One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is accepted by everyone
-K.L. Toth
-/-
The first few days back at Baker Street, Sherlock slept every night. Syn, of course, didn't. She was afraid she would close her eyes and wake to find it all some twisted dream her mind had come up with to torment her.
Sherlock had offered to let her stay in the bedroom upstairs but she couldn't. That was John's bedroom and she knew he would be back eventually. She hung her clothes in the closet in the half John had let her have, her suit hanging in the very back.
She would lay on the couch, nightmares and panic tugging at her until she was certain Sherlock was in a deep sleep. Only then would she allow herself to creep into his room and watch him sleep. It was wrong she knew but she found reassurance in watching the steady rise and fall of the sheets. She feared if she let herself get too comfortable with the idea of Sherlock being alive that he would be ripped away again, this time forever.
She found it unsettling at first how much he slept but she thought maybe he was exhausted from his home coming. The second and third night however made worry bubble within her. She began watching him carefully, noticing how he would slightly wince when he turned a certain way and how much paler he seemed. Even watching him now she could faintly make out angry red lash marks running down his back.
Tonight however she would be able to sit and watch. She had business to attend to. She quietly padded upstairs to John's bedroom and pulled her suit out. Each member of the Suicide Squad was given one to better conceal their suit was black, her shirt was a thin formfitting leather, her chest and back protected by a thin Kevlar vest and her elbows padded. Her pants were the same way, her knees and thighs padded, the end of her pants tucked into her black combat boots. A utility belt hung around her waist, knives tucked into her boots and two guns holstered at her sides, one tucked in the waistband of her pants behind her back. She was given a perfectly conformed black mask and a new balaclava, this one with a hood built with it. She threw her quiver over her shoulder and unfolded her bow before leaving Arrow with strict orders to guard the flat.
-/-
He sat at his desk, the white glow from the computer screen in front of him illuminating the self-satisfied smile playing on his lips. The clicking of computer keys echoed through the silent office building and the occasional chuckle rumbled from his chest. He was completely oblivious.
"Mr. Magnussen," Her voice was pitched lower and deeper than normal thanks to a small device given to her by General Pike. Charles Augustus Magnussen jumped slightly in his plush leather chair as she stepped out of the shadows. He was frantically paging for security but by the wild look in his eye he knew there was no one to save him. "I'm not here to hurt you," She raised her hands by her side to prove her point. "But I will if you give me reason to."
"You've been reassigned to that younger Holmes boy and their pet." He observed. "I've been asked to serve be their shadow but there's been a slight problem and if my memory serves me, you still owe me from the Bangladesh project." He sat back in his chair and studied her for a moment. "Yes, that's correct."
"Mary Morstan. I need to know why her attention shifted to John Watson." He clicked a few keys on the computer in front of him and smiled. "I suggest you focus your attention elsewhere for the time being."
-/-
All your fault, all your fault. You let them get John. It's your fault. Your fault. He's dead. They killed him. Your fault. Syn was the epitome of a mess as she ran through the halls of Bart's. She didn't bother to knock when she found the room she was looking for. Mary was sitting diligently by her fiancé's bedside, holding his hand as he slept. Without a word she picked up the file in the bin hanging beside the door and flipped through it. Stitches, smoke inhalation, sedative, nothing horrible but the doctors were requesting he stay overnight for observation.
"Syn, you can't tell Sherlock." She snapped the file closed. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't? Why shouldn't I save one of my only friends from marrying a psychopathic assassin? You'll get bored and leave, we both know that. What if he wants a family? Then what? Do you pop out a kid and then leave or do you kill the baby, break John's heart, and then leave? Please, enlighten me."
She smiled lovingly at John. "If you do I'll kill him." Syn chuckled. "You won't kill John." Mary turned her attention back to Syn, the loving smile on her face remained but the look in her cold, beady eyes was not that of a loving fiancé. "You're right, I won't kill John. I'll kill Sherlock." Syn rolls her eyes and scoffs even though deep down she knows Mary will. "Kill Sherlock and then what? Kill me? Please, for someone claiming to be an assassin I thought you would've had a better plan than that."
"Would you like to test that theory?" Syn glanced over at John who was beginning to stir from his slumber. "Would you, Ms. Watson?" The loving fiancé was back in a blink of the eye, gently coaxing John out of his slumber.
-/-
When Sebastian died he left everything to Syn. His fortune, his cars, his home, everything was left to her. She knew she couldn't sell it, no there were too many secrets and memories in that house to let anyone else have it. She didn't need the money or the cars so she gave everything to Linda. After some protesting from Linda however, the fortune was split down the middle between the two and the house was left to Syn.
She waited until Linda left to park the motorcycle in the garage, careful not to destroy the perfectly manicured lawn in the process. Trekking around to the back of the house she retrieved the key from its elaborate hiding spot in a hollowed out tree root.
Nothing had changed since the last time she had been here. The furniture was neatly polished and not a speck of dust floated around in the air thanks to Linda. It was odd without Sebastian there to fill the silence, he never seemed to shut up now that she thought about it. He was already talking to himself or making jokes or singing a song in that horribly awful voice of his.
She missed him.
The stash of booze he kept in his office was still full thankfully. She grabbed a bottle of whatever was on top to keep her company while she worked.
Upstairs and at the very end of the hall was a room full of computers. When turned off the computers continually projected black and white images of the perimeter of the house, but when on these computers could hack into any system with just a few clicks and decrypt anything within a matter of hours.
While she waited for the computers to boot up she unscrewed the cap on the bottle of whiskey and took a long swig. She had tried everything in the last two years to escape reality but nothing worked. It was hard for her to get drunk thanks to the serum, she would end up with alcohol poisoning before she could truly get wasted. Drugs would burn through her system too fast for her to feel much, the serum attacking and destroying the intrusion to protect her. However she still reveled in the momentary buzz the amber liquid provided as it slid down her throat before it disappeared.
Endless amounts of information was at her fingertips in a matter of seconds. She started by searching for key words but 2 hours and a bottle and a half of whiskey later, she had nothing. She began pacing around the small room trying to sort through the mess of thoughts in her mind.
She screwed her eyes shut and tried to think. There had to be something she was missing, a variable she wasn't taking into consideration but what? This information wasn't on computers so it was extremely sensitive. Kept in someone's mind where it couldn't be seen by prying eyes but why?
Because of you.
-/-
Syn calmly walks through the Diogenes's club taking deep breaths to remain calm. It would be easy to lash out, to give Mycroft the emotions he's most likely expecting from her, the emotions she currently straining to suppress but that's not how she wants to approach this.
As she gets closer to his office she can sense another presence within, most likely General Pike she decides. It would be easy to listen in, get everything she needs and destroy both of them. But she doesn't. Instead she calmly let's herself in, stopping both men in mid-sentence as she sits.
She remains silent and lets them look her over skeptically as she pulls off her sunglasses and scarf. General Pike opens his mouth to break the silence but she doesn't let him get a word out. "Marcus open your mouth and you won't have a tongue." Her voice is cold and serious, the only hint as to what she's feeling. "I am only going to say this once so listen carefully. I know you brought Syn back for a specific reason and that was not to infiltrate the underground terrorist cell. So I would like to know what the hell is going on."
A silent communication passes between the older two men as she waited patiently for an answer. It was Mycroft who gave in first. "What exactly do you know?"
"You brought Syn back to keep tabs on her. I am not here for protection and I am not here for the terrorist network. I was not being followed in the field and if I was I would've been moved to a safe house. I know that whatever is going on is off record and only known by you two therefore it must be something that could potentially be detrimental. So detrimental that it required the entire Suicide Squad to be present."
Mycroft sat at his desk, the worry lines across his face making him look years older. With a resigned sigh and pulled a grainy black and white photograph from his desk drawer and set it in front of her. "It's time."
-/-
What do you know about Lord Moran? –SH
Sebastian's atrocious half-brother. Smart but clumsy. The only thing him and Sebastian share are the last names. What has he gotten himself into now? –S
There's an all-night sitting to vote on the new anti-terrorism Bill. He won't be there. –SH
Remember, remember, the 5th of November. The Gunpowder, treason, and plot. Impressive. –S
There's an abandoned station on Sumatra Road directly under Parliament. Care to join? –SH
I would love to but duty calls. Please come home in one piece. –S
Of course. –SH
She smiles as she shoves her phone into her pocket. Tonight the Ghost is roaming the streets but this time, she isn't killing. She watches in distaste as the city below hum with life. Those dull little people going through their monotonous lives, worrying over the most petty of details.
Her team was currently trying to gather any information they could on Mary and find a connection between her work and John's kidnapping. It was safer this way, nothing could tie directly back to her.
She watches from 12 stories up as people come and go and even from her perch her mind is able to deduce these people just by their body language. A stressed mother carries her sick son on her hip, unaware of the child growing in her womb. Two friends chat over dinner, one is withdrawn trying to hide the fact she's been sleeping with her friends…sister. Interesting.
The smell of smoke pulls her attention to the skies. A few blocks away smoke billows from a building and screams soon follow. Her curiosity peaked she leaves her spot to find the burning building. It's a black of flats and judging by the number of windows and number of people on the sidewalk, not everyone is out yet. "Help! I can't find my son! Oh god he's trapped inside!"
"Dammit," She knows the average response time for firefighters is 5 to 7 minutes and she can't hear the sirens yet. Detach yourself from the situation. She tries. She tries to bottle up her emotions and walk away but she can't. It's something she's noticed since her time spent at Baker Street. She can't detach herself from certain situations, she feels too much.
She jumps down the side of the building onto the fire escape and in another great leap she lands somewhat ungracefully in the grimy alleyway. There are 5 levels and 7 windows running along the sides and 3 in the front. With a deep breath she runs across the street and straight into the fire.
-/-
It was the early hours of the morning when Syn drags herself back to Baker Street. Her lungs burn every time she takes a breath and she's sure there isn't an area of clothing or skin that isn't covered in soot and bruises. She quietly closes the flat door behind her and lets her head fall back against the door as exhaustion tugs at her.
She needs to rehydrate and take care of her wounds so they don't get infected but she's so tempted to sleep on the floor in her clothes. She feels the presence of someone, no, two people in the flat but her mind is too fuzzy to locate anyone. Arrow begins checking over her in a series or grunts and huffs and deep breaths. Once he's satisfied he dutifully sits beside her waiting for her to give him a command.
Opening her eyes she finds Sherlock and Ms. Hudson both staring at her. "Hey," she smiles but it's hidden behind her balaclava. She removes the offending garment, sliding her mask and hood off in the process. "There was a-a fire. It'll be on the news…today." She shuffles into the kitchen and pours herself a glass of water trying to sooth her burning throat.
They're both still staring when she turns around, their gazes trailing up and down as they take in her suit. "It wasn't my idea," she mumbles, weakly motioning up and down. "General Pike thought it was appropriate for all of us to have suits that reflected our names. Ghost equals black apparently."
The water in the shower is black by the time it reaches the drain. She peels the wet clothes off her body piece by piece, rinsing each article until the water is no longer black. The sound of the violin fills the flat as she emerges from the shower in search of the first aid kit. She doesn't notice until she tries to reach for something with her left hand just how stiff her shoulder is. She treats her left hand first, rubbing ointment over the blisters and cuts before wrapping her hand in gauze. She attempts to bandage her right hand herself but after a few minutes and several failed attempts she ends up with more ointment on the table than her hand.
That's how he finds her, bent over the tale with gauze hanging from her mouth and ointment smeared across both the table and her face. He feels a smile tug at the corners of his lips as he quirks an eyebrow at her. "I, um, I think I may need help." He sits beside her and begins rubbing the cream over her blistered hand with a gentleness that surprises her.
"How big was the bomb?" She finally ask. "It was the entire carriage," he explains. "Each seat had a smaller explosive and a panel in the floor contained the mother bomb, if you will."
"Did you finally get an apology out of John then?" He glanced up at her from his bandaging job and smiled. "Yes, John forgave me." She tests the circulation in her hands as Sherlock washes his hands behind her. Her damp hair is swept over her right shoulder startling her for a moment. "Sherlock what-oh," a warm hand is placed over her branding and she's looking at Sherlock's back again, her hands rubbing away the tension in his shoulder.
A comfortable silence falls between the two as he warms the marking. She stretches her arm out almost completely straight finding little resistance compared to before. "Thanks." He presses a kiss to the top of her head and murmurs goodnight. "Sherlock?" He pauses in the doorway. "If you ever need anything or want to talk to someone about whatever happened I'm here to listen. You don't have to but, if you ever do, I'll listen. I mean I know talking about it is the last thing you really want to do but sometimes you feel better and…I'm sorry I'll stop."
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth to stop her ramblings and quickly busies herself with putting things back in the medical kit where they belong. He's lingering and she can feel him watching her so she tries to make as much noise as she can to fill the silence, so much so that she almost misses what he says. "The bed is more comfortable than the floor." She freezes in mid-reach, her heart pounding in her chest. She thought she had been careful, she hadn't sensed changes in his breathing patterns during the night as creepy as that sounded but maybe it was something he had learned how to control during the last two years.
Sherlock liked to think of her as a mishap. A strange occurrence because she ruined the way he thought. She brought down every wall he had put up and made him feel more human than he ever had in his entire life. She made him feel things he hadn't felt since his days in Uni when he was young and stupid. He only wished he would've realized it sooner. "It's only logical,'' he continues as her cheeks flame in embarrassment. "Both of us seem to be suffering from nightmares." "Yeah, right. Okay." She follows him back to his bedroom and slides under the cool sheets. She watches as he discards his blue dressing gown over a chair and slides in beside her. They lay facing each other, watching in the darkness and soon her eyes begin to droop with sleep.
She's not sure who falls asleep first but when she wakes with a start in the middle of the night to find a pair of arms snaked around her torso and steady breaths ghosting across her neck, she knows everything is going to be okay.