Sherlock stayed 10 days in Surrey, all told, and came back to London in an odd mood—a weird combination of relaxed and annoyed. John ultimately came to the conclusion that the visit itself had relieved some of the unrelenting stress he had felt since his return, but he was annoyed at the idea that he had needed anyone's help for that to happen. He was of course even more annoyed when John shared that analysis with him.

He met up with John and Mary for dinner at Angelo's on his birthday (for which he insisted that no one give him any gifts, was offended when he thought they had believed him, and not-very-secretly pleased at the tickets to a sold-out performance of The Magic Flute they had Angelo hide under his dinner plate). If he suspected that Mycroft had been involved in the procurement of the impossible-to-get seats, he refrained from mentioning it. They all returned to Baker Street for cake with Mrs. Hudson (who also supplied a positively lethal American bourbon that had them slightly tipsy from a single glass). Sherlock, as usual, refused to have any alcohol, and happily made sneering comments about their respective inebriation levels while they played a rousing game of Charades (which Mrs. Hudson won, despite Sherlock's efforts to claim she was cheating). The visitors all trundled off at midnight, while Sherlock turned his attention to some very promising lung samples he received from Molly for his birthday.

Two days later, John was working a late shift at the surgery when he received a flurry of texts from Sherlock, each spaced roughly two minutes apart.

New case, Member of the peerage involved in smuggling drugs along with his cabbages. SH

Change that. Life peer only. Jumped-up former market gardener who married the right woman, evidently. Second marriage. Now on his fourth. SH

Interesting aspects. Four murders in addition to smuggling. Hidden room in historic mansion. SH

Yarders of course cannot find room. Need to see blueprints of building. Meeting Lestrade at 2 tomorrow, 14 Buddington Terrace. SH

You could come. If you like. SH

Tell Mary probably not dangerous. SH

And finally, after a slightly longer pause (since Sherlock had by this time noticed he hadn't replied, though he had clearly forgotten that John did actually have a job these days)…

But it might be dangerous. A little. SH

The house was almost as nice as the Holmes'. Big, historic, and well-kept, though it's close-to-London location meant that it huddled on a too-small lot surrounded by a host of McMansions. A large circular drive out front held two expensive sport cars, both shiny and newish.

Donovan let them in as she headed back out to the street, nodding to John and giving Sherlock an almost-smile, which was brutally snubbed by the intended recipient. John heard Donovan's small sigh behind them as they passed. Lestrade noticed, glancing over at Sherlock's retreating back as he headed towards the elegant stone staircase. "I know I should say something to him," he told John, very softly. "But I just can't figure out what." John gave him a look that was only slightly sympathetic. "Sorry. Not getting in the middle of that one, and you can't expect me to, now can you?" he said, not unkindly. Greg just nodded. A problem for another day.

Sherlock's voice drifted down from the top of the stairs. "I assume we are actually going to see the blueprints at some point?" he said, in a sharp tone.

"Yeah, yeah. Coming, Mathter," muttered Greg, as he and John trotted up the stairs.

The house was laid out oddly—the ground floor had been composed of a warren of smallish rooms, but the "public" rooms, a large sitting room, what had once been a ballroom, and an ornate dining room, were all on the first floor. At the back of the house in the far left corner was Lord Beckwith's office, a huge, airy Georgian room with elaborately-carved woodwork and a beautiful plaster ceiling. The room carried a pleasant odor of beeswax, lemon oil and old books. The vast desk, centered under two enormous windows, was a landing strip of carved, gleaming mahogany. In the far corner was a matching secretary, towering almost 9 feet high, with period brasses on its many drawers.

Greg moved towards the secretary, talking over his shoulder. "His PA says the blueprints are in the big drawer over here. But we should also search his desk. John, you and Sherlock can deal with that."

John started forward, only to come to an abrupt stop when he realized that Sherlock was standing stock-still in the doorway, his hands flicking nervously at his sides. "Sherlock?" he asked quietly, trying not to alert Lestrade. "Everything OK?"

Sherlock swallowed roughly before he spoke, in what tried to be a dismissive tone. "Of course. I'm going to check the estate office off the kitchen. Bring the plans down there." And he spun on his heels and was gone. John hesitated, not wanting to leave him alone but also not wanting to make a fuss unnecessarily. Lestrade solved his dilemma by straightening up from the secretary with a happy "Aha! Got 'em," a roll of blueprints in his hand.

They clattered back down the stairs and headed into the vast marble-clad kitchen, where Sherlock appeared as if nothing had happened. "Spread them on the island," he said curtly. "I give us five minutes to find whatever it is Lord Beckwith was so anxious that we not see."

In the end, it took a bit longer than that (and John could see Sherlock visibly becoming more wound-up as time passed, but still wasn't sure of the source). His eyes met Greg's over Sherlock's back at one point, but all he could give to Greg's raised eyebrows was a perplexed shrug. Finally, though, Sherlock slapped his hand down on the plans in satisfaction. "Got him!" he barked, and strode out of the room, assuming, as usual, that everyone would tail along behind.

And, of course, they did.

Sherlock led them back up the staircase, to the other side of the house from the office. He went into what had once been a large airing cupboard beneath the stairs, fiddled with the shelves here and there, and suddenly the entire back wall of the cupboard slid open, revealing a small windowless room, stocked floor-to-ceiling on three sides with painted wooden drawers. Sherlock threw a smug look back over his shoulder and shot inside.

They were looking primarily for records of any kind—specifically, records of Lord Beckwith's illicit participation in a drug smuggling operation, using his existing farm-to-market trucking interests as a front. Lestrade (and thereby Sherlock) had become involved when an investigative reporter found that four unsolved homicides had all been employees of farming operations supplying Lord Beckwith's warehouses. The presumption was that the victims had seen or heard something they shouldn't and become an inconvenience. And the icing on the cake, from Sherlock's point of view, was that Lord Beckwith's third ex-wife, an avaricious ex-stripper named (improbably) Bunnie, claimed that Lord B. had vast amounts of information stored, in hard copy, in a secret spot somewhere in the house. Sherlock had practically cackled with glee. "He's a Luddite and an idiot," he said. "A perfect mix. The man doesn't even have a mobile phone because he's so concerned about spies and informants. But he's stupid enough to actually write down and keep written records on highly illegal activities. Who's he keeping it for? Inland Revenue?"

So here, presumably, were the records of years of misdeeds. It was liking handing a personal gift to the legal system.

Sherlock immediately went over and started hauling open drawers and dropping papers randomly on the floor when he decided they weren't interesting enough, while Lestrade stepped out to call in help in collecting the evidence and John volunteered to go tell Donovan. They were both outside the hidden room, then, when they heard a sudden clanking noise and turned to see the opening to the hidden room abruptly sliding shut with Sherlock still inside. John had one brief view of Sherlock's startled, alarmed gaze before the panel slid shut with a heavy thud.

"Bugger!" barked Greg, slapping at the false wall as if that would magically open it back up. John ran his hands over the shelving and back panels, trying to find the hidden lever. Greg stepped back and sighed. "And of course, the one who knows how to open the thing is stuck inside," he muttered. He pulled out his mobile and hit Sherlock's number on speed-dial, frowning slightly when he didn't get a response. "Maybe there's no reception inside?" He turned and looked questioningly at John.

John stepped forward and rapped on the wall, hard. "Sherlock!" he shouted, at the top of his lungs. "How do we open this?" Silence. Surely the bloody room wasn't sound-proofed; what would be the point? Of course, Sherlock was perfectly capable of ignoring him if he had found something particularly interesting in those drawers…but John couldn't quite shake that last view of Sherlock's eyes. "Let me try something else," he said, and rapped again on the wall, this time in a distinct pattern. Sherlock knew Morse code, and even if he couldn't hear voices it was very unlikely he wouldn't hear the sharp impacts on the panels.

Tell us how to open the door.

Silence. He started again.

Answer me, you berk. I know you can hear this.

They waited again, until even Lestrade was beginning to feel a shimmer of unease. John tried one more time.

Answer me or we're getting a crowbar. And won't you look silly when we pry you out like an oyster.

They waited again, and now John was certain there was something wrong. Sherlock would never willingly put himself in a potentially embarrassing position with the Yard staffers present. He caught Greg's arm. "We need to get an axe or something. Even if he can't hear us, he would have gotten himself out by now. Maybe the room is booby-trapped somehow."

Greg nodded, and headed outside while John continued to look for the switch for the false wall. In short order Greg came hustling back with a long prybar and a tire lever, which he handed off to John. They wedged their respective tools into the narrow opening where the false wall met the real one, and shoved with all their might. At first John was afraid they were going to have to go ask for additional help, but then there was a sudden sharp cracking sound and the panel reluctantly popped open slightly at the seam. They hurriedly shoved their tools in the fault line and gave another joint heave, and the panel slowly slid back open.

As soon as there was enough of an opening John shoved hard and pushed his way inside, heart in his throat when he saw Sherlock lying on his back on the floor, hands limp at his side. John skidded to his knees beside him while Greg grabbed his phone and called for assistance.

John reached out to check Sherlock's carotid pulse, then assessed his breathing. Heartbeat fast and thready, breathing shallow. He slapped gently at Sherlock's cheek. "Sherlock? Can you hear me?" Nothing happened initially. He slapped harder—still no response. Finally, he reached out and rolled his knuckles firmly down the middle of Sherlock's sternum, and was rewarded with a slight flinch, followed by a groan. Those dark eyelashes fluttered, fluttered, and finally slid apart, to reveal Sherlock's wondering gaze. His eyes rolled around the room briefly before coming back to rest on John's face, the crease between his eyes deep. "John?" he said weakly, still clearly very confused.

John leaned over and slid his arm under Sherlock's shoulders, preparing to help him sit up, when suddenly Sherlock jerked as if electrocuted. He threw himself up onto his hands and knees, knocking John inadvertently to one side in the process. Then, just as Greg came back into the room, a concerned frown on his face, Sherlock scrambled to his feet and hurtled past Greg, out of the room and tearing full-speed down the hallway to the stairs.

John and Greg gave each other a blank look, and then John hurried to his feet and tore off after Sherlock. He dashed out the front door and saw Sally Donovan standing, perplexed, at the base of the steps. As if reading his mind, she lifted her arm and pointed silently around the side of the house.

Sherlock was there. On his knees, his arms wrapped tightly about himself. He rocked back and forth, breathing noisily as he tried to wrestle himself back under control. As John crouched beside him, his head jerked slightly to the side in acknowledgment as he tried to speak. "The door," he gasped. "The door. The door closed." He squeezed his eyes shut and rocked.

And all of sudden John felt unbelievably thick. "Jesus," he muttered, as his hand rubbed up and down Sherlock's back. "You're claustrophobic."

That, at least, seemed to have a positive effect. Sherlock gave a weak snort. He shot a Look through his lashes at John, finally managing to stop the rocking but keeping his arms tightly wrapped still. "Of course I'm bloody claustrophobic. You know my history. How could I not be?" he rasped, voice uneven and harsh.

John didn't try to pursue it any further at that point. He left Sherlock long enough to go in and let Greg know what had happened, then manhandled a still-trembling Sherlock into Mary's car (which he was fervently glad to have with him today, all things considered) and drove him back to Baker Street. It wasn't a long trip, thankfully. Sherlock glared silently out the window the entire way, and John wasn't inclined to push him. When they got to Baker Street, Sherlock climbed stiffly out of the car and walked unsteadily up the stairs like an old man. He staggered over and dropped limply onto the couch, sliding back to rest his head on the back and his hands loosely in his lap. John reached over for the tatty afghan draped over the back of his chair and draped it across Sherlock's lap, then prepared cups of tea, with extra honey in Sherlock's.

Sherlock puffed out a breath and sat up a bit to take the tea, sipping it without comment. The silence stretched, until he finally gave a long-suffering sigh. "All right. Ask," he said resignedly. John didn't pretend to not know what he meant.

"How could I not have seen?" he began. "I mean—we spent hours standing in cupboards, packing crates, any number of small spaces." Sherlock gave him a pointed look. "And where was I standing, in each and every case?" he asked.

John thought for a moment, and then realized. Sherlock saw the light dawn. "Exactly. I always stood in front, where I could see out the opening. It wasn't ever comfortable, but so long as I could see…and of course your presence helped," he admitted in a rush, not without a bit of a color rising on his cheeks. "But," John started, and Sherlock raised his brows in a "what now?" kind of way. "We were even locked in a car boot once." But even as he said it, Sherlock nodded. "And what happened?"

"Well, you were unconscious for the last half of it, now that I think of it. You'd been hit in the head," John said, only to see Sherlock's smirk. "No, I hadn't. I just let you think I had, since I couldn't come up with any other excuse for swooning like a Victorian maiden." John, of course, took issue with that characterization, but Sherlock had recovered enough to wave a dismissive hand. He swallowed the rest of his tea, stood and walked off into his bedroom, presumably to change or brood. Maybe both.

John was abruptly startled out of his contemplation of Sherlock's closed bedroom door by the chiming of his phone. Greg wanted Sherlock's help in interpreting the large masses of material recovered from the hidden room, with an eye to hopefully tying Lord B. directly to the murders. So John, reluctantly, agreed to help Sherlock (assuming he ever came out of his bedroom) with that process, if Greg would have the papers delivered to Baker Street. On a whim, he called Mary and asked if she wanted to come "join them in an investigation". Once he told her that it would basically entail wading through stacks of unsorted papers for several hours, though, she laughingly declined and told him she'd expect him when she saw him.

In the end, he stayed the night. Sherlock wandered back out of his bedroom when John had Chinese delivered (hungry for once, evidently). Lestrade dropped the boxes of papers by while they were eating, and John endured an awkward, silent conversation where Greg gave Sherlock the once-over (raised eyebrows/no smile/dropped chin: "All right, then?") and Sherlock looked at him briefly and then returned to his plate (direct look/one raised brow/raised chin: "Of course.") John shook his head, bemused that he still remembered how to interpret this ridiculous form of non-speech, even after two years apart.

Greg left virtually immediately, lucky bastard. The two of them, then, dumped the four large boxes and started sorting through the vast trivia of Lord B.'s life. While they did run across occasional useful bits (like the record of large amounts of money transferred illicitly on a monthly basis to a bank in Dubai, suggestive of either blackmail or some sort of criminal partnership), for the most part it instilled a skull-banging level of boredom. No one really wanted to know where Lord B. purchased his sex toys, or how much he paid for his last four suits, did they?

After the second time John found himself waking up with his forehead resting on the desk, Sherlock herded him off to bed, though John was unsuccessful in persuading Sherlock to go as well. When John woke at 2 am and stumbled down the stairs for a trip to the loo, though, he found Sherlock on his side on the sofa, wrapped tightly in the old afghan and breathing evenly.

John heard the noise and was reaching for his non-existent gun before he was awake enough to realize where he was—lying on his old bed in his dusty, disused room. He had lain back down momentarily in relief, thinking he had been awakened by some sound from the street, when he realized that Sherlock was standing at the foot of the bed, disheveled and distressed. He was shivering, his hands clasped tightly in front of him as if he was trying unsuccessfully to keep them still. "I need…can we…," he ground to a halt, shifting from one bare foot to the other. He shook his head roughly, as if to break free of something. "You said we could talk," he finally said, refusing to make eye contact.

"Of course we can," John said, carefully keeping his tone even. He sat up and swung his feet to the floor, resisting the urge to reach out to Sherlock. "Would you like to do that here, or would you rather go back downstairs?" Sherlock jerked his head towards the door, swallowing roughly. "Downstairs. Downstairs is better." He padded out the door, not waiting to see if John was coming.

It was bitterly cold downstairs, the timer for the heat not due to kick back on for another two hours. John busied himself with setting up a fire in the fireplace, partly to give Sherlock time to decide where he wanted to sit. He heard shuffling behind him and turned to see Sherlock pushing both chairs close to the fireplace, then settling himself in his. Once the fire was burning well, John stood and put the kettle on to boil, then detoured into Sherlock's bedroom and came back with his duvet and an extra blanket for himself. Instead of tea, he used the hot water to mix up instant hot chocolate, a new vice of Sherlock's that he had brought back with him from his time Away. He brought the two cups back with him, handed Sherlock one, and settled in his own chair.

He waited for several minutes while Sherlock stared at the fire and sipped his chocolate. Just as John was about to speak, Sherlock suddenly did. "I've always been claustrophobic. Well, since I was 9," he said quietly. "It had gotten better over time. I understand that sometimes happens. But while I was Away…" his voice trailed off, then picked back up again. "Something happened. It…there was a room." He was clearly struggling now, both to keep speaking and to keep control of his voice when he did. "I can't…it keeps running through my head every time I shut my eyes."

John leaned forward and touched his knee. "Then why don't you tell me about it, and maybe bringing it out into the open will help," he said, in as neutral a tone as he could muster. He waited, sipping his chocolate and trying to look as patient as possible. And finally, just as he thought it wouldn't happen, Sherlock put down his cup, laced his hands tightly together and began to talk.

Fort Douaumont—Verdun, France—December

As Sherlock hurried down the dripping, chill tunnel under the old stone fortress, he realized how much Mycroft would have loved this as a child—spending hours wandering around this World War I relic that had been the source of tales told to their Grandpere Vernet by his father, a boy soldier of 17 at the time of the Dante-esque battle over Verdun and the fort.

Sherlock, on the other hand, found it damp, cold, and unsettling. There was an oppressive air in the miles of tunnels under the fort. Someone of a fanciful disposition would have attributed it to the roughly 300,000 souls lost in the surrounding area. Or perhaps to the bones of the 100,000 unidentified soldiers lying in stacks in the ossuary not far away. He had never been fanciful, certainly, but if asked to describe the scent of this place, his answer would have been "despair". It smelt of despair.

Or maybe he was just projecting.

Of course, the current circumstances probably colored his perception. Spending days underground as a renegade chemist didn't lend one to a positive frame of mind. And given that he was simultaneously working for terrorists and against terrorists, his energy and time spent trying to keep his two lives, two identities, reliably separate, the situation was not a recipe for a sunny outlook.

Because the truth of the matter was, he had been trapped. Not physically (at least not entirely), but trapped by circumstance, long after he had planned to assemble his evidence and disappear into the night, figuratively speaking. His current identity, ironically, was the problem. Probably the most-harmless one he'd had to date; he was currently impersonating his own cousin. Hilaire Vernet was a first-rate chemist in his own right. Five years older than Sherlock, dark ginger hair, a shade over an inch shorter, but otherwise reasonably close in physical appearance. Contact lenses gave Sherlock his light brown eyes, and copious amounts of product enabled him to mask the curl to his hair, since Hilaire's was stick-straight. The best part about Hilaire, from Sherlock's point of view, was that he was currently working at a secret laboratory in Brazil, on a project of Mycroft's, so no one knew that he wasn't also working at an illicit chemical weapons factory buried in obsolete tunnels under a World War I historical monument.

The negative aspect of this was that "Hilaire" had proved to be a little too good at his job. The success of this operation depending on Sherlock being able to collect and pass on shipment information on the lethal products he was helping to create. He did what he could to subtly sabotage the components, but everything he created had to pass a comprehensive set of quality tests before shipping, so his ability to taint the product was limited. He couldn't simply pretend to be incompetent, either—he had witnessed the fate of two co-workers who proved incapable of carrying the workload without critical mistakes. Gave product testing a whole new slant, certainly, but not one he wanted to participate in.

But because of the attendant shortage of skilled help, Sherlock's work had begun to consume every working hour. And given that he was now mission-critical, the amoral bastards running this operation decided it was required that he be watched at all times when he wasn't physically in the laboratory. Discreetly, of course—no one felt that he was a problem of any kind (Hilaire was considerably softer than Sherlock, physically and mentally, and Sherlock had stayed very much in character), nor did they necessarily want to upset their star worker. He had made it abundantly clear that he had no idea he wasn't involved in a legitimate government project, so there were no potential crises of conscience to concern them either. But he always had at least one shadow, to ensure that he didn't aimlessly wander away and harm himself accidentally in the abandoned tunnels (because Hilaire was also notoriously clumsy). Sherlock was very tired of intentionally throwing himself against "unseen" obstacles and landing on his arse. But maintaining that bumbling aspect of his persona was essential—he needed to be certain that no one saw him as a physical threat.

He had been unable, for more than a month now, to break away and give his report, nor had he been able to pass off his now-vast store of evidence for Interpol that would result both in the shutdown of this laboratory and in the collapse of at least two major terrorist insurgencies via the loss of their primary funding source. In desperation, three weeks ago he had used his burner phone to send a coded message to Mycroft, asking for assistance in departure. He had received a one-sentence reply within an hour: "Cousin Deline is coming for a visit tomorrow." He destroyed and flushed the phone immediately—another would presumably find its way into his possession when "Cousin Deline" arrived.

The following day a new laboratory aide was ushered in while Sherlock was running the latest batch of quality tests. The tall blond woman came over, looked at his notes and the equipment he was using, and proceeded to predict the expected results with startling accuracy. Sherlock raised his eyebrows, impressed despite himself. The woman gave him a sardonic look and held out her hand. "Deline Ebert," she said. "I'm your new assistant. And surprisingly enough, I do actually know what the fuck I'm doing." Sherlock surprised himself with the snort of laughter he emitted.

The two of them settled into a comfortable, efficient work routine, and Sherlock continued to be pleased both by her competency and by her level of comfortable sarcasm. He hit upon a way for them to have a chance to talk about their other concerns two days after she arrived.

Sherlock knew that their openings for "alone time" would be extremely limited. On reflection, then, he decided the most straightforward approach would be for Hilaire to acquire a sudden infatuation with Deline. Deline seemed to take considerable enjoyment from their awkward "courtship" (because Hilaire, on top of everything else, was paralytically shy with women). She found it particularly hilarious to tease "Hilaire" in front of Sherlock's guards as their faux romance progressed. They ate lunch and dinner together every day, and Sherlock made a point of visibly bringing her small treats and hand-made gifts. Once he even managed to create a fake "blush" by holding his breath at the opportune time. Deline chuckled. "You're absurd," she breathed, barely audible. Sherlock smiled, a real smile this time.

Shortly after Deline arrived, another burner phone mysteriously appeared, tucked into one of his shoes in the wardrobe cupboard. Two new high-capacity memory sticks were also included. Deline had apparently brought them with her and taken the opportunity to place them there, since she wasn't watched to the degree that he was.

Finally, finally, today he had the opening he was looking for. He had carefully loaded the memory sticks with his collated evidence; he kept one copy with him at all times, and the other concealed behind the light switch in his room. This afternoon, almost three weeks after Deline arrived, his "boss", Maxim Laborde, announced that they would be closing the laboratory for 24 hours to do a deep-clean of all the production equipment in preparation for moving to a new product line. It was a Godsend—a chance to get both him and Deline out of harm's way while setting the Interpol and MI6 dogs loose on this operation.

Sherlock set things in motion immediately. He didn't advise Deline of the plan just yet. She was sharp enough to jump onboard once things were aligned properly.

He waited until Maxim left the lab, and then wandered over to his guard/shadow of the moment, Auguste. "Um. I wonder…could you possibly…" he stammered, wringing his hands while looking mostly at his shoes. He risked a glance up at the guard through his lashes, and saw an indulgent fondness on the man's face. Excellent. He fluttered a bit longer, then got hesitantly to the point. "I would like very much to have the evening with Deline. Alone." He swallowed heavily and bobbed his head again before continuing. "The whole evening," he said, with theatrical emphasis on "whole".

He gave Auguste a shy, hopeful look, and was pleased to see indecision there. "Please," he whispered, his heart (falsely) in his eyes. He had perfected that look by the time he was 8—it rarely failed. It didn't fail now.

"My shift runs until midnight. I guess I can tell Claude that I will take his place for the night shift as well. That will give you until 6. I will come knock on your door in the morning when Deline must leave. But you mustn't leave the room, OK?" Auguste said earnestly.

Sherlock bobbed his head energetically. "Of course, of course. I can't thank you enough!" he burbled. He backed over towards Deline, smiling back at Auguste all the while. He reached Deline's side and grabbed her hand in an adoring fashion, putting it briefly to his lips while she looked on in bemused affection. "Let's go," he breathed. She blinked but came along willingly enough.

Once they were far enough away, he dropped both his pretense and Deline's hand. "You need to go right now and get anything you need to bring, and then come to my room. We need to be out of here as soon as possible. We'll go out through the gate into the tourist area, then steal a car from the visitor's parking lot. It's only just past 6 now—there still should be a few people here." He suddenly realized she had stopped short in the hallway, a blank expression on her face. "Oh, come now," he said impatiently. "This can't be all new to you. Did Mycroft give you an exit route, or a safe house location where we can wait to be picked up?"

She seemed to shake herself mentally before giving him an indulgent smile. "You just shocked me, you obnoxious creature. I expected we would plan this escape together. Should have known better, given how devious you are." She looked down the corridor towards her room. "Give me ten minutes to get my things, then. I do have a meet location—I just need to let the Powers That Be know we're on the move." Sherlock sneered. "That's not what I usually call him." He looked at his watch. "Be back at my room by 6:15. I have one or two things to do as well."

So now, finally, he was heading back to his miserable cell of a room for the final time. He'd been in worse places, of course (recently, even—he spent three weeks sleeping in the forest four months ago, running from an obsessively persistent assassin). But he was nonetheless glad to see the back of this cave-like, sterile environment. He swept mentally through the contents of the room—no need to take any of his clothing with him, as there was a cache awaiting him just outside Paris of much-better clothes than he currently wore. He pulled the new burner phone out of the shoe in the cupboard and sent a single, simple message—the GPS coordinates of the wall containing the light switch, and the memory stick, followed by the word "Now". He estimated that Interpol and MI6 would arrive within three hours.

He debated destroying the phone now, but decided to take it—it might prove useful in the trip to the safe house. He pulled off his right shoe and tucked the phone into his sock, maneuvering it until it slid under his instep, then put the shoe back on. He slid the extra memory stick into a slit he had prepared in the inner seam of the collar of his jacket, then slid his arms into the heavy down coat he'd found hanging in the wardrobe of the empty room next door. He hadn't spent much time above ground recently, but he knew from his guards that it was very cold out, with some snow on the ground. He finished one last comprehensive look around the room as Deline tapped on the door and slid inside.

"Well, you're efficient, aren't you?" she said with a smile. She, too, was wearing a coat, though not as heavy as Sherlock's. She looked closely at it now. "Where'd you get that? Antarctica?"

Sherlock made a rude hand gesture but ignored the comment. "You don't have anything to carry?" he asked. She shook her head. "It's all in my pockets. I didn't have anything I cared about with me anyway. I was just here for you, to see you got out OK." She looked up at him expectantly. "Can we get moving now?"

"I was just waiting for you," he sniffed. He opened the door to the corridor, popped his head out, then held his hand out to her. "Let's go. We need the coats, but if we're seen with them we might as well walk up to Maxim and confess to save time." She swept out the door in his wake, and they hustled off towards the little-used tunnel that connected with the tourist sections of the fort.

They made it easily out of the fort, as it happened. There were just enough tourists leaving to enable them to mingle easily enough. On reflection, Sherlock decided to steal a car from the employee parking lot—likely to be more time before the theft was discovered. They found an older Ford, not fancy but dependable, that conveniently had been left with the doors unlocked. "Well it was clearly meant for us, then," said Sherlock, with a manic grin. He quickly hot-wired the ignition and the car roared into life. He looked over the gauges and smiled again. "And half a tank of petrol, to boot." He put the car in gear and headed for the exit to the park complex.

Deline suddenly gave a delighted laugh, and he looked over to see her grinning ear to ear. "That was amazing!" she breathed. "I've never done anything like that in my life." He snorted. "Good Lord. Don't tell me this is your first time doing field work. Mycroft must be short of help." She hesitated, then recovered and reached over to slap his arm. "Don't be rude. I'm primarily a laboratory analyst, you know. They had to send someone with the right skill set."

Sherlock felt he'd maybe, possibly, been a bit unfair. "You… you actually did quite well," he said. "For someone new to this."

She blinked. "Well. Thank you. If you keep being this nice I'm going to worry about you, though." She gave him a sly grin, and he huffed and relaxed.

"So," he said, waving one arm over the snow-covered countryside before them, "how far are we going? What kind of accommodations can I look forward to?" Deline smirked. "I think you'll be impressed," she said. "And surprised." She pulled out a mobile phone from her pocket (noticing Sherlock's envious glance—he'd been without a real one for more than two months now) and pulled up a map application. "We have about a two-hour drive, looks like. When you get to the main road, take a left, then head west when we reach the motorway."

Sherlock actually enjoyed the drive. After so long spent primarily underground, the exposure to open air and sky, even a night sky, was an unexpected pleasure. The car, plain as it was, was nonetheless comfortable and Deline was good company—well-read, smart, and snarky, though woefully ignorant of music and any science other than chemistry.

After almost two hours, Deline's phone informed them that they needed to leave the motorway and turn off onto a series of country roads. They moved further and further away from civilization, it seemed. Sherlock was just about to demand that Deline re-calibrate their location when the phone suddenly announced that they had arrived at their destination. He stopped the car in the middle of the lane and looked around, perplexed. Deline pointed to their right, a mischievous smile on her face. "Over there. Take that little avenue through the trees."

Mystified but reluctant to admit it, he did as directed and steered the car through the tiny opening in the overgrown brush and trees along the side of the lane. Almost immediately, though, it became clear that this was no casual byway—the track opened up into a wide, graveled path lined on either side with carefully-planted trees. Carefully planted some two hundred and fifty years ago, in fact. "It's an allee," he breathed. "A very old one."

Deline gave him a delighted smile. "Yes indeed. And just wait till you see what's at the end."

Shortly thereafter, they reached the end of the allee. At its end, a broad, rolling open lawn stretched in front of them, and at the far side of that expanse, almost glowing in the moon's reflection off the snow, loomed a huge, beautiful, ancient building. "It's a chateau," Sherlock said, somewhat stunned to come across this gem so far off the beaten path. "Mid-18th century."

"Yes it is," said Deline, smugly. "I knew you'd be impressed." At her direction, Sherlock drove around the back of the building and parked the car out of sight inside a large stone stables that was not in quite as good repair as the rest of the house. They then walked up to the rear portico while Deline continued to chatter about the impressive building.

"Business associates of mine bought it about a year ago and started the restoration. It wasn't quite derelict, but it had been abandoned since the mid-90s. It was used as a boys' school up until then, so there was never a period where it was completely empty up until the past 20 years or so." They passed now through a vast open entryway and up a grand curving staircase to the first floor. The stairs were lit by moonlight flooding through a vast set of floor-to-ceiling windows, but no interior lights. "At the moment there's only power to a few sections of the house. We can wait in my favorite—I call it 'the Cabinet', using the old meaning of the word."

As they came to the first-floor landing, Deline strode over to one wall and flipped a switch. A generator kicked in somewhere down the hall and a host of lights suddenly popped on. She then turned down the right-hand corridor and stopped at a small doorway about halfway along, turning back to Sherlock as she grabbed the beautiful brass door handle. She grinned. "Close your eyes?" she asked. He huffed and ignored her, and she relented and opened the door. She stepped out of his way and ushered him inside, then stood looking at him expectantly

Sherlock stopped, amazed. It was clear to see why Deline described this as a "cabinet"—in times past, a "cabinet" could be a small, enclosed chamber used for a special purpose. In this case, the special purpose had apparently been for some sort of study or research. Three walls of the room had the most beautifully carved woodwork Sherlock had ever seen. This was the work of a true master. The wall to the right of the door was simply paneled, the carving confined to ornate chair- and crown molding. But the themes of those carvings continued around the corner to the next two walls, which contained dozens of drawers and compartments of every size, some partially concealed by the exuberant carved decorations. Looking back, he saw that the inside of the door was also covered in the same panels—it would blend seamlessly into the wall, once closed.

The room was pungent with a strong scent of lemon, beeswax and oil—someone had lovingly polished these surfaces, over and over, to restore them to their original beauty. It was a heady scent, but quite pleasant—it reminded Sherlock, oddly, of home. His mother used lemon and beeswax.

The third wall had apparently been the victim of a past remodeling. The original woodwork had been stripped away and lost, leaving the bare stone walls. But someone was now in the process of recreating the original—one section of sturdy oak framework had already been installed, and a host of woodworking tools, including chisels and a heavy-duty pneumatic nailer, were strewn across the floor. The new construction added another pleasant element of cut wood to the swirling scents in the room.

Sherlock belatedly realized that he had been silently evaluating the room and its history for quite some time. He looked over at Deline, to see her grin again at his reaction. "Told you," she said.

There were two folding chairs that the workmen had left in the next room, and a small cooler that contained remnants of their lunch, evidently. Deline brought the cheese, wine and oranges back to the Cabinet, and Sherlock dragged the chairs in and turned on the electric heater he found sitting in the back corner of the room. He had been so fascinated he hadn't even realized how cold it was until he finally started to warm up.

They ended up eating all of the food (Sherlock finding himself surprisingly hungry) and drinking a little bit too much of the mediocre wine. They both made use of the chemical toilet down the hall (no running water yet, sadly). Sherlock settled on the floor in front of the heater. When Deline came back, she had found two cups and one more bottle of wine, better quality than what they'd already had. She had already poured each of them a substantial portion. She handed Sherlock his cup and settled down beside him. He sipped it—it was indeed much better than what had gone before. He rolled it across his tongue, swallowed, and took another mouthful.

Deline, definitely a bit tipsy now, giggled softly. "You're very posh, you know." He gave an offended sniff. "I'm educated. Contrary to popular opinion, it's not a character defect." He paused. "Although in my brother's case, it may well be." He smirked at her, realizing that he, too, was a bit tipsy.

Deline laughed. "Who the fuck is your brother, now? Come to that, what's your real name? I'm tired of calling you 'Hilaire'," she asked, and waited expectantly.

And Sherlock found himself abruptly sober and horrified. He tried, he really tried, to keep his reaction from his face, but wasn't quite quick enough.

Deline sighed. "Well, damn. I'm supposed to know your name, aren't I?" She put her cup down on the floor and stood up. Sherlock started to rise himself, when he suddenly found himself falling onto his side. Deline reached over and touched his face. "Don't worry. It's nothing dangerous, it'll just put you to sleep for a bit. My people won't be here for another 8 hours or so, and I couldn't take a chance on you wanting to leave." Her figure was starting to blur now, though Sherlock fought to stay conscious. "If you help us, they won't hurt you. I'll tell them not to."

And then everything funneled quickly away.

Notes:

I'm sorry, I'm sorry-another cliffhanger. But I really couldn't help it-otherwise we'd have a 25-page "chapter".

Fort Douaumont, Verdun and the ossuary are all real, as are the numbers of casualties cited.

And apparently there are indeed abandoned chateaux just sitting in the middle of France. If you're interested, here is the inspiration for my chateau. Personally I wish I could go visit:

the-project