"Sherlock can you speak up?" John shouted into his cell phone. "Sherlock, I've… I can't hear you." John growled in frustration. His cell phone crackled in his ear as he paced around his mother's living room. He hated being out of the loop like this. Both Mycroft and Sherlock, acting in complete agreement for once in their fraternal lives, had demanded John's part in this mission be terminated and he return home.
Sherlock had put him on a plane back to London and gone in search of Moriarty's hideout with some of Mycroft's men. Now John was reduced to waiting for the little scraps of news Sherlock could give him when he sporadically called in. It still surprised John that they'd fallen back in together so easily. Sherlock still treated him as if he were afraid he'd bolt off again. But, John had seen the change in him.
They'd been able to spend one evening together at the hotel before the next stage in the great game. Sherlock had insisted on taking him to dinner where he'd eaten a surprising amount, never having been able to score any real food from the locals in the prison. After eating his fill, he'd felt some of his old confidence return. He hadn't realized just how badly it had been shaken while he'd been at St. Petes.
Sherlock had found a razor and taken a shower. He resembled his old self and had even managed to procure a suit, jacket and button up shirt, the bastard. John still had on his prison garb that had garnered some stares in his direction, but decided he didn't care. In the dim lighting of the restaurant, Sherlock looked like his old self, the one John remembered when they were best friends, and he felt some tight cord in his chest he'd been holding onto for years finally loosen. They'd closed the place down over a bottle of wine and a conversation that touched on everything they'd missed in each other's lives since their separation. They didn't discuss the collar, or Mycroft or why Sherlock had done any of it. They simply talked, and by the end of the evening, the wicked cord finally gave way with a last gentle tug. John didn't know what that meant for the both of them.
Sherlock paid the check and wished John a good evening. John had plodded up to his room and slept like the dead until late the next morning. He'd been awake only a few minutes when he heard a knock and Sherlock entered his room, eyes downcast. "I have to leave in a few hours. I'll drive you to the airport. You're going home."
John had allowed it. He'd felt hurt, but he knew it was once again out of his hands. And, as promised, upon his return to London, Mycroft had pardoned him. To John's surprise, his bank account, fattened and healthier than it had ever been in his life, reflected Mycroft's promised reward. However, money held little appeal just now. He honestly felt he'd abandoned his friend to enter the dragon's den alone.
It wasn't fair that John's life had resumed right where he'd left it. His mother once again met him at London, Heathrow, worried and upset at his sudden disappearance, and gave him a fierce lecture upon his return. But, she welcomed him back with quiet sobs and hugs.
Unfortunately John had been riding on the tube when Sherlock had tried to reach him earlier that day and he'd seen the blinking message icon when he'd resurfaced.
The message Sherlock left him had left John anxious and worried. "John, I'm in Sydney. We've tracked Moran and James to a little village in the Outback called Darwin. He's got a modern compound somewhere near there, very far away from prying eyes where he's been recovering from his unfortunate injuries." John had closed his eyes and run a hand through his closely cropped hair at that memory. "Mycroft won't let me be on the team raiding the compound. He's making me wait here in Sydney, John." John could hear the frustration in the detective's voice. "I have to be there. I need to make sure they catch him…both of them… I'll call back later tonight when I've got more intel." And, then he'd rung off leaving John wondering what might be happening at that moment.
Trevor's information proved accurate and he'd revealed that Walt, John's Australian mule of a roommate had been the key all along. Walt was Moriarty's inside man, working diligently with Trevor to provide information and key insider trade secrets from the gangs working from St. Pete's. While both men had been captured, tried and sentenced for actual criminal, mercenary acts, they still managed to work with outside influences to make sure Moriarty's drug business ran as usual. After Trevor revelations, Mycroft worked on Walt until he got what he wanted, Moriarty's current location. No doubt, the blonde Aussie would find himself in solitary confinement until the master criminal met his fate. Again, John couldn't muster up much sympathy for the man.
He'd busied himself for the rest of the day keeping his phone close by in case Sherlock called with news. He'd finally heard the trill of his phone. "John….can't talk long….." Sherlock sounded anxious. "You must get to safe house…. Mycroft sending over men to get you …..Mother out of London….John, he knows you're back and he's…."Then, the line when dead and John swore.
"Mum!" John shouted into the kitchen where his mother had her hands deep in a pie crust. "We have to leave the house now!"
The only thing he got from Sherlock's message was he and his mum were in danger.
"What are you on about?" she asked in confusion. I've got potatoes cooking and I can't leave dinner." She looked up at him wide-eyed and trusting.
"C'mon, Mum. No time. Here's a towel…" Something indistinct in John's gut told him to move quickly. "Leave it. Turn off the stove, yeah. Here's your purse and coat." John snagged his mother's handbag off the little table where she kept it and put his and her coats over his arm. The weather had turned cool that morning. He'd felt so relieved coming back to his mother's house after being in that prison. He'd honestly thought the worst part behind him now. Sherlock was in the line of direct fire, not him. He should be able to breathe easy now, but he hadn't been able to relax since returning. He knew the snake would strike and soon. It was just a matter of time.
However, all he could think of at that moment was he didn't want his Mum to be cold as they fled her home and the comfortable neighborhood where he'd grown up. Running away always hurt, John knew, but sometimes it kept you alive.
He'd just managed to tug his flummoxed mother into her coat and had decided to leave out the back door when he saw a dark shape loom up from the small window next to the back door. He hit the deadbolt just as a hard thud resonated against the wooden door. "Shit," he swore. He dithered a moment trying to decide what to do. He had no idea how many there were or where Mycroft's men were.
His mother gave a small whimper of fear. John put his finger to his lips and guided her toward the front of the house. They moved quietly forward into the living room until John heard the sound he most dreaded in the world, the bolt of a gun being pulled back. He stopped them both and put up his hands.
"Stay still, Watson!"
The front door now stood open and a large man with dark, fierce eyes blocked their escape.
John clutched his mother close. "Don't worry, Mum. He won't hurt us," John said, keeping his voice steady for the sake of the woman standing next to him. He'd do his best to get her out of this unharmed, but the look in this man's eye, Moran surely, told him he may have reached the end of his existence, finally.
"What do you want, Moran?" John managed to ask.
"Ah, you know who I am. Good, we can get down to business, then. You sit," he said pointing the business end of his pistol at his mother. John felt his gut twist at that sight and he involuntarily snarled in response. If he got the chance, he'd make him pay for that…
"You, come with me, Watson," Moran now pointed his weapon directly at his chest.
"Where are we going?" John asked doing his best to keep a seething rage from bubbling out and getting them both killed.
Smiled in a rather disarming manner and said, "If you come along quietly, I'll take you to an old friend who'd like catch up."
Breathing out a sigh of relief at the idea of taking this somewhere else, somewhere away from the grey-haired woman sitting on the sofa of her living room quaking in fear for her only son, John nodded once. "So, just me. Not her?"
"Ask another question and I'll shoot her," Moran said dropping the smile. "Let's go! We've got someone to see."
John took the required steps forward that would propel him away from his mother, taking her, he hoped, out of danger. Unfortunately every step put him right back into it, right back into the well-deep, hot tar mess of once again fearing for his life, his liberty and his loved ones. Moran, just another thug holding a gun to his temple and ordering him around, stood there secure, arrogantly sure John would comply. John clenched his hands together and decided, he'd had enough. He. Would. Not.
"No!" he said and without worrying, planning or even thinking, he brought both fists down into Moran's elbow as hard as he could. The gun went off firing a shot harmlessly into the ceiling causing a small shower of plaster dust to fall into Moran's face. But, John knew these things would happen and the combat training that had saved his life in the Army helped him to bring his knee up into Moran's crotch. John's fists drove into the base of the man's skull and he finally crumpled into a miserable ball at John's feet.
"John," his mother whispered in the gawping silence that followed. "That was amazing!"
He kicked at Moran's side to make sure the man was out before snatching the gun from his lifeless hand and then ran to pull his mother off the couch. "Let's go, now," he ordered her. "I don't know if he was alone."
She spared only one glance at the crumpled man on her floor and followed her son out the front door.