[Author's Note: Sorry if this chapter is not so gripping, containing as it does some much-needed housekeeping. Let me assure, you, though, that I've written ahead to some of the John and Sherlock interactions, and — oh my Lord, people, the FEELS! So you have that to look forward to. -)]
John clasped Sherlock's hand in his, both of them staring back up at the ceiling now.
"Is it done, then?" John finally asked. "Are you staying?"
Sherlock's hand twitched in his, and John knew his answer long before he replied. "No," he said. "It's still not safe."
John shut his eyes tight, feeling Sherlock's answer like a punch to the gut as much as he thought he was prepared for it. He realized he was squeezing Sherlock's cold fingers, as if to keep him there, and forced himself to loosen his grip.
"I'll go with you," he said. "I would have — even back then, I would have gone with you. You had only to ask. I could have helped." He cringed at the pleading note he heard in his own voice.
"I know you would have," Sherlock said softly. "But it wasn't possible. It was too dangerous."
"Too dangerous?" John was getting angry again. "Since when have I cared about that?"
["And I said 'dangerous' and here you are," Sherlock drawled.]
"You were only partly right," Sherlock said abruptly.
"About what?"
"You said it wasn't about you. You were only partly right." Sherlock's voice was shaking with anger now as well. "It was about you, but not only you. Moriarty liked snipers, John, you already knew that. There were three. One for you. One for Mrs. Hudson. One for Lestrade."
It took a moment for John to figure out Sherlock's meaning, his mind still stuck on Moriarty liked snipers, John, you knew that.
["You've rather shown your hand there, Doctor Watson," Moriarty crowed as a red dot appeared on Sherlock's forehead.]
"Three snipers," he repeated dumbly.
"Just so." Sherlock's voice was bitter now. "As Moriarty said, he owed me a fall, and he was determined to see that I got it. Even if I could have stopped three triggers in any other way — an impossibility, I assure you — that still wouldn't have been the end of it."
The words came tumbling out as if Sherlock had thought them a million times, his voice stark with the despair of the impossible decision. "Even if I had managed to take you with me, protect the others, they would have known. Do you think they would have just given up? No, there's always Harry. Mrs. Hudson's sister. Lestrade's children."
The shock of it sent a shudder through John's body.
["Alone is what I have. Alone protects me," Sherlock had said in the lab at St. Bart's, the last time John saw him before the fall. "No. Friends protect people," John had spat back at him angrily.]
Sherlock took a deep breath, and when he spoke again his voice was calm, distant. "Once Moriarty knew I was...compromised, there was no end to it. A never-ending web of entanglements — of potential victims for Moriarty to use as leverage."
John took a deep inhale, letting it out slowly through his nose, trying to calm himself as well even as guilt turned his stomach. "Christ, I've been a self-involved bastard. I never thought — I just never would have imagined..."
His words trailed off as the imagined horrors played in his head. Sherlock, helpless, his brilliant mind impotent against brute force as everyone he cared about was felled by a sniper's bullet. No warning, no way to fight back. Just dead. John had seen it himself in Afghanistan — a soldier there one minute and gone the next, and nothing but the delayed crack of a gunshot to indicate what had happened.
"We can't all have the imagination of a psychopathic criminal mastermind, John," Sherlock said drily.
That surprised a bark of laughter out of John, despite himself. "Too right," he said, his mind still reeling.
"In any case, I knew if I survived the fall I would have to do the rest alone. You understand now, don't you John?"
John felt something turn over in his stomach as he pushed himself up to sitting, his eyes searching Sherlock's face in disbelief. "What do you mean, if you survived the fall? Do you mean you actually — fell?"
Sherlock pushed himself upright as well, wincing a bit. "Well, of course I fell, John," he said impatiently, as if it were tedious to point out the obvious. "Or jumped, rather. You were there."
If John weren't so gobsmacked, he would have been smiling to hear Sherlock sound so like his old self. "Yeah, I saw you jump. I also saw you die, Sherlock. But here you are, so I figured it had to be...some kind of trick."
Sherlock shrugged one shoulder. "Well, I expect it was at that. But it had to be convincing enough to the sniper who was watching. I chose the location, of course, and took what precautions I could manage at such short notice. A back brace and padding, an awning at ground level to slow my velocity, that sort of thing. Nothing that would seem out of place to observers. You would have been the hardest to fool."
["No, stay exactly where you are," Sherlock had said. "Don't move."]
"Sherlock, you..." John's hand was reaching out, toward Sherlock's skull, his mind reeling with the memory of it cracked on the pavement. He pulled it back, closing it into a fist in his lap.
"We have to stop talking about this," he finally said, staring down at his white knuckles, his voice choked and uneven. "My heart can't take it."
He felt Sherlock shifting uneasily beside him. "John," he finally said. "I am...touched by your concern. But it is entirely irrational. You can see for yourself that I am right here, perfectly fine."
"Touched by my concern?" John repeated disbelievingly. "Yeah, well, kindest regards to you too, mate," he said, running a hand over his face. He looked up to find Sherlock looking him with complete confusion on his face. "Jesus, Sherlock, do you have any idea...?"
A sudden knock had John leaping to his feet, the gun already in his hand, putting his body between Sherlock and the door.
"Get in the bathroom," he barked.
When he flicked a look backwards Sherlock was rising unhurriedly, shrugging into his shirt.
"There's no need, it's only Mycroft," he said, his voice pinched with annoyance. "And he's got a new umbrella," he added, his eyes growing distant for a moment. "Mahogany."
John felt for a moment that he had to still be dreaming, it was so surreal.
"Of course it is," he said. "Bloody Mycroft and his bloody brolly." Still, he kept his gun in his hand as he went to open the door.
"Good afternoon, John," Mycroft intoned, placid as ever, managing to slither like an eel through the small space John had opened. He carefully placed a satchel on the bed by Sherlock before making himself at home in the desk chair, umbrella clasped primly under his folded hands. "Brother dear. So pleased to see you amongst the living."
John leaned against the wall, watching them. At Mycroft's entrance Sherlock had pulled on his old persona like a shroud, somehow suppressing his twitchy, haunted mannerisms and adopting instead an arrogant scowl.
"The same to you, Mycroft. I would have thought that you might have succumbed to gout by now."
"Death has not improved your manners, I see."
John's gaze, which had been bouncing between the two brothers as if he were watching a tennis match, settled on Sherlock again. "Even Mycroft didn't know you were alive?" He didn't know whether to feel comforted or terrified by that — knowing that when Sherlock had said alone, he had meant alone.
A genteel snort from Mycroft answered that. Sherlock glowered further. "He knew — or at least he knew for certain, once I started delivering Moriarty's network to him piece by piece. I just wouldn't let him get his grasping hands on me."
Mycroft harrumphed at that. "Come now, Sherlock. You know I could have had you taken in at Lau Pa Sat had I wished."
Sherlock sneered. "I spotted your agent within twelve seconds of setting foot in the market."
"That was the one I intended you to spot. It was the other three who would have had you, should I have given the order."
Sherlock's sneer faltered at that.
"You were growing careless, brother." Mycroft's placid manner seemed to slip, a trace of emotion coloring his soft words. "It is high time you came in from the cold."
Sherlock seemed to sense Mycroft's sincerity. His arrogant mien stuttered for just a moment, and he responded by immediately busying himself in the satchel, casting aside a change of clothing impatiently to pull out a sleek laptop and external hard drive. He settled on the bed cross-legged, firing it up, his fingers drumming impatiently on the keyboard as if the mere seconds of start-up time were an intolerable delay.
"So all this time — you were tracking Moriarty?" John asked.
"Moriarty?" Sherlock responded absently, the computer up and running now and his fingers flying over the keyboard. "No, of course not — he's been dead for ages."
"What?!" John pushed himself away from the wall, searching Sherlock's face for clues. "Did you kill him?"
"No, more's the pity. He killed himself. Shot himself on the roof of St. Bart's. Knew I'd manage to get him to call off the snipers, otherwise."
"Jesus." John found his knees weak again, his weight sagging against the wall. Almost a year he had spent, with the spectre of Moriarty in his nightmares — imagining that reptilian smile gloating over Sherlock's death. John had even had ludicrous daydreams of tracking Moriarty down himself, exacting revenge in Sherlock's stead. And all this time, the man himself had been dead, by his own hand.
Sherlock's gaze flicked over John and then back to the computer. And then back to John, as if drawn irresistibly. His mouth twisted. "Oh, do sit down, John. I did tell you, after all, that Moriarty was determined to see me fall. His own death was logical, just another cog in the wheel."
Logical. John numbly walked over to the bed and sat down on the foot of it, midway more or less between Sherlock and Mycroft.
"Tea?" he finally asked, for lack of anything better to do.
And Christ, the Holmes brothers smirking in synchrony was about all he could stand. He took the few steps into the kitchen and started the kettle.
Sherlock made a noise of satisfaction, obviously having uncovered some of the information he was seeking. He paused for a moment, looking up at Mycroft.
"What time?" he asked.
"Ah," Mycroft replied cryptically.
John felt tension suddenly crackling between the two brothers.
"No," Sherlock snapped definitively, his whole body suddenly full of whipcord tension, a scowl across his brow.
Mycroft simply gazed at him calmly.
John rubbed a weary hand across his forehead. "Oh, for God's sake, would one of you just say it out loud, for the dimwit over here who is not blessed with Holmesian telepathy?"
Both men looked startled at being interrupted, and then Sherlock looked sulkily back at the computer, tapping away again.
Mycroft shifted his gaze consideringly to John.
"Given the degree of surveillance on you, Doctor, Sherlock's plan to move himself to a secure location tonight is now untenable. It is suspicious enough that I was seen coming here. For him to try to spirit himself away at this juncture would be highly inadvisable."
"No one asked you to come," Sherlock grumbled, ignored by both men.
"Do you mean..." John's words died in his throat as he looked carefully at Mycroft. If it had been anyone — anyone — else, he would have said there was a glint of mischief in those eyes.
"I am afraid, Doctor, that Sherlock has no choice but to stay here for the moment," Mycroft said placidly.
John's gaze shifted to Sherlock. He was clicking away at the keyboard, apparently absorbed in his task, but two spots of pink had appeared over those ridiculous cheekbones.
An odd mixture of emotions washed over John. He thought it was about half thank Christ, he's staying and half the two of us in this tiny flat — bloody hell, he'll kill us both.
He voiced only one thought, however. "Mycroft," he said mildly. "D'you take sugar?"
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