Title: Reichenbach Falls- A Different Take (Part 3 Of A Different Take Series/Universe)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters that are part of the BBCverse of Sherlock.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Moriarty, Moran, DI Lestrade, Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper, Mrs Hudson with Mycroft Holmes appearance a couple times.
Genre: Suspense, Drama, Angst, General, Friendship, Humor (as much one can be with this story), Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Death, Murder, Violence, Language,
Spoilers: Reichenbach Falls is the title of the third episode/season finale (or episode 6) of Season 2.
Summary: It's February. John and Sherlock have known each other for a year now, their friendship strong, the bond that is between them is understood by them, but not by everyone else. Moriarty's plans for the two of them have been coming to fruition since January. Everyone they know, have helped and are close to them (as close one can get to Sherlock that is) are in danger.
Author's Notes: See prior notes in prologue. Also to those who are new and just started reading this story, this is the latest installment to my A Different Take series. If you want to read everything in it's proper order, start with the prequel A Study of Living With Sherlock Holmes, then A Scandal In Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville.
To Lola: That mistake you mentioned was my fault actually. Moran didn't go above and beyond, even though she would. But that little oops was on me.
Chapter 1- A Cold Case Solved
Date: February 10th,2011
Time: 2:20 pm
Location: Aeroplane
Sherlock feels John tap his wrist again. He does not respond.
Next thing he knows he can hear all sorts of distracting sounds as John has taken out one of his earplugs.
"John."
"Sherlock."
He sighs. "What is it?"
"Stop."
"I thought I was the one that usually said that to you."
He hears John chuckle. Despite himself, he smiles.
"Shouldn't be long now," John comments.
"Another thirty minutes."
"Right."
"John?"
"What?"
Sherlock pauses then decides not to ask the question. There is no need. The answer is already known.
"Never mind."
Location: 221B Baker Street
Time: 7 pm
Date: January 13th, 2011
Sherlock stares at the email he just received.
Callie Winters is dead.
He heard her frantic message on his voice mail a couple of days ago. But since he never got another call from her after that, he figured whatever it was she had apparently could wait.
He did call back twice.
There was no answer either time.
So he decided to wait for her to call instead.
Now he knows she is not going to.
The private investigator that he met in 2008 while she was here in London on holiday was dead.
"Sherlock? What's wrong?"
"Hmm?"
"Sherlock?"
Sherlock realizes then John is calling to him. He straightens and turns around to face his flat-mate. Then he looks at the time.
"Long day at surgery? You're two hours later than normal."
"They were backed up today. Main reason why I was called in. Anything to eat? I'm starving."
"There's some delivery from the Chinese place in the fridge."
John sighs and heads into the kitchen. "It'll have to do I suppose. Tomorrow night I'm cooking risotto. We could both do with something home cooked instead of take out."
Sherlock listens as John putters around in the kitchen, his mind still wandering back to the news of Winters death. Perhaps he should contact the family, offer his help. Winters was a decent sort.. she had intelligence, but she didn't show it all the time. It helped with her job if she pretended to be dumb. It took Sherlock three minutes more than most to deduce most of what he knew about her.
"Sherlock?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"You got that look on your face," John says as he comes into the main room.
"What look on my face?"
"The I-recieved-troubling-news look."
"I have."
"Oh?"
Sherlock nods. "A contact of mine, from the States. She's dead. Murdered. Her mother just emailed me."
John winces. "Shame."
"She was a private investigator. Decent sort, even for an American."
"That says a lot coming from you," John says as he heads back into the kitchen.
Sherlock turns his attention back to the email. He wonders how the parents knew to email him. Perhaps they had gone through her information and noticed who she kept in contact with.
Sherlock grabs his mobile, and opens his list of contacts in the States. He doesn't have as many in the States as he does here, but he has enough in his mind. A few can be a little difficult to track down at times due to the nature of their professions. Sherlock had a tendency to meet most of his sources through work, as it were. He did develop a few others during his travels after he finished schooling, before he finally went to Uni.
He moves through his contacts list until he finds the B section.
Agent Baynes. Billy Bradstreet.
FBI. Hacker. He met Billy when the teenager lived in London for just a few months... the hacker decided to go back home about a month before he met John. The FBI agent he had met when he was ensuring the execution of Mrs Hudson's husband.
Last time he spoke to the man he had been reassigned to California. That was two months ago.
He spoke to Billy just two days ago. He had called Billy to ask about tracing a hacking attempt that had been performed on the highly sensitive files of the MI-6.
A pinging sound on his laptop moved Sherlock's attention from his phone to what just appeared in front of him. It usually meant a recent article had been written, one that would possibly attract his attention. Thanks to an ingenious website Sherlock came across, where all he had to do was enter in what type articles he wanted to read, and news articles about his interests would be sent his way.
Sometimes, the internet could be quite remarkable.
Just like London's murder map.
FBI Agent Killed In Shooting.
Sherlock blinks at the title of the article. Curiosity drives him to read further, and he halts in the middle of reading it, a bold line catching his attention.
During the shoot out with suspected domestic terrorists a few days ago, three FBI agents were wounded, and one was killed. The one killed has been identified as Agent Harrison Baynes.
Well... looks like his contact of the FBI Division in Los Angeles, California is dead.
Annoying. Now I'll have to find a way to develop another contact.
He can practically hear John reprimanding him for that.
Sherlock sighs, then hears his mobile ring.
"Sherlock Holmes."
"Holmes," the voice of Agent Rodriguez drawls from the other line.
"Agent Rodriguez," Sherlock greets the Interpol agent.
"Sorry I did not get in touch with you earlier. Have you been watching the news?"
"Not for over two weeks now. Telly's a bit on the fritz. Working it out." No need to say why it's on the fritz. John's just stopped being irritated with him on that.
At least he didn't have to replace the telly like he had to with the table the last time an experiment didn't go the way he expected.
Plus apparently it wasn't going to get fixed until Sherlock took full blame for it. '
It was not his fault. If Mrs Hudson hadn't distracted him, then John would be able to watch his shows without a partially black screen.
So he was not going to take full blame for it.
John won't last much longer.. he'll give it another day before John relents and calls in a repairman.
"Ah, well wanted to thank you for the tip on that attempted heist. The Italian authorities ended up arresting them just hours before they were to go on with the show. Would have called you earlier, but there was some craziness afterwards."
"Oh? What happened? The Hungarians didn't go without a firefight did they?"
"No. While they were in holding, they were killed. Found in the morning after the arrest. All of them."
"All of them?"
"All of them. Tongues were cut out too. As it would happen, no one saw a thing, and none of the officers heard a thing. Deaf and blind at the time apparently. Sound familiar?"
Quite. Moriarty got to them quickly.
"I have to go. Let me know if you have any more useful tips, always appreciated."
"I am sure they are."
Sherlock ends the call with the agent and leans back in his chair.
"Sherlock."
"Yes?"
"I just noticed the red container in the fridge-"
"Don't open it."
"Right."
Sherlock heard John mutter something else, but he didn't bother to try and sort it out. Moriarty must have been close by in order to get those men taken care of as quickly as he did. The last two times others in his crime ring had been arrested, it was at least three days before anyone was killed.
"Sherlock!"
Sherlock hears the aggravation in John's voice now. He doesn't move, just smiles as he realizes what his flat mate found.
"Sherlock! Why is there a... bloody hell Sherlock what is that in the oven?"
"Why did you open the oven anyway? You were going to eat Chinese," Sherlock counters.
"Never mind that! Why are you using the oven to hold-"
"It's preserved," Sherlock drawls. "Wrapped and everything. I had no room in the fridge."
He hears John sputter, and his smile widens.
"Well, where was I supposed to put it?" Sherlock calls out, keeping the amusement out of his voice. "There was no room in the freezer with the fingers in there, and I am not allowed to use the microwave anymore."
"I have to disinfect the bloody thing now if I want to cook anything in there tomorrow!"
"Don't touch it, I'm going to be using it for an experiment tomorrow!"
"Bloody hell Sherlock, for once I would like to- wait why are there fingers in the freezer? How many could there be? They better not be next to the ice cream!"
Wait.. Ice cream... ice cream... Sherlock frowns as an old case in September after the Belgravia affair, pops up in his head.
A young girl, eighteen years old, dead.
Chilled to the touch even though the room she was in warm. There was a scent of cookies and mint in her clothes and skin. (He wasn't on the case, but he had talked his way into the morgue to get a look.)
Cookies.
Mint.
Cool to the touch.
OH!
Sherlock turns quickly to his laptop, ignoring the continuing rants from John, and puts in the search for the article about the Demery girl's murder. She was on a weekend trip in London.
He takes note of the address and pulls it up on the map. Then clicks on the search by the address and types in two words.
Ah ha! "Yes!" Sherlock exclaims sounding gleeful to his own ears.
Ice cream parlor.
"Yes?" He hears John then. "Sherlock, are you even listening to me?"
"No," he answers, as he continues to tap onto his keyboard, opening other websites. He just needs to confirm just two things to prove he is right about the killer. The answers that pull up do that indeed, and he picks up his mobile to call Lestrade.
When the DI answers, he doesn't give him a chance to talk much. "This is Sherlock."
"I know," Lestrade's voice replies on the other end. Sounds like he gave in and had a cigarette.
"The Demery case. The killer is the owner of the ice cream parlour that is three buildings down from where she was found."
"Wait, wait.. The Demery case from September? How do you know the killer is the an ice cream parlour owner?"
Sherlock closes his eyes briefly, counts to five. "Why are you asking me how I know? Stop asking that, Lestrade, you would think after all this time the answer to how I know would be a moot point."
"Sometimes any sort of answer would be good. You do know it's January, and he would not be open."
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Yes I know it's January, and he wouldn't be open to sell icecream. He was open in September for two weeks before closing for the season. She was found the day before closing. She smelled like ice cream flavors."
Lestrade mutters something about paperwork, then calls for Donovan. "How could you possibly know that? Never mind, don't tell me, I actually do not want to know. Have an idea why he would kill her?"
"Well, that is the question you need to ask. Him. Not me. But if you like, I can certainly go down to his address and ask him."
He hears John make a sound then and he glares at him, listening to Lestrade's response.
"Then stop wasting my time Lestrade. The only reason I called instead of just going is that I thought you would appreciate it. But if you're not going to, then I'll just go myself."
"No! Donovan and I are going. We're going," Lestrade says hastily. Sherlock smirks at the panic that rose in Lestrade's voice. "Donovan will look up the address. I know you already know it, and I know you're going to go anyway."
"Perfect. It shouldn't take you long to get there. John and I will meet you there," Sherlock does not wait for Lestrade to answer, simply ends the call and then goes to the door to get his coat and scarf.
"Wait, where are we going?"
"To Yaxley's Ice Cream Parlour. Hope you got your dinner tucked in."
"What just happened?"
Sherlock smiles at the bewilderment on John. "Really John, after almost a year now you would think you would know by now."
John glares at him and Sherlock sighs. "Put on your coat. I just solved a cold case for Lestrade. I never did text him about what I smelled on the girl earlier... I wound up getting distracted by the Paulson case," he adds as John puts on his coat and they head downstairs.
"Oh the one accidentally fell from the roof of an office building onto a car. Bad cover up that was."
"Indeed. Unfortunately, his killer had to ruin it all by trying to repeat the process with me."
"You do bring that urge out in people sometimes, Sherlock."
"It is not my fault that apparently killers cannot handle the truth about themselves," Sherlock states as the taxi slows down.
Sherlock debates about saying it as he hollers for the taxi he sees. After a moment of consideration, he decides to do so.
"Thank you, by the way."
"For what?"
"Whatever it is you were saying about ice cream. You helped solve it." Sherlock says as he opens the door to the taxi and gets in. He notices the look of surprise on John's face, and just stares ahead, a small smile forming. "Get in John, or we'll be late meeting Lestrade. Then I won't be able to find out Mr Yaxley killed Anita Demery. I do hate unanswered questions."
The deaths of two of his contacts are eventually pushed to the back of Sherlock's mind as he goes over the possible theories of why the Demery girl was killed, and what the confrontation with the killer may bring.