Hello!
A new chapter, because of a day off. :)
Jim and Janine aren't really blowing people up this chapter, or the next, it's more psychological warfare with Sherlock. The action will come later, though. Muahahahaha.
Thank you to the followers and favorite-ers and especially thanks to Einvine and miischall for reviewing and keeping me motivated! You're wonderful!
I do not own Sherlock or the quotes mentioned in this chapter.
Chapter Twelve, In Which Love Becomes a Game
Over a week had passed, with no new messages, clues, or city-wide broadcasts from James Moriarty or Janine Brooks. There were crimes, of course – crimes that may or may not have been linked to the current dynamic criminal duo – but nothing that gave another hint as to what they were planning or what they wanted. Everyone was on edge.
Greg Lestrade was having trouble convincing the press that yes, the broadcast was an act of James Moriarty, no, it was not a government conspiracy, no, Sherlock Holmes was in no way involved in the faking of his death, and yes, they were doing everything in their power to find and apprehend the criminal. Reporters everywhere were having a field day. Accusations against Sherlock, against John, against Lestrade, even against Molly Hooper, one-time girlfriend to criminal mastermind James Moriarty, were as vicious and varied as an old maid's gossip over tea. Sherlock could delete such ridiculous allegations with ease, but his friends were finding it difficult to do the same.
Mycroft had sent their parents out of country on an extended holiday, and Mary and the still-in-the-womb baby were back in the city. Mary, John, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, and Greg now had round-the-clock shadows provided by both Sherlock's homeless network and Mycroft's agents. Ian and Casey never left Jo and Sarah Jane alone – one of them always remained behind to guard the girls.
Sherlock and Mycroft were both carefully considering all possibilities and all avenues of suspicion. Janine's background was being scrutinized by Mycroft's men, and Sherlock was looking into her past as well as Jim's. Sarah Jane was carefully dissecting the footage from the DVD Jim had sent Sherlock through Molly, looking for any clues as to how, where, and when it was filmed. Everyone else had attempted to return to life as normal – as normal as possible, under the circumstances.
Sherlock was convinced there was a clue in the DVD – several clues – but no matter how many times he re-watched it, he could not make them concrete in his mind. They swirled in his mind like a poisonous mist, a memory deleted, but they would not take shape. Hopefully Sarah could find something in the frames she meticulously picked apart.
Of course she could.
"He's in a wheelchair." Sarah stated, bringing up the frames she'd carefully isolated from when Janine had turned the camera to film herself in the video. They were blurry, but she had done an admirable job clearing them up.
Several frames showed different close-ups – one of Jim's face, one of his right arm, his suit jacket barely concealing the pale form of a hand and wrist emaciated and weak with disuse. It sat limp on an armrest that looked an awful lot like the armrests on hospital wheelchairs. One showed the blurry shape of metallic spokes and the familiar shape of the footrest of a wheelchair.
Sherlock frowned. While useful, this was not the clue he'd expected.
"A wheelchair?" John shook his head. "So he's a cripple now, then? Does he need it, or is it just a trick?"
"Not a trick." Sherlock dismissed the idea immediately, then explained. "Sarah Jane, bring up the moment before Janine turns the camera on herself."
Sarah complied, bringing up Jim's face.
"Now, play it frame by frame, slowly."
As the frames passed by, even John and Jo could see the faint frown line and narrowing of his eyes as Janine turned the camera away from himself.
"He hadn't intended, originally, for Janine to film his whole body. Why he chose not to edit it out is a glimpse into his psyche, and perhaps into his plan. Now, in the video Sarah broadcast, he was standing and turned to face the camera…" Sherlock went to verbally analyze possible scenarios, which involved Jim injuring himself in his fake suicide, and spending two years undergoing intensive physical therapy to be able to stand and turn in the video. He was obviously trying to hide his ailment from the general public to appear more powerful and fear-inspiring, Sherlock deduced, but had decided to allow Sherlock and company to view his handicap. He couldn't help but gloat over the fact that he had escaped his fake death physically unscathed.
"So, is that part of his motivation for revenge?" Jo asked, massaging her forehead tenderly. She'd been released from the hospital, but still suffered from twinges of pain occasionally. She'd still had enough mental acuity to remember Sherlock owed Sarah Jane an apology for ruining her present to him, but hadn't made any headway in garnering said apology. Still, national security was more important than an apology, and so she didn't fight much when Sarah had said she wanted to help him by analyzing the video.
"Mmm." Sherlock grunted, steepling his fingers and thinking deeply.
Jo made a face at him. "He's such a nutjob. So's that Janine girl. I mean, who sings to their arch-enemy?"
"You sing to people, Jo." Sarah pointed out.
"Yeah, but I sing friendly songs to people I like. I wouldn't sing to someone I hate, especially if I was threatening them. It's weird. Especially 'Leavin' on a Jet Plane'. That's a nice song…and the way he said that line from 'I Will Survive'. Weird. And the way he said 'the stars align'. I get the feeling he always talks sing-songy like that, but including all of those references to-"
Sherlock sat bolt upright, focusing his intense eyes on Josephine. "Those were all references to songs?"
Jo raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well…yeah. I thought so. Maybe I'm reading too much into it…" she trailed off, looking at Sherlock.
He pulled out his phone. "What songs, specifically, did he reference?"
Jo frowned. "Just three. There's 'Leaving on Jet Plane', which is a John Denver song but was also recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary. There was that line he chanted – 'and now you're back' – it's the same way the singer sings it in 'I Will Survive'. And finally, the way he said 'the stars align' – drawing out the 'align'" – Jo demonstrated, mimicking Jim's tone and annunciation – "sounds an awful lot like Lindsey Stirling's 'Stars Align' video on youtube. Why? Is that important?"
Sherlock took Sarah's laptop and began googling everything he could find on those three songs. There had to be some sort of a connection, somehow. It concerned him that Jim would use song lyrics as clues. It didn't make sense. Jim liked matching wits with Sherlock, and testing Sherlock's knowledge of relatively modern music (something he never paid attention to) did not fit that pattern. If Jo – who had an addiction to all things musical – hadn't witnessed the video, who knows how long it would have taken him to decipher this clue?
He frowned as he continued searching the Internet for information. He worked alone. Jim knew that. Janine, too. Why would they give him a clue they knew he'd need to use someone else to interpret? A nagging feeling pierced his thoughts – I'll burn the heart out of you – and he shrugged it off. Perhaps he'd just need to pay more attention to popular culture for this particular case. Maybe Jim and Janine were playing to his weaknesses to give him even more of a challenge than the last time.
That must be it – they were trying to throw him off by using things he hated and regularly dismissed as beneath him as clues. He smirked as he realized their plan. Well, he'd just have to brush up on popular culture. He could handle that.
Ah, there. The connection. He frowned. All three musical groups had visited London at some point – the dates were far off, as were the hotels they stayed at and the music they played - but at least one member of their group always visited St. Bride's. Peter, Paul, and Mary had visited to bestow free copies of a children's book about a dragon to the library. Gloria had apparently visited often to meet with a distantly related nephew. Lindsey Sterling had visited simply to read.
It was a tenuous lead and could very well turn out to be a red herring, but as such it was the only lead they had. Sherlock leapt up, wrapping his scarf around his neck and depositing the computer back onto Sarah's lap. He pulled his coat on, and Casey, the current person appointed to watch over Sarah and Jo, stood up as well.
"Was it important, then? The music in the video?" He asked.
Sherlock gave a cursory glance towards Jo. "Possibly."
John had to hurry to follow him out the door. "Where are we going?"
Sherlock gave him a quick grin, showing off his teeth. "To the library."
It hadn't taken long for Sherlock to find the clue in the library. It was blatantly obvious. Well, obvious to him.
It was another phone, presumably for Jim and/or Janine to contact him. It looked suspiciously like the Woman's phone, but he knew that was impossible. It was simply a replica. It was in the Lost and Found box near the front desk of St. Bride's library, half-buried beneath a single red child's glove and a hideous lumpy brown hat. He quickly fished it out, and a text appeared a moment later from a restricted number.
Well that took you long enough. –JM
910.4 AUR F STE –JM
"What does that mean?" John asked, referring to the second message.
"A set of call numbers. It appears we'll acquire some light reading while we're here." Sherlock replied.
"Ah." John's brow pursed in concentration. "This isn't like last time, is it then?" The game was different.
"No."
They didn't need to check anything out of the library. They'd found the books – on the pirate Blackbeard and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson – and inside the front cover of each one was a clue.
Well, one was a clue. The other was a quote. Sherlock scowled.
The clue was a reference to his parent's cottage, in the same cyphers that Jim had used on his blog once upon a time. He deciphered that one quickly enough, and knew he'd have to go to his childhood home next.
The quote was sentimental and stupid.
"The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart." –Anon.
He kept the paper for analysis, and mentally discarded the words as rubbish.
It was not like last time. There were no innocent civilians kidnapped and forced into bomb vests, there were no unsolved mysteries, there were no obvious dangers or time constraints given. But still, time ticked down maddeningly for Sherlock. He took on interesting side cases as he waited to go to the country to search for the next clue, leading to who knows where. It was infuriating, not knowing where this was all leading. The clues, the quotes, did not serve to pique his interest, but to bore him. Jim was not amused, this time, and was not playing the same sort of game. This time was about acute revenge and pressure points and blinding, burning pain. And right now, the blinding, burning pain was one of a stagnant mind and an active heart.
The second clue was buried with Redbeard. A second quote - "You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel." – Tabitha Suzuma – was posted on a stick above the freshly overturned dirt of Redbeard's grave on his parent's property.
It was disgusting and heart wrenching to have to dig up the bones of the dog who was buried over twenty years ago. Sherlock spent copious amounts of energy maintaining a stony façade as the bones were recovered and a new, carefully plastic-wrapped disc was found in the ribcage of the dog he used to love. The bones were re-buried, and he shook John's firm grip on his shoulder off with an impatient shrug.
They needed to pay another visit to Sarah.
As Sarah was scanning the DVD for possible threats, Sherlock received several texts on the phone he'd found at the library.
Ooh, saw your face, Sherl. – xJB
Poor boy. You really shouldn't have lied to me. – xJB
Who does your heart really belong to, Sherl? – xJB
A piece of it with pirates, a piece of it with a dog in the ground. –xJB
But who holds what's left of it? –xJB
I'm going to find out. I know what kind of a man you are. –xJB
He breathed evenly through his nostrils, staring at the screen as more texts came in.
Sorry 'bout that, Sherlock. –JM
She's still a little mad about the whole fake proposal. –JM
But don't worry, I'm holding her back. –JM
For now. –JM
You're really having a bad time, aren't you? –JM
But unsolved mysteries and bombs are soooooo last year. – JM
Well, I'm getting bored myself. I'll make it more interesting for you, then. -JM
I'll make a deal. If you find out what matters most to me, you win. I'll give you pieces of my new network and let you unwind the web for funsies! -JM
If we find out what matters most to you, we win. –JM
Just to make this clear, Sherlock – you don't want Janine to win. –JM
I'm a sore loser, Sherlock – but an even worse winner. –xJB