Jim

After last week I didn't trust any of the other safe-houses. Don't get me wrong, it's not the properties themselves, it's the two incidents coming so close together. Can't just keep popping up in suburbia for a couple of days at a time. I'll turn into middle-class mythology, a Candyman for yuppies, the mysterious neighbour who appears, invites nobody for drinks and leaves only a permanently empty house in his wake lowering the property values of the entire area. Same thing twice in as many weeks is just too conspicuous. So this time, against my better judgement, it's Moran's place. Small house, two bed, mid-terrace. Not the sort of accommodation I'd usually go for, but it's quiet and clean.

Not a thing is stirring on the street when Moran creeps back in, and there is no more than the change of pressure when he opens the door to betray his arrival. He's got a gun in his hand. I hear him put it away when he sees us at his kitchen table.

"Oh no," I call through, "You probably had the right idea there."

Without a word, Danielle picks up her shoe from the chair next to her and puts it on the table. It doesn't stand up. It tips back, resting briefly on the scorched stump where his bullet when straight through the heel, before it falls over like a drunk, like a one-legged man trying to find some dignity in standing up without his cane.

Moran looks at her, gauges his chances, and then looks back to me. "It was a fucking excellent shot, though, Jim, admit that much to me."

"It was," I admit to him, "a fucking excellent shot, but I think she's in mourning." And I shouldn't have said 'mourning', should I? It all comes back, everything I'd gotten away from in all the excitement and the improvisation. I can't help it; my head just falls into my hands, "Aw, Jesus, the work… My computer…" All the contacts have been saved, yeah, Dani's got copies of any floor plans and security details for current and upcoming jobs, Moran's got so much firepower squirreled away in this house and others that I'm in more danger of a raid now than I was earlier. What I'm saying is, everything is still okay. The show can go on going on. But that computer, that office, that was my hub, everything together, centre of operations, it was… It was home.

With her sleeve tugged down over most of her hand, Danielle reaches across and touches my arm. There is a moment's comfort in it before I realize what's going on and flinch. "Sorry," she mumbles.

I mumble back, "S'okay."

Out of the silence that follows comes Moran's voice, too bright and loud, disrespectful. "Yeah, I had a brilliant night, thanks for asking. Watched a man I was going to have a laugh pressing on get shot in front of me, crossed most of London in ten minutes, think I might actually have broke land speed records for a private-use motorbike, took a fucking excellent pot shot at my best mate so she'd fall right-"

"-Split her knee open."

"-Shut up, Dani, I'm not finished. –Then escaped the clutches of an angry spy out to make his name apprehending some criminal fucking mastermind, yeah, I had a wonderful night too."

"I'd be much obliged," I tell him, "if we could keep all that between us. You can't shout in a terrace house, Moran, the whole street'll know." Reaching behind her, Dani is opening the back door so she can smoke, mutters that she never thought of that. "Well, no, that's because you grew up in the manor across the road from Lara Croft."

"I did not. She was two over, thank God. Can't stand the woman. Apparently if you steal things which are very old, it's archaeology rather than crime." There's a pause, before I feel myself start to laugh. I don't want to, but there it is. "Her and that fucking Doctor Jones. Seb, stick the kettle on, would you? We've been waiting because we're guests."

"We've been waiting because we couldn't move," I tell him. "Dani, lean out of the light; you still look shot."

"Yes, sir." As she moves out into the dark, her eyes cut over to me. Like to see where I'm going with this, like addressing me that way is supposed to change something. When I figure out what she's asking me, strikes me maybe she's right.

"The plan hasn't changed," I tell them. "Primary concern is Mycroft Holmes, and whatever he's brought down on our heads. Secondary is the smooth continuation of the Dirty Harry job. And I do mean 'continuation'. I don't want him caught right now, that's too much all at once. Dani stay on your copper, if it's safe. He'll be needing a shoulder to cry on. Moran, there isn't a spy hunter like you. I'm putting that in your hands."

"Yes, sir," he replies. Sharp, meaning it more than Dani did. That's the army in him. We'll never flush all of that out of his system. When I'm charging him with my personal safety, I can't say that I mind.

"Me, for my part, I'm going to find out what this Diogenes business is all about. I'm onto something or tonight never would have happened, and it's big or it never would have happened so fast. Knowing the name is clearly dangerous. Can't help but get the feeling knowing nothing more than the name is about the worst we can do."

A murmur of agreement out of them, thank God. Then another silence is split, this time by Danielle's phone. She looks down at it, "Speak of the devil."

"What, Diogenes? You know him and all, do you?"

She rolls her eyes at me, walks off down the garden to speak in peace. Must be, I'm thinking, her cop, she's talking about. But it's the very strangest thing. I could swear the first thing she says after hello is, "So you're alive, then."

Sherlock

"Well, you know how it is," I tell her. "Spend a few years shoving any old opiate into your system, you end up rather well prepared for the efforts of amateurs."

I know it's awfully bad form to just ring somebody when you want to talk to them. But I'm not so very worried about letting Lestrade down anymore. And I'm kicking myself that I ever dreamt Mycroft could deserve as much room in my thoughts as I've been giving him. People keep reminding me, don't they, that I'm not a spy. I'm not a police officer. I'm not anybody, in all of this. It doesn't matter whether you have answers or ways to get them, it doesn't matter than you know what's going on better than most, it doesn't matter if you understand, you just have to be somebody in all of it.

Does that make it sound like I lied to Sally Donovan? When I told her to make herself unmistakeable, to tell a truth they can't ignore? I didn't, that's all true. It's all true. She's in a better position to make use of it; she already is somebody.

So yes, I called an old number and hoped someone would answer and they have. Can one be shot for not engaging in enough bloody subterfuge? Then shoot me.

"You're in a good mood," Mies says cautiously. Then, that quick little voice she does when she's trying to sound honest, as though that were possible, "Sherlock, love, I hope I didn't… set you back, any."

"Don't."

"Don't what? I'm not sorry I did it. I was defending myself. But I would be sorry if I had taken hard work away from you."

Christ, she really does think she's good, doesn't she? If you'd had no experience, no warning, would you fall for that?

"I want to talk to you again."

"What do you call this?"

"In person."

"I'll bet you do."

"Somewhere public. Crowded."

"So I can't see them coming for me. Nice try."

"Is a promise worth nothing to you?" Because she had come across, in the past, as if it might, as if her word was her bond and she, with sensible reservations, expected the same treatment from others. And of course, I had to get in touch with her anyway. It's not as if this is the question I called to have answered, it's not. I just… I had hoped… That envelope is still in my pocket, the one with the money in it. There are a dozen perfectly logical explanations for it. I called Mycroft to ask about it, but I hung up when he answered the phone. I've been rejecting his calls ever since. Not good for not worrying him, not good for not getting followed but I can't face it. There's just small, weak part of me that needs something to be straightforward

"You were the one who broke the trust. I'm getting off this phone before whoever you're with can trace it. I'll bet they've got the borough and everything by now."

"Danielle, n-"

"Goodbye."

Damn. Damn. God it's an ugly world, when one mistake means everything is over. Until tonight, right this moment, I believed I was the wronged party. She's the one who stuck me after all, and by her own admission not knowing if I'd live or die or if she'd set me back. But that's just my own position on the matter. I understand it now, she explained it to me; I broke the trust. After trying to bug her I was fair game. I don't agree. Far from it. But that was my mistake, was not seeing it from her perspective.

That's the bridges all burnt, it seems.

And the greatest betrayal of all? It leaves me no choice now but to go home, where I know Mycroft will still be waiting, because I've left it too long now. And he'll ask what I've been doing with me day and I will show him the envelope, tell him what Lestrade said, listen to his excuses and he will not tell the truth. He won't. Apparently it's not a thing that people do anymore. At least not until they're catastrophically drunk or they believe they have reason to hate you.

I walk past at least three places where I know I could score along the way. It hurts. It brings back a shaking that had gone away from me in these last days. That itch that makes you drag your skin red with your cuff. It would be easy. And tonight it would be just exactly what I need. It would all go away and in the morning I wouldn't care anymore. With all that money in my pocket I could stay happily under for days. But I walk past all of these places. It doesn't even feel like a victory. It doesn't feel like anything. It feels masochistic, denying myself that respite and I don't understand it anymore. Clean living is rapidly ceasing to make sense and somewhere deep down that terrifies me.

At home, things don't quite go the way I suspected. The day and all the stress of it, it seems, has caught up with Mycroft. He's asleep in the armchair. Stirs when I come in. I mumble something like hello and he thinks he's safe, sinks again.

In all our lives I don't ever think I've seen him sleeping.

His phone is under his hand. He doesn't move or protest when I slide it away. Nothing reaches him when I take Lestrade's envelope and throw it down in his lap. Then I take his phone away with me to the other end of the flat. Copy a number from my own. Dial. Let it ring.

It's an unknown number for Mies, so her answer is tentative, "Yes?"

"This is my brother's personal line."

Scoffing, "Bollocks it is."

"Look into it." Because people buy each other. That's all it really is. We cover it up with words like 'friendship' and 'family' and 'love', but all it really is is barter-and-trade. All you're worth is what you can offer. "It's all just commerce, isn't it, Danielle?"

"Are you alright?"

"It's all just commerce." I've got a feeling I've come to this conclusion before and just forgotten.