Part 1
"We got him."
Mycroft Holmes suddenly started paying far closer attention to his CIA counterpart, Joe Marshall. "Oh?"
For months, they'd chased a ghost around the world. Always one step behind (or more), they'd followed him or her- or them- from Europe to North Africa and Asia, and finally to the Americas, tracing dozens of connections to unsavory fringe groups. Terror cells, radical anarchists, nationalist fanatics, their ghost had seemingly unlimited connections among those who were all too good at helping people disappear. Rarely, they got a good enough trace on him to lead to his contacts for the higher organization, but by the time they would move in on them, he had always carried on- and several times, they suspected, carried sensitive materials with him.
A ghost wanted on charges of weapons smuggling, and those the least of their worries. Information, attack plans, access to crucial networks… they suspected him to be a goldmine for the counter-terrorism efforts, but that would first necessitate finding him- which the Americans seem have accomplished, at last- and then getting him to talk.
Mycroft's experience with individuals in American intelligence left him with no delusions that they were insecure in their abilities to make suspects speak up- which likely meant that they had discerned something critical to Britain during their interrogation and investigation. "So what have you learned?"
Or maybe his estimation was wholly wrong.
"Nothing." Marshall reached into his breast pocket and produced a mobile phone. "But we've been assured that all we could ever want to know is safely contained within this device."
"I do not understand," he probed evenly. "Why bring it here?"
Marshall steepled his finger tips under his chin and cocked a brow. "There's one identifying serial number on the phone. Only one. My people ran a trace of it and were directed to a file so heavily locked down, even I can't access it. The casing is rigged with what appear to be four small explosive devices, undoubtedly set to blow the hard drive if we even try."
The shadows of past events were rearing their ugly heads. Mycroft's hand stilled and then he shakily lowered his tea cup back to the saucer. Marshall was looking at him expectantly, like he knew that information would mean something to him. "Am I to guess that your predecessor steered you towards me?"
After the fiasco with Irene Adler was settled and ended violently with her dead in Pakistan, Mycroft and the superior of the Americans who had crossed paths with Adler, John, and Sherlock had closed the file down, utterly. Too much damaging information had been gathered from her camera phone; damaging enough to lock away, sensitive enough not to destroy completely.
He held out his hand, steady again, not betraying the unease in his mind and in his heart. Marshall handed over the mobile and Mycroft turned it over in his hand. It looked like the same device, certainly- same make and model, same color. The only external difference he noted at a glance was the evidence of additional wear. Rather than turn it on though, he crossed to a locked cabinet on the other side of his office and input the combination.
Sorting through the most secret of official documents in his possession, he at last located the file on Irene Adler- The Woman- and withdrew the mobile from the bag. He did not bother examining it- he knew that if it were not the same device, it was as precise a replica as possible and the differences probably undetectable at a glance.
There was some charge left in the battery, and as the screen powered on, he predicted the preprogrammed message that flashed up at him.
Apologies, brother; I suspect I'll be needing it more than you. I trust you remember the password?
His composure lasted long enough to turn on the other phone, see the all-too-familiar password prompt screen, and input S-H-E-R. When the recorded message began playing, and he heard his brother's voice echoing from out a cold, dark grave, he sat down heavily, hands definitely shaking as he listened.
'My dear brother- once this device has found its way back to your possession, I suspect I'll have been captured or killed by American intelligence. In the event of the latter… well, you think I'm dead already, so carry on as you were, the world needn't know any different.'
Mycroft's tea cup fell on the plush carpet; it did not shatter, but sent the hot liquid splattering across the carpet and the side of his desk.
'The information you will find on this phone should suffice to give you adequate leads on as many of Moriarty's connections around the world as I was able to discover. The ones you already routed in my pursuit were too imminently dangerous to let be, in my estimation. I… am sorry about Istanbul. There, I was too late.'
Istanbul, British consulate bombing, thirteen months ago. Eighty-nine dead, forty-seven of them British nationals.
'I am sorry, my brother; you saw as well as I though, that Moriarty's web was too deadly not to do as I have done. His resources, his contacts, too far-reaching and too powerful. And contrary to what some might think, I do concern myself with the lives of faceless innocents. Rest assured, my experiences thus far have not been boring in the slightest.
'Do take care, would you?'
The recording ended and Mycroft's stony stare rose from the carpet to the discerning man in front of him. "Is he dead then?"
"Are you sure this isn't some sort of trick? I thought your brother-"
"Is he dead?"
X-X-X
He was asleep when Mycroft arrived at the medical facility on Andrews Air Force Base in the middle of the night. If it weren't for the minutes of undisturbed peace which he had to study Sherlock's appearance, Mycroft wasn't sure he'd have recognized him at all. His hair was short, practically buzzed, none of the trademark curl evident at that length; a bandage on his forehead and another on his left cheek covered two stitched wounds. His left arm was set in a sling, awkwardly resting against his body as he slept on his right side. A fading pattern still stood out against his pale face, the remnants of some form of long-lasting but temporary tattoo.
He was gaunt, cheekbones more prominent than usual. The past eighteen months had taken their toll physically. And Mycroft was more than a little anxious to know what mental toll they had taken as well, given his brother's already unique bearing.
For ten minutes, the older brother sat, watching the rise and fall of Sherlock's chest, listening to the beeping of monitors, and thinking about the same questions which had consumed him on the red-eye flight over. Questions of how he'd done it- how he'd faked a suicide right in front of his best friend and a doctor to boot- for if Sherlock Holmes had any friend at all, it was John Watson. Questions about the final encounter between he and Moriarty on the roof at Saint Bart's, an encounter that left both of them presumably dead by their own hands. Questions of what came next, since surely his undercover sleuthing was necessarily at an end.
The slightest change in the rhythm of the heart rate monitor was Mycroft's first indication that his brother was awake. A slight shift in his breathing and an unnatural stillness signaled to him that Sherlock realized someone- not hospital staff, who would simply go about their job- was in the room with him, a fact that, until now, had likely been accompanied by some sort of interrogation. Apparently Sherlock had yet to utter a word, save to direct Marshall to the camera phone. His injuries were something of a blessing in disguise, they prevented any more physical tactics at gathering information until he received medical clearance.
It took him maybe twenty seconds. "Hello, Mycroft." His icy eyes opened and stared piercingly at the wall; he did not turn or otherwise move at all, in fact.
"How are you feeling?" Silence. Mycroft stood and walked around the bed in the direction his brother was facing; he remained standing though, did not force eye contact. "Sherlock, why didn't you come to me?"
Grey-blue eyes shifted upwards, shadows of his familiar skepticism lingering beneath the surface. "For what?"
"Help."
A derisive laugh. "I was dead, Mycroft; I am dead. Can't be seen running to big brother when the going gets tough."
"Someone must have helped you; there's only so far you can fake a suicide. I know it wasn't John or Lestrade." He averted his eyes again. "Christ, Sherlock, ask the damn question." Silence. "He's fine… now. Been seeing a young lady from Surrey for the past year. He's bought the ring but hasn't yet proposed, God knows what he's waiting for." Closure, perhaps.
"Molly adjusted some records for me. That's all. There's only so much help one can expect while sitting in Evin for six torturous weeks."
Mycroft fought from wincing. They'd lost track of him for some two months in Iran before picking up his trail again near Islamabad; they'd never had indication that he was still in Tehran all that time. "Well, your records on Adler's old phone have proven invaluable. Marshall is willing to release you into my care with minimal inconvenience."
"Into your care?"
His dark eyes narrowed. "You're a mess, Sherlock and, for the second time in as many years, you've lost an identity to a fabricated death. You certainly can't carry on and it's rather best that you not stay here. If certain interested parties were to catch news of your deceit, you could be in danger." Sherlock's dark brow cocked upwards again. "You know what I mean."
"I can't go back; surely you've realized that."
"You mean to say you're afraid to go back."
Sherlock lapsed into a long silence, long enough that Mycroft returned to the chair opposite the bed and peered at him quietly, watching him sort out whatever thoughts crowded his complicated mind. He'd been like that from a child, could go hours at a time enamored of some idea and losing track of any and everything around him.
"Afraid," he finally murmured. "Afraid. Me, Mycroft? I have battled the stuff of nightmares and come out on the other side; have walked through the very fires of hell. I stepped off a building to protect another. I have wrestled with death; it is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. Afraid, Mycroft? My capacity to experience fear has long been numbed. I simply cannot return."
"Then let me phrase it as such: if you aren't released into my custody, you will remain here for the duration of your recovery, at which point you will undergo a full debriefing in Langley."
Sherlock completed his abbreviated debriefing interview with Marshall twenty-eight hours later; received his medical discharge thirty hours later; thirty-one hours later, they were taking off and heading out over the Atlantic.
X-X-X