Sherlock was out of his seat and storming up and down the aisle at a mad pace the moment the fastened seatbelt light blinked off. He'd spent an absolutely infuriating length of time strapped in place, legs practically vibrating in frustrated pent-up energy, and he was now free to expend that energy as he wished.
And he wished to pace. And think. To him, they were currently intrinsically linked, and the notion of having one without the other was laughable at best.
'Life or death', 'life or death', 'life or death'. Be specific, Mycroft, you insufferable, umbrella-twirling parody of a man.
"Sir."
'Life or death'. Target of one of Moriarty's followers? Without direct order, must be close enough to center of web to have understood spider's processes. Moriarty's most trusted man. Sebastian Moran: elusive, at large. Uncovered plot to take down web? Possible. Discovered my role in it? Unlikely but not out of the question. Why Target John? Moriarty: Alpha, albeit strange one. Moran: Male, sexual role unknown. Lover? Vengeance?
"Sir."
'Life or death'. A choice for me? No, only one acceptable answer. Odds, game of chance or strategy. More likely. Moran's talent: sniper. Stealthy, wonderful at hiding. If found, intentional. A lure. The Black Knight lands in a tantalizing spot, urging the White Queen to move into a trap. And the Queen has fallen for it. Honestly, Mycroft, have you ever played chess?
"Sir!"
Sherlock only snapped from his thoughts when he felt the flight attendant's hand on his arm. He shrugged it off roughly and snapped at her, "Can't you see that I am engaged in a brainstorm of the absolute highest importance? Any and all distractions are not welcome."
"Sir, please come with me to the back of the plane. We need to talk."
"We don't need to do anything, as we are an entirely imaginary construct. I need to think. Out of the way."
"Sir, this is your final warning," she said in her practiced service-industry politeness. She lowered her voice to a whisper only he could hear and continued, "Come with me or I'll make sure we fly low enough to kick your irritating arse out over the Jura."
Sherlock was about to retort that there was no way she could personally see to such a thing. However, he quickly realized that even if she couldn't literally do that, she could very easily alert the pilots to a need for an emergency landing. That would only lengthen the amount of time it would take him to get to John, and God only knows what could happen in those additional hours.
He made a face like he'd just bitten into an especially bitter lemon. "Fine," he hissed and stomped after her like a pouting toddler to the rear of the aircraft.
"Sir, you can't keep pacing like that. You're worrying the other passengers," she said in a hushed tone.
"Good! Then they are in illustrious company," he snarled back.
She sighed. "Look, the crew got the message from the higher-ups that a passenger in an emergency situation was being upgraded. Obviously that's you. But all the other customers have their own things that they're dealing with, and yours is no more important than theirs are."
Sherlock marveled at her for a second. What it must be like to be a hermit crab trotting along a beach as the tide draws out miles in preparation of a tsunami. What it must be like to be an ant unaware that the shadow it's in is that of a primary schooler with a magnifying glass. What it must be like to be a person whose existence has not been graced with the presence of John Watson, and so is unaware that he is in a situation labeled "life or death". What it must be like to be ignorant that the latter option would render the world completely unlivable.
"'Obviously'? Oh, of course, you have your own deductions, I see. Well, quid pro quo, Miss Jones," he said. She frowned, wondering how he knew her name. She'd forgotten her nametag in Zurich. "Let me tell you some things that are obvious about you, starting with the fact that you are a thief."
She goggled at him. "Excuse m-"
"To begin: your locket. Silver inscribed with the number '85' and little scribbles you call the Chinese characters for words like 'truth' and 'honour' and 'faith' but what I and over a billion others call Sanskrit. Not even attributes, but names: Ajit and Lakshmi. Silver, the color of a 25th wedding anniversary. 1985, the year in which the happy couple wed, but which also doubles as the year of your birth, which is what drew your attention to this piece of jewelry in the first place."
"But-"
"'But Ajit and Lakshmi are actually my BFFsies and let me borrow it!'" Sherlock interrupted, raising his pitch in a sarcastic imitation of her voice. "Wrong. Impossible, or at least extremely unlikely for a racist like you. Yes, Miss Jones, a racist. When you were helping everyone into their seats before takeoff, an elderly Bengali man required your assistance in getting into his seat. Oh, you were all helpful glittery smiles, but the position of your eyebrows, tension in your jaw, and flare of your nostrils spoke of acute agitation. Confirmed once you turned your back on him and squirted a very liberal quantity of sanitizer into your hands. Judicious for someone who constantly works around large numbers of people in an international germ convention thousands of feet in the air? Yes, but poorly-timed. You did it immediately after helping the elderly gentleman, but not after assisting any of the paler passengers afterwards. Miss Jones, if you are going to disdain people, at least be equal opportunity about it."
Miss Jones stared at him, looking even paler than her preferred type of passenger.
"Now, when and how did you get Ajit's anniversary gift to dear Lakshmi? Easy. 25 years after 1985: 2010, the year you began working for this airline, judging by the amount of wear and upkeep on your uniform. Ajit wouldn't trust putting such a personal gift in his checked-in luggage, where things go missing nigh-constantly. No, he thought it would be safer in a carry-on bag stowed in the overhead locker. Normally he would be correct, but – not being me – he couldn't predict that he was stumbling into a scheme. I apologize for calling you a thief earlier, when in truth, you're a mere cog in a clanking mass of clockwork of a thievery ring."
"It starts at the carry-on baggage scan," Sherlock continued. "Where your compatriots keep their eyes open not only for dangerous or forbidden items, but also for promising marks: jewelry boxes, expensive electronics, luxury goods. The descriptions of worthy victims are passed on to all flight attendants involved in the ring, and if they are lucky – and the mark decidedly unlucky – they make note of where he or she places the bag in an overhead locker. Now, when do you get the opportunity to steal the actual items? Oh, there are several different ways to engineer that. On very long flights, wait long enough for the majority of the passengers to nod off and the minority of awake passengers to be so accustomed to your presence that they don't suspect a thing when you pop open the lockers for a quick inspection. When you are on a flight with pilots who are in the ring, wait until they manufacture the sensation of turbulence: 'Attention passengers, the choppy air may have caused some jostling in the lockers. Please excuse our flight attendants as they make sure everything is in order.' And if every single member of the flight is in on it and there are just so many goodies to be had, covertly pop on some air masks and lower the air pressure until all the customers feel strangely compelled to take a little nap."
Miss Jones was visibly trembling at this point.
Good. Lowering his voice further, Sherlock went in for the kill.
"But today, you're on your own. You're the only member of your band of thieves on this flight. Worse still, the pilots and other flight attendant are all very, very suspicious of all the missing item reports that have been filed against the airline over the last few years. And if a dullard like you has seen how they glance at you with doubt, then God knows I have. So you're trying to be sweet and good and absolutely innocent, and if you don't wish to have your cover blown, you will let me pace."
Miss Jones stared at him for a beat, terrified. After a moment, she reached over for the intercom speaker. Without taking her eyes from Sherlock's for a moment, she spoke into the receiver, "Attention, please. One of our passengers has special needs, and pacing is the only way for him to feel comfortable on the flight. We apologize for any inconvenience, but please be understanding."
Sherlock smirked at her and resumed pacing. His needs were special, after all, far more important and severe than anything the other passengers on the flight could ever conceive. He found himself wondering what John would have thought of the whole exchange. He probably would have made a blog out of it, calling it something inane like 'A Case of Airway Robbery' or possibly just something like 'God, I Can't Take Him Anywhere, Can I?'
John.
'Life or death.'
The tiny smile that had found its way to his lips while contemplating John's ridiculous blogging habits vanished.
'Life or death', 'life or death', 'life or death'.
He paced for an hour and fifteen minutes until he was forced to fasten his safety belt for landing at Heathrow.
Hostage situation? – SH
No.
Mycroft
Trap? Stealth required? – SH
No.
Mycroft
Sherlock growled as he glared down at the text. He barked at the cabbie to drive faster, but he could tell that the driver slowed down his speed by a third of a mile per hour out of spite. He continued to scowl at his phone for a moment before he continued texting his infuriating brother.
Send me data, Mycroft! – SH
Why? You're here.
Mycroft
Sherlock jerked his head up, nearly cracking it against the car window. After so many months gone, he was finally back on Baker Street, gazing at the one place where he had ever truly felt at home. Well, the one place that wasn't also a hideously bloody crime scene, anyway. It didn't matter that Mycroft was standing outside the door of 221B looking like a suited gargoyle. Sherlock was home and John was meters away instead of thousands of miles.
He tumbled out of the cab and lurched toward the door, but Mycroft stopped him with a swing of his umbrella.
"Move," Sherlock snapped.
Mycroft frowned at him. "You don't fully understand the situation. He's in a very delicate way. Just bursting in will make things worse."
"Waiting will make things worse!" Sherlock replied. "If you don't get out of my way –"
"Hello?" It was Mrs. Hudson's voice from the other side of the door. The knob turned, and soon she was staring at a man she'd considered dead and gone for the majority of the year. "Sh-Sherl-!" Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head as she began to faint. Sherlock dove forward to catch her and lean her prone form carefully against the wall. But moments after that, Mycroft had to move forward to keep Sherlock from toppling over himself.
Even just barely through the door, John's scent was heavy in the air, and it had changed. Sherlock's pupils dilated to wide, dark pools to the point that the pale grey of his irises were scarcely visible, and his eyes darted wildly as he processed the new information. His nostrils flared, and he took deep, sharp breaths through both his mouth and nose.
Normally, an Alpha had months to adjust to the changing scent of his or her pregnant mate, to cope with the increase in pheromones which strengthened the bond and fostered an even stronger sense of protectiveness between the partners. Sherlock got seven months of it in one sudden burst, more or less bludgeoning him over the head with intense instincts and emotions that he had zero preparation for or experience with.
So obviously his only choice was to seize Mycroft in a headlock.
"You – absolute – despicable – heinous – fat – bastard!" Sherlock growled through his teeth.
"Do you think – Sherlock, for heaven's sake! It's yours, you idiot!"
"I know that! It's obvious! I can smell when it was conceived down to the millisecond, so I am aware – very, very keenly aware – that it's mine! But seven months away without the knowledge of this, of how overwhelming John is, of missing all the observations of the subtle changes that come with –"
"I'll have you know I wasn't aware of the situation until approximately two months ago."
"Oh, two months! That changes everything!"
"I sent you a sonogram picture. It isn't my fault you keep insufficient mental records and weren't capable of deducing from there."
Before Sherlock could berate Mycroft about the fact that everyone knew sonograms were for postmortem use only, he froze. A voice was calling out in irritated confusion from further within the flat. The sound of it was sorely missed, and his vice-like grip on Mycroft's head slackened as it rolled over him.
John's voice.
John heard each heavy footfall as it got closer and closer to his new room. Whoever it was wasn't close enough to smell yet, and John certainly couldn't see anything through the bedroom door. He couldn't be sure, but the footfalls sounded purposeful (dangerous – his instincts insisted, wants to prolong anxiety, M.O. of types like Moriarty). He'd grabbed his gun from the bedside table when the loud scuffle had distracted him from his reading, and as those foreboding steps grew closer, John set his impeccably precise aim on the door.
When it opened, the pistol's sight lined up directly with Sherlock Holmes' heart.
John had never seen Sherlock more ruffled and generally poorly-kept. Certainly an impressive feat, considering some of the moods the Alpha got into. His clothes were rumpled and probably hadn't been changed in at least a full day, his hair stuck up in odd puffy angles, he'd lost about ten pounds (somehow; even before, John had always wondered how Sherlock didn't blow away in a stiff wind), and – most shocking of all – he had a five o'clock shadow. Even on their longest, least sanitary cases, when they'd run around for days without proper access to a shower, Sherlock always seemed to find a way to remain perfectly shaven at all times. It got to the point that John wondered if he was even capable of growing facial hair at all.
John's shoulders slumped as he stared at the impossible sight before him. His arms went slack, and the gun dropped from his limp fingers and skidded across the floor. "Oh," he said after another long moment of gazing, unblinking, into those dilated eyes. "I died." The hand that had held his gun found its way to his stomach. "Sorry, kid."
"No," Sherlock said hoarsely. John couldn't believe a ghost could sound and smell so God-damned amazing. "And I won't ever let you, as long as I have anything to say about it."
John's vision was starting to blur and the periphery was growing brighter by the second. He could feel himself becoming clammy, and he knew what was coming. "That's nice," he heard himself say distantly. "If you're there when – and if – I wake up, we're going to have a very long, very uncomfortable talk."
And then the world went black.
John was only half-correct: the long, uncomfortable talk would happen the second time he woke up.
The first time was very brief. He heard voices. Two of them (Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Wilson – when did she come to the flat?) were castigating Sherlock very loudly, while Sherlock's own voice breathed, "John, John, John," over and over like a worshipful prayer. He could also feel Sherlock lying on the bed next to him, skinny arms wrapped around him, and one sharp cheekbone pressed directly over the pulse of his jugular vein.
John punched the Alpha with tremendous force, but blacked out again before he could determine where his fist had landed.