Jen slammed the bathroom door and locked it before she let out a scream of frustration that had been building for a week now. She had been trying to do as Sherlock said, to show Peter trust, but it was killing her. She shut her eyes and saw both the people he killed and the people she killed. She could see Lucy asking her why. Why? Why? Why? But she couldn't answer her, and all the way she felt herself slipping farther and farther into her own insanity. She was betraying her own flesh and blood, and she had to. She had to, or he would keep at it. All the while she couldn't breath; she was suffocating. Brick upon brick was set on her chest.
Jen kicked the door hard crying out as her nails scratched down the surface of the door peeling of the paint. She took a deep breath trying to calm herself, but it wasn't working. Her heart was racing, and she could hear screaming in her head that wasn't her own. It was driving her mad, heckling her. She banged her own head against the door as she let out another cry.
Sherlock stood outside the bathroom door having heard her scream in frustration. He put his ear against the door trying to listen to any noises of distress. She was slowly breaking down, and he could see her mental health deteriorating. He worried what would happen when it finally broke away and crumbled leaving Jen nothing but a warped perception of the world. He had asked her to pretend to trust Peter, to betray her brother, and though she knew it was for the best, it was killing her. She thought Peter was the only family she had. So he waited, listening if she needed help he could provide.
Jen took another deep breath before she turned to the mirror that stood across from her. It didn't look like her; she couldn't really say why, but it just didn't. It seemed like it was something someone was trying to carve out what she wanted to see. That wasn't her in the mirror; it was a fraud. The woman didn't look half as tired or frustrated as Jen felt; she looked normal as if she wasn't drowning in madness, as if she wasn't struggling with her own emotions, as if she wasn't constantly rejected and reshaped by everyone around her. The woman in the mirror wasn't melting; her own identity wasn't slipping through her fingers as Jen's was. She wasn't constantly forgetting who she was, what made her, why she was here. She wasn't lost as Jen was. The woman in the mirror had no problems; the woman in the mirror was fucking perfect, and Jen hated it. She hated her; she envied her. So although her actions seemed so quick and involuntary, she shouldn't have been surprised when she swung her hand back and smashed the mirror letting the glass bury itself into her hand as she pressed harder.
Sherlock heard the smash, and he broke in the door open finding the lock not very impressive. He paused seeing Jen stare at her broken reflection as blood dripped off her hand onto the bathroom floor. She seemed fascinated by the reflection; the broken reflection was more fitting than the whole one.
"Ginny," he uttered trying to bring her back to him. Something had changed in her disposition. Her stance was rigid, and a shadow seemed to linger over her. She was a terrifying image; this was the woman who had killed people. She wasn't gentle; she wasn't the Ginny he knew. For a moment, Sherlock lost the Ginny he knew, and she was replaced by a creature that made even his heart race with fear. "Ginny," he whispered again putting a gentle, tentative hand on her shoulder. The shadow vanished leaving a fragile creature as she turned to him crying. "You have glass in your hand," he told her gingerly reaching out a hand to cup her right one.
"She was taunting me," she whispered to him, but he suspected she wasn't truly talking to him. He suspected his Ginny was a hundred miles away in a place he could not follow.
"Who was?" he asked her quietly as he sat her on the edge of the bathtub.
"The woman in the mirror," she answered as he ran the warn water in the bath. He pulled her hand in the water, and she let him without a fuss.
"She's you, Ginny," he told her, but she shook her head worrying him. Perhaps, he had asked too much of her. He stood and pulled the first aid kit from the linen cabinet before kneeling at her feet and opening the kit. "I know you are under a lot of stress, but you need to hold yourself together." He slowly began to remove the few shards of glass that remained in her hand. "It'll be over soon."
"For Peter and for you, but it'll never be over for me," she told him. "I'm scared. I'm scared," she whispered again before putting her head on his shoulder.
"I know you fear loosing Peter," he answered as he slowly began to dress her hand, "but you have others who you can lean on. People who actually care, who are good for you like Damon and John."
"John's good for you," she muttered. "He makes you more human."
"Don't remind me," he scoffed.
"And you... you care for me, don't you?" she asked him.
"Ginny, do you really think I would try and make a pathetic attempt healing both your mind and body if I didn't care for you in some way?" he questioned somewhat bitterly. He still resented how much he cared for her, but he had no choice in the matter. It had happened, and it can't change.
"All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is a disadvantage," she reminded him.
"I have discovered it is not voluntary no matter what I do," he replied quietly as he finished dressing her hand she cupped his face between both her hands staring down at him in some sort of desperation. "Ginny?" She pulled herself closer to him now on the very edge of the tub. He would have stood and taken a step away, but she kept him firmly rooted, trapped.
"Tell me everything will be okay," she begged.
"It'll be okay," he answered.
"Tell me I'm not alone," she demanded.
"You're not alone," he replied as she set her forehead on his bringing them closer together. Her nose gently touch his as her forehead pulled from his.
"Tell me you love me," she requested cause his heart to jump and his breath to pause as her eyelashes gentle skimmed against his cheek and her breath fell on his lips. "Tell me you love me," she murmured.
"Ginny," he began.
"Hmm?" she purred as his own body leaned into hers. His body reacted to her as he put his arms around her waist. Wild, inappropriate, dirty thoughts that were meant for average, normal men started leaking out from the bolted closet of Jen's room in his mind palace forcing his heart rate to increase and his mind to start swimming.
"Ginny, I-" He should have heard the heavy, soldier's feet that entered the bathroom, and the man that seemed completely flustered by the position of the two that he accidentally spoke in panic sufficiently breaking the private moment and making things more awkward than they had to be.
"I'm sorry- I didn't mean to-," John began causing Sherlock to bolt away from her almost in fright. "Was I interrupting something? I can come back." Sherlock gave him a hardened look, but wasn't sure he was truly upset or not at the interruption.
"No, I was just dressing Ginny's hand," he replied evening trying to sufficient seal the room back up. With the help of the towel bar, Jen stood, but she was unbalanced and seemed to sway like drunk.
"Are you okay?" John asked her, and she looked at him with glazed eyes before she collapsed onto the bathroom floor much to the alarm of Sherlock and John.
Mycroft Holmes was not one for social visits nor was he one for hospitals. After all, he still believed that caring was not an advantage, but as it so happened, the woman currently walking at his side had pressed him to see Jen even though she remained unconscious. From exhaustion, he was told though he generally made his own assessments and found many doctors to be completely incompetent.
"Oh," Elea muttered entering the room first to see Sherlock passed out in a chair near Jen's bed. Damon was awake smoking a cigarette though it was against one of those weird things called laws. Myra was out taking care of his business while John and Mary were taking care of Toby as well as Peter. Damon gestured for her to come in.
"I wouldn't think I would see you here," Damon told Mycroft as Elea took an empty seat near the unconscious woman opposite of the younger Holmes. She observed him; it was so rare to see him or his brother in a defenseless state as he was in now.
"Has Robbie been told?" Mycroft asked. Damon nodded.
"I contacted him as soon as I could; he's worried. We all are," the man muttered looking toward the bed-ridden woman. "Sherlock said she was acting strange. Said the mirror was taunting her. Do you think he knows?"
"No," Mycroft answered in the negative as he walked Elea rearrange the flowers that people left for her. "If it was anyone else, my brother would know by now, but he's blinded by her. In his eyes, she is without flaw; she can do no wrong, and if we are lucky, he'll never know. He would be to eager to fix the unfixable."
"Lucky?" Damon questioned raising an eyebrow at him. "Look at the damage Peter has done already."
"Peter?" Mycroft tisked at the man's simplicity. "You know as well as I that Peter is just an accessory to her demise. This was all Moriarty's doing, and if he was alive, he would be laughing in Sherlock's face, taunting him."
"Do you think he could?" Damon asked Mycroft. "Do you think that if Sherlock knew he could help her? He's been studying Moriarty's game inside and out. It's only a matter of time before he knows and acts."
"One must ask if the problem is fixable, Damon," Mycroft replied staring down at the girl. Years ago, when she was only sixteen, Mycroft had come in contact with her without her knowledge. He observed her, watched her, and he was fascinated to discover that she had ties to him. Robbie, one of his closest associates, was her brother as was the Carver; Sherlock had become unnaturally intrigue by her, and then there was a matter of her family on both sides of her genetic line. He had contact with them one way or another; Mycroft wasn't even sure if Sherlock knew how many times he had actually had contact with Jen and her family.
If he believed in fate, he was would say Sherlock as well as himself were destined to meet her and eventually protect her all without her knowledge, of course. Mycroft had become wrapped up in a conspiracy with the German government and one of the most wanted crime lords in the country all for a girl who should have been so insignificant. Yet, what made her significant to him was his brother.
Mycroft set his eyes on the sleeping form of his baby brother. Sherlock would like to think Mycroft didn't care at all. He would like to think that Mycroft hadn't seen how scared, sad, and lonely Sherlock had been after the death of Redbeard and then even more so once Enola passed. But Mycroft had seen, and at a young age, Sherlock coped by shutting off his emotions. Jen had given something to Sherlock that he hadn't had in his life; she had shown him compassion and empathy. Mycroft recognized even in a young teenage Sherlock that this woman with all her problems was Sherlock's match in every sense of the word. She was his match as Elea was his despite planning her death on more than one occasion. So, he had to protect her as well as he could, and it hadn't been an easy task. She fought against those who tried to help her; she was stubborn, but eventually, Shadow disbanded, and Mycroft urged her to move to London in hopes the two would run into each other despite Damon O'Hera's protests.
"Is it fixable?" Damon question mostly to himself, but Mycroft chose to answer.
"No," he told him absolutely. "To fix her would be to destroy her. The best thing to do at this point is allow her to rest and get rid of her brother as soon as we're able. Time is running short, and she's running thin. All we have is hope, and you and I know that hope has never gotten us anywhere."
"Hope is the fire of all men," Elea finally spoke, but she said nothing more as Mycroft settled in.
She was out of the hospital within the week, but she was under orders for bed rest, and Sherlock wouldn't allow her out of his room for the first week, but he gave her some leeway as time went on. She remained in an exhausted state, seeming slightly frantic as she muttered to herself often forgetting what she was doing. Sherlock was eager to see Peter gone.
"Where are you going?" Jen asked Peter as he attempted to sneak passed her on the street. She was waiting for him to sneak out of his window. It had been three months since Lucy's death; she hadn't spoken to Mark since effectively ending their relationship. She had showed her brother nothing but trust though every once in a it threw her into a fit, and she screamed and cried when she thought no one noticed. She had help and support from Damon and Sherlock, the only ones who knew the truth, but sometimes it wasn't enough. She was ready to end this.
"What do you think?" he said with a grin before he started to saunter away. This was ending today.
"Let me go with you?" she asked. She gave him a smirk trying to remain confident that this was what needed to be done. "Like the old days."
"Yeah," he said. "I already have one waiting for me." He had one waiting for him already. He made it sound like it was normal; it was nothing. There wasn't a human being's life that was about to end because of him. She ignored it and followed him.
The two of them headed toward an abandon warehouse on the Thames not far from Damon's warehouse that housed the fight ring. Peter entered before he ducked into a hidden trapdoor that led to a basement not found in the warehouses. It was likely a smugglers warehouse that had gotten shut down ages ago judging from the dilapidated state.
"How did you find this place?" she asked hating it. It smelled like mold and mildew, and despite being rundown, it seemed to let no light inside.
"Followed some rats to here," he told her with a smile. "Surprisingly useful creatures when you need them to be." She nodded as they continued passed piping to a man, who hung upside down from one the rafters by the means of old chains. He had a gag in his mouth, but his eyes were wide open. This was how Peter did things; he didn't drug them; he wanted them to feel everything he did with every sense intact and know it was him doing it. There was a drain under her where the blood would flow into, but it didn't help the smell of stale blood in the room.
Jen quickly fished her phone out of her pocket and hesitated to do what she was unsure about doing, but in the end, she texted him before dropping her phone in her pocket. There was no going back, was there? "Would you like to make the first incision?" he asked her holding a scalpel up with a grin. She tried to steady her hand as she reached out to take the scalpel from him before the floor creaked above them and dust falling on them from the ceiling.
"Someone's here," Peter mused as the roof above them creaked again closer to the trapdoor. "It happens," he shrugged; Jen wondered how many people died, who had come to investigate. Peter sighed and took a gun from his back shelf; she wonder where he got it, and who he got it from.
He went up the ladder, and Jen lingered looking back at the man, who gave her an agonizing, pleading look.
"Help is here," she whispered trying to assure him. "I'll be back." Jen turned to the ladder and headed up to the main room. She was met with the sight of Peter holding a gun at Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock's eyes flickered to Jen; she would take his side not Peter's; he was sure.
"Your boyfriend followed us," Peter growled watching Sherlock with a sadistic grin. Jen would take his side not Sherlock's; he was sure of it. Jen slowly stepped to Peter's side to try and convince him to give this up. He was still her brother.
"Peter, drop the gun," Jen begged giving him another chance.
"No," he told her. This time he would kill Sherlock Holmes. "No! I have him right where I want him! He's going to die this time, Jenma!"
"Peter," she begged not sure what to do. She could let Peter shoot Sherlock. No one would know; he would just be another victim. Or she could try and get the gun from Peter, but what would be the point in that? Peter would go back to Rampton; he would convince the board again, and he would start killing again, and even if he didn't he would know that she had betrayed him. He would warp her emotions to suit him. He cared about her, but he used her more than anyone. What was happening? Why didn't she ever see that? He twisted her and twisted her, and she never fought back. "Peter," she whispered putting a hand on his arm. She already knew what her choice was the minute she agreed with Sherlock that he couldn't be help. She turned to stand between him and Sherlock. "If anyone gets the right to kill him, it'll be me." Slowly, Peter smiled. That was the sister he knew.
"How appropriate," he said giving her the gun without hesitation. Sherlock looked panicked at the sudden change in the room; he had been wrong. Her own instability was outweighing her logic. It happens, but he was sure that it wouldn't happen to her. He had one last effort to save her from herself.
"Ginny, stop," he told her, begged her, "your brother's manipulating you. Don't you see that?" She ignored him as she looked to her brother with a sad smile and hugged him tight trying to press everything she felt into that one hug. She felt a pit grow in her stomach as she felt the gun rattle in her hand. She stopped breathing as her heart pounded threatening to explode.
"Thank you, I love you," she whispered tears falling down her eyes as she could barely control herself from sobbing at the choice she made, "and I'm so sorry I failed you." She titled the gun up to his head and before he could process her words there was a bullet in his head, and Jen was left covered in her little brother's blood holding his broken body.
She collapsed on her knees with him in her arms. She finally let the flood gates open, and she began to cry over his body. Her whole body shook with the gun still tightly in her hand as she debated lifting the gun to her own head for her crimes, but Sherlock was at her side before she could make up her mind. He put his hand gently on the gun and took it from her before she bent over in what felt like physical pain. Crying so hard she wasn't making a sound, and in so much pain she couldn't move, Lestrade and his squad found Sherlock attempting to comfort her when they arrived.
A/N: I ask again: What the hell is going on? Now Mycroft's in league with them? What? And what the hell is going on with Jen loosing her damn mind? Who knows! (Whispers: I know.)
Why am I so early with this update? Call it an early 100 review present (I'm at 87, but this was a short chapter, so eh). You get an early update and Peter's dead. Bet you didn't expect that.
So thank you to reviewers: Akira Darkness, hannahhobnob, flaming-amber, Cereza101, and zare . downey . okumura. For real this time, I'll see you next Saturday! Review please!