I apologize most severely, my readers. I uploaded the wrong file for Chapter 3. If you are reading this, you're in new chapter and the problem's been fixed. I'm so, so sorry. Please, enjoy!

Yours, with humility,

Gotham'sProphet

"My soul is dark - Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain."

- Lord Byron, "My Soul is Dark"

PRIVATE BLOG – THE GEMINI PARABLE

9th July

I had forgotten about her temper. It was the only thing that made her and her brother truly alike; when you got a Grayson twin considerably angry, things were smashed, thrown, broken. This time, it had been this man's ankle. The ankle wasn't shattered completely. Some of the bone was still in one piece, which actually made it worse and the man didn't stop sniveling until a full hour after Bridge had broken the ankle. Her face was still bleeding once Sherlock helped me get the man inside, and the metallic barb was sitting in the kitchen sink like a signpost. She'd taken it out herself.

Sherlock, once we'd sat the intruder in a chair with a gag to keep him quiet, went to searching him for any forms of identification while I tended to Bridge's cheek. She jerked her chin to a cabinet and I found a first aid kit above the stove and opened it on the bar. They were well-stocked; I retrieved some cotton rounds, peroxide, Q-tips, antibiotic cream and bandages from it. The cut wasn't particularly deep, she won't really need a stitching job. The barb hadn't sunk in that much. She sat down in a stool behind the bar, facing me.

I came closer with a cotton round damp with peroxide, and she closed her eyes, bracing herself as I dabbed the round on the cut. The flesh fizzed and bubbled, Bridge sucked in a breath against the stinging I knew she was feeling. But when it was done, she kept her eyes away from mine pointedly.

"Angry with me, are you?" I muttered rhetorically, I knew she was. She tried to move her face away from me, but I cupped a hand on the opposite cheek to hold her there. "Don't move."

Her eyes were dark gray as a storm when she finally looked at me, her mouth half-open and her thin black eyebrows tied together. I only frowned, knowing what she was saying with them. What was I supposed to do?

"I know," I said softly, following the line of her torn cheek with a Q-tip and soaking up the peroxide. "Speaking as the partner of the detective handling this case, I can't necessarily congratulate you for attacking a suspect."

She rolled her eyes. I smiled at her. "Speaking as your friend, the asshole deserved it for hitting a woman."

I could tell she was fighting back a smile, closing her eyes as I slid a thin layer of cream over the cut and covered it with a bandage. I thought of the first time I'd healed an injury of hers, that broken wrist back then. She was a good patient, despite Leo threatening to take my head off if my bedside manner to her was as abrasive as other patients. I glanced down to her wrist, resting on the marble-top bar. To the scars.

"The identification card – CIA, how quaint – pertains to one Mr. Gabriel Brooks. A known alias," Sherlock's voice rang out, interrupting my thoughts, "But, as always, I do my homework."

She patted my arm to let her through, and we rejoined Sherlock in the foyer. The detective removed the gag from the criminal, tossing it aside. Bridge posted herself by the front door, crossing her arms tightly. I stood by her, in the corner of the room, while Sherlock informed us as to whom this man really was.

"You are Mr. Dillion Cass, one of Moriarty's men."

The man had been leaning over in his chair most of the time, and as he leant straight up in his chair, his greasy brownish hair was thrown back from his face. Despite his muscular form, he was very pig-faced and his face was in thick planes like a wild boar, beady black eyes shallowly set into the sockets. The one distinguishing and remarkable feature was a circular scar on his right cheek, darker than the rest of his skin and it was the size of a golf ball in diameter. He coughed hoarsely at his name, and then made a wheezing choking sound that I could guess was laughing.

His accent was Scottish and spilled from his mouth like a continuous growl. "I don't care how bright ye are, lad, yer not gettin' anything out of me."

Sherlock lifted one slim finger at Bridge. "What do you know about this woman?"

She set her jaw as Cass raised his pits of eyes at her and shook his head. "I don't know nothin'."

"Double negatives won't lead me to let you go out of pity for your grammatical skills," The detective seemed both bored and disgusted, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. "Or lack thereof."

"I'm not tellin' ya, Skinny," Cass slurred, choking another laugh.

Giving a low noise of annoyance, Bridge stalked up to him and before I could hold her back, stamped the ball of her foot onto the man's broken ankle. He howled in anguish, and once tried to snap at her hands like a wounded dog would a cat that had landed on a bad leg. I yanked her back by her collar, and Cass spat at the floor.

"Oh well done, Bridge," Sherlock mocked, turning back to the man tied up in the chair. "Okay, I'll make a deal. You tell us what you know about her, Moriarty, his location, what he's up to, when you saw him last and where, anything of use…and I'll let you on your merry way."

"Are you mad?" I demanded at my flat mate, still struggling to keep control of Bridge and her just itching to get her hands on Cass again.

Sherlock ignored me, but went on interrogating Cass, who was in a fit of coughs. "You're not afraid of me, I bet."

"As afraid as I am of a groundhog," Cass grumbled, his one eye visible through the curtain of shaggy hair. "Always tryin' to uproot something or someone t'get what he wants." He shook his head again. "I got more time rippin' throats out than ye got so far on the planet."

"And yet you cowered when she came at you, didn't you?" Sherlock said, locking a gaze with Dillion Cass. What was he getting at? The other man broke it, to look up at Bridge Grayson with a mix of loathing and something more delicate: fear.

"Of course you did. You were planning to shoot her instead of running away, and aborting the mission which I can only assume was to spy on her. You wanted her dead more than you wanted yourself alive," Now I knew that Sherlock was mad, and the way Bridge was fidgeting, she was getting nervous. "What had you read? What did Moriarty tell you about her? Tell us, or I'll let her have what she wants most, and currently, it's to cause further bodily harm to you."

Cass's pig-like face squeezed together with his grimace. "'Trained beyond a pilot', she was. I was told that she was one of the most decorated pilots in the bloody RAF at the moment, and that she was taught to kill. And that she'd do it without sayin' a word. Like a machine that had no heart."

"And who told you this?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

I'd known Bridge was keeping things out of her story that she told us about Leo's situation, but I knew that if it was important, she'd let us know without a moment's hesitation. However, all of what Cass was saying was no surprise to me. He was wrong about one thing, though. She wasn't a machine, and she had a heart.

Like he hadn't heard my question, he went on, "Moriarty had plans for her, I was told. Big plans. Bigger than you or me."

"Plans? What plans?" Sherlock seemed slightly disappointed.

"But who told you?" I repeated, stepping towards him. "Who said this?"

"Who else would know about what she could do?" Cass grinned with yellow teeth the color of egg yolk. "But her own twin brother."

Bridge covered her mouth with her hand, and I shot her a look. He was alive. Leo was alive.

"Leonard Grayson himself told me, so proud he was of his baby sister." Cass laughed through another cough. "Coming from a Marine, I would assume he taught her a few things. Me leg can attest to that. He spoke so highly of his 'Bridgie'," I saw her fists clench at this git's use of her brother's nickname for her. "Even if it was through chains and he was covered in his own blood. He fought like a little blighter, he did. Killed one of me good friends when we came for him."

I took a few paces over to put Bridge behind me. I knew that if this guy kept poking her, she would lash out again. And I know Sherlock wouldn't help me get her off him.

"…One little thing…" He moved his piggy eyes to consulting detective. "Ye got one thing wrong, laddie."

Sherlock was the soul of annoyance. "And," He said hotly, "What exactly did I miss?"

"I wasn't sent here to spy or to get the other Grayson twin."

"Then what are you here for?" My temper was growing too, and it was using up all my self-control not to let Bridge have at him.

"T'deliver a message," Cass panted, "From the man himself. Moriarty…"

"Well, I'm right here," Sherlock said, but the man made an indignant noise, stamping his foot. He reminded me of a child who was neglected attention, and had to be as loud as he could to attract some.

"Not you, idiot. Moriarty doesn't just have plans to toy with ye, lad." Dillion Cass snarled, and threw his head back, his hair flailing out of his face. "Message is for her."

Bridge went around me, and gave me a look. She could handle it. She came towards the criminal in the chair, and when he saw her, he said, "Ye may want to get a move on with that ransom, love. He's getting impatient. He wants an answer out of ya soon, whether ya plan t'pay it or not. He says for every day ye leave him waitin', a single lash upon yer brother's back."

Like lightning, Bridge's hand flashed out to crack the back of her hand across his face. Sherlock and I exchanged concerned glances. Cass growled, "I wasn't done yet, birdie. There'll be more of his men coming to stir up yer cage, three more to be precise. He's a business man, y'see. Wants it to be at least a temptin' offer, but after the third man…he'll kill yer brother, make ya watch and then he'll claim ya for his collection…Those are his terms, love."

Suddenly, Dillion snapped his face over to the right and there was a sickening crunch sounding from his neck. And his head fell limp, hanging over his lap. Bridge gasped, and shrunk back, almost tumbling over in surprise. Immediately, I knelt beside her and encircled her with an arm to calm her, reaching with my other to just touch two fingers under Cass's jaw. No pulse. Dead.

"My God," I said, defeated. The woman in my arms didn't shake with sobs, just shook in shock. Shook and shook like she was freezing, and she lifted hands wrought with tremors to my shirt, tugging me closer. Sherlock swore under his breath.

"Ransom?" He asked, his accusatory tone directed at Bridge, "You never mentioned ransom. How much?"

"Sherlock, shove it for a second," I barked, standing with her and held her. "Get him out of here."

He looked as if he wanted to demand why out for a second, but after I glanced to her, he mutely nodded. Untying the body first, he dragged the carcass of Dillion Cass by the feet out of the house.

It wasn't until several moments later that she pushed me away gently. My hands still on her shoulders, I searched her face, searched those gray eyes for anything that would give me a clue as to what she was feeling. One could only guess, as many had, what Bridge Grayson was feeling or thinking. Not until she told you. Not before she trusted you with it.

She turned away from me and walked away, disappearing upstairs. I stared up after her. Sherlock had come back in, wiping off his hands on a kitchen towel hanging off the handle for the oven. "Threw him in a stream by the driveway. Well?"

I faced him, "Well what?"

"Did you ask her how much that ransom was?" Sherlock asked, as if it were entirely normal for me to ask that of a woman who'd just watched a man break his own neck.

"No, I didn't." I said, looking him hard in the face as I brought another subject up that'd been bothering me since I woke up on the train. "And another thing, what did you say to her during you two's little smoke break?"

Sherlock's curly hair bristled at my question. He seemed rather uncomfortable, and my gut sank. It wasn't polite, whatever he'd said. I could see it in his face. He said something, but I couldn't quite know for certain if I'd heard him correctly. "What was that?"

"I said that I asked her if she was prepared to see this through to the end," He gave at last, "It may cause her more pain than relief in the long run, and I was wondering if she was prepared for that. And I reminded her that he may already be dead. That's all."

I sighed, truly tired. "Of course she's prepared. She wouldn't come to us if she wasn't ready to do what she had to. And she'd know-"

"-if he was dead, I know. She told me as much in the angry note she wrote me." Sherlock admitted, his hands on his bony hips.

Stopping our conversation was the sound of her swift footsteps coming back down the stairs. She was carrying a tan military duffle, and another suitcase that I guessed was filled with her clothes. Bridge stepped forwards to both of us and handed Sherlock a half- piece of paper, before going past us towards the Bug.

He tilted it to me so I could read her note:

The ransom was five million and I've got a little less than a month to find him. If Cass was right, then Moriarty's end game is big. Really big. Until then, I'm leaving Edinburgh. For a long time until I can return with my brother by my side. In the meantime, I am coming to live in London. We've got work to do, boys.

"Thank you again for allowing Bridge to stay with you for the time being, Mrs. Hudson," John was saying, giving the old lady a warm hug.

Mrs. Hudson wrapped an arm around my waist, as she was much smaller than I, and gushed, "I've always wanted a daughter, John, you know that! I don't mind having your friend share my roof." She beamed up at me. "Stay as long as you like, miss."

We'd just finished moving me in with John and Sherlock's landlady, Mrs. Martha Hudson. She was the sort of person you'd expect to be kind and compassionate; she was short and sweet as a china teapot, married to her cardigans and sweaters. Although, Mrs. Hudson was a widow, and her husband had been executed with the help of the detective (though I'm not sure how this was a good thing, I wasn't told much about it). Thus, she was gifting me her spare bedroom where she used to condemn her husband to sleep when they were fighting.

It was a simple room, just to my liking. Pale green walls, white carpet and a queen-sized bed already made with a quilt she'd put there once she'd gotten the text from John. I'd share the bathroom with the old lady, but I didn't mind. I shared a bathroom with my messy twin brother for twenty-odd years; I think I can handle an old lady who grows marijuana from her windowsill.

And she seemed to be oddly fascinated with my selective mutism. She thought my writing what I wanted to say on sticky notes was adorable, and even thought my hair, short as it was, was like the doll she used to play with as a girl. I was flattered, if a bit embarrassed.

Now, I wrote her one that said I was going to get into something to sleep in, and without fuss, I slipped into my new room. But I could still hear their voices. I opened my clothing suitcase on my bed and listened as I changed. My ears were very good; it was like they were right here in the room with me.

"Poor girl, and you say her brother's been taken?"

John's voice was hesitant, but smooth. "Yeah…her twin, Leonard. Kidnapped. I knew them both in the service."

"What branch was she, John?"

"RAF."

Mrs. Hudson made a noise of approval. "Oh wow…I've always wanted to fly, she's so lucky. But how did the mutism start?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say she's always had it. It's just a thing between her and her brother. He kind of spoke for her, and she kind of thought for him."

"That's…wow," She repeated, sounding amazed. "Never saying a word…I'd imagine that'd drive Sherlock up the wall." She laughed.

John snorted. "Yeah, it does. I've made him promise to be nice. For all she's been through, I can't imagine anything crueler than him poking at her about it when she won't speak. It's like torture to her, trying to force her to speak."

I thought of what Sherlock had said on the train. Your brother may already be lost to us. What does anyone say to that? A cynical snake slithered across my mind. What could I possibly say that could make that mechanical man understand my pain? What does he know of pain? My cheek stung as if to remind me it was there.

"I can only imagine…" Mrs. Hudson's voice trailed off, wistful. "That poor, poor girl."

By that time, I'd gotten into a pair of gray sweatpants and a black tank top with thicker straps. Leaving my short boyish hair down around my eyes, I stepped out into the kitchen again with my notepad and pen clutched to my chest. I saw that I was running low on paper already, I'd have to make a run to the store. I wondered where that was.

John was halfway out the door, but when I came in, he leaned back in.

"How's the cheek?" John questioned, striding to me. I bared my cheek and he gently peeled a corner of the bandage up to see underneath. "Oh, it's on its way. You'll be fine."

"I'm off to bed," He told me, and as he made his way to the door, Mrs. Hudson glanced between us with a small smile on her face. John asked one last question, "You have my number, right?"

I did; I'd gotten it back in the service shortly after my wrist had healed up, but as I preferred to write to him, we'd never texted before Leo was kidnapped. Although, as I understand it, Leo did text John. I nodded to him.

"Good," John nodded back, before opening Mrs. Hudson's door and throwing over his shoulder awkwardly, "Er, text me if you need anything."

"Oh she will, and I'll let you know if anything happens," Mrs. Hudson said, taking the tea kettle off the stove. "Goodnight, John."

"Goodnight Mrs. Hudson, Bridge."

And he shut the door. I sat down at the table with my notepad, and the old lady brought over the tea and two cups, pouring with practiced grace. I smiled at her as a thank you, and she got into the wooden armchair across from me. She lifted her teacup, "To new beginnings, yes?"

I scribbled in the margin, turning it around for her. To new beginnings.

As carefully as we could, we clinked teacups and drank the first sips. The taste was so rich! Leo wasn't much of a tea drinker, but this woman's tea was divine. When I told her so on the notepad, she giggled. "I'll have to make it more often!"

She reached for the counter behind her for the remote. I assumed it was to the television set on the entertainment stand on the opposite side of the room, and it was, Mrs. Hudson flicking it on. "Do you watch soap opera, dear?"

Not much. I could never really follow the storylines. I wrote, and she waved at it.

"Oh tush, I'll fill you in!" She said, and I leaned forward eagerly, finding how easy it was to get along with this old lady.

Despite everything that's happened these past few days, I appreciated this easygoing arrangement. And in the days ahead, I found that this right here with Mrs. Hudson was the calm I could return to. I could return here, drink tea with her and watch soaps with her. My own mother had been taken from me, and although no one could ever replace her, Mrs. Hudson offered familiar warmth that's been gone for more than a decade.

Later, when I'd resigned to bed and was in the seclusion of my new bedroom, I curled up in the warm blankets with something I'd taken from my house. A leather-bound picture album. I didn't open it, but held it to my chest and waited.

I was astonished; it was as if I'd forgotten how to cry. I was a master of repressing emotions, and the closest I'd gotten to crying is when I met John outside this building yesterday…Why can't I cry?

Without thinking, I raised a hand and tore the bandage off my cheek, before I drove my fingernails into the healing flesh. Burning pain made the tears appear, and at last, I released my cut. I covered my mouth with a blood-covered hand as I cried until my eyes were raw and my cheek washed clean with the salt of my tears.

Diary, I really hope I can bring Leonard home safe and sound. Because if I don't, the heartbreak, the pain and grief…I fear it just might kill me.

John returned to he and Sherlock's flat with aching feet and a weary mind, his arms sagging as he hung his jacket on the hook by the door. In the sitting room, Sherlock was sprawled out on the sofa in his navy blue evening robe, lounge pants and a purple short-sleeved shirt. His eyes were closed, but his chest, John knew, was moving too fast for REM sleep.

"Well, she's all moved in," John said, attempting to make conversation as he trudged into the kitchen for a glass of water. "I suppose we ought to get some rest soon to solve this case…"

"John, I know what you're thinking," Sherlock muttered through his lips. "We aren't involving him."

"And why not?" John inquired, pausing just as he was about to take a sip of his water. He knew just what the other man was talking about, or rather, who. "Mycroft said it himself that Moriarty's been contacting him, being persistent- maybe he would have an idea on how to work with the situation. Maybe even know where he is."

The consulting detective's rich blue eyes opened and he stood up in a rush, narrowing them at his shorter friend. "You know why."

"Because of your ridiculous animosity? Sibling rivalry?" John's sarcasm was impossible to miss, "Consider it a favor to me."

"This entire case is a favor to you," Sherlock reminded him harshly, picking up the satchel they'd used today and going into the kitchen, walking a bit harder in the heels than normal.

Or at least its original purpose was a kitchen. These days, it wasn't so much a kitchen as it was a chemistry lab. All manners of glass flasks, graduated cylinders and labeled vials and bottles laid all over the small table, barely a hairsbreadth away from one another.

"Oh right," John scoffed, "Go on, act as if the word 'Moriarty' wasn't what hooked you. You've been digging into his networks for several months now, and this is the first time you've had a lead on what he could be after."

"Ah yes, the mute who isn't an anarchist and yet insists on breaking the ankles of government agents," Sherlock quipped, inspecting a test tube fizzling above a Bunsen burner with little particular interest. "Even if it was an alias."

The doctor shot him a dry look from across the chemistry lab. "She doesn't need this, you know. A madman with a large bank account is after her, has kidnapped her brother, comes to us for help in a time of need and you're being an ass to her."

"If you recall, John," His flat mate produced a sealed vial from the satchel, and squinted as he observed the reddish contents. John knew that it was taken from the red fan of blood on Bridge's porch back in Scotland. He gestured between them, indicating a unit, "She's keeping things from us. From both of us and we both know it. Withholding information doesn't grant anyone favors."

"I can contact Mycroft on my own, you know," John threatened firmly, glaring at Sherlock.

To that, the man in the chemistry goggles with the vial in his hand looked up from the blood to the doctor coldly. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try me." The other man said, not backing down at first. But after a long staring contest, John said at last, "Fine. But if this spirals out of control, Sherlock, so help me God." His gaze intensified, "If Bridge gets hurt during this crusade, if she gets hurt once…or if either of us got hurt…"

John inhaled slowly, and then finished, walking away towards his bedroom, "I'm calling Mycroft whether you like it or not."

Sherlock was left in silence; he had noticed a change in John since Bridge had gotten here. He was quicker to anger, faster to ensure her well-being ahead of his own. He'd raced after her when she'd seen Dillion Cass through the window, and was the one to keep her from doing something she'd regret. It puzzled him so.

John had had several lady friends while they'd lived together in this flat, but not once had he shown genuine concern and displays of protection such as when he'd held her in that foyer. He'd saved Sarah's life during the case of the Blind Banker, but Sherlock had already examined it out of boredom…That was being noble.

The whole business of emotional attachment was not lost to him in its theory, though. And if it were to be correct, John was deep in it.

The detective put down the vial, and removed his goggles. Sherlock thought back to his own conversation on the train with Bridge Grayson. They'd smoked together, a rare thing for him to share with anyone. He rarely smoked with people. Few had ever done so, typically it was just him smoking and everyone else being secretly disgusted by him; his brother, and a client he'd had a while ago to name a couple. Bridge didn't seem repulsed by it, nor did she encourage him to stop. Like she understood that it was a necessary evil to complete, that there were worse things. And the topics of conversation through her paper and his voice…her twin, Leonard Grayson. His fate. He remembered how defensive, temperamental she became when he mentioned what the possibilities could be. Sherlock had told her about the nature of criminals, being like cancers cells consuming the host. Her words had puzzled him regarding that, too. Most criminals aren't Moriarty.

Again, like she fully understood what sort of creature Moriarty was. How could she? And yet, he picked up on this aura about her. One of pure experience, and downplayed nostalgia. She did know. She did understand.

Sherlock shook his head, ridding himself of these burdening thoughts. Whoever Bridge Grayson really was beneath the composure, beneath the withheld information and beneath the mutism, he'd find out sooner or later.

It was only a matter of time.