Moriarty walked into the room and after taking one look the the girl who lay motionless in Sherlock's arms walked back out again, before returning with a man in a white coat who took one look at the prone body and whispered something in the smaller man's ear. Jim nodded and the Doctor left the room. In the time it took for him to return with a green bag with a white cross on it, Sherlock had placed her on his coat which had been laid on the floor. He had checked her pulse half a dozen times, and was now pacing the floor in front of her, partly with nerves and partly to keep Moriarty from taking a step closer. When the doctor reentered the room, his head whipped around and her ripped the first aid kit from the Doctor's hands. Jim laughed
"You can go now" he dismissed the Doctor, "Sherlock can take care of her, can't you Sherlock?"
The tall man didn't even look up just unzipped the bag and took out the bandages and the antiseptic. As he began to apply the cream to one of the worst cuts she moaned, and her eyelids began to flutter.
"Oh looks like Sleeping Beauty's waking up" Moriarty giggled. Sherlock hooked an arm around her head and helped her to be in a kind of sitting position, he grabbed one of the bottles of water and helped her to swallow some of the clear liquid.
"This is going to hurt" he said to her calmly as he reached for the cream. He applied it to one of the cuts as gently as he could his long fingers gently caressing the cuts like a dancers, but a small groan still escaped from her clenched teeth. He stopped immediatley stopped and stroked her hair, "You're ok love. You're ok." She clung to him like a drowning man clings to jetsam. He pulled her to him and held her until she wasn't shaking so much, then held her some more.
The silence was broken with a ringtone. "ah, ah stayin alive, stayin alive", Jim amswered the call.
"Talk to me. What do you mean the shipment's late? I told you before Green, fix it or your little girl's going to be getting a visit from Mr Moran." He hung up and looked at the scene before smiling at them. "I gotta run guys, but don't you worry I'll be back soon" he turned at the door, "and Sherlock? I have something so special planned for you."
As soon as he had left the room Squish sagged a littleand Sherlock felt her muscles relax as she callopsed into him. He lifted up the cream once more and she nodded grimly. He applied as carefully as he could, though she gritted her teeth at times and was unable to prevent a whimper escapig when he put the cream on her stomach burn. Eventually though he had bandaged each of the various injuries, the most horrific of which was on her left and her right shoulders. Sebastian had carved SM on the right and JM on the left. She would be scarred forever and that thought haunted Sherlock. She would carry the scars of this encounter and he worried about how she would be mentally.
' Molly where are you', he thought silently, he was desperetley worried about both her and John. Moriarty obviously cared if Squish dies otherwise he wouldn't have brought a doctor in, but that was because he didn't want to lose a player rather then any genuine concern. He wanted and needed more levarage. Idle threats would only work for so long. Both of them knew that and Mycoft knew that too. He was so lost in thought and worry that he didn't notice Squish looking up at him.
She reached up and touched his shoulder gently.
"Hey" she said quietly, "You ok?"
"How's your pulse? A little thready" he asked, "are you running a fever?, yes roughly 100, do any of the cuts feel sharp stinging pain? Of course the ones on your shoulders. Do you have a headache or difficulty breathing or…"
"Sherlock! Stop ok? Just stop. I'm ok" she took one of his hands, "I'm ok"
He looked down at her and his heart sang with the guilt. But he was Sherlock Holmes, master of the cold face, the iceman, second only to his brother, she wouldn't know what he was thinking. Except she knew him better then anyone alive and only she could read his heart like he could read everyone else.
"It wasn't your fault." She said flatly, "It's not your fault."
Sherlock looked at her and was surprised to feel a tear trickling off his nose. She reached up and caught it on her finger.
"Hey none of that." She said gently as she flicked the bead of moisture away, "I'm the one who should be feeling guilty. I should never have let you take those drugs."
He sighed and lay down beside. She wincingly laid her head on his chest and he carefully put an arm round her. "I promised you that he would never hurt you again."
"Shit happens Sherlock and I would have made the same choice. Its not your fault" He sighed and looked at her. She looked so fragile with the white bandages on her white skin and her face looking tired and sad but with a steely gaze that he knew so well. They stayed that way for a long time, until he thought she had dropped off to sleep. But then she spoke.
"Do you remember whe we went to france?" she asked
Sherlock nodded. Mycroft had invited them out to his villa in france for a week and John had insisted that they go. It had been a good week. Mycroft had been there to annoy every day, John had forced them to towns and the beach, and he had manged to solve a murder case involving a hiden door, a ladder and a man with two identities.
It had been fun, but eventually Sherlock got bored. Mycroft had insisted that whiole she was there Squish ha an hours tuition from a tutor every day. Sherlock has of course stated that it was pointless, partly due to the fact that Squish had been teaching herself out of textbooks for years and was taking various online courses, and also because Mycroft was being annoying. So one day he woke her up ery early and told her to get her swimming stuff and a towel. When she asked where they were going,he had loked at her like she was an idiot.
"The beach of course" Sherlock had sounded so incredulous that she hadn't seen that coming, and she remembered laughing out loud at his expression. And that's what they had done. They had gone to the beach. It had felt like they had stolen the whole day, and for that day they had been them. Just Sherlock and Squish, they had played a game that they had invented when she was little. They had to deduce as much as hey could about the same person, whoever got more won. This was their reality. Not normal exactly, but their own version of normal. Nobody knew what had happened that day, it couldn't be taken away from them.
Sherlock remembered the day in vicous clarity."Of course I do.I saved it" he said calmly.
"That's what I was thinking about." Squish's head lolled on his chest, "You were just my dad that day. Not Sherlock Holmes ,the worlds only consulting detective. Not Sherlock Holmes, arch enemy of Jim Moriarty. Not even Sherlock Holmes, brother to Mycrfot Holmes. Just Sherlock Holmes, my dad."
Sherlock kissed the top of her head. He was still angry and guilty and he felt so much love for the girl in his arms. He never showed it, he realised. He had left her to functio on the bare minimum of what every other child from a good home would have.
"I should b=never had been allowwed to aopt you" he whispered.
Her head snapped sharply, "What? You don't want me?"
"No of course not, but I should never had been allowed to. You should have gone to a good family. A normal one. With friends and school and a life. Not danger and torture. Not me."
Her hand flew through the air and hit him as hard as she could.
"Don't you dare say that Sherlock Holmes! Don't you fucking dare! You're the best father I could have and the only one I want! Torture? I don't give a shit. Held by a sociopathic, violent, sadistic ,psychopath. I don't care. Because I thought as long as you were here, I would feel no matter what happened, it would be ok. But he's rocking everything 's rocking it to the core. I need you. I need you to be my dad. Please just this once, let me have that day again?"
Sherlock looked at her. "Squish. No matter what happens I am always your dad. And I swear to you, I'm not going anywhere."
She clung to him. He held her in his arms, carefully so as not to hurt her. He held her until she was asleep and even then he kept helding her. Right up to the point when he realised that the cuts on her back were staining his shirt scarlet.