Hello lovelies! Sorry it's been a bit too long since I updated. School is starting this Monday, gah. I don't own Sherlock, and most of the information and dialogue I get from arianedevere's transcript from online. Without further ado, here is the story.

Janine gasped and straightened up, clapping her hand over her mouth. Downstairs, John stared at the ring. Sherlock turned on the biggest puppy eyes he could manage as he looked into the camera and smiled. Janine pressed a button and the lift doors opened up for Sherlock. He grinned and clicked the box closed and turned to John, whose mouth was gaping open as he stared at his friend.

"You see? As long as there's people, there's always a weak spot," Sherlock explained.

"That was Janine. Did you just get engaged to break into an office?"

"Yeah."

John leaned close to Sherlock and spoke quietly. "Sherlock, she loves you."

"Yes. Like I said, human error."

The doors of the lift closed and the ascent to the top began. John stood there with his brows furrowed, trying to think. He began, "You think, you think Lady Smallwood's blackmailer is...Janine."

Sherlock smiled. "I know it's Janine."

"So why do you have to break into her high security boss's office? Why not her home?"

"Like you said, it's a high security office. Do you really think Janine would leave the letters she has on Lady Smallwood in her home? I already checked there, by the way. Why would she do that when she has access to one of the most highly guarded buildings in London?"

There was a slight pause. "So what will you tell her?" John asked.

"Well, I'll tell her that our entire relationship was a ruse to break into her workplace and take the files that she has on Lady Smallwood. Don't think she'll phone the police, seeing as she let her boyfriend into her boss's office. Magnussen would be very angry. He's a powerful man, he could destroy her. I imagine she'll want to stop seeing me at that point." Sherlock looked at John again. "But you're the expert on women."

The lift arrived at the 32nd floor and the doors opened for Sherlock and John to enter. Sherlock turned on his fake smile and stepped into the poorly lit office, looking around for his new fiancee. When he saw no sign of her, he looked around more carefully and frowned. The two men walked around the office, trying to find her.

"So where did she go?" John asked.

"It's a bit rude. I just proposed to her." Sherlock looked around once more. "I'll go check in the next room. Stay here and look for the documents."

John briefly nodded before shuffling through what he thought was Janine's desk. Sherlock stepped into the next room, where he was greeted by the sight of an unconscious suited man lying face down on the floor. "John! Security," Sherlock called.

John came to Sherlock's side. "Does he need help?"

Sherlock spotted a tattoo between the guard's thumb and index finger. The tattoo was five small dots, four of them in a square shape and the fifth in the middle of the square. "White supremacist, by the tattoo, so who cares? Go back to Janine's desk and keep searching." Sherlock stepped over the man's body and over to Magnussen's desk. He felt the seat. Cold. Good. That meant that the man was out of the building.

John hesitated to leave, unhappy about ditching anyone who was unconscious. He walked over to the warm body on the ground and did a quick check-up to make sure that the man was okay. He was. "We should call the police," John whispered as he took his phone out of his pocket.

"During our own burglary?! You're really not a natural at this, are you?" Sherlock replied in a loud whisper.

John switched off his phone and sighed. Sherlock glanced to the right of him. Stairs. He was about to go up the first step but he noticed a scent in the air. He paused and took a deep sniff. He sniffed twice more, and one more deep and final sniff. Perfume, not Janine's. He thought deeply for a moment before figuring out the name of the scent. "Claire-de-la-lune. Why do I know it?"

"Mary wears it." John answered him as he was leaving the room to go resume rifling through desks and drawers for the necessary documents. He entered the other room and left Sherlock to his own devices.

"No, not Mary. Somebody else." Sherlock lifted his head as he heard a noise from upstairs. He dashed off, running across the expanse of the room to the stairwell and hurrying upwards. Once he arrived at the end of the stairs, Sherlock found himself in what must have been Magnussen's private penthouse flat. Sherlock ventured quietly toward a room at the end of a carpeted hall, where he could hear Janine talking, sounding very anxious and almost tearful.

"What-what-what would your fiance think, eh?" Janine asked fearfully. Sherlock inched carefully toward a partially open door at the end of the hall. Janine continued, "He...your lovely soon-to-be-husband, upright, honorable..." Sherlock peeked through the gap in the door and saw Janine on her knees with her hands behind her head and cowering. "...so English. What-what would he say to you now?"

Standing in front of Janine, someone dressed all in black and wearing black gloves held a gun pointed to Janine. The person dressed in all black wore a black knitted cap on their head, also covering the person's hair. The person cocked the gun and pointed it at Janine again.

"No, no!" Janine cowered, whimpering. "You're-you're doing this to protect him from the truth. But is this the protection he would want?"

Sherlock entered the room and approached the person with the gun so that he was standing a few feet from the person's back. "Additionally," Sherlock began, "if you're going to commit murder, you might consider changing your perfume...Lady Smallwood."

Janine straightened up a little, breathing out a shaky breath. "Sorry. Who?" Sherlock's gaze focused back on the potential killer, who tightened the grip on the gun. Janine looked back from the face of the assassin to Sherlock. "That's...not...Lady Smallwood, Sherl."

Sherlock frowned. Did Janine just ask who Lady Smallwood was? That wasn't possible. She had have been the person blackmailing Lady Smallwood. All the clues pointed to this building, to this very office. The person in black slowly turned back to face him, aiming the pistol at him. Sherlock found himself looking in the face of Mary Elizabeth Morstan. He drew in a sharp breath and rapidly flashed back to all his encounters with her, thinking about all his deductions about her. His thoughts drifted apart and left only one word drifting in his mind.

Liar.

Mary's face was cold as she spoke to Sherlock. "Is John with you?"

"He's, um..." Sherlock said shakily.

"Is John here?" Mary demanded firmly.

"He-he's downstairs."

Mary nodded.

"So, what do you do now?" Janine asked. "Kill us both?"

Keeping her pistol aimed in front of her, Mary smiled humorlessly over her shoulder at Janine before returning her gaze to Sherlock. He thought quickly. Why was Mary doing this? Unless...Janine may not have been blackmailing Lady Smallwood, but she could have been blackmailing someone else.

"Mary, whatever she's got on you, let me help." He shifted his weight onto one foot, preparing to step toward her.

"Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you," Mary warned in an exasperated tone.

Sherlock shook his head with a small smile on his face. "No, Ms. Morstan." Mary stared at him, her mouth a little open. "You won't." He started to lift his foot off the floor.

Immediately Mary pulled the trigger. The bullet shot through the air and impacted his lower chest, slightly to the right of his shirt buttons. Sherlock's eyes unfocused and a look of shock appeared on his face as Mary sighed regretfully. He looked down at his chest, and after a moment, blood began to pour out of the hole.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," Mary said, her voice a little tearful. "Truly am."

"Mary?" Sherlock stared at her as she turned and pointed her pistol to Janine. He faded into partial unconsciousness as he retreated to his Mind Palace.

Sherlock was lying a bed at the hospital. He had just been brought back from the edges of death. He opened his eyes, his gaze became more focused, and his mouth began to close around the tube in his mouth in an attempt to form a word. "Mary."

Brrnnnnng. Brrnnnnng. Brrnnnnng. Molly reached over for her phone, annoyed that her deep thought process was being interrupted. Maybe it was Cam. Without looking at the caller ID, she put her phone to her ear and asked, "Hello?"

"Hey, Molly." It was Colvin, the receptionist at the hospital front desk. "I'm sorry to inform you that Sherlock has been shot. You were listed as one of his emergency contacts."

Molly's eyes popped open. She hung up the phone, threw on a jacket, and ran out the front door. As she pounded her feet on the cement, running to the hospital, she had only one thought on her mind: Sherlock. All her problems, worries, and troubles faded and disappeared as a more monumental dilemma came to light. She didn't care that she was being blackmailed, she didn't care that she might go to prison if her secret was revealed, and she didn't care that Toby died. All Molly cared about was that her beloved Sherlock was safe, that he was alive. As she ran, panting down the street, she needed Sherlock to be okay even more than she needed oxygen. She continued her way toward the hospital with adrenaline pumping through her veins, a fiery passion for life warming her core, giving her strength to go on. She hadn't felt this alive in months.

Mary, dressed more normally now, hurried through the entrance and up a flight of stairs. John was waiting for her on the landing.

"Mary," John said, relieved.

"Hey." She walked over to meet him.

"He's only bloody woken up! He's pulled through."

"Really? Seriously?"

"Oh, you, Ms. Morstan." John pointed a finger at her, trying to look stern. "You're in big trouble."

A look of confusion came across Mary's face. "Really? Why?"

"His first word when he woke up? 'Mary'!"

She giggled and John joined her with laughter. They hugged each other tightly. But over the shoulder of John, her face became serious.

Sherlock lay in his hospital bed, barely conscious.

"You don't tell him."

Sherlock tried to open his eyes with difficulty.

"Sherlock?" Mary gently said in a sing-song voice. "You don't tell John."

Daylight was streaming through the windows, and Sherlock's bed was slightly raised. His room was filled with flowers, and the scents of all of them combined almost made Sherlock sick. A man in a dark suit stepped into the room. Sherlock fluttered his eyelids, struggling to see who it was.

"They're not all from me," Magnussen spoke, referring to the numerous flowers. He gestured to a vase on the left. "The struggling carnations are from Scotland Yard." He stepped to the lone flower across from Sherlock's bed. "And the single rose is from..." He picked up the card and read it. "W," he said, slightly befuddled. Sherlock raised one eyebrow at the sound of the letter. Magnussen sat at the side of Sherlock, who wasn't quite sure why he was here. Well, he and John did break into his office. But still.

"Having shot you," Magnussen began. "The woman you know as Mary Morstan left without killing my PA, Janine. Which is odd, because that was the reason she came." Magnussen moved so that his lips were next to Sherlock's ears. "I didn't pass her identity onto the police." Sherlock began breathing harder. "Information like that is just too...valuable to be shared. Wouldn't you agree?" Magnussen moved away. He walked toward the exit. "And I took care of Janine. You won't ever be hearing from her again."

Magnussen disappeared down the hall, and Sherlock reached a shaking hand over to dial down his morphine. He needed to think clearly. Magnussen knew about Mary too then. Janine seemed to have no idea who Lady Smallwood was, but all the clues pointed to her workplace. Oh. Magnussen was the one blackmailing Lady Smallwood. Sherlock tightened his hands into fists. How could he have made such a big mistake? But, the mistake did prove useful, because even though Janine wasn't blackmailing Lady Smallwood, Sherlock found out an even more interesting piece of information. Janine was blackmailing Mary. And Mary, as it turned out, was an assassin. And somehow, someway, Magnussen knew too. Sherlock thought for a moment. Perhaps Magnussen was the one who passed along the information to Janine. He then toyed with the two, curious to see what his PA would do with the gold mine of information. Sherlock let out a huge breath. He reached back over to turn the dial back on to max for his morphine.

Sherlock awoke later to the face of Molly. He found himself looking at her beautiful brown eyes, which had apparently already been staring at him for quite a while.

Molly's face broke into a smile and she placed her hand on Sherlock's cheek. "Sherlock," she said breathlessly. Her face grew more serious. "Are you okay?"

Sherlock slowly moved his hand to rest on hers. He intertwined their fingers, sensing that everything was alright between them.

"No. I'm not okay."

Molly tightened her grip on his hand. "What do you need?"

"You."

Things are heating up! The scene where Magnussen visited Sherlock is actually a deleted scene from His Last Vow. You can look it up on Youtube if you're curious. The lone black rose sent by "W" is, I assume, from The Woman. I really do wish they kept that scene in the episode.

Please tell me what you think and review! Every review is deeply appreciated, even if it's a word or two.