Rated M for swearing and threats of violence.

Spoiler Alert for The Great Game.

Cliffhanger Alert. Kind of a cliff hanger here. Sorry. Well, not really sorry, but Mrs. Hudson said I should apologize, and John said I should alert you so that you could hold off on reading the next couple chapters which are increasingly cliffhanger-ish. That is some of you might prefer to wait until the grand finale which is Chapter 54-ish. As always, Sherlock really doesn't care about cliffhangers (dull-ish).

Credit-I am indebted to the fantastic transcript of The Great Game provided by Ariane DeVere .

All mistakes are my own. (Mrs. Hudson insisted yet again)

Obligatory safety notice:

Beware reading fanfic while eating or drinking lest you spill or snort your beverage (or food), which is uncomfortable, possibly dangerous and always embarrassing. Keep your inhaler handy, just in case.

Chapter 50 Marking Time

Sherlock ignored Mel, the tall, dark MOD*, who sat quietly in the kitchen. She studied her phone as the messages slowly dripped in before gathered into a virtual electronic flood of texts over the course of the dull, interminable evening. Presumably the messages came in from the various other minions, since Mel was obviously not in a relationship nor was she looking for one. She was married to her work just like a certain consulting detective used to be.

The evening dragged on, painfully slow.

Sherlock was set to post the invitation to Moriarty at 10 pm, which meant the consulting detective was forced to wait. He hated waiting. It was very boring to have to wait, very, very, very boring.

BOR-ING.

Boringboringboringboringboringboring.

Sherlock tried texting John, but only received a rather cool reply wishing Sherlock good luck and telling him to be careful. Even a leading sext message from 'Shurcock to Jawhn' was all but disregarded, which was a shame because Sherlock had thought John would appreciate the low humor and the creative suggestions.

Apparently, John was sulking, which was dull, thought Sherlock, as he himself pouted like a six-foot preschooler. But John dull and sulking and safe in Mycroft's secret bunker was preferable to John out male bonding (or worse) with other minions (read:the ox). It was certainly better than John exposing himself to Moriarty and putting himself in danger.

Still… dulldulldulldulldulldullboringdulldulldulldulldulldull.

Sherlock attempted to distract himself with crap telly. Sherlock sat in his chair, knees folded comfortably to his chest and wrapped in his long, warm, wool coat. It was cold in the flat, because the windows had yet to be repaired from the bomb blast. He yelled at the telly and informed the ignorant masses, who couldn't hear him, that the child was indeed the man's son…

He sent a rude and insulting text to John and got a boring response. It didn't even sound like John.

The flat was cold and BORING!

The World's Most Impatient Consulting Detective abruptly decided that it was time. It was certainly close enough to the time. Everyone would just have to be ready, because Sherlock was done waiting.

The detective stared at his laptop expectantly, savoring his excitement, before typing the 'invitation' into the message box:

Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect.

A small smile found its way to his plump lips before he added:

The Pool. Midnight.

He posted the message on his website, the Science of Deduction. Regrettably, Sherlock was due for some more waiting, but not hopefully not too much waiting, because it was boring.

Mel looked up at Sherlock and nodded, confirming that the many minions were aware of the invitation. Thankfully she did not erupt into recriminations at his early posting, because that would be dull.

Indeed, she returned to her phone and sent texts and read texts, which was, surprisingly, dull. Sherlock idly wondered if Mel was Anthea's boring understudy.

Dull and Not Important.

He had better things to think about, like the imminent meeting with James Moriarty. The consulting detective had no doubt that James would gladly accept the invitation, if for no other reason than to fight off his boredom.

It was the same reason that he was confident that James would not kill the World's Only Consulting Detective. That would undoubtedly be too boring.

Sherlock was eager to meet with the criminal genius; at least Moriarty wasn't dull. It would be interesting to continue their little game of cat and mouse.

John would not be best pleased with that last thought. John had suffered so much thanks to that evil genius…Sherlock frowned, his pleasurable excitement appreciably dulled at the thought Moriarty's mistreatment of John.

Perhaps it was best not to think about John Watson just now. He would think about John later.

The crap telly and the agent in the next room were blocked from his awareness. Sherlock raised steepled fingers to his lips, mentally keeping track of the time. It would not do for Sherlock to be late for this exhilarating confrontation.

Sherlock strove to return to his earlier sense of anticipation, but now images of John kept intruding on his thoughts. Bah. Dull.

Try as he might, it was very difficult to block images of John lying injured and half-dead because of James Moriarty.

And then once he was able to shelve that image, John returned to Sherlock's mind palace, wearing ridiculous jumpers or silk kimonos, or jumpers with no trousers or…or nothing at all. Bah! (Distracting but then not dull either.)

And all of these John's were whispering warnings about the dangers posed by the Irish criminal mastermind (even the John who wore nothing at all wanted to lecture Sherlock about the risks). The risks to Sherlock were easy to dismiss, but it was difficult to ignore the risks to John should Moriarty find out that John was alive. And this train of thought was becoming just too uncomfortable. Perhaps the simplest solution would be to listen to all of his imaginary Johns and be just a bit wary around the Irishman.

Yes, that thought made all the mind palace Johns smile, even the naked John smiled, indeed, he smiled invitingly. Sherlock smiled in relief at having successfully negotiated another relationship minefield, even if the minefield only existed in his head.

Mel looked up from her texting. C-squared was in motion. The texts confirmed that Clancy and Christine were in place; the other agents were on stand-by.

She looked up to check on the status of her agitated charge. Oddly enough though, he had calmed down and was smiling as he sat in his Thinking Pose, which pose had been aptly named by Captain Watson and featured in his on-going lecture series for MOD's. The series of talks was cumbrously titled, How to Properly Care for and Handle the World's Only Consulting Detective. (Mel, like the other agents respected John Watson, but the little army doctor did come up with rather complicated, even tortuous titles, for his otherwise entertaining blogs, lectures and short stories.)

Mel frowned as the consulting detective uncharacteristically smiled into thin air; it was unnerving to see the unsociable Sherlock Holmes smiling benignly. This sort of event had not been covered in the lectures. She would have texted Doc about this possibly unheard of phenomenon, but of course he was busy and not to be disturbed until operation C-ssquared was over.

She bent back over her phone as she received another update from Lestrade. Waiting, it was just a matter of waiting now.

As expected, Christine's smaller size worked to her advantage when hiding. It was quite easy for the rather small agent to squeeze into the dark space on top of a narrow I-beam. After scaling the rope easily, she had wedged herself in between the crossed support beams directly under the roof of the sports complex, and then she pulled up the rope. The heavy shadows kept her well hidden. Colorful flags and bunting hung limply in front of her, also helping to screen her from view. Well, they didn't help much, but they didn't hurt either.

Greg, Clancy and Oscar had checked her position from all around the pool deck, especially from the visitor's gallery, and they approved of the agent's placement.

Clancy and Greg had left first. Oscar, overprotective as usual, checked the marksman's position once more before nodding up with a forced smile. The large agent looked shrunken from the marksman's altitude, nearly thirty feet above the floor; he finally gave Christine a thumbs up, before he too left the pool arena.

The marksman had an excellent view of the entire pool deck and the poorly lit visitor's gallery, which was important, since everyone agreed that the gallery would be the ideal place for Jim's snipers to set up shop.

The agent had the sniper rifle set up in minutes. Easy. Side arms were loaded and ready. Easy. Both handguns were Sig p226's, so there would be no messing about with manual safeties later…Easy.

It was just a matter of time now, but the trained sniper could wait. All snipers were trained to wait, to wait patiently for their targets to show up. And a skilled agent would not be concerned about either the pool or the floor waiting nearly thirty feet below. Nope. Not worried at all.

The altitude was a good thing. It was exciting and allowed for excellent coverage. It was fine…

It was just a matter of waiting now, which admittedly, the small agent found rather dull. The sniper counted the flags and re-spotted every conceivable hiding place in the pool area.

Waiting. Listing and relisting the locations where Moriarty might choose to stash his armed back-up. He would surely have reinforcements waiting in the back hallway by the coach's office or in the changing rooms…or both. But how many backups? How armed? Probably just with side arms.

A grim smile stretched the blond agent's mauve lips, just side arms? As if a handgun in this small area wasn't just as deadly as a rifle, well at least for the marksman…and for Sebastian Moran as well.

Waiting. And for just a moment the marksman's mind wandered, remembering the sound of a man's deep voice and his breath ghosting across bare skin sending shivers of burning ice…

Right! None of that then!

Think about something else. Think about the stupid scratchy cap. The sniper tugged at the irritating black watch cap. Damned uncomfortable, itchy, bloody stupid cap! All hats were hateful and this one pinched ears and cut off blood flow to the scalp. Stupid cap.

Waiting. And sternly prohibiting all distracting thoughts, particularly about that man. Perhaps one could mentally sort the different colors found amongst the once cheerful but now faded plastic flags, which decorated the air above the pool.

Waiting, and looking down, down, down at the distant water below. The beckoning and terrifying, illuminated, blue water that was way, way below. A very long drop into very cold, deadly water. It was a damn shame that the sniper had never learned to swim.

Fighting a brief bout of vertigo. Bit not good to suffer vertigo when perched on an I-beam nearly thirty feet in the air. It wasn't so much the altitude, thought the agent, but the damned water. (And at this height, the word altitude was quite justified. To be brutally honest, the marksman felt a parachute should have been issued for this bloody position.)

So, it was the water. And the altitude.

Right. No more looking down at the pool. Stupid pool. Stupid Mister Sherlock Holmes for planning this little tête-à-tête at this stupid pool in the first place. Why couldn't it have been staged in a park or at a nice museum?

And damn this stupid, itchy, pinching cap.

The sniper hated all bloody hats and all bloody pools and possibly all consulting detectives too.

AND, Waiting some more. But refusing to look at the clock because that was a rookie mistake. The official Meeting of Genius Minds was set for 0000 hours but Moriarty would send in his sniper, or more likely a couple of snipers, before then. But when?

When it was time, obviously. And looking at the clock would not help; on the contrary it would be very, very bad.

The important thing to remember, was that looking at the clock would make time slow down. Even glancing at the clock would literally slow down the natural flow of time. It would create a time-warp or rip some kind of a hole in the space-time continuum, and then this night would never end…The Marksman had witnessed the time-warp phenomenon first hand and would certainly resist the temptation now. No checking the clock. Nope.

No checking watches or mobiles either, even that would induce spontaneous time-warp formation, sucking in helpless marksmen to a virtual eternity of waiting.

Waiting some more. And 'lets sort the flags by color'. 'Lets see if there's a pattern'. Maybe there was a secret message hidden in the flags. A message from some higher alien intelligence. It was possible, right? The aliens could have entered through one of those holes in the space-time continuums when they had looked at their alien clocks. And such aliens might have decided to leave a secret message in the colored flags. So, seven yellow flags versus five blue flags and five red flags. Or yellow, red, blue, yellow, green which might mean 1,2,3,1, 4 or maybe it meant…um…01, 02, no, no, no…) 01, 11, 10…or if yellow stood for seven then 7, five…

"Show time," Greg Lestrade's voice whispered via the Bluetooth. The small sniper stiffened first in surprise and then in anticipation. Finally, something was happening. The blond took the opportunity to shake out arms and legs for the last time. A quick roll of shoulders and a stretch of the neck followed. "Two vans," continued Greg. "No, make that two vans and a limo. The people in the car seem to be waiting…Okay, now we have five personnel entering the building…static…people getting out of the car…" The DI's voice was breaking up, and "….Static…armed with rifles and…static...Clancy not receiving you…and Chr…repeat not…Static and hissing. Hissing. More hissing…"

Captain Watson had warned Holmes senior that Moriarty's henchmen would be carrying a jamming device. He had told Mister High and Mighty Holmes that Moriarty loved his high-tech toys and always thought the CIA and MI6 were trying to spy on him, which of course, they were. But still…

Right. Well the jamming devices were evidently in the building and in use. The marksman turned down the volume on the Blue Tooth device. The earphone thingy would probably be useless from here on out. Still, it was the only way to communicate, so the sniper left the earphone in and turned on.

The marksman soon heard footsteps, soft voices and some laughter, which was cut short by a harsh, gravelly voice. A voice that grated like nails on a chalkboard. Well then, the Colonel was here after all. To bad the Colonel recovered from his recent injury. Real pity that.

The lights in the visitor's gallery went out completely. Then there was a bit of a ruckus in the dark gallery as the snipers, no fewer than three snipers, began to set up. There was just enough light to see two men and one woman moving about. The taller man was clearly Sebastian Moran. They all readied their guns and their laser sights, several guns and many laser sights. What on earth did they want with all those lasers?

The blond agent scoffed silently at the use of any lasers at this close range. It was so overkill.

But it was even worse than overkill. They soon each had not only their gun's sights, but also the extra laser sights dancing on the floor. It was like a goddam red-dot light show.

Cheap theatrics. What a waste of talent and firepower, thought the hidden agent. The marksman couldn't resist a derisive sniff. This was definitely not up to the marksman's professional standards.

Sebastian set his bag down slowly, and he remained bent over, holding his side, which was strange. The agent, hidden in the ceiling shadows, studied Moran through the scope.

And Sebastian walked awkwardly, stiffly. He bent forward very, very slowly, like an old man. Clearly the former colonel had trouble standing up straight. And bending seemed to be…well, it seemed to be agony for the former colonel, who held his arm over his stomach. That man couldn't move without pain.

That man had clearly not recovered from the round he took to the abdomen. He was thin, gaunt, pale and in pain. At the very least, Moran had a serious wound infection, diagnosed the marksman. Possibly even peritonitis, which would be fatal without treatment, and even with treatment, recovery wasn't guaranteed.

Sadly, it really didn't improve tonight's odds very much. Even sick and in pain, Moran was still a world-class sharpshooter. So the advantage went to team Moriarty with three snipers versus just one sniper for team Holmes. Not good.

Not good at all. The marksman pursed mauve-painted lips, and mentally cursed the stubborn, know-it-all Holmes brothers. The solitary sniper's head shook back and forth in dismay, which made the black watch cap scratch more. Stupid, itchy hat.

And of course, there was more waiting. There was a brief bit of noise in the changing room and some possible scuffling in the back hallway.

Just how many men had Moriarty brought with him, a freaking battalion? And why couldn't Mycroft see that the meeting should be cancelled; arrest everyone here and let the chips fall where they may.

Waiting. The snipers in the gallery were not very interesting to watch once they targeted the pool deck a couple of times (real challenging that, thought the snarky sniper hiding under the ceiling), and then they sat and waited quietly.

Waiting. Imagine picking those snipers off, one by one…Headshots? Yeah, that was usually the most effective method, although they didn't seem to be wearing any body armor so a surgical shot to the heart would be just as effective as a headshot.

Either way, they'd be fairly easy targets at this range. But which weapon to use, considered the black-clad agent? A Sig would be faster than the rifle, and at this range just as accurate. But the rifle was virtually guaranteed to kill.

So, rifle and headshot, saving a chest shot for backup and using a Sig if necessary. Obviously, the Colonel…No, stop calling him that; he's the ex-colonel. ANYWAY, the ex-colonel would have to be the first to go.

Waiting. What the hell was that rattling noise? Could that actually be Moran wheezing or was it the ventilation system? Nope, thought the marksman, it was Moran. That bastard needed either a doctor or a bullet to the brain. Not very compassionate thoughts, but there it was.

Waiting. The desire to look at a clock was becoming a compulsion; it always happened sooner or later on a stake out. And all it took was just one fleeing glance at a watch or a clock and then, BAM! Time-warp. The stake out would last for hours or even days. Forget the clock.

Waiting. And ignore the bloody clock. Remember what happened to Jonas when he entered that time-warp. Bloody hell, Jonas had said that he almost died in that sodding time-warp. Jonas even looked older, greyer, when he made it out…So, breathe in… … … and then out…ignoring the very existence of clocks… …and breathe in…

Waiting. And breathing in… … …and out

Waiting.

Waiting.

Footsteps. Steady footsteps, which sounded confident and in command. Footsteps approached from the front of the building.

Breathe out…

The click/click/click of leather shoes on linoleum, getting louder, followed by the clunk/thud of a door opening.

Well now.

A soft snick and the door shut.

Waiting… … is over.

The tall, lean brunet looked around the room, almost casually, but the solitary sniper could sense the alert appraisal, the aroused tension.

Well then.

Right. Now that the mission had officially started, the marksman could safely check the clock: 0014 hours.

Late.

Holmes was late, as usual.

But no matter. It was show time.

A/N *MOD=minder of the day, some lucky minion who gets to babysit, I mean guard, Sherlock Holmes.

Thank you to everyone who has kept up with this very long fic. And yes there is a cliffhanger, but Chapter 51 is not far behind. (Like a day or two at the most.) :D

Thank you for reading, following or favoriting this fic. All of you have honored me and have made me exceedingly happy.

Thank you so much to those who have sent me reviews. I owe you so much for your support and inspiration. Thank you for the recent reviews from: Wing of Darkness, dana-san, JC Black, 107602, kmyzbtcc, Quiet Time and meep484. Thank you all so much.

Disclaimer-I must confess that I do not own the rights to Sherlock, John or any characters from ACD's Sherlock or BBC's Sherlock.

I have decided that I do own the rights to Sherlock in some alternate universe. Now I just have to find a way to get to that universe. Practical suggestions on how to conduct inter-dimensional travel would be welcomed.

:D