was no telling what he'd do when he got what he wanted.

~8~

"I don't think it's the Black Pearl," Leena stated as the cab drove through town, not even needing to look at Sherlock's phone to know that was what he was searching on it.

"Georgia…" Sherlock began.

She turned to smile at him, "You don't think Mycroft would have been investigating this himself if it really had a chance of being the pearl?" she shook her head, "And Moriarty wouldn't be so…" she searched for the right word, "Haphazard about this."

"What do you mean?" he sat back, pocketing his phone. He knew victims and crime scenes, but her specialty had always been the criminal, it was why they worked so well.

"The pearl wasn't important to him," Leena began, thinking of all she knew about Moriarty, "It wasn't worthy of obsession. Someone like him would have found the pearl already if he'd really wanted it. It wasn't valuable. He had the chance to steal the crown jewels for god's sake and he just sat there wearing them."

Sherlock had to nod at that, there were many more priceless things to be stolen than the pearl.

"He thrived in the shadows, being a name and a whisper but never seen," she continued, "Him finding the pearl would have been everywhere. He would have, at the very least, orchestrated for someone else to find it, so he could organize for someone to steal it. He's dead, there's no thrill in stealing something when he can't enjoy the notoriety and prestige that comes with it among the underground crime circles. He'd rather it stay lost and thrive in the knowledge that HE could have found it but now no one ever will," she rolled her eyes at that last part, which made Sherlock smirk at the implication she thought he would find it one day since he was very much not a 'no one' compared to Moriarty's intelligence and skill, "And those busts…" she added, "They were only made six years ago. If it was Moriarty, he would have found a much more…interesting place to hide them. He would have made a real game out of it if this were him. I'm sorry, Locksley," she reached out to take his hand, "I don't see Moriarty or the pearl in this, but someone and something else."

"Who?" Sherlock murmured, knowing he really should give up the hope it was Moriarty. Much like Leena tried to keep objective to not skew a profile, he needed to look at this without searching for Moriarty at each turn or he might see something he wanted to see at a scene instead of what was actually there, "What?"

"I can venture a guess, but this is…" she shook her head, "This is too important to be wrong or to let my guess sway your deductions or my profile. We need more information."

He let out a long breath, but nodded, understanding. He didn't need her to say her guess out loud to know what she feared.

The way this burglar was acting…compared to statements and logical points brought up by someone very likeminded to the individual, who may have had that same specialized training Leena mentioned, who had the same skill sets…it was obvious who she feared it might be. And if she was right, and he had no reason to think she wasn't, it could put someone they both cared for in very serious danger.

And if they were wrong, it could put even more people in danger if they focused on the wrong area.

"Can you wait a minute?" he called to the driver as they pulled up to Harker's home, "We won't be a moment."

Leena got out of the cab, Sherlock after her, the two hurrying to the back garden where they could see some forensic investigators about, taking photos and cataloguing the scene, but being very careful not to touch anything that would throw Sherlock off.

Leena let out a sad breath when she saw Miss Harker lying face down on the grass, having looked up her profile on the way after it was confirmed it would be this bust's owner. This was clear escalation, with only one final target before the unsub found what he was looking for or went completely mental at not finding it. Either way, it would not be good.

"Defensive wounds on her face and hands," Lestrade spoke as they approached, "Throat cut, sharp blade."

"And the two busts smashed," Leena remarked as he nodded.

"That batch of statues was made in Tbilisi several years ago," Sherlock spoke, "Limited edition of six."

"And now someone's wandering about destroying 'em all," Lestrade sighed, "Makes no sense. What's the point?"

"The point is that it's not destruction," Leena looked at him, "Why do children smash their piggy banks?"

"Cos there's money inside," Lestrade answered, before frowning, "You're not saying there's money hidden in the busts…"

"No," Sherlock scoffed, "That would be ridiculous."

"There's something hidden in the bust," Leena explained, "We…can't be sure what, but whoever this is is after that object."

"And we've just got lucky," Sherlock grinned, "Jack Sandeford of Reading is where we're going next. Congratulations, by the way."

"I'm sorry?" Lestrade glanced over as they began to leave.

"Well, you're about to solve a big one!" Sherlock smiled.

"Yeah, until John publishes his blog."

"Yeah. 'Til then, basically."

"If you could contact Jack for us, Greg?" Leena asked, walking backwards to speak to him, "We need clearance into his home, likely through the night."

Lestrade waved them off, working out they were planning a stakeout of some sort and already making plans to alert the local authorities there to be on call and ready to rush to Sandeford's at a moment's notice. If they caught the burglar in the act, they'd need backup and fast to make sure he stayed caught.

~8~

Leena had to admit, she was truly a little surprised that Sherlock was 'allowing' her to join him on this stakeout of sorts, given she was pregnant. But, then again, he did have some conditions. She was to hide in another part of the house, she would call the police as soon as the burglar was spotted, and she would not engage with the burglar under any circumstances.

She could agree to the first two, the last though...if Sherlock found himself in dire straits, she was not going to just sit idly by and let him be thrashed and had told him, very clearly, that she would bring the small gun Mary had gotten her for Christmas with her in her purse to use to help detain the burglar.

It had been a...very odd choice of gift from the former assassin. In the sense that she herself wasn't sure how to feel about it. She was a fair shot with a rifle, not so much a small handgun, as was proven when she'd shot the Golem higher up than the knee she'd been aiming for. But Mary wanted her to have something on her person to protect herself with. So she appreciated the gesture, but given the fact it was a gun coming from the person who had shot her husband…maybe a bit too soon to hand her that same sort of weapon.

Still, it had been a bit of a laugh when she had gotten Sherlock a bulletproof vest and Mary had gotten her a gun, the jokes from John…

She practically forced Sherlock to wear the vest whenever he left the flat on a case…or to go to the shops…or to just walk around…honestly any time he left the flat at all she tried to get him to wear it. What?! He made a lot of enemies and, as Moriarty proved, he could be shot at any time and, statistically, the body was a larger target than the head and whoever tried to shoot him would have a better chance aiming for his body, therefore, wear the damn vest!

He didn't always wear it, not in the normal course of a day, but he had given in and agreed to it when they were deep into a case and likely to confront the criminal in question. She prayed every day that he'd never have to use it, but it meant so much to her that he did actually wear it. So she could be a little more at ease now that, if the burglar had a gun, there was a slightly higher chance Sherlock would survive.

And so she sat in the sitting room of the Sandeford home, Mr. Sandeford being quite cooperative after the call Lestrade had made to him. He understood there was a burglar targeting the batch of Thatcher figurines from which he'd purchased his, that two operatives had been sent to lay a trap and catch this man, and that he and his daughter would be set up in a very comfortable hotel very nearby to ensure their safety. Honestly the man had tried to thrust the bust into their hands to get it out of his house, but they pointed out the burglar may not know if they took it and would still come and the man would not be happy to find it missing and who knew what he would do then, who he would demand information from.

So the bust remained set up in the kitchen, just on the other side of a series of glass walls that led to the pool. A quick look at the property had given Sherlock the exact point of entry the burglar was likely to use, so he'd set her up on the opposite end of the house, and himself up just behind that point so he could sneak up on the burglar. They just had to be patient.

But they knew it would be tonight. There had been a little pattern that formed since the first bust. There were less days between smashings, and with this being the last, with the burglar likely knowing he had been noticed by now, he would not risk waiting to get to this final piece. It would be that night, they were sure of it.

Sherlock had bet the man would come just after midnight, though she had said closer to when it was completely dark outside, likely 10 in the evening. He had no patience, he'd escalated, he wouldn't wait, not now. No, as soon as it was dark enough the man would risk going after the bust.

And there, just a little after 10, Leena saw the automatic lights come on in the pool area.

She was on her feet and moving towards the kitchen, peering through a cracked open door to ensure the thief was truly there before calling the police. And she could see it. Sherlock was there, standing, without his coat, right behind the intruder, who was trying to stuff the bust into a bag, dressed in black, his hood pulled up over his head, but there.

She nodded and made the call, keeping her eye on the scene in front of her.

Sherlock would, she had no doubt, do his best to distract the burglar, draw it out, buy time for the police to arrive…and he did just that.

She could see him speaking moments before the man spun around, about to aim a gun at Sherlock, who quickly slapped it out of the man's hand, then moved to swing the bag at Sherlock's head, but he grabbed it instead, yanking it away and throwing it into the kitchen, out of reach of the man, and then it was an all out brawl.

Leena quickly used the distraction of both men sending punches and fists flying at each other to skid into the kitchen and unzip the bag, grabbing the plaster bust out of it and jumping back to hide behind the counter when a swift kick from the intruder had Sherlock stumbling back into the kitchen where the man grabbed a barstool and hurled it at Sherlock, who ducked out of the way. Sherlock launched himself at the man, who headbutted him, then tried to slam Sherlock's head onto a cutting board on the counter. Sherlock whirled around and punched the man, grabbing a mask off of his face to throw to the side, revealing it to be a man, of Indian descent, buzzed hair, bit of stubble, tattoos on his face, bags under his eyes.

"You were on the run," Sherlock deduced, creating a scenario that would explain why something clearly precious to this man was hidden within something so simple as a bust, "Nowhere to hide your precious cargo," he kicked the man's knee, jumping back to avoid the returning kick, "You find yourself in a workshop. Plaster busts of 'The Iron Lady' drying. It's clever, very clever. But now you've met me, and you're not so clever, are you?"

"Who are you?" the man demanded.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes."

The glare the man sent him was murderous, "Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes," he spat, about to launch himself at Sherlock…

When he pitched forward instead, pain exploding from the back of his head, where Leena had snuck up on him, slamming the plaster bust to his head to drive him to his knees. The man turned, likely to attack the one who attacked him, when Leena twisted, driving her knee up into the man's face, sending him to the floor once more, before she kicked him in the ribs for good measure.

She blew a piece of hair that had fallen into her face away and jerked her head to keep it out of her eyes, "Thank you, Morgan," she murmured under her breath, he really had been invaluable in teaching her how to fight, those defensive maneuvers saving her life many times before.

She panted, looking down at the man as she tossed the bust to Sherlock, "Stay down," she warned him, pulling out her gun from the back of her belt and aiming it at him as he squirmed on the floor, his hands curled into fists near his head at the pain she'd caused.

"I had it handled," Sherlock remarked, turning the bust over in his hands as she backed up towards him.

"You're bleeding," she pointed out, a quick glance at his nose.

"No more than usual."

"And you're wearing the shirt," she reminded him, causing him to look down at his purple shirt that she adored on him, "Get blood on that and I'll never forgive you."

Sherlock chuckled at that, her obsession with him in purple was something he loved about her.

"You bitch!" the intruder growled out, trying to push himself to his knees.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at that, "You're out of time. Tell me about your boss, Moriarty."

He had to open with that, despite the profile, he had to know, without a shadow of a doubt, this wasn't Moriarty's game. He had to be certain, because if he or Leena was wrong, he'd never forgive himself.

"Who?" the man spat at them.

Sherlock nodded to himself, seeing it wasn't him, which meant…one last test to see if Leena's suspicion was right, "Well, before the police come in and spoil things, why don't we just enjoy the moment?" he held up the bust and turned, hurling the bust onto the ground where it smashed into pieces…

Revealing a memory stick, with the letters A.G.R.A. written on them.

Just. Like. Mary's.

But it wasn't Mary's, they both knew that. John had told them he burned the memory stick, Mary had told them he had, too, how he didn't care about her past as he just wanted the privilege of being part of her future. Neither of them had been lying when they said it.

It was not Mary's stick…but someone else's, the man's.

"AJ," Leena murmured, turning to look at the man, now able to really see his face, "You're AJ."

Mary had never told them the names of the others on the AGRA stick. She hadn't had to. Leena cared for John very much and as soon as it became serious between him and Mary she had pulled out all the stops to research her, dig into her past, make sure she was safe for John or at least a good person, because she knew the woman loved him deeply. She found everything, everything about Mary's past, even hacked the government to make sure of it, all of it put into her own file that only Sherlock had seen.

Including the other members of Mary's team that she worked with.

Alex
Gabriel
Rosamund
AJ

AGRA

She and Sherlock had never said anything to Mary about knowing the rest of her team. Not when Leena cracked the final report about them, how and why they disbanded, when she'd been researching why Mary had changed her name and stuck with it so long. There had been a mission, an attack, an ambush, and it was clear Mary was the only one to make it out alive, or so it seemed.

The only thing was…there were only two bodies found that were confirmed to be Gabriel and Alex. Mary's never had been, she'd survived and escaped. Neither had AJ's. But no matter how much she hacked and searched, she couldn't find hide nor hair of AJ, and so it had appeared as though his body might have been one of the few dismembered beyond identification in an ensuing bombing.

Looking at the man now, it was so clear to both of them, with Sherlock's mind and her profiling, he had been tortured, for years. All that time the body had been missing, it was because it had been hidden away, not allowed into the world to make a mark or a trail anywhere.

Until now.

AJ had resurfaced, and, truly, even Scotland Yard would be able to work out why and why he was after this stick.

If it had JUST been Mary's information, it would have just been R. But it was all of them, it was information about all the team. AJ needed it to take out Mary, to expose her, to sell her out. There was no need for him to go after the stick when, they were sure, he had false identifiers and passports hidden all over the world. If it was just about him making a new life, he would have gone after them and kept quiet, this...this was about the information on the stick. He knew someone on his team was alive and he wanted to get to them.

This level of determination to do it, this desperation, it was not of a person of sound mind and clear head. This was not someone keen to rekindle an old team and share fond memories. He would have taken his time to find that person again. This was too quick and fixated, as though he'd been focusing and thinking about this for too long and the second he had a chance he took it and would not let it pass by or wait to see if he lost the lead. And, since Mary was the only one left, AJ was going after her.

They couldn't let that happen.

"You are not laying a hand on her," Sherlock warned, coming to the same conclusion as Leena had about the man's reason for being there, reaching down to pick up the stick.

"Her?" AJ sneered, pushing himself onto his knees, before he jerked to the side and grabbed his pistol that had fallen into the kitchen to aim at them, "You know her. You do, don't you? You know the bitch. She betrayed me, betrayed us all!"

"Mary would never betray you," Leena grit her teeth, aiming at the man. She should have fired when he moved before, but she really wasn't the greatest shot and she didn't want to risk losing her bullets or have the man fire in retaliation. Right now it was a stalemate.

"Is that what she's calling herself now, eh?" the man spat, glancing over when he heard the sounds of sirens approaching the house.

"Armed police!" Lestrade's voice called over a speaker outside, "You're surrounded!"

"Give it to me," AJ demanded, getting to his feet, "Give it to me!"

"Come out slowly. I wanna see your hands above your head."

"Nobody shoots me!" AJ yelled out to the police, "Anyone shoots, I kill this man!"

"You kill him, I kill you," Leena raised the gun a little higher.

He smirked, "You think I can't kill you and the wee one before I bleed out?" he challenged, knowing they wouldn't risk him shooting her…and she was the one with the gun after all, who else would he really shoot at first.

"Lay down your weapon," Lestrade ordered, "Do it now!"

"Leena," Sherlock reached a hand to the small of her back, tense and rigid, his hand too much pressure there, a signal not to make this worse.

HE had a bulletproof vest on, the man could shoot him in the chest and he'd be fine, but SHE didn't, and SHE had the gun, SHE was more of the threat, and she was pregnant. Normally he would talk, irritate, insult the man so that he'd focus on HIM and shooting HIM…but this man was highly trained, like Mary was, he would never let himself be that distracted.

Leena would be his only target and if he tried to move in front of her, the man would know and fire anyway.

AJ smirked and began heading towards the door near the pool, "I'm leaving this place!" he half shouted to the police, "If no one follows me, no one dies."

"Lay down your weapon!" Lestrade tried again.

"You're policemen. I'm a professional," he looked at Sherlock and Leena, "Tell her she's a dead woman. She's a dead woman walking."

"She's our friend," Leena defended.

Sherlock shook his head, "And she's under our protection. Who are you?"

It was meant to be an insult, to say the man was no one's friend, was under no one's protection, but AJ answered anyway, "I'm the man who's gonna kill your friend. Who's Sherlock Holmes?"

"The man who will stop you," Leena stated.

The man scoffed, and turned quickly to shoot a sensor by the door to the pool room, causing it to explode and short out all the lights in the room, giving him time to escape.

~8~

It was a failed mission in Tbilisi, Georgia, six years ago that drove Mary into becoming who she was. Of course, she told none of this to Sherlock, Leena, or John, but only two of them still knew what happened. Between government files Leena had hacked into, between files she demanded of Mycroft and forced him to look the other way about, and the information she was able to gleam online, they knew everything that happened to Mary that fateful day.

An Ambassador had been taken hostage, along with her husband and her staff by insurgents. A special force of 4 soldiers had been called in, AGRA, ready to assist and extract upon the codeword given by the Ambassador. When it was given, they entered the scene, took out the insurgents in the room, so skilled it took only a single shot from their guns to the head to take them down. They had begun, then, to get the ambassador and her husband out of the scene, releasing the other hostages in the process. They had been leading the hostages out, only to come to an ambush where the lights were blown out. They tried to retreat, but were cornered in from behind by more armed men. There was no way out, no way to save all the hostages, no way to complete their mission. A flash bomb went off, gunfire rang out, and the final fight had begun…resulting in the death of numerous hostages, two confirmed AGRA soldiers, two missing and presumed dead, and just…a massacre.

They just never said anything, because Sherlock had learned the necessity of not existing for a time, because it was her past and she was important to John, and because John had said he didn't care to know. So they kept it to themselves.

The end of the story though was the part that had always bothered Leena, especially after she had researched more about AGRA's past missions too. They were good, very good, they planned things to a T and always used the element of surprise to take out their enemies. The only way that group could have been ambushed was if their enemies knew the attack was coming. She just didn't know how they'd found out or who gave them the warning.

As she sat in 221B with Sherlock, the man tapping the memory stick against his hand while she lightly dabbed at his eye with a wet, cool cloth, for it was already bruising, she knew she wouldn't find the answers on the memory stick either.

"Well?" Sherlock called out when the door to the flat opened and Lestrade entered.

"He can't have got far. We'll have him in a bit."

"I very much doubt it," Sherlock muttered when Leena pulled back, handing him the cloth so she could get up and grab her phone.

"Why?"

"Because I think he used to work with Mary."

Leena looked over to Sherlock when she got a response to her text and nodded, the man getting up and the two of them heading out. They had a very important conversation to be had before anything else happened, and it couldn't wait.

~8~

They had to be very careful how they contacted Mary about what they needed to tell her. They couldn't risk doing so at her flat or theirs, anywhere Mary would normally go, AJ could be out there, tracking her down as they spoke. Even if they hadn't gotten Sherlock's name out there or Mary's, AJ would have been able to find them anyway. A search of police in the area, or the break ins, for clearly they were investigating the break ins, would have Sherlock's name everywhere, and a search of his name brought up hers and John's and Mary's too. He would have found Mary anyway and they had to make sure she came to them in a place AJ would never look and that she'd be careful doing so, which meant making her think John couldn't know or follow.

It was an old church at the edge of a graveyard, abandoned, with a small vault that had some great wifi, a perfect place to set up a little base. Sherlock would sometimes use it when he wanted to contact criminals or suspects and make them very nervous, something about a spooky church being a little more intimidating than a flat with a yellow smiley face painted on the wall. There was a sofa set up, some chairs, a desk, and a few other lights though it was mostly low-tech save for the laptop they brought and set up on one of the desks.

They looked over when the creaky door was pushed in to see someone enter, wearing a yellow raincoat. They pushed down the hood, but even before they did so, they could tell it was Mary.

"That was quite a text you sent me," Mary smiled at them, turning her torch off and putting it in her pocket, "What's going on?" she looked between him and Leena for that, given the draft, even with summer so close, Sherlock would have picked a better area to set up for his pregnant wife, unless this was serious.

"The profile was right," Leena told her, grim, "It wasn't Moriarty."

"Who was it then?" Mary asked, getting that they must have confronted the bust smasher.

Sherlock merely held up the memory stick, AGRA visible even in the dim lighting.

Mary gasped, striding forward, staring at the stick in shock and a bit of delight, even, "Oh my God. That's a…"

"Yes," he nodded, "It's an AGRA memory stick like you gave John, except this one belongs to someone else."

"Who?" Mary looked at them, her eyes filling with tears, "What did he look like?"

"AJ," Leena answered, giving her the name and not the description.

Mary swallowed hard, "You've looked at it then."

"No," she shook her head, "Mary, we've known for a while, a good long while. About you, AJ…"

"Gabriel and Alex too," Sherlock finished.

"I am very thorough," Leena offered, trying to smile, but knowing this situation, what they were about tell Mary about this teammate of hers, would be anything but something to smile at.

"But it can't be," Mary shook her head, trying to push the fact that they'd really known the entire truth about her to the side for now, that wasn't important. What was important was AJ, "The others…"

"What happened Mary?" Leena stepped forward to take her hand, "I have the reports, I have eye witness accounts from the few hostages that escaped, I have the coverup…but what I don't have is the story from someone there, someone involved in the actual rescue attempt."

Mary let out a long breath, "There were four of us. Agents."

"Not just agents," Sherlock countered, wanting the full truth, because if they were going to help her, stop this, they needed every detail she could give them as accurately as possible.

"Polite term," Mary agreed, "You're right, Alex, Gabriel, AJ, and me…"

"Rosamund," Leena murmured.

Mary shuddered for a moment, hearing her real name for the first time in a very long while, hearing someone say it directed AT her instead of just passing conversation about one thing or another, "There was absolute trust between us," she gestured at the stick, "The memory sticks guaranteed it. We all had one, each containing aliases, our background, everything. We could never be betrayed because we had everything we needed to destroy the other."

"That's not trust," Leena remarked, "That's insurance."

She had to point that out, because…if it was trust there would be no need for the sticks. They were a way to ensure there was no betrayal, it wasn't a reason to not WANT to betray someone. Love, care, respect, trust, those were reasons not to betray someone, not insurance, not having something over another person you could use to destroy them.

And…with the way AJ was reacting, Mary could not afford to still see this man as someone she trusted. She would try to get through to him first instead of do what she might need to do to save herself. She may let her guard down, let him too close, she may not take the shot that would mean her life or his.

"Who employed you?" Sherlock asked.

"Anyone who paid well," Mary shrugged, tugging her hand back from Leena to put it in her pocket with the action, "I mean, we were at the top of our game for years, and then...it all ended."

"The coup in Georgia," Leena nodded.

"The British embassy in Tbilisi was taken over, lots of hostages. We got the call to go in, get them out. There was a change of plan, a last-minute adjustment."

"Who from?" Sherlock straightened, as did Leena, knowing they were on the cusp of working out how the ambush had happened, how it had all gone 'horribly wrong.'

"I don't know," Mary sighed, "Just another voice on the phone, and a code word, 'ammo.'"

"Ammo?" Leena repeated.

"Like 'ammunition,'" Mary nodded.

Leena frowned, for a moment, well, her mind had gone to a different sounding word. Te Amo. While her parents had been born and raised in France, as had she for the beginning part of her life, and while a majority of her family were French, her father's mother, her grandmother had been from Spain. She had fond memories, few though they were, she had been so young when the woman passed, of her grandmother cuddling with her, reading her Robin Hood to bed and tucking her in, whispering 'te amo' before she turned out the lights.

But, in this situation, ammunition made far more sense when about to go to a gunfight.

"We went in, but then something went wrong. Something went really wrong," Mary shook her head, hating to think about it, "We got cornered, ambushed. I threw a flash bomb on the ground to blind out attackers, AJ threw a smoke bomb, and shots went off. Gabriel was hit, he fell. I tried to move forward, lead the attack, advance, but a soldier came up behind us and grabbed Alex, snapped his neck. I tried to look back for AJ but with the smoke…" she swallowed hard, "I managed to clear a path with the hostages, chucked my gear and fled with them, blended in and got out," she let out a long breath, "That was six years ago. Feels like forever. I was the ONLY one that made it out."

"AJ did, too," Leena shook her head, "It just…took him a very long time."

Sherlock turned and plugged the memory stick into the laptop, "We met him last night. He was the one looking for the sixth Thatcher, for that," he nodded at the stick, he clicked on a few files, bringing up a picture of AJ, knowing Mary could very easily think the stick was faked to make her think one of her team made it, but there was the proof, all of AJ's aliases popping up.

"AJ," she breathed, stunned that the stick was real, there was no way to replicate that information, not in that order, not in that set up, "He's alive?"

"Yeah, very much so."

"I don't believe it!" she nearly laughed, so utterly delighted that it broke Leena's heart to see, to know what would be coming next, "This is amazing! I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one who got out."

"Mary…" she began.

"Where is he?" Mary turned to her, "I need to see him, now!"

"Mary, he got out," Leena repeated, "But it took him a while and…there's a very high chance he's been a prisoner, all this time."

"What?" Mary frowned.

"Tortured even, lied to, manipulated," Sherlock added, "Because, Mary, he wants you dead."

Mary laughed at that, actually laughed, "Sorry, no, no, 'cause we…we were family."

"Families fall out," Sherlock reminded her, "The memory stick is the easiest way to track you down. You're the only other survivor. It must be you that he wants, and he's already killed looking for the Thatcher bust."

"Well…he's just trying to find me," Mary tried to argue, "He survived. That's all that matters!"

"HOW he survived also matters," Leena pointed out, "Mary, whatever love or familial bond you had with AJ…it's not on his side any longer. He specifically said, 'Tell her she's a dead woman walking.'"

"Why would he want to kill me?"

"He said you betrayed him," Sherlock spoke.

"Oh, no, no, that's insane!"

"Well, it's what he believes," Sherlock remarked, "As I said, torture, lies, manipulation…it can twist anyone. Lock him up, tell him it's your fault, give him six years and…" he looked down at the computer screen, not needing to say more for Mary to get the message, to finally understand.

AJ really was coming to kill her.

"I suppose I was always afraid this might happen," Mary murmured, "That something in my past would come back to haunt me one day."

Because SHE wasn't the only one in danger now…they were, too, for knowing her, for trying to protect her.

"Yes, well he's a very tangible ghost," Sherlock tried to quip.

"God, I just wanted a bit of peace, and I really thought I had it."

"You DO," Leena turned to her, "We promised you, Mary, Sherwood and I, we swore that we would keep you and John and Hamish safe. And we will."

"Stay close to us and we WILL keep you safe from him," Sherlock nodded, "I promise you."

Mary smiled at them, at their thoughtful gesture, before she took a breath, nodding, "There's something I think you should read," she said, holding out a piece of paper she always kept on her to Sherlock, the paper a bit wet from the rain still on her glove.

"What is it?" Sherlock looked down at it, reaching out to take it.

"I hoped I wouldn't have to do this…" Mary began, watching Sherlock unfold it, waiting a moment before he began to sway unsteadily on his feet, the chemicals laced on the paper already soaking into his bare hands.

"Mary!" Leena turned to her, only for Mary to pull a gun from her pocket and aim it at her, regret heavy in her eyes.

"Mary…" Sherlock reached out, as though to try and stop her, push the gun down, but Mary stepped back and he fell to the ground.

She looked back up at Leena, her heart breaking to do this…but Leena wouldn't risk trying to disarm her, Leena wouldn't trust that she wouldn't fire the gun this time.

She had shot Sherlock Holmes.

She could shoot Leena too, even if the woman was pregnant.

And Leena knew that.

She didn't want to shoot her, she would try so hard not to, and part of her knew she wouldn't have to…because Leena, for all the trust she had grown and built between them, would never forget that she did shoot Sherlock and nearly killed him, and that part of her would never trust Mary NOT to shoot someone if she was desperate and needed to do so.

"It'll be alright," Mary looked between the two of them, tears in her eyes now, backing towards the door, Sherlock trying to keep moving, to push himself up but too weak, Leena stuck where she was by the gun aimed at her, "It's for the best, believe me."

She carefully aimed the gun, waiting till Sherlock was too out of it, before she moved to the laptop and pulled the stick out of it, "You just look after them till I get back," she looked to the girl, "I'm sorry…" before she turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door shut and Leena could hear her wedging something heavy in front of it to trap them in.

Leena sighed as she moved to sit beside Sherlock, reaching out to take his hand, carefully using a tissue from her pocket to pull the paper out of his hold and toss it aside, before she pulled her mobile from her pocket, bringing it to her ear as she waited for the person to pick up, he gaze on the laptop, the empty memory stick slot.

When the phone clicked on, she knew they were there, just didn't know what to say or how to start. So she did it for them, "She took it, she left," her heart broke at the exhale she heard over the phone, "I'm so sorry, John."

~8~

"Agra?" Mycroft scoffed as he sat with his feet up on his office desk, Sherlock and Leena in front of him, though Leena was fixated on her phone, "A city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is 378 kilometers west of the state capital, Lucknow…"

"Think HOUND, Mycroft," Leena cut in.

"It's is an acronym," Sherlock agreed.

"Oh, good," Mycroft rolled his eyes, "I love an acronym. All the best secret societies have them."

"Enough games," Leena lowered her phone, "YOU know who they are. You gave me their files…"

"You threatened to smother me in my sleep if I didn't."

"Like you were actually worried…" Leena scoffed, knowing he'd done it as a way to make up for helping Sherlock fake his death, he'd made a lot of concessions to her during those two years.

Mycroft just gave her a look, "You had nothing left to lose."

It was in that moment that Sherlock realized…Mycroft had actually feared for his life when she made that threat. He'd truly been worried she'd go through with it.

…exactly how bad a place had Leena pretended to be in during his 'death' that even Mycroft believed she would be capable of actually killing him?

…and how much of it wasn't an act?

He knew she'd revealed to Mycroft near the end that she was aware, the entire time, that he had faked his death. Not so much that he was alive or well during the whole two years, but that she knew the initial death had been false. But she had let the man think she'd believed it for a majority of that time. She had to have played the part very well for Mycroft to really think she meant it.

And he knew Leena, for as good as she was at adapting to a situation, talking down an unstable individual, holding her own, she could only do so when she was drawing up some real feeling. Part of her act had been real, in some way.

"I still wouldn't have killed you," Leena argued, "You're Sherwood's brother."

"Sentiment," Mycroft scoffed.

"Which is what kept you alive," Leena reminded him, "And sentiment is the only thing keeping you on the list of possible godfathers, so you're going to help us with this."

"With what?" Mycroft sighed.

Sherlock just barely managed to keep the smirk off his face as he turned to his brother, "One of AGRA's members, AJ, is looking for Mary, also one of the team."

"Indeed? Well, that's news to me."

"We both know you're lying, Mycroft," Leena cut in, "If you can't be serious…" she began to stand.

He sighed, rolling his eyes, he really did need to stop indulging the two of them in their whims, but not when they had leverage against him, he would be the godfather come hell or high water, "AGRA were very reliable. Then came the Tbilisi incident. They were sent in to free the hostages but it all went horribly wrong. And that was that. We stopped using freelancers."

"Yes, yes, we know that," Sherlock huffed, "What we need to know is how the horribly wrong, went horribly wrong. There was something else, a detail, a code word," he tugged a paper to him and wrote it down.

"'AMMO?'" Mycroft read.

"It's all we've got."

"Little enough."

"Could you do some digging?" Leena asked, "As a favor?"

"Neither of you have many favors left."

Leena sighed, rubbing her head, "We'll bump you up above Mike," she offered. Even though John was going to be the godfather, Mycroft didn't need to know that when dangling it in front of him could get them what they wanted. And, really, Mike Stamford, as a more acquaintance-friend of Sherlock's, was so far down on the list Mycroft would have a ways to go yet, Lestrade was higher than Mike, her team at the BAU higher than him still.

Mycroft eyed her a moment, smirking when he saw the irritation on Sherlock's face as he grew closer and closer to being named godfather, which he knew his brother was loath to allow to happen, "And if you can find who's after her and neutralize them, what then? You think you can go on saving her forever?"

"Of course," Sherlock remarked, nonchalant.

"Is that sentiment talking?"

"No. It's me."

"Difficult to tell the difference these days," Mycroft eyed him, "Used to be that only happened with Leena."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed at his use of Leena's nickname instead of 'Jackie.'

"Sentiment happens with family," Leena defended, "Lord knows he needs at least one sibling he actually likes."

Mycroft narrowed his eyes at her for that remark, even as Sherlock smirked, getting the dig she'd sent. That John (and Mary by extension) was as good as a brother to him now, and of course he would allow for sentiment when it came to family. Mycroft hardly ever showed him sentiment, why would he return the favor?

"Leena and I made a promise, a vow," Sherlock added.

Mycroft sighed, sitting up more, "Alright. I'll see what I can do. But remember this, brother mine," he leaned forward, observing them, "Agents like Mary tend not to reach retirement age. They get retired in a pretty permanent sort of way."

"Not on our watch," Sherlock swore, Leena firm and resolute beside him.

That was what family did, watched out for each other, as John had once put it 'friends keep people safe' and that was exactly what they would do, because John and Mary would do the same for them.

~8~

It had been heartbreaking to have to watch John read the note Mary had left for him when she went on the lamb, trying to put as much distance between them and the danger following her as she could, according to her letter. She had fled, taken the first flight out of England and then…she didn't know where she would go, leaving it to chance and the literal roll of a dice, a means to try and keep Sherlock from deducing her next move or Leena from profiling her preferences. She promised she would return, which was something, Leena supposed, but the fact that she had left was what truly hurt John…even though he'd been warned about it.

He had sworn up and down that he knew Mary, he KNEW her, and she wouldn't leave him and Hamish like that, even with Sherlock and Leena warning that she would. Leena had an entire profile for the woman, adding to it every so often when she learned new things about Mary, but everything in it told her that the woman would leave the second she suspected danger directed at her family, to lure it away and handle it herself. John had been angry, shouted that she might be wrong, that this might be the one profile she was wrong about.

Perhaps it had been that, that caveat of 'what if she wasn't' which made John back down and offer them the only way he could think of to find Mary again…and drag her back go England if he had to.

Mary was so sure they wouldn't find her though. She'd be shocked to learn that they knew every step she made, from when she travelled through Norway, to Liechtenstein, to Italy, to Greece, to Algeria, and even Morocco.

They left it up to John, when they would confront Mary for they would always know where she was when he was ready for that meeting.

The poor man had hoped she would come back, it took him a full month before he had accepted that she wasn't coming back on her own to apologize and ask for help. So he'd then given her a month to try and handle it herself, then two, then three, he'd given her a season, just one season, nearly a third of a year in total, and he figured, if she hadn't managed by then...it wouldn't happen any time soon and he'd called it then, turned to his friends and said it was enough.

Drawing a target away meant going somewhere and waiting, luring them to you.

Mary wasn't doing that, she was constantly travelling, constantly moving. Not that he wanted her to be bait in a trap or face down the threat alone, but it was making him feel as though she may not have the intention to stop. It could get her killed if she was so focused on running that she missed the person sneaking up on her. She needed a base, she needed a plan, a trap that SHE controlled, and that wasn't happening.

He had trusted her at first, that she would be smart and prepared and careful even without him there to watch her back, but he couldn't stand by any longer, 4 months was his limit.

He would bring her back and they would stop this together.

Which was how three people found themselves camped out in a small hotel in Morocco, waiting for Mary to return to her room where they were waiting for her.

Sherlock smirked, in the middle of a card game with the son of the hotel owners, hearing someone approaching slowly from the doorway of the room, which they'd purposefully left open so she would hear someone within the boy was talking to. Even with the chatter, he was intimately familiar with the sound of a gun cocking, and reached out absently to take Leena's hand as she sat beside him, her back to the wall, her eyes closed, worn out and very tired, her other hand gently rubbing at her very large stomach. They had tried to keep Leena in London. Citing her pregnancy and how far along she was, admittedly, hadn't been the best course of action for she was quite terrifying for someone naturally so calm, he supposed any woman at the height of their pregnancy would be though.

He and John both ended up with soundly bruised shins and Leena deleted every program they had running for tracking Mary except for one on her phone, which she then changed the password to so not even Sherlock could crack it. It left them little option but to bring her along if they wished to be able to keep walking without wincing or even hope to find Mary.

Mycroft, in a somewhat surprising move of compassion, had offered a small private plane for them to use, remarking Leena should not be flying in her condition, but even less so on such a crowded and large plane where it could not be landed easily if something happened.

Sherlock was of the opinion the man had only done so to be bumped up ahead of Greg in the list of potential godfathers. His brother would still have to bypass at least 5 other men to get anywhere near the top of the list though so he accepted the offer.

"Mr. Baker," Sherlock spoke to their young host who had been cajoling him about his victory in their card game, "Well, that completes the set," he glanced over when he saw Mary leap out from behind the corner of a wall, now dressed in dark clothing with equally dark, short hair, and a long white scarf over her head, a gun loose in her hand and a startled look on her face that only grew more so when she saw not just him but Leena there as well.

"No, it does not," the young boy continued, not noticing Mary's gun which she quickly hid behind her back.

"Well, who else am I missing?" Sherlock continued, holding up a finger to Mary when she moved to speak, he was in the middle of a conversation after all.

"Master Bun," the boy stated, "It's not a set without him. How many more times, Mr. Sherlock?"

"Maybe it's because I'm not familiar with the concept yet," Sherlock remarked, setting the cards down for the game, 'Happy Families' he'd been playing, taking note of the small smile that grew on Leena's face at his words. He hadn't had the best time growing up with the likes of Mycroft looming over him, and his disinterest with his parents, his lack of friends. But it warmed her heart to know that he had better hopes for the family THEY were making.

"Oh, hello Mary," Sherlock added, as though 'just' noticing her standing there, "Nice trip?"

"How the f..." Mary began, but Leena interrupted.

"Language, Mary," Leena spoke, cracking an eye open to peer at her, "There are children present…and not just this one," she patted her stomach.

Mary let out a breath, "How did you get in here?!"

"Karim is a very kind and respectful boy," Leena spoke, making the boy grin, "He was very gracious about helping us check on our dear friend."

"Hello," the boy nodded at Mary.

"Karim," Sherlock turned to him, "Would you be so kind as to fetch us some tea? And perhaps a bit of fruit, my wife's a bit peckish."

"Sure," Karim smiled and got up, eager to help the kind people.

"I'll show you peckish," Leena muttered under her breath, hating when he used her pregnancy as an excuse for other people (besides Mycroft) to do things for them.

Though, she had to admit, the conversation that followed would probably not be one a boy should hear.

"No," Mary spoke as soon as Karim was out of the room, "I mean how did you find me?"

Leena chuckled, "Mary," she opened both eyes and sat up more, wincing at a tug at her back, which had ached quite terribly the last few months, "He's Sherlock Holmes!"

Sherlock smirked and winked at Mary for that.

"No, really, though, how?"

"Mary, Mary," Sherlock sighed and shook his head, "My wife is a profiler."

Mary was now looking very unimpressed, "Every movement I made was entirely random, every new personality just on the roll of a dice!"

Sherlock scoffed at that, "No human action is ever truly random. An advanced grasp of the mathematics of probability mapped onto a thorough apprehension of human psychology and the known dispositions of any given individual can reduce the number of variables considerably," he refrained from smirking when Mary just stared at him, lost, "I myself know of at least 58 techniques to refine this seemingly infinite array of randomly generated possibilities down to the smallest number of feasible variables."

Leena shook her head even as Mary began to nod, the woman clearly believing the absolute load of bollocks Sherlock had been spewing, "We stuck a tracer on the memory stick."

Mary glared at Sherlock as he began to laugh at her gullibility, "Oh, you bastard!"

"I know, but your face!" Sherlock cackled.

"'The mathematics of probability?!'"

"You believed that."

"'Feasible variables!'"

"Yes. I started to run out about then."

"Profiler, Mary," Leena pointed at herself, "I knew you'd run the second we told you about all this, and that you'd never leave without the stick."

"So you tracked the stick," Mary huffed, shaking her head at them, muttering to herself, "In the memory stick!" as though she should have thought of that.

"Yeah," John's voice spoke, and instantly the small smile that had grown on Mary's face fell when he stepped into the room, "That was my idea."

Leena looked at her friend sadly, "Did you really think we wouldn't tell John first about you being in danger?" she glanced at Sherlock, who had grown serious beside her, and back to Mary, "John is the one who saves the lives."

Mary could only nod, tears in her eyes as she looked at her husband after so long apart, she had missed him so much, him and Hamish, her boys, but he didn't look very pleased to see her right now.

No, he looked disappointed, and if that didn't just break her heart to see.

~8~

Leena and Sherlock sat off to the side of the small room Mary had been renting for her brief, too brief, stay in Morocco. They wanted to give the Watsons privacy to speak, to hash out what they likely both needed to vent about in peace, but John had asked them to stay. If Mary ran again, and he had no reason to think she wouldn't, he didn't know if he'd have the heart to stop her, where the others might have a better chance…or Sherlock would at least.

Leena had thrown the small candy she'd been munching on at his head for that, and missed, but it was the effort that mattered!

And so they were in the back of the room, trying to be quiet and respectful as the two talked near the window, Mary's blonde hair, which had been hidden beneath her atrocious wig, revealed and glinting in the moonlight.

"AGRA," John began, once he'd felt calm enough to speak without yelling or throwing things back at her.

"Yes," Mary nodded.

"You said it was your initials."

"In a way, that was true."

"In a way?" John scoffed, looking away, "So many lies…"

"I'm so sorry."

Leena looked over at Sherlock when he squeezed her hand gently, his expression, the way his eyes bore in to her own, causing her to smile gently back. He had only ever kept one thing from her, and it hadn't even been an outright lie, not really, because he had given her all the clues she needed to work out the truth after the fact. And even when he hadn't given clues, the one time her faith in him had been shaken by Irene, it had never been a direct lie, only his inability to know what had to be actually said out loud for he thought his actions were clear when they weren't. It was never intentional. They knew each other too long to want to keep secrets, each of their skills making the other an open book if they wanted to use them in that fashion, but they didn't need to. She leaned over more, resting her head on his shoulder. No, there would never be secrets between them.

"I don't just mean you," John sighed, turning to her.

"What?"

"Alex, Gabriel, AJ, you're 'R,'" John deduced, smiling a bit when he worked out what R name it had to be, "Rosamund."

It had been the only name they'd thought to use had Hamish been a girl.

"Rosamund Mary. I always liked 'Mary.'"

John smiled a bit more, "Yeah, me too," before it fell away with a heavy sigh, "I used to."

"I just…" Mary began, when John moved a few steps away, "I didn't know what else to do."

"You could have stayed," John turned to her, upset because her actions meant HE couldn't stay with Hamish now, he'd had to leave his son in the care of his sister just to track down his wayward wife, "You could have talked to me. That's what couples are supposed to do: work things through!"

A part of him was also a bit angry she didn't talk to Sherlock or Leena either, even if she felt she couldn't turn to him, she had other people who cared about her too. He would have been ok if she chose them for help, so long as she stayed. Because he knew, his best friend and Leena would have come to him, because he deserved to know of the danger and the plan to protect his wife.

"Yes," Mary nodded, sniffling at how badly she had mucked this up, "Yes, of course."

"Mary," John sighed, moving over to her and taking her hands, "I may not be a very good man, but I think I'm a bit better than you give me credit for, most of the time."

"All the time," Mary insisted, "You're always a good man, John. I've never doubted that. You never judge, you never complain. I don't deserve you. I…" she took a breath, "All I ever wanted to do was keep you and Hamish safe, that's all."

"And all we wanted was to keep YOU safe," Leena spoke up gently, seeing that the Watsons might have come to a brief respite now.

"We promised we would," Sherlock agreed, standing, offering a hand to Leena to help her up with a bit more struggle than Mary remembered, which made the woman smile to see how big he friend had grown, "But it has to be in London. It's my city, I know the turf. Come home and everything will be alright, I promise you."

"John, get down!" Leena suddenly shouted, having looked over at John when Sherlock spoke to Mary and saw a red laser of what could only be a gun appearing on the side of his head.

Mary reacted before John could blink, throwing herself at the man and yanking him down a moment before gunfire rang out. Sherlock dove for a nearby table, throwing it on its side for more cover as Leena dropped to her knees with a bruising thud, the two of them taking cover. John scrambled to the side, Mary throwing herself at her bag, grabbing her gun that she'd stowed away there.

The gunfire stopped for only a moment, to allow the shooter to kick down the door. AJ appeared, marching in with a rifle in front of him.

Mary spun around and fired three shots from her pistol, forcing the man to take cover around the corner near the door, giving Mary time to duck behind a dresser at the end of the room.

"Hello again," AJ spat.

Mary's breath shuddered, hearing his voice for the first time in so long, "AJ?"

"Oh, you remember me. I'm touched," he hissed.

"Look, I thought you were dead, believe me, I did."

"I've been looking forward to this for longer than you can imagine."

"I swear to you, I thought you were dead. I thought I was the only one who got out."

A single gunshot rang out as AJ moved around the corner, firing at the largest target she could be hiding behind, the table. Mary was off to the side, by the dresser though, Sherlock having moved behind a cabinet, making room for John to remain behind the table with Leena, swapping places with him.

"How did you find us?" Sherlock called out, holding a hand out as far as he could to the dresser nearby, for Mary to hand him her pistol since he was closer.

"By following you, Sherlock Holmes," AJ spat, "I mean, you're clever, you found her, but I found you, so perhaps not so clever."

"Shit," Leena huffed under her breath, John looking at her in concern as she winced…only he couldn't tell if it was in upset over being so easily followed, or something else…but the bullets hadn't gone through the table and Sherlock wasn't trying to kill AJ yet so she couldn't have been wounded…

"And now here we are, at last," AJ continued.

Sherlock looked around, trying to find a way to give them an advantage, or at least make it more difficult for AJ…and spotted the light hanging from the ceiling. He quickly stood and fire at the light to shatter it, and turning to aim the pistol at AJ, but the man dropped into a crouch for cover.

"Touché," AJ chuckled.

"Listen," John called out from behind the table, "Whatever you think you know, we can talk about this. We can work it out."

"She thought I was dead. I might as well have been!"

"It was always just the four of us, always, remember?" Mary tried to appeal to that familial bond they'd had.

"Oh yeah?"

"So why d'you want to kill me?"

"D'you know how long they kept me prisoner?" AJ spat, "What they did to me? They tortured Alex to death," he wheezed as though recalling the memory of it, "I can still hear the sound of his back breaking. But you, you…where were YOU?"

"That day at the embassy, I escaped."

"Oh, yeah?"

"But I lost sight of you too, so you explain: where were you?"

"Oh, I got out…for a while. Long enough to hide my memory stick. I didn't want that to fall into their hands. I was loyal, you see, loyal to my friends. But they took me, tortured me. Not for information. Not for anything except fun."

Leena let out a sharp breath, John reaching out to put a hand on her back, knowing what she must be thinking. HE had the medical background, so he could only imagine the pain and anguish the man had been in. But Leena had the psychological aspect of it, she would know, better than all of them, what that sort of mental scarring would do, to be tortured mercilessly for nothing but another's pleasure. It would be bound to twist a person, affect them on a whole other level than needing information would.

Information meant it stopped once it was given, fun meant it could go on forever.

"Oh, they thought I'd give in, die, but I didn't. I lived, and eventually they forgot about me just rotting in a cell somewhere. Six years they kept me there, until one day I saw my chance. Oh, and I…I made them pay," the darkness in his voice made them all tense and flinch, "You know, all the time I was there, I just kept picking up things, little whispers, laughter, gossip: how the clever agents had been betrayed. Brought down by you."

"Me?" Mary scoffed, offended now.

Right at that moment a train went past the tracks outside the building, the light from it brightening the room enough for AJ to leap from his cover and aim for Sherlock. But Mary had the same idea, bounding out from behind the dresser and grabbing the pistol from Sherlock to face off with the man herself. John scrambled to the side, for a bag that had another gun in it, turning to aim it over the table's top, in time to see AJ and Mary meet at the end of the room, both aiming their pistols at each other's heads.

"You know I'll kill you too," Mary spoke, her voice eerily calm and sure, "You know I will, AJ."

"What, you think I care if I die?" AJ nearly panted with the anger coursing through him, "I've dreamed of killing you every night for six years, of squeezing the life out of your treacherous, lying throat."

"I swear to you, AJ…" Mary began, trying to plead with him.

Leena grit her teeth and turned to face the two, knowing she had to help, this was her job, this was what SHE did, talk people down. Mary would never get through to AJ with feelings and the good old times, nor would John or Sherlock with threat and a gun aimed at him.

"What did you hear?" she asked, catching how AJ's gaze flickered to her for all of a second, too quickly for Mary to try and press her advantage, but she knew she'd caught his attention, "As their prisoner. What were the exact words that they said about who betrayed you?"

"What did I hear?" AJ scoffed, "'Ammo.' Every day as they tore into me. Ammo. Ammo…" his voice began to shake and tremble, a sign of escalation on the horizon, "Ammo. Ammo. We were betrayed!"

"By who?" Leena pressed, her hands gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles were turning white, her face pinched as she lifted herself up enough to peer at him over the edge of the table, "What name did they give?"

"I didn't need a name!" AJ spat, "It was HER. SHE betrayed us!" his hand on his gun began to tremble now.

"Then how do you know it was Mary?" she tried to reason, her voice shaking but calm.

"They said it was the English woman!"

"I'm sorry to tell you this," Leena spoke, "But there are approximately 33.82 million English women. And over 200 in government alone. Why do you think MARY was the one to betray you? Wasn't the Ambassador English too?"

For a brief second, for one very brief moment, Mary could see the hesitation, the question, the consideration, in AJ's eyes as Leena's question got to him. Why HER? Why her and not any other English woman? She doubted very much that it was the Ambassador who set them up but…Leena had a point that it COULD have been. All that time it could have been the Ambassador or any other woman in the government who knew about AGRA. And that was all she needed, AJ to hesitate and question and she could…

Before another word was spoken, two shots rang out from the doorway, a Moroccan police officer was standing there, having been drawn there by the sounds of gunfire, and shot into AJ"s back, sending him to the ground.

"No!" Mary screamed, leaping forward to catch him even after he tried to kill her, "No!"

John leapt over the table, hurrying to Mary's side to try and help the man, for no matter what happened he was a doctor and doctors helped. He had just moved to press his fingers to AJ's neck, to check on his pulse, when Karim entered and dropped the tray of tea and fruit he'd been preparing at the sight of the dead man.

John sighed, turning to Mary as the officer hurried Karim out, "I'm sorry," he told her as she sobbed beside him.

Sherlock frowned, turning to give Mary some privacy to mourn her loss, when he caught sight of Leena, gripping the table with one hand, her head bowed, her other hand hidden behind the table but she was shaking, he could tell from how tense she was.

"Leena…" he moved over to her.

"Hospital," Leena gasped, looking up at him, her face unnaturally pale and pinched, "Now. Sherlock."

He was at her side in an instant at the use of his actual name, his eyes, even in the dim light, noting the dark patch seeping into the top of her dark grey leggings, thankfully not a red stain, "You're not..." he blinked rapidly, his mind short circuiting at what he was seeing.

"Oh yes, I am," she swallowed hard, the shock of it all, the fright, the trauma...it was too much stress.

The baby was coming.

Now.

"Hospital," she repeated again, and the next thing she knew, John was also at her side, jumping right into doctor-mode, even Mary forcing herself to bottle her grief enough to be a nurse...

Which as just as well, Sherlock seemed to be having some sort of crisis and blinking like a malfunctioning robot...

~8~

"She's beautiful," Mary sniffled, still half in shock over the loss of AJ as she stood with John before Sherlock and Leena in a small private room in the nearest hospital.

Sherlock had hoped, if he called Mycroft in for a favor, they could fly back to London before the baby arrived, wanting Leena to be comfortable and in the location and with the doctors they had selected in London. But John insisted it was too dangerous to risk, especially with the trauma the gunfight had caused, she needed medical care right now. And it was a good thing they had, for not even 4 hours later they had been forced to complete a C-section for the child was in stress.

Luckily it had been done quickly and successfully, and their little bundle, wrapped in her pink blanket, was nestled in her parents arms.

"You're not naming her Sherly, are you?" John tried to joke, to keep it all light.

"No," Leena chuckled, "Though I did suggest it."

"Liberty," Sherlock smiled at the sleeping babe.

The name was so much more than just a random thought in his head from an old case. The more he thought on it, the more fitting it was for his child to be named that. Because she would be Leena's child too, and he had never felt more free to be himself, completely and fully, than when he was with her. He never would have come to accept all of himself, his intelligence, his gifts, his abilities, if she hadn't been there, encouraging him and impressed by him. He had grown and grown to be the man he was because of the freedom Leena gave him to do what he loved and be who he was.

Leena glanced up at the Watsons. Sherlock's family had a tradition of sorts, two middle names for their children. No one would ever know Mycroft's full name was Mycroft Charles Donald Holmes, but she had liked the idea of carrying on that tradition when she and Sherlock had been arguing about middle names. She had favored Rosamund, to honor Mary and how they had named their son after Sherlock. He had wanted a name more from HER reflected in their child, so they had agreed. Do both.

"Liberty Rosamund Angelique Holmes," she told the Watsons.

Mary gasped, hearing her true name used as a middle name for the child.

"It was only fair," Sherlock shrugged it off, they would have gone with William David John Holmes for a boy, so it only made sense to have a Watson middle name for their daughter too, on top of the fact that they had named their child Sherlock for a middle name.

But John was beaming at the honor they'd reciprocated with their daughter no matter what excuses Sherlock used. It wasn't just fair...Mary had been there for Leena when he'd 'died' and been a friend to her. Mary had made sure HE wouldn't die when she'd shot him. Mary had done everything she could to keep her husband safe, and he knew she'd do anything she could to keep their daughter safe too. If it hadn't been for Mary, speaking on his behalf, he didn't think John would still be his friend now.

Perhaps, one day, John's name might appear with one of their children, perhaps one day Leena's would with their child. But for now, they had honored him, as the man that helped make John who he was, a man who had kept Mary safe from Magnussen. They could honor her too.

"It's beautiful," Mary sniffled.

"She's beautiful," John offered, fully agreeing with Mary's initial assessment.

Leena sniffed, smiling down at her daughter, "She's perfect."

"She is," Sherlock agreed, holding his daughter's tiny hand in his own while she slept, before leaning in to press a kiss to Leena's forehead, both of them just relieved their daughter was alive and well. And, if he was even more pleased she had a tuft of black hair and grey eyes he hoped wouldn't fade to the blue of his own well…no one needed to know why.

Leena trailed a finger down the girl's cheek, "Te Amo," she murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, "Je t'aime."

Sherlock's small smile froze at those words.

~8~

Sherlock tried his very best to be quiet as he spoke with Mycroft on the phone later that night, not caring what time it might be in London. He was still at the hospital with Leena, lying stretched out on the bed beside her, her using him more as a pillow than her own pillow which he had no complaints about. Liberty was being tended to in the nursery, while John and Mary had returned to her hotel room, to grieve and really have privacy to talk now that the madness of the night was over.

There was something that had struck him, the moment he heard Leena murmuring words of love to their daughter. He had held off saying anything, reaching out to Mycroft about it because of everything that happened, because his daughter had been in his arms and making sure she was the picture of health with all 10 fingers and toes took precedence. But now he couldn't wait any longer, because AJ might be dead, but that didn't mean Mary was safe.

"The English woman," he spoke softly to Mycroft on the other end of the line, giving him a quick run down of what had happened and that Leena was fine, their child was fine, and no he wasn't the godfather, sorry, not sorry, "That's all he heard. Naturally he assumed it was Mary."

"Couldn't this wait until you're back?" Mycroft asked, an irritation in his voice that Sherlock knew had more to do with missing the chance to be godfather than anything.

"No, it's not over," Sherlock insisted, "AJ said that they'd been betrayed. The hostage takers knew AGRA were coming. There was only a voice on the phone, remember, and a code word."

"Ammo, yes, you said."

Sherlock sighed, rubbing his head with his other hand, careful not to jostle Leena as he moved. It was his own fault. He'd accepted Mary's interpretation of the word too. The code word that, when spoken would mean AGRA should enter and begin…a code word that had been told to the hostiles as well, so they would know the attack was happening.

"How's your Latin, brother dear?"

"My Latin?"

"Amo…"

"Amas," Leena murmured beside him, conjugating the verb, "Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant."

"You're supposed to be sleeping," Sherlock murmured as she blinked blearily at him.

"Well, when Latin is being translated beside me, how can I resist?" she rolled her eyes, before smiling tiredly up at him, "You know how much I love when you speak like an old-fashioned gentleman."

He snorted, "You mean ancient hedonist?" he remarked, thinking of the information of ancient Roman culture that he hadn't deleted.

"Ancient one, modern one," she shrugged, wincing when it tugged a bit at her healing scar, "Love your hedonistic ways."

"I'll be deleting that," Mycroft's voice cut in over the phone, "Sherlock, what does this have to do with anything?"

"Amo," Sherlock repeated, "It wasn't AMMO, it was AMO. Which means…"

Mycroft was silent long enough for them to know he understood what they were telling him, about WHO they thought the voice on the phone who had tipped off the hostiles could be, "You'd better be right, Sherlock," the call clicked off.

"Love," Leena murmured, already falling half asleep again, "Should never be a word to cause harm."

Amo, Latin for love.

Codename: Love

Lady Smallwood

It made sense, but it also didn't make sense, and Sherlock was tempted to work it out right then and there but…after everything that happened, with AJ, with Leena, with Liberty…he could have one night, just one to not be the consulting detective, and just be Sherlock Holmes, with his wife and daughter.

Mycroft could handle this for the few hours he rested, he was sure of that at least.

He looked down at Leena, noting how her nose was only just starting to crinkle in her sleep, and smiled, murmuring in her ear, "Te Amo."

He let out a truly happy sigh when he saw her smile in her sleep, and finally let himself drift off.

~8~

It took nearly 2 weeks before they could fly back to London. Part of it had been monitoring Liberty and Leena to ensure any stress and trauma from the labor were resolved, that Liberty was developed and healthy, that Leena was healing well and past the point of infection.

They hadn't wanted to risk flying with Liberty so young, even if they were taking a private plane procured by Mycroft (for even if he wasn't godfather, he was still uncle and nothing Sherlock said could change that) and had tried to work out other means to return to London, perhaps even using the Eurostar. But, in the end, it ended up being deemed safer by the doctors at the hospital to fly, preferably not sooner than 2 weeks, than to travel all that way on so many different forms of transportation. The biggest concern for newborn travel was their immune system, exposing them to trains and buses and so on would be more detrimental to Liberty than risking a 2 hour flight on a private plane. They would need to have her checked out by their doctors in London though, to ensure there was no trouble caused to her ears or anything from the altitude and take off.

They had been lucky, somewhat. Liberty had screamed bloody murder, not a fan of airplanes, and had fussed once they were in the air, which had been somewhat entertaining to see Sherlock pace the length of the plane, bobbing and swaying with Liberty, to try and help her through for a majority of the flight. Leena had taken over at one point, needing to stretch her legs as the doctors ordered, but Sherlock hadn't liked how shaky she was, being so high up, and still so tired and trying to get back to rights after the labor. She'd slept the rest of the flight while he murmured stories to Liberty.

Or, as John told her later, recounted the least gruesome cases they'd had to the baby.

It was a step up though, compared to the cases he'd shown other children in the past.

Both John and Mary had been so relieved to see Hamish again, John being forced to leave the boy behind with Harriet, playing it off as allowing the aunt to bond with her nephew if anyone asked. They didn't need to know that he was leaving to drag his wife back to London. Harry had been doing so well in being sober and this was a real test of that, but he'd also had Molly check in with the woman from time to time, and he called every day, and things had been good. Hamish had adored his aunt.

Once Liberty had been checked over and deemed perfect by the doctors (as if she was anything but perfect, Sherlock had scoffed), they brought the baby to Mrs. Hudson to fawn over for the hour they needed to attend Mycroft's interrogation of Lady Smallwood.

He hadn't wanted to let on that they knew anything, thinking that word would get back about the rogue AGRA agent and not wanting to seem like he suspected anything till he could be sure the profiler and the consulting detective were there to ensure nothing was missed in the interrogation.

And so they stood there, on the other side of the two way mirror, watching as Mycroft spoke with Smallwood about her own history with AGRA.

"This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it," Lady Smallwood huffed, "How many more times?"

"Six years ago you held the brief for foreign operations, codename 'Love,'" Mycroft began.

"And you're basing all this on a codename? On a whispered voice on the telephone? Come on, Mycroft."

"You were the conduit for AGRA. Every assignment, every detail, they got from you."

"It was my job."

"Then there was the Tbilisi incident. AGRA went in."

"Yes."

"And they were betrayed."

"Not by me," the woman stated, her tone firm and insistent, "Mycroft, we've known each other a long time. I promise you, I haven't the foggiest idea what all this is about. You wound up AGRA and all the other freelancers," she eyed him a moment, "I haven't done any of the things you're accusing me of. Not one. Not. One."

"We knew there was something wrong," Leena murmured beside Sherlock as they watched on.

"Something missing," he agreed.

They had hoped, witnessing this interrogation would offer up a clue as to what that was. But there was nothing new here, nothing they hadn't already considered.

Why would someone who was about to betray a team they hired, use their actual codename to do it? They wouldn't. It would have to be a setup of sorts, someone who wanted the finger pointed at Smallwood. They played along, hoping to gleam something to point them further along. But she sat there, agreeing she was the only one who had contact with AGRA. So how could someone have done it?

There was something they were missing, and they wouldn't find it in this room, because Smallwood, every word she said was true, no hint of a lie in them, something they knew Mycroft had noticed as well. They were running out of time though, because whatever was happening, bringing Smallwood in for interrogation was not something that would go unnoticed. Whoever had done this, set all this up, would realize someone was getting closer to uncovering the truth.

"Thatcher," Sherlock murmured, "It started with her…"

"No," Leena shook her head, "It started with Amo, with the codeword, with someone who would have known Smallwood's codename…"

Sherlock stiffened, "Antarctica, Langdale, Porlock, and Love..."

Leena's mind raced, picking up on the shift in him, "And two of them are English MEN."

"The receptionist!" Sherlock realized, thinking back to what Mary herself had said about how receptionists know everything, because they take minutes!

Leena hurried forward and rapped on the glass while Sherlock pulled out his phone.

~8~

Sherlock carefully made his way through the halls of the London Aquarium, making his way to where Vivian Norbury would undoubtedly be waiting. Leena would be joining him shortly, as soon as Mary arrived for she had something for the woman that had to be done before she set foot in the building with John. He had initially wanted to text only Mary to come there, since this was a case Mary needed to see the end of given it personally affected her and she had been the target. But Leena had pointed out Mary was John's wife and there should be no more secrets between them, if someone was threatening HER wouldn't Sherlock want to be there to see that threat dealt with?

So he'd sent a text to both to meet at the London Aquarium.

He'd gone in ahead, needing to make sure Vivian would actually be there as they guessed and to distract or stall her till the others arrived. Mycroft was mobilizing his team as he spoke, John and Mary likely calling Lestrade along the way, they just needed time and to get the confession they needed before the team could be used. Vivian might confess if she thought she had a chance of escaping, he just had to buy time and get the confession.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Aquarium will be closing in five minutes," the announcement came over the tannoy as he hurried along, "Please make your way to the exit. Thank you."

He finally reached the enclosure he suspected she would be at, where people could sit on benches and watch the various sea life around them, "Your office said I'd find you here."

"This was always my favorite spot for agents to meet," Vivian remarked, not even turning to look at him, calm, "We're like them: ghostly, living in the shadows."

"Predatory," he added when she finally did turn.

"Well, it depends which side you're on," she shrugged, turning back around, observing the sharks swimming past, "Also, we have to keep moving or we die."

"Nice location for the final act. Couldn't have chosen it better myself. But then I never could resist a touch of the dramatic."

"I just come here to look at the fish," Vivian spoke, before sighing and standing, moving closer to the glass, "I knew this would happen one day," she turned to face him, shifting so her handbag was draped in the crook of her elbow, "It's like that old story."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "I really am a very busy man. Would you mind cutting to the chase?" he and Leena had now been away from their daughter longer than the planned hour and it was setting him on edge in a way he hadn't expected.

"You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?" she laughed.

"With good reason."

"There was once a merchant in a famous market in Baghdad…" Vivian began.

"I really have never liked this story," Sherlock cut in, mentally taking it off the ever growing list of stories he would one day tell Liberty at bedtime.

"I'm just like the merchant in the story. I thought I could outrun the inevitable. I've always been looking over my shoulder, always expecting to see the grim figure of…"

"Death," Mary spoke as she and Leena hurried into the room.

A quick, sharp glance at Mary's clothing and the nod Leena sent him told him she'd done as they planned and given Mary his bulletproof vest.

This woman, Vivian Norbury, had been the cause for AGRA's demise. She wanted them gone and finished, and she would not be one to go lightly without first seeing her accomplishment truly complete. She likely had a weapon, easily a gun, stashed away in her handbag, and they knew bringing Mary there would put her in danger. SHE had been the target the entire time, she would be the most likely person for Vivian to target in the end. They had to do all they could to make sure she'd be safe while still allowing her the closure she needed to know she was truly safe from her past once Vivian was dealt with.

"Hello, Mary," Sherlock greeted, relaxing his stance just slightly now that Leena was with him and Mary was safe from anything Vivian might do to her, "John?"

"On his way," Leena answered for Mary.

It had been agreed upon, Mary did not enter this building without protection, luckily Mary had been too eager to see the woman who had caused so much destruction and loss in her life finally be caught that she probably would have agreed to walk the halls naked if they said that was the only condition to being in the room with them.

"Let me introduce Amo," Sherlock gestured to Vivian.

Mary's gaze snapped to the woman, "You were Amo? You were the person on the phone that time?"

"Using AGRA as her private assassination unit."

"Why did you betray us?" Mary shook her head at the woman, truly at a loss for why the people who hired them would want them destroyed.

"Why does anyone do anything?" Vivian shrugged.

"She was selling secrets," Leena surmised, having hacked into Vivian's accounts on the way there. It all painted a picture to her and Sherlock of what the woman had been up to all these years.

"Well, it would be churlish to refuse," Vivian sighed, "Worked very well for a few years. I bought a nice cottage in Cornwall on the back of it."

"And then you got caught. Probably by the Ambassador…" it would explain the sudden need for the Ambassador to be taken out in what appeared to be an 'accident' and the only way to make it happen was if the people there to rescue her failed, hence the sabotage.

"You know, I thought I'd had it," Vivian actually chuckled at the memory, "Then she was taken hostage in that coup. I couldn't believe my luck! That bought me a little time."

"But then you found out your boss had sent AGRA in," Sherlock continued.

"And your time was up again," Leena nodded, "As soon as she was safe, as soon as they got her out, you were next. So you had to make sure AGRA failed."

"See, what you didn't know, Mary, was that this one also tipped off the hostage-takers."

Mary gaped at Vivian, working out now what Sherlock and Leena already had.

"Lady Smallwood gave the order," Vivian recounted, moving to sit on the bench, facing them this time, her handbag on her lap, which drew Leena's eye as the woman was holding it in a very precise and not-comfortable way, "But I sent another one to the terrorists with a nice little clue about her codename should anyone have an enquiring mind. Seemed to do the trick."

"And you thought your troubles were over," Mary realized.

"I was tired," Vivian sighed, "Tired of the mess of it all. I just wanted some peace, some clarity. The hostages were killed, AGRA too," she glanced at Mary, "Or so I thought. My secret was safe. But apparently not. Just a little peace. That's all you wanted too, wasn't it? A family, home. Really, I understand."

Leena's gaze remained fixed on Vivian's handbag, the woman lifting it, as though she was going to stand, but she didn't, which meant there was something IN the bag she was shifting. Their theory about a concealed weapon was confirmed in just how the woman moved to put her hand on top of the bag, but didn't do anything else with it. She tried her best not to show how she was tensing at the knowledge that a weapon could go off at any moment, she didn't want Vivian to know they'd worked out her advantage but she needed to be prepared to move or duck at a moment's notice.

"So just let me get out of here, right? Let me just walk away. I'll vanish. I'll go forever. What d'you say?"

"After what you did?!" Mary demanded, advancing on the woman.

"Mary, no!" Leena reached out and pulled Mary back to her, just as the woman stood and aimed the pistol she'd 'hidden' in her purse at Mary. Mary held up her hands and stepped back on Leena's left.

"I was never a field agent," Vivian seemed to assure them, though it only made Leena tense more to know the woman had no official training wielding a gun and, therefore, her aim could be terrible, she could hit something or someone else than her target, "I always thought I'd be rather good."

"Well, you handled the operation in Tbilisi very well," Sherlock muttered.

"Thanks."

"For a secretary," he added.

"Sherwood, don't…" Leena tried to cut in, but he gave her a look, asking her to trust him.

"What?" Vivian glared at Sherlock, clearly offended.

Which was his point, Leena knew.

He wanted her attention off of Mary, off either of them, and on him. If he could only keep her distracted, keep her focused on him a few minutes longer, it would be just enough time, he was sure of it. And he would stop, as soon as she got too furious, let Leena talk her down, draw it out even more…

"Can't have been easy all those years, sitting in the back keeping your mouth shut when you knew you were cleverer than most of the people in the room."

"I didn't do this out of jealousy!" Vivian insisted.

"No?" Sherlock scoffed, "Same old drudge, day in, day out, never getting out there where all the excitement was. Just back to your little flat on Wigmore Street. They've taken up the pavement outside the Post Office there. The local clay on your shoes is very distinctive. Yes, your little flat."

"How do you know?" Vivian breathed.

Sherlock could have gone for the easy answer, said Leena hacked into her files and transactions. But he was buying time, he had to make it as long-winded as possible.

"Well, on your salary it would have to be modest and you spent all the money on that cottage, didn't you, and what are you, widowed or divorced?" he glanced at the gold band around her finger, "Wedding ring's at least thirty years old and you've moved it to another finger. That means you're sentimentally attached to it but you're not still married. I favor widowed, given the number of cats you share your life with."

"Sherlock…" even Mary tried to speak, getting nervous, seeing what he was doing and really, between the two of them, let the woman shoot at the one actually wearing the damn bulletproof vest.

But he kept on, because he'd made a vow that Mary would always be ok, that Leena would always be safe and protected, "Two Burmese and a tortoiseshell, judging by the cat hairs on your cardigan. A divorcee's more likely to look for a new partner, a widow to fill the void left by her dead husband."

"Sherwood," Leena reached out to touch his arm with her right hand, standing in between him and Mary, keeping her gaze on the gun, how Vivian's hand was starting to shake.

"Pets do that, or so I'm told, and there's clearly no one new in your life, otherwise you wouldn't be spending your Friday nights in an aquarium. That probably accounts for the drink problem, too. The slight tremor in your hand, the red wine stain ghosting your top lip. So yes. I say jealousy was your motive after all, to prove how good you are…to make up for the inadequacies of your little life."

No one but Vivian looked over to where Mycroft and Lestrade stepped into the room with three uniformed officers, the three had been expecting them to arrive any moment.

Sherlock smirked, it was exactly as he'd calculated how long it would take to arrive, given starting location and traffic. He'd done what he had to do. Time was up.

"Well, Mrs. Norbury," Mycroft nearly sneered, "I must admit this is unexpected."

"Vivian Norbury, who outsmarted them all," Sherlock smirked, "All except Sherlock Holmes," he glanced at Leena, noting her gaze locked on the pistol, and back to Vivian, holding out his hand to her for the weapon, "There's no way out."

"So it would seem," the woman gave a rueful smile, but made no move to lower her gun, "You've seen right through me, Mr. Holmes."

Leena tensed beside him, the fact that the woman hadn't lowered the gun despite the situation, being surrounded and caught…she wasn't going to give up. She was going to shoot at least one person in this room and it didn't fit the profile that it would be herself. Mary had been their initial fear, but when Sherlock went on his tangent…she knew, it would be him now. And she knew he didn't think the woman would actually DO it, not if she had refused to get her hands dirty and used AGRA instead.

"It's what I do," Sherlock declared.

"Maybe I can still surprise you," the woman merely lifted the gun to aim at him.

"Come on," Lestrade tried to speak, "Be sensible!"

Leena knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no sense to be had. She had seen this, so many times in her nightmares, first with Mary holding the gun, then Moriarty, then any other one of Sherlock's many enemies. All of it ending the same way, her there, unable to stop it, unable to save him, watching as he fell and died in front of her…

"No, I don't think so," Vivian remarked.

The poor woman. So focused on the trained assassin and the consulting detective, she appeared to forget that, not only was their a profiler there who could read her intention and actions easily, but that said profiler was also Sherlock Holmes's wife, a wife who had already endured her husband suffering a gunshot wound once before and sworn never to allow it to happen again.

Leena was already turning to push Sherlock out of the way before Vivian pulled the trigger.

But bullets were fast, faster than people.

Sherlock fell to the ground from the shove...

…and Leena tripped over her feet from the force of the impact of a bullet ripping into her chest, near her left shoulder, falling to the ground.

"Surprise," Vivian murmured, two police rushing at her to disarm her, though truly she was more surprised by the events that transpired than that she'd fired the gun.

Mary was already at Leena's side, pressing her hands down on the wound as hard as she could, ignoring the scream Leena gave at the pain of it, how she writhed. Sherlock scrambled to her side, half crawling across the floor to get to her, reaching out to her face, to turn her head to him, keep her gaze away from the blood pouring out of her shoulder.

"We need an ambulance!" Mary snapped at Mycroft, Lestrade having hurried over to restrain Vivian when she struggled.

"Leena, Leena!" Sherlock shook her head slightly, trying to get her to focus her cloudy, painfilled eyes on him, "Look at me! Everything's fine. It's gonna be ok…"

"John!" Mary called out as the man rushed into the room.

It took John two seconds before he was running to join them, the first at the shock that his worst fear, coming in to see his wife lying dead on the ground, wouldn't happen…the second because his best friend's wife and his own wife's best friend was in the middle of doing just that.

"It's alright, it's alright," Sherlock kept insisting to Leena, trying not to think about how the grip she had on one of his wrists was trembling and growing weaker, "Just keep looking at me."

"Shit!" John cursed, having assessed the wound, "It's hit an artery!"

"Where's the ambulance!?" Mary moved to John's other side to help apply more pressure, trying to move her hand to the back of Leena's shoulder to press against the exit wound, and her eyes snapped to John, "It hit the bone too," she told him, grave.

"Fuck!" John nearly hissed out, managing to merely mouth it.

An artery and bone made it far more complicated and deadly a situation.

"Leena, Leena!" Sherlock tried to shake her head as her eyes began to flutter, "Jacqueline!"

Leena winced, fighting to stay conscious but she could still hear, despite the ringing in her ears, she knew enough of gunshot wounds to know this was very, very bad, "Sher…Sherwood…"

"Stay with me," Sherlock kept his eyes on her, trusting John and Mary to help with her wound, he had to keep her conscious and calm, "Stay with me. You'll be ok…"

Leena swallowed hard, seeing black spots on her vision, her arm going numb and cold beside her which was never a good sigh, "Lock…"

"No," Sherlock shook his head, "Don't. Don't!"

"Locksley," she whimpered out, her voice trembling even as she tried to smile at him, "It's…not good."

"It'll be fine," he insisted, it HAD to be fine, "Liberty…" his voice cracked, "Liberty needs you…"

"She…she has…you," Leena tried to get out, but it was getting harder and harder to focus, she felt so cold…so very cold, "Locksley…"

He shook his head, "No," his voice caught, "I need you too," and cracked.

"Always with you," Leena reassured him, her hand letting go of his wrist to touch his face, "Sherlock…"

"Jacqueline don't," he begged, tears falling from his eyes now, "Don't leave me."

"Tell..." Leena gasped, tears welling and falling from her own eyes too, "Tell Liberty…" she shuddered with a painful jolt as the Watsons applied more pressure, "I love her."

"Tell her yourself," he continued to plead, "Tell her when…when you're better, when you're holding her."

She sniffled, trying so hard to focus on him, "I love you."

He nodded, "I love you too."

She let out a strangled noise as a pain shot through her from the wound, trying to focus on him once more, needing to see him and his eyes and his smile and just…him, "I love…love you…Sherlock," she tried to get out, but even she could hear the slur in her words, the way her blinking was slowing, her eyes rolling, blurring the room, her ears ringing so much it felt like white noise was all she could hear...

"Leena," Sherlock shook her head once more when her eyes began to flutter too much, "Leena!" he could see her fighting to stay awake, but it was too much and her eyes began to close, "Wake up!" he shook her harder, "Jacqueline! Wake up! Wake up! Stay with me! Leena! No!" he shouted, starting to struggle when Mary tried to pull him away from her.

He hadn't even noticed the paramedics had arrived, hadn't heard the sirens of the approaching ambulance or the stomping of feet down the halls of the aquarium. He hadn't even seen the people swarming around his wife until Mary was pulling him away from her.

He must have been more in shock than anyone realized for Mary was able to do so with only help from Mycroft to hold him back, John maintaining pressure on Leena's shoulder while the others got to work, getting her on a gurney and rushing her out of the room, when Sherlock promptly collapsed to his knees, his world spinning…

~8~

The steady beeping of the heart monitor had been the only comfort Sherlock Holmes could find when he had finally been allowed into Leena's room. She had been lying, unconscious, on a hospital bed, hooked up to too many machines. The blood loss, the surgery to repair the bones in her shoulder, the trauma of it all…

She was alive, but asleep, and they didn't know when or…or if…she might wake up.

The blood, the bone, the trauma...

Those three words kept repeating in is mind as he looked down at his wife.

IF, too.

There was no way for the doctors to tell if she'd wake up. She was alive. But she may not stay that way. And his entire world had crashed down around him in mere seconds and he didn't know what to do, how to cope, how to...

He may have lost everything, Leena, because of his cockiness.

He'd already lost other things.

John wasn't going to be speaking to him much, if at all, that much was clear. This time, this close call, had been too much for him to handle. Because Vivian had been the one to dismantle AGRA, Vivian could have easily shot Mary, it could have been Mary lying on the floor dying or dead and John couldn't handle that. SHERLOCK had called them there, Mary was there because of him, and Mary had been the accidental target all along.

John couldn't handle that, knowing it really could have been Mary dead, leaving him and their son.

It was too dangerous, finally too dangerous for even John Watson to abide.

He'd taken one look at Sherlock after they'd made it to the hospital, Mary taking him, trying to get him to a chair as his world imploded and nothing made sense and the white noise was everywhere. He'd taken one look, grabbed Mary's hand, told him to 'stay the hell away from us' and stormed out, much to Mary's protests.

So he'd sat there, unmoving, unseeing, unresponsive, till a doctor had found him, familiar enough with Sherlock Holmes being around the hospital for his experiments to make the connection to the Jacqueline Holmes that had been brought in. He'd been informed of what happened, how the surgery had gone, and the complications that could arise from it.

It was all a murmur in his mind though, muddled, incoherent jabber when all he wanted was to see Leena alive and smiling at him like she had with Liberty in her arms.

He hadn't gotten that.

He'd gotten mere minutes of her unresponsive and seeming to be kept alive only by machines, in his mind, before the doctors were insisting he leave and allow her to rest.

In a fashion so unlike him, he'd merely nodded and walked out, in a daze, another thought coming to him that he had to get back to 221B, he had to get back to Liberty. He'd promised he would take care of her, he'd promised Leena, and he never broke a promise to her.

Mary or John, probably Mary, had already informed Mrs. Hudson about what happened, the woman was beside herself, clutching Liberty and promising the small girl that everything would be ok.

He'd merely taken his daughter in his arms, tried not to break down at the sight of her grey eyes, her mother's eyes, looking back at him, and thanked Mrs. Hudson for her assistance. The woman had gone on and on about how she'd make him a cup of tea or a sandwich or a bottle for Liberty or anything, what did he need?

He'd merely looked at her, blank-faced he was sure, and asked her, very simply, to utter the word 'Norbury' if she ever thought he was being full of himself or too cocky.

She'd been understandably confused, both by his request and by how monotone and assumingly unaffected he appeared. Just…staring and holding his child but not reacting to anything, not responding to her questions about Leena or offers to help. She'd been understandably worried at his behavior, too.

He'd just thanked her and walked up to 221B with Liberty, shutting the door behind him, and moving to his armchair to sit down with his daughter. He stared across the room for a moment, before he looked down at Liberty as she shifted in his arms, wiggling and flailing her little arms about.

He caught one of her hands in his fingers, clenching his jaw so it wouldn't tremble at the squeal and happy giggle she let out, the girl so unaware of the fate her mother was fighting against. He couldn't bear it. He stood and moved to place liberty in the small carry cot they'd set up in the flat, left next to the sofa before they'd been carrying the girl to meet Mrs. Hudson properly.

He straightened and turned, moving to the bookshelf, to the Robin Hood book, to the…

Where was it?

He frowned, seeing the needle he kept there, full of morphine, was gone.

He closed his eyes, remembering how Leena had distracted him, kissed him the last time he tried to use it, how it had been stepped on, crushed, and he never felt the need to replace it since he had her, his own brand of morphine, his own drug supplier, dealing out whatever he needed to make him feel good with just a kiss.

He let the book hang in his hand by the front cover, nearly slumping at the realization there would be no drugs, that there could be no drugs, reminded of the promise he'd made to his wife…when something fell from between the last few pages and clinked on the floor. He looked down to see a CD resting there. He frowned, picking it up and turning it over to see 'For you, Locksley' written on it in Leena's handwriting.

He moved over to his laptop, pushing the disc in and sitting, tense, waiting for whatever…

A video popped up, of the bedroom, their bedroom, he could recognize by the items scattered about it had been during his false drug den incident, when he'd been trying to get to Magnussen, it had been what Leena hadn't wanted the others to go into the bedroom for, it had been what she was recording with the video camera that had the others sputtering when the saw it facing the bed. He'd never seen the actual video. She'd merely said she put it where he would find it when he needed it and he hadn't needed to look for it since.

Leena was smiling at him from the screen, "Bonjour, Locksley!" she greeted, putting more emphasis on her accent the way she knew he loved, before letting it drop with a laugh, "You left a sort of accidental message for John, once up on a time and I thought…" her smile grew a little sad, a little serious, "I thought I should too, for you. Because I know how you can get," she rolled her eyes, "When you're stressed and upset and angry and scared," she finished softly, looking back at him, "Especially when I'm not there to help you through it."

She looked down a moment, considering her words and Sherlock had to pause the video, to look at her, to look at the memory of her he wanted to keep in his mind palace, not the image of her hooked up to wires he knew would never be deleted even if he could. His mind palace was pre-set to remember anything and everything pertaining to Leena, even when it broke his heart.

He swallowed hard and took a breath, pressing play.

Leena looked back up at the camera, "Hopefully I'm just out to the shops for some more milk and a case is getting you all worked up," she considered it, "Actually, I'm going to completely say that's the only reason I'm not there, because, really Locksley, nothing short of death would ever take me away from you."

Sherlock flinched at that, but kept watching.

"Whatever it is, however hard it seems," Leena continued, "You can do it. You can solve the unsolvable, you can catch the uncatchable, and you can do the undoable. You always have, you're Sherlock Holmes!" she laughed and beamed at him, "Don't be too hard on yourself Locksley," she added, "For as long as I have known you, you always give your all and your best and you never stop until you've won. So win," she encouraged, "Keep fighting, keep thinking, keep hoping. Keep loving," she added, "Me, preferably."

Which made him laugh.

"Because I do love you, Locksley," she told him, "More than you will ever know and longer than you could ever guess. You're it for me, it's always been you, from the moment you said hello and called me a net…"

Sherlock chuckled and sniffled a bit, recalling that disastrous first meeting where he'd mispronounced 'fille' as 'filet' when attempting to greet her in French.

"You were something wonderful," Leena recalled, "And I will always consider myself the luckiest woman that you let me into your heart, Locksley. And I am so proud of you for opening your heart to others, to John, to Mary. I'm always proud of you. I'm always impressed by you, no matter what you do. Whether it's how impressively fast you can solve cases, or how impressively rude you can be."

He smiled at that.

"Whatever you are, Locksley, whatever you become, I will always be proud of you and I will always, always love you."

The Leena on camera opened her mouth, as though to say more, when her phone pinged and she moved off screen to answer it moments before the footage cut off. He knew what happened, that had been when the drug den had been busted by John and he'd needed help ensuring his cover wasn't completely blown.

Leena had been there for him then, always having his back, always with her faith in him, always supporting him. She had faith that anything he set his mind to, he could do.

Right now though…he didn't know if HE had that faith in himself.

He stood, moving back to Liberty and picking her up, the baby already dozing away, snuggling more into his arms as he gazed down at her, this small thing, this mixture of himself and Leena.

He had failed his friends.

He had failed his wife.

But he would make damned sure he didn't fail his daughter too.

A/N: Don't kill me! Don't kill me! I'm SO sorry for that twist in events, for Leena's fate hanging in the balance. I should probably run away and hide, but first some thoughts on why it happened the way it did...

Mary's non-death

I could not see it happening how it did in the show if at all. Because...

Problem: Leena's husband was shot, point blank shot, and by someone she 'trusted.'
Solution: get him a bullet proof vest, now Sherlock can't be shot by anyone as their likely target will be his chest (the wider and bigger target than his head or limb).
Problem: someone seems to be targeting Mary Watson, or wants her gone because they need all of AGRA gone, and they're now going to confront said person, person who is not likely to be as highly trained as Mary because they wouldn't have needed to use her own team against her to take her out.
Solution: lend her the bullet proof vest because if anyone's getting shot, it's the target.

Final situation: Mary cannot be shot where she was shot and die if she's wearing the bulletproof vest, which she was.

Therefore, Mary lives.

However!

If Mary and Leena are in the same room as Sherlock and a shooter and a gun goes off heading for Sherlock...who is more likely to jump in its path? Friend or wife?

Wife.
Especially when wife is a profiler and knows the signs of someone about to shoot.
Especially when said husband was already shot before and said wife probably had nightmares of him dying from that wound (enough that she got him a bullet proof vest).

Leena's been in situations where she's been held at gunpoint and seen guns go off enough to know she wouldn't just jump in front of it. She'd try to get both people out of range and shove Sherlock aside, hoping the momentum would help her dodge the bullet. But this now means that Leena is in the path of the bullet and is turned at a different angle than Mary because she isn't jumping in front of but pushing from the side. A different part of her body would be in line of the bullet than Mary's, like her shoulder.

There was just no way I could see Mary dying or being the one to protect Sherlock first, not with Leena there and Leena traumatized by Sherlock being shot before and willing to do literally anything to keep him from ever getting shot again :(

I know some of you may be going 'but Leena will be fine because there are some sneak peeks where it appears Leena in later episodes!' I just feel I should point out that Sherlock and Leena were separated for years, and both coped by imagining the other person still there and speaking to them...so...keep that in mind :(

I know John storming off and taking Mary with him may seem a bit 'what?' at the moment, since it wasn't Mary who was killed like in the episode, we got a small glimpse into John's mind, but we'll see much more about it in the next 2 chapters for why THIS was too much for him and what might happen as a result, whether he just needs time to cool down or whether he's truly done with Sherlock Holmes :(

Now, next point I wanted to touch on, Liberty and Leena's pregnancy.

We have a Liberty! :D It's a girl! :D Sherlock's a daddy! :D And I feel like a horrible person to give him that joy and happiness of his daughter in his arms and then rip it away with his wife bleeding out in his arms :'( That moment at the end with Liberty, with how he's basically shutting down but still holding onto that little girl is going to be an important moment for what's to come :( His world is falling apart, but right now HE is Liberty's whole world. How do you keep yourself together for your child when you are shattering? We'll find out how Sherlock may, or may not, manage it :(

I actually agonized over whether it would be better to have Leena discover she was pregnant at the start of the episode, or here at the end. Like the bullet wound wasn't as severe and she's getting normal bloodwork done and the doctors are like 'congrats, you're not dying, and neither is your baby!' but with how much damage the bullet wound did to Mary, from that range and location, I couldn't see Leena just getting off scot free with a scratch. Bullets are dangerous and guns are serious weapons, and if an artery is hit it is serious :(

I couldn't be cruel though and have her be pregnant at that point either though. Because, 1. that's just too much to have the baby in danger like that. 2. Vivian would likely have aimed specifically for the baby and not Sherlock. 3. I could not see John, Mary, Sherlock, Mycroft, Lestrade, hell even Mrs. Hudson allowing Leena anywhere near a suspect that may have a weapon, and Leena was fighting tooth and nail to be there during that confrontation to help Sherlock and Mary.

That, and the timing, how long I saw Mary away, how long I felt John could wait before tracking her down, put Leena at right about when they find Mary again and not when they get back to London. With the shock and scare of AJ's attack, I couldn't see Leena not going into labor then and there since she would have been near ready to pop around that time anyway.

I hope you like the name though, a combination of a name Sherlock wanted, a reference to the Watsons, and a connection to Leena for a girl :) And then a connection to Sherlock, a reference to John, and a name Leena wanted in 'David Rossi' for a boy if it was :) But AWWWW, Sherlock go this Liberty :')

Too bad he might be losing his Leena as a result }:)

Timeline:

Early May - Mary goes on the lamb. Given how desperate the person was to get the busts and find Mary Sherlock would NOT wait long after to inform Mary she's in danger. Leena is now 5 months along.
Early May-End of August 2015, Mary is on the lamb 4 months, because it had to be long enough for Hamish to develop a sense of sounds around him and respond to John, enough that Mary needed to be 'caught up on' things. I couldn't see her staying in one place long, but constantly travelling to throw off people as much as possible, but long enough to think she's done it, not long enough for John and Sherlock to just sit around and twiddle thumbs. Leena is now 9 months pregnant and ready to pop and neither John nor Sherlock are willing to risk life and limb to tell her not to go with them after Mary. If they were afraid of Mary, being a super assassin, they're terrified of Leena, because she's married to Sherlock and has profiled him, John, AND Mary and could probably come up with some very, very terrifying punishments. This is also the point, round about, where Hamish would begin to recognize some sounds as words and such.
Early/mid September 2015 - The group returns to London with Liberty, who goes to stay with Mrs. Hudson while the team confronts Vivian.

Some notes on reviews...

I hope this version of Series 4 will live up to expectations :) I've made a pretty big change in this chapter, but there are some significant ones coming in the next two episodes too that will hopefully smooth out what happened here and add a bit more context and depth to some events of the show ;) But yup, Liberty has arrived! :D

I agree when it comes to Mycroft and what happened when he was younger, as a child, even as a genius, there are some things they just can't and shouldn't be responsible for. I can say Leena will be focusing mostly on the choice he's made when he was an adult and had the maturity and reason of an adult to go off of ;) There will be a part where he brings up how other members of his family helped or agreed with his choices, and Leena will be very careful about how she feels regarding those adults before she focuses on choices Mycroft made when HE was the adult and not the child needing adult help to make things happen ;) She'll understand how some events in his childhood helped shape his feelings and rationalizations, but she won't shy away from pointing out how he keeps claiming to be 'the smart one' and yet didn't look past those events and ended up making some very foolish choices when he was 'old enough to know better' ;)