Notes:

FAIR WARNING-This chapter deals with graphic violence and its aftermath. It is, in some instances, brutal. Please be aware of that if you're sensitive to it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The Chateau

Sherlock swam slowly back to consciousness, uncomfortable and confused. Someone was calling a name, but it wasn't his. That someone, though, apparently expected him to respond, as they were patting his face as they called.

"Hilaire. Come on now, Hilaire. Open those gorgeous eyes, won't you? I'm so bored by myself. Speaking of your eyes—I took your contact lenses out. Hope you don't mind. They're even prettier now than they were before."

Memory slotted back into place, slowly. His head hurt and he was mildly nauseous. He found himself unable to move his arms. As his vision cleared, he realized he was sitting on the floor, his arms spread wide and secured with rope to the stout wood framing of the Cabinet's new wall. Deline was leaning over him expectantly. "There you are," she said delightedly. "See, I told you it wouldn't hurt you. You had a nice long nap, and tying you up wasn't any trouble at all." She gave a quick laugh. "You really need to eat more, you know? I don't think you weigh much more than I do." He gave her a dazed look; if she thought him more helpless than he was, she might get sloppy.

She went over and grabbed one of the folding chairs, plopping herself down next to him. "So, not who you thought I was, obviously. I did come because of your message to Mycroft Holmes, it's true—at least I assume it was your message, since there wasn't anyone else there who fit the bill as an agent needing retrieval, and you certainly know who Mycroft Holmes is. But the thing is, Mycroft Holmes doesn't know me. He may have sent his own little helper, but that's not me. I just have friends who make it their business to know all about anyone who has contact with the Great Man."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the memory stick he had secreted in his coat seam. "Yeah, I found this too. I know you were planning to sic Interpol on Maxim, but that's a sweet little operation he has going, and my own people are very interesting in buying in. Well, taking over, actually, but 'buying in' sounds more business-like, you know?" Sherlock glared at her. His mind was still foggy, but was starting to draw conclusions and make tentative plans. It was clear that Mycroft had a mole of sorts—some back door into what should have been his most-secure communications. That would have to be addressed, fairly soon. Beyond that, though, Deline was apparently aligned with a significant and sophisticated criminal organization (though not, it would seem, part of Moriarty's legacy), and falling into their hands would be very bad indeed.

On the plus side, Deline didn't know about the other memory stick. The Interpol/MI6 raid on Maxim's facility was almost certainly already underway. But that would make things even more difficult with her masters, if they were anticipating taking over that lucrative operation.

Deline, annoyingly, was still talking. "So here's my proposition. I like you. You're smart and a very good chemist. When my people roll in, they're going to need a lead scientist to keep things moving, and that could be you." She leaned her head to one side, like an inquisitive bird. "Now I know you probably have all of these, oh, moral concerns, good little secret agent that you are. But it comes down to one choice. You can come with us, and be rich, and comfortable, and, oh yes, alive. Or you can be difficult, and moral, and dead." She gave him a suddenly sober look. "And I'd hate that, Hilaire. I really would."

And Sherlock believed her. Insofar as she was capable, Deline cared for him, at least enough to not want him dead. But it was crystal clear now that Deline had only a nodding acquaintance with morality, and (he did appreciate the irony here) was evidently a true sociopath. In safer circumstances he would have found this amusing. Right now, though, it was less than helpful—Deline, very likely, had no "better side"' to which he could appeal.

His delay in response was apparently as much of an answer as Deline needed. She sighed and stood up. "Well fuck. I was afraid of that. I'm not completely giving up yet, you know—we have some very persuasive people in our ranks." She looked at her watch. "And some of them will be here in about 4 hours. So now that I have you settled, I'm going to have a little nap myself. It's going to be a busy day ahead." She grinned, then settled herself on the floor in front of the heater, her back to him and her head pillowed on her arms.

As soon as her breathing evened out, Sherlock set himself to working his hands free. It wasn't going to be a quick process; the rope was a plastic base rather than hemp, with much less give than a natural product. And someone had taught Deline to tie knots very well. He knew that if he had to he could likely dislocate one of his thumbs, but wanted to keep that option in reserve. So he worked at flexing and stressing the ropes both at the knots and at the points where they wrapped around the oak supports, hoping to create enough fraying to snap some of the strands.

He had been working for roughly 45 minutes when he heard footsteps coming cautiously up the stairs and down the hallway. Heavy footsteps—a man, very likely. He looked over at Deline—still blissfully asleep. Perhaps she had been at the wine again while he slept. Or her admitted inexperience in field work was coming back to bite her. Unfortunately, it just might end up biting him as well. He debated waking Deline before the man reached them. But in the end he didn't—it was entirely possible that this was Mycroft's real agent coming to his (belated) rescue.

His first view of the intruder put paid to that hope, when Maxim Laborde walked slowly into the room. He looked around, noted Sherlock secured to the wall, and nodded. Then he walked over and gave Deline a brisk kick in the ribs. Deline squalled and rolled away from him, then came to her feet like an outraged cat, at which point Maxim strode over and grabbed her by the hair. "Now, girl, that's enough. You sit yourself down and behave while we have a little conversation," he snapped. His voice carried a surprising amount of cold threat. Sherlock had never considered Maxim especially dangerous, but was now reassessing.

Maxim reached down and picked up one of the heavy wood chisels lying on the floor, flipping it from hand to hand. "I wondered, you see. When I got a message that the tracker on your phone showed you leaving the facility, I knew that one of the two of you had to be an agent of some kind. The only question was which one it was. My bet would have been on Hilaire," he rolled his eyes over at Sherlock, "but his current position makes that unlikely." He noted the surprised look on Deline's face. "What? You thought we would let you keep an internet-enabled phone and not put some sort of spyware on it? Didn't you ever think it odd, when we wouldn't allow Hilaire a phone at all?" he asked incredulously.

Deline's face grew red, but she said nothing. Clearly she hadn't thought of that. Sherlock sneered internally but kept quiet.

"But then, the real problem came before I could send anyone after you," Maxim continued. "Because you had apparently managed to inform Interpol before you left, and they are now stripping my operation to the walls. The only reason I'm not in a holding cell right now is because I had made a trip into town at the right time." He strode over abruptly and backhanded Deline with the hand holding the chisel, and she crumpled to the floor with a cry, blood pouring from her cheekbone. Sherlock watched with increasing concern as Maxim walked over to the pneumatic nailer and picked it up, then flicked on the compressor which supplied it. The machine lurched into life with a loud clatter.

As Maxim walked back towards Deline, Sherlock started to struggle, yanking harder and harder on his bindings. Maxim ignored him, gripping Deline once again by the hair and pulling her up to stand against his side. "No," she gasped. "My people will be here in 3 hours. They can help you. Find you another operation. There's no need for this!"

Now Sherlock was shouting, pulling as hard as he could and kicking out at the tools littering the floor. Maxim turned to him momentarily. "Shut up! I'm busy," he snapped, and turned back to Deline. "I don't care about another position," he snarled. "My face is now on every police and Interpol computer in Europe. I will be on a plane to Ecuador within two hours." He used Deline's hair to shake her violently. "Fucking Ecuador. Forever. And that's down to you." And he lifted the nailer, pushed it to the side of Deline's chest, and pulled the trigger.

Sherlock howled and dislocated his left thumb, managing to yank his left arm free. But then Maxim dropped Deline to the floor and strode over, the nailer still in his grasp. "Oh for fuck's sake," he said. Then he kicked Sherlock solidly in the groin, and while Sherlock was still gagging and gasping for breath, he wrenched his left arm back into place against the oak framing, pushed the nailer against the muscle on the underside of his upper arm, and pulled the trigger again.

The pain was beyond anything Sherlock remembered ever feeling. His vision grayed out briefly, and he was aware of making sounds, horrible choking sounds of pain. He came back to himself with Maxim speaking again.

"Oh, please. I'm not going to kill you. My… I guess you could say my 'investor'… is on his way here—should be here in a couple of hours. He wants you—a good chemist is always useful, and given that you were just dragged along for the ride with Jane Bond over there, there's no reason to expect you can't still be an asset. I can't take you with me now—Ecuador, remember? — but I'm sure he'll have resources available to keep you in reasonable comfort. And he'll pay me very well for having kept you alive." He looked critically over at Sherlock, pinned to the wall like a pale, bleeding butterfly. "The arm will heal up just fine if you get the right care. And we don't have to worry about you making a run for it once I leave."

He dropped the nailer and walked over to turn off the compressor. "Don't want to have to worry about fumes, now do we?" he said mildly. He stood briefly over Deline. "Still breathing. Ah well. Don't expect that'll take long, though."

He walked over, gave Sherlock an oddly polite nod, and strode out the door. It wasn't until he saw it moving, though, that Sherlock realized he was also pulling the door closed as he went. Sherlock's panted "No" was covered by the dull thump of the heavy wooden panel fitting solidly into place, closing him, and Deline, in the small, windowless Cabinet. Breathing became impossible. Sherlock struggled, and gasped, and gasped, and the darkness took him.

Sherlock swam back to consciousness, unsure how much time had passed. His head swam, and he bit his lip against the violent pulses of pain coming from his arm. He looked over at it as carefully as he could; the bleeding seemed to have largely stopped, though a substantial stain spread across the floor below. He tried very hard not to look at the closed door. Then he heard it—a soft, soft sound from within the room.

It was Deline. Still alive, in agony, and unable to move. He could hear rapid, panting breaths, and then another soft sound, which resolved into "please". He whined and tried to struggle against the rope, but was forced to stop when the pain grabbed him and whited out his vision again. He tried to speak to her, but if she heard him she was beyond understanding. And he struggled again, and his breathing got thinner, and thinner, and faster, and then he was gone again.

He came to himself again. This time the sound was gone. He looked over at Deline, and she had rolled over to face him. Her eyes were open. And to avoid those eyes, he looked away, and saw the closed door, and his breathing thinned, and thinned, and…

The third time he woke, the generator had failed, and all light was gone. This time he screamed himself hoarse before the blackness seeped into his head.

The fourth time he woke, he managed to avoid opening his eyes. If he didn't see the darkness, if he didn't see the door, he could be calm for a time. And he knew that if he didn't leave this room before Maxim's "sponsor" arrived, he would die. Because based on Mycroft's information, supplied before he went into the fort, Maxim's patron was almost certainly Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's right-hand man. And Moran knew exactly what Sherlock looked like.

Still keeping his eyes firmly closed, he felt around with his feet for the discarded tools. He felt around with his legs until he encountered the fallen chisel, and used his feet to draw it back up against his hip. Then he braced himself, took a deep breath, positioned his right hand carefully, and dislocated the thumb with a violent jerk against the binding. He breathed through the pain, feeling the echo from his pinned arm at the sudden motion. When he could stand to do so, he pulled his throbbing hand through the now-loosened ropes and laid it against his hip. Before he could think about it too much, then, he pressed it firmly under his hipbone and popped the finger back into joint. He tried to breathe through the resultant nausea, gagging once or twice before getting himself back under control.

He sat with his hand loosely in his lap for a bit, letting some of the stiffness from the constrained position bleed off from his upper arm as well. When everything had subsided to a duller throb, he reached around beside his leg for the chisel, and considered how best to use it.

He didn't open his eyes. It wouldn't help—the blackness was too complete in the windowless room. And with his eyes closed, he could still pretend that he wasn't enclosed in a small wooden box.

Finally, reluctantly, he picked up the chisel, reached across his chest, and felt along his pinioned arm for the embedded nail. He was careful not to move the injured arm at this point, simply using his free arm to get a clear mental picture of the nail and its exact position in his arm. When he was sure, then, without giving himself time to consider it too much, he rotated his body to the side until he was largely facing the framing, his pinned arm screaming from the tension pulling on the nail. He reached up with the chisel, pointing the head towards the wall and placing the sharp face firmly under the head of the nail, standing perhaps a quarter of an inch above the flesh of his arm. And then, with all of his strength, he pushed the chisel violently down and back.

He screamed at the pain, and his head swam dangerously. He managed, after a bad moment, not to drop the chisel. When he could move without fainting, then, he carefully set the chisel in his lap, and reached out with shaking fingers to check the position of the nail. He was distantly pleased to see that a half-inch of nail now stood out from his skin.

In the end, it took two more tries. By the time the nail finally yanked clear of the framing and his arm dropped to his side he was weeping with pain and dizzy. He allowed himself a brief period to shudder and sob, and then he reached up and pulled the nail from his arm with a great jerk.

He came to himself an undetermined time later, lying on his side next to the wall. He had fallen on his uninjured side, luckily, and had remembered not to open his eyes as he awoke. He did a quick self-assessment, feeling the renewed bleeding from his arm soaking across his shirt. No arterial involvement, though, so manageable. He didn't think he could stand, however (even if that had been wise, with eyes closed in the small room). So he shuffled on knees and one arm towards the doorway, his injured arm cradled against his side. He felt along the paneling until he encountered the seam for the door, then patted around for the door handle. His hand closed on it and he yanked the door open, falling across the jamb and partially into the hallway. And then he opened his eyes, and saw the filtered moonlight drifting up from the staircase.

It took him almost an hour to get himself ready to leave. Part of that time, of course, was spent lying in the doorway and breathing, trying to convince himself that he could indeed get up. He finally managed it after he remembered that Sebastian Moran was very likely coming within the next hour or so, and meeting him while recumbent in a doorway wasn't an effective strategy. (Though truthfully, meeting Sebastian Moran at all wasn't on his agenda, particularly not with an open, oozing wound through his arm).

He used the door handle as a brace to help him stand, and, after a bad moment when the dizziness was at its worst, quickly felt relatively sure he wouldn't fall again. He then spent fifteen minutes on a scavenger hunt in the dark adjoining rooms, coming up with canvas pieces (once covering windows, apparently), muslin (covering furniture in many of the rooms), a cache of water bottles, a battery-operated lantern and, most valuable of all, a simple medical kit.

He had to deal with the arm, obviously, before he could think about trying to drive. He went into the room where they had found the wine earlier—it had a folding table with additional chairs that he used to set out his finds. He placed the lantern on the table, turned it on, and got to work.

The kit contained no narcotic painkillers, sadly. He took four anti-inflammatories with water from a bottle opened with his teeth, and placed the bottle aside—that, obviously, had to go with him when he left. He had hoped for some sort of liquid antiseptic for the arm, but found only an antibiotic cream which he was afraid to use on a puncture wound. The kit did, however, contain a few small splints and braces, and he used one to immobilize the still-dislocated thumb on his left hand—the swelling was too great now to allow him to reposition it.

He couldn't quite make himself tackle the main wound yet. He busied himself with using the bandage scissors from the kit to craft a sling. It was surprisingly difficult to manage with one hand, especially when the thumb on that hand was also swollen and painful from the earlier dislocation. He had to estimate the required length of fabric and tie it ahead of time—there would be no way to do so once it was around his neck, not with one working arm.

Finally, though, he had to address the arm. On reflection, it seemed his best option was to use one of the bottles of water to cleanse as best he could—a newly-opened bottle would be relatively sterile. Then bandage (the kit had plenty of bandages, thankfully) and sling. It was the best he could do, given his current resources.

He used the bandage scissors to cut the sleeves of his jacket and shirt open (absently grateful that his heavy coat still sat, clean and untouched, in the floor of the Cabinet). He draped a piece of canvas over his lap—his trousers were miraculously free of blood, and he would prefer they stay that way. He carefully peeled the opened sleeves away from the injury, hissing as the dried blood tugged at the wound.

It was…well, it was daunting to look at. A perfectly round, purple-red hole oozed a small amount of blood and fluid. Swelling was already well-advanced, his upper arm almost twice its normal size. The swelling closest to the wound was already turning bluish-purple with bruising. He briefly considered using some of the leftover wine as an antiseptic, but wasn't sure he could remain conscious if he poured alcohol in the wound. No, water was better—not as effective, but more bearable.

He pulled out a new water bottle, placed it between his teeth and twisted off the cap. He leaned forward, using his uninjured arm to lift the wounded one onto the table, extending his forearm across it. Then he picked up the water bottle, braced himself, and poured.

He did not faint. He would not allow it. His vision tunneled, certainly, and his head swam, and his arm felt like he had shoved a hot poker through it. But he managed to sit resolutely in the chair, breath hitching and eyes stinging, until the dizziness passed.

He reached into the medical kit and patted the wound with a handful of gauze squares, then repeated the process with another handful when water and thin blood contained to drain. Finally, he anchored a pad of gauze to the back side of the wound with tape, and a second pad to the front, and then wrapped the whole over and over with rolled bandage from armpit to elbow. Then he picked up the prepared sling, put it over his head, and used his right arm to lift the damaged left and slide it into the sling.

Next came something else he had consciously been avoiding—returning to the Cabinet. He had to go back—his coat was inside, and (presumably) his wallet, since it was no longer in his pocket. He also needed to see if he could find Deline's wallet—he knew he, himself, only had about €30, and that wouldn't take him as far as he needed to go, much less pay for food or other necessities.

Walking was less painful now that his arm was resting in the sling (or maybe the pain tablets had started to work a bit). He struggled a bit at the doorway, but finally managed to enter once he used the lantern to hold the door open against the side wall, so that it couldn't possibly close.

Deline still lay in the middle of the floor, eyes open. He forced himself to lean over, checking her coat pockets. He found her mobile, but ignored it—the tracking software made it useless to him anyway. He found her wallet in the other pocket, and shoved it into the pocket of his own trousers without opening it. The car keys were lying on the floor next to the heater; those went into his jacket pocket. Finally he picked up his coat from the floor, and walked back to pick up the lantern.

Something made him hesitate. He wasn't sure why, but he found himself picking up one of the large pieces of canvas in the next room. He carried it back into the Cabinet, and draped it over Deline's body. Then he walked over, grabbed the lantern, and pulled the door closed as he left.

He walked back into the next room and sat down at the table to think. Before he left, he needed to send some sort of communication to Mycroft. It needed to serve two purposes—first, to warn him that he had a mole; and second, to ask for help. He carefully fished the burner phone out of his pocket and left it on the table while he gathered the other items he was taking—a bottle of water, the medical kit, the tablet bottle, his coat.

It came to him, then—one thing he could send that would make it obvious that Sherlock was concerned about the security of their communication, and would also, by implication, make it clear that assistance was needed, and where. He picked up the phone and typed one word, and hit "send".

Bees.