A/N: Sorry this chapter is so short! Uh... think that's all I have to say... Oh, the cover I uploaded: I did the edit, but the source image is not mine. I found it on pinterest, so I don't know who the owner is. If you know/are the owner, lemme know. :)

DISCLAIMER: Don't own Sherlock. Blah.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

SHERLOCK HOLMES

The soldier marched John down the halls. John wracked his mind, trying to figure out what Sherlock would do in this situation. "I uh, don't suppose you'd be interested in hearing any of my excuses?" He asked the soldier, who hesitated before answering.

"No."

"Well, it was worth a try," John sighed.

The soldier stopped him in front of an office. An angry looking man John remembered too well came out. The look on his face intensified when he saw who the intruder was. "You!"

"Hello," John said.

"You were with that Sherlock Holmes before!" the Major barked, scowling. "What are you doing here again?"

"It's a long story..."

The Major gave him a dark scowl. "Keep it short."

Sherlock watched the woman leave, then turned his attention back to Sheila. "Do you remember anything earlier tonight?" he asked curiously, "Or do you just remember that woman and that you're her slave?" He intentionally chose the demeaning or inflammatory word to see if she would become defensive.

She said nothing.

"It's funny how it works out," he went on, "She strapped you down and stood by, didn't she, even when you begged her to stop. They destroyed what you knew and put lies in your head. But now..." He stared at her, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. "You're the one standing by. You're their puppet."

He grew more serious, all accusation gone from his voice. "Why? You don't have to be. You don't belong to them. Why are you doing this?"

Sheila hesitated before answering. When she did, her voice was low. "You heard her. I'm a clone. I'm nothing more than their puppet. That's what I was made to be. That's my purpose." Her voice was underlined with the slightest trace of bitterness.

Sherlock scoffed, wincing slightly. "Who says? Her? Tell me this, Sheila: why would you believe anything she told you? Anything at all. She lied to you about who you were by giving you my memories; she's lying to you now. You're a clone. Yes. I would say that's indisputable. But that's what you are, Sheila. Not who you are."

Sheila finally looked up and he saw the struggle to keep emotion from her face. "I… I'm not Sheila. I'm just… I'm just Project 10A."

"You're only Project 10A if you choose to be, Sheila," he replied, slightly arching his back, trying to make it easier to breathe. "But you'll always be something more. Even if you don't decide to act on it."

"Be what?" Sheila asked, and he saw the desperation in her eyes. "You're Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock glanced at the door, expecting the woman to return any moment and hoping that she didn't. Not yet. He was getting through to Sheila, she was listening. If the woman appeared now he had a feeling that the wall would slam down behind Sheila's eyes again, and that, he knew in all probability, would be final.

"I am Sherlock Holmes. But 'it's not a terribly uncommon occurrence for more than one person in the total population of the earth to share the same name,' is it?" He asked, quoting her from that evening when they first met. The corner of his mouth twitched up just a bit as he noticed again just how like him it sounded. And there was a little bit of pleasure in that, for some reason. He briefly wondered if that was what it would be like if Sheila actually was his daughter.

"And at any rate," he finished, "I think you'll always be Sheila to John. He doesn't want to call us both Sherlock. Apparently, he thinks the context of the sentence wouldn't be enough to communicate which Sherlock he was referring to. In some instances, I suppose he might be right. If he was asking Sherlock to buy the milk or clean the chemistry equipment off the table, I don't think either one of us would answer."

He paused, but she said nothing in reply. He sighed, which sent a searing pain through his chest. Great. Punctured lung. Hope that wouldn't require surgery to fix.

Sheila looked back down at the ground. "Then who am I?"

He looked at her as if it was obvious. "You're Sherlock Holmes."

Sheila stared at him for a moment. She slowly lowered the gun, setting it on the edge of the table. She undid the restraints around his arms and feet quickly, offering him a hand up silently.

Sherlock took her hand and grunted as he sat up on the table, his hand again going to his side. He struggled to re-adjust his breathing for a minute, and a rattling sound began to be heard with every breath. He grimaced. "Wonderful. I'm assuming that's internal hemorrhaging in the lung. I'm going to catch it when John finds out-" he stopped, looking in alarm at Sheila. "John." he said, his voice clipped. His face, if possible, turned slightly paler. "He's in the tunnel. And the woman sent-"

He stood quickly, but then froze at the sound of a door opening and closing down a corridor leading off the lab.

Sheila froze momentarily, then hissed, "Get back down!" She didn't push Sherlock back into a laying position for fear of further injuring him.

The door to the lab opened before either of them could get back into position. Sheila whirled around to find the woman stop right inside the door, a slightly surprised look flashing across her face. She shook her head. "Ah. I suppose I shouldn't have left you two alone."

Sheila dove for the gun on the end of the table, but froze with her hand hovering inches above it when the woman drew a gun from underneath her lab coat.

The woman looked at Sherlock and sighed. "I had hoped you could be further used for the project, but I've just been alerted that Major Barrymore is aware that you're in the lab. I can't have you explaining to him what I've told you. But if I tell him that I found an intruder in the base, who threatened me and I had to shoot you in self-defense, well, dear, I can say I'm truly sorry. I would have had so much fun with you."

Sherlock felt a small bit of satisfaction at hearing the Major had been alerted. John must be alright. It was small comfort, though, in the present predicament. He stepped slowly back from the table, moving slightly between Sheila and the woman, and motioning Sheila to move back further. His mind was working fast; trying to come up with a bluff or stall that wouldn't be pathetically, stupidly transparent.

"How will you explain the fact that neither Sheila nor myself have a weapon in our hands to threaten you with? Of course, once you've killed us, you could place things to corroborate your story, but it could be seen through with any good investigation. You could say that I threatened you without a weapon; men are after all significantly stronger than women..." He paused to catch his breath, which was coming rather short, "but then, any examination of the bodies by anybody who knew what they were doing would find that I was injured before my death and could easily have been overpowered by you, as we saw demonstrated by Sheila earlier. How will you cover?"

The woman nodded, pursing her lips. "Good points. In that case, I'll make sure your body can't be found." She lifted her communicator watch to her mouth. "Simon, bring a body bag for the Big One."

"What about me?" Sheila asked, bitterness in her voice. "Every time you've spoken you've only mentioned Sherlock's body."

The woman smiled. "You, my dear, are too valuable to let go. We'll move you to a new part of the base where you can't be found. We rewrote your memories once, we can do it again. Now, I understand that you wouldn't be eager to go, but I can't let you stall any longer." The woman aimed the gun at Sherlock's chest and pulled the trigger.

Sheila shoved in front of Sherlock. A white-hot pain exploded in her chest and she collapsed backwards.