Title: London is Strange
Disclaimer: I own no rights, I make no profit.
Chapter 1 – Homecoming
John Watson spotted her as soon as he cleared customs at Heathrow. She was leaning against a post in full view of the exit doorway looking at her mobile. John sighed. He could avoid her but maybe things were better this way. He'd find out what exactly Mycroft Holmes wanted before he tackled his primary reason for returning to London. It would be worth the time to know if the British Government was going to be a help, a hindrance, or a neutral party. John switched his duffel to his good shoulder then angled his line of travel toward Mycroft's alias bearing assistant.
As he got closer he realized that the definitely-not-named-Anthea had sometime in the last two and a half years traded in her omnipresent blackberry for the newest model Stark-phone. She was also thinner, wearing a more sensible shoes, and was clearly running on a bit less sleep than was optimum.
She looked up as he approached and smiled, "Dr. Watson."
He cocked his head slightly in acknowledgement and replied, "So what should I call you this time?"
The smile went from being just a mask to something a bit more genuine, "It's Abigail for the rest of the week."
She finished her text then moved in beside him, covering the side carrying the duffle. John felt more than saw the two agents he'd pegged as soon as he'd exited the jetway peel off and head wherever agents went after they'd been dismissed from their particular task. Abigail-not-Anthea made an after you motion and they proceeded out of the concourse heading for a black limousine with heavily tinted windows waiting at the curb.
Abigail indicated that he should place his duffle in the boot then proceeded to open the rear door of the vehicle. John was a little surprised that she didn't follow him into the car but instead simply closed the door behind him leaving him in the presence of Mycroft Holmes.
Mycroft on the surface looked much as he'd last seen him. John however had more tools at his disposal since that time and he carefully used the few which would be less likely to be noticed. Much like his assistant Mycroft was running on a less than optimal amount of sleep along with a high degree of stress. He was also rather worried about something, John could not tell just what without being obvious, so he decided to wait and see if he could discern anything from the conversation that was clearly going to commence shortly. The car pulled out into traffic.
"Let me be the first to welcome you back Dr. Watson."
Mycroft's voice and delivery was just as smooth as he'd remembered.
"It's good to be back."
"You've been quite the traveler since we last saw each other. New York, the Philippines, Nepal?"
Well that made things clearer. Mycroft Holmes, or more likely his minions, had managed to mostly lose track of him since New York. Well, considering what he'd been doing in the interim, John would have been more surprised if Mycroft's people had been able to track him. All of which left the unanswered question.
"Why would you be interested in my travels? I'm sure there are much more important people which you need to track."
There was a flash of something pained from Mycroft, "I made a promise," was all he said.
John inwardly winced. He knew that there was only one person who could extract such a promise from Mycroft Holmes and have him keep it. It also meant that John was going to be on Mycroft's radar permanently whether he wanted to be or not. John thought quickly. Maybe this could be a blessing in disguise. Use what and who you know to keep others from getting too interested in things they shouldn't know anything about.
"I hope you didn't fire anyone for losing track," John started. "I'd hate to have inadvertently been the cause of someone's job loss."
"Nothing so dire; merely a reassignment or two, although I am interested in your travels over the last few years after that fuss in New York."
"That mess in New York was actually where it all started," John started to explain. "You were aware I was looking into Medecins Sans Frontiers?"
"Yes. I was under the impression you were looking for a MSF posting in Pakistan or Afghanistan."
"At the time I was. Most of that region is coordinated out of an office in New York so after the funeral…"
John had to catch himself mentally to stop the emotions that went with that simple statement.
"I decided to take a bit of a holiday and check things out as a side project. Unfortunately for me I'd just managed to get over the jet lag when those aliens invaded Manhattan."
"Not the most auspicious beginning for your time in the States," Mycroft commented dryly.
"I ended up on the periphery of the fighting and spent most of my time helping get civilians into the shelter of the subway."
It had been a bit more than that John remembered.
He'd heard the sounds before he'd seen anything. It had been a horrendous crash from somewhere ahead of him. Then he'd rounded the corner and saw the hole in the sky. Shortly thereafter he'd spotted one of the aliens on something that looked like a futuristic sled that flew taking pot shots at cars and people indiscriminately with blue energy beams from some sort of hand weapon. Surprisingly not everyone was running and screaming. As he watched from several blocks away some office workers with impeccable timing shoved a desk out a broken window dropping it directly on the flying sled, downing it. He didn't see if the alien survived the fall.
John had started working his way toward the area where the sled had fallen. He'd figured that if he was lucky the hand weapon might just have survived. From what he'd seen of the armor on the aliens John had figured nothing short of armor piercing rounds or an extremely lucky shot would hurt them. Given how the blue beams had torn through cars he figured that his best bet would be to see if he could liberate one of the invader's weapons. It had worked for the Taliban in Afghanistan and he didn't see why it wouldn't work here.
As he moved closer to the fighting John noticed that someone had managed to organize the police and other first responders. They were pulling fire alarms in buildings and getting everyone they could to head for shelter in the subway. He also noticed small groups of people carefully heading toward the fighting. As he came up on a group of three, John pegged them as veterans of some sort, one of them noticed him and asked, "Hey man, are you armed?" When John had said he wasn't but that he planned to see if he couldn't liberate one of those beam weapons they had laughed, called him a crazy Brit, and handed him a pistol along with a clip of ammunition. They had wished him good luck and headed down a side street together at a lope moving in sync like a seasoned squad.
But that wasn't the strangest encounter of the day. John had managed to work his way to where he'd seen the sled fall. It wasn't as straight forward as he'd intended since a couple buildings had partially collapsed meaning he'd had to take a detour or two. He'd found the sled and the alien but they were both half under not only the office desk but also what looked like a chunk of decorative concrete that had fallen off a building. Unfortunately, the weapon was stuck somewhere under the alien's body and John knew that there was no way he'd be able to shift the concrete slab by hand to get to it.
Looking around he'd spotted a backhoe sitting at what looked like a street repair site. He'd been lucky, the keys were still in it and it started right up. He'd just managed to figure out what all the controls did when a ginger in a black cat-suit dashed around a corner a block or so away with two of the aliens hot on her heels. Judging how fast she was moving John figured she'd be able to lose them but for the fact that one of the sled flying things 2 blocks further down noticed the chase and decided to join it.
John hadn't had to think very hard. He leaned out of the backhoe cab and whistled. The ginger took in the situation at a glance and headed in his direction. It was relatively quick. The flyer overshot the ginger attempting to head her off and John rotated the backhoe with the bucket arm up directly impacting the alien. The alien went flying into the side of a building, the sled kept on going up the street and John found that his rotation had stopped in the perfect position to drop the bucket on one of the aliens who was chasing the ginger on foot.
The crunch had been quite satisfying. He jumped out of the cab to see if the ginger was ok just in time to see her kick out the other alien's knee joint and shoot him in the eye, killing him instantly. "Good shot!" was all John could think to say.
She smiled, barely breathing hard, and replied "Thank you" with a slight hint of a Russian accent.
She then looked at her former opponent and liberated a nasty looking weapon about the size of a short barreled shotgun. John looked at the size of the alien and figured that what she'd just grabbed was the equivalent of a handgun for them.
She handed him the weapon, "Blue stud fires, Line of sight, no recoil. Aim for joints and eyes. These are better than guns but the armor takes a bit to burn through."
He had nodded his understanding sensing that she had more information to impart.
"We are trying to keep them contained," she had continued. "Can you hold this street?"
"I can try." John had replied.
"I'll see if I can send you some assistance," she said as she started to turn away then she turned back as if a thought had occurred, "Don't shoot the red and gold flying armor, the large blond with the cape and the hammer, or the big green monster…they are on our side."
"After the hole in the sky closed up," John continued, "I found my way to the nearest hospital and offered my services."
Mycroft nodded, "I did get a report about that. Something about setting up and running a triage station in the Metro-General Hospital car park?"
"Spent over a week doing that before it wasn't needed anymore," John replied. "I ended up working with a bunch of really good people one of whom told me about a charity that needed help setting up a clinic in Nepal. I met with one of the principles of the charity stateside and in relatively short order I was in Kathmandu"
It sounded a little thin but there was no way John was going to relate what had really happened.
Dr. Stephen Strange was a damn good general physician despite the neuro specialty and damaged hands. John had found him relatively easy to work with. John had been warned by other hospital staff when the man had shown up to volunteer but the personal issues alluded to hadn't appeared. John didn't know whether it was his experience in dealing with the genius that had been Sherlock or if Strange had changed after the accident that had well-neigh ruined his hands or some combination of both he'd not had any complaints. The only problem John had with the man was the fact that he was eerily similar in stature and features to Sherlock. Luckily his accent, mannerisms, and specialty were different enough so John became inured rather quickly to the physical resemblance. In fact they had hit things off so well that Strange had hauled him off to what could have only been called a mansion when he found out that John had been bunking down in the Doctor's lounge when off shift. After things had calmed down to the point the triage unit was no longer necessary John remembered thinking that things were finally going to get back to normal in his life. Of course, that's when his entire world had been turned on its head.
They'd been sitting in Strange's study with some good Scotch and talking about John's future plans. Stephen had been quizzing him about his experience with alternative medicine. Apparently something he said sparked a cord because Stephen had got up, rummaged around in a desk, and came up with a medical file.
"Take a look at that and tell me what you think," he'd said.
John had read the file. It was a file of a patient who'd been in a rather serious car accident. While the major injuries were bad enough the damage to the forearms and hands had been extensive. In fact, John wasn't sure exactly how they had managed to save them. Just looking at the chart John knew that the patient would be living with serious pain and limited movement in his hands for the rest of his life. All in all it made the nerve damage and intermittent tremor in his left hand seem like a minor inconvenience.
"Patient of yours?" John had asked not looking up. "Amazing that the hands are even able to move but doesn't he have serious problems with pain and range of movement?"
Strange had chuckled and John looked up from the file to see Stephen had both hands up and was wiggling his fingers at him.
John registered the location of scars and his jaw dropped, "What? Really? How?"
He reached out without thinking and grabbed one of Stephen's hands to examine it. The scars were prominent, clearly the remnants of multiple surgeries but there was no stiffness or any other indication of limitation.
After a minute or so of John's examination Stephen brought up his other hand then grabbed both of John's wrists with a firm grip and pulled him to his feet dumping the file on the floor.
"Come. See." Was all he said.
John had gone and that had started the most exhaustive, exhilarating and mind bending two years of his life.
"I ended up spending over a year and a half in Nepal setting up clinics and organizing medical matters for the charity," John explained.
And stuffing my brain with everything and anything I could learn about the Mystic Arts.
"When I'd set up everything so it would all run mostly on its own I decided it was time to come home."
Mycroft looked him up and down probably attempting to align what he was deducing with what John had said.
"Might I inquire as to your plans?"
John in a fit of impishness decided not to answer the question with a simple yes and smiled.
Somehow this seemed to discomfort Mycroft because he continued, "If you find yourself at loose ends I still retain the lease to Baker Street and I do know of some openings which might be in line with your skills."
Well, John thought to himself, Baker Street along with a job where Mycroft could keep a close eye on him and meddle if need be. He had expected some sort of offer but not a quite so blatant one. The stress that Mycroft was under clearly was having an effect. John decided that if he got a chance he'd at least give a shot at ameliorating the situation. Having the British Government in less than top form especially given the mystic portents and signs that Stephen had been picking up was to say the least a bit not good.
"I'm actually set for the moment," John replied. "The charity has owned a London property for years. Unfortunately the last keeper of the place passed on and they've not managed to find a suitable replacement. Given the real estate prices the Board has decided to sell it but they need someone to make a full inventory of the place first just in case there's something highly valuable hidden in the attic."
Mycroft's eyebrows went up, "I wasn't aware you had that type of expertise."
John grinned, "Don't really need it. It comes with a stipend, a budget to hire experts, and of course there's always the all-knowing google! I can also tap the Board members themselves if I run across something completely out of the ordinary."
"I see," Mycroft said. "So where should I drop you off?"
John relayed the address and the rest of the trip passed in silence.
When they arrived John reached out and shook Mycroft's hand, skin to skin contact worked best for this sort of thing. He implanted a minor compulsion regarding proper nutrition and the importance of rest.
"Thank you for the lift and the welcome."
"It's good to have you back Dr. Watson."
John stood on the pavement and watched the vehicle pull into traffic. He mentally sighed. Lying by omission to Mycroft Holmes was probably the least dangerous thing he had to do today.
Author's Note: So this plot bunny has been hopping around for a while and finally got big enough to actually get words on the page. Many thanks to KatHarkness_Katara over on AO3 for hitting this chapter with both the beta and Brit-pick sticks. Any remaining mistakes or anomalies are all my fault. In addition, the concept for empathetic, sentient London was at least in part sparked by "The Master of London" by Teacup_of_Doom (also over on AO3).