Story of her life - Alternate plots

by iamhopeless.com

One-shots from Story of her life AU. Abandoned plotlines, alternate meetings, basically short AU fics for an AU. BAMF Fem!John (obviously). Genres may vary.

6. Things Unseen

A/N: Psychic powers AU. It's a long one ;)

Disclaimer: 'Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

# #

Sherlock trudged up the stairs to his flat on Montague street. It was quiet (not unusual for this hour of night), and the air in the building smelled of mould and grease. He caught himself thinking for the umptieth that moving elsewhere wouldn't be that bad. The key clicked softly in the lock, and the budding detective stepped inside his domain with a sigh, switching on the light while leaving the door softly close.

Then he froze in his tracks.

There was a woman (short blond hair, unevenly tanned skin, combat fatigues) examining the fungi growing in a petri dish on his desk. That, by itself, would have been surprising. What bothered him the most was that the woman was hovering in the air over the desk and that he could faintly see the wall through her semi-transparent form.

"Not again…" Sherlock moaned despite himself. The uninvited spectre looked up, focusing bright blue eyes at him with an unreadable expression. If I pretend that I don't see her, she'd go away, right? Before he could put that strategy into action, the woman made a beeline towards him, landing solidly on her two feet inches from the perplexed detective. The involuntary step back made her grin. "You can see me!"

Annoyed at himself, Sherlock side-stepped her and went to the fridge without uttering a word. "You can hear me too, right? Please! I need help. I don't know who I am." She trailed behind him, pretending to walk (her kind could usually just float around, but the freshest apparitions preferred to imitate the habits of the living).

Impatiently huffing at the lack of edible elements, Sherlock slammed the fridge shut and turned to glower at the highly unnerving guest. "You are a ghost" he finally snapped at the spirit's pleading look. She muttered something along the lines of "Figured that much" but maintained an innocent face from behind the kitchen counter. "You have to move on. Follow the light, or whatever pulls you away." Having delivered this standard piece of advice, the detective turned towards the cupboards, in hopes to find something to eat there.

"Sounds dull." The voice sounded genuinely unconvinced. That's new. Sherlock stopped for a second, considering the pros and cons of getting involved in a conversation with a dead person. "And you have old biscuits in the left drawer."

Just to make a point, he checked the right drawer first. There was a couple of flies trapped inside that took flight as soon as their prison opened. Sighing, he reached towards the left drawer to fish out a package of tiny coffee biscuits. "What do you want from me?" he asked, still not looking at the smirking ghost.

"Well, I'm dead and amnesic. I was hoping you could help with the last part."

Sherlock ripped the package open and bit into the first biscuit. His stomach rumbled in discontent at the meagre diner. "Why should I?"

"I was told you like mysteries. Isn't it a good one? I don't remember anything before somehow appearing in London."

The detective sighed and meandered towards his sofa. "Who even told you about me?"

The woman shrugged and floated after him, too focused on the conversation to pretend to walk. "The homeless psychic kid that hangs around Mayfair. Works for you sometimes, he said." Ah, Billy. I knew he saw them too. "And a couple of very old guys in your neighbourhood. You seem to have made quite an impression on them." The first owners of the nearby buildings, from the early 19th century, that didn't move on for whatever reason.

"So, you want to know who you were."

"Yeah" she smiled down at him while hovering over the desk again.

"Would you move on after that?" This kind of transactions must always be discussed, unless one wants to get himself haunted for several months.

"Don't know. Suppose so."

Sherlock crunched down another biscuit. That's not helpful. But damn it, I'm bored. "You are originally from London and had served in the military. Career soldier, an officer. You were still in service at the time of your passing. The calluses on your hands indicate that you are proficient with both hands but are originally left-handed. No romantic relationship at the moment of your death. Possibly killed in action. That's all I can get with such limited information."

The woman stood on the ground again, staring wide-eyed at him. When he finished presenting his deductions, she slowly examined her hands, as if to confirm there were indeed callouses on them. "Army…" she breathed out, then frowned. Her hands flew up to her neck, and she seemed panicked for a second. "My tags. Where are my tags? Where…" She started to turn away and just vanished into thin air, leaving an irritated Sherlock behind.

"Spirits. Annoying buggers."

# #

Three days after the unexpected visit from the ghostly soldier, he came home to her transparent from lounging in his favourite chair, one arm hanging lazily over the armrest and the other dangling shiny metallic tags just in front of her face. "You again" he huffed. He really thought that she'd move on, the whole vanishing act had been quite convincing.

"Yeah" she chimed in softly. "Found the tags. JHW, it says."

Sherlock stopped briefly by the chair to check the inscription on the immaterial piece of metal. The soldier ID number had been scratched and unreadable. "Your initials" he stated offhandedly, before moving to check on his ongoing mould experiment by the window. "Jane Helen Warren, or something equally mundane."

"Jane?... Nay, I think I'm John" the ghost said, pulling the tags over her head. At Sherlock's questioning look, she elaborated: "John feels right."

"Fine… John" the detective drawled after a minute of stunned silence. "What do you want now?"

She grinned tiredly at him. "Being a ghost is kinda boring. Can I hang out with you, until I figure out where my grave is?"

"Rather than a grave, you should look for your unfinished business and stop bothering me" he grumbled.

"But I don't even remember my name!"

"Valid point. Nevertheless, I'd rather avoid unnecessary hauntings."

John chuckled mirthlessly. "I'm not haunting you. Just keeping company."

"What's the difference?" Before she could respond, Sherlock pressed on: "Either way, your continued presence increases the risk of me being interned for a psychotic break."

Her eyebrows flew up to the hairline. "You wouldn't be that coherent or calm if you were psychotic. And not sure whether I had been a sceptic before, but I sure as hell believe into psychics now."

"And what do you know about psychosis, Madam Ghost?" he snapped angrily, and went to curl on the sofa. She huffed in surprise at the reaction.

"Sorry?"

"Go away, why don't you" he snarled. There was a long silence (the problem with spirits is that they made no noise when they moved), until Sherlock sighed and turned to face the room, hoping against all odds that the woman listened and left.

John remained sprawled in his chair, eyeing him with a mix of amusement and worry. "Did you have problems with ghosts before?" she asked softly.

"I am not discussing any of my personal history with you!"

"Suit yourself" she abdicated too quickly for his satisfaction. He really wanted to vent at someone. John-the-non-confrontational-ghost stood up, rubbing her neck with the left hand. "I'll go bother your neighbours then." With that, she glided through the closest wall, to Sherlock's immense relief.

# #

"Damn, she is bitchy!" The heated comment startled Sherlock from his examination of an intriguing stain on the victim's cuff. Carefully pretending to observe his surroundings, he looked up to the frowning John. The soldier was busy glaring daggers at Donovan, who must have made another comment towards the consulting detective (he wasn't really listening at that point).

Lestrade chose that moment to notice his loss of focus. "What is it, Sherlock?"

"Just an annoyance" he replied tersely before turning his attention back to the corpse.

# #

"Is that a liver?" Sherlock almost dropped the scalpel.

"For God's sake, stop following me!" John blinked innocently at him, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"But I like it, being by your side." The sheer disgust at the possible romantic implications must have shown on his face, and she blushed in embarrassment. "Not like that! My thoughts are just clearer when you're nearby. So it's nice." This, I can sympathize with. Still doesn't excuse the haunting. Sherlock still scowled at her but didn't comment any further. "So… Is that a liver?"

"Yes" he huffed, if only to make her shut up.

"Was the previous owner alcoholic?"

Sherlock stopped the incision to observe the ghost with a newly found interest. "How do you know?"

"It is fatty. Plus, the discoloration is just wrong."

"Hmm. I haven't considered Braxton's drinking habits as contingent to his death." Liver forgotten, the detective leapt towards the desk to ruffle through police reports regarding the original crime scene. "That explains a lot, actually" he mumbled, picking a photo of the body. There was a soft chuckle behind him, but he ignored it while rushing out to the NSY.

# #

"I don't need your help, Mycroft." Sherlock spat before disconnecting the call. He really wanted to throw it at the wall, but his current funds would not allow the additional expense.

"You ok?" John called from the couch. She had become an almost permanent fixture in the small apartment, lounging around and providing somewhat relevant commentary on Sherlock's ongoing experiments and cases. She had been nagging about cleaning up too, until the detective pointed that it was his mess and that she was basically a free-loader. John pointedly stayed with the two Victorian gentlemen (they had been delighted) on the other side of the street for a couple of days after that one.

"My brother is being more annoying than usual" he replied to her question through his teeth.

"Might be because you're late on the rent."

"It is still none of his business."

"What happened between you two anyway?"

John appeared genuinely interested, and not in the mocking or morbidly fascinated way most of the people were interested in Sherlock. So he deigned to answer with a short version of the Holmes sibling relationship (aka a study in resentment): "Mycroft considers his opinion as the only valid one. He is a patronizing, over-bearing, overweight prat in a suit."

John winced at the description. "Sounds horrid. Was he always like that?"

"Yes. His 'expert' opinions had led to quite difficult situations during our childhoods." He genuinely tried to not feel too bitter about it. But Mycroft's insistence on informing their parents about everything, including ghost secrets the younger brother shared with his adored big brother, lead to a lot of agonizing hours with psychiatrists. It was an eye-opening period in his life. And it also added the constant threat of being permanently interned in a padded cell in case the all-seeing big brother noticed any signs of returning "hallucinations". Drugs actually helped with this part (cocaine was especially effective to block any spirit interference) but had a plethora of side-effects he wasn't willing to keep in the long run.

He must have closed his eyes in remembrance and was surprised to find John standing near him when he finally looked up again. She withdrew her hand that was half-way to his head, and started fidgeting with the hem of her cuffs, without moving away. "What are you doing?" he inquired with mild interest.

She rubbed her neck with her left hand, a gesture he knew to interpret as embarrassment with her. "Tried to pat your head, if you must know" she finally said, avoiding the now amused gaze.

"Why?"

"You looked lonely" she shrugged, effectively stunning Sherlock into silence.

Seeing his fish-out-of-the-water face, John blushed madly and vanished into thin air. "Hey!" the young man exclaimed, revolted that she'd leave without an explanation. "Come back!" He waited a couple of minutes before resigning himself to the (for now) unsolved mystery of the insightful ghost. "Damn it…"

# #

Neither of them noticed when John started hanging along on cases. She only talked when they were alone, to avoid distracting Sherlock from the work and making him look like a lunatic to the police ("Like you aren't one already" she had laughed but complied to the request). On rare occasions, she would quip some witty come-back to the most annoying specimen on the force, just for Sherlock's ears. That'd make him grin, which in turn had the bonus effect of scaring off the pests. More often than not, she would comment on the victim's state though.

They would also walk around the city in the post-case hype, Sherlock rambling about all the little details that lead to his conclusion, scaring witless the random passer-by's, and John eagerly listening with a bright grin. "You're amazing" she would say then and again. The first time, it made him freeze for a couple of minutes, trying to process the unexpected emotional input, and when he came to himself John was literally floating circles around him, trying to find out what was wrong.

One October night, Sherlock eagerly used her opinions to confirm his own theory (the woman had internal bleeding prior to the gaping knife wound on her throat). Leaving Lestrade scatter with his notes, the consulting detective marched towards the main road to catch a cab. John was walking (she preferred to avoid gliding away like some dramatic sceptre) alongside him. "You have medical training" he stated confidently.

Her gaze reflexively turned to her hands (calloused, the pattern is biased by the gun use in the military). "Medical, huh."

"Your knowledge is consistent with specialized medical education" he confirmed, tolerating the repetition just this time.

"I don't remember it" she frowned. The subject of John's identity was a touchy one. There wasn't much to go on, and it clearly bothered her. Sherlock found himself quietly thanking whatever death gods there are for allowing her existence. John was different from all the ghosts he'd encountered, stuck in their last struggle and a few vague memories, or forever bound to a specific place by inability to let go of a physical object. She was free of any attachment, had retained her mental faculties and personality. The only thing missing were her memories from before.

"It'll come to you" he tried to reassure his companion in a rare bout of sympathy.

She hummed, unconvinced but polite enough to not voice her doubts. Sherlock felt unexpectedly irritated by that. Deciding to stop dealing with the pesky sentiment, he picked up the pace. John seemed to match his speed unconsciously, sometimes floating to gain on his longer steps. Experiment file J.12.01: correlation of speed to length of spirit capacities use. Chronometer engaged. Speedometer engaged. Immediate launch.

They walked in silence, with John distracted by unsuccessful attempts to remember anything at all, and Sherlock counting the seconds before she stopped mimicking the walk of the living. Suddenly, when he was almost sure he'd get to the expected result, John froze in place, suddenly very aware of their surroundings.

The detective had already advanced by three meters and had to turn back. "What is it?"

"Don't you hear it?" she asked, sharp gaze swiping the street. "Someone's screaming." Before he could respond that the street was incredibly quiet for a mid-day in central London, John literally flew off through the wall into the nearest café.

Listing under his breath all the reasons he had been staying clear of ghosts in the first place, Sherlock followed his undead companion at a more sedate pace. And through the door.

The door chimes jingled at his entrance, drawing a passing glance from an overworked waitress behind the counter. Sherlock noted in passing the woman was divorced, mother of three (two boys at least, not enough data) and starting to develop flu symptoms. His attention was quickly drawn to the semi-transparent form of the blond soldier, hunched over a booth.

He took a tentative step forward when she whipped around, with an expression more serious and intense than anything he had seen since their encounter. "Heart attack" she snapped. "Call an ambulance."

Keeping up appearances for those who didn't see the army doctor, Sherlock rushed to the booth to discover a middle-aged overweight man in a ratty suit, pale, breathless and almost unconscious. He was hidden from view of the counter and in no shape to call for help. "Call an ambulance!" Sherlock barked at the waitress who had followed him with a half-hearted 'welcome'. "The man is sick."

"They have a defibrillator" John commented, standing in the middle of the table (not on the table, she was standing just in front of the patient, ignoring physical obstacles). The detective dutifully relayed the message to the now panicked waitress. Someone ran from the back of the café to help, and Sherlock got pushed back by more competent people. He let them scurry in a frantic waltz, more interested in what John was doing than any of their surroundings.

The soldier hovered over the scene, making aborted gestures to rectify someone, opening and closing her mouth as if about to order the crowd before catching herself. Not before long, a misty silhouette started sipping out of the patient. He was going into cardiac arrest. John lurched towards it through several heads and circled it with evident concern. "Not your time" Sherlock could hear through the ambient noise. "Stay. You must stay."

Little by little, the silhouette shrank back into the body, just when the paramedics arrived. Looking exhausted but satisfied, John floated towards the exit, and the detective followed. They stood side by side on the sidewalk, breathing (or pretending to breathe) the chilly air. "You are a doctor" Sherlock finally said to the silence surrounding them. John looked up, surprised at the abrupt statement.

Then something seemed to click, and a soft smile lightened the tension wrinkles on her forehead. Then she vanished, leaving a very smug and slightly put-upon Sherlock behind.

# #

The landlord slammed the door into his face. Well, that went well. Sherlock almost jumped out of his skin when an amused voice echoed his thoughts. He should have gotten used to John creeping up on him, but she still managed to surprise him from time to time. Unfair advantage of being a silent and bodiless spirit non-withstanding.

"Piss off" he whispered to avoid offending some random neighbour. "The flat was getting too small anyway."

"You mean you have too much stuff in there and it's getting difficult to move around."

He didn't dignify that with an answer, choosing to stalk back to his soon-to-be-ex flat with head held high. John giggled in his wake.

# #

The moving in 221b had been delayed by a call from Lestrade. "We have a weird one" he said tiredly, and Sherlock swept through London to the crime scene. John had joined him in the cab, commenting on how his new flat looked very nice. "You went to visit too?" he whispered, not to spook the driver.

"Of course, I did" the woman grinned. "Just had to say goodbye to the old chaps at Montague street."

Who?... Oh, the Victorian pair. "They really should move on."

"They're having too much fun in the modern era, I think" John shrugged.

The conversation died down as they arrived at the scene. It was a good neighbourhood, with city houses lining the street on one side and a well-maintained park on the other. Most of the places had a tall fence, practically walls, around them.

"Freak" Donovan greeted him moodily at the gate of the red-brick two-stories building. ("It looks so cosy" - John commented quietly when they exited the car – "You wouldn't think there is a murder happening inside." Which, of course, was wrong and biased, crime disregarded completely social status and personal wealth. But Sherlock couldn't go off rambling about the statistics and their social applications in front of the whole Yard, so he bit his cheek and focused on the usual snipping contest with the sergeant.)

"Donovan. How are you?" Sally glared. Sherlock sniffed and strode up the short alley to the door. Sometimes politeness was the best weapon to cut short the grass under the idiots' feet. John was stifling chuckles behind his back. It felt right.

"… even here? It is a damn heart attack!" the whiny voice echoed down the stairs. Holmes winced. Anderson. Damn it.

"You don't make the call, Philip" the DI snapped. Apparently, the argurment was going on for a while. "The man was being threatened, and now he's dead. Do your bloody job and let me ask the questions."

They entered the hallway on the second floor, where most of the forensics were assembled. Anderson was demonstratively fumbling with a light projector, while Lestrade seemed about to bang his head against the wall. Repeatedly. A well-dressed man in his forties was standing to the side, eyeing the scene with a hint of interest. "Do you really need me here, Inspector?"

Lestrade ran a hand through his hair before replying. "Yes, Mr Davis. I need you to point out if anything is out of place or missing in your brother's study."

"Of course, of course…" The man was guided away by an aide.

"What's this then?" Sherlock finally announced his presence, after having found nothing of interest in the hallway (aside from the alleged brother of the victim who already stepped out – honestly, the man couldn't look more satisfied about the situation).

"Sherlock" the DI seemed relieved. "I'd like your take on this one."

The dead man was in the first room to the right, the open window facing the park. The brick fence reached over the first floor and was barely visible. The body was laying face first on the ground, mouth agape. Unseen to the police, the ghostly form of the body's owner hovered over it with a confused expression. "What happened, what happened" he kept mumbling, annoying the hell out of Sherlock. John made a beeline to her fellow ghost and led him to a corner, whispering calming nothings, letting the consulting detective examine the scene in peace.

"I need everything you got" Lestrade reminded him needlessly. Sherlock ignored him in favour of checking the weather forecasts for last night.

Fact: The window is open. Fact: The weather was unusually warm last night. Hypothesis A: The victim opened the window to enjoy the breeze.

Fact: Indentation on the chair indicates it had been a favourite. Fact: There are fresh scratch marks on the wooden floor. Hypothesis B: The chair was originally facing the fireplace but was moved to face the window. Fact: A fiction paperback novel had been dropped to the ground. Hypothesis C: The victim was reading.

General assumption 1.A: The victim settled for a quite night, opening the window due to a warm weather and reading a (good? irrelevant, delete) book.

Estimating probability… 98% threshold reached. Assumption confirmed

Fact: The man had been threatened. Need more data.

"What about those threats?" he asked offhandedly, crouching over the body.

"Ah yes, he had been receiving emails, anonymous. We hadn't been able to track them."

"Useless" Sherlock huffed under his breath. "Show me."

The DI had been working with Sherlock for a long time, because he merely sighed and tossed a folder with printed emails towards him. The stuff was quite bland, which Holmes didn't miss the chance to point out, with a disgusted grimace. "Criminal class these days, honestly. 'Be warned'? Really? I've seen primary school kids write better threats."

"I'm sure you did…" the DI sighed. "What do you have, so far?"

"The victim was not overly concerned about the threats, I suppose it was the wife who handed them over to the police, right?" He didn't wait for the confirmation. "He possibly already suspected someone and didn't take it seriously. Because of this attitude, he failed to take basic precautions. I'm not certain about the modus operandi yet, let me check…" He bent over the corpse again.

There was a flash of light from the corner, distracting him from the examination. The ghost of the murder victim dissolved into a warm glow. John really has a way with words, to persuade a violently killed man to move on so soon after death. His personal ghostly soldier soon joined him in the examination, muttering about "poor sods" and "bloody unfair". Sherlock smirked.

John tensed, a finger tracing the small red dot on the body's throat. "Symptoms indicate heart attack, but…" She looked up with a raised eyebrow, interpreting his look of glee correctly. "It's curare, isn't it?"

"Must be" he nodded and turned towards Lestrade. "Poison. Check with forensics if they found a small dart. Make the pathologist do the blood work for curare or any variants."

"Curare?! This isn't a nineteenth century novel!"

"Your call" Sherlock huffed indignantly. Now, where did the dart come from? He stepped towards the window, examining the ledge. John flew over his shoulder and jumped the several yards to the fence, landing lightly on it. Bloody spirits… She crouched on the edge, turned towards the window and mimicked a gun with two fingers. The line of sight was directly in front of the chair. Bingo.

Without a word, Sherlock rushed out of the room and to the street, followed by a slightly irate DI. "Sherlock, what in the…" He didn't listen.

The exact spot was easy to find – John was still perched on the fence, looking down with interest. There was little to no chances of having any evidence left on the concrete sidewalk, but it was worth trying.

I am in luck, the consulting detective grinned while picking flakes of green something with tweezers and placing them in an evidence bag. "I need to check those at Bart's. Might be nothing" he stated to fend off Lestrade's protests. Just in time, the not-so-bereaved Mr Davis walked out of the house. Sherlock made a beeline towards him. "Mr Davis, my condolences" he started with a false tremble to his voice. "It's such a tragedy." Lestrade sputtered behind him.

"Thank you" the man nodded in confusion. "Who are you?"

"It must be so terrible for you. Were you the one to find him?"

"No, but I came as soon as I could…" Davis gestured towards a dark SUV parked behind the police perimeter.

Sherlock nodded. "Again, I'm so sorry for your loss." And with that, he walked away, leaving Lestrade to explain what just happened to the victim's brother.

"What was that?" John asked, landing at his side and starting to walk along.

"Not now" he breathed out, brimming with anticipation.

While riding to St Bart's, he got a call from José, a cousin of a Mexican restaurant owner he had helped years ago. The kid was being accused of killing his business partner. So, he made a detour to check the scene (and scare away some constables), already compiling the experiment that would allow to clear José in this predicament.

The Mexican case took precedence over the interesting curare twist, so he headed to the morgue first. John had kept silent once they entered the hospital. She was frowning way too much. Had they had time, Sherlock would have explored this reaction, but two cases at once? Not a minute to spare.

Leaving the gullible Molly to monitor the bruises, he finally could test the suspicious flakes in the lab. As expected, it was metallic paint. Bingo again.

Giddy with the discovery, he typed a text to Lestrade ("If brother has green ladder, arrest brother. SH") but his phone stubbornly refused to connect to any network. This is ridiculous, Sherlock grumbled, while roaming the corridors in search of a good Samaritan with a working phone. In the end, it was Molly who gave him her phone. Trying not to cringe at the flowery stickers, he sent his text and promptly inquired about the bruises. Then a fascinating case of situs invertus popped up and he stayed engrossed with the autopsy for a couple of hours to Dr Hooper's delight.

All in all, a very interesting day.

He didn't notice that John remained in the lab, looking at the walls with a look of blooming recognition.

# #

The next day was even better. Sherlock was finally called in for the serial suicides case (what took them so long?) and John was back to her supportive self, quipping "Amazing"s and "Impressive"s all over the place. Lestrade looked haggard but took what he could from the rapid explanation Holmes provided on the scene. The pink lady's ghost just hovered near the window, repeating "Rachel" and "Wrong choice". She didn't even listen to John, which was rare, and only stared in the distance. Bloody unhelpful.

But the flow of observations was too breath-taking to let him remain annoyed for too long. No case? How is it… Oh! OH! "But what mistake?!" Lestrade yelled from upstairs.

"PINK!" was all he could manage, because if they were blind, it wasn't his fault.

John was laughing as they ran through nearby alleys in search of a good dump site.

# #

"Do you bring your dates here often?" John asked while Sherlock stared outside.

Angelo had made a small scene about him not bringing anyone 'this time'. "I don't do dates" he gritted between his teeth. "You should know, you hang around all the time."

"You should try" she pretended to nudge his leg with her feet. "I miss the touch sometimes."

Temporarily distracted from his stake-out, Sherlock turned a laser-like gaze towards her. "Really?" He personally found the physical contact somewhat annoying… most of the time.

"Yeah" she gave him a sad smile, which in turn made him frown for an unknown reason. "I don't think I remember it correctly at this point, but now it's just… cold." Sherlock already regretted asking. He didn't know what to say. Sentiment. Damn it all to hell, why does this make me feel angry? Luckily John noticed his discomfort (she always notices) and waved a hand at him. "Don't fret. There's nothing anyone can do about that."

He hummed non-committedly to pass the unease. Then another question popped in his mind. "When you vanish, where do you go?"

"Vanish?" she looked confused now. Doesn't she notice the time lapse? "Is it when everything goes dark?" Interesting. He silently nodded. "Well, as I said, it just goes dark and soft. Maybe it's an equivalent of ghost sleep?"

"A hypothesis to explore" Sherlock mused out loud before a black cab caught his attention. "Look."

# #

The cab had been a wild goose chase after all. Sherlock was catching his breath, while John was grinning brightly by his side. She didn't have the breathing problem. Sherlock was starting to seriously consider turning himself into a ghost, if only to forgo the whole transport issues. But unless there was a 100% guarantee of retaining his faculties, he wouldn't risk it.

"Welcome to London" John chuckled.

"You have it too easy" he wheezed back.

"You better start running again, mate" she laughed in reply, nodding to the constable who was eyeing them suspiciously. Well, not them, just Sherlock. He ran all the same.

# #

John liked haunting Sherlock. The man was amazing. Breath-taking. If only she could breathe.

Her memories as a ghost remained very clear, but only vague feelings about her original life remained. She recognized some names ("John" had a familiar tug of a nickname, "Harry" made her feel fondness and disappointment at the same time, and "Bill" made her smile and worry), knew the directions to some places and knew how to perform emergency medical procedures. She was a functioning person with medical training… only dead. Unable to touch. Able to go through walls. The pros and cons of her situation were debatable.

She constantly felt like there was something important just at the edge of her consciousness, but it always slipped away. There was a flash of memories at St Bart's hospital, the walls, the colours, she was certain to know them. Physically know how they felt, how they smelled. But it remained just that, a flash. Nothing more came of it.

Being near Sherlock, the mad genius, the socially inept and secretly kind detective, was like being stuck in the eye of a cyclone. Calm, yet in the middle of a raging tempest. It kept her away from feeling the cold. It made her less confused. She liked to think that Sherlock was a beacon of light that dispelled the greyness of her death.

She wasn't sure if it was because of them spending months together, or because of who/what she had been in the past, but John wanted to protect Sherlock.

She really wanted to yell at the assembled officers in the Baker Street flat, all proud of themselves for a volunteer drug bust. How dare they?! They know nothing about his reasons! She wanted to chew them out, make them scram away, but was reduced to the mental support role to Sherlock's brilliance.

"I don't even smoke" the madman in question growled at the DI, showing off his set of nicotine patches.

"Neither do I" Lestrade conceded, showing his own patch. That seemed to resolve their argument (John didn't quite follow this part, too busy glaring at Donovan… again). "We've found Rachel."

"Who is she?" Sherlock demanded.

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter."

That seemed to confuse the consulting detective. "Her daughter? Why would she write her daughter's name? Why?" He seemed to look around the room as if in search of an answer from above, but he was actually looking straight at John.

"Maybe she didn't want to leave her behind or wanted to see her one last time" John suggested over Anderson's snide comments. Sherlock gave her barely a blink of acknowledgement, before ripping into the forensics expert. Then Lestrade announced that Rachel was dead.

"Excellent!"

Only John knew that Sherlock was actually thinking of tracking down Rachel's spirit. "She'd be in Cardiff, remember?"

The conversation moved on, the living audience being all but helpful. "She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have hurt." Sherlock's voice became insisting, driving the police into silent consideration.

"So it wasn't just regret, it was important, so important she refused to die till it was done" John offered from her corner. Sherlock nodded, pretending to stare at Lestrade.

"If you were dying… if you'd been murdered: in your very last few seconds what would you say?"

The DI shifted uneasily under the scrutiny, speechless, but words came to John like old friends. "Please, God, let me live."

There was a moment frozen in time, where Sherlock turned around to stare at her with horror written clear as day on his face. She blinked, only then realizing what she had done. Admitted to being killed. How? I don't remember. I just feel. Damn it, I want to know! Seeing Holmes' stricken look, she smiled and waved a hand. They could discuss the revelation later.

Fortunately, the mystery of Rachel was too enticing to forgo, and Sherlock went back to berating the Yarders. John listened to the rest of the drama without intervening, still reeling from actually remembering something, even if it was only her dying words.

I am a soldier. Was I killed in action? Then what am I doing in London? Not complaining, but… Her musings were cut short by the computer finally locating the phone in the flat, and the chaos that erupted.

While everyone was busy looking for the device, John was the only one watching Sherlock, who went into thinking overdrive. Then he pulled out his own phone.

To John's disbelief, bluish characters (hieroglyphs? runes?) slowly detached themselves from the screen and made a beeline towards the unsuspecting Sherlock. "Sherlock!" she called out in warning, as he didn't seem to notice anything amiss, but it was too late.

The runes embedded themselves into the detective's skin, and she could see the glow on his forehead. Forgetting to walk, John flew to his side. "Sherlock, you alright?" But he didn't even seem to notice her face inches away from his own. No.

Slowly, Holmes moved out of the flat, leaving the bustling search without supervision. No, impossible. John rushed to the stairs, planting herself firmly in Sherlock's way. "What are you doing?" she demanded. He didn't stop, just went through her. He doesn't… "You don't see me" she whispered, frozen in place. "No, NO, DAMMIT!" What is this blue shit? A spell, a curse? If ghosts exist, why not curses, right? "Sherlock!"

She flew outside, only to find Sherlock exchanging pleasantries with a cabbie. "It was you, not your passenger." Correction, a serial killer. But what worried her more was the bluish runes on the cabbie's hands.

"You!" she screamed like a banshee, getting into the killer's personal space. "You did this to him!" He didn't see her either. How can he… Not important. She turned back to Sherlock, feeling more helpless than ever. "Sherlock, please! Something's wrong! Sherlock!"

"I don't wanna kill you, Mister Holmes. I'm gonna talk to yer… and then you're gonna kill yourself."

No! Stop! "Why don't yOU HEAR ME?!"

He really stopped noticing her existence. Am I dead? John's mind wondered hysterically. She couldn't leave him alone with a serial killer. Not with this… curse… on his skin. So she got into the cab with them, desperately trying to make Sherlock see again, in vain. They talked and measured each other, but neither man heard her.

"Don't need this, 'cause you'll follow me." John seethed from that comment. Wait. How is he so sure? Does this spell enforce compliance? Or cloud his perceptions? Generally do something to his will? She floated in front of Sherlock, trying to get a good look on the symbol etched on his forehead, invisible to anyone but her. It was complex, with elegant lines intertwining inside a perfect circle. It reminded her of Celtic knots, adorned with smallish pentagrams. She tried to trace it with her fingers, but it did nothing. Blocking his psychic sight might be a side-effect. Now… how to get rid of it?

They were in a classroom now. The cabbie, Jeff Hope, was setting up his game. "You bastard" John hissed at him, circling around the sitting pair, looking for something, anything. She watched in morbid fascination the killer lay out his rules and Sherlock play along. She felt the deadly cold trapped in two bottles. Both are poison. She felt hopeful when Sherlock smiled at the toy gun and got up to leave.

Then the runes flared to life. "Just before you go, did you figure it out? Which one's the good bottle?"

"NO!" John screamed as Sherlock turned around, blue symbols shining on his forehead, forcing him to get trapped.

"Of course. Child's play."

"Well, which one then?" the killer pressed.

"No, stop! SHERLOCK!"

"Which one would you 'ave picked, just so I know whether I could have beaten you?" The voice was enticing, like a slow-acting poison sipping through blood, making the rune shine brighter and brighter.

He's going to kill him, John realized in an instant of clarity. "STOP!" she yelled, trying to kick the pill out of Sherlock's hands, but she just went through the bottle and the hand holding it.

The cabbie was smug, taunting. "You" she growled, moving to tackle the bastard, failing again. An anger she did not experience ever before started to rise in her guts. Sherlock cannot die. My only friend, I will not let him die. The eternal cold of death was melting away in the fury. This man. This soul shall burn.

Acting on instinct, John thrust her open hand though Jeff Hope's back and into his heart, and squeezed.

The hypnotic monologue broke off, and the man's body collapsed, leaving his spirit in the palm of John's hand. Still alight with fury, she hissed "burn" and the new ghost screamed as disembodied flames consumed him until only translucent ash scattered to the winds.

The bluish runes on Sherlock's skin flashed with a final jolt and dissolved.

# #

As Jeff Hope collapsed, Sherlock came back to reality, the adrenaline from the life and death situation still pumping strong in his veins. What a bad timing, was his first thought. Then John's form slowly came into focus. Wait. John. Why didn't I see or hear her before?

She was breathing heavily with fading anger (can't be - she can't breathe), an arm outstretched forward. A clenched fist where the cabbie's heart would have been. Impossible.

"John?" he tried gently.

She looked up at him, a look of immense relief quickly replaced with a frown. Something was wrong. Her gaze unfocused. She is remembering something.

Suddenly, her appearance, which remained unchanged since their first meeting (ghosts never change), altered. Her uniform became dirty and ripped, splattered with dried and fresh blood alike. Hair mated. Dirt under fingernails, dark smudges on her face. A gunshot wound in her left shoulder. That's how she died.

John's lost expression twisted in pain, as she tried to reach out to him, only to fail and fall down, vanishing from view before hitting the ground.

"JOHN!"

# #

Sherlock went over the events of that night again and again for a week, to the point where even bloody Mycroft started to worry. Everyone thought that an aneurysm killed Hope, and with that, the case was closed. But there were inconsistencies, that no one could comprehend.

According to his recollections, he suddenly stopped perceiving John's presence when he read the "Come with me" text. Why? She didn't vanish. She had no reason to. Something happened to block my sight. What? What could have possibly happened?

Setting aside the unanswered question, there was the matter of the cabbie's demise. He collapsed at the crucial moment, just seconds before they both took the medicine. Forensics confirmed that both pills were poisoned. And Sherlock should have known better, but then… Why didn't I? I am arguably smarter than this. The risk… is always welcome, but I do not intend to die. It was unnecessary. Why did I go along with it?

Somehow, it was related to his inability to see John.

His stomach grumbled. Time to eat some biscuits then. While chewing at the required substance, Sherlock remembered that there was someone who could possibly help him out. Billy. The beggar from Mayfair.

The same night, Sherlock disappeared into the shadows, giving slip to the tail his brother set up. Billy was in his usual spot, wrapped into two ratty jackets and a tuft of red hair peaking under a beanie. "Any change?" he asked hopefully when Sherlock stopped in front of him.

"Why don't we grab a bite?" the detective suggested.

Billy raised an eyebrow, but happily complied. They grabbed a fish and chips at the nearest food truck and sat at one of their plastic tables to eat. After munching in silence for a while, Billy asked between bites: "So, what can I help ya with, Shezza?"

"I gotta know 'bout a girl" he replied in kind. Then added: "A soldier."

Billy gave him a sharp glare, pushing the chips away. "Don't know what yer mean."

"A blond soldier. Didn't remember anything about herself. You told her to go to me, months ago." The beggar continued to stare, unimpressed. "She is unusual. Kept her personality. She stayed with me until a week ago, when something happened. I need to know what."

"If this is a joke…"

"It isn't!" He must have come out as desperate, because Billy's glare softened. "I need to know what happened to her."

Billy pulled the chips back towards him and sighed. "You see them, right?" Sherlock nodded. "But you never read anything about it, or got a teacher?" There are teachers? Instead of floundering his ignorance, Holmes just shook his head. "Rightie. That actually explains things." He chomped down another chips. "Just so yer know, I'm a bit different from you. I see only the strong ones. But I can break some minor curses. My bloodline is too weak to do anything more than that."

He couldn't contain himself. "Bloodline? Curses?"

"You really are clueless, aren't ya? Alright, listen up, pal." Billy's voice quieted down, and he looked like he recited a lesson. "These powers are part of our genetic make-up. Powerful bloodlines were preserved in the past, but it was lost over time. Sometimes it will manifest strongly in a descendant, sometimes only a shadow of the ancestor's power remains. Some are born with the abilities, for others, it needs to be triggered, awaken. The power gives the possibility to see and interact with the spiritual world, basically the souls of the dead. There are some specifics you don't need to know yet. But some of yer ancestors must've been quite strong, for you too see even the fading ghosts. What, don't think I didn't notice how you looked at Old Robbie when he passed. Yer saw him leave. I didn't. You're stronger than me, at least."

Sherlock mentally noted to start researching his genealogy. "You said curses."

"Yeah" Billy smirked. "Curses and blessings. Some of these special bloodlines can manipulate some part of their own or others' souls to impact the world of the living. It can be a minor thing, like ensuring a safe trip, or it can be a death curse."

Oh, the possibilities. "How rare is it?"

"Interested, huh? Very rare. As I said, very few strong practitioners remain."

Damn. "What about John?"

"John? Is that the girl's name?"

"That's what she wanted to be called" Sherlock huffed defensively.

"Huh. 'Kay. Well, she was clearly from a bloodline, but have not awakened before passing into a spirit form. You said she disappeared, did she pass on?"

"No… She took on the appearance just before her death, fell and vanished."

Billy blinked in surprise, a half-eaten chip hanging from his open mouth. "Ghosts don't change" he finally sputtered.

"She did. And it was just after something blocked my ability to see her for an hour or so."

"Your ability got blocked?! Man, say something first!" The beggar grabbed his hand and ran a finger over his open palm. "Yer been under a curse recently. A rather strong one, I couldn't 'ave touched it. But it wasn't about making you 'not see', that's sure. Can't read more."

"You're a palm-reader now?" Sherlock asked, pulling his hand back with a grimace.

"That's the easiest way to read a curse" the redhead shrugged. "Do you think she might have broken it?"

"Maybe" he admitted.

"Then I got good news for yer, Shezza. John's a soul witch."

"A what?!"

"Special blood. Soul witches can interact with all souls, dead or alive. They also can leave their bodies behind for extended periods of time, without actually dying."

Sherlock's brain screeched to a halt. "She's alive?"

"Her body is. Must be, if her appearance changed. If she wasn't aware of her heritage when the blood was triggered, she might have whole-heartedly believed to be dead. Which can explain the memory loss."

"Alive" Sherlock repeated in stupor.

# #

The Chinese smuggling ring case had been a welcome distraction from his unsuccessful attempts to locate John. All he had was "JHW" and an approximate date of her shooting. He didn't know which corps she had been enrolled with, or her last name, or age. It was bound to fail.

Sherlock felt bad about Soo-Lin's death, but it ended up being the key to the case as her ghost silently pointed to the London A-Z before dissolving into the light. The cipher was ridiculously easy to crack after that, and even the newbie DI could plan a raid.

He came home to an empty flat, his usual mess not even bringing an ounce of joy.

"Sherlock?"

The detective swirled around, almost losing his footing. There, in the kitchen doorway, stood John. Still translucent.

"John…" he breathed out, unable to say more. She looked different. Her hair grew longer, down to her waist, which shouldn't be possible for a ghost. Her uniform gave way to a simple long white shirt (hospital gown). She looked pale, dark smudges lining under her tired eyes. It is proof that she is alive.

"Wh… I… think I need help" she stumbled upon her words, as if it was difficult to articulate.

Galvanized into action, Sherlock stepped closer. "What do you need?"

"It's dark…" she started, then closed her eyes in pain. "It burns."

"Burns?" He could see a sheen of sweat gathering on her brow. "Do you have a fever?"

"Don't know… They don't let me wake up!"

"Who?"

"It burns, Sherlock…" She was swaying on her feet now, looking miserable. "Please, get me out, please…"

"I need more data, John!" That was true. He had nothing to go on. She looked up, eyes clouded by pain. He felt like someone shoved broken glass inside his lungs. "Please, give me a hint."

"They won't… let me remember…" she struggled to make full sentences. "My soul is tied down… It burns so bad!"

"John, look at me! You have to give me something."

She stared at him vacantly, before a spark of the familiar stubborn strength flashed on her face. "J.H. Watson, RAMC."

Her name. Finally. "Good, that's good, John. I will find you."

She nodded, a ghost of a smile making a guest appearance. Then her eyes unfocused. "Have to go" John whispered and vanished again.

# #

Captain Joan H. Watson, RAMC. He finally had a name and her military records. Enrolled at 18, the army financed her degree. Experienced trauma surgeon. George's cross. Had been shot in an ambush outside of Kandahar during her third tour in Afghanistan. Extensive damage to left shoulder. Partial loss of mobility. Honourably discharged. Serious post-surgery infection. Transported to London. Fell into coma.

The last part had been edited, but he managed to wriggle around the restrictions with Mycroft's passwords. Captain Watson, still unconscious, had disappeared from the hospital two months ago.

Abduction. But why? And by who?

# #

Moriarty exploded into his life with promises of entertainment and challenge. Carl Powers' shoes were just an amuse-bouche, and the following cases ranged in intensity and flavours. Moriarty was a true chef of crime. Sherlock was enjoying the thrill more than on any other case, leaving gaping Yarders and a pestering brother in his wake.

He still had Billy on the lookout for any sign of John or any suspicious activity in the secretive community of London's psychics. For a good price, the crafty man revealed himself a gold mine of information Sherlock previously never had access to. Apparently, Billy's grandparents were keener on passing on obscure knowledge than Sherlock's own (if they had even been aware of it). The nuances in bloodlines and the correlation to genetics were simply fascinating. With this new insight, Sherlock was almost certain that Moriarty had ties to the paranormal. When Billy hinted that an honest-to-god necromancer had been terrorizing the underworld for some years now, his suspicions grew stronger.

But then… these cases. These cases. Elegant! The game (chess, tag, hide-and-seek) was finally at the level he could whole-heartedly enjoy. It was an invitation. And if not for John's influence, Sherlock would have taken it up by pure curiosity.

# #

All things come to an end. The fifth pip was making itself wait, so Sherlock did the next logical thing. He set up a date, hoping that Mycroft stopped monitoring him for the night after being handed over the originals of the missing plans.

He arrived at the pool with two minutes to spare. Hang his coat in the entrance. Strode confidently towards the main area.

"Stop!"

John materialized in his path, arms outstretched to block his way. She looked haggard, dressed in a long white hospital gown again, pale, thinner than before. There were bruises on her wrists and bare ankles. Sherlock froze in surprise. "Get away, Sherlock, now!"

The fifth pip. "John…"

"Sherlock, don't be an idiot, please, run!" She sounded desperate. She's been the final bait all along. The realization that Moriarty, his masterful opponent with complete disregard for human life, had John for several months made his blood run cold. She hadn't been treated gently, that much was clear the time she showed up in fever at his flat, but it was much more striking now.

Before Sherlock could say anything, the soldier cried out in pain and was pulled backwards through the door, jerked away by an unseen force. The detective followed slowly, dreading what he'd find on the other side.

All prepared speeches vanished when the lights blinked to life in the chlorine-permeated space.

The pool itself was expectedly dull. Standard. The quiet murmur of water was adding a surreal sense of tranquillity to the scene. Mid-way from the main door to the deep-end someone placed a black office chair, just in front of an open changing cubicle.

A body was sprawled on the chair (white gown, blond hair). Sherlock took a tentative step forward, his shoes resonating loudly in the otherwise empty space (skin abnormally pale from the lack of sun light and fever). The body was not completely immobile (breathing). He had walked half the distance when his mind, slowed down by the thrice damned sentiment, caught up to reality (John, John is breathing) and he froze for a second, unable to breathe himself.

Blue eyes, clouded in pain, focused on him with effort. "Run…" her weak plea echoed between them. There were lines everywhere on her skin that hadn't appeared on her spirit form. The intricate pattern ran all over the bare skin of her arms, legs, neck and face, and seemed to continue under the tattered clothes, like a full-body tattoo. It was pulsing with a sickening bluish light. A curse, Sherlock realized, a very complex one. "Sherlock, run…" John repeated, which was non-sense, he wasn't going to just leave her there.

"No" he mouthed to her while screening the pool for potential threats (they were here, the question was 'where exactly'), and stepped forward. The red light danced in the corner of his vision and he looked back at John, frozen in place again by the sight of red dots dancing all over the white gown. NO!

"Bet you never saw this coming, Sherlock" a male voice came out distorted through hidden speakers. "What would you like to do next?" Sherlock glared around in silence. The voice continued dispassionately. "Nice touch, this: the pool where little Carl died. I stopped him. My very first one. Was it a first for you? I can stop Johnny too, just say the word."

Anger reared its ugly head, making him lose all rational thought for a moment. "Where ARE you?" Show yourself, so I can kill you for what you did.

Footsteps echoed from the cubicles, coming closer. John whimpered quietly at the sound. "I gave you my number" drawled in a pronounced Irish lull the man who appeared just behind the chair. "Thought you might call." The face seemed vaguely familiar. "Did I really make such a fleeting impression?" The man made a supposedly funny thinking face. "But then, I suppose, it was rather the point." He circled the chair from behind and leaned an elbow on its top. "Jim Moriarty. Hi!"

"Pleasure" Sherlock offered with fake politeness.

"Did you enjoy the game? Or were you too worried about your cute little ghost here?" Jim tangled two fingers in John's dishevelled hair and tugged playfully. She winced but made a stoic face. Sherlock kept on a stonewall mask, boiling inside (note to self: break Jim's hand).

"It was entertaining."

"I've given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I've got going on out there in the big bad world. I'm a specialist, you see, just like you!" His smile stretched too wide and showed too much teeth to be considered pleasant.

"Consulting criminal" Sherlock stated his conclusion, fists clenched at his side. "Brilliant" he allowed himself to say, because it was, really. "But that's not all you are, right?"

"Yessss" Jim hissed with glee. "I have power at my disposal that no one can match. No one will ever get to me."

"I did."

"You've come the closest, I admit. But you can't beat me, Sherlock. Not on our special playground. You know that" Moriarty gently chided him (true, damn it, I can do shite against his curses). The criminal mastermind tugged at John's hair again, making her head turn towards him. She looked in pain but still found the force to glare at her captor.

"Why her?" Sherlock heard himself ask.

Moriarty chuckled, black eyes glued to John's face. "Do you want to know what I did to her? All the dirty little details?" He turned his mocking gaze towards Sherlock, still tying knots of blond hair with one hand.

Swallowing back the anger and avoiding looking at John, the detective elaborated. "I am more interested in the specifics of this curse you use."

"Oooh, so cold!" Jim laughed. "Are you hurt, Johnny?"

"Go to hell" she hissed in reply. A dark shadow came upon the gleeful face, and he violently shoved John's head down.

"Bad girl" he said under the breath, before addressing Sherlock again. "You see, Sherlock darling, Johnny here would have been perfectly alright if she just followed the curse's conditions." Finding himself unable to speak up without screaming in rage, Sherlock simply quirked an eyebrow. Jim happily obliged (he is a chatterbox, isn't he?): "Which are quite easy, really. Just obey my will. Otherwise…" he smirked and pressed a finger on John's shoulder.

"Agh!" Something akin to an electroshock seemed to run through the soldier's body. She tensed, straight as a ramrod, eyes tightly shut in pain, nails digging into the chair's holster, but not crying out. It stopped as fast as it came, and John slumped back, breathing heavily.

His hands hurt – he had drawn blood by clenching his fists too tightly. Jim was admiring his handywork with a grin. "She's a stubborn one. You gotta like that in a pet, don't you think?"

"Can't say I agree" Sherlock grinded through his teeth. Stay calm. Observe. Analyse. There must be a way. There must be something.

"Kill-joy" Jim pouted, standing straight and taking a step towards Sherlock. "You are valuable though. So, I will give you a choice."

"A choice?" Sounded like a trap.

"You know, Sherlock, at first, I just wanted you. This was supposed to be our first date, and all!" What in the nine circles of hell… "But one day, I saw you hanging with this ghost and did my research. The girl is a rare find and would compliment my collection quite nicely. So would you. But I just can't have you both in the same world." Moriarty looked vaguely annoyed at that statement but cheered up the next second. "Now. You choose. Who will stay with me?"

"What happens to the other one?"

"As I said… I can't have you both in the living world. Pity, really. It would have been fun."

Be killed or watch John be killed. What sort of a deal is that? Sherlock was getting desperate. There were several snipers in the gallery. Jim Moriarty was an unknown entity, he had no idea how fast a curse could be cast, nor what other tricks the madman had in his bag. He could only stall in hopes Mycroft showed up in time, for once.

"Sherlock…" John called out weakly. She looked worse than before. "Don't…"

"Shush, you" Jim waved an accusatory finger at her. "He has to choose."

No. No, it can't be it. I'm not losing her again, not to death, and certainly not to this psychopath. His emotions were starting to overflow, cluttering the mind palace, making any logical reasoning flawed. No, no, no… Jim looked more and more amused by the second. He's trying to break me. I refuse…!

He chanced a glance around the pool again, searching for something, anything that would help them in this situation. His eyes landed on John, who stared straight back at him with a determined expression. What is she d…

John took a deep breath and with an unexpected bout of strength forced herself up from the boneless sprawl to a sitting position. Immediately, the shock cut through. She remained still and quiet for the whole ten seconds, biting back the screams, both men too stunned to do anything to stop her. No, was the only word running through Sherlock's mind during all that time. Nonononononononononono…

An invisible string snapped, and the soldier's body fell back lifeless, a trickle of blood running from her nose. It looked like she was smiling. The bluish lines flared with intense light and dissolved into nothing.

"John…" He couldn't stop staring at the dead body. She was alive just now. She had been alive.

"Oh my" Jim sounded genuinely surprised. "That's cheating."

"Can't tie me to a beating heart anymore, necromancer" said a cold voice at Sherlock's left, making them startle. John's spirit form looked healthier than her now abandoned body. She looked like a soldier again, short hair, pristine uniform, reliable and confident.

"John…" Sherlock managed to whisper. "What have you done?"

Her gaze softened when she finally looked him in the eyes. Jim was the one to answer the question, however: "She disobeyed to the point of death." He was positively furious now. "But what now, huh, Johnny?" he hissed, and the red dots rushed from John's still form to Sherlock, like a swarm of demented bees.

For a moment, she looked panicked. Then a determined frown settled in. John glared sideways at Moriarty, clearly trying to convey the disgust he inspired her. "Ah yes. Your rotten dolls." Sherlock remained as still as he could, but his thoughts kicked into gear. Fact: Necromancer. Fact: Dolls. Fact: Moriarty is a strong psychic user. Conclusion: The snipers are undead corpses. Fact: John is dead. (Fatal failure detected, please reboot…) Fact: John can manipulate souls. Hypothesis: John might know how to deal with Moriarty. "Who do you think I am, Jimmy?" she drawled. Hypothesis confirmed.

With one leap, the ghostly soldier jumped to the centre of the pool, floating over the water. Raising her hands above her head as if trying to reach the moon, her voice rang firm through the empty space, splitting the air like a bullet. "Come!" Jim paled, visibly unsettled for the first time this evening. Suddenly, a dozen of translucent silhouettes detached themselves from all sides of the gallery to the sound of muted thumps and floated towards the lone figure of John. Soul witch. Manipulator of souls…

When they were all gathered, circling around her in a semblance of a tribal dance, John brought her hands down and extended them forward in an offering gesture. "Go." This was not an order. An encouragement, a guidance. The dancing souls stopped for a split second and the next moment they were dissolving into light, so bright it blinded the only two living persons in the room. She asked them to move on. When Sherlock's eyes adapted again, he was struck by the image in front of him. John was surrounding by specks of light, like fireflies, watching them wither away to the very last one. When her eyes turned back to them, they were frighteningly cold. "What now, Jimmy?"

Jim gaped like a fish out of water, murderous rage rising slowly but surely on his face. John didn't lose time to come back to Sherlock's side, a bodiless hand brushing against his shoulder in support but leaving no warmth. "Why not tell us the reason why you wanted to erase one of us?" she addressed the fuming consulting criminal. "Isn't it because you couldn't possibly win against both?" Sound hypothesis. But I am not a match to the curses. How…?

Moriarty's face twisted in an ugly snarl. "Let's test it out then."

# #

What does it say if I feel better in spirit form than in my physical body? Joan mused just after having sent the enslaved souls to the next great adventure. Well, the last several months did not help with the whole 'love your body' thing…

She watched Moriarty seethe, feeling smug about finally breaking out of his hold. The only relatively good thing she could get from the whole abduction and torture ordeal was information about paranormal powers. Jim was surprisingly talkative when trying to break people. She admitted that he was strong, terrifyingly so. But apparently, her powers could match his (how is it even possible, I haven't seen a ghost in over three decades, most of which I've spent as an army medic) and more importantly, so could Sherlock's if he ever awakened. Jim kept calling him a dormant exorcist. And exorcists were natural curse-breakers.

But triggering an awakening could be very traumatic. It took a bullet for Joan. She wasn't ready to risk Sherlock's life for a hypothetic chance of unleashing an unidentified superpower.

And Jim was a dangerous psycho, but still a true master of curses. Even if his repertoire was limited to submission and pain-infliction incantations, Moriarty had an imaginative range of uses for even the basic things. He was also very proficient at casting them at a moment notice.

They were in a bind, even if she tried to not show it. I can always try the "burn" thing I did with the cabbie… if I get angry enough.

"Let's test it out then" Jim growled, looking more like a ghoul than a man now. Damn! The necromancer stomped his foot, and bluish runes sparked into life on the ground. He had prepared traps! Joan jumped back in panic, but Sherlock was not that fast to react, or maybe he still couldn't see the curses, she didn't know.

The runes flared all around him and the sickeningly cold light latched onto him, making the detective cry out in surprise. "Sherlock!" The light solidified into ethereal ropes that weaved themselves around the tall man as snakes, pulling him to his knees, all the while literally pulsing with coldness. The overall feeling of wrongness made Joan's stomach lurch, despite being in spirit form.

"He can't break out!" Jim laughed in a good imitation of a Bond-movie villain. "Things I could make you do now, Sherlock darling!"

No effing way! He is too important! Disregarding the gut-wrenching disgust she felt at the proximity of the curse, Joan fell to her knees in front of Sherlock, hands raised to keep him from looking away. Too important to be controlled by anyone. For the first time ever (maybe because of the curse that brings him closer to death, maybe because I am stronger and can get closer to life), her disembodied fingers made actual contact. She could feel his clammy skin under her palms and judging by the startled expression on the pale face he could feel the touch. Food for thought later. "Don't you dare give up" she said calmly, looking straight into his silver eyes. "Fight it. Please."

"How…?" he managed through his teeth, already resisting the pull of the ropes that teared mercilessly into his body, cutting blood circulation and restricting the breathing.

How indeed? The soldier hadn't thought that far, acted on impulse. She tightened her grip on him, trying at least to keep them both grounded in the physical world. "Working on it" she offered with a self-depreciating smile and immediately switched focus to the cursed ropes that started to latch onto her spirit form now. "Shit."

Moriarty piped in from his prime spot by the chair. "Pity that, Johnny. If you hadn't killed your physical body, I could have kept you instead." Sherlock made a distressed sound, making Joan wince. I am dead indeed.

"Don't listen to that jerk." The rope tightened around her waist, making her double down in pain, now clutching on Sherlock's shoulders. Think, Watson, think!

"John..!" There was a jolt of something under her hands, not electric and cutting, rather warm and calming. Exorcist blood, it can break curses, it can break Jim. Warm hands were tugging at the ropes that restrained her, Sherlock was trying to physically disrupt the spell-trap. His eyes were starting to glow. He is awakening. But it would not be enough against an experienced necromancer.

New knowledge seemed to flow into her mind, not quite exact data, not like a book you'd read and remember, but instinctual, primal feelings, a certainty that must have come down from generations of powerful individuals. Protectors. I am the doctor of souls, Joan thought with instant clarity. I can guide and strengthen and condemn. I use my own soul to make those of others stronger. The answer had been simple after all. They needed both their powers to defeat Jim. She already gave up her own life to help Sherlock, giving him her soul wasn't that big of a deal. Somehow, Joan knew exactly what to do.

One hand on his heart, the other cupping his cheek, Joan forced herself up to press their foreheads together. "Wh…" Sherlock started, but she interrupted firmly. "I'll give you my soul. Take it all and give him hell."

A warmth enveloped them both, growing around them like a bubble, pushing the cursed ropes back. Moriarty shrieked in rage, spitting incantations like insults, but nothing could interrupt the soul-gifting ritual. The feeling of wrongness faded away, and Joan smiled with her eyes closed. She had never felt so safe before. There was a bond forming between her and the detective, and she wasn't quite sure whether everything had gone as intended, but… but she could feel small bits of herself running through Sherlock's veins, amplifying the power of his blood. She was both part of him and still her own person.

Strong arms pulled her to her feet and pushed her slightly behind his surprisingly large back. Sherlock's expression was one of unforgiving rage. His eyes were glowing with a grey light, that appeared warm and homely to Joan, in contrast to Jim's harsh neon blue.

"Enough" he practically growled and stomped his right foot straight into the knot of the curse. There was a sound of breaking glass and the whole spell-trap failed in a spectacular fashion, flashing lights and explosion noises filling the pool to the brim. The back-lash hit Moriarty before he could dodge it. With a grunt, the madman fell back, the front of his suit ruined by his own trap.

The counter-attack, fuelled by the anger and the sudden awakening, left Sherlock exhausted and he crumbled to his knees again. Joan immediately went to help him when she noticed the glow of a soul leaving its physical body.

Moriarty.

In an instant, she was standing over the burnt body of the criminal mastermind. Not dead yet, but dying, she assessed coldly. Good. Jim's soul looked different from the ones she'd seen so far. Small spikes of energy, of the familiar neon blue tainted with pitch black, pierced through its flesh (or ghost matter, definitions started to get muddy at this point). The soul slowly detached from the body and the chocked breaths came to a rattling halt. "You are going to regret this" Jim informed her in a bored drawl while examining his own corpse. Even he, himself, didn't look very convinced by that threat.

"I don't think so." Joan didn't feel particularly angry now that the man presented no danger, but she could feel Sherlock's fury at the whole situation, and it was enough to spark the fire. Feeling the cold of death recede, she pressed her left hand against Jim-the-ghost's chest, right where his heart would have been. The beat of a deathly cold under his ribcage made her frown. Necromancers are so much closer to the other side than any of us. Looking him in the eyes (black, black, the abyss stares back at me), Joan dropped her verdict with grim finality: "Burn."

He didn't scream. Instead, he laughed manically till the fire consumed every last bit of his soul and ashes scattered in the chlorine-filled space.

# #

Sherlock watched from his position on the ground as Joan judged and burned the consulting criminal's soul. His whole body felt drained. There was a slight prickling all over his skin he used to associate with severe blood loss, but it was not possible. There were no physical injuries.

Whatever Joan did (giving her soul, isn't it like dying again, but she's here, she's right here), it triggered something inside of him, and he had acted on pure instinct. Fact: I am a descendent of a powerful bloodline. Fact: I could see ghosts since my early childhood. Hypothesis: My inborn power was not fully awakened.

Fact: John's power was not awakened prior to her being shot. Conclusion: Traumatic events can trigger the awakening.

Fact: I had just witnessed John kill her own physical body and give up her soul. Fact: John is my friend. Fact: It had been traumatic for me. Fact: I had broken Moriarty's curse. Conclusion: I had just awakened the full power of my bloodline. Hypothesis confirmed.

There were confusing feelings in the mind palace, ranging between mindless anger against Jim to numbing sadness in the face of Joan's sacrifice to gutting desperation of the realization that he couldn't save her in the end, all this laced with bone-crushing tiredness. At the same time, there was a sense of calm, tinged with yet another kind of sadness he couldn't begin to comprehend, enveloping him in a gentle embrace. It was not his own and when Sherlock looked closely at Joan's ghost, standing at parade rest over the corpse of Jim Moriarty, he knew where that oddly serene feeling came from.

"Sherlock?" A disembodied hand gently pressed against his forehead, divinely cold for his feverish state, and pushed away the hair that stuck to the sweaty skin. "You alright?"

When did I close my eyes? Irrelevant. Should I open them? Too much effort, abort… "This required more energy than I anticipated" he answered instead.

There was a half-chuckle, half-disbelieving sigh, but the hand remained on his forehead. "You really should get out of here, you know."

"Can't." Too tired. The sense of calm slightly altered to include a gnawing worry. "Stop that" he finally cracked one eyelid to observe the range of emotions on Joan's face.

"Stop what?" she not-quite-snapped back at him.

"Worrying. I'm not the one who's dead." The comeback rolled off his tongue naturally, lost in the familiarity of her presence and their banter, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. She's dead. Oh god, she had been alive only thirty minutes ago, and now she's dead for real.

Sherlock barely registered the sound of laboured breathing and the pain in his fists that slammed on the tiled floor. It was the urgency in Joan's voice that made him look up through water that somehow ended up in his eyes. "Sherlock, don't! Breathe, just breathe!" She was down on the floor with him, hands running up and down his back, painting soothing circles he wasn't supposed to even feel. "It's alright…"

"You were alive" he chocked out. Why is it so hard to speak, is it the after-effect of the curse? Blue eyes widened in surprise, then glanced back at the lifeless body slumped in the chair. She shrugged. For some reason, the dismissive gesture enraged Sherlock anew. "Unacceptable!" he growled, making Joan startle and stare at him. Battling against uncooperative muscles, he pushed himself up, with considerable amount of panting, groaning and swatting away helpful hands. "You… you think that you can just… give up on living, and that'll be fine?!" She stood up in front of him, stunned into silence by the outburst. "That you can… sacrifice yourself and I'll just… What? Take it and move on? Is that it?!"

The outrage finally got a reaction out of the ghost, who scoffed. "Yeah, calm down, would you. I'm the one who's dead here."

"You don't seem overly upset about it!" He felt like he was falling into pieces and there was nothing, absolutely nothing to hold him together now.

Joan remained nonplussed. "You can just call me back."

What. These words effectively cut the grass under his feet. He glanced from the ghost to the physical body in disbelief, only encouraged by the soft amusement that now caressed his consciousness. Forgetting about the exhaustion, Sherlock was at Joan's side in three leaps, falling to his knees again, clutching the cold hands of Captain Watson. She did sport a small triumphant smile frozen in death. Slowly, very carefully, he cupped her cheek. "Come back to me" he ordered with as much conviction as he could muster.

For several agonizing seconds nothing happened. Then the light of a soul sipped back into Joan and her body rocked with a shuddering first breath. He jumped to support her, water clouding his vision again, and she gasped in his embrace, trying to readjust to the normal living functioning.

When the breathing was more or less under control, Joan's blue gaze focused on him, a tired smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Hey there" she managed, before slipping into rem sleep.

Content with hearing her lazy breathing, Sherlock crumbled like a marionette with its strings cut, finally succumbing to the fatigue. His head laid in Joan's lap and one arm cradled her waist, the other just grasping at the hem of her hospital gown. That's good, he remembered thinking before falling into darkness.

# #

Joan came back to consciousness to the sound of two posh voices. "You are being unreasonable, brother dear."

"I am certainly not, Mycroft. You will cease your meddling at once, or…"

"Or what? You'll go meet a terrorist again?"

She frowned and forced her eyes open, only to close them quickly again because of the brightness. It wasn't too bright, to be honest, but the prolonged disuse and the white colour on the walls didn't help her vision to adjust.

"As much as it pains you to admit, I do know what I'm doing!" Judging by the sounds, Sherlock was now pacing in a limited space.

"And that is why you had spent a week in the hospital?"

A week?! This time, Joan put in more effort to keep her eyes open. "You know full well that I was good to go after an overnight observation!"

She managed to turn her head in time to catch her very first glimpse of Holmes the older, who was making a politely disgusted face at the time. "Ah yes, getting sentimental about this stray. You are quite attached to her, aren't you?"

The condescending tone was what got to her. "'Course he is" she croaked from the bed, startling both Holmeses. "We are soul-bound."

"John!" Sherlock rushed to her side, producing a cup of water and a straw along the way. Since when is he so considerate? She smiled tiredly at him.

"What do you mean by soul-bound, Miss Watson?" Mycroft asked immediately, grip tightening around his umbrella handle. Sherlock glared.

Joan observed the older brother for several seconds. During her remission, she had left to see Billy the psychic (ghosts really had it easy with the whole going-through-walls business) who had filled her in on Sherlock's doings and on her own bloodline. That, combined with the instinctual knowledge that flowed through her veins, made her realize a lot of things. First of all, she knew that the ritual of soul-gifting didn't go as expected. It ended up being a not-so-bad alternative, since it didn't actually erase her existence, as initially planned.

"Just that. I intended to give him my soul entirely, but we got bound instead." Mycroft's sudden pallor didn't bode well. "You understood what I just said." Yet, he doesn't show any signs of an active bloodline.

The confusion on Sherlock's face morphed into pure anger. "You knew!" he screamed at his brother. "You bloody knew all this time!" Mycroft took a cautious step back in face of the thundering rage.

"Sherlock…" Joan tugged at his sleeve, successfully preventing a fratricide in a hospital room. "He can't see."

Still fuming, the detective relented in his attempts to strangle his brother. "So he learned about it as part of his work. And didn't you think, brother mine, that I would have benefited from that knowledge?" The biting question made Mycroft's already bad complexion even worse.

"You were doing well" the older Holmes finally chocked out, standing unnaturally still.

Sherlock seemed so furious, words abandoned him. So Joan took over from her bed, struggling to make long sentences on a parched throat. "He had been running from himself, all this time. The rebellion, the drugs… All means of escape from his nature. He hadn't been doing well since you sent him to a shrink as a kid." Mycroft's piercing gaze switched from Sherlock to Joan, still not betraying the deep-seated guilt the doctor could see emanating from his soul. "Your brother is amazing. Had always been. You can't cotton him up and leave him stew in his darkness. He is meant to be so much more."

Their eyes met. This time Mycroft didn't hide his unease (at least not all of it). But something in the calm determination she tried to portray seemed to convince him. He nodded sharply, turned on his heels and left without uttering another word.

"He'll come around" Joan offered after a moment.

"Hopefully not" Sherlock huffed in response and they dissolved into giggles. "Thank you" he gasped when they calmed down a bit.

"I should be thanking you for resurrecting me" she said, making a gesture towards the water cup. Without batting an eye, Sherlock obliged and held the straw to her mouth. "You were quite impressive."

"So what's this about a soul-bond?" She could see he was overflowing with curiosity.

"Basically, our souls have a much closer connexion than any other given pair. It would make us more sensitive to each other emotional states. As far as I know, the bond can erode over time and can get stronger if the relationship between the two souls grows better." As far as botched rituals go, I'm happy with this one.

Sherlock blinked, assimilating the new information, and pulled a chair to sit next to her. "So…" he stared, unsure. "What would you like to do now, that you're not a ghost?"

What indeed. "I don't know… Need to find a place to stay first."

There was a tingle of barely concealed excitement coming from the man. "I know someone who's looking for a flatmate."

"Oh? You do?" she played along, not bothering to contain her own grin.

"Yes. A very nice place on Baker Street."