A/N: So you know how I said this would either be 2 or 3 chapters? It's gonna be three. So reviews are doubly appreciated, if that makes no sense. :P This is the pure, unadulterated action before all the emotional stuff in the third chapter. Enjoy, have an awesome Friday, and *cough* review. I'll send you a time-warp. ^-^
The observatory was in an isolated area outside of the city proper, with nothing for miles around, an amorphous black mass in the darkness. Sherlock slipped in a disused back entrance, careful to maintain absolute silence; he knew the man he was chasing would be here soon. Soon, and then it would all be over. He could go back. Being in London, so close to John, tore at his chest. He was so near, but until he got rid of this man he could never reveal his presence to anybody.
As he opened the door, his eyes alighted on two sets of shoeprints in the dust underfoot. A man's and a woman's; it looked like he'd have more company than he'd intended tonight. That could be inconvenient. Mentally reforming his plan under the assumption that his fellow intruders were also enemies, he slipped quietly through the door and drew his gun, making his way to the center of the station. That's where his man would be.
He pulled back abruptly as he heard a voice. Female- that would be one of the mystery prints he'd seen outside. "It's in here, we keep all the records listed on tape and on the computer. Whatever he's looking for, it'll be on one of these tapes. Assuming it's actually here at all, of course." He frowned; so the two newcomers weren't working with his man. That was good to know- better one enemy than three. But if that was the case, what were they doing there themselves? Then the man spoke, and it just about stopped his heart.
"How long will it take to find? We only have so much time, if I had to guess." John. It was John. Oh God, it had been so long since he'd heard his voice. Sherlock was momentarily distracted from his mission, fighting the overwhelming urge to show himself, to end this all and have him and John take down the mystery man together. He forced down the emotion and refocused.
"If we use the computer records it shouldn't take too long, because we can filter out all the unnecessary wavelengths. Radio waves used to transmit voices have a very specific frequency." Sherlock sank back into the shadows as John and the woman entered the room, heart racing. It was the first time he'd laid eyes on John in almost a year. He looked… worn out. Of course, Sherlock couldn't help but think that he probably looked just as bad.
And then he began to realize what John and the woman's (probably one of the researchers- there was only one woman. What was her name? Jane Tyler, that was it) presence meant: they were after the man too. No, no that wasn't right, that wasn't supposed to happen, there wasn't supposed to be anyone here except Sherlock and the man he'd been chasing. They were in danger, too much danger. But he couldn't make them leave, not without ruining the plan he'd been working on for three months.
"The trouble is, I don't know how far back we need to go to find the signal we're looking for," Jane was saying. She entered some numbers into a computer program and a list of data points came up. She was entering the parameters when there was a distinct crash outside the door. The attention of all three swung around to face the noise.
"I think that would be our mystery man," John remarked.
"What should we do?" Jane asked. She was smart enough (you didn't get a PhD in Cosmology without something between your ears) but this wasn't her area, not by a long shot. John thought for a second, remembering his military training and his time with Sherlock.
"Let's stay here for now," he responded. "Once you've found the file, we'll get out, but we shouldn't split up if we can avoid it." As he wondered whether or not he should really go after the intruder on his own, Jane continued searching, faster this time. Inwardly, Sherlock cursed from his spot in the shadows; he needed to get after the man, but he couldn't do that if John and Jane were still in the same room. He knew that if it came down to a fight between John and the man, John could hold his own long enough, but he wasn't willing to put his friend in that kind of danger, not after giving up so much to protect him.
The mystery man was looking for the station room, and it wouldn't be long before he found it; Sherlock needed to put his plan in action now, before he lost the opportunity, because he didn't know when he would get it back. He prayed to himself that John would decide to go after the intruder, giving Sherlock a chance to leave and catch up to them before something happened to John. Finally, John settled his opinion. He turned to Jane.
"Stay here, and lock the door if you see anyone coming," John told Jane. "I'm going to track down our mystery man and see if I can get one over on him." Jane nodded and continued to search the tapes while John went after the intruder. Sherlock waited only as long as was absolutely necessary before silently following John out the door, just long enough for Jane to be reabsorbed in the tapes.
John followed the sound of the intruder to a hallway two over from the station room. He drew his gun, glad of the backup in case things should get nasty, and circled around behind the mystery man. "Don't move," he said loudly. He was immensely glad of his military training when the man spun around swiftly, pulling another gun of his own and firing two shots right where his chest would have been had he not dove to the side behind a pile of boxes and the corner of a wall.
He returned a couple shots of his own, forcing the intruder behind cover himself, but John knew that unless he got a fortuitous advantage he and the intruder would be stuck in a stalemate until one of them ran out of bullets. He did some quick calculations in his head- both of them were armed with L9a1 handguns. They held 13 9 millimeter rounds and 10 rounds of .40 caliber bullets. So, depending on how the numbers fell, both he and the mystery man had a max of eleven rounds of ammunition to their names.
And then he remembered- his gun had already been fired earlier that day, putting him three down with a maximum of eight rounds, not eleven. Oh, not good; his only chance was if the intruder had loaded his new gun with .40 cal ammunition instead if the 9 mil, which would leave him with eight bullets as well, but that was unlikely. Ammunition didn't come cheap, and even if it did (and John had no doubt that this man was the kind of person who could access ammunition for a very low price) reloading your gun with a different type of bullet made no sense. It changed the way the gun fired and was just generally pointless.
The intruder let off a couple more shots in John's general direction (that puts him down to nine, John thought) but both went wild, slamming into the wall across from him and spraying a dust of plaster down onto the floor. In spite of himself, John couldn't help but grin- it had been a depressingly long time since he'd had this kind of excitement. The only thing that could have made it better was if Sherlock were here with him. John returned fire, one bullet in the general direction of the intruder. He pulled the clip out and checked; just as he'd feared, he was now down seven to the other man's nine.
There was no way he could stop the man himself until they were both out of ammunition and it became a hand-to-hand fight; to have any chance of success, he'd need somebody else with another gun and he didn't have that right now. The best he could hope for was to hold the man off long enough for Jane to find the conversation she'd accidentally recorded and get it to the police. He suddenly had an idea. It probably wouldn't work, but at this stage of the game he was willing to give anything a throw.
There was a small stack of wood on the floor, directly in the center, just waiting to trip somebody up. John seized a metal pole next to him and smacked down on the pile to replicate the sound of someone stumbling over it, hoping to draw the intruder's fire and fool him into thinking that he was making a move for him. It worked- two more bullets cracked their way past, joining their companions in the wall. John didn't even try to return fire. Now the numbers were on even sides, his seven to the intruder's seven.
That stunt wouldn't work twice though; he'd be looking for it now, not trusting any noise that John made. And that was exactly what John wanted to happen. The man was positioned one the same side of the hallway as John, making it nearly impossible for him to fire a hit, but he might be able to if he could get across the hallway and get him from the other side. And now that the man wouldn't be trusting any noises coming from his direction, he might just have a chance of making it across the hall before the intruder realized what was up.
He drew in a breath and then took off running to the other side of the hall, making it one step from the other side before the mystery man realized what he was up to, firing two more bullets in his direction. John returned the favor, thinking vaguely to himself that they were down to a number of ammunition you could count on one hand now. One of his came close to the intruder, who answered with more fire of his own, forcing John around the corner. He checked his clip again- he had two shots left, and then the gun would be out of the question. And he had a sneaking suspicion that time would be coming soon.
Sherlock ducked out of sight before either John or the intruder could see him, circling around the back. He was no use to John in a cold standoff, but he made his way rapidly around the other side. The dark, unfamiliar observatory made his progress difficult, and he listened to each resounding gunshot with trepidation, not wanting to be so close only to be too late.
Finally, he weaved a complicated, slightly improvised path behind the intruder, working his way to come up and get the jump on him. Just as the man's back came into his sight, John ran out of bullets. The intruder, one lone shot remaining, pointed his weapon at John, who came out slowly with his hands raised.
"You know, if you'd just minded your own business, doctor, I wouldn't be about to shoot you." He cocked the gun and aimed it at John's chest, but then the two men heard a couple of sounds that neither of them had been expecting- another gun cocking, followed by a baritone voice that nearly stopped John's heart.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Sherlock poked the gun into the intruder's back. "You might only have one bullet, but I assure you that my clip is full, and should you attempt to use your last bullet on Dr. Watson, I will use several of mine on you." The intruder slowly dropped his weapon and raised his hands; Sherlock kept his gun trained on him while John (who was pushing all the innumerable questions to the back of his mind until later) slid it out of the intruder's reach and tied him up.
"Well, it seems there is something that can bring you out of hiding," the intruder told Sherlock. "Was it him or me?" He gestured his head at John, while Sherlock kept the gun trained on him.
"Considering that you have now been taken down, it is entirely John. I couldn't care less about you, Moran." Moran got a gleam in his eye.
"So why don't you just kill me then? It's not like anyone would care, and I just came so close to killing your friend…" Sherlock's face hardened and John could tell that he was taking Moran's proposition into assessment. He looked at his once-dead friend.
"Sherlock, don't," he said softly. Sherlock searched John's face for a moment before lowering his gun. John forced Moran down the hallway, tying him up in the station room, moving a thoroughly confused Jane aside, and then once he was properly secured, John turned to Sherlock.
"How the hell are you alive?"