-ooo-

The travel of the two fugitives would be a long one, given that in the last day they had strayed off London considerably. They split it between several cabs, as to maintain them the more untraceable. All in all, they were now returning to the epicentre of danger, for Sherlock's latest refuge.

'We need a plan.'

Sherlock snapped out of his long thought process loop and stared at John. 'Why do you keep saying that?' It was getting annoying, John's faith in Sherlock's plans, when all Sherlock could try was to keep them safe for now.

'Because we seriously need one.' John was dead serious. And stubborn.

'Go ahead then.' Sherlock challenged him, still short-tempered.

'Not me, you! This mess is now beyond any plan I can master, only you can get us out of this mess, now!'

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but disguised it by looking out the window. For once, John's eternal belief in Sherlock's almost super-human powers was taxing him. He didn't have a plan. He hardly had a good hideout. John probably figured they were back at London centre to wrap the case up, but Sherlock was drawing blanks on their most important case. He was trying to protect John, and Mary, and even himself, but right now he owed John the point-blank truth. 'Well... hm... I don't have a plan. Not yet, at least.' Well, so much for the cold-hearted truth. He was scanning John's expression now, worried how he would react.

'So, we keep hiding?' John returned, mostly oblivious to Sherlock's inner dialogue.

'Basically, that's it.'

John fidgeted on the upholstered seat, not ready to give in just yet. 'Maybe someone else can help us. We could try to talk to your brother, Mycroft.'

'Are you seriously wanting to talk to Mycroft? That's a first.' Sherlock smirked, despite himself.

'Not me, you!' John corrected at once.

Sherlock froze for a couple of seconds. He had just realized that John wanted to reunite Sherlock with his brother, out of some protective streak that called upon family togetherness. Always caring. John was worried about Sherlock. Most of all, what had stunned Sherlock beyond the capability of speech had been not the sweet push for the Holmes' family reunion, it had been that Sherlock had seen it so clearly.

'Are you insisting I meet with my brother, John?'

'Hell, if you want to put it like that, I am.' The former soldier was less than intimidated by a direct comeback.

'Fine.' Sherlock leaned forward and addressed the cab driver with a new address. John smiled softly behind his back, adjusting himself to the upholsters and closing his eyes for a while.

-ooo-

John was seating waiting on a bus station's bench. Busses that he'd never take kept passing him by, such as the constant flow of people coming and going, never really noticing that the man sitting there in a bright green jumper wasn't particularly interested in the busses.

Across the street, Sherlock was meeting with Mycroft, slightly against his will (as per usual, really, as much as he was used to freely admit).

'I wish you'd just return, Sherlock. You've been causing me to... divide my attention. There are more pressing matters at hand than you, if you can entertain the possibility. There are wars and international diplomacy issues that simply cannot be avoided.'

'I'm getting in the way of your work', Sherlock summarised, looking all around in the small bunker of an office. (Well, I'm having a blast, thanks for this, John.)

'Bluntly putting it, yes. I wish you'd just go back to Baker Street and all would return to... whatever normalcy simile you can produce of your life...'

'John's in trouble. They are even dragging me around now.'

'John could take a plea bargain', Mycroft's solution was the easy one. It seemed evident to Sherlock that Mycroft was still affected by his younger brother's injury while at John's side.

'Told you he won't. It's out of the question.'

'Perhaps the jury might view it his way and acquit him.'

'You can't guarantee that, and I won't let him go through a trial. The reporters, the accusations...'

'Are you scared he'd break?' Mycroft forced the question out, he wanted his brother to consider fully the consequences, to visualise them, as a subconscious first move into accepting them.

'A trial is not a way out, Mycroft.'

'He's already a fugitive. How long can he keep running?'

Sherlock sunk back into his chair, pondering the origin of the question. 'You've seen it through the cctv footage. That he's physically drained. Why did it bother you? You don't care, you don't believe in caring. Maybe you'd care for me, in your own way, bending your rules. But you've cared for John.'

Mycroft smiled coldly. 'Maybe it's because I have a score to settle with him. You got shot because of him, stupidly pushing him out of the way.' There it was, finally in the open. Blame.

'Your cameras were angled wrong then. It wasn't so. I was trying to keep him safe, yes, but I failed to do so.'

'Maybe I should give you a copy of the footage, then.' He opened a drawer and took out a cd.

'I don't need to see it, I'm sure.'

He pushed the disk forward anyway, persuasively.

'Study the angles. I did. I found them most enlightening.'

Sherlock shook his head. He had better than grainy footage. He had talked to the shooter, and Mary would have never shot John.

'So, you think I took a bullet for him. Mind you, it was far from fatal. What do you intend to do about it?'

'That's between me and John when the time comes. I'm not in a hurry', he commented with a gelid smile. 'He'll still be breathing by the end of it, don't be dramatic, Sherlock', he frowned on his brother.

'You're the one being dramatic, you want to hurt my best friend, and you're telling me about it, which doesn't even make sense!'

'I wanted you to be prepared, you're my brother.'

'Why did I come here for help?' he regretted honestly.

'Why indeed?' Mycroft seemed to agree genuinely, they were both shaking their heads.

'Whatever you think you're doing to him one day, trust me, I'll do it twice as worse on you.'

'Caring, again? Sherlock, just stop it and let him pay for what he did. He really shot someone, he really murdered someone.'

'I'm not that sure.'

'Good grief, are you delusional, now? What kind of hold does that man have on you? You've gone all emotional and ordinary, Sherlock. Get a grip on yourself or I'll have no choice but to pull you out of London, by force.' Mycroft would protect his brother, with or despite him.

Sherlock got up, the very thing he had wanted to do from the start. 'I'll be seeing you around, Mycroft. Congratulations on your diet.'

'Yes', he rolled his eyes, 'have fun running from the Police officers.'

'Will do.'

-ooo-

'Come on, John! Almost there!'

'If I wanted to go on a nature hike, I'd wait till I was no longer a fugitive of the police, Sherlock.'

'Isn't that boring and predictable? I seriously doubt you'd check your police status first, John.'

They smiled. 'Still, Kew Gardens?'

'I'm running out of suitable hideouts', Sherlock confessed. They were walking at a steady pace along the park, studying the scene.

'What's wrong with your regular hideouts?'

'Greg Lestrade knows them.'

'He wouldn't sell us out. Trust me on that. I'm sure.' John assumed it was a question of trust.

'Actually I'm giving him a chance to do so. This way his colleagues at the Yard won't think he's covering for you. I told him to do just that too.'

John stopped short on their walk, breathing hard.

'You sacrificed your usual hideouts for Greg and me. Well, me.'

Sherlock diverged, with a quick glance around. 'Come on, John, we're almost there.'

'And this one is called...?'

'The Blind Greenhouse in Kew Gardens, but don't get so hung up on the names. You can't write this down. What would you call it? "The case where I was both victim and sniper"?'

'Everyone can see I'd never shoot myself if I were the sniper!' John protested out loud. Sherlock looked around the park, preoccupied. He'd prefer to keep them moving along.

'The police was working under the assumption that you did it by hiring someone else for the first two shots, to diverge suspicions from the start. It's not very brilliant, I know, but it's the kind of criminals they seem to be used to.'

'If I had done the shooting I'd have hit every single time, damn it.' There was a dark shadow on John's eyes, and that self-loathing hint of a smile was re-emerging.

'True, but not your best line of defence...' Sherlock pondered.

'So, right now, to the police, I'm a lousy backstabbing poisoning sniper willing to shoot my best friend and...' He halted, shocked. 'Jesus, they must think I kidnapped you!'

'No, I wasn't kidnapped, they think I'm in Russia.'

'Jesus, they think you had to run from me!'

'Will you stop panicking, John?! We still got another half mile to go and there are a lot of potential witnesses in this park. Besides, they wouldn't expect me to run from a criminal!'

'You'd run from me if I was as described in the paper', John pointed out. 'Which actually is quite an accurate description of my overseas proven sniper abilities and chemical knowledge as a doctor so... Jesus, I really am a backstabbing poisoning sniper in potential! I'm even a better sniper than they think I am!'

'Of course potentially you are. But you're not, that's the point!' (Look at the potential criminal I'd be, another Moriarty perhaps, and stop freaking out.)

'It's like this whole case was tailor-made for me, Sherlock. The poison on the bullet casings, I could have produced it. Shooting from afar with a rifle? I could have done it further and more accurately. I'm aware of the police procedures, and I'd use your influence and my hit to get involved in the investigations. Even the real target, you, is very close to me, so motive and opportunity are granted... Everyone must be dead certain it was me at this time!'

'No.' Sherlock pronounced calmly.

'What?' John's voice was suddenly weak, lost.

'One big hole in that theory. You wouldn't have shot yourself in the left shoulder. It very nearly finished you off. Everything else makes sense, but that is a deal breaker. That's what I told Greg, he's been letting it go around in the force.'

'Yes, I'm not that stupid, nor is my alter-ego, the backstabbing poisoning sniper... Thanks... Where were we going again?'

'This way. Let's go, people are starting to stare.'

'Why can't people ever leave the two of us alone...'

'I suppose they are fond of us. I can imagine the theories out there', Sherlock frowned.

'No, you and I probably can't even begin to fathom...'

Calmly, Sherlock lead the way across the park, until they reached a smaller, locked-up white washed shed with an iron frame that provided a glass roof and some more windows around the top. Every window had been white washed in paint, presumably to diffuse the light and temperature to the greenery visible inside.

'Orchids', Sherlock explained. 'Rare exotic ones too, that don't appreciate direct sunlight, hence the blinded windows.'

'Orchids?' John repeated.

'Yeah, they grown on tree trunks in the wild, bellow the coverage created by the foliage of the trees and... Never mind, smuggling case once. Might need to delete that memory out, it's not like I need to know this... Still amazed, John?' he couldn't help asking, it wasn't as spectacular as a freak circus, but then again, it was right in the heart of Kew Gardens, and they had just payed for a daily ticket to get to this next safe place.

'Definitely amazed', John confirmed. Sherlock had just forced the lock on the door, and they head inside cautiously and discretely.

The warm humid atmosphere hit them like a breath of heat from a tropical land, and in a minute their clothes were already damp and clinging at their movements. 'Won't be cold in here', Sherlock commented.

'Glad I've once had an anti-malaria shot', John added, in medical humour. 'Shouldn't this place be better locked up? These plants can get to be very expensive.'

'Not our case, John, you may need to focus a little harder.' They were starting to bicker somewhat, out of exhaustion.

They were startled with a small noise just outside, of twigs cracking perhaps under footsteps.

'Someone is out there.'

'Could have been a squirrel', Sherlock say out of nowhere too logic.

'No, I placed those twigs on the path', John insisted.

'Wish you had a gun', Sherlock added frowning, John glared at him, but he was already peaking at the door glass panes. John mimicked him.