AN: Okay, firstly, so so so so sorry, for leaving you so long again after such a cliffhanger, it'd been a ridiculously buy 2 weeks, I worked 12 days straight (although my weekend job was so fun it barely counts as work) and went to 3 gigs in the space of one of these weeks, so overall, I barely had a chance to go on my computer, and when I did I was too tired to write more than a couple of paragraphs.
But here it is finally, and It's a nice long one for you too, with a large dose of Johnlock epic bromance. We've heard a lot from Molly's POV recently, so it's time to hear from Sherlock :)
The night before.
Sherlock's feet carried him automatically back to the Watsons', even though he'd left his keys at home in his hurry to get out. Not that he needed them, his lock-picking set was always in his coat pocket, and his hands worked automatically, letting himself in. His mind still wasn't on what he was doing as he walked straight down the hall into the living room, his head turning left automatically towards the sound of heavy breathing, and finding himself face to face with John's gun. That woke him up.
"For goodness sake, Sherlock!" John bit out in exasperation, lowering his weapon, and turning to put it away one handed, his other arm busy with carrying Charlotte on his hip "You should know better than to break into someone's house when they have a gun and a baby to protect, I almost shot you! Why didn't you use your keys?"
"I forgot them, sorry." Sherlock said distractedly, starting to pace.
"You forgot something." John's brow creased, and he looked closer at Sherlock, noticing the tense energy radiating from him, enough for even him to read. Laying Charlotte back in her crib in the corner of the room, he asked "Are you okay? What's wrong."
"Molly knows." Sherlock stated, barely pausing in his pacing. "She knows about the plan!"
John grimaced and swore under his breath. The decision to leave her out of it had been unanimous, they'd all thought it would be better for her safety to have plausible deniability if things did go wrong, and for her peace of mind as well. Now she'd be doubly upset, with the plan and them hiding it from her. "How'd she find out? Did she find the pictures?"
"She was shown them." Sherlock but out angrily "by Moriarty no less."
"She talked to Moriarty?"
"Oh yes, they're old pals her and Jim." He spat the name like it was poison, his own tone acid "She's even taking his side in all of this! He just bats his eyelids at her, mentions a niece, and suddenly she's all for letting him walk free, and we're the evil ones for separating him from his girl."
John let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair in stress. "So what happened, did she kick you out?"
"Oh no, I walked out, not long after she called me no better than Moriarty." Sherlock finally stopped his restless pacing and flopped dramatically onto the sofa, folding his arms.
"Wow... Well, if you don't mind the sofa bed and Charlotte crying every 3 hours, you're welcome to crash for the night, until you... Y'know get things figured out."
"What's there to figure out?" Sherlock grumbled, but made himself more comfortable on the sofa. John nodded, pleased with the temporary solution, and went to make tea.
Pondering the situation as he waited for the kettle to boil, something occurred to John, and he stuck his head back into the living room.
"Do you think Molly will talk to him again?"
If possible, Sherlock tensed even more. "How should I know? My wife is already sleeping with the enemy, why should I care how often?"
John's eyebrows shot up at Sherlock's crude summary of the situation. He was clearly in real turmoil, so much so that he wasn't thinking clearly. But John wasn't very good at comforting people at the best of times, yet alone his emotionally constipated best friend. Forgetting about the tea he went and sat on the other sofa facing Sherlock, giving him his best reassuring look.
"Easy, mate, you're letting your emotions get the better of you. That's a little one we like to call jealousy."
"I am not-!" Sherlock started, but John held a hand to silence him, carrying on calmly.
"You are, and anyway that's not the point. The point is, this is exactly what we were waiting for, isn't it? Moriarty to step out where we can see him in a desperate bid to get Kaitlin back. This is that step, question is will we get another shot or did we already miss it?"
It was quite something to see the spark of genius reignite in Sherlock's eyes, knowing for once that for once, he'd beat him there.
"Oh, John, that's brilliant, of course you're right!" Sherlock exploded, jumping out of his seat and spinning around in excitement as the pieces all came together in his mind, the game back on. "No I don't think we've missed it, I think we'll get another chance, and soon I imagine. Tomorrow she'll go back to where they met, and he'll be waiting for her, eager for a progress update."
"And we'll be waiting for him." John grinned, Sherlock's enthusiasm soon catching. "Assuming you know where?"
"Of course I know." Sherlock smirked.
"Go on then."
"Molly is escorted to and from work by one of Mycroft's cars, and they're never late, there would be no chance for him to talk to her then. He can't set foot in the hospital, yet alone the morgue; hospital security know his face, as would anyone from Scotland Yard visiting the morgue, as they do several times a day, and even if he was to disguise himself, he wouldn't get past Mycroft's additions to their security. What with him posing as an IT technician there, and meeting me there to stage our suicides, Mycroft figured it was a high priority surveillance area, and upgraded the cameras for face recognition, with an alert direct to his office. In short, if he went into the building we'd know. That leaves only one option. Molly likes to eat outside on her lunch break when the weather is nice, but she won't go far in case there's an emergency and she's needed back in the morgue, so she sits on one of the benches bordering the hospital. Given the time of day she usually eats her lunch and the pattern of red where she'd caught the sun on her face I noticed earlier, I'd say somewhere on the West side of the Hospital."
"That's where you jumped isn't it? You think she'd sit there?" John asked, his voice slightly stiff at the mention of it.
"I don't see why not, why would it bother her?" At John's incredulous raised eyebrow, Sherlock backtracked "Of course there are plenty of benches down that side and it is fairly long. She could have sat further down, I suppose."
"Right then. What's the plan?"
The next day
"It still gives me the shivers seeing the hospital from this side you know." John said conversationally, as they sat on the 6th floor staircase of one of the buildings opposite Barts, a sniper rifle loaded with tranquiller darts (John didn't know where Sherlock got it, and didn't want to know either) sitting between them, resting on a windowsill.
"I don't see why, now you know it was all faked." Sherlock shrugged.
"It doesn't bother you at all then? Even with all your variables, how it could have ended doesn't bother you?" John pushed
"Not really. I'd be more bothered by the fact that this is probably the same staircase where your sniper sat, waiting to put a bullet in your brain if I failed." Sherlock's serious expression turned up into a smirk. "If I didn't know for a fact he's dead, that is. A terribly unfortunate accident." He added sarcastically.
"Riiight…" John said. Again, he didn't want to know how Sherlock knew that. The fact that this was where the sniper sat though… "That should probably bother me more than it does."
"There's many things that should probably bother you more than they do, John, it's one of the things I admire most about you."
Simultaneously they caught each other's eye and burst into giggles, which also abruptly came to a halt when the voice they had been expecting arrived unexpectedly.
"Hello. Is it me you're looking for?"
The previous night Sherlock had snuck back into his flat, slipping a sound-only surveillance bug ("Mycroft is kind enough to drop one by every few months or so. Well, I say drop one by, I mean attempt to hide it in my flat.") into Molly's lab coat pocket, and it was that they were hearing now, streamed to one of Sherlock's laptops on the step above John. Only, they had expected to see at least Molly, if not both of them out the window before hearing them, but that wasn't the case.
"Where are they? You said this is where they'd be!" John asked, his eyes scanning the crowded pavements below them, as Molly's voice answered Moriarty in the background.
"They must be there somewhere!" Sherlock insisted, leaning out over John and also scanning the streets. "There they are! Exactly where I said they'd be. So much for your insisting she wouldn't sit where I fell!"
"Okay, I was wrong, you were right as usual, now get out the way and let me line up the shot." John snapped, putting his eye to the scope and readjusting.
"-something Sherlock told me. It's about Kaitlin. They never-"
Sherlock's heart skipped a beat at the realisation of what Molly was about to do. "Now, John!" He cried, and John pulled the trigger.
"Jim?"
Molly's shocked gasp and Moriarty's hand going to the back of his neck was all Sherlock needed to see and hear to know that John had made a successful shot. With that he darted away, flying down the stairs and calling back over his shoulder; "And Molly. Then get Lestrade on the phone, and text your wife – "
"Wait, back up a second, 'and Molly'? Sherlock, she's your wife, I can't tranq her!" John called back down to him over the banister.
"Just do it, before she tries to do anything else stupid!" Sherlock yelled back, almost at the bottom now. He was too far gone for John to keep arguing with, as much as he'd like to, though looking out the window he had to admit Sherlock was right; Molly did look like she was about to try and save Moriarty, and after how hard they'd worked for this, John couldn't let that happen. With a heavy heart he set his sights on his friends wife, and pulled the trigger.
AN: So there you have it, next chapter; the aftermath.
Thanks again to all the people who reviewed the last chapter, you all made my day, and of course to those who follow and favorite as well.:)