Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, but he certainly owns me.

WARNING: Violet's swearing, and some Violence. Oh, and Angst. Be careful.

A/N: Thank you to the editing genius silvereyedbitch for her valuable assistance. She is my rock!

Chapter 54

"The Broken Path"

St Bart's

December 30th

Mycroft read the letter again, the fifth time through it not any easier than the first. He found it hard to breathe, and his fingers curled tightly around the thick packet of paper. The edges crinkled, and dug at his palms.

He read it silently to himself, his mind supplying Anthea's cultured tones easily. He could almost swear she was whispering these words to him, regardless of the fact her dying form was doors away down the hall.

"Mycroft-

The lives we live are dangerous, full of peril and sacrifice. Although I spend my days at your side, we both know the time may come when that is no longer a place of safety, but danger. I don't mind, truly I don't. Whether you are reading this soon after I have finished penning it, or decades have gone by, I know with everything I have in me that I regret nothing of my life.

I can regret nothing when it comes to you.

I was a field agent before I was called to serve at your side, and while my days spent abroad are fond and exciting memories for me, I didn't find my true purpose until I met you. Do you know some of my colleagues tried to talk me out of accepting the position as one of your aides? I scoffed at their fears, refusing to credit the rumors until I met the man. Until I met you.

I don't usually become so maudlin, nor do I appreciate overly emotional scenes. Yet seeing as how you will only ever read this letter if I am past embarrassment, I have no fear in saying what I want to, what I need to. Forgive my urge to be selfish, and try to take these words as sincerely as I offer them.

I love you.

I fell fast and hard, and so unexpectedly. From the first days of our time together was easy, a flawless mesh of abilities and expectations. I recall being confused, and aggravated, by the scurrying few who made it into your inner circle, yet still treated you like you were some inhuman monster. I saw the calm, icy exterior as they did, but I also saw the haunted eyes of a patriotic, deeply loyal man who would do anything for his land, family, and his precious few friends.

It was that loyalty, that devotion, and your extraordinary intelligence, that proved to me your worth and value, your purpose in this world. You are meant for great things, Mycroft Holmes. I breathe easier at night, knowing you stand watch over us all. I am so proud to know you, and I know with every beat of my heart that you will never let me down, never let our people down.

If the day comes that Fate and circumstance removes me from my place at your side, and that regardless of how strongly I may want to remain with you, I trust you, above all others, to know what is best for me.

If Death comes for me, Mycroft, and I cannot exist as I am now as I write these words, let me go. If there is a chance, no matter how slim, that I can fight my way back to your side, I trust you to have the faith and strength to give me the time to return to you.

Whether I remain for all time your faithful aide and coworker, and never more than that, I am still content. If Fate blinks, and lets us be together as lovers, then I know I loved you to the exclusion of all others. If we became nothing more than friends, then I know we were the best of friends, as we can do nothing less than our best, no matter what it is. Surely we were the greatest of friends. I know we were, or that we could have been.

I trust you, above all others. You are worthy of love, of friendship, and no matter the actions and decisions of your past, you are a good man.

I leave my Fate, my life, all decisions to be made in your capable hands. All that I am is yours. All of it has been yours, since the first minute I laid eyes on you.

As it remains to be determined if this is 'Goodbye', or 'til the next time', I will say farewell.

Truly, Mycroft. Fare Thee Well.

Anthea"

Her voice echoed in his thoughts and heart, and Mycroft bowed his head. The neurologist was waiting patiently at the door, knowing that he needed some time before pulling his thoughts away from the dreadful trust implicit in the letter.

"Is there a chance she can recover?" Mycroft asked harshly, words strangled.

"There is always a chance. But the damage is severe, sir. Despite her injuries, she is young, healthy, and strong. She may yet pull through, but she may not be the same woman you knew before her injuries," came the whispered response, painful to hear in its compassionate tone.

"Then you are to do everything in your power to keep her alive." Mycroft growled, wiping at his face roughly. He lifted his gaze, and skewered the doctor where he stood. "We will reevaluate her condition after more time has passed."

"A ….. Loving choice, sir."

"Hopefully the right one."

South London, Woodley's Warehouse

December 30th

"How is she watching the warehouse without being seen?" Sherlock demanded of the merc, a hand covering the mic in his cuff, not wanting Moriarty to hear him.

"Jaime is using the exposed ventilation system, accessed through the roof. She's been doing it since we followed the Vicar here." Clay informed him, eyes intent. The younger man was watching him with a focus that bothered Sherlock, and he tore his thoughts away, to the madwoman he was trusting to save his only niece.

Sherlock heard Jaime over the radio, asking him again what she should do. He knew that once he unleashed this monster, reining her back in would be dangerous, for all of them. Especially him.

"Sherlock, choose now, she's running out of time." Jaime ordered the detective, hands clutching the sharp edges of the metal ventilation duct. She knew exactly what Woodley would do to Violet once he got her alone, and every nerve ending in Jaime's body was burning with the need to stop the imminent nightmare.

Jaime crawled slowly along the narrowing shaft, keeping her progress silent. Violet was surrounded by three armed men, and the sickly wraith that seemed to be Woodley's shadow led the way. Violet was being escorted through the winding maze of halls towards the far side of the warehouse, away from the south exit she wanted Holmes and Clay to enter through. This mission was going sideways, and fast.

"Protect Violet," Sherlock ordered, and it unleashed in Jaime the torrent of rage that always simmered beneath the surface. Bloodlust and the desire to soothe an ancient pain boiled together in her heart.

"With delight," she growled back, and gave up subtlety in favor of expediency. Jaime switched the mic to voice activated, and checked one last time that her weapons were secure.

Jaime leapt to her feet, and raced along the vent ducts, jumping over junctions, ducking beneath low hanging support beams. She ran quickly, her deeply treaded combat boots sure and true on the slick metal surfaces. The air system operated at a low roar, and her footfalls would be hard to hear over the noise. She only had to worry about someone below seeing her moving along the ceiling, and alerting the guards.

Violet and the four men were approaching a door in an exterior wall, leading to a closed off area of the warehouse Jaime hadn't been able to scout yet. The network she was on branched away, but there was another system about ten feet out from hers she needed to get to. Jaime jumped from the duct she was running along, and felt a feral shiver as she soared over the three story void to land gracefully on the duct that headed in the same direction as the guards and prisoner.

Violet was below her now and just ahead, approaching the door that must lead to Woodley's private sanctum in the warehouse. If she got behind those doors, Jaime would lose her chance to get to Violet easily. She had no explosives to bust through a locked commercial grade steel door.

Jaime kept running, her breathing efficient, senses heightened by adrenaline. She was far enough away from the powerful motors that shunted the air throughout the warehouse that her footfalls were becoming noticeable. She was running too fast along the metal sheeting to remain unnoticed much longer, and she sacrificed the higher success rate of a stealthy approach. The group below would hear her coming in the next few steps. Jaime put on a burst of speed, and raced towards an approaching bend in the line, where the pipes went at a ninety degree angle above the doors before disappearing into the wall.

She saw Violet turn as she got closer, and the young Holmes caught of glimpse of Jaime's headlong rush into oblivion as she leapt off the corner of the pipes. Time slowed as her senses went into overdrive, and Jaime saw the world as if everything was made of colored glass, frozen in stop motion perfection. Jaime felt a rush of delight at the disbelief on the young woman's face as Jaime sped downwards, before focusing on the group of men she was hurtling towards. Violet saw her coming, and twisted out of the way, a short second before Jaime landed boots first into the back of the guard at the rear of the group.

Shouts and screams escaped from the men as Jaime exploded in their midst. Jaime thrust off the rear guard's back with her feet as she hit, feeling bones shatter in the man's spine and ribs, and she used her forward momentum to curl up into a ball. She flipped through the air, and crashed hard into the man on the other side of where Violet had just been standing. She landed with a bone jarring thud against the sickly wraith, crashing them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Jaime shrugged off the impact, adrenaline ripping through her veins, numbing pain and discomfort from the nearly three story drop and the resultant collisions. She pulled free from the junkie, getting to her feet. She was bruised and sprained, and the pain would soon be too present to ignore. She resolutely stamped down on the growing aches, and let her training suppress everything but survival.

She stepped on the junkie, relishing in his groans of pain as he tried to crawl away. Jaime ignored him in favor of the remaining guard, who had luckily evaded Jaime's initial body bombing. He pulled his gun, and she growled like a wild thing as she pulled hers free from her thigh holster.

The soft but sharply defined pop of a silenced gunshot ripped through the air between them, and the guard dropped to the concrete flooring, a trickle of blood running from the small hole in his forehead. Jaime kept the gun up, and checked the hall, not hearing any indications of more guards approaching.

"Holy shit," gasped a voice raspy in shock and sounding like an advert for traveling to the States. "That was fucking hotter than hell."

Jaime dropped the gun, breathing fast, and quirked a brow at the young American woman who was staring at her in delight and awe. Violet grinned at her, and gingerly stepped over the bodies of the disabled guards to get to Jaime's side, pausing to kick one of them sharply in the ribs with her bare foot.

Jaime evaluated her, seeing the startling resemblance to her uncle, and her father. Jaime knew very well what Sherrinford Holmes looked like, and his daughter was his spitting image. Violet was dressed far too scantily for the environment she was in, and regardless of her spirits being high, she was freezing, lips blue, cheeks too pale, and she was shivering something fierce.

Jaime pulled the mic off her jacket sleeve, and shrugged out of her garment. It held her spare magazines, and another knife, and Jaime would have to make sure Violet stayed close enough for her to reload if needed. She swung the jacket over Violet's shoulders, and she found herself wondering at the rush of pink that ran over the hacker's face at the gesture. Violet snuck her arms through the leather jacket, and zipped it up. It covered her torso and arms, but her legs were just as bare.

"I take it you're crazy chick Moriarty? You are way hotter than your creeper brother, and helleva more deadly." Violet asked, grinning ear to ear, and she winked at Jaime, unfazed by the narrow glare the assassin sent her way.

Jaime clipped the mic to her shirt collar, and made sure it was still on.

"Holmes, I have Violet. She's intact, and delightfully flirtatious." Jaime said softly over the radio, and she smiled again as Violet sighed loudly, rolling her eyes.

"Can you get out?" came his reply, and she could hear the wind past the deep gravel of his voice. She looked up, and saw a darkening of the brittle morning light that streamed through the high glass windows of the warehouse. A storm was approaching, the sky growing a deep grey, clouds rolling in the distance.

Jaime didn't answer, her attention arrested by the sound of the large metal door behind her opening. She looked over her shoulder, and lifted her gun too late to shoot the junkie as he ran inside the room. A second later a claxon scream cut the air, the alarm tearing apart the relative calm of the labs.

"Dammit!" Jaime pulled her other gun, a weapon in each fist, and she quickly went over the mental map in her head of the labs. They needed to get out of this one hallway, or they were trapped.

"My lady! What happened?" Clay's concerned voice snapped over the radio, and she heard him running as he spoke.

"I got distracted by a pretty face, what the hell do you think happened?" Jaime snarled, and she listened as best she could past the alarm. Boots, and shouting. The guards were coming, and it sounded like all of them.

The sky above was deepening in the grey tones of an approaching winter storm, the clouds rolling together, the wind screeching through the large warehouses next to the river. The pavement was slippery, the ice melt from earlier that morning freezing even as the two men raced headlong down the narrow alley to the door that lead into Woodley's warehouse.

"The door opens inwards, on three!" Sherlock gasped out to the mercenary at his side, and the two men put on a fresh burst of speed. They leapt together, and their feet slammed into the metal door at handle height. A boom and shriek of tearing metal was heard from inside, and Sherlock and Clay both hit the ground as the door swung violently inwards on its hinges. Shouts came from inside, and Sherlock jumped to his feet a second behind Clay.

The merc entered the building firing, two 9mm's flashing as he dropped two guards in the same instant. The third had been knocked back by the swinging door, and was behind the merc. Sherlock caught the guard in a chokehold from behind, and was forced to apply deadly pressure to the crucial vertebrae in the guard's neck as the man raised a weapon. A wet snap was heard over the screeching alarm that still sounded off within the warehouse.

Clay quirked a brow at him, and dashed away from the door, prompting Sherlock to drop the corpse and follow on his heels.

Violet out first, then deal with Woodley. He will pay for everything.

"Back!" Clay stopped suddenly, causing Sherlock to collide with his solid frame. The bigger man backed up and to the side, forcing Sherlock flush to the wall behind him. Sherlock was crushed under the larger man's weight, and he watched over the merc's shoulder as he raised one of his weapons, neatly dispatching three guards as they rounded the corner, guns up. None of the guards had time to fire a single shot before they dropped to the floor, matching holes in their heads.

Clay was gone, his weight off Sherlock as the merc took off down the hall, halting at an intersection of two halls. Sherlock joined him, and peered down the identical halls, the walls all looking the same, the doors matching in every direction.

"My lady?" Clay called over the radio, and Sherlock ignored him in favor of figuring out which way to go. "Where are you?"

"Outside Woodley's rooms, still in the main section, north side of the building. We need to move, we've got company incoming." Jaime's voice came out tinny, nearly impossible to hear over the alarm.

"Hold them off! I'm coming, don't you dare get shot!" Clay shouted, and started to take off down the northernmost hall. Sherlock was looking up, and idly reached out a hand, snagging the merc's collar before he got a stride away.

"What?" Clay stopped to avoid choking himself, and Sherlock tore his eyes away from the ceiling to grin maniacally at the younger man.

"Don't follow the halls. Follow the pipes." Sherlock took off down the eastern hall, eyes tracking the ventilation system hanging from the ceiling. The system was designed to cool particular rooms throughout the warehouse, and ran in designated patterns. Moriarty had used them to get to Violet, so logic said that her path would lead them there as well, even from the floor. He just needed to follow the northern pipes, and do it as swiftly as possible.

Sherlock heard the merc following him, and Sherlock let him do his job as rearguard. The man was one of Moriarty's devoted bodyguards, and as they all were, he was highly proficient in killing and keeping their mistress alive. In this case, it was all important, because the longer Jaime lived, the longer Violet stayed safe.

"John, stay here." Mary snagged John's sleeve as he started to pull away from the SUV, a determined and stubborn expression masking the usually gentle man's features.

"Dammit, Mary." He shrugged off her hand, and breathed heavily, fists clenched and white knuckled. "He needs me, she needs me."

Mary knew he meant Sherlock and Violet. Mary felt the same for Jaime and Clay.

"John," Mary reached out again from where she sat in the rear of the vehicle, the police scanner humming at her side. "Jaime and Sherlock, even Clay, are the best people to handle this. I know you're capable, but you nearly died less than twelve hours ago. Going in there now will get you killed, get them killed trying to protect you."

She held her breath, watching the downturned face of her former lover. He was so tired, so pale, and she felt her heart flutter at the thought he nearly died. All because of one man's foolish obsession and greed.

"How can you sit here so calmly?" John asked her, and he turned his head, staring down the long narrow alley in the direction Sherlock and Clay had disappeared. "You aren't even fazed by this, you look like you're relaxing on the couch listening to music on the radio."

"I'm not calm, John," Mary whispered harshly, and she leaned over, grabbing one of his fists in her hand. She gripped hard, and waited until he looked back to her before continuing. "I am terrified."

"Could've fooled me." John scoffed, but he didn't sound as curt as his words implied. He watched her, his stormy blue eyes nearly black with worry and stress. "How do you do it? I've got my training, but he… Sherlock…. He makes me worry."

"John, Sherlock makes everyone worry, even the villains." Mary said with a wry smile, and she managed to pry a small smile from him. His shoulders relaxed, and she pulled him back to the tailgate of the SUV, holding his hand in hers. "I worry, too."

"About what?" John asked, staring at their hands, where she was rubbing some warmth back into his fingers.

Mary thought about it for a moment, and decided honesty was the best. It always was with John. He respected the truth, no matter how brutal or uncomfortable.

"I worry about being a mother, even with Violet's miracle solution of Clean Slate. I worry I won't be good enough, that she'll grow up to hate me, or hell, even be like me. Our baby's future would be better if she came out more like you."

John stiffened, and slowly lifted his eyes from the hands, meeting her gaze. Mary saw some of the past there, in his eyes, A time before Sherlock returned, and she believed in a future that truly wasn't meant for her. He searched her face, for what she couldn't tell.

"I don't worry about any of that, not with you."

Mary felt a tremor in her heart, under the scars of their bitter parting months before.

"You don't? Why?" Mary asked John, eyes never leaving his.

"You were willing to give our baby to me, and leave, just to keep her safe. No matter the reasons why you thought that necessary, you were still willing to do it, regardless of what it was going to do to you. That means you would do anything for our child, so that's why I don't worry about you being a good mother." The father of her baby gave her a weak smile, but a real one. "You scared the shit out of me with that thought."

"I did?"

"Yeah. Me, a single parent? Sure I have Sherlock, but he's a kid all the time too, so I would've been raising two instead of one." John smiled wider now, taking away any hint he may regret caring for Sherlock. Mary smiled, and huffed quietly in agreement.

"He'd make a wonderful father, in my opinion." Mary said softly after a moment of silence, and she nudged John's shoulder as he stared at her. "What? Can't see past the neuroses to the man underneath? Surely you of all people can see how wonderful he'd be with a child."

"Seriously?" John was incredulous, his worry temporarily forgotten. Mary let her smile grow, and squeezed his hand tighter.

"Yes, seriously. He's one of the most legitimate, brutally honest people I have ever met. Yes, he lies and sneaks and breaks the law, but so do I. His honesty is far more encompassing. He is real to a depth none of us can compare to. You told me once that at his funeral you called him the 'most human' human being you'd ever met. I agree. He's authentic." Mary leaned back a little, away from the wind's bite. "Children respond to that. He'd respond to that in a child, and see the whole experience as the best experiment of his life, being a parent."

"He's got a short temper, zero inhibitions, no social skills worth mentioning, and he's certifiable." John told her, still doubting her. He said it all with affection, as if Sherlock's many traits weren't flaws to the rest of the world. They weren't, not to him. "You telling me he'd make a good role model? Or that he wouldn't eventually tire of the whole thing and want out?"

"We all have days like that, John. He just doesn't hide how he's feeling. All the so called 'normal' people of the world suffer through life because we all hide how we really feel, what we think. Sherlock isn't afraid of being judged. He truly doesn't care what the world thinks of him. He only cares about how the people he loves sees him."

"Really?"

"Yes John, really. He cares most about how you think and feel about him. He has to remind himself to be careful of you, not just your safety, but what he says, how he acts. I watched him just now, before they ran off. You know I played you, making you stay here with me. He knew it too, and felt bad for you. But since he loves you, he let me make you stay." Mary winked at John as he gave her a half-hearted glare. "I think the old Sherlock, the pre-John Sherlock, would never have cared, or would have needled you about it. I know he would have scoffed at someone else being played like I did you."

"So yes John, I think he'd be a good role model for children. Teach them all the things parents somehow fail to teach their kids. How to be themselves, from the very start, and to not be afraid of who they are." Mary said at last, after a heartbeat of having John think so hard he gave himself another grey hair.

"You are evil, woman." John growled, and gave her a squeeze back through their joined hands. She grinned wider, and relaxed. John did best when he didn't worry so much. When he let the battlefield in his head settle to a peaceful calm, John could do anything.

"I know I am." Mary said truthfully, unafraid of the darkness in her heart, the red stains on her soul.

"What else do you worry about?"

Mary stared at him, and wondered at the wisdom of sharing. Why the hell not?

"I worry about Jaime." Mary offered calmly, watching his face. She saw the lines etch deeper in his face at the mention of the younger Moriarty, but he said nothing, his silence encouragement to keep going. "She told me something the other day, something that haunts me still."

"What…. What did she say?" John asked her softly, his curiosity warring with his immense distrust and hostility towards Mary's new lover.

"Jaime told me she no longer hears James Moriarty's voice in her head." Mary stated baldly, words feeling weird sliding off her tongue into the cold air. "She's always heard his voice in her head, ever since the day he talked her through killing Lord Blackwood when she was a child."

"How do you mean she hears his voice? Delusions? Schizophrenia?" John went into doctor mode almost instantly, and Mary felt a warm sensation spread out through her heart. Soldier he may be, but his calling was medicine.

"Jaime killed her stepfather. The man was a child molester and rapist, who abused both kids, right up until the day Jaime strangled him to death with his own tie." Mary told John, and even though John must know some of this, his face still went even paler, his eyes horrified.

"Dammit, I would have killed the bastard too."

"Me as well. So I don't judge her for that, nor her brother. But ever since that day, Jaime has heard her brother's voice in her head, telling her what to do, reinforcing orders, even demanding revenge for his suicide." Mary sucked in a deep breath, and met John's eyes without flinching. "The day the Vicar died, it was indeed Jaime who took that shot. She held the rifle over Sherlock's heart, and she told me that she heard her brother's voice in her head, screaming at her to kill Sherlock."

"Christ."

"She didn't take the shot, because she said…. She told me later that I broke something inside of her, something cracked, shattered. She heard me instead of her brother, and since that day, she hasn't heard him again."

Mary watched John as he pondered her words, and while she hadn't asked for his medical opinion, she knew she wasn't going to get out of hearing it. She recognized the look on his face from when they worked together at the clinic, when a patient was being idiotic, and John was hard pressed not to lose his professional demeanor.

"Mary, you're a nurse. Regardless of your original profession, you have the training to know she has issues. PTSD, Bipolar, and some schizophrenia. Sociopathic tendencies too, considering her reaction to emotional situations isn't normal. She literally is the most fearless person I've ever met. No one is as fearless as she is without something being seriously wrong, Mary." John said not meeting her gaze, as if he was worried how she'd take his opinion. She waited, wondering what he'd say next. What he was saying was all obvious to her, she just didn't let it impact how her heart felt for the other woman. He merely looked away from her, face grim and harsh.

"She said once that they were raised by a monster, and to survive him, they became monsters in return." Mary whispered, and her heart hurt for the lost children swallowed up by evil. There was a glimmer in the mad girl, a hint of light in the dark. Mary wanted that light to grow, to become a force of nature to rival the sun. "Jaime can never escape her past John, but maybe… maybe she can try to be more than what life has made her to be. She let me sway her John. She let Sherlock live. She's been roaming free for over a month, and done nothing more than defend me, you, and everyone else we care about."

John sighed, the lines easing around his mouth. "Mary." He sighed again, and finally looked at her. "She is mentally ill, and without treatment, without serious help, no matter how much she says she loves you, she will hear Jim Moriarty again. She will hear his voice, and she will listen. Jaime will eventually have to. She is a danger to everyone, including herself, by being free."

"I love her too, John. Very much. I hope you're wrong. I need to have hope for her, John. I was so close to becoming her, so very close. It's a miracle I didn't. If the Vicar had been more like Jim Moriarty, I think I'd still be killing for the CIA, and I'd be drenched in innocent blood. I stopped at the edge of madness, I never went wholly dark. I hope for her sake she isn't so far past the edge that I can't pull her back."

"I hope for all our sake's that you can, Mary. Or we will all suffer for it."

They both jerked in alarm as the radio next to Mary's hip came alive, and they heard Clay calling for Jaime, fear and nerves making the young man shout.

Jaime breathed deep, relief swamping her abused eardrums as the alarm finally stopped shrieking throughout the warehouse. The deafening atmosphere made her head hurt, but she shook it off, and did her best to split her attention between the hallway, and the doors through which the junkie disappeared. Her whole body hurt from the three story freefall into the mess of druggies, and she was glad to have one less annoyance yapping at her control.

"What's the plan?" Violet asked, and she was as close to Jaime as she could get without blocking her line of fire in either direction. "Other than not dying."

"Not dying is the crux of it, I'm afraid. I was rushed out of bed by this rescue mission. No time to plan fully." Jaime groused, and she shifted restlessly. They were trapped here, they needed to move, and fast. "Can you shoot a gun?"

"Nope."

Jaime grumbled in annoyance, and eyed the Holmes scion. She was fit, and even though she must spend hours on the computer, she had defined muscle tone. "Grab my knife, right thigh sheath, stab anyone you're not related to, or who isn't here to rescue you."

"Wow….. That's so creepy." Violet reached down, and tugged the long silver blade free from the sheath, the edge hissing as it dragged against the thick leather. Jaime was glad she seemed to know how to hold it, and she peered intently at the knife. "How many people have you killed with this?"

"You are a morbid thing, aren't you? Let me think about it, I'll tell you after we aren't dead."

"Gotcha. Escape drug lord first." Violet jumped at the sound of gunfire, and Jaime eyed the general direction it came from. It sounded like it was from the far side of the warehouse, and she refused to count on Clay and Sherlock making it in time. There was large number of people running in the halls, yet none were coming this way. Most likely too scared of Woodley to think it was safer with him than with the intruders. They were probably right.

"That's it, we're moving. Stay behind me, and don't cut yourself with that." Jaime moved away from the deathtrap of the steel door, knowing full well they didn't need to be locked in there with Woodley and his junkies. If he was even in there that is, but Jaime wasn't taking any chances putting Violet in the same room with a serial rapist who harbored a major obsession for her.

"Not gonna be a problem, Crazy Chick," the hacker mumbled, practically glued to Jaime's back as they moved down the hall to an intersection where multiple halls crossed. "You know how to get out of this rat maze?"

Jaime smiled, hearing the younger woman's words match up with her own thoughts from earlier in the morning. "Yes, I know where I'm going. The trouble will be getting us both out of here without getting shot."

They stayed close to the wall, and Jaime took them to the corner. She carefully peered out, and looked both ways once before drawing back, swearing silently.

"Oh fuck me, what is it?" Violet whispered, and Jaime holstered one of her guns, and used her now free hand to press Violet to her back. She felt the raven-haired genius shivering, despite the warmth of Jaime's thermal combat jacket.

"There's about twenty armed guards between us and the way out of here. Looks like they're blocking access to Woodley's rooms, and we're caught between them and our men." Jaime whispered back, and she started to retreat from the intersection, pushing Violet back the way they'd come. "I can't get you past them intact."

"If his guards are blocking access, doesn't that mean he's in there?" Violet whispered to her, pointing over her shoulder to the doors not that far away. Jaime nodded, wondering what she was getting at.

"He's a rapist, Violet. He will hurt you if he gets ahold of you." Jaime warned the younger woman, keeping her voice low so they didn't attract attention.

"I know. He tried last night, after he grabbed me from the club."

Everything stopped for Jaime. She heard a dull roar in her ears, and the blood in her veins chilled. She stopped, and finally looked at Violet, saw the pain in her lovely eyes. "He tried? You stopped him?"

"He was too high last night, too drunk, I'm guessing he couldn't get it up. He put his hands on me, and once I noticed he couldn't get it up, I heckled the shit out of him. I got slapped, then thrown back in with the moody chemist." Violet said softly, and Jaime let the young woman lean on her back, her face hidden in Jaime's black shirt.

Jaime felt a sickening rush of rage swept through her whole body, making her sway on her feet. Her lips pulled back in a feral snarl, and she turned to look at the steel doors behind which another monster dwelled. Violet shook against her back, and Jaime wrapped her free arm around the young Holmes, gripping tightly. She leaned down, and whispered into the raven locks.

"Violet."

"Yeah?" Violet mumbled back. They spoke softly, words so faint as to not exist.

"This has never been about your uncle. Never about Sherlock. This whole ordeal, since the day Sherlock went to the nursery and found Woodley's people dead, and the man came for you that night…. All of it has been about you and Woodley. He is your monster."

Violet lifted her face from Jaime's shoulder, eyes damp. She sniffled, and Jaime wiped a stray tear from her cheek. "Yeah, I can see that."

"Let's end this now." Jaime shifted, and reached down to lift the hand that held Jaime's knife, Violet's grip on it true. "You asked me how many people I've killed with this knife. The answer is a lot. But that's not what you should be asking. You should be asking if you can add a kill to the tally."

Jaime watched her eyes, the vibrant amethyst shiny from pooled tears. She saw Violet's fear, the shock of the last several weeks. Jaime knew exactly what happened, from spying on Holmes and his family the last month. Violet had been harassed, stalked, attacked, and kidnapped. She barely escaped a sexual assault, and only because her abuser was too drugged up to finish the task. Violet could've been murdered last night, just by provoking him in his embarrassed state. It was a miracle she was alive.

"Kill Woodley?" Violet said softly, and Jaime nodded. Jaime watched as the tears dried up, and Violet gave her a look that was purely Holmesian. "I wanted to on the train, Sherlock talked me down."

"Sherlock isn't here. You are. I am. Woodley deserves to die. Let me kill him. Better yet, let me help you kill him." Jaime offered, and Violet let Jaime hold her. Jaime had never done this before, yet the words and her intent flowed freely, and were true. Violet would never be free while Woodley lived. "And Violet…."

"What?" Violet asked, eyes gone vague, her thoughts spinning, thinking.

"Anthea is dying," she told Violet, and she felt the other woman jerk in reaction to her words. Violet stilled, and her breathing grew ragged. Jaime held her tighter, and found herself mourning with the young woman she held. "She's in a coma. Woodley did that to her."

It was then that Violet lost all resemblance to her uncle, and became her father's daughter. Jaime saw the answering desire for blood in Violet's eyes, the desire to destroy the ones responsible for so much pain. Jaime understood exactly how Violet felt, and there was an easy way to assuage the pain. A flash of a knife in the shadows, hot blood spilled into the cold air. Quick, easy, satisfying.

"That dirty piece of gutter trash drug slinging shit-bag of bile is going to regret ever hearing my name." Violet let the curses fly free, and she pulled back from Jaime, the blade deadly in her slim fingers. Jaime let her go, and grinned in delight as the sadness and pain fell from Violet, like shedding a coat once in from the cold. "Show me how, Crazy Chick. He's killing people every day with his shit on the streets, he's hounded me for over a year, he killed a poor boy's momma, and he tried to get Sherlock back on drugs. He's put his hands on me twice now, tried to rape me, and he fucking hurt my girl."

Violet turned to the steel doors, and stalked towards them with purpose, the blade at her side. Jaime followed, checking over her shoulder that they hadn't been spotted by the guards. They were still unnoticed, and Jaime caught up with Violet just before she reached for the steel door.

"Okay Jaime Moriarty, time for Assassin Ninja Training 101." Violet hissed at her, thankfully staying quiet at the door. Jaime tested the handle lightly, and grinned at the young hacker.

The door wasn't locked.

"What the hell is she saying to Violet?" John asked, scrambling away from the SUV, holding the radio in his hands. "She's gone off the deep end, they need to get out of there, not try and kill a drug lord!"

They had just heard bits and pieces of a conversation between Violet and Jaime, and John felt sick to his stomach. Jaime's mic must be on voice activation, as it kept cutting in and out. If they could hear this, Clay and Sherlock could too. Woodley had tried to rape Violet. And Jaime just talked Violet into trying to kill Woodley. In cold blood too, not in self-defense.

"John!" Mary snapped at him, and he looked up. Mary was glowering at him, her face flushed in anger. Her pale cheeks were getting red, and she was gripping her radio tightly. "He needs to die."

"What? He needs to be in jail, behind bars. Don't tell me your girlfriend couldn't subdue him if she wanted. He's big, but she's insane." John snapped back at Mary, and he glared when Mary got a silly look of pride on her face.

The last few weeks have been insane. Why the hell didn't we call the police? We never call the fucking police!

John growled at himself, and reached in his jacket pocket for his mobile. He yanked it out, and brought up Lestrade's number. He stared at it, and frowned. He wanted to call, but something was holding him back.

"John you make that call, there's no take backs." Mary warned him, and he looked at her again. "You had plenty of chances to call the police, to call Greg. Clay wouldn't have stopped you, as he would've had to gone through Sherlock to do it, and Clay couldn't hurt Sherlock for the world. You could have talked us all down from this, and called Mycroft the second we knew where Violet was. So don't get upset at Jaime, don't get upset at Violet."

"What…?" John gaped at Mary, and she glowered at him in return.

"Time to be honest John. We sent a highly skilled assassin with PTSD who's traumatized by a brutal childhood of abuseinto a warehouse to rescue another girl in danger, held by a serial sexual deviant who's obsessed. We all know exactly how Jaime feels about sexual assault and rape. Even you."

John swallowed, and flashed back to the night at Blackwood Manor when Jaime saved him from the men trying to rape him. He knew exactly how she felt. He'd seen it first-hand.

"Every single one of us knew exactly what would happen once Jaime got to Violet, and Woodley was anywhere nearby. I knew it, Sherlock knew it, Clay did… and so did you." Mary stopped glaring, and gave him a sympathetic smile. "I think Jaime is the only one who didn't realize it at all, not until Violet mentioned Woodley tried to rape her. She just reacted in that moment as we all knew she would. Up until then, Jaime was just trying to get Violet out."

John stared at Mary, then looked at the mobile in his hand. He was so conflicted.

He was right, but so was Mary. How could they both be right, and both be wrong?

"Think hard before you call. Once Mycroft and Greg get involved, this entire mess we're in will be past our control. And someone other than Woodley and his thugs could die for it."

"Good for her," the merc said softly, listening to Jaime and Violet over the radio as they ran together. Sherlock paused his mad dash down the hall, pulling his eyes from the ventilation system. They were nearing the entry point Moriarty had used, a flat access panel in the roof directly above them in the ceiling.

Here is where Jaime entered, north is that way, that's where Woodley is, that's where Jaime and Violet are….

Jaime and Violet are going to kill Woodley.

Jaime is a match for him physically, and Violet has the intelligence to outsmart him.

A Moriarty and a Holmes walk into a drug lab to kill a drug lord…..

Sherlock walked slowly, shoulder to the wall, listening as best he could for more guards coming their way. He heard footsteps approaching, and tore his mind from the potential bloodbath of a drug lord to the next threat. He wasn't used to doing things like this without John, his mind was getting too wired to focus properly.

"I hear them, ten seconds." Clay whispered to Sherlock, and he nodded once in understanding. Their two man assault on Woodley's warehouse was going exceedingly well, considering that the techs in the labs ran away from them, and the guards were drug addicts. There were a handful of competent men here and there, but they ran once Clay started shooting, and the ones who didn't ended up neatly dispatched with an economy of shots that left Sherlock smirking.

Clay reminded him of John.

That's what it is…. Clay reminded Sherlock of a young John Watson.

I find John sexually attractive, so it stands to reason I would find similar qualities in another man attractive too. Interesting. That's why I get discomforted when he smiles at me. I didn't notice the similar qualities until now.

Now that I know, I can put it aside.

In the few seconds before the next group of unlucky souls met their deaths at their hands, Sherlock evaluated the whys and hows of Clay's disturbing effect on him, analyzed it all, and put it aside. He let the mild attraction go, and returned his thoughts to the task at hand.

I need only one soldier with a good heart in my life, and his name is John.

Five men rushed blindly around the corner, and Clay stepped away from the wall, firing at the group. They returned fire, haphazardly firing as Clay dropped one, then two more men with as many shots, still walking calmly across the hall. His pace was too slow for a hyped-up junkie to comprehend, making the remaining two men miss as they fired. Sherlock plastered himself to the wall, keeping himself out of the line of fire as best he could.

The fourth man dropped his gun and ran away, and the fifth died with a discreet dribble of blood from his forehead. The body toppled to the ground, and Sherlock shook his head at the colossal stupidity of Woodley's men, and looked at Clay.

The mercenary was still holding his guns up, staring at the bodies on the floor. He wasn't moving. Sherlock paused, and examined him visually head to toe.

What is he doing…..He's bleeding.

Sherlock pushed away from the wall, and ran the few feet to the younger man's side, just as Clay slowly lowered his arms. Sherlock grabbed his shoulder, and pulled back his jacket collar, both men seeing a rivulet of blood that was staining his dark grey shirt black with blood.

Woodley paced in his private lab, hearing the gunfire as distant pops through the thick walls of the warehouse. He had woken up only a few minutes prior, hung over and pissed off, dimly recalling a night of celebrating in the limo ride here to his warehouse. He'd finally caught Violet Hunter, and he'd consumed enough drugs prior at the club, then alcohol on the way here, that he'd been severely jacked.

"Master?" Peter was groveling at his feet, cowering. Woodley stopped his pacing just long enough to think about kicking Peter once more just for the hell of it, but the sound of another shot distracted him.

Who the fuck is attacking me? It's not the police, my contacts said nothing about a raid.

"Did you see who attacked you and took my little piece of tail?" Woodley sniped at the pathetic excuse for a human at his feet, making Peter flinch.

"I….. I did, yes master," whispered Peter, still hiding under his hands. He said nothing else, and Woodley growled in frustration.

"Well?!" Woodley drew back his leg, intending to stomp it out of Peter is he must.

"Master! It was a woman!" Peter cringed, still groveling.

"Was it the Morstan bitch the Vicar was after? Short and blonde?"

"No… no master."

"Well? Do I need to beat the details out of you?" Woodley snarled, and kicked Peter hard in the side, making the junkie roll across the floor.

"Master! It was… I thought I recognized her….."

"Go on then!"

"When the old master died… your master…. There was a woman… she was with him the last night he was alive. She disappeared the next morning, and we couldn't find her, and neither could Scotland Yard when they tried to shut you down all those years ago when you took over." Peter gasped, his words tumbling out faster with each flowing raggedly into the next. "I saw her with him, an hour before he died. And I saw her now, like a ghost. An evil, violent specter."

Woodley felt the epiphany like a punch to the gut. Impossible. She is dead, he is dead. The Moriarty's are all dead. She can't be alive….

"Tall, long brown hair in a braid, extremely pretty?" Woodley demanded, standing over the bleeding man on his floor.

"Yes, master."

Fuck.

Woodley said nothing, all he did was stare at the door, and wait. He knew who was here. He knew who had Violet.

"Do you… do you know her, master?"

"Yes, I do." Woodley felt the first brush of fear in a long time, his skin crawling with invisible threads of cold clammy terror. "Jaime Moriarty."

"The one on the news a few months ago? Who bombed London? Jim Moriarty's little sister?" Peter was finding his distraction too good to pass up, imprudently asking questions that would otherwise earn him a beating.

"Yes. And it was her brother who put me in power of the old drug cartel. Damnation." Woodley spat, and began pacing once again.

If his sister is alive, then he must be as well. And she is coming for me. Did he send her?