Disclaimer: usual stuff.

My heartfelt gratitude to Benfan for reviewing, and following, and supporting me, thanks to you I feel a little more motivated to update this more quickly, and to improve my writing (I'm not really succeeding in this, but I'm trying ^^), and your stories are just awesome!

So, sorry for keeping you waiting for so long, real life is unfair…

Critic, advices, feedback are more than welcome =)

Enjoy!

Chapter 16. Act on impulse

Don't be ridiculous.

She saw that he understood. She was baldly provoking him with those words, those exact words she said fifteen years ago to the foolish teen Oliver was back then. The mad rage wrinkled his face. She just closed her eyes and silently prayed during the seconds before gunshots smashed the silence. A loud noise of a falling body, then gunshots and cries outside. She didn't dare to look up, nor open her eyes. Small hands were clinging to her, and her only thought right now was to get out of this nightmare at last.

Oliver didn't have the time to pull the trigger. They'll know whose bullet killed him after the autopsy. It was not the priority right now. Sherlock rushed to his sister, and simultaneously they could hear the beginning of the assault. The size of the criminal group was unknown, so Lestrade had decided to resort to drastic measures. While Holmes was standing near hostages, unsure of what he should do first and Watson was making sure Oliver was dead for good, Detective Inspector checked the corridor which led to the staircase. The place was deserted. All gunmen were probably keeping the front-door. Suddenly, he heard gunshots behind his back. He ran back to the dining-room cursing himself for such a careless mistake.

"John…" Sherlock almost begged his friend. "What's wrong with her?" Dr Watson diverted his attention from the corpse and stood up. Victoria was standing still, eyes closed, trembling, holding tight the crying child against her chest. Her tangled hair covered a part of her face, but marks of beatings and tears could be seen clearly. The boy pressed his pale face against her chest and breathed heavily. Holmes flailed around, not daring to touch these two. He didn't even know what to do or what to say. Stupid. Childish. This childish sentiment of fear and relief. How does he deal with it?! Confused, he looked up to John.

The army doctor was calmly examining the girl without touching her either. "Deep shock" was his conclusion. "She would need a trigger to snap out of it…"

"What kind of trigger?"

Unfortunately, he couldn't answer. A completely panicked thug burst into the room, stumbling and almost falling. For a second, they were looking at each other. At the moment, Sherlock retrieved his cool. He immediately noticed the wound on the right hand, a bloody cut on the cheek and a gun in the left hand. Right-handed. A stray bullet grazed him, he wasn't prepared, panicked, fled. The man's eyes got wider when he saw his boss's corpse, and Holmes instinctively pulled out his own weapon.

"Look out!" John shouted, pushing Victoria and the kid to the ground, while Sherlock threw himself in front of them, perfectly conscious of his bullet-proof jacket not being properly worn, silently apologizing to John in case all this mess ended very badly, and asking himself skeptically why the hell was he doing this. Oh well, it has always been like this since they were kids. He would always do stupid, irrational things when Vick was involved. He would not allow anybody, not even Mycroft to hurt her. He was the only one who had this right, because he was the only one who didn't really mean to be hurtful. And the day she was gone, suddenly sentiments stopped to matter and emotions got dull. Until he met John, but that's…

He felt pain blossom across his chest, the impact force throwing him backward. His finger slowly, almost gently pulled the trigger while he was falling. Another gunshot fired from the second door. Lestrade. A pained grunt and coughs from the thug's position. Must have been touched. The sore feeling of hitting the floor. Not good.

"Sherlock!"

A/N Aaand… that's it for today. Yeah, I love cliff-hangers. Sorry =)