A/N: Apologies again for the long delay. Plot bunnies keep multiplying, hard to keep the little buggers in check sometimes. Next chapter well on its way to being complete as well, so shouldn't be too much longer for the next update. Thanks for your patience and all your wonderful reviews.

John listened as Sherlock spoke, not interrupting until the other man came to the end of his story. When he finished, John nodded thoughtfully. "So," he said after a moment's silence while he struggled to process everything he'd just been told. "You still haven't said why you felt it necessary to tear Molly down the way you have. I know you said something to her in the morgue," he added, "something about the baby, yeah? Explain to me why you had to do something that cold, that cruel. As if that fucking letter wasn't bad enough."

Yes, he'd come back to letting himself think of Sherlock as his friend, but it wasn't quite all is forgiven come home. Not yet. Not until he understood the things Sherlock wasn't saying.

Sherlock tried his usual trick of looking haughty and disdainful and staring John down, but he wasn't having any of it and simply waited, giving Sherlock back his own patented look. The one that combined a bit not good, Sherlock and don't even think you can get out of this one.

With a huff of air that might signify impatience if one were feeling ungenerous, and might simply signify capitulation if one weren't – John wasn't sure where he fell at the moment – Sherlock slumped back in his seat. "Moran," he said after a minute. "For some reason that I have yet to discover, he appears to…hate…Molly."

John knew he must have looked about as flummoxed as he felt as he stared at Sherlock. He hadn't known what the answer to his question was going to be, but it wasn't…that. "Who could possibly hate Molly?" he demanded, rubbing one hand along the back of his neck in a gesture of agitated confusion. "She's as harmless as a fly, never did anything to anyone as far as I know…did she?"

Sherlock steepled his fingers beneath his chin, his gaze focused on something off to the left and slightly above John's head. The middle distance, he believed that was called. "The closest Moran has come to explaining his irrational focus on Molly is when he told me she'd rejected Jim Moriarty because of me."

John's forehead furrowed in further confusion. "What did he expect? Wasn't he deliberately playing gay, knowing that you would pick up on it and say something to Molly? Doing her a kindness, wasn't that how you put it?"

Sherlock winced a bit, either at John's sarcasm or in memory of his own callous dismissal of Molly's latest – at the time – romance. "She's always had terrible taste in men, present company included," he admitted ruefully. "But from what Moran says, she didn't react the way Moriarty expected her to…and he didn't like that. Although why that should bother Moran as much as it does continues to baffle me. It's as if he takes Molly's rejection of 'Jim from IT' personally."

"Do you know what the, um, relationship between those two was, Moran and Moriarty?" John asked, not sure why he was putting it so delicately. "Were they close, friends? Or was Moran just an employee?"

"Difficult to say. They definitely had a personal relationship beyond whatever business they conducted together," Sherlock replied, still gazing off into nothing. "Moran, in fact, has made this entire thing personal," he added slowly, eyes narrowing in thought. Or memory. Or possibly indigestion; it was hard to tell with Sherlock, always. "He wanted me out of London in order to ensure that I was unable to interfere in whatever plans he has for restoring Moriarty's criminal syndicate here, but instead of simply killing me – which he admits he could easily have done – he's concocted this elaborate, highly emotional scheme to destroy my personal life. He's been poisoning my son, he threatened to kill Molly – and he explicitly instructed me to leave not even a crumb of hope for her when I left."

That last bit sounded like a direct quote; when pressed, Sherlock rose to his feet and extracted a single sheet of paper from his bedroom. He passed it to John and waited silently while the other man read it over.

John gave a whistle of dismay when he finished, looking up at Sherlock with a bit more sympathy in his eyes as he did so. "That bastard," he said softly. "Christ, Sherlock, no wonder…this must have been killing you."

"You have no idea," Sherlock replied simply, then lowered his eyes and trained his gaze on the floor. "What I don't understand is why Moran has taken my son now. He told me to return to London, indicated that I should simply go on with my life as if I had, indeed, simply been away on a case, and that I would hear from him within a few weeks of my return. If I continued to do as he said – if I continued to push Molly away using the harshest means possible – then he would administer the antidote to Edmund, inform me when he'd done so, and that would be the end of it."

"Until the next time he decided you were in his way," John added dourly, earning a sharp nod of agreement from Sherlock. "We have to find Eddie and stop Moran, for good this time."

"Well, well, sounds like I got here just in time."

Both men looked up at the sound of that unexpected – feminine – voice.

Standing in the door to the flat, one hand resting elegantly on the knob, was Irene Adler.

oOo

Sherlock frowned at his unexpected – and uninvited and unwelcome and so many other "un" words they hardly bore thinking – guest. "I see you haven't lost your touch," he said, knowing how sour his voice must sound and not bothering to hide it.

Clearly Irene had overheard enough of his and John's conversation to understand what was going on. Or else she'd already known; he never had been able to deduce the extent of her involvement in his own coercion, even after he'd determined to try to do so.

Yes, Irene had definitely been working for Moran in a quasi-consulting capacity. Yes, she definitely knew something was suspicious about Sherlock's presence in Cairo, but those were the only two certainties he'd left Cairo with.

Irene was supposed to have gone to Madagascar after she left Alexandria. Therefore her presence in London was either due to Moran's machinations...or else she'd returned of her own volition against orders.

She raised an eyebrow as she gazed at him, clearly amused by his attempt to deduce her reasons for being in his flat. "Sherlock, if you want to know, all you have to do is ask," she purred as she entered the flat and took a seat next to a very uncomfortable looking John.

She smiled over at the older man. "Really, Dr. Watson, you should know by now I don't bite. Unless invited to do so, of course."

"Why are you here?" Sherlock ground out. "Do you know anything about my son's kidnapping?"

Irene's flirtatious facade immediately vanished beneath a much more serious expression. "Only in the negative sense." She met Sherlock's eyes squarely. "Moran didn't take him. In fact, he's furious about it. It was all I could do to convince him that you weren't trying to double-cross him."

That was...unexpected. Entirely unexpected. If Moran hadn't taken Edmund, then every theory Sherlock had formulated fell completely apart. "Perhaps I shouldn't have counseled Molly not to call the police," he murmured, at a complete loss for one of the few times in his life. Had he wasted valuable time, time his son might not have if Moran hadn't administered the antidote before Edmund was taken?

Irene shook her head. "No, that was absolutely the right thing to do," she said insistently, leaning forward as if to lay her hand on his arm, then pulling back as if realizing how inappropriate such a gesture would be. Or perhaps he was reading more into that slight movement than was actually there.

As if John wasn't even in the room with them, she asked the most incredibly inappropriate question he could have imagined, considering her stated purpose was to assist them in finding his son.

Pitching her voice to a low, intimate level, she gazed intently into Sherlock's eyes and asked: "Was it all play acting, Cairo? Do you have any real feelings for me at all, Sherlock?"

He returned her gaze coolly. "If I answer incorrectly, will you withhold whatever information you purportedly are here to share with me?"

She sighed and leaned her head against the back of the sofa, closing her eyes as if keeping them open had suddenly become too much work – or as if she found the sight of him suddenly painful.

Whether it was an act or sincere wasn't worth deducing. He simply remained in his own seat and waited for her to speak, while John looked uncomfortable and fidgeted as if he wasn't sure whether he should remain seated or bolt from the room.

Sherlock had no desire for him to go, and flicked a glance at him that he hoped conveyed that desire. John met his gaze and settled, giving a slight nod of understanding as both men continued to wait for Irene Adler to cease her posturing and answer the question Sherlock had just put to her.

"No, it will make no difference," she finally said, opening her eyes and gazing sadly at Sherlock. Who suddenly had the impression that it wasn't really posturing on her part. Not this time. There was a lurking sadness in her eyes that caused his gut to clench in momentary…what? Guilt, regret? Neither emotion mattered, not while his son's life was at stake. "And you've answered that question already, so I won't press you."

She rose to her feet and opened the small clutch purse she'd laid on her lap when she sat down. From it she removed a single, folded sheet of paper. Without looking at it or referring to it in any way, she handed it to Sherlock, who'd also risen to his feet – John as well, although his change in position was no doubt due to ingrained manners rather than a desire to retain whatever physical advantage he had over this woman – and stepped into his personal space in order to plant a soft kiss on his cheek.

"Good-bye, Mr. Holmes," she said, then turned and left the flat as silently as she'd entered it, closing the door softly behind her.

John stared after her for a moment, then turned his gaze on Sherlock. "What the hell was that all about – besides the obvious, I mean," he added hastily, clearly in no mood to be told what an idiot he was for not understanding the scene that had just played out before him.

Instead of answering, Sherlock unfolded the note he'd been given and studied it before silently handing it to John to read.

John didn't need Sherlock's silencing finger against his lip to keep shut. Not when the first line of the note read: Audio surveillance on the flat, no video. M. sends his regards.

As always, Irene Adler never ceased to surprise him.

oOo

Not being an idiot (no matter what Sherlock might think), John waited until the two of them were safely ensconced in a cab on the way to Mycroft's office before speaking of anything that had just occurred in the Baker Street flat.

"So. She either figured out you weren't with her completely of your own free will or else Moran told her what was going on. Is that it?"

Sherlock nodded, lips pursed as he mentally went over the most current events in the tangle Moran had landed him in. "That would have been my assumption as well had she not handed me this note," he said, tapping the folded piece of paper with a distracted finger as he gazed out the taxi's window. "Clearly she's been working for Mycroft this entire time, which puts an entirely different spin on the situation, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah," John agreed, sounding faint even to his own ears. Then his mind caught up with what Sherlock had just said, and he turned to him with an incredulous expression as he said: "Wait, what? Mycroft? What are you..."

Sherlock gave him an impatient look. "It's obvious, John. Irene warned me about the audio surveillance – which I already knew about, naturally – and at the same time let me know who she was really working for. My meddlesome elder brother."

"M could refer to Moran as easily as Mycroft," John pointed out, his head whirling at this unexpected turn of events. "It would make more sense if it did."

Sherlock gave him another impatient look and shook his head. "No. If she was simply informing me of her connection to Moran – a connection I was already aware of, which she in turn knew I was aware of – there would have been no need of the note, even if she were acting against his orders in seeking me out, as I first surmised. No, he told her to come to me, in order to ascertain whether I knew where my son was, to discover if I'd taken him myself – which no, John, I did not," he added, giving the other man a sharp look.

John had the grace to look abashed for even thinking such a thing – which, of course he had. If Sherlock had taken Eddie somewhere in order to keep him out of Moran's clutches, he would have let Molly know so she wouldn't worry further. The time for him to play the heartless bastard was past now that Eddie had been – temporarily, he hoped and prayed – taken out of the equation.

Of course, the poor kid could still be in danger, either from the poison Moran had fed him or at the hands of whoever had him now, but unless Sherlock had an idea of who that might be, there was literally nothing they could do about his plight at the moment. Which was the only reason he didn't interrupt his friend as he finished summing up his reasoning for the "M" being his brother and not Moran.

Besides, it made the cab ride go quicker.

"Based on that, there was no need for Irene to give me Moran's regards on that note. Rather, she was telling me who she's really been working for this entire time. No doubt her true role in all this has been to make the contacts Moran needed to reestablish Moriarty's criminal network, while at the same time relaying the information to my brother."

"But why not just take them down once he knew who they were? Why wait?" John asked, wishing to God politics wasn't so bloody confusing.

"Mycroft was biding his time, waiting for whatever Moran had planned here in London while I was away to come to fruition. And," he added with a slight sneer, "no doubt he wanted his valuable agent back home before he dropped the net on Moran. I have no doubt that those contacts Irene established for him have already been taken into custody, and Moran himself will soon be a 'guest' of the British government as well."

"Bloody bastard," John muttered. "He really is the Iceman, isn't he."

When Sherlock gave him an uncomprehending frown, he elaborated. "Mycroft probably could have done something to keep Eddie safe; you said he realized he was the target, yeah? The reason you left Molly in such a – excuse the appropriate words here, mate – gutless, cold-blooded way. I'm still pissed off at you about that, by the way," he added with a black frown as he met Sherlock's eyes. "You weren't here when she completely fell apart, but Mary and I were, and it was not good, Sherlock. Not good at all."

Sherlock dropped his gaze, his eyes on his hands. He'd clenched the note into one fisted hand, crumpling it without realizing he'd done so. "Yes, John, I know," he said softly, his words measured and controlled as always but there was an undercurrent of something – shame, guilt, sorrow, pain, one or all of those, at least to John's ears. "I have as much to answer for as Moran does."

"Ain't that the truth."

Both men looked to the front of the cab, startled by the driver's comment...then Sherlock snarled and lunged for the man's throat through the narrow opening in the plexiglass barrier that separated him from his passengers.

Sebastian Moran laughed, turned the gun they now saw he was holding toward John...

...and shot him.