NOTE: I´m so sorry for the delay but here it is the next chapter! I hope someone is still reading this and you still like it. Again there is some violence and stuff. I hope you like the little bits of backstory I put in in the last chapter. So enjoy!
Chapter 24:
Don´t go home with strangers
They took not more than a few steps before a car speed up and stopped right in front of the pair. Gemma could feel Sherlock´s muscles stiffen where she held him. Slowly he inclined his head and whispered: "If this means we´ll have to run, you should consider leaving me behind." Gemma hesitated she didn´t want him to think her a sentimental fool but well on the other hand she already came all the way down here to rescue him so it couldn´t possibly get much worse. "Sherlock! I´m offended! The knight gets to marry the princess after saving her, wouldn´t want to miss that!" Sarcasm dripping from her voice but both of them kept their eyes fixed on the now opening car door. "I don´t know how you could be so misled to believe yourself the saving prince when clearly the wicked witch suits your personality so much better." A man with silver hair climbed out of the car and leaned over the hood.
"The wicked witch? Really?" She whispered.
"I´m just quoting you: Every fairytale, good old-fashioned villain, something like that, deleted the rest." Sherlock replied lowly.
"If you would learn to store the information better you wouldn´t have to DELETE EVERYTHING!" Gemma didn´t avert her eyes from the silver haired man who stared at the two of them but she was sure to see the slightest smirk appearing on Sherlock´s face from the corner of her eye. With her free hand she´d slowly reached for the gun she´d stuffed in the back of her pants.
"Miss Moriarty?" The man asked incredulous with raised eyebrows. Gemma cringed inwardly by the mentioning of her name. His accent was heavy and his origins lay definitely in the southern American region. "Mister Moran sent me, he stated you might need a hand?" Gemma recalled Moran´s text; maybe he did actually sent help after she didn´t answer any of his calls after he had told her that Sherlock might still be alive. Sebastian had been worried when he´d left her again after her little relapse, he was far more caring than she deserved. Moran could´ve easily tracked her phone or could´ve contacted someone on the inside of the prison. On the other hand it might as well be a trap but even if it was the options were limited and the better one included shooting someone in public and steel his car. Gemma had known for some time that some ominous people were after her organization until now she hadn´t bothered to undertake something. Though to follow a stranger was extremely careless particularly if they knew who she was, even more so if they knew her first in command. Weighing her options again with an injured Sherlock and only a public transportation to get further away non the less her own exhaustion… But the decision was taken out of her hands when Sherlock walked around the car and opened the back door.
"I have to admit your connections do come in handy." With that he sat down and closed the door. She suppressed a sigh before she opened the passenger´s door. "Well, shall we go then?"
Gemma decided to play along and see where it all went. Nevertheless she stayed alert when the silver-haired man sat down in the driver-seat and started the car. If his intention was to kill both of them he would´ve done it right there no need to drive them anywhere first. They were safe for now until Gemma could figure out his intentions behind this and she needed to gain some information from him first anyway.
The foreign man started the car and Gemma pulled down the sun shield to take a look in the mirror. There were still speckles of dried blood on her face and neck then she averted her eyes from her image to observe the back-seat. Sherlock was slightly hunched though he managed to reciprocate her glance. She couldn´t read his quizzical expression eventually she raised one eyebrow before she flapped the sun shield back.
Back to business: "So who are you?" Her voice turned into the familiar sing-song the sound Sherlock remembered quite well. A harmless even endearing melody that was only a cover-up for a threat possibly a deadly one. Sherlock feebly tried to remember the name the man used to gain Gemma´s trust but his mind was still foggy and he couldn´t grasp it; he wouldn´t recall it until a few years from now. He watched Gemma´s back intently cataloguing the small tense muscles in her neck and shoulders.
"Jose Servillas, Miss Moriarty." The man replied with his heavy accent.
Sherlock had to fight the urge to touch her shoulder he must still be higher than he´d thought. But he should communicate that he knew that their ride wasn't safe. With his right hand badly trembling he reached out until he touched her right arm; just the lightest of touches. Her whole body tensed and Sherlock could hear the sharp breath she inhaled before she relaxed again, just a second where her posture unraveled. Eventually Sherlock tapped out a short message in morsecode on her skin: "I know. Danger." Gemma managed to give him the slightest nod before she continued the conversation with their driver.
"Ex-military I presume." She gave him a once over. "Special forces, discharged possibly dishonorable yet how do I come in the honor to receive your help?"
"Yes, ma'am. I was asked to assist you and your name carries some weight in the world."
"You´re looking for a job then?"
"Yes, ma'am. It would be an honor." His reply came a bit too quick a bit too eager.
"Well then, consider yourself on the list." Gemma´s replied coolly, no one would ever get a job at her organization that easy. "Aaaand where exactly are we going?"
"I´ll bring you to a safe place from there we can work out how you can leave the country." That Servillas used the singular and not the plural made her even more alert.
She nodded absentmindedly her mind already set on the task ahead. Half an hour later after a drive over dusty streets they´d left the town and the prison city behind them. When after some time of driving Sherlock hadn´t said anything not even complained once Gemma turned around only to see that he was asleep or unconscious but still breathing, and Servillas talked again.
"So who is he? If I might ask?" His head nodded vaguely in the direction of the sleeping detective.
"You might not." Gemma´s eyes rested on Sherlock´s sleeping form a moment longer. Yes who was he that she took such great a risk to safe him when she originally came here to kill him? Now all her efforts focused on keeping him alive. What for? He would leave again anyway or she would. They weren´t meant for a happy ever after she already had come to that conclusion. Even if she still held feelings of some sort for him that she really didn´t want to fathom he had betrayed her trust without hesitation. Usually there were no second chances.
"You took a great risk, easy enough to tell that you hold some kind of sentiment for this man. Even riskier considering your job to give away a weakness like that." Servillas regarded her with a quizzical expression that he dared to address her in that way would´ve naturally ended in an outburst of fury but it didn´t matter she could as well be her charming self.
"Sure. If you cannot handle a risk." A smirk ghosted over her face.
Shortly after that they reached a small house in another village Gemma didn´t recognize. It was still dark but it would only be a little longer before dawn. When Servillas pulled the car up in front of the house Gemma still hadn´t made up her mind. She got out of the car and stuffed the gun back in the waistband of her shorts. Slowly she walked to the backdoor to retrieve Sherlock while Servillas trudged directly towards the front door keys dangling from his hand. Her eyes rested on his back for a moment marveling at his nonchalant attitude before she leaned inside to wake Sherlock touching his shoulder lightly. Sherlock jerked awake grabbing her wrist and fixing her with wide blue orbs he whispered:
"Moriarty…?"
"Sherlock?" Gemma raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do you think –" But was cut off by Sherlock who pulled her in the car and pressed his chapped lips against hers then he pulled back stared at her lips then up into her eyes.
"Oh! Oh right we – we don´t do this anymore? Apologies." His words were slurred and then he fell back into the cushion and Gemma just stood there wide eyed and utterly confused by the wave that crushed over her.
She tumbled back and called after Servillas: "Servillas! Excuse me but you could lend your new boss a hand. I can´t carry him alone!"
Servillas left the door open and quickly ran down the path towards the car.
"Yes ma'am! Sorry ma'am! I will carry him, of course." Gemma stepped aside and let the ex-soldier carry Sherlock towards the house and followed several steps behind them filing away information of the surroundings and the house. One story building made of wood old and run-down standing a bit isolated from the other buildings in the area. Possible escape routes, location of the car-keys, Sherlock´s current state, the amount of bullets in her gun, the location of Servillas´ gun.
Gemma entered the house and everything went sideways.
The handle of a gun hit the side of her head hard and her vision went first blurry eventually completely black.
When she regained consciousness she found herself on the floor. Vaguely she noted the room: a room with a kitchen, table chair, a couch on the left with a television and a stairs on the far end leading to an attic. Only seconds had passed but her gun was gone and Sherlock stood in the middle of the room on the other side of a table with a gun pointing to his forehead, the barrel barely touching the skin. He wore a concerned expression, his forehand in creases.
"Sorry Miss Moriarty but there is only one seat available one the plane and I do not need a new employer since I already have one and he only wants you. He explicitly wants you unharmed so I have no use for this man, sor-" She cut him of mid-word:
"Don´t. You. Dare." Her voice went deadly quite while she lifted herself up. The grey-haired man stared at her before he burst into laughter.
"And what do you want to do about it? My employer told me you were crazy but this…"
"Mr. Servialls you may think me foolish or crazy and you even might have calculated right about the sentiment I hold for this particular person but don´t. Ever. Underestimate. Me." Every single word dripped from her lips like venom slowly and poisonous mirroring the slow steps she took towards him. "The moment you brought us here your death became an inevitable fact to me. Do you want to know why? Because all you people are just too easy to read. Because you are all just ordinary, doing things for the exact same reasons nothing mysterious or profound about you. And you know what else? You don´t deserve to kill this man, he isn´t ordinary and that´s why the only one allowed to end his life-", she stopped to look at ex-soldier and averted her gaze to Sherlock´s eyes for a blink of an eye, "is certainly not you." Servillas gave her a cold smile still holding her gaze slowly starting to squeeze the trigger when Sherlock snapped into action to hit the armed man´s outstretched arms with his forearm and the gun went off missing its target by centimeters. Gemma used the needed and hoped for distraction and sprinted the two steps towards the table, placed her left on it to stabilize her jump over it, retrieving an old kitchen knife (that had been placed on the table with a plate some time ago) in the same move.
With a thud she landed right next to a completely startled Servillas who whirled towards her with his Glock. Gemma always thought herself too short when she was younger but had learned that it brought advantages like agility or speed and she´d learned to use those to her advantage. The blade went into the muscles of the right forearm of Servillas. It was dull and Gemma had to use a lot of strength to break the skin let alone force it into the muscle. The man screamed and Sherlock used the momentum to jump against him with his full weight. They collided on the wooden floor as a sturggling bundle, the gun skittered over the floor boards and Gemma jumped after it but a hand grabbed her leg and she landed on the floor as well. Sherlock groaned and Gemma saw him rolling to the side off of Servillas who immediately hurled himself onto her. His fingers curled around her small neck pushing his thumbs in the skin over her throat. The knife was still stuck in his forearm. Gemma grabbed the handle and started to twist it in his flesh but Servillas only gritted his teeth in pain whilst refusing to loosen the grip on her throat.
Sherlock groaned again in pain with his intact hand he tried to push himself up until he was on all four. His gaze turned to the fighting couple a few feet away from him; quickly he realized something was wrong Gemma´s eyes were wide and full of – he couldn´t believe it- fear. He couldn´t let her die and that was the only thought he could form and the only thing he needed to keep going. Moriarty might think that he didn´t hold any kind emotions for her, but that was not entirely true. Cursing he stumbled towards the kitchen with his right he grabbed an idle frying pan from the herd and turned back determined.
The lack of oxygen let something snap in Gemma´s brain flooding it with noradrenalin and cortisol; memories of drowning in a pool forced themselves to the surface of her consciousness. No useful thought could be obtained to the point that her struggle became nothing more than a futile attempt. Big black dots formed itself in front of her eyes. The darkness started to wear her. Her senses confused reality with memory giving her the feeling of water on her skin; water was everywhere around and inside her. Liquid forcing its way down her windpipe into the lungs. The need for oxygen and the lack of caused sparks of pain sent from her nervous-system into every part of her body; a form of pain that couldn´t be ignored nor eased. Right before her brain shut down her optic-nerve completely she made out the shape of a dark figure standing above Servillas. All of a sudden the pressure on her neck ceased and the man strangling her slumped down limply with his full weight on her. A moment later the weight was lifted from her and she rolled to her side coughing violently her whole body trembling from panic. It might have been moments or minutes maybe hours Gemma had lost her sense for time until she noticed Sherlock had crouched down next to her shivering form a glass of water in his hand. Carefully he supported her head with one hand holding the glass of water to her lips with the other: "Drink." He ordered in his deep baritone to what Gemma could only comply weakly.
Slowly he helped her to sit up. "Are you alright?" Sherlock asked. Gemma didn´t answer just stared at the ex-soldier on the floor with a bleeding wound on the back of his head. Sherlock had hit him with a pan that lay a few feet away from the body.
The only thing Gemma heard was a loud ringing noise in her ears combined with her own uneven breathing. The trembling ceased but the memory was still present clutching with long dark and moist fingers on her mind. 'No, no no no! This is not happening! This is not happening! Not in front of him!' Fear was something she just didn´t encounter no matter how dangerous the situation she was always calm and collected for she didn´t fear death or pain or feel. In her line of work fear wasn´t useful and she was lucky she not only lacked the palette of emotional concepts but fear as well. Except this one time when she was a child and Carl Powers had tried to drown her. She´d had the pleasure of experiencing panic-attacks before but all those times during her time at the CIA she´d been alone to deal with it. Now all those memories overwhelmed her because she´d never truly learned to deal with the effects anguish could trigger. It was humiliating. Tears welled up in her eyes, out of helplessness or anger, she didn´t know and she desperately tried not to blink afraid Sherlock would see her cry. Eventually the droplets entangled themselves in her lashes until they dropped from her lids and ran in a curvy line over her cheeks down to her chin where they fell to her shirt forming moist spots. Furiously she wiped them away. To her surprise Sherlock didn´t comment on it in fact he didn´t say anything and Gemma was thankful for that. They sat in silence on the floor.
And then the front door burst open with a deafening noise.