Hello! So here's the latest chapter, sorry it's taken so long. Currently, I'm sick, sniveling, and I've turned on my humidifier. And I still have a lot of homework to do. Sigh. On the bright side, it's the end of August, and I'm quite excited because that means that it will be September soon, which means that it will be fall soon! I don't really like the hot weather of summer. I much prefer the cloudy, cold days of autumn and winter.
I'm rambling. Enjoy the story!
The atmosphere of 221b Baker Street was somber, tense, and filled with apprehension. Molly wasn't used to this kind of atmosphere, and she shifted around uneasily and John, Sherlock, and Mary stepped into the living room. Molly sensed that a storm was about to commence.
Mrs. Hudson rushed from the kitchen when she heard steps from the stairs. "John! Mary!" Mary gave a small smile and polite nod to Mrs. Hudson before moving past her toward the fireplace. Sherlock hobbled to the doorway with an arm draped around Molly's shoulder, bracing himself against her. Mrs. Hudson's eyes widened. "Molly! Oh, Sherlock! Good gracious, you look terrible!"
"Get me some morphine from your kitchen. I've run out," Sherlock ordered.
"I don't have any morphine!" Mrs. Hudson insisted.
"Then what exactly is the point of you?" Sherlock asked angrily. Molly frowned at Sherlock's rudeness. Normally she would scold him for such brashness, but he was hurt, irritable, and the Mary's lies had just been unveiled.
Mrs. Hudson pursed her lips together and looked around at everyone. "What is going on?"
"Bloody good question," John answered.
Sherlock looked at John. "Mary and John are about to have a domestic, and fairly quickly, I hope, because we've got work to do."
"Oh, I have a better question." John paced toward Mary and looked her angrily in the face. "Is everyone I've ever met a psychopath?"
Sherlock's eyes lifted and he thought for a moment. "Yes," he said quickly.
John turned toward him furiously. "SHUT UP!" Even though the words were directed at Sherlock, Molly flinched. She had never seen him so angry. John spoke in a more normal volume now. "And stay shut up, because this is not funny." John gave him a humorless smile. "Not this time."
"I didn't say it was funny."
John turned back to Mary. "You." The simple, short word left John's mouth like a threat, a weapon. He breathed his next words heavily. "What have I ever done, my whole life, to deserve you?"
"Everything," Sherlock spoke.
"Sherlock, I've told you." John walked toward him. "Shut up."
"Oh, I mean it, seriously," Sherlock informed quietly. "Everything, everything you've ever done is what you did."
John spoke softly, a hint of danger in his tone. "Sherlock, one more word and you will not need morphine."
Sherlock ignored his best friend's threat and continued to speak softly. "You were a doctor who went to war." John's eyes fixed on Sherlock. "You're a man who couldn't stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie. Your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high." Sherlock paused for a moment. "That's me, by the way." Sherlock raised his left hand and waved. "Hello."
Sherlock pointed to Mrs. Hudson. "Even the landlady used to run a drug cartel."
"It was my husband's cartel," Mrs. Hudson protested. "I was just typing."
"And exotic dancing," Sherlock added. "John, you are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You're abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people. So is it truly such a surprise that the woman you've fallen in love with conforms to that pattern?"
John kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock while pointing back to Mary on the other side of the room. His voice was full of suppressed tears. "But she wasn't supposed to be like that." Mary lowered her head. "Why is she like that?"
Sherlock looked toward Mary for a few seconds and then turned to look back at John. "Because you chose her."
John turned away, his face unreadable. "Why is everything..." John's face contorted in anger as he walked toward the center of the room. "Always...MY FAULT?" John furiously kicked the small table by Sherlock's chair across the floor.
Mrs. Hudson jumped. "Oh, the neighbors!" She hurried away.
"John, listen. Be calm and answer me." Sherlock spoke his next words slowly and precisely. "What is she?"
John fixed his gaze on Mary. "My lying fiancee?"
"No. What is she?" Sherlock repeated.
"The woman who has lied to me since the day I met her?" Mary sadly gazed back at John.
"No. Not in this flat, not in this room. Right here, right now, what is she?"
John smiled humorlessly as he realized what Sherlock was saying. "Okay." He looked over his shoulder at Sherlock. "Your way. Always your way."
Clearing his throat, John picked up one of the dining chairs and none too gently placed it down, facing the two armchairs in front of the fireplace. He looked at Mary. "Sit," he commanded.
"Why?"
In a tight, angry whisper, John replied, "Because that's where they sit...the people who come in here with their stories. Th-the clients, that's all you are now, Mary. You're a client. This is where you sit and talk." John gestured toward the armchairs. "And this is where we sit and listen, then we decide if we want you or not." John walked over to his chair and sat down, adjusting the cushion behind his back.
After a beat, Sherlock shifted out of Molly's support and walked by himself to sit down in his own chair. Molly watched his journey across the room carefully, assessing his health status. Mary watched Sherlock as he sat, then looked at John, who was slumped and not meeting her eyes. She slowly walked in between them and turned to sit in the dining chair, setting her shoulder bag on the floor beside her.
From the doorway, Molly uneasily watched the scene unfold. Mary adjusted her coat around her, dusted off the top of her legs, then turned to John as he looked back at her.
Mary placed a small flash drive onto the table beside John's chair, then withdrew her hand. Sherlock looked at the letters written on the drive.
"A.G.R.A. What's that?" Sherlock asked.
Mary cleared her throat. "Er...my initials." John grimaced and looked away. Mary continued, "Everything about who I was is on there." Mary spoke directly to John now. "If you love me, don't read it in front of me," she pleaded.
"Why?"
Mary held back tears. "Because you won't love me when you've finished..." John held her gaze. "And I don't want to see that happen."
With a loud sigh, John snatched the hard drive from the table and shoved it in his pocket. He pulled himself in a higher sitting position in his chair.
"How much do you know already?" Mary asked Sherlock.
"By your skill set, you are, or were, an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You're on the run from something, you've used your skills to disappear." John shook his head, not believing what he was hearing. Sherlock continued, "Janine knew your secret, which is why you were going to kill her."
"The stuff she had on me, I would go to prison for the rest of my life." Molly's eyes widened and she straightened up. That sounded familiar.
"So you were just going to kill her," John stated.
"People like Janine should be killed. That's why there are people like me."
"Perfect. So that's what you were? An assassin? How could I not see that?"
Mary spoke quietly. "You did see that...and you proposed to me." Mary nodded towards Sherlock. "Because he's right. It's what you like."
"So...Mary," Sherlock spoke in a tight voice. "Any documents that Janine has concerning yourself, you want extracted and returned." Sherlock didn't mention Magnussen's visit in the hospital, and his cryptic message that Janine would be taken care of. Sherlock didn't need Mary worrying that someone else knew about her past.
"Why would you help me?"
"Because..." Sherlock breathed heavily. "You saved my life."
"Sor-sorry, what?" John asked.
Sherlock looked at Mary. "When I happened on you and Janine...you had a problem. More specifically, you had a witness. The solution, of course, was simple. Kill us both and leave. However, sentiment got the better of you. One precisely calculated shot to incapacitate me, in the hope that it would buy you more time to negotiate my silence. Of course, you couldn't shoot Janine. On the night that both of us broke into the building to search for Lady Smallwood's documents, your own husband would become a suspect. So, you calculated that Janine would use the fact of your involvement rather than sharing the information with the police. And then you left the way you came. Have I missed anything?"
"How did she save your life?" John asked.
"She phoned the ambulance."
"I phoned the ambulance," John corrected.
"She phoned first. You didn't find me for another five minutes. Left to you, I would have died. The average time for a London ambulance is..." Sherlock looked at his watch. The clatter of feet arose from the stairs and two paramedics ran into the room. "...eight minutes."
"Did somebody call an ambulance?" a paramedic asked.
"Did you bring any morphine? I asked on the phone," Sherlock said.
The paramedic looked puzzled. "We were told there was a shooting."
"There was, last week." Sherlock held two fingers over his wrist. "But I believe I'm bleeding internally and my pulse is very erratic." He put his arms on the chair and started to push himself upwards. "You may need to restart my heart on the way." Sherlock's knees buckled and John, Mary, and Molly hurried forward to support him.
"Come on, Sherlock. Come on," John coaxed. The two paramedics came and took a hold of him.
"John. The danger is over now. No one is going to threaten Mary, I guarantee it." Even though Sherlock knew Magnussen had information on Mary's past, Sherlock had a feeling Magnussen wouldn't be using it. "You can trust Mary. She saved my life."
"She shot you."
Sherlock half nodded. "Er, mixed messages, I grant you." Sherlock grimaced and cried out in pain.
"Sherlock? Sherlock. All right, take him," John said to the paramedics.
The paramedics laid Sherlock down on the floor and put an oxygen mask over him. While they continued working, John and Mary stared at each other, assessing what to do next.
Well, that was tense. This chapter is a little shorter than the others, but it felt like a good ending spot. Please review and tell me what you think! I would love to hear your thoughts about the story so far.