A/N: Here's the next chapter! (Obviously...) Any of you watching the Empty Hearse as it airs in the US tonight? :D Don't know if I'll be able to watch it on the TV, but I'm planning on watching it again once PBS puts it up on their website. :D Looking forward to it!
DISCLAIMER: GUESS WHAT. (*waits for you to say "What?") I DON'T OWN SHERLOCK. *gasps* However, I have recently been nicknamed "Hannah Moffat". So I'm happy. :D
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
THE TUNNEL
Sheila bolted forward, unwilling to become Clarice's hostage again. But as she did, the throttling whiteness of her memories threatened to convulse on her again. She kept running, but every step became harder and she felt like she was going to be sick.
John started running after Sherlock, debating whether or not to reach for his gun. He didn't want to have to shoot Clarice, but if it meant keeping Sherlock and Sheila safe, he wouldn't hesitate.
Sherlock stopped in front of a dark side street and grabbed Sheila's coat, pulling her in after him. John was slightly behind them. He looked her intently in the face as he spoke, searching for signs of another of her strange attacks.
"Run down to the end and take the service ladder to the roof. Climb down onto the dumpsters on the opposite side and hop the fence. The woods are right there. Don't wait; we'll be right behind. Do you understand?" He waited for her nod and then shoved her in the direction of the ladder. He spun and dragged John into the alley, pushing him in front and running behind.
"Ladder," he gasped, stopping at the bottom and glancing back toward Clarice. He waited until John was up a few rungs and started following behind. He took a sharp intake of breath, his ribs burning.
He caught of glimpse of Sheila's coat as she reached the roof and disappeared from sight.
John kept climbing the ladder, glancing back to make sure Sherlock was alright. Clarice followed them and had started up the ladder. His face was red with exertion and from fury. He reached up and grabbed a hold of Sherlock's ankle.
Sherlock's hand slipped off the next rung and he was pulled back a little. He kicked at Clarice but he didn't let go. The thug tried to drag him down, putting most of his weight on Sherlock.
A knife of pain sliced into his lower chest. The small fire in Sherlock's chest exploded and he gave a short cry as his rib cracked further. He switched his weight to the foot in Clarice's grip and used his free leg to kick with. Clarice didn't let go.
"John, go," Sherlock ground out between clenched teeth, trying to gain another rung and grunting against the pain in his side.
"Sherlock!" John cried. He adjusted his grip on the ladder, leaning against it so he could hold on with his left hand and pulled his gun out with his right. He aimed it at Clarice, hesitating. He couldn't get a clear shot without risking hitting Sherlock.
Sherlock let go of the ladder with one hand for a moment and dug frantically in his pocket for something before bringing out a small bottle of surgical spirits. He had grabbed it with a few other supplies before they left the hotel, just in case. He opened it with his teeth and squirted some of it down into Clarice's eyes.
Clarice didn't let go, but the ferocity of his attack diminished somewhat as he was distracted with shaking his head to clear his extremely blurred vision. Sherlock glanced up and saw John with a gun in his hand. He leaned as far as he could over to one side of the ladder, leaving Clarice open to John's line of fire. Clarice, still impaired by the surgical spirits, didn't seem to notice the change in arrangement.
As soon as Sherlock leaned out of the way, John didn't hesitate. He fired.
Sherlock kicked the stunned Clarice one more time and was free from his grip.
"Let's go," he said breathlessly, following after John up the ladder as quickly as he could. "I told Sheila not to wait; she's probably already in the woods."
John reached the roof and ran across, hesitating on the other side just long enough to make sure Sherlock had made it onto the roof. He looked down, took a deep breath, then jumped down.
#
Sheila ran through the woods towards Dewer's Hollow. Everything within her screamed at her to stop, to turn away. Don't go back! Don't go back! She stopped abruptly and grabbed fistfuls of her hair, bending over. Stop it! Get a grip!
Sherlock threw himself over the edge of the roof, landing hard on the dumpsters and rolling off, then hit the ground running, trying to ignore the growing fire in his chest. He whipped out his little flashlight and used it to follow Sheila's tracks. The scuffed up marks in he fallen leaves showed up dark and damp in the flashlight, making it much easier to follow her than it would have been in the daylight. He kept his gaze focused on the ground as he ran, and suddenly he collided forcibly with Sheila, who was standing still. He felt John run into him from behind. Quickly he disentangled himself and stepped back, leaning against a tree and gingerly feeling his side.
"Well, that was fun," he said, scrutinizing Sheila. "Were you hurt?"
Sheila tried to steady her breathing. "No," she gasped. She straightened, looking at Sherlock. "Clarice...?"
Sherlock nodded toward John, who nodded back. "He took care of him. Good shot, by the way. Now, where's that tunnel?"
Sheila looked in the direction. "This way." She started running again, against every instinct that told her to run in the opposite direction.
Sherlock bent over, trying to catch his breath and wait for the pain in his ribs to quiet down a minute before following. He noticed John looking at him, though, and he smiled sheepishly as he straightened up and ran off after Sheila.
John frowned, but followed after them.
Sheila ran, the trees a blur. Another memory threatened to engulf her. She ran through the woods, out of Dewer's Hollow, the trees a blur... Stop it! She screamed internally.
The hollow appeared up ahead. She ran into it, slowing only the slightest on the slope down inside.
Sherlock followed more slowly, observing her reactions. She was obviously having some sort of internal struggle, but he chose not to ask her about it again at the moment. He let his gaze sweep the hollow, curious to see if he could spot the entrance before Sheila pointed it out. No sign of one, as he suspected. The Baskerville people would of course be good at hiding things when they chose.
Sheila stopped in the middle of the hollow, staring straight ahead. She couldn't see it, but she knew exactly where it was. She took another hesitant step forward, then another, until she stood in front of what looked like just another wall of the hollow. She closed her eyes. "Here."
Sherlock stepped forward to stand beside her, running the beam of the flashlight over the face of earth and rock before them. He reached out and brushed his fingertips against the wall. "Well?" He asked, turning and raising an eyebrow at her.
Sheila stepped forward, examining the wall intently. She finally reached out and touched the wall in a few different spots in rapid succession, in a seemingly random pattern.
A faint click and a whir came from the other side of the wall. Sheila took a step back, her chest tightening as a door slid open in the wall.
Sherlock felt a little leap of excitement inside him, a rush of adrenaline. This was what he lived for. The thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through his veins… how did ordinary people ever survive without it? And this was something new. Something he had definitely never encountered before. A girl that was his express image, who shared his memories, whose footsteps were apparently dogged by roughs and thugs… and her secrets lay within the door. Not just her secrets. His secrets, too. Whatever this was, he was a part of it.
He stepped forward, slowly, relishing the moment, taking in the yawning black mouth of the tunnel, noticing every electric thrill that ran to his fingertips… his breathing quickened. He paused. Where was John? And Sheila? He turned around and stared in consternation. Both of them still stood outside, some unreadable expression on their faces. What was it? Fear? Distaste? Hesitancy? He really couldn't understand. "Aren't you coming or not?" he asked, impatience evident in his voice.
"I can't," Sheila's voice came out rushed. She took a step backwards. Her face had lost all colour and she started trembling again. "I can't go back, not in there, I can't!" She lifted her hands to her face and shook her head. "Why am I saying that; I've never been here before!" As she spoke her voice rose in pitch.
John took a step nearer to her, concern in his face. He took her arm gently. "Sheila, it's alright. Calm down." He glanced at Sherlock, unsure.
Sherlock let out a sigh and took a step nearer her. "Don't you want to know why you remember things you shouldn't? Don't you want to find out why you're saying things you didn't mean to say? I thought you'd committed to get to the bottom of this. Or do you want to wait until Mum calls to ask you to come home and talk to her about it then? Or wait until Mycroft finally decides to stop being a snob and speak to you like he used to before your fight last month? You can wait forever for those things, because they never happen." Sherlock stopped short. His voice had grown faster and louder and more intense as he'd spoken, but he only now seemed to realize what he'd been saying. He looked at John, a sinking feeling in his stomach, and back at Sheila. He'd said it though. He couldn't unsay anything. He swallowed and looked at the ground.
John felt a mixture of reproof at Sherlock's harsh words die down as he realized what the words meant.
Sheila said nothing for a moment, then she hardened her jaw. She looked up at Sherlock, then brushed past him and walked into the tunnel.
Sherlock cleared his throat and straightened his scarf, his cheeks burning. He avoided John's gaze and meekly fell into step behind Sheila, cursing himself inwardly. Stupid, stupid. John must be a bad influence. His emotions never used to surge up unbidden like this. But then. He'd been alone before John. Ever since he was 18, he'd waited for...he didn't know what. Something to let him know it was alright, they could forget everything, he was forgiven for whatever he'd done wrong in the first place. But nothing ever came. Until John. So he guessed it was worth it, even if his emotions did act up every now and again.
He cleared his throat. "Do we know specifically where this tunnel leads?"
Sheila thought for a moment, before shaking her head. "No."
Sherlock nodded, but didn't say anything. He kept glancing uneasily out of the corner of his eye at John, expecting some sort of reprimand. John wasn't looking at him, though. Sherlock cleared his throat. "I am...sorry, Sheila. About what I said back there. That was...a bit not good, so...yeah."
John did look at Sherlock this time, feeling surprised, but... almost proud in a way.
Sheila didn't look at him. "It's fine," she said. "You were right."
Sherlock stopped when the tunnel split, shining his light down each in turn. "I think we should-" he began, and then he froze, eyes fixed on something behind John and Sheila. The door to the hollow was closing, and there was no way to stop it in time. It closed with a solid metal clunk, and the frail glow of moonlight from the hollow was cut off. It was perfect inky blackness, except for the tiny lights they carried with them.
A grim smile came over Sherlock's face. "I am becoming more and more glad to have made your acquaintance, Miss Holmes. You've postponed another return to the stifling boredom of daily life."
John felt a little flutter of nervousness at the closed door, but he turned back from it, ready to soldier on. There was no turning back now.
Sheila gave a half grin. "Likewise, Mr Holmes. But drop the Miss Holmes already or I shall postpone your return to boredom further by knocking you unconscious." She turned her flashlight beam down one of the tunnels, then down the other, uncertain which to go down.
Sherlock's grin grew and he looked relieved at the ice having been broken. "Normally I would say that would be extremely ambitious of you," he said, "but under the circumstances I believe you." He glanced at John somewhat teasingly. "What kind of medicine do you carry around, anyway? It doesn't seem to be helping much. I'd have thought you went with the hospital-strength stuff."
John let out a small sigh of relief as the tension faded away. He rolled his eyes at Sherlock's question. "I do. But you're normally supposed to take it easy after taking pain-killers. Which you haven't really been doing."
Sherlock snorted in derision. "Mm. Well, good thing I took four of five of them, then." He took a few steps down each passage in turn, feeling the walls. "Damp. The walls are cold and there's condensation on them. In the other tunnel the walls are dry."
He walked back to the split and gave a mischievous half-grin at John. "Should we split up or choose a direction? I say we vote. I possess the intelligence of at least three ordinary people, so whichever side has me on it wins."
"Choose," John said, immediately. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."
Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "That's a little overprotective, don't you think? It's just a rib. However, if Sheila has an idea which would be the way to go, we'll all go that direction. Otherwise, splitting up is our best option. If we stuck together not knowing where we were going, we could waste valuable time wandering in the wrong direction. If we separated, one group is bound to find something interesting." He glanced back and forth between John and Sheila, bouncing on the balls of his feet in his impatience to be moving on.
John frowned, trying to come up with a logical argument to refute Sherlock's but came up with nothing.
Sheila looked back and forth between the two tunnels, but shook her head. "I don't know. I don't remember there being a split in the tunnel."
"Alright. How are we going to split up?" Sherlock stared John in the eye as if daring a protest.
John stared Sherlock in the eye as well. "Well, I'm not letting you go alone."
"So are you suggesting we let Sheila, who's obviously having some sort of relapses or flashbacks, go by herself?"
John clenched a fist at his side. "No."
"Well, then, the answer seems obvious," Sheila spoke up. "John, you don't want Sherlock going alone, and Sherlock doesn't want me going alone, so Sherlock and I will go down one way, and you can go down the other."
Sherlock looked at John expectantly with Sheila, like two kids waiting for a parent's permission to stay up late. Absently, his hand went into his pocket and he fingered the little bottle of pain killers. He realized what he was doing though, and took his hand out. He wasn't to take any more for a little over six hours.
"Here..." he said, after a moment. He pulled the bottle out and handed it to John. "I don't need these around. They wouldn't be...helpful, so you just keep them, alright? And here," he dug out the medical supplies he'd grabbed on the way out of the room. One or two sterile bandages, the little container of surgical spirits, among other things. "You're the doctor. If something happened I wouldn't know what to do with them anyway. Brought them just in case. " He hesitated a moment, and then slapped his phone into John's hand, as well.
"Your phone probably doesn't get service here; mine does. And Sheila's. We'll take hers and you take mine. We can contact each other if we need to. It's on the silent vibrating setting, so it won't give you away at a bad moment. Do you remember the password to unlock it?"
John nodded wordlessly and accepted the phone and medical supplies. He didn't like the idea of splitting up, especially letting Sherlock out of his sight when he was still obviously in pain. "Don't get into too much trouble," he said dryly.
"Mmm." Sherlock said. "Fair enough. Which way are you taking then, John?"
John hesitated and looked back and forth between the two tunnels.
Sheila, for some reason she couldn't decipher, wanted to take the right tunnel. But Sherlock seemed to want John to make a decision, so she stayed silent.
After another pause, John sighed slightly. "I'll take the left." He glanced back and Sherlock, still feeling uneasy about it, then walked down the tunnel.
"John. Be careful." Sherlock turned and quickly walked into the right.
John heard Sherlock's words, but when he turned to acknowledge them, Sherlock and Sheila had already disappeared down the other tunnel. He let out another small sigh and started down the tunnel alone.