Hi everybody! Here's chapter 38, sorry for the wait.
By the way, there's a song I am listening to a lot while I'm writing - I think it somehow fits Kiara quite well - the Variation of the Canon of Pachelbel by George Winston.
I have also updated the timeline.
Enjoy!
"No! Not... Not John, please..."
"Kiara... Please..."
Blood is everywhere, staining the grey coat, soaking through it – and it doesn't stop. The blood seeps out, and the puddle of blood reaches his hair, his face...
He scrunches it up in agony, and his desperate pleading gets more and more quiet, as the time passes, but Mycroft isn't coming, he promised, but he isn't, where is Mycroft?
Sherlock's pleas stop and his breathing is getting worse, he was laying here for some time. Too long, no ambulance is audible, Mycroft just isn't coming! And then, the bleeding stops, and the breathing stops, and the heart stops, and there is only silence. And the girl who is walking down the streets, walking towards a special church, doesn't know. She worries because she can't hear anything, but that's okay, because Mycroft is reliable. She doesn't know that she has killed her best friend. Her best friend whose body is now lying lifeless in the abandoned warehouse, left, forgotten, dead.
And the blood turns from red to brown.
I wake up screaming with tears streaming down my face. The bleeding on my face has stopped, but the partly dried blood on the floor is brown and reminds me once again of my dream. Quick steps run towards the room where I am still sitting, and the doors fly open.
"Kiara? What - ?" Sherlock says loudly, but stops when he sees me on the floor. I can see the change in his eyes, from worry to confusion to something else I don't recognize, when he deduces that I am not being attacked.
He comes towards me and only belatedly I realise that he must have come running when he heard me scream, that he called me Kiara and not Moriarty. I don't get up though. I just sit there and look into his eyes as he crouches down in front of me. In his eyes I see myself, pale, red-rimmed eyes, miserable. After a few seconds I look down because I just can't look at him any more. Guilt washes through me once more, I had shot this brilliant, wonderful, amazing man, and here he is, slightly out of breath because he ran when I screamed.
His finger is warm when he touches me beneath my chin to make me look up.
"Kiara, are you okay?" His voice is warm and filled with concern, and I want so much to be his friend again, to be able to be the under-age girl once more and just hug him. To be able to tell him what happened, in my dream and in reality.
"Yes, I just had a dream, I'm sorry." I whisper, still not looking directly into his eyes. I don't know what to do or where to go from this. It's clear that Sherlock at least instinctively came when he thought I was in danger. But what about everything else? He won't trust me any more.
Mycroft is worse, though. Sherlock came, Mycroft didn't – and while Sherlock is (or was) my best friend, Mycroft felt different. More like a brother, someone who protected me and whom I could be there for if he needed me.
Strange how Sherlock and Mycroft seem like brothers to me, especially regarding who Father was. Maybe, and somehow it sounds right, it's because of who and how I am. I'm not normal. I'm not mentally stable, even though I am neither a psychopath or a socio-path I definitely have certain qualities of them – I simply copied them from Father and the people I met through him.
Sherlock watches his brother and Kiara critically. It's very unlike Kiara to be so quiet, so meek, so shy, but it's also unlike Mycroft to ignore logic.
Kiara did what had to be done. She didn't know what else to do, so she did the best she could do and managed to keep everyone alive. The chance of that happening was low, very low – Irene Adler would have most likely died in any scenario Sherlock or Mycroft would have thought of.
But for some reason, Mycroft acts the way he does, pushing Kiara away, keeping her away from him and trying to keep her away from Sherlock himself. And strangely, Sherlock knows why. Maybe it's because of his time with John and now Kiara, or because it could be looked at like a puzzle, he knows what's stopping Mycroft from forgiving her.
Mycroft's loneliness is practically in his job description. Anyone close to him is in permanent danger, and nobody wants to risk that. But Sherlock has his own enemies and knows how to protect himself. And now, the two other people Mycroft let in so far have betrayed him. Anthea completely, and Kiara had betrayed his trust – even though somehow she hadn't – but that were emotions. Illogical.
Sherlock watches how Kiara tentatively walks towards Mycroft's room when she wants to go to bed and knocks, knowing that Mycroft is inside. She looks unsure, a bit scared, and as if she really doesn't want to stand where she does. She is expecting Mycroft to decline, suddenly shoots through Sherlock's mind, she just doesn't want to shut that door if Mycroft does think differently.
Suddenly the door opens and Kiara takes a step backwards. What is Mycroft doing to scare her, Kiara Moriarty, so much?
"Stay away from this room, do you understand?" Mycroft's mask is slipping. His voice isn't clinical and polite, he all but hisses it in Kiara's face.
Eyes wide with fear and lips slightly parted, she nods and backs away. She doesn't notice Sherlock standing in his doorway, watching the exchange, as she passes the door, neither does he see the calculating look Sherlock shoots Mycroft.
Everything is dark and presses onto his eyes, ears and nose. He feels like he is suffocating, but can't move an inch – can't move away from the sharp knife or the quiet whispers that slither through the darkness.
"You're alone. You'll always be alone, Mycroft Holmes, everyone is leaving you. Because who would like your company? Who would be with you during your weakness and not use it?
"Sherlock hates you. You know he does, he has told you often enough. And Kiara has betrayed you as well."
He can suddenly feel something warm and sticky on his hands, and despite the darkness he knows that it's red; the DNA similar to his own.
"She knew he would die. And I have betrayed you as well. See, who would want you?"
Suddenly Mycroft can hear Kiara's voice, feels her hands on his shoulders.
"My, wake up, it's just a nightmare! Wake up!" He opens his eyes to look directly into her green ones. They are wide with concern and for a split second he remembers how she looked only hours before and feels guilty. Then the rest of his brain catches up.
He sits up and Kiara leans back to give him a bit of space, but he gets up completely. Her shoulder is warm, her freckled skin smooth under his touch.
"Get out. I told you not to come into this room!" He says sharply, cursing as his voice is rough and slightly shakey because of the nightmare, and pushes her out of the room.
"My, I -" She obviously wants to explain herself, worm herself into that room again, manipulate him again, but he stares down into her clear eyes coldly, hoping to make himself clear.
"My name is Mycroft, not some silly short version. Stay away from me!" He slams the door in her face and leans against it, fighting to repair his mask, and unconsciously listening for her to leave. She does so after a minute.