Part 3

"Sherlock… Sherlock? Sherlock!"

He blinked up at his brother's scowling visage, and then looked around the sitting room in momentary confusion. "Home already?"

Mycroft shook his head, expression torn between exasperation and bemusement. "It's nearly eight o'clock."

"Lost track of time then."

"Lost track… you've been sitting unresponsive for three and a half hours." Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Mrs. Lilienfeld called me before she went home." Now that he mentioned it, Sherlock supposed he could vaguely recall the housekeeper peering worriedly at his still form from halfway across the room, not wanting to get too close. Irrelevant to his ongoing thought process, he'd simply tuned her out. "What are you doing?"

"Napping."

"In the sitting room."

"My room is so woefully dreary, I've never much cared for it."

Mycroft's patience was visibly wearing, but he did make an effort. In consideration of his little brother's 'trauma,' no doubt. "As I recall, it was near impossible to coerce you from it as a child, if you saw nothing useful to be gained in the real world at that particular moment." He turned and headed back towards the foyer. "Though I suppose," he called over his shoulder, "that for a precociously brilliant young child, it is more tolerable to live in the imagination than deal with day-to-day ignorance from patronizing adults who will never understand him."

Sherlock had not lasted long in a rigid school setting, before their parents came to the obvious conclusion that a private tutor would better suit the young boy, who only displayed obvious interest in the classroom if it was to correct one of his instructors.

He followed Mycroft through the foyer, down the hall, and to the kitchen where his brother was setting a kettle boiling. Sherlock grabbed the tea; for as little time as he'd spent in the house since Mycroft inherited it, he still remembered where things had been kept twenty years ago, and Mycroft had made few changes. Was probably not around enough to care, let alone bother.

A plate of cold sandwiches, vegetables, and hummus was produced from the fridge, a substantial quantity. "Falling off the diet?" His tone was only half-heartedly snide.

"Half is for you." Mycroft chuckled mirthlessly. "Are you really so oblivious? Mrs. Lilienfeld has left dinner for you every night you've been here."

"I never eat it."

"She's a creature of habit. An inexplicably compassionate one, at that."

Something in his tone gave Sherlock the sense that he ought to be feeling chastised, but he was somewhat unclear as to why. He never ate the food she left for him, she continued to leave it- it was a wasteful habit, not a compassionate one.

In the midst of mixing his tea, Mycroft's mobile vibrated on the countertop. He took it out to the hallway and spoke in low murmurs for several minutes, while Sherlock quietly drank and sampled a hummus-dipped cucumber slice. It tasted like slimy paste and earth. Then again, food was such a functional thing, pleasure was hardly an important factor; he never had understood people who fetishized nourishment.

Pursed lips were the only visible sign of Mycroft's irritation when he returned. "Trouble in that minor position you occupy?"

"The Chief of Defence is arriving tomorrow evening from a survey in Afghanistan. He's been a royal pain since he took up the position, he never thinks these Americans are 'doing the job right.'" Sherlock stared blankly; Mycroft rolled his eyes. "General Richards- he was the head of NATO forces there for a year- didn't find room for that piece of information in your head?"

"Not if he wasn't there at the same time I was."

"Hm, well. He's demanding a full inquiry into the status of British forces. Too many young men and women wounded or killed, not enough accomplished."

But Sherlock had already tuned him out by the end of his explanation.

Afghanistan.

Of course.

X-X-X

The woman watched the couple ascend the three steps to the door of the apartment building; the man, who stood short but straight, almost stiff, held the door open for his fiancé. She was a pretty blonde thing, tiny; despite her companion's short stature, he still towered over her by nearly a head.

For two weeks now, she'd sat outside the same art deco building at the same time, watching their ritualistic movements. She could set her watch by the regularity of their schedule, when they left in the morning and went opposite ways to their respective jobs, when they arrived again the evening, after meeting up for tea or coffee and walking home together.

Ritual, predictability, those were comforting things to a certain type of person; but it also made for an easy target, when at any given time, an interested party could make a guess with extreme accuracy as to ones whereabouts and actions.

A military sort, an officer, should have known that; should have known better.

X-X-X

They were barely ten minutes into what promised to be a long and tedious meeting when the whole thing started to unravel. Mobiles started buzzing and ringing around the conference table. A murmuring of quiet voices replaced the heated back-and-forth from moments earlier, and a good third of the table up and left without another word.

Mycroft's phone had not yet rung, but he received a text which he stared at in confusion for several seconds before stiffening and wondering how he could be so stupid. One of his alternate identification access cards had been logged without prior notification or approval; the watchdogs who kept track of such things needed to know whether it was an oversight…or a security breach.

For weeks, Sherlock had existed in a sullen, silent state, refusing to interact with him or the housekeeper, let alone leave the property or tell any of his old acquaintances of his survival. But yesterday had been different; yesterday, following a protracted such state, his brother had engaged him in conversation, seemingly casual.

Foolish of him to mistake any act of Sherlock's as simple curiosity or politeness. Sherlock did not do simple or polite. Nor did he do wounded trauma. What was it he always said, in his younger days? The brain was what was important; the rest was just transport. What had that distracted brain been up to in the past two months?

He was about to call Mrs. Lilienfeld to ask if Sherlock had been home when she'd left, when the man across the table from him announced, "There's been some sort of terrorism threat at the royal gala, over at the Gallery; sounds like MPS got things sorted."

Mycroft scowled; that should have been the Secret Service's area; how the Metropolitan Police had gotten themselves in the middle of it… "The family?"

"Almost back to the Palace."

"Who's on point from the Yard?"

"Ah…" the undersecretary spoke quickly to his point of contact. "Some man called Lestrade."

He cocked a brow. "Get him here, immediately."

"Sir."

But before he could return to parsing out Sherlock's whereabouts, any semblance of retaining order evaporated as a guard stuck his head inside the conference room. "Sirs, we're evacuating the building, we've had what we believe to be a credible bomb threat." His warning was punctuated by the alarm system going off, which drew anyone not already standing to his feet.

The Chief of Defence Staff sitting at the head of the table met Mycroft's eye, shrugged resignedly, and gestured them all to vacate the conference room. Mycroft fell back to apologize for the fiasco and discuss rescheduling; but as they saw the rest of the junior defence staffers out of the room, a tall and imposing figure swept in, pulling the door closed and locking it behind him.

"Sorry, General, I need you to stay here. Why don't you have a seat?"

Few things shocked Mycroft Holmes; but he was utterly speechless at the scene before him.

"And who the bloody hell are you?" Richards demanded.

"Someone trying to save your life; have a seat."

"From what?"

"From…? Someone trying to kill you, obviously. Sit."

"Perhaps you missed that there could be a bomb in the building?"

"Bomb? No, not really his style. Assassin, I'd guess sniper, and drawing you out of the building would be the perfect way to exercise his strengths. We'll wait here, force him on to your turf; shouldn't take more than a few minutes for him to recognize the failure of his plans, I expect."

Richards stared in nonplussed confusion a few seconds before heading for the door again. "Stand aside."

The figure sighed fatalistically. "I said," he withdrew a handgun from his pocket, "have a seat."

The chief froze as Mycroft finally snapped out of his shocked reverie. "Sherlock!"

X-X-X

It had been some three years or close to it since John Watson had woken in a position as compromising as the one in which he currently found himself. In fact, the situations were near identical, as he could recall, save the more hospitable environment of the bland room they were now in, instead of the dank tunnel near the tube stop; sharp pain in head, suggesting an incapacitating blow he couldn't quite remember yet, bound to a chair, tight enough to uncomfortably restrict the circulation in his wrists. And the last time he'd wound up in such a situation…

With a glance to his left, his heart dropped. Just like the last time with Sarah, there was Mary. Not in the sort of immediate, mortal danger that had characterized Sarah's kidnapping by the Black Lotus gang, but bound just as him. She was already wide awake- perhaps their captor hadn't anticipated or received a struggle from her- and was staring at him with wide, fearful green eyes.

John Watson- formerly captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers-seethed with a sort of fury that had not gripped him in years. This part of his life was over, the part where danger lurked around every corner. Experienced first in Afghanistan, and then by the side of Sherlock Holmes, he'd lived out a lifetime's worth of adventures, mourned the end of them with his best friend's death, and moved on at last.

This part of his life was supposed to be over; it wasn't fair to Mary. He'd sworn to abide by a more normal lifestyle, but she was here and in danger all the same.

There was no indication yet of what their captor wanted with them; nothing to give John any clue as to the likelihood of them getting out of this alive. But there was one thing he'd been meaning to do, and no way in hell was a situation like this going to stop him.

"Ma-" he coughed and cleared his throat, "Mary?"

She glanced around nervously before whispering back, "Yes?"

"You know that green raincoat of mine? The one you hate?"

Her expression suggested she worried for his sanity. "Yes…"

"In the inner pocket, there's a case, about five, six centimeters square, lined in velvet, with a ring inside."

"John…"

"It's white gold, three stones- simple, as you like. But the side stones are emerald and they match your eyes perfectly." He heard footsteps coming up a staircase behind them, and hurried up. "Mary Morstan- will you marry me?"

A single tear slipped down her cheek. "Of course I will, John."

The footsteps grew heavier and a door opened he couldn't see opened and closed again. "Awake then, are we?" a rough voice asked.

"And who might you be?"

"Me?" a short man, but with a look of compact strength, stepped between their chairs into view. He settled himself in an armchair facing them, a look of utter relaxation on his face. "I'm nobody; just the messenger, so to speak."

John waited a minute for him to elaborate; he didn't. "And what's the message?"

"Oh, it's not for you. For your friend, if he doesn't behave for my boss."

"Friend? What friend?"

X-X-X