The consulting detective had made it back to the flat, pleased. A warehouse in East London. He had figured out the location and texted the information to Mycroft.

And he was sure his brother would be very happy to use this in exchange for a favor. But Sherlock had grudgingly done it because he wanted to try to help his friend. John was worth having to help Mycroft. And, well, the police were incompetent. Lestrade was willing to wait too long, even Mycroft agreed. They would strike tonight, when the people there wouldn't be ready. Sherlock didn't trust anyone, not really. John would be back soon and he couldn't wait.

Opening the door led to a surprise though. Sherlock stopped still at the door before catching himself and asking, "What are you doing here?"

Irene Adler turned and looked at him. "I expected a better greeting than that." She indicated the laptop. "I like to keep up with things. Nothing's gone on for a while."

"You were worried about me." Sherlock's tone was rather condescending as he hung up his jacket. "How nice. Now leave."

The woman just smiled before saying, "I do owe you a favor."

"I'll consider it repaid if you go away." Sherlock answered, walking past her to the kitchen.

"Save a girl and push her away?" Irene chuckled, "It's obvious that you've earned your nickname."

Sherlock glared at her.

"On a more serious note, you work best when you have someone to talk with." The woman indicated herself before leaning forward.

"You're supposed to fade away. No point in having helped you otherwise."

"Dull and boring," Irene answered. She stretched, "Do you want me to beg? I'll just wear a disguise or something, be your sidekick for now. I'm so eager to catch up and hear everything, after all."

"I have a blogger for all of that, thank you," Sherlock snapped.

He had no idea said blogger was staring at a computer screen in complete and utter shock. Irene Adler was alive?

"I thought we agreed you'd go to bed." Jim's voice rang out from behind him. "Early to bed, early to rise and all of that."

"S-She's alive," John stammered.

The consulting criminal came up behind him and looked at the screen. Oh, it was just her. "Yes. Why? Do you want me to change that fact?" He looked over at a stunned John and wisely bit his tongue, laying a hand on the other man's shoulder. He had plans, yes, Jim always had plans, but he had genuinely thought that Sherlock had told his only friend that much.

But, well, who needed plans when Sherlock was doing all of his work for him? Really, he didn't have to go out of his way it seemed; the others were practically determined to drive John Watson away.

Their loss would be Jim's gain. A huge gain at that.

He didn't voice this either, stating instead,"Come on. There's an early morning run. I think Seb won't mind doing it earlier."

The doctor didn't react.

"I said to COME ON!"

The shout did it, making John jump and look at Jim gratefully before nodding and shutting the computer off. He had been worried about Sherlock. He truly had.

There wasn't much point of that now. He just followed, numb. Secrets, lies and insults. He had gotten over the experiment involving Harry and Clara because nobody had been hurt, not really, it had been a good excuse and he had been frustrated.

But now he really had to think, didn't he?

"Focus on the mission, John," Jim's voice said quietly from in front of him. "Think about that instead."

Right. Mission. A run, Jim had said. Probably mixture of illegal firearms and narcotics. How to prepare for that.

"Seb," Jim said to the former Colonel. "Get a team up. We'll do the run now."

"Now?" Sebastian Moran blinked a few times, tired but aware. He looked at Jim confusedly before turning to John. Perhaps whatever expression was on the man's face convinced him that this was worth it because he nodded. "Give me three minutes, boss."

"We'll be at the side door." Jim led John to said door, repressing the urge to just shout at the doctor to leave those dolts behind and do the obvious thing. Forcing John Watson to do things would just be worthless. He led the way, John following behind.

In two minutes, Sebastian had a group yawning but ready. They left the warehouse rather quickly, having done this multiple times before. They were at the site loading up when Sebastian's mobile began to ring.

"What-" He stopped at the frantic tone on the other end.

"Raid, sir, there's a raid!"

"Boss, there's a raid," Sebastian said immediately, causing everyone to look at him in surprise.

"Not normal cops, MI-5!"

"MI-5."

"Storehouse eleven," Jim snapped immediately. "If any of them get out."

"They won't," John said quietly. "Too sudden. Top brass. You know."

Sebastian looked suspiciously at him before Jim whirled. "Of course. You're right. That annoying interfering man. Not even a day."

"What?" Sally asked, looking back and forth.

Both John and Moriarty turned towards her, in one perfect movement. She hadn't seen that level of unison even with the doctor and the Freak. "Sherlock Holmes," both of them said at the same time, earning looks from everyone.

"The Iceman decided to take a crack at us," Moriarty mused. He turned to the doctor, "I think we owe a certain detective our thanks though."

"What? You just said he was the reason this happened," Sebastian muttered, causing Sally to try rather hard to not smile. "Now you're saying to thank him."

John just shrugged before his head shot up, "Gladstone."

Moriarty's eyes widened a bit too before he hissed, "They won't do anything to a puppy."

Right. Moriarty liked dogs. Good to know. "Um... boss? Doc?" She tried, making them look over. "Shouldn't we get goin'?"

Sebastian flashed her a smile, as did the others. It was obvious they had all been thinking the same thing.

Moriarty looked at her and back at Sebastian before looking at John, who nodded. "Go on," the criminal mastermind said. "Load them up."

The group went off to do so, Sebastian making sure he was near Sally, who was hefting some heavier weapons. "I don't need help," she complained when he took some.

"Of course not, you wouldn't be here if you couldn't do it," Sebastian said back. "I'm just loading too."

She rolled her eyes and just continued to work. The former Colonel smiled, "Though you know... just saying... what you did just now?"

"Yeah..."

"You've got more guts than most around here."

Sally glanced at the smirking mercenary and asked, despite herself, "More than you even?"

"I said most, not all."

The conversation was covered by the noise and rabble of everything around them. "So... why are you in this business?" She asked.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a brief second and said, shrugging, "I'm good at it." He looked at her, his eyes faraway, distant. "I'm the best."

The voice would have made her shudder and fall silent before. This was the Colonel, as the others dubbed him. He was Sebastian Moran. Best among killers, assassins... when criminals told horror stories, they talked about Moriarty and Moran.

The man who held his dying sister's hand, who asked why you were in this field for no reason. Sally looked at him, really looked. She couldn't forget that he was known among killers for being the best, could not forget that he killed for the highest bidder, would slit anyone's throat for the right price; oh no, she couldn't forget that particular fact at all. But that was no reason to not learn a bit more about him, right? "But you're... everyone says you were a colonel. Why did you leave the military? I mean, colonel isn't a rank you get overnight, right?"

He looked at her intently for a few seconds before saying, "I didn't leave willingly. I never have tolerated failure well. And well, higher-ups disagreed with my methods of ensuring no one failed."

Oh, Sally knew all about annoying higher-ups. But she had a feeling that the methods probably were worth making him leave for. Probably not very nice ones at all. "That's... a shame."

The man gave a rare grin and said, "Oh yes, not least because I made the uniform look good."

She laughed despite herself and teased, "Oh so handsome and dashing in your uniform?"

"I'm glad you agree I'm oh so handsome," Sebastian retorted with a smirk. Sally rolled her eyes and they were soon too busy working to talk much more. Finally, they were finished, the deal done and they were off to another storehouse.

The one that they had been at before, however, was insane with activity, people shooting and defending, some leaving. Mycroft Holmes was watching all of this from afar and all too soon it was over. But the teams reported that not everyone was there, that whoever ran the operation and a few others weren't around.

Including the medic.

Their launch by surprise had somehow not managed to work. How? There was no way Moriarty could have known.

Wasn't there, though? There was no way for a bomb to go off in the office either...

Mycroft forced himself to breathe deeply. No. He had thoroughly checked all of his staff. It wasn't them. He was relatively sure that it had been John Watson himself who had strategically placed the bomb in the office. He was authorized to pass, after all. And because no one had been hurt due to it, he knew the doctor had made the timer a bit longer to ensure no causalities.

It was obvious when he had known all the angles.

But John Watson would not have known about this raid. Lestrade didn't know about it, so Sergeant Donovan couldn't have. It wasn't either of them.

The only thing that Mycroft Holmes could think of... was that James Moriarty had somehow... outwitted both him and Sherlock. He had known what would happen and had reacted first. And had left people behind to cover it.

His phone rang, giving him a bit of a surprise. The number was the ones he had watching Sherlock. "Report."

"Your brother has someone in his flat, sir. A woman. Files indicate one Irene Adler, status on file deceased. But she's in the flat."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. Sherlock. He huffed out a breath with obvious irritation. "Thank you."

His brother did try his patience sometimes. His best friend throwing himself into undercover work and Sherlock allowing her to use that as an excuse to get close. This was primary school material.

Though he did worry about Sherlock constantly. And if that woman made him happy... Mycroft sighed, thinking about it. He cared about his brother, enough that he knew he would have given in to Irene Adler's demands. It would have cost a fortune, would have probably left his career in tatters, but he would have done it to keep Sherlock safe.

Caring wasn't an advantage. He knew that first hand. And yet it seemed that was being thrown into constant question right now.

That wasn't important, though. He had a nation to run and other places and things to worry about. And so far, it was turning out to be a relatively normal day, keeping the military testing bases quiet, making sure a media blackout regarding the things in the sewers stayed in place, having a meeting with an ambassador, making sure his agents caught that annoying assassin...

Yes, all in all it was normal until Gregory Lestrade slammed in once more.

"Do you think we don't know how to do our jobs?" The DI snarled, looking beyond furious with an apologetic looking Anthea behind him. "One hint of knowledge and you ruin it!"

"We were only doing what we thought was best," Mycroft said, waving his hand. It wasn't a concern, not when they had two people there undercover. It would be easy to track them down again.

Lestrade narrowed his eyes, "Yeah. I bet." He turned to leave and stopped at the door. "Guess I'll have to start doing the same." With that, he was gone.

Curious (and slightly concerned, though he'd never admit it aloud), Mycroft decided to up the security status on the DI.

Just in case.

A/N: If you're reading the same chapter twice, my sincere apologies. It wasn't showing up on my end and I grew a tad concerned, so I deleted it and re-posted.

Thank you!