Hello my dear readers, just one chapter today, my next exam is looming ahead (ugh) and I completely underestimated how much time editing takes … one of the many things I've learnt with this story!

As always, thank you.

Defeated by Biscuits

There was no doubt now: Sherlock was running a fever.

They managed to keep it low, but John sighed and groaned and worried himself silly. He took the blood and urine samples himself and assisted with all other examinations, trying to determine the source of the infection. He watched as yet another massive dose of antibiotics dripped into Sherlock's blood, wary of an allergic reaction.

He breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out that Sherlock had not developed some major complication but struggled with an infection of the urinary tract caused by the Foley catheter – that was bad enough, but almost unavoidable when the catheter was in place for a longer period of time.

For once, Sherlock responded well to the treatment.

"Jesus," John sighed, "I'm glad you're not awake right now. UTI hurts, and you'd be unbearable."

Sherlock was lying on his side, and John gently dabbed the sweat from his face and neck. Folding the wet towel into a mitt, he slipped it under the blanket and softly rubbed down Sherlock's back, massaging his stiff muscles. The coma was taking its toll: his cheeks were sunken and his skin had that papery look John could not help but associate with death.

Later, he settled in his chair again and took out the phone. "So, how did it go in Helsinki? Did you get that bastard involved in organ trafficking?"

He scrolled down. Another picture: looking the same as in Oslo on the train, but Sherlock wore his hunter's expression, a look of fierce determination. Quite scary, John decided.

John,

I have landed at Vantaa airport (very relaxed security and even more relaxed employees, yet efficient) and I'm in a cab on my way to Helsinki. Bjerkeholmen is sure to stay in the most prestigious hotel, the Kämp. In comparably small cities such as Oslo or Helsinki, it is much easier to gather information – really, there are not that many places where the rich spend their time. I'm going to break into his hotel suite tonight while he is dining with an escort girl; I will have to be quick since Bjerkeholmen does not waste much time on preliminaries. He'll be in his bedroom with her soon enough.

I am slightly uneasy and in a hurry to finish this task, considering this whole business does not get me any closer to returning home.

I miss Baker Street. Very much. And … your praise. It seems solving puzzles does not hold the same thrill it used to – no, I'm not being precise: it does hold the same thrill, but I'm deprived of my reward.

Ever the addict. It seems I found a new drug.

S

Shocked, John looked up: "What do you mean, a new drug? Sherlock? Are you taking anything?" Horrified, he turned to the diary again.

PS: Don't be silly. Your praise is my drug, John. Really, you're so predictable …

"Huh," John snorted. "You have me all figured out, haven't you? Sherlock,"John looked up again. "You were doing the right thing. Even if it delayed you. Just wanted you to know that." John cleared his throat. "So how did the mission go? Huh …"

John,

Waiting is certainly the most hateful thing about being on a mission.

I went down to the South Harbour, (Etäläsatama – by the way, Finish is an interesting language, and they do make decent coffee in Helsinki). I was watching the huge ferries going to Stockholm and that reminded me of my childhood … we were on a ferry once, and my memories are not fond – I almost fell overboard and I got a thrashing for my curiosity – the only good thing about it was that my parents blamed Mycroft. But this does not matter here. I just mention it because the wretched memory made me think of home and Baker Street, and it made my heart beat faster, but it also made me … sad, I guess, for I had originally planned to return around this time. I am nowhere near that.

I'm standing on the steps of Helsinki cathedral (beautiful outside, disappointing inside – they've even screwed the man-sized cast iron candle holder to the ground – who would run off with that?).

I think about how odd the huge chimneys of the ferries look, visible even here, sticking out above the rooftops, marring the sky with clouds of black soot. I'm wondering about the emission of dust particles, and I may have an idea for an interesting experiment, but this will have to wait until I'm back at Baker Street. I'll note it down.

John chuckled. "I hope you still know about the experiment, you can do it once you've moved back in. Just, Sherlock, don't set off the smoke alarm again, okay? You know how it scared Mrs Hudson last time." John smiled and turned back to the phone.

I'm rambling. I can't believe it. (I can delete it later. I will).

John, I apologise, I have been so focused on what I'm doing that I completely neglected to explain what it is I'm doing. I do get lost in my mind sometimes, failing to explain myself, I'm sure you remember. Without your interruptions and your demands to fill you in on the seemingly obvious, my mind just runs away with this endless torrent of thoughts.

It is quite simple, actually. Of course, I cannot take out all of Moriarty's net. What I need to do is rather straight forward: eliminate anyone who knew about us and Moriarty's threat. However, finding the respective culprits is not as easy as I thought, and I keep stumbling over information on all kinds of illegal activities. I pass it on to Mycroft, but now he is the one who demands that I take on jobs that are not relevant for my return. I guess my meddling brother considers me a windfall – a dead man stalking criminals. Very useful indeed.

My plans for tonight are set, now I have to wait, and I can't do it in my hotel room, because I would spend the time staring at google earth images of London, and then I would try to hack into the surveillance cameras to get a look at Baker Street and possibly … it is distracting. So I went for a walk again, and I find myself standing at the tip of Katajanokka, a peninsula – kataja meaning juniper, but there's no juniper here, just icebreakers; what a simple technology, yet impressive.

The days are very short at this time of the year, but it is sunny, with a bright sky, and the harbour is full of floating ice. What makes it uncomfortable, however, is the wind – it seems to cut into the skin and feels much colder than the minus 10 degrees.

I found myself missing London's winter greyness, slush and fog and all.

I have to go. It's time. Wish me luck.

S

John watched Sherlock lying there, oblivious. 'Missing London,' he thought. 'You sound lonely, there, in that cold town.'

"You're back now, Sherlock," he said aloud. "You're home. I promise. Fog and all."

Sighing, he opened the next document and was about to start reading, when he stopped, staring at the text. "Sherlock, I'm not sure you want to hear this," he remarked quietly, feeling his heart sink. "Looks like that mission didn't go too well. But you need to know, don't you?"

John

it went all wrongI'm all right biw# now

at least not blrrinh ## bleedig anymore Bjerkeholmen is dead but so is the girl

I killed her I –

my fault

I din't mean to, it was an accident her eyes –

I'm rambling it feels my mind is boiling imgaes burnt intio my brain –

mx fingers cant type proper

need to calm down.

Its no use, if I get worked up Ima only goin to pass out again so I'll try to be coherent and tell you what happenned facts not sentiment that should heöü help.

TYPE PORPERLY FOT GODS SAKE1

Bjerkeholmen did not keep any useful information in his hotel suite. Mycroft's reconnaissance was useless! Instead, Bjerkeholmen had been invited onto the private yacht of a Russian magnate – the yacht was lying in the South Harbour, opposite the old market hall, and this was were he kept his laptop and everything he needed to do business. Apparently, he was about to conclude a big deal with the Russian, but I ruined it.

I managed to make the whole disaster look like a break in gone wrong, I don't think they're on to me. But I am now on to the Russian.

John stopped reading and looked up at Sherlock, a sense of dread filling him. "I'm sorry you were so shaken. Must have gone terribly wrong. Mycroft really wasn't up to his standards, huh? But you have to grant him that he is forced to rely on other people, and they are mostly idiots."

John skipped ahead before reading aloud – and spluttering, he reached for his glass of water, taking great gulps. "Jesus, Sherlock," he muttered. "Okay, here we go."

It was appallingly easy to get on board the yacht – only because we were in Helsinki and no one was supposed to know, the Russian pretending to be an innocuous business man, and he must have done a good job if he escaped Mycroft's notice. I'll have a word with Mycroft over this.

Anyway, I went on board and hid in the guest bedroom, biding my time. The Russian was supposed to arrive later at night, so Bjerkeholmen enjoyed his date at leisure. He did so quite loudly, and it turned out the man has a taste for erotic asphyxiation – very useful to me, since he made the prostitute tie him to the bed post and put a plastic bag over his head. That saved me a lot of work, and more importantly, no one would be suspicious about any kind of noise. All I had to do was walk out of the closet, put a hand over the girl's mouth, plunge the needle with the anaesthetic into a muscle and wait until she passed out. Very neat. Irene Adler knew why she relied on the method.

Admittedly, the putting 'the hand over her mouth' did not work so well because her mouth was busy with a certain part of Bjerkeholmen's anatomy, but then again she was so focused on her task that she never noticed me, and I simply jabbed the needle into her upper arm. She stiffened for a moment, biting down hard, but the anaesthetic worked promptly, which was fortunate for Bjerkeholmen, because she went limp before biting anything off. His scream was impressive, though. But, as predicted, no one was bothered by it.

John coughed. "No one was bothered by it? Are you joking? I bet Bjerkeholmen was very much bothered by it, Sherlock!" John took a deep breath and tried not to imagine how that bite must have felt. Bjerkeholmen may have been a criminal, but really … John involuntarily squirmed in his chair. He turned back to reading again, then suddenly halted. He stared at Sherlock. Had he just moved his eyelids?

"Have you just moved your eyelids?" he dumbly repeated what his mind supplied. He put the phone aside and bent over Sherlock. "I bet you were rolling your eyes at me, weren't you?"

He waited and watched.

"Yes!" John exclaimed. "You definitely just moved your eyelids! Can you do that again? Or better, open your eyes?"

He stood and stared, but nothing happened. "Well," he growled with frustration. "Shouldn't get my hopes up, should I? Back to the book, then. Pardon, phone."

I searched the room and found what I had come for; I packed Bjerkeholmen's laptop and phone into my rucksack and erased all traces of my presence. Funnily enough, Bjerkeholem's death would have passed for an accident. All I needed to do was tighten the collar around his neck until he asphyxiated – which is exactly what I did, and he complied promptly.

No, I do not have any regrets, John – he stole other people's organs and there was no way I could have sent him to prison. It was an efficient way of solving a problem.

I had to get the prostitute off the boat, however – it was likely that she would be killed as punishment for her accident on the job, and I could not risk her revealing my participation. My original plan had been to simply tie and gag her, leaving her behind. The circumstances would have pointed to a burglary or a competitor eliminating Bjerkeholmen, but now the blame fell on her.

Unfortunately, dragging a tall and rather plump Swede (she belonged to the Swedish speaking minority of the Finnish population) all over the boat without being noticed proved fairly difficult. I would have managed – but the anaesthetic wore off too quickly. I have no valid explanation for this; maybe I miscalculated her body mass, or, more likely, she had a drug history, and possibly a high metabolism, processing the anaesthetic too quickly. In any case, she stirred and started screaming at the top of her voice instantly, despite being barely conscious.

This finally attracted the attention of the guards. I found myself fighting two Russian thugs while dragging the kicking and screaming girl on deck. How she managed to get to the knife in my pocket, I do not recall – but she certainly knew how to use it. Had she been more coordinated, she would have succeeded in killing me; instead she just slashed along the side of my head, causing a profusely bleeding wound, which was extremely annoying because it obscured my vision.

I have a gap in my memory here: somehow, we both went overboard. As you recall, John, it was winter and the harbour was full of sheets of floating ice. I hit my head; it took me a while to come to and when I did, I was sinking down fast, so I had to abandon the rucksack. When I surfaced, she was already dead, her upper body lying on a floe, arms splayed, her eyes the same colour as the greenish ice. They had shot her in the chest.

I managed to dive between the sheets of ice and exited the water further down, hidden between boats; my escape route took me straight across the local park (Kaivopuisto) and into Eira, a rather expensive quarter with newly built high-rise residential buildings, where I managed to hide easily.

John, the mission was a disaster, and I alone am to blame. I eliminated Bjerkeholmen, but I lost his laptop and phone in the harbour along with the data, the prostitute died because of me, and my identity was almost revealed. I can only eradicate my failure by taking down the Russian magnate. Mycroft will certainly agree. Hopefully, he will provide better reconnaissance and more resources now.

Take care, John. I'm sure you have never been as incompetent on your job as I proved to be tonight. (And forgive the spelling mistakes, my hands are shaking. From the cold, obviously.)

S

John stared at Sherlock, lying on his side, walled in by pillows, and impassive as always. He leaned forward and ran his fingers along the scar hidden under his curls. "Now I know where you got that from," he muttered darkly. "And you have plenty more. But I still can't figure out what caused the bruise under your eye – and it's bloody persistent to be still visible. Are you going to tell me eventually?"

Sherlock was breathing rather heavily, his mouth open, and he – hold on! John jumped up, flung the phone aside and knelt down next to Sherlock's face. "You were moving your eyes, I saw it," he whispered. "Do it again, please. Sherlock."

Nothing happened. John tried to calm his racing heart, but he was certain that this had not been just a random movement or a reflex. Gently, he placed his hand on Sherlock's cheek, speaking quietly. "Sherlock, I wish I could have been there in Helsinki. If we had done this together, it would not have gone wrong. It was not your fault, you idiot – how were you supposed to accomplish a one-man-mission like that? Stop blaming yourself."

And there it was again: a twitch of the eyelids, and the brows almost drawing into a frown.

John grinned. "Are you objecting to me touching your cheek? Too sentimental, eh?" He took his hand away. "I know you hear me. Just come out of your shell, Sherlock; come home. Please."

He knelt next to him a little longer, then returned to his chair. "Tell me, how did you do after your dive in the freezing water? Most people would have died, you know. But you're not most people, of course." He picked up the phone again.

PS: Several days have passed and I am still in Helsinki. This is exceedingly frustrating, but as much as I long to go to Russia, I am not yet fit to do so. Being ill is so tedious. A snail could outrun me, and probably outthink me as well. My biggest achievements today were getting to the loo without passing out, and making a cup of tea in less than ten minutes.

John, if this is what old age feels like, I prefer to die young.

Ugh, wheres the blooody bowl…

There goes the tea.

And the biscuit.

And … whatever that was.

God, my transport is defeated by Twinings and tea biscuits …

Another cup then. No biscuits this time.

PS: I promised to write to you about my feelings, and again, I have failed.

All I can say is that my fever dreams were plagued by the image of her corpse on the ice, but that's not what horrifies me. It is this: the very likely possibility that you see my dead eyes and the blood on the pavement in your nightmares now. This is my fault. Mine alone.

"No, Sherlock, it's Moriarty's fault," John said quietly. "But you're back now." He gently tucked a sweat-soaked curl behind Sherlock's ear, whispering. "Wake up. I'll make you all the tea you want and I won't leave you fighting on your own, be it illness or criminals."

Another twitch of the eyelids, and a distinct frown this time.

John smiled.