Ok, for those who need warning: Irene Adler Alert. She's there for good reasons, both in terms of plot and character development arc. But consider yourselves warned.
I do think you'll have fun with this chapter... and get some more of your desired Sherlollies out of the deal.
Again, I appreciate you all coming along for the ride so far, and your comments have been deeply welcome. Thanks! XD Keep reading: we're in the home stretch, now. I'm guessing maybe five to eight chapters more to finish up. That's a guess, but an educated guess.
Sherlock lay on his bed, as still and posed as a crusader's effigy on a stone tomb, hands pressed together, face empty—only the glow of the smart-phone screen giving away the fact that he was not enjoying the peace of the sacred dead. He looked at the time on the glowing screen. 3:38. He was still slightly drunk from earlier, but in that sobering-up state that combined the worst of rational thinking with emotional edginess and the first faint promise of a hangover—the nasty sort of hangover compounded of a day working his slow and steady way through too many pints with too little accompanying food or water and too many things upsetting him.
He was certainly not relaxed. And like many a slightly drunk and emotionally tetchy mortal, his instincts with a phone were lacking in sense...
...it should be confessed, however, he did have much better reasons for the call than most men dialing up former lovers from the depths of six-pint melancholy.
Irene? Are you awake? SH
Has no one told you that waking a woman up to ask if she's sleeping is uncivil?
I need to know if you've made any progress.
Sent you email last night.
Ah. Had not checked yet.
Do.
Can you summarize?
I'm not going to get back to sleep until you're satisfied, am I?
No.
You are an unrestful companion even at a distance, Sherlock. He could imagine her rising from the bed, sweeping on her silk robes, and padding out to the balcony to curl into the deep rattan chair to continue texting. Why are you calling?
We're running out of time. Things are getting dangerous on my end. Summary?!
Much local activity, much local violence. None appears connected with your parties or queries.
Violence?
Two honor killings in Karachi. One tribal feud that's broken out in new bloodshed. Taliban attempting to reinstate itself in the Swat District. Attack on three regional girls' schools: Taliban claims they served dual purpose as covert military ops bases; Pakistani government claims otherwise; fifteen girls dead regardless. Attack on a Christian church in Lahore. Smuggling ring seems to be undergoing an internal realignment—the kind that leaves corpses in its wake. No golden parachutes in the opium trade. But, no: none of the sort of thing you asked me to look for. Nothing that looks like any clear action, especially not anything non-local. Feints, yes: dozens of feints. False leads. Smoke and mirrors. Misinformation. People running round and round like the Caucus Race in Alice. But nothing that looks like more than that.
Her report rolled up the screen a sentence at a time, each new entry another set of facts leading him nowhere.
Nothing more than that?
Just local gossip, all of a more or less domestic nature. There's been an outbreak of gang rapes aimed at "Westernized" women and schoolgirls: Sabiha is afraid to go out alone. She's joining a "modesty group" Madame Kanum and her sons have put together to protect the daughters of the family—they've been organizing local women to provide buddy-system travel and meetings for mutual protection. I'm afraid I may lose Sabiha. I'm .a Western Harlot: mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
He considered whether it was appropriate, mandatory, or merely gauche to offer Irene condolences on the possible loss of her lover. It was one of those social niceties not covered in his upbringing—and he'd long since realized his social intuition was complete bollocks. He chose to ignore the question.
None of that fits. No indications of Western activity? Alliances, projects under way—are the Americans sending out drones? Anything at all?
The only Western Activity is Westerners looking for Western Activity—and only finding each other finding nothing to report. Round and round the mulberry bush...
Sounds like one of your sex games.
Only for the orgies, dear. Group activities. Maybe party favors for the winners.
Someone tried to kill me the other day. Me and a friend. Then they tried to capture another friend. They're looking for information, but I can't even see the shape of its shadow on the wall, much less the sort of details they've got to be after. It all points out your way. You're sure there's nothing more?
"Sure" is not a word I'd use in this sort of situation, darling...and I don't have the interest in higher maths to describe it in terms of complex variables of probability.
You weren't bad at the calculus to describe sperm motility in baby oil. Remember the sperm races?
Remember? Of course. But, Sherlock, dear, I still think there are better ways to occupy an afternoon than checking to see what sperm reaches the end of a microscope slide first.
He remembered the intimacy of other days—easy, painless, navigated with no difficulty and left behind with no regret. He touched his lips, sense-memory of mere hours before making more demands on his always uncertain emotions than had all the months spent in Islamabad.
It made no sense...
Irene—what are we to each other?
Pardon? Sherlock—have you been drinking?
What's a few beers, more or less? What are we? Lovers? Friends? Compatriots? Colleagues?
Do you really want an answer, love?
Yes.
You won't like it.
I don't need sympathy, I need information.
We're non-competing apex predators with fringe benefits.
That's all?
That's never all, dear. But it's a reasonable starting point. We're tigers together. It's lonely out here in the jungle, and the water buffalo are so dismally boring. We fascinate each other, like mirrors fascinate budgies.
Oh.
How many other tigers do you know, Sherlock?
Mycroft. Moriarty. You.
And? How many that you'd willingly misbehave with? And please don't count Moriarty—necrophilia's beyond even my kink.
Misbehave?
Shag, Sherlock.
You.
Case closed, tiger.
Have you ever done more? Real love?
Sherlock? What's wrong? This isn't just beer talking.
Nothing's wrong. Have you?
It's what I'm best at, dear. Doomed love. Sappho and I could sit together in a bar singing the blues in tight harmony.
So instead you do tigers?
And water buffalo. Lots of meaty, stupid water buffalo. The water buffalo pay better. The rare tigers keep me sane...
I'm sorry about Sabiha.
So am I. Sherlock, if the attacks on you are in London, maybe everything pointing toward my end is just an illusion. What's going on at your end that's really important?
I don't know. Mycroft's out of the game, and until he's better—and has his memory back—I can't ask him to show me what's not right.
And his people can't do that for you?
They're not tigers. And even if they were—I'm only sure of a fraction of them.
Not good. Odd though you may find it, I'd prefer you stay alive. As tigers go, you burn rather brightly. Be careful.
I'm working at it. Keep looking—let me know if you find anything.
I will. Sherlock? I don't know who has your heart in knots—but even the doomed loves are worth it. I'd rather sing the blues over Sabiha than have no songs at all.
Sentiment. I would have thought you'd have given it up by now. It's deadly.
No, love. It's life that's deadly. It's the loves that make it worth enduring.
All hearts are broken.
Yes...
I don't want to go there.
It's not like you have a choice. The heartbreak's built in. All lives end. All loves are lost, ultimately. Good night, Sherlock.
I do have a choice. I'm married to my work.
Then consider taking up polyamory. The work's a cold damned mistress if it's all you have.
It's mine.
You're deluding yourself.
I don't do heartbreak, Irene.
We all do, my dear Mr. Holmes. Tears before teatime, no matter what. Now, please—let me sleep. I'm sad, and out of ideas.
Me, too. Sleep well.
Fat chance, after this conversation... Night, Sherlock.
Night.
He clicked the phone shut. It was now 4:10, and he was still half-past sober, with the beginning of a headache.
Worse, he was already off-pattern on sleep, and it was getting worse, not better. If he wasn't careful he'd be out cold on the lino again in no time. For the first time in his life age was becoming something he had to at least consider...what he'd been able to do easily in his twenties on cocaine was harder to sustain in his thirties without.
He forced himself into a deep doze—not true sleep, but better than nothing. He even dreamed—vivid little lucid dreams with gem-tone images that terminated suddenly in the remembered touch of a kiss.
He sat upright as though on springs and hinged cantilevers.
He was going to have to discuss this with Molly Hooper. She couldn't be allowed to disrupt his equanimity this way. Not to mention disturb his sleep. He needed his sleep! She'd said so herself!
He even indulged in a few frenzied moments of affront for Greg Lestrade's sake—he was dating her, after all! Didn't he deserve more loyalty from her? Lestrade's easily imagined snigger ended that particular attempt at emotional evasive action. Indeed, the thought set Sherlock into a mental crab-scuttle away from the entire concept, as he imagined Lestrade's cheerful, teasing, "Why don't you kiss her back, sunshine? See where it gets you..."
"I already know where it gets me," he grumbled. "It gets me in trouble. I don't do this. I don't do feelings. I don't do it at all." He checked the time; it was 5:51. Soon it would be morning, though the sun was coming up later and later. He had a few hours before sunrise.
He rolled on his side, pulled the sheet over his shoulder, and nestled into the simple, clean-lined full sleigh bed. He again hooded himself in sleep. He dreamed of two ravens in a vast oak tree, murmuring that they'd be with him always, from cradle to grave, and a few detours wouldn't change that. Then they lifted off, seeming to soar like kites in a strong spring wind. They disappeared into white sky. As he woke again, someone—the crows, or Greg, or maybe Irene, seemed to say, "Tears before teatime."
He snarled at the odd dreams, and proceeded to shower and dress. Anything else seemed futile.
XXXXX
"Sherlock, dear, do you think you could possibly move? I can't reach the kettle, love, and if I don't have a cuppa..." Mrs. Hudson, like a number of others in 221B, was decidedly under the weather. "You've been standing there for three minutes, just staring. And you're about to drop your mug. And why are you down here, anyway? You do have your own kitchen, after all..."
"Blame Donovan and Anderson," he mumbled, moving aside to let his landlady pass.
"Donovan and Anderson? Oh, those nice friends of yours from MI5! So affectionate—a darling couple."
"Wrong on all counts, Mrs. Hudson. Well—aside from the affection, if you must call it that. I myself consider it nothing more than an example of a reflexive death-wish on both their parts. Unfortunately, they're currently acting out their suicidal tendencies in my kitchen. What were you thinking of, letting that mob in yesterday?"
"Sherlock, lovie, you're not a nice man when you're hung over. Can you grab that bottle over on the window sill? That's a dear. A couple of aspirin and some herbal soother should do the trick."
"Are you intending the soothers for you, or for me?" She gave him a look of maternal disapproval, and he snorted in spite of himself. "Oh, stop. You look far too much like Mycroft when he thinks I'm misbehaving in public."
"Oh, the way he looks all the time, you mean?" she teased, before gulping down two pills with a glass of water, then picking up her own mug of "special" tea. "Sit down and I'll make us some eggs and toast. How is Mycroft, anyway?" She stirred around the kitchen, collecting ingredients and equipment. When Sherlock didn't answer, she turned, frowning. "Sherlock, dear? Are you all right?"
He twitched, eyes guilty. Near eidetic sense-memory was not proving his friend that morning. He kept weighing the importance of the touch of lips... "Fine. Just fine. "
She studied him, frowning. "No, dearie, you're not, you know."
"Nothing a hot cuppa and brekkie won't solve," he said, with pretended cheerfulness. He forced a grin.
Mrs. Hudson shuddered, and flapped her hands at him. "Oh, do give over, Sherlock! That's as ghastly as an undertaker selling tooth bleach for corpses. Put your ordinary face back on—I'm used to it by now, and it won't put me off my breakfast."
She was such a comfort to him. Silly slippers, silly bathrobe, themed tea-and-scones apron tied over it all. And that sense of humor, ten times as big as she herself was? It had been years since he'd sat in this kitchen, being teased and fussed over...and he'd feared, for a while, that she'd never let him back in again...
"I missed you," he said. The words ambushed him—the feelings ambushed him.
She froze, eyes growing big as she registered what he'd said. "Sherlock?"
"While I was gone. I missed you. I've missed you since I came back, too."
They stood together in her kitchen, with the silent, sleeping house around them and the room filled with the sounds of the city waking on a slow Sunday morning. Her eyes went soft, and she cocked her head, a little London sparrow. "Oh, Sherlock, you silly, silly boy. You do make things hard for us all, don't you? Oh, stop looking so shattered—come give us a hug, you clot." She opened her arms to him and he stepped in, holding her tight.
Her hands slid around his back, finding the tension, patting him gently. "Sherlock, love, what's wrong?" He just shook his head, silent. She sighed, then. "Words, Sherlock—try using words. They're all the rage, now, you know. Don't make me try to deduce you. You won't like the results."
His head bowed over hers. Hanging on tight, he said, "Try, Mrs. Hudson. Please? I don't know what's wrong. Maybe you can work it out."
She stepped back and studied his face, frowning slightly. With a sigh she stepped to the counter and grabbed a tissue from the box, coming back to wipe away tears that hadn't quite fallen from the corners of his eyes, making no other comment on his lapse. "Did you let yourself think at all about what was happening back here while you were gone, Sherlock?"
He looks guiltily away. "I—When I talked to Mycroft, I just wanted to know you were all well. Alive. It was enough."
"Stop that. I'm not scolding you for not caring about what was happening with us—though I may some other time. Look, sit down, drink your tea, and let me think while I finish cooking. We'll never eat at this rate. No, wait—make the toast, and get out the butter and the jam. You can make yourself useful for a change, lovie. And fill the kettle again—I think we're going to need it, today. Going to have a lot of sore heads come through later." In next to no time she was serving up plates filled with scrambled eggs and sliced ham.
"There," she said, sitting at her little table and pouring out a new cup of tea from the pot Sherlock had brewed. "Now we can talk properly. So, let me see if I understand this. You ripped your life to pieces, faked dead, ran off to play soldier of fortune with Mycroft's people—and came back thinking you'd just pick up where you left off, didn't you?"
"More or less," he admitted. "Mostly. Pretty much entirely."
She smiled, a bit sadly. "So you came back and it was all different. Just like Peter Pan coming in the window only to find Wendy'd grown up. Poor boy..."
"I am not Peter Bloody Pan." He glared across the little table at her. "I'm not! Why does everyone accuse me of it?"
"Everyone?" She sniggered—fought to hold it back—sniggered again, covering her mouth with her hands. "Sorry, dear. But... Not that they're not right, but everyone? John? Greg Lestrade?"
"Molly accused me of it yesterday," he grumbled, leaning back over his breakfast. "Good eggs, by the way."
"Now I know there's something wrong—you're flattering my cooking," she said, tartly. "And good for her for hitting you with it, by the way. You're worse with her than with anyone... like a little boy who has to show off by shoving and bragging and calling names and pulling braids. I swear, you're dreadful to the poor girl—and her thinking the sun comes up in your smile!"
"Not any more she doesn't," he said. "Now she's all interviews and dating Lestrade and getting herself half-killed in hostage situations. Everything's changed. John's getting married. Mycroft's..." That one stopped him, and he frowned. "But that's not because of me leaving... Mycroft just got sick."
"It's still something you're not used to, dear. You don't like things changing. You're as set in your ways as an old bachelor—downright finicky, to tell the truth. No wonder you're all at sixes and sevens. We all went off without you, didn't we? And this horrible situation with your brother's only making it worse. Counted on him for more than you let yourself know, didn't you?"
"Mmmph." He concentrated on spreading marmalade on a piece of toast, rather than meet her eye.
"You're pouting, Sherlock. Leave that lower lip out like that and a little birdie's going to come perch on it." She flitted a hand lightly, miming a little bird preparing to land.
"Not if it wants to remain unbitten, it won't." He chomped into his toast, showing plenty of tooth in the process.
She giggled again. He had such a hard time resisting Mrs. Hudson's giggles. How odd to realise he loved best those who somehow took him least seriously...or who at least regularly failed to take his efforts at curmudgeonly reserve with much more than passing laughter. It wasn't rational at all, and if asked he'd have said otherwise before today. It was true, though.
"Mycroft needs to take lessons from you, Mrs. Hudson. He'd be much easier to take if he learned to laugh at me."
"He might laugh more easily if he didn't love you so much—and fear for you so badly. He's your brother, lovie. It complicates things. But he's your family."
"Not all my family. I've got you, for example-you're such a mum."
She rolled her eyes, but he could see she was pleased. "Silly clot. But—Sherlock? I missed you, too. Look, love, you need to understand..." She got up and padded in slippered feet into the livingroom, then came back with an old cardboard box crammed with various papers—letters, old Christmas cards, fading photos. She opened it and quickly shuffled through the first layer, before drawing out a thin bulletin. It was two pages folded in half and stapled. The inner was plain white stock; the outer was somber grey with a black and white greyscale photo of Sherlock that he recognized from an award ceremony several years back, for having caught a serial killer.
Mrs. Hudson's hand was shaking. He took the bulletin cautiously, and felt his heart thud as he did so. He pushed feeling aside, and kept pushing, as for some reason feeling remained in spite of his efforts. "Who put it together?" he asked.
"I believe Mycroft did. I know it wasn't John or Greg. They were neither of them in any shape to do it." She paused, then said, more quietly, "I was really afraid for them, then. Greg had his work—or, really, what he had was the effort to save his job and prove he wasn't just your dupe. John didn't even have that, though. So...I think your brother made the choices."
"He didn't tell me. I was still in England, I know that. It took weeks to smuggle me out with a new identity." He turned it over and over, cracked it open, examined the order of service. "Pure C of E. How very Mycroft." He pauses, then flips back and forth, scowling and sputtering. "Was no one paying attention? Good lord, he as good as told them I was coming back! 'The Strife is O'er, the Battle Won'? And look at the scriptures he's chosen! Good God, just because we were brought up high church doesn't mean he should have used all that folderol as a secret code! I'm offended!"
She leaned over, frowning. "It was a very nice service, Sherlock...and, really. A funeral... It wasn't as though resurrection and the afterlife was that strange a theme..."
"It was Mycroft playing silly buggers." He sulked. "I'm going to have to write out a new will, and specify that the next time I'm dead I'm to be cremated and the service is to say, 'Dead and done with.' Maybe quote a bit of Ecclesiastes and play 'Dust in the Wind.' Dump me off the London Eye when it reaches its peak. I'd rather like to be spread over London, along with the grime and the pigeon droppings."
He touched the bulletin lightly, studying the front of the service program. "It isn't even a very good picture." There were dates. He touched the death-date—a date now so far in his past his brain insists on pointing out that it's not relevant any more—old history. "If I'd died, I'd be old history, wouldn't I?"
"Yes."
"You kept this." He could see that she'd rolled and unrolled it during the service, twisting it into a tight scroll. There were stains from dampness, too. He touched one, feeling the buckled, rough paper. "You cried."
"Oh, buckets! Most of us did, even Molly and Mycroft—well, Mycroft didn't cry buckets, but he did go through his pocket square quite badly and he had to sulk behind his umbrella outside afterward until he collected himself. And I don't think either of them were pretending, even if they did know you were alive. No matter what, all of us were still losing you."
"Why did you care? I'm really quite horrible, you know."
"Yes, dear. You often are. We love you anyway. I don't know what happened to all of these," she said, taking the program from him. "I think I remember Greg balling his up after the service and stomping it in the car-park after. Had nothing else to squish and stomp, I suppose, poor man. But all of us had one of these, once, for at least an hour or so. We all saw you to your grave. You just have to figure out how to catch up with us—because we can't go back, Sherlock. We can't. I don't know how to uncry the tears." Her voice broke, and she growled under her breath. "Bother. I'm being a complete muggins, now." She rose to get a tissue, but he was quicker, and pulled her back into a hug. She leaned against him, and hugged him back, clinging tight.
"I'm sorry," he said. "All I seem to say anymore. 'Sorry, sorry, sorry.' But I am. All I wanted was to save your lives. I...I need you all to live. I needed you all to be real."
"You did save us, Sherlock. You just have to remember it was major surgery, not 'take two and call me in the morning.' There are all these nasty, horrible scars, like after a C-section or heart surgery. Do you see? Sherlock, we love you—and you were ripped right out of us. It was dreadful."
He nodded. "How are you all even brave enough to try again? I'm not even brave enough to try once..."
She pulled back, collected the tissue she'd been seeking, and blew her nose, vigorously, before grabbing another and wiping her eyes. "Well, love, you might stop asking us to do all the hard work, if you want to make it a bit easier. 'I'm sorry' is well and good, but, really, love, you do demand blood, sweat, tears before you hand out any sweeties."
"He doesn't give out sweeties, Mrs.H. It's against his religion or something. Sherlock, have you been making Mrs. H. cry?" Lestrade leaned in the kitchen door, looking substantially the worse for wear.
"Oh, Greg—we've just been going over memories," Mrs. Hudson said. "Let me get you a cup of tea, love. You look awful."
"Yeah, well. I'm too tall for your tub. Where do you keep the spare blades for the safety razor? The one that's in yours isn't fit to saw timber..."
"I've got spare disposables upstairs, if you don't mind having to go past Anderson and Donovan's Lurv Fest on the way to the lav," Sherlock says. "Just take one—feel free to use the shower, too. Frankly, I'm surprised you stayed."
"Such a welcoming fellow." Lestrade accepted a mug of tea from Mrs. Hudson with open gratitude. "I dunno, sunshine. It's just—it's been a long time since I was at the kind of party where people doss in the tubs and bay at the moon. And I never expected to be at a party like that at your house, eh? How could I resist?" He slipped through the kitchen and leaned against the back wall. He looked over the table, and nodded toward the bulletin from the funeral. "That was a hell of a day. Wish you'd been there. I'd have had a lot more fun."
"I just wanted—"
"—to save our lives. I know. I understand the cost-to-benefits ratio, I know why you and Mycroft did what you did. It just doesn't really make it all that much better, eh? The hurt that keeps on hurting. Nothing you can make of it. For a while there I wasn't even sure you were that glad to be back, y'know?"
"As I recall, when I returned you greeted me with a handshake and an invitation to go out for beers sometime," Sherlock said, gloomily.
"Well it's not like I'm going to freak you out by giving you a bloke-hug, now is it?"
"I'm not that easily freaked, Lestrade," Sherlock growled. "You're much too convinced I'm 'delicate' or something."
"Considering the shape you were in when I first met you, sunshine..."
"Oh, no. That's years ago, Lestrade—I'm clean, now!"
"Thin as a pencil, he was," Lestrade said to Mrs. Hudson, calmly ignoring Sherlock's squall. "He drifted a yard sideways every time the wind picked up: I thought I'd have to tie him to a squad car to anchor him. And if you said anything nice to him he swore like a soldier and doubled down on his insults. Least huggable person you ever met."
"Oh, now that's just uncalled for, Lestrade." Sherlock knew he was being baited, but wasn't quite sure how, or to what purpose.
Lestrade looked up, and flicked his brows in a sort of semaphored shrug. "Hey, I'm not going to cross your boundaries, Sherlock... I figured it out years ago. No compliments, no calling you a friend, and for God's sake, no bloke-hugs. 'No sentiment,' I think you said."
"He's got a point, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson chimed in, eyes merry.
"What's Sherlock up to now?" John asked, padding into the kitchen. He caught Sherlock's eye, and said, "Anderson and Donovan—you see what they're up to?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Sherlock sighed.
"Hey, I scored 'em ten for creativity," John said, dropping two teabags in his mug and adding water from the kettle. "I'd never have thought they could manage that without knocking over your chemistry lab, me. Go figure... So what's on down here?"
"Greg's explaining to Sherlock why he shook his hand instead of giving him a hug when he got back," Mrs. Hudson said, mischievously.
"Yeah? Well, yeah. Of course, yeah," John said, his own eyes lighting like the very dickens. He exchanged glances with Lestrade. "I mean, 's not like you'd want to freak Spock out, or anything. Y've got to respect his dignity, don't you, now?"
"What's going on?" Molly said, stumbling into the kitchen. Her hair was in a frayed, frowsy braid and she'd found an oversized t-shirt somewhere to wear as a night shirt.
"The boys are teaching Sherlock a lesson," Mrs. Hudson chuckled.
Sherlock glared at all of them. "You're ganging up on me."
"Mmmmm," John agreed, amiably. "Sounds accurate enough. What do you think, Greg? Are we ragging on him?"
"Ragging? Mmmm...maybe not ragging. Having him on? Yeah, I'd say we're having him on. Giving him a bit of a leg-pull. Winding him up a bit. Takin' the piss out of him."
"No," John said, sternly. "I refuse to take the piss out of anyone but me this early in the morning, and that's already been seen to."
"All right, maybe not taking the piss out of him—I'll give you that one," Greg agreed. "What about taking the mickey?"
"Yeah, I'll go with taking the mickey..."
Sherlock gritted his teeth. "If the two of you are done, now..."
Mrs. Hudson tugged his sleeve, gently. When he looked down she whispered, softly, "Don't make them do all the work, you prat."
He blinked. "What?"
"Sherlock, for God's sake..." She cocked her head and gave him the look one might give a particularly slow bridge partner who's failing to play a crucial trump card in a tournament match.
Molly was barely resisting giggles. John rolled his eyes, and said to Greg and Mrs. Hudson, "We're just going to have to work out a code phrase and train him, I think. Like 'Vatican Cameos' means 'duck.' What do we use for 'hug your mates, you stupid bloke?'"
"'Arsenal Wins World Cup,'" Greg suggested.
"Mmmm. I'm a Chelsea man, myself. 'Free drinks?'" John countered.
"How about just 'Honey, I'm Home'" Molly said, amused.
Greg and John both gave her the look that men use to indicate that women just don't quite get it.
Sherlock, meanwhile, was finally gaining possession of a clue. "Oh," he said. Then, more annoyed. "Oh." He sighed...then grinned as Greg and John both looked at him. "Morons," he said, fondly. "Idiots. You could have just asked."
"No, dear. Sometimes you have to ask," Mrs. Hudson said, firmly. He felt her hand in the small of his back. She pushed him forward. "You know how."
Unprepared for his own shyness, Sherlock hesitated—then, warily, opened his arms.
John and Greg exchanged glances. "Now?" John asked. Greg considered. "Yeah. Now..."
They mobbed him. There was considerable thumping and back-slapping and head-gripping and hair ruffling...and when they surfaced, Mrs. Hudson and Molly were gone, and there were three open beers on the table and a note saying, "Just this once, you've earned a drink before lunch-time."
XXXXX
Later, in Mrs. Hudson's living room, he got a call from Not-Anthea.
"How's Mycroft?" he asked before she could even greet him.
"Doing better in some ways," she said. "His lungs are clear. Lund wants you to drop over today to sign off on pulling the drainage tubes and catheters, but Mr. Holmes has already given his own approval—you're mostly a formality, now, until the amnesia passes or they decide it's not going to. Beemish and Mr. Emery are crawling down my knickers trying to get an estimate on when—or whether—your brother's going to be fit to take over again."
"Do Uncle William and Mr. Beemish seem to think that's an event to be applauded, or mourned?"
"I couldn't say," Not-Anthea replied. "Which leads me to suspect they're not looking forward to it, actually. Most of us want Mr. Holmes back yesterday—and the day before yesterday, if possible. It's...not possible."
He heard the weary concern in her voice. "He's still not fit?"
"He's pulling a blank on most of the past half-year, and what he does remember is patchy. I'm reviewing everything we know about, but your brother had entire lines of reasoning he kept to himself. Even if I can re-educate him, I don't know if he can reconstruct his own private projects...and those private projects are what make the difference between him and any other Secret Service bureaucrat. Have you learned any more from your own sources? I'm getting desperate, here." He could hear that in her voice, too—a ragged, worn note of someone stretched too thin, and too concerned for too many things of importance, including her executive officer.
"Talked to my Islamabad contact last night. Nothing," he said with regret. "She's beginning to think the Middle Eastern connection is a feint of some sort, and the real action is on our end. How does that look to you?"
"Hard to say. My gut says Mr. Holmes has something in play out there—that Mr. Emery and Beemish aren't wrong to think there's something under way. But I can't find anything, either... and on this end... Sherlock, I don't like what I think I see. We've done background checks on the men who went down at King's Cross yesterday. They're not ours, but they're freelancers who work with us a lot of the time. Independent guns we use when we don't want to leave tracks. Technically they could be working for anyone, but it bothers me that I know they work for us even some of the time. That limits the kinds of connections they'd have—and increases the odds of it being someone inside our division."
Sherlock leaned back in Mrs. Hudson's armchair, pushing aside a decorated pillow that said, "It's Good to Be the Queen," with a little gold crown stitched above the motto. "You've worked with Mycroft for a long time, haven't you?"
"Years."
"Have you worked with him on many of his 'private' ventures?"
"Some. Not many. I get the feeling that a lot of his private ventures are...I don't know. Self-propelling? Finesse jobs: he knows the right domino. He knocks it over, and then sits back and watches the cascade. If something goes wrong, he's already got ten dominoes in place and he can pick the right one to correct the line of fall. I've been a correction domino a time or two. That's all."
"Subtle work?"
"The subtlest."
He thought about it some more. "Wet work?"
"As seldom as possible. Mr. Holmes disapproves of wet work. He says it's a sign someone failed to think things through before—and is going to regret not thinking things through later, too."
"He didn't mind me working against Moriarty's team."
"He said that wasn't wet work, it was just taking out the garbage. And that you had a treat coming to you."
"Should I feel honoured or patronized?"
"Both. It's Mr. Holmes. He always makes his words do double duty. His actions, moreso."
He pondered the point. After a few seconds, Not-Anthea said, anxiously, "Sherlock? Are you still there?"
"Still here. Thinking. How would you describe my brother's priority stack? What are his highest ranking goals?"
"Depends, a bit on what hat he's wearing. As one of very few globally respected anti-terrorist consultants? World peace and diplomacy. As the unrecognized unifying force behind much of the British government and secret service? The good of England. As a private citizen?" She hesitated, then said, softly, "You, sir. He's stripped almost everything else out of his life. You're what's left." She pulled herself together, then, adding, "Whenever possible he tries to find an answer that satisfies him regardless of what hat he's wearing. Rather like letting you hunt Moriarty's men. It improved the odds of world peace and diplomacy, it was of benefit to England, and you had a very good time. And you were working under circumstances where he at least knew what risks you took, and could prepare himself for anything going wrong. It's what he hates most about your usual line of work, I think—that he never knows what sorts of risk you'll take, or what kind of phone-call he may received from your Mr. Lestrade at midnight."
"I...see." The thought of Mycroft silently, constantly worrying about him was disarming. The idea that he was the one person Mycroft had left himself who could leave him that vulnerable was utterly mind-boggling. He changed the subject, determined to think things through further at a later time. "Uncle William and Mr. Beemish: where do they fall in the in-house factions of your services?"
"Both roughly right-wing. Suspicious of the EU. Both rather out of date—your uncle particularly yearns for Empire. Both old school Thatcherites. Philosophically both fond of setting enemies and allies at each other's throats, so they wear themselves out without our having to. They like plans that weaken other nations, and strengthen our own...but they'll settle for the first, as it's easier to accomplish."
"And Mycroft?"
"A light hand on the reins, for the most part. And he tends to fight patterns, not enemies or nations. What's good for England is peace, liberty, and alliances. I think he sees England itself as being a particular pattern in history—one he wants to see prevail, by any name, and in any nation."
"So...you'd consider my brother to be at odds with Uncle William and Mr. Beemish? Philosophically, that is?"
"No, sir. Mr. Holmes would see that as a waste of his time, for the most part. He'd work with them when it was effective, and dodge politely and elegantly when it wasn't. But—they might consider themselves at odds with him. Philosophically or otherwise."
"I see." He sighed. "Look, I'll try to get over to talk with Mycroft later today. But in the meantime, keep up the watch, and keep doing what you can to bring him up to date. Even if he doesn't remember everything—he's Mycroft. I'd back him with amnesia over any ten other people without."
"Likewise," Not-Anthea said, approvingly, and proceeded to give a broad report on how she was arranging things, before closing the call.
Sherlock rose, and paced the room, dodging around tv trays and dusty houseplants, pondering. It bothered him that Irene was finding nothing in the Middle East: her contacts were varied, useful, and knew few boundaries or borders. If Mycroft had been doing something, Irene was brilliantly placed to have spotted it.
But if she'd spotted it, he'd have been inclined to doubt it was Mycroft's work. Not-Anthea's comments confirmed his own growing suspicions of his brother's methods. He'd use what was natural to the area, for purposes few might even consider, and leave little if any sign of his involvement. He'd flick a well-chosen domino, and let gravity do all the work for him. Which left the matter of factions on this end—and a very real question of who was playing whom. And why...
"Sherlock?"
He spun, hands still folded, prayer-like, at his chin. "Molly?"
She'd brushed her hair and tied it in her normal side pony-tail, and appeared to have borrowed some clothes from Mrs. Hudson for a clean change. She hesitated at the door of the living room. "Yeah. Getting ready to go home, now. Just..wanted to say goodbye."
He nodded, uncertain himself. He could feel her kiss again, unnerving him, his skin remembering too clearly what his mind could not entirely grasp. "Yes. Good. I mean... have a good trip back."
"Yeah." She ducked her head, turned to go, then turned back, still staring at her toes. "I just wanted to say... I'm sorry I yelled at you, yesterday. You were right. I shouldn't have tried to keep up. I... I wanted to live up to you all, you see?"
He frowned. "No. I don't see at all."
She glanced up, then, brown eyes sad and resigned. "You—you should have seen yourselves. You and John and Greg, on the hunt. You're beautiful. You're heroes. It's...hard. Hard knowing I can't live up to that. Just... Molly in the morgue. After you... died. For a long time after that I felt like I was a hero, too. I helped. Yesterday reminded me it's not the same, though, is it? It's...I guess it's like wanting to be a star, but finally figuring out you're just a character actor. You know: the ones who are never going to get any awards that don't say 'in a supporting role'? Or like wanting to be a concert pianist, and finally realizing you're never going to be anything but an usher with a great record collection who can play a mean round of 'Chopsticks.'"
"Molly... All right, John and Greg: yes, heroes. Absolutely. I completely agree with you. But I'm just crazy. There is a difference. You do know that, don't you? I assure you, I'm mentally aberrant. I like to think I'm usefully insane on occasion, but, I mean, really: I chase criminals for fun and thrills. You really do have to recognize that this is probably not an indication of a mentally stable person, much less a hero."
Her eyes laughed at him. "And you think John and Greg do it because it's dull? Or in spite of it being exciting? Sherlock, they're adrenaline junkies, too, just like you. Even Nigel is a thrill junkie. And that's just it: I'm not. For about three minutes, I thought I could be. But the truth is, I really hated being scared—and I didn't have the speed, the strength, or the skills to play games with the big boys. I was lucky to get out of there alive. I was luckier I didn't get anyone else hurt, unless you count that nut who had me. I'm not a hero. I'm a morgue tech with a chance of a med degree. But that's it. This time—I'm sorry. I was stupid. Next time I'll remember."
His mind spun in too many directions at once. On the one hand—yes. He could see it that way. He often did see it that way: the ordinary people. The boring ones. People who stayed in their nice, safe places and did nice, safe jobs. Dull. A lesser breed. To use Irene's metaphor—not tigers. Water buffalo. He'd been quick enough to label the ordinary, certainly.
But Molly Hooper was not ordinary, and not wanting to chase criminals, or even having a tiger-mind, like he and Irene and Mycroft... that didn't make her ordinary. And he couldn't say why, any more than he could say why Mrs. Hudson was no less special than John and Greg. He just knew she was...and that he had to find a way to say so, to answer that sad, beaten expression in her eyes.
"Heroes...don't always do big things, Molly Hooper. You're more than a supporting player."
She shrugged, and smiled a little, mouse-Molly smile, as though she was too embarrassed to be comforted. "Thanks," she said... but it was quiet and hopeless. She turned to leave.
He cleared his throat, trying to figure what he could do to change this. It was wrong—and it was wrong in all the ways in which he was completely hopeless. It was wrong in the ways he usually counted on other people to compensate for his own glaring lack of talent. Which, come to think of it, did provide a clue...
"Molly? Arsenal Wins the World Cup."
She turned, frowning in puzzlement. "What?"
"Free drinks?"
She shook her head. "Sherlock..."
"Oh, for God's sake, Molly, I refuse to say 'Honey, I'm home.'" He held his arms out, uncertain. "Would you please come collect a hug before I make a complete fool of myself?"
She gave a mouse-squeak of a giggle, then cautiously approached, stepping into his embrace. Her arms eased uncertainly around his waist. He wrapped her closer, and let one hand slide up to the back of her head, pushing her gently, encouraging her to lean against him. "You are a hero, Molly Hooper. You helped save my life. You kept my secret for years. You're brave—brave enough to grow, and change. You're going to be a great forensic doctor. You don't have to chase killers to be a hero."
So strange, he thought. I can feel her fight with that—she's shivering. She's afraid to believe it.
How in the world am I supposed to deal with courageous mice? I'm an apex predator. I'm not good at this. I was much better at calling her names and ordering her around her own lab.
He risked a soft stroke along her hair. "It's all right. Really."
She nodded, head shifting against his chest. "Okay. I'll try to believe it."
"Good. But—" he looked for a properly stern voice, unconsciously echoing Lestrade. "You don't go chasing killers. It's not safe."
She snorted. "All right, Sherlock. I'll leave the killers for you and John and Greg. And that aide of your brother's. And Aqua, whoever she really is. I'll stick with y-incisions and med school interviews. That's enough adrenaline for me."
"Right." He approved. Molly would be much safer that way.
"I do want to go home, Sherlock," Molly said, cautiously.
"Mmmph." He reluctantly unwrapped his arms, stepping back...
"Ouch-ouch—Sherlock, my hair's caught in your buttons...ouch-dammit-ouch!"
He swore, and lowered his head, trying to see. "Can you..."
"No. I can't. I'm stuck..."
"Hang on, I'll try to help." He felt by Braille, finding the tangle. He twisted strands, working them around the button.
It didn't work. Had he turned the hair the wrong way, wrapping it tighter? He tried again, twisting the other way.
"Not. Working. Sherlock. Hurts!" Molly gritted, clutching his shirt as she tried to stay steady.
"I'm trying my best," he snarled back. "It's not letting go."
On the stairs in the hallway beyond, he heard footsteps, followed by Donovan's voice saying, "The Freak didn't throw a bad party, did he?" Anderson replied in a low tone—agreement, but with some sort of edge. Sherlock swore harder. It would have been bad enough for them to walk in while he was hugging Molly—quite ruining his image with Lestade's team. But for them to walk in while he was stuck to Molly, both of them hapless and helpless and obviously in a muddle after embracing? Intolerable! "Molly, move backward very slowly."
"Why?"
"Because Donovan and Anderson are coming down, and we're hiding in Mrs. Hudson's coat closet, just in case they look in here."
"Why? I mean, at the very least they could get scissors..."
He could feel her drawing a breath to call for help. He put his palm over her mouth. "Molly? Just—move. Please?"
He could feel the snort of laughter against his hand, and then a nod. "Okay..."
He eased them both toward the closet, moving as fast as he dared, trying not to panic as he heard the two coming closer. He got the door open, and muttered again. "Down—it's too full to stand. Here, follow me down..."
She giggled. "I think I'm kneeling on a pair of old go-go boots."
"Do I care? No. I do not care." He hooked his nails under the edge of the closet door, pulling it shut just in time.
"Where did everyone go?" Donovan was asking. "I wanted to say goodbye to Mrs. Hudson and the Freak—and ask the boss what was on for tomorrow if no new cases come in." She giggled then. Anderson murmured something, and there was a brief interlude of what Sherlock suspected was some serious snogging.
Molly, meanwhile, was gingerly trying to pick her hair free from his buttons. His knees rose on either side of her, her weight lay across him. It was definitely a first. He'd done any number of things with Irene in the interests of accumulating some practical knowledge and inoculating himself against future temptations. He was quite sure he hadn't done the right things to inoculate himself against this. It felt far more intimate than anything he and Irene had done, in spite of the fact that not one thing happening could plausibly count as being in any sense sexual.
Well...no. To be strictly accurate, his body was doing several things that qualified. He was trying to ignore that, though. Failing—but he was making the effort. That had to count for something, didn't it?
"I think I've got it," Molly hissed, softly, easing back. She drew her head back, and stretched, lying more fully on his chest...
And then, of course, the voices outside began again, and the footsteps approached—and the closet door opened.
Sherlock sighed, and pointed up. "I suspect your coats are up there, officers."
Donovan gaped at him—then a slow, amused grin spread across her face. "Yeah, Freak—but the good view's down there."
"It's not what you think," Sherlock grumbled.
"Of course not. You can't possibly be snogging a pretty girl in a closet, after all," Anderson snarked. "That would be much too normal. So what are you doing? Figuring out how a killer offed the victim in your latest case?"
"Kinky," murmured Donovan, approvingly. "Or he could be teaching her how to manage in other kinds of hostage situation."
"Yeah—that's possible," Anderson said, considering the idea. "We should call the boss and ask him what he thinks."
"I have pictures of your 'sex puppy' boxers, Anderson," Sherlock snarled. "And Donovan, I believe your co-workers might be very interested in your tattoo. It's quite unique."
The two looked at each other, and sighed in resignation, before looking back down. "Yeah, okay, Freak," Donovan said, "I think that's probably sufficient blackmail. You want to know the really horrible thing about this, though?"
"What?" Sherlock asked, suspiciously.
"After this—I almost like you," she said—then grabbed two coats and shut the closet door. He could hear her leave, giggling, with Anderson chortling alongside.
"No, you don't!" he shouted after them.
"I don't think they heard," Molly murmured, choking back laughter.
"Probably not," he agreed. Then, instead of doing any of the sensible things that might have suggested themselves, he let his hands slide over her back, and pulled her closer.
"Sherlock?"
"Shhhh."
"Um... "
"You do know what they were thinking, don't you?"
"I'm not stupid, Sherlock."
"No. Neither am I. If I've got to live with Anderson and Donovan thinking from here on in that I was snogging you in a coat closet, then I want a proper snog that's worth the humiliation," he said, and slipped into the first kiss he'd ever had that mattered enough to terrify him.