AN: So sorry about the extremely long break in between updates. I promise that the next one will be a bit quicker. Also, the plot is shaping rather nicely... Enjoy.
•••
A slow grin spread across Moriarty's face.
"Did you miss me?" He asked, pulling out a long, thin-bladed knife from his pocket.
Without a thought, Sherlock stepped in front of John, shielding him, eyes fixed on Jim.
Moriarty chuckled to himself and smirked at the two of them, choking up on the knife blade and using the edge to dig dirt from under his fingernails. It was so much bolder a statement than openly threatening them, this casual attitude.
"I- I don't understand..." John said, peering around Sherlock to study Moriarty.
"Don't understand what, Johnny Boy?" He didn't so much as glance up from his nails.
There was a moment of hesitation as John tried to formulate something that could adequately summarize everything.
"You." He said simply.
Moriarty laughed.
"Yes, well, you wouldn't be the first," he responded, rolling his eyes, "But, I'd better be off. People to kill, lives to ruin. You know how it is. Oh, by the way," he added, as he was walking to the door, "Sorry about the kid. I'm not the best driver. Not technically licensed, actually."
"You- you killed Hamish." Sherlock was hardly asking.
Moriarty snorted, turning back to face them directly.
"Please, Sherlock. Don't be so obvious about it."
Cold, bitter anger, an emotion which Sherlock rarely showed, suddenly overwhelmed him, and he leapt at Jim. Somehow, the consulting criminal managed not only to dodge the attack, but also to grab Sherlock and pin him down. He waved the knife in front of Sherlock's face threateningly.
John gripped the foot of his bed and pushed himself up, but the moment he tried to take a step towards the two men, he collapsed, only just managing to catch himself before his head hit the ground. Moriarty made no attempt to suppress his mocking smile.
Jim slowly lowered the blade to Sherlock's wrist and pressed it into his skin. The incision he made was hardly over an inch in length, and relatively shallow, but the impact of it was perfectly clear on both Sherlock's and John's faces.
"Oh, that's right," Moriarty smirked, as though he had forgotten, "You must have missed it, hm?"
Horrified, John struggled to move backwards and prop himself up against the back wall. The worst thing for him was the way Sherlock reacted to the question, pursing his lips and remaining silent. The answer was not 'No'.
John was helpless to do anything but watch as Moriarty continued.
Though none were visible now, all of them knew that each cut he opened up had once been a scar.
Desperately, John reached up and felt around for the 'Call for Assistance' button, but was unable to find it. He frustratedly grabbed the edge of the mattress and pulled himself onto his knees. At last, he caught a glimpse of the tiny remote and big red button, and he slammed his hand down on it.
"Yes, because that's going to stop me." Moriarty laughed.
He paused and itched his ear.
After a moment he stood, aimed an exact kick at Sherlock's nose, and sauntered out of the room.
•••
"Are you alright, love?" John called from the sofa, where he sat adding the latest entry to the blog, when his husband emerged from the bedroom, tugging at his long sleeves.
The doctors had finally told them that John had healed enough to be allowed to go home, and the two of them were enjoying their first few days back at the flat together.
"Am I alright?" Sherlock parroted incredulously, "The doctors hardly touched me, and it's all mostly healed now, anyway. You're the one to be worried about."
John forced a smile that turned into a wince as he shifted to face Sherlock, pulling at his scarring bullet wound.
"That's not what I meant."
Sherlock froze for a brief, silent pause, and then looked at John, who gestured for him to come to the sofa. He did so, and John held out his hand. Reluctantly, Sherlock pulled up his sleeve and placed his wrist in John's outstretched palm.
The cuts were not cuts now, but pale marks in the stage between wound and scar. John gently traced his thumb over one of them.
"You know, you don't have to look at me like that," Sherlock said, and John raised his eyes. "I didn't do it this time."
"Oh- oh, love, no. I wasn't-" John shook his head and drew a deep breath. "It hurts me to see you in pain," he explained, staring into Sherlock's eyes, "no matter the cause of it."
"Well, imagine how I feel..." Sherlock protested, nodding at John's chest.
The doctor shrugged.
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose you have a point there." He paused, rolled Sherlock's sleeve back down, and took both of the other man's hands in his own.
"We need to talk about it," he said at last, earning him a confused look from Sherlock. "About Moriarty, I mean... You- you hesitated."
"What?"
"He said, 'You must have missed it...'" John quoted, "and you hesitated."
There was no response, and Sherlock averted his gaze.
"Sherlock."
He pulled his hands away from John's and began to stand.
"Hey." Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed Sherlock's forearm to stop him. Sherlock yanked his arm free and, for only a second, gave him a penetrating, icy glare.
"I'm sorry..." John whispered.
Sherlock shook his head and sat back down, though this time on the arm of the sofa.
"Look," he said, "I'm not going to pretend this is easy for me, because it isn't, even now. But that doesn't mean... That doesn't mean there aren't more important things in my life. There's... There's you. And that means, it will all be alright. Do you understand?"
John nodded, slowly, and smiled as the curly-haired man stood, walked over, and bent to kiss his cheek.
"I love you."
•••
Sherlock and John began to lose track of the time as they spent nearly all of their days around the flat; Sherlock humored Lestrade by solving some of their more obvious cases over the phone, and John corrected the ME's diagnoses and then blogged about the murders.
Strangely, they had heard no mention of their very own fairy tale villain since the hospital, but after several conversations about what a miracle it was, they decided it best not to look.
By their very casual track of the date, it was sometime around three months since 'the incident' that a knock came at their door.
"I've got it..." John called to Sherlock in the kitchen, and got up to open it.
In the hall stood a bruised, unsightly mess of a woman, with a dirty face and tangled blond hair. She was nearly unrecognizable. Nearly.
"Please. Help me..." Mary whimpered, focusing her eyes on the floor.
"Why the hell should we?" Despite her pathetic appearance, John had half a mind to close the door in her face without waiting for an answer.
"Because," she responded feebly, before he could decide to send her away, "I'm carrying your child."
"No. No, that isn't true. You can't lie to me; I saw the file." John told her.
"Don't believe everything you read," she whispered, barely audible.
Sherlock appeared behind John and studied the disheveled Mary.
"She's telling the truth, John," he said, and then to Mary, "Come in. The kettle's just boiled."
The two of them stepped aside to allow Mary into the flat, and Sherlock went to pour them all a cuppa. Once everything was settled, they sat around the flat's main room, Sherlock and John in their armchairs, Mary in the 'client's chair', pulled up to the center of the floor.
She took off her coat and draped it over the back of the chair, revealing the distinct curve of her stomach; at the very least, she had been pregnant for as long as she had claimed.
"What do you mean, 'It's mine'?" John asked, as cooly as he was able.
"I- I faked the files. I knew th- that- that they'd get rid of me once my- my purpose had been served," Mary stuttered.
Sherlock reached out and comfortingly squeezed her hand.
She took a breath to steady herself, looked at him, and nodded.
"So," she continued, "I told Jim the baby was his, because that way, he wouldn't hurt me. But I know... Well, the timing of it, it could only be you, John. I suppose, Jim realized that. And when he did, well... he tried to, go through with their original plan, I suppose. I thank God I got out of there alive."
She let them sit for a moment, to absorb the whole, true story.
"Please," she repeated finally, "Will you help me?"
Sherlock glanced sideways at John, who, after a moment of hesitation, nodded.
•••
Mary struggled a bit to sit up in the bed that they had told her was once John's. It had almost, though not quite, become like normal life, her staying in Baker Street with the two of them. Or rather, they had all gotten used to it, and there seemed to be a kind of mutual, begrudging agreement to it all.
She sighed, placing a hand on her now rather full belly. It barely caught her attention when she felt the baby kick a few times; that happened almost routinely, by this point.
The door to John's old bedroom was ajar, as they insisted she leave it, and she peered out into the flat. After a moment, both of the Watson-Holmes men came into view, and bits of their conversation made their way to Mary. As per usual, the conversation was centered around her.
"...don't need to keep apologizing about it..." Sherlock was saying.
"Yes, I do. It's- well, it's mine, isn't it... making me responsible for this. This is my fault."
"You make it sound like it's some awful thing, but..."
They continued to pace around the room, and eventually Mary could only see their lips move, wordlessly. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
•••
John swung the door back as he walked into the flat, but Sherlock caught it before it could slam shut and closed it quietly. The clock declared it ten to midnight; often, nowadays, they would stay out late on a case, whether it was particularly interesting or not, to keep some facade that they were still living their old life.
It was like a schedule: a rather silent breakfast with Mary, and then head out to Scotland Yard for the rest of the day. There were the occasional days when Lestrade simply had nothing to be done, but such an occurrence was rare, thankfully. And, of course, they made sure to have 221B monitored the whole of the time that they were out; Mycroft's old people still seemed to feel a touch of loyalty to the Holmes family.
By the time Sherlock had hung his coat, slipped into the bedroom, and undressed, John was already beneath the covers. Just as Sherlock was rolling over and closing his eyes himself, he heard a soft, "Sherlock?"
He turned to look over his shoulder.
"Hm?"
"I'm sorry."
Realizing what this was about, Sherlock propped himself up and looked down at his husband's moonlit face.
"Come on, we've been through this. You've nothing to apologize for."
"Yes, I do."
"No." Sherlock shook his head.
"Yes, Sherlock." John sat up now, too. "I'm with you." He laid a slight emphasis on the last word.
Sherlock paused.
"Well, yes..." he responded, "I, uh, am aware of that, actually."
John shook his head. "But, I mean, this baby..."
"They tricked you," Sherlock said comfortingly, "Really, it was Sebastian, for God's sake, and-"
"It still happened," John protested, "We're married, but I let this happen."
"It wasn't your fault, though... No," he said, when John turned away, "It wasn't. You didn't- you didn't even remember me. And that wasn't your fault, either. I don't blame you, John. You didn't do this. It was them. Alright?"
John finally looked back up to his eyes, though he still paused a moment.
"Really?"
"Really," Sherlock told him, "I love you. No matter what. Always."
John nodded, and Sherlock leaned in to gently kiss his lips.
"Now, go to sleep, my love."
•••
It was still dark the next morning when a shrill, piercing scream broke the silent air and roused John and Sherlock from their bed. Something had been set to jam the bedroom door shut, and while they struggled to open it, they heard quite the commotion from out in the flat, followed by a door slamming as someone left the flat. By the time they got the door open, pushed the chair out of the way, and ran down the hall, it was quite clear that whoever they had heard was long gone.
Inspection of Mary's room confirmed their fears; she was missing, her room a mess, things pulled from dressers and shelves and scattered across the floor.
On the bed, resting on a pillow, was a perfectly white, folded slip of paper. The front was blank but for an address, written in a neat, precise hand in the bottom corner. Sherlock picked up the paper and opened it, revealing the lengthy note within. He and John read it in silence.
'Hello again, my old friends-
Allow me to begin with a simple statement: I apologize. However as much as you may doubt the truth in that claim, I assure you I am not lying.
I am certain that you are none too pleased to be hearing from me again. Indeed, I would not have come to you if I did not have to. However, I have no choice. I need your help.
You see, I am not the man the world believes me to be. None of the awful things I have done were my choice. I did not mean for any of this to happen. The truth is, I am being controlled. I, in fact, have a superior, who has been ordering me to do these things.
I have had enough of it. This life is too much for me. I long to be rid of it. My superior, he forced me to be so cruel to Mary. And I did, though I greatly regret it now. I don't expect either of you to understand, being forced to harm the one you love.
Actually, I do. And I apologize once again.
Rest assured, it is one of the worst things a person can ever go through.
If you come to the address I have written on the outside fold of this note, I will almost certainly die. That does not worry me, however, as long as she is saved.
Please.
-JM'
Sherlock refolded the note, but they both continued to stare at it for a few moments.
"Where've you hidden my gun this time?" John asked, finally.
"It's in the microwave." Sherlock responded.
John sighed.
"I'm not even going to ask."
•••
"What is it with these meetings in old, empty places?" John grumbled as their footsteps echoed off the bare walls of the abandoned apartment building.
Sherlock shrugged.
"Ambiance."
They turned the corner at the first doorway they came to and there stood Mary, bound, gagged and unable to move. Two people lurked just behind her: Moriarty, dressed in his Westwood suit and holding a British Army Browning L9-A1 in his right hand, and then a taller, hooded figure, dressed all in black.
It was impossible to tell whether anyone in the room saw Sherlock and John, and indeed they would be very easily missed in the shadows.
The hooded figure nodded slightly to Moriarty, who raised the gun to point it at Mary, but his hand was shaking. He let his hand fall to his side again and shook his head.
"No, Mr. Holmes. I can't."
Somehow, his voice was perfectly steady. It did not correspond at all with the trembling image of a man that was standing there.
The figure, as though it had been waiting for this, deftly snatched the gun from Moriarty, who did not even resist, pressed the barrel to the other man's temple, and pulled the trigger.
Sherlock and John watched in shock as the man who was not a man, but a spider, the consulting criminal, the fairy tale villain collapsed to the floor, dead.
The figure then turned to Mary and forced her to her knees. Muffled screams echoed off the walls as the figure kicked her in the stomach repeatedly. She shook her head frantically, as though denying it could stop her baby girl from dying.
At last, the figure stopped, raised the gun again, and shot Mary in the head.
"Useless, the pair of them..." A man's deep voice came from beneath the hood.
Sherlock's eyes widened at the sound of it.
"You two, on the other hand," the man continued, "not quite so useless."
He reached up a hand and pulled off his hood.
"Hello, brother mine." Sherlock said, "You're supposed to be dead."
•••
AN: Please review.