The resolution of the cliffhanger... As always, beta'd by the amazing MrsNoggin. All remaining mistakes are my own.
Warning: graphic violence, blood, character death
London, 14 October 2012
It was Sunday morning on a bright and sunny day that made one forget that it was autumn, and it had everyone in a horribly cheery mood. Sitting alone at his massive dining table, Mycroft felt insulted by the weather. Cheeriness was far from his mind. He had not heard anything from John since that last text, more than forty hours ago. The trackers in his phone and equipment were dead and there was no way of knowing where exactly he was or if he was still alive. Finding out that Col. Moran and Jake Moriarty were one and the same had been a shock and one that he did not take lightly. That was two out of two SRR officers that his employees had missed during their background checks. Needless to say, the team around Mycroft had quite a few new faces to it now.
When the communication with John went dark after that last message, Mycroft had alerted his Hungarian counterpart of the presence of two agents in the country, giving him John's last know location. Without definitive proof that the mission had failed, however, he hesitated to sanction any official intervention. An early interruption could destroy whatever plan John had. Still, he felt edgy and could not shake off the feeling that things had gone horribly wrong.
It was unusual for the doctor to not inform him of his plans, but as a former Special Forces soldier, he was trained to act on any opportunity, and it could be that John had his reasons for going dark unannounced. Mycroft detested being out of the loop, but this wasn't one of his Agents, and John had proven right from the beginning that he was not susceptible to Mycroft's usual intimidation. Leaning back, he sighted and cursed whoever deity would listen for the existence of the Moriarty brothers and the chaos they had brought into his well organised life.
Pushing all those gloomy thoughts aside he concentrated on the documents in front of him, the latest intelligence report about the situation in Mauretania. After all, world politics did not stop simply because it was Sunday.
Hungary, village near Budapest, 14 October 2012
Sherlock was temporary paralysed by the recent turn of events. Time stood still as his eyes, opened wide in shock, focussed on the unmoving body of his friend. The rest of the room was just a blurry background as he tried to adjust to the incomprehensible. John was dead. Dead. The word played over and over through his mind, like a mantra, refusing to fade away. The waves of agony washing over him were brutal. And even though Jake was standing right next to him, he had never felt so utterly alone in his entire life.
Time accelerated again and he went into a raging fit and - ignoring the searing pain in his side and the weakness of his body - he tackled Jake, driven by adrenaline and pure rage.
It was not an even fight. The highly trained ex-Special Forces soldier did not stand a chance against the furious consulting detective. Sherlock was driven by a feral strength that belied his mangled body. His blows were precise and powerful. Jake stumbled under the sudden onslaught and took a second to adjust to his new opponent. In that short span, Sherlock had landed an impressive hit against Jake's head and followed the motion through with an elbow to his gut.
Jake grunted from the hits, but did not go down. Driven by the desperation of a man who had just lost the most precious thing in his life, Sherlock advanced again. He knew that he did not have the stamina for a long scuffle, so he focussed on ending things quickly. He managed to block Jake's kick with his own leg and was next to the soldier in one fluid, lightning fast move. Focussing all his strength into the blow, he curled up his fingers to make his hand more rigid, lifted his arm, and knife-handed Jake in the throat. The effect was instant and impressive. The soldier gasped and fell to the floor on all fours, trying to shake off the stun from the crippling blow.
Sherlock kicked him in the back, right in between his shoulder blades and watched the soldier collapse to the ground. Feeling the adrenaline leave his system, Sherlock dropped to the floor as well, panting hard, and ended up kneeling over Jake, one knee pressed into his back, to keep him from moving. Jake was completely still, either unconscious or death. The knifehand strike in itself was rarely lethal, but sometimes it could crush the trachea, leaving the victim to suffocate. Sherlock took a deep breath, fighting his exhaustion, and bend down, putting one hand around Jake's neck, checking for a pulse, hoping he would find none.
It was the opportunity that Jake had been waiting for. He pushed himself off the floor with both arms and threw his head backwards. Sherlock was hit hard on his nose and briefly lost his hold on Jake. The latter used that moment, turned his head and bit down on Sherlock's hand. Hard. He yelped in surprise and pain. Falling back, he pressed his unhurt hand against his bleeding nose and took a shocked look at his other hand; reproaching himself bitterly for making such a thoughtless and unwarranted mistake. There was a perfect, half crescent shaped, bleeding bite mark on it.
Jake used that short moment of distraction to twist around and swiftly grab Sherlock around the throat to pull him against his own chest. The arm tightened and Sherlock gasped for air, eyes wide in shock and fear. The arm tightened even further, slowly choking him. Jake's voice was husky from exhaustion and the blow against his throat, but he was still able to speak:
"Still so much fight in you, isn't there? I would have loved to break your spirit, but I shall be happy now to have broken your body. Just like Johnny over there."
Sherlock still struggled against Jake's iron hard hold, but it was no use. He was sure that this was it. He was going to die, and this time for real. The only consolation was that he would die next to John; they would be united in death. He welcomed that thought.
"Go ahead," he rasped with his last remaining strength, "Kill me, it won't bring your brother back."
Jake just growled and tightened his arm around Sherlock's throat. Just as his world turned to black he heard a deafening bang. It resonated through the small room like thunder, only louder and much closer. He felt the repercussion in his gut as the body behind him jerked violently. And then he was falling, Jake's arm relaxed around his throat and he found he could breathe again.
'Strange, I never knew that dying was this loud, or this painful.'
He cracked open his left eye and took a quick look around. Lying next to him was Jake Moriarty, eyes wide open and with a shocked expression on his very dead face. Sherlock blinked, his concussed brain struggling to provide an explanation for the turn of events. John, still crumpled on the floor, but now there was something in his limp hand.
'Dark... metal? ...The gun!'his sluggish brain finally supplied. But John was dead. Dead people don't fire guns. And they certainly couldn't hit Jake square in the centre of his forehead while missing Sherlock's face by less than an inch. But that meant that...
"J-John?"
Sherlock anxiously crawled over to the motionless body of his friend. He looked terrible. His hair matted with blood from a large, gaping wound where his head had impacted the wall, the right half of his face covered in a shocking amount of blood from the earlier cut from Jake's knife. It stood in a stark contrast to the white of his skin. Sherlock hesitantly reached out with a trembling hand to feel for a pulse, scared that he might find none. The weak but regular throbbing under his fingers was the best thing Sherlock had felt in a long time.
Collapsing next to his friend he allowed himself a moment of relaxation; letting all the anxiety and stress of the last weeks ebb away. As the relief that John was alive soared through him, he realised that they were still in grave danger. Jake's men were outside and neither he nor John was in any shape to fight through an escape right now. Pushing his exhausted mind into gear he frantically thought of possible solutions. Eye's scanning the room, taking in any detail that might help them, his gaze finally settled on the fallen Jake. And then the solution was clear in his mind.
He shuffled over to Jake's very dead body and grabbed the keys and a mobile phone and slowly pushed himself up into a half standing, half crouching position. He could not stop a groan escaping from his lips as agony shot through his body from the puncture wound in his side. Walking was excruciatingly painful. Slowly, he made his way over to the door and shifted through the keys to identify the correct one for the lock. Finally he found it and locked the door from the inside, leaving the key in the door. And not a second too early as he heard the hurried footsteps of several of Jake's men rush down the corridor. Confident that bullets would not penetrate the thick steel door he made his way back to John, still lying unmoving next to the wall.
After confirming that John was still breathing, he allowed himself to relax slightly. The adrenaline from the fight was leaving his system and he collapsed next to his friend. Fishing the phone out of his pocket, he started typing a message. The keys were swimming before his eyes, but he was confident that he had punched in the right number and a somewhat coherent message. He hit send. His consciousness was slipping, and he was unsure if it was due to the blood loss or the concussion and found that he did not really care either way. All he could do now was sit down next to John and hold his precious friend in his arms. Surprisingly, John started to stir just as Sherlock gathered him into his arms.
"Sh...Shrlck?"
"John, s'ok, I got you. Rest"
"J..ake?"
"Dead. You got him. Straight in the head."
"Good." Pause. Sherlock though that John had lost consciousness again. But then he looked up, a bit more alert. "You're bleeding!"
"Hmm, was ... Too slow... Doesn't hurt ... That bad."
"Liar..." John tried to reach over to Sherlock, to put pressure on the bleeding wound but collapsed back into Sherlock's lap with a whimper of pain.
"Shhhh, 'm ok... help's coming." God, since when did talking hurt so much? His lungs felt like they were on fire and his brain was working so slowly, as if finding the right words was an overly difficult procedure. He felt the blackness invite him in and found that he did not have the strength to resist any longer.
John felt Sherlock's hand go limp. If it all was to end here and now, at least he knew that he was close to Sherlock. His only regret was that he had failed to save his friend. He grabbed Sherlock's hand with his own and gave it a gentle squeeze. Satisfied to feel the faint thumping of Sherlock's pulse against his fingers he let himself slide into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness.
AN: So, Jake is finally gone. Don't think anyone will miss him, or will you?
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