The plane lands at the Charles de Gaulle airport. It is a massive place; its own city, and full of hurried, harried people on their way to their terminals.
Sherlock walked past these people, never spending more than a second on a face before deciding them irrelevant. He'd learned the danger in that— Moriarty. But he didn't see much use in trying to know the story of every person that he passed in the continent's busiest airport.
A woman in her early twenties, dragging a huge suitcase behind her and looking out into the crowd of people with a craned neck. She stopped short of the main hallway, standing on her toes to see over the busy heads passing through. Then, a scream— A joyous, happy scream. An older couple squeezed their way through the crowd, half-hearted pardonnez-nous, excusez-nous! As they caught their daughter's attention. The three collided in the middle of the hallway, and their embrace consumed them all— a pyre of flesh and hair and love surrounded by the uncaring bodies of strangers, scowling at the reunion as they adjusted the flow of traffic around them. The wheeled suitcase stands forgotten at its side.
Reunion.
Sherlock continued.
He starts in Paris: It's the central hub of France, and it's too obvious, but it's also unavoidable. Nothing quite like standing at the foot of your empire with the Tour D'Effiel leaning in at your shoulder.
He took the Métro to the worst part of the city and paid for one night in a room in cash. The seediness of the place made him itch for the drugs he'd had in his hands one moonlight ago: one lamp with dim, yellowed light cast over the wallpaper, a single bed, a desk and a mirror— a bathroom down the hall shared with the other guests. He set his duffel bag onto the floor, staring at himself in the mirror— no, no. Too posh. Too visible.
He took his coat off. His jacket. His trousers and his dress shirt. In the duffel bag was a variety of different clothings— tonight, he opted for something that would make him look a little younger, a little poorer. Hidden in plain view.
The discothèque was a few minutes' walk away. After a long moment of watching body language from around a corner, Sherlock approached the bouncer and was allowed passage. It was cramped, and smelly, and loud— a type of place he'd not wanted to be in since he was in his early twenties, and even then it was never for the atmosphere.
It takes him about five minutes to find the man he's looking for, and that's only because of the laser lights. They weren't that bright in the late 1990s, he's sure of it.
Sherlock offers to buy the man a drink, donning his most urban French dialect. His mother would have died to hear him speak the language she'd worked so hard to have other people teach him like that— if she hadn't been dead already.
The man accepts the offer, and offers something in return. Sherlock buys a small amount, and gains a lot more information.
It takes him until he is at the door outside to finally let go of the small baggy— not tonight. Not tonight. Not tonight.
Paris was a key: there was nothing there, nothing more interesting than a practical crime ring, exporting illicits, importing illegal goods. It was easy and simple and right to turn this information to the French press, along with a list of the officials that he had witnessed helping the process.
Something of note he does find, is a rumour: something is happening in Munich.
His German is not quite as impeccable as his French, and so he waits many days posing as an American tourist: he cuts his hair, he wears shorts and takes pictures and gains information and learns the dialect— two weeks later and he is an important businessman with a briefcase full of recording equipment and money. He gets a call from Mycroft when it's all over, as he's in the police car, when the money he is supposed to deliver doesn't make it to the checkpoint and he's nursing a head injury and a success— he ignores it. He ignores all of the calls.
Two weeks later, and he is in Lisbon, and he is an American this time because his Portuguese is just as good as his Serbian, which is simply unacceptable. And he searches and he finds and he learns and in four days he is in Malta with a sunburn.
And then he is in Prague with a long list of ignored phone calls. And then he is in Madrid. And then, Budapest.
He seems to be running in the shadow of something great— everywhere he goes there are whispers and black eyes and yet they feel secure when they let him in. Someone is letting him in. They are afraid of what he is chasing. It means that he must be on the right track.
In Zagreb he found a group of English criminals that didn't know his face: he did business with them for some time, taking things when he could, learning when they weren't looking.
Two weeks of listening to them argue, of helping them unload crates of guns and drugs, of relocating the headquarters three times. They were skittish. They had received word from the boss that he'd be coming.
"And we thought that it was you, you know— the boss. M. Lot of us still not sure you're not."
The woman helping them load the truck with large wooden crates glared at the speaker— a man of average height and a long scar on his right forearm.
He wasn't supposed to say that.
They thought that he was Moriarty.
The M on all of the faxes, the hand behind the words all of the different people (not M, never M) read when they call their little crime family up with orders. They knew nothing about M, so why couldn't it be the tall man with the shaved head and the posh accent that they'd let in not two weeks ago?
Sherlock was more than willing to let this mystery continue. It was easier to get a person to comply when they think that they're subordinate.
"— But... you know, then again, we did think that big guy a few weeks before you was the boss, but they all just turned out to be Government or— something."
What luck did Sherlock have to stumble upon a criminal whose first instinct was to talk himself out of awkward situations? He got into the conversation:
"Or something? Undercover cop, or—"
"Hell, I dunno. That's what we thought when they started shootin' and all, but they just took in our boss— not the boss boss, the guy that runs in Zagreb, you know, it's Terry now— Anyways, they took him in. Haven't seen him since."
"Have things changed since then? Different clients, suppliers—"
This was when the woman spoke up: she had been busy loading the crates in until now, avoiding the conversation.
"Nah, nah. He's good. Trustworthy."
"No one's worried that this wasn't entirely too... Convenient?"
"No. We're thinking that they were all from another ring in the area, you know— they were both Americans. Well, except for maybe the short one— he was English."
At that, the man shook his head.
"No, both of 'em American, they had the same accent."
"No, no, Short one definitely had an English accent every once and a while, when he thought no one was lookin'. The blond one. Kinda stocky? Sigerson, that's the one."
In an instant Sherlock was taken back to a door cracked half open, a conversation he wasn't supposed to hear:
Send Sigerson to Abu Dhabi with Ms. Slowik. Send Lozano to Laos.
Both of those places are Secure, Sir. They suggest...
France, I know. That is where he is rumoured to be hiding. Not yet.
They were both looking at him— they wanted to know what he thought. He shrugged in response.
"Well, it could be anyone, right? Best not to jump to conclusions."
Tales of this Mr. Sigerson stretched farther than just in Croatia: after he was done in Zagreb he'd heard mention of the short blond Englishman in Italy, in Poland, in Germany. And his friends. They always seemed to do the same thing: Get in, replace the authority, stabilize the situation, leave. They weren't taking down the crime rings— why is that?
How many short, blond Englishmen could there be?
More than one, he reminded himself.
Many more than one.
Zagreb was cleaned up rather quickly; it was a matter of contacting authorities. Not all adventures could be filled with action— Sherlock had grown used to that. He'd always wanted a good chase. An old-fashioned villain.
He got another call. Another few calls.
Mycroft. Why did he always have to pester? To know? Sherlock had been doing what he doubtlessly wanted him to be doing— take down criminals in places that he was too unsure of to put his agents— so why was he bothering him ceaselessly? Nine calls.
Well, it wasn't so hard to ignore Mycroft. He didn't leave his club, his manor, his island. Nine calls were easy to be avoided.
What weren't were the men he'd sent after him— one who'd kept trying to get into the elevator with him alone. A woman sitting across the room from him at the restaurant he'd eaten at yesterday. Two mean of imposing size sitting in a car outside the house he stayed in all night and well into morning.
Sherlock was doing, however much he hated to admit it, exactly what he'd assumed Mycroft had wanted him to— take down Moriarty's regime, every insignificant leg of it. Europe was all he had left— was it delicate?
Had he been wrong?
If he had been wrong, what had he been sent here to do?
He didn't have to wait long for an answer.
"Excuse me?"
The woman must have noticed that he had seen her. She had eased himself up from the seat she had been preoccupying and, slowly, carefully, made her way to the empty spot next to Sherlock's seat.
She tapped on the top of the seat, as if to ask permission to sit there.
Sherlock frowned in response.
"Could I help you?"
"Mr. Holmes. I'm assuming you know who I work for."
He refused to give her even the satisfaction of looking up from the newspaper in his lap.
"We're the only two in the carriage. You didn't make it hard."
She smiled, a bored, stick-straight smile. In assumption that she was not going to get any such permission to do so, she sat down anyways.
"Mr. Holmes is not pleased with your actions. He wants me to tell you that your arrogance has consequences that you cannot know."
Sherlock scoffed at her.
"Were those his words?"
Once more, a smile, nothing more.
"What would he have me do? I'm trying to track down Moran. I'm crushing crime cells all over the continent as I do so. Why is this so unappealing— Oh. I wasn't supposed to take them down. I was only supposed to care about Moran."
She seemed about ready to talk, but he stopped her with a raised hand, a look— the thought wasn't complete until he had verbally affirmed it. And it had been so long since he had someone to talk at.
"I was supposed to wildly blast through each city with little care for the crime I had left behind, thus exposing that trail as undoubtedly me. Leaving that second, more thorough trail more confusing. Sigerson's trail. I've heard about Sigerson and his team. I'm interested in what they're doing— why are they only replacing those in authority? Why do you want crime to continue? It's all boring, so horrendously boring, but it seems in the government's best interest to squash— not squash, profit from them! Of course. Of course. He wants me to stop shutting down your businesses."
She waited a long moment— until he was done. No smiles in her face anymore.
"He did say that you wouldn't need much explaining to."
"And he must know that it is simply not in my best interest to do what he tells me to. It's literally in no one's best interest— a new low, even for Mycroft."
He knew that look in her eye— the way she shifted her position, but not her gaze. She did not stop him or correct when he continued:
"You think so too. You think the entire thing is selfish— money-hungry devils, or whatever it is you think. I don't really care. As long as I'm doing more help than they are, it doesn't matter what your employer tells you to report on."
She said nothing.
"Very convenient, I think. Are you lying? I don't think so. You're nervous. You wouldn't be nervous if you were paid to lie to me. You're being paid to track me. Which is the convenient part."
"What do you want me to say?"
"Why you're lying about who you work for. You fought for this spot for more than just sabotage. You work for Moran, too, don't you?"
They both stared at each other for a long time— an uncomfortably long time.
"You were sent here by my brother to watch me. Did Moran send you to kill me?"
"No, he sent me to watch you. He wants to kill you himself."
"He must be waiting, then, at the next stop. Don't think I'm an idiot."
"He isn't. As I send faulty reports to one employer, my reports to the other are just as true. I am not a trustworthy man. Both of them know this."
"And yet they still employ you. What a hefty sum you must be getting paid to sit on a train for six hours."
"Four hours. You're going to get off the train at an earlier stop, because everyone knows and expects you to know that I'm watching you."
Sherlock frowned. He didn't like it when people knew what they were doing— it challenged his status as indisputable smartest person in the room. He could play the same game:
"And then you're going to get off the stop two after, call your friends in Vienna there, tell them I'm in a city where I'm not. Trail runs cold."
"Not for long, if you're not careful. Mr. Holmes needs to know where you are at all times, for... Planning purposes."
"So he knows where his chess pieces are? Sigerson? Doesn't want too many ducks in the same row?"
She smiled again. This was different than the first smiles— those were creamy, plastic— and even different from the subdued hinting ones. She tilted his head as she blinked, lips pressing together and drawing apart, and the action reminded him of another, more wrinkled face.
"There are a lot of ducks running around, trying to tie up all of the loose ends, Mr. Holmes. Some of them are more important than others. Now, are we clear as to the details of the current plan?"
He said nothing for a long time. He continued to say nothing as the woman stood up.
"I trust that this is a yes. Good bye, then, Mr. Holmes."
She did not straighten her jacket as she turned away: it bunched up at her armpits and the clasp of her necklace was knotted at the side.
And her necklace was still askew as Sherlock got off at the next station, making no nod or motion to the only other person on the train.
And so he kept looking. Something was going on, and it had something to do with Moriarty's death, and something to do with Moran's new position at the top of the pyramid. And it had something to do with Mycroft, that was no doubt— Mr. Sigerson and company were under his control. Whatever they were doing, it was on his word that they were doing it.
It was on his word that Sherlock was doing this. He'd been tricked, so it seemed. A reluctant horse led to water.
But now, he was following two footprints on the same path. One led to the other. If anything, he was one step closer to Moran.
If anything else—
He wouldn't let himself finish that sentence. Delete.
Instead, he focused on the scene in front of him: lunch with a young woman in a sundress, sipping on wine. Neither of them were smiling. Neither of them were talking.
In twelve minutes, she will hand him a folder. She will then, ten minutes later, finish her meal and leave.
He's not sure why this entire operation is so obsessed with extreme punctuality. He wondered if this was how it had always been run, or if it was a scant approximation as to how it worked when Moriarty was alive?
If Moriarty wasn't still alive. But he wasn't- Sherlock was never wrong.
At least, not now.
He made no pretence of interest in the woman as they sat and ate, for all the world an unhappy couple sitting at either end of a light lunch when she finally reached into her cloth bag for the manila envelope.
Thanks, he said with a nod of his head, mouth full of greens.
She said nothing, verbal or otherwise. She stirred her own salad around to look like it had been touched, playing with the blonde braid that sprouted from the back of her head and twisted like a rope, hanging across her shoulder. She waited dutifully for the time to come so she could get up, leave, and report on the minor workings of his facial expressions. He was not uncomfortable. He responded as expected to all stimuli. Trustworthy, as usual. This was their third date of this kind: it will be the first time he receives more than blank paper. They were overcautious, thought everyone untrustworthy.
This chapter at least had experienced severe changes recently and felt unstable on once solid ground. Fear.
She took a sip of water— so small, it barely wet her lips. She tilted her head to play with her braid once more.
And that's when he sees him.
Him, the speck on the other side of the street. Him with the dirt-coloured blonde hair (it's much greyer now, and it's longer, it falls over his ears and the back of his neck in near-straight lines), Him who would not have been noticed much at all except that he walked in such a way that pulled at Sherlock's eyes like magnet, made him revel in the familiarity of the stiffness in his elbows, the bend at the knees.
He is the same height, he has the same walk, carries his shoulders the same way. More than that, he has an un-erasable himness to him.
"Excuse me— Excuse me."
Sherlock stands up, slowly, disregarding the woman's surprise as he pushed his way to his feet. Envelope forgotten, bill forgotten, Moriarty forgotten. Just the cusp of another mystery that touched so unforgivably close to his heart.
He didn't have a heart.
Oh, yes he did.
Slowly, he walks, with even pace. He holds his breath to hear his heartbeat. He stands at the edge of the pavement and—
And his eyes meet eyes he thought he'd never see again. Tiny blue specks from the other side of the street. Tiny blue specks that widened when they focused on his own.
And suddenly, he was three years ago and five storeys higher.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
When does it ever go the way it's supposed to go?
"John—"
He was saying it aloud, standing on the edge of the pavement, arm outstretched. The face ducked behind another man's shoulder, and was gone.
"John!"
Sherlock filled the scene with the screech of tires and horns and French curses as he ran into the street, long legs aching from a lack of practice, from a different sort of chase. He could see a bustling in the crowd in front of him, if only he could get through the people in his way...
"Excusez-moi, s'il vous pl— Excusez— oh, laissez-moi passer !"
He earned a few cold glares and choice words as he pushed his way through the crowd, but nonetheless he pushed on— pushed on— pushed on—
He came out into a calm bend into a near-empty street. There were fewer people here than on the other street: smaller shops, fewer lanes.
There was no short blond man. No Mr. Sigerson. No N scribbled into a notebook, no missing gun in the bedroom upstairs.
A woman with red hair glared at him and his heavy breathing, clutching her purse. She was English: he could tell. He didn't know how that could help him.
He breathed, heavily. He was shaking. He was not physically winded.
He was so, so tired; he felt as if he could pass out. He felt something rise in his stomach: a feeling. He could not describe it. He did not care to try.
He called Mycroft.
Four rings. In the midst of the fifth:
"Well, hello, little brother."
His voice was distant. The reception crackled.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure—"
"I just saw John Watson."
There was a long, drawn out breath. It sounded exasperated— like Mycroft was at his wit's end with Sherlock. He knew Sherlock knew better than to think that it was anything less than an act.
Sherlock knew that.
"I've been looking for you for a long time, Sherlock."
"What have you done with him."
There was a silence on the other end. A vacuum silence.
"Sherlock."
The static hung between them, crossing the channel and the miles that separated them physically. Sherlock heard Mycroft's calculated breathing like one would hear an ocean.
"Sherlock, it's been three years. I know that you cared about Dr. Watson, but—"
"I know what I saw, Mycroft! I don't make mistakes!"
"Yes, you do. Very grave ones, too, if I recall."
The roughness of a handrail against the palm of his skin.
Oh, come on… Not everything is about you, Sherlock. I know you're not quite used to hearing that, but it's true…
A phone call. A man, standing on the rooftop of the building across from him. A jump.
A fall.
He'd been wrong about that.
Selfish.
"You should come back to England."
"Why? So you could keep me under your thumb?"
"You're chasing strangers in France because they look like your long deceased flatmate. Do you realise how problematic that is? How dangerous that is, while Moran is looking for you?"
"I know what I saw."
"What you saw was not John Watson. John Watson has been dead for three years. You were tricked into believing he would be safe and worried only about yourself, and Moriarty pushed him from a building. He fell seven stories. His body landed on the pavement and he died from the injuries to his head before he could even bleed. Even if the head had not been injured, the trauma to the spine, shoulders, and hips would ensure that he would never walk again. You do not know what you saw. "
There was nothing for a long while. Sherlock held the phone to his ear to hear the static, and his brother's shallow, familiar breathing. There was nothing for even longer.
"I'm not going back to England. I need to find Moran. I cannot let Moriarty best me in death."
Mycroft gave a soft sigh. Sherlock heard the rustling of papers, somewhere not so far away. He was busy. He had things to do. Secrets to hide. He took a drink of something— not hot, in a glass. Alcohol. Busy. Stressed. Many thoughts. The oldest Holmes settled for this:
"Well, I suggest you start looking, then."