"Jesus Christ!" That was a gunshot! And fired indoors, if Lestrade was any judge... Rushing across to the door and turning the key, Lestrade pressed his ear to the wood. His heart sank as he heard thumps, crashes and shouts from more than one combatant – Moriarty's agents! They had invaded the house!
"Lestrade!" The Inspector felt a chill at Watson's frantic yell. "Open the thimble! The thimb...!" The doctor's voice was abruptly cut off. Knocked out or gagged, Lestrade didn't know, and he refused to consider any alternatives. There was no time, anyhow, heavy feet were already taking the stairs at a run.
Lestrade looked around desperately for something to barricade the door, but the bulkiest furniture was the wardrobe, far too heavy to move. So was the bed, which was occupied by their attackers' quarry! That left only the bureau, which felt far too light as Lestrade dragged it across and jammed it up against the door, just as the handle rattled. The panels began to shake with blows, already making ominous little splintering sounds. Those bastards were going to break in eventually... so he'd best be ready for them. "Sorry, Holmes," he muttered, reaching for his pistol and checking the magazine – at least it was fully loaded! "You're in for a rude awakening..."
He ran to the far side of the bed, stripped back the bedclothes, and hauled Holmes's limp form onto the floor. Whatever reaction he had hoped for, he was bitterly disappointed, the detective merely grunting slightly as he landed, not so much as twitching an eyelid.
"Bloody hell!" Lestrade growled. "All those days and nights you never got a wink... and here Moriarty's thugs have us all stitched up, and all you can do is..." Wait... stitch... 'Open the thimble!' What thimble?! Watson had never mentioned a bloody thimble! Was there a sewing box in here he hadn't seen? Hold on... the bureau! It should have been empty, but something had rattled in a drawer when he'd moved it across!
CRASH! That had sounded horribly like an axe embedding itself into a wooden door panel.
Staying low, Lestrade hurried back to the door, jamming his shoulder against the lower half of the bureau, reached up and yanked the top left drawer right out. Something clattered and scraped against the wooden interior as it fell, bouncing onto the floor: a watch chain! It looked a lot like Watson's... and sure enough, there was a silver thimble mounted on it. Had the doctor put it there for safekeeping before coming down? But how did you open a thimble? Snatching up the chain, Lestrade peered closely at the bauble, and saw that the end was plugged with a small disc of black rubber. And thank God, the end of the chain had a long pin, just the tool to wedge the disc out... What in blazes...?!
The Inspector barely kept from dropping his prize, staring at the inside of the little silver bowl. It couldn't be... No mistaking what that sparkling golden dust was meant to be, but surely... surely it couldn't be real... could it?!
"I must be out of my mind," Lestrade murmured weakly. Well, if he was, then there'd be no harm in wasting the stuff! And if he wasn't... Out of options as the door began to splinter in earnest, he scrambled back behind the bed next to Holmes, stuck his little finger inside the thimble and brushed the glittering dust coating it all over his jacket. "Come on, come on..." Why hadn't he paid more attention to that part of Watson's story? He rose into a crouch and gave a small experimental jump. "Come on, work, dammit!"
Nothing happened. Well, of course nothing had happened! He'd finally gone off his rocker, and his colleagues were going to find his battered corpse in some alleyway, covered in pretty golden spangles... He sagged to his knees, a grim smile crossing his face at the ridiculous mental picture...
"Bloody hell!" Lestrade flailed as he felt himself rising, grabbing reflexively at the nearest solid object: Holmes's shoulder. The chain slid out of his grasp and the thimble bounced off the detective's face, fairy dust trickling down and leaving a gold stripe from Holmes's cheek to his neck bandage. It must have really tickled, because Holmes's lips twitched... and before the astounded Inspector could react, Holmes had also begun to float off the floor!
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph..." Lestrade gasped, twisting in midair as they continued to ascend above the level of the mattress, and finally managing to catch hold of the bed post. "Right... so we're flying – marvellous! How are you supposed to steer?" At least the bed had provided some cover!
CRRRASH! The centre of the door gave way to the axe, and Lestrade had a brief glimpse through the hole of somebody's lumpen features, staring at the scene open-mouthed. Without thinking, Lestrade let go of Holmes and the bed post, drew his revolver and fired two-handed towards the gap, missing by a mile.
"Aaahhh!" Next instant, he was whizzing backwards through the air, crashing into the wall. Struggling for breath, his hand brushed something soft... Thank God, the curtain, he'd been flung right next to the window! Ribs still protesting, he twisted around again, straining for the catch.
THUD! Sssssssss...
Oh, hell... Now Lestrade knew why the thugs weren't shooting back! They had to be under strict instructions not to kill or injure Holmes, at least – hence the hissing canister in the middle of the floor. He had no idea what was in those dense clouds of vapour spilling out of the thing, nor did he have any intention of finding out! They probably had about a minute before the gas filled the room completely.
Throwing the window open, Lestrade took a painful gulp of air, then pulled himself up the curtain, hand over hand. Holmes was bobbing gently against the plaster moulding a few feet away, face first, and Lestrade silently blessed the architect as he clawed his way across the ceiling. At least he didn't have to worry about Holmes breathing in any gas, he was already asleep! And with any luck, the rising clouds were concealing their escape...
Returning one-handed was decidedly more awkward, and getting Holmes down past the lintel of the window a hair-raising task that Lestrade would never have attempted in less pressing circumstances. He almost lost his charge completely at the end, but just managed to catch the hem of Holmes's nightshirt with a frantic grab as the man floated limply up towards the gutter, steadying himself on a drainpipe. What he wouldn't give for a second pair of hands... Of course, stupid – the handcuffs! Just as soon as he could find something to wrap his legs around... A chimney pot might work?
Inching himself and a now-snoring detective up the pipe, Lestrade tried hard to concentrate on the nice, boring wall in front of him, rather than the exciting ground so very far below and the mysterious gas now billowing out of the window... No, no, happy thoughts, hadn't Watson said? Yes, that was it. Well... once this case was finished, and Moriarty and his men were all dancing the hempen jig, Lestrade was going to request a transfer! Somewhere way out in the country, a quiet little hamlet that only needed one or two officers to keep the peace, where he would never need to see, hear from, or even think about Sherlock bloody Holmes bloody Peter bloody Darling bloody Pan, ever, ever again! He'd heard Sussex was very nice...
SPLASH!
"Oi, wake up!"
SPLASH!
"Nngh..."
"Can you hear me? Oo-vray laze yeur, dammit!"
SPLASH!
"Ohh... yes!" Sherlock groaned, ducking his aching head to avoid another dousing. "Yes, I can hear you!" He squinted up at the blurry figure bending over him, trying to focus. "Oh... It's you." The strange little man who had been with his brothers, and who now seemed intent on giving him a shower bath with... gutter water?! Why in the world were they on a rooftop?
The man looked genuinely relieved to be recognised. "You know who I am?" he asked tentatively, wiping his hands dry on his coat, which looked as if he'd been wearing it to sled down a dozen dirty roofs. Then again, Sherlock's own nightshirt was in much the same state!
"Your face, anyhow... I remember you and John stopping those boys from running at me," Sherlock answered slowly, wiping the water off his face with a fold of his sleeve. "I think I thought you were going to hurt them."
"That was Wiggins and Charlie," the man nodded, helping him to sit up. "Good lads, but they got a little too excited when they saw you out of bed."
"And then I... knocked you into the bannisters, didn't I?" Sherlock flushed as he saw the still-livid mark across the man's cheek. "I'm sorry..."
His companion waved a tolerant if grimy hand, then held it out. "Inspector Giles Lestrade. And don't worry about that little knock, I've had plenty worse in my time."
Sherlock shook, concealing his distaste. "Sherlock Holmes of Devonshire."
The man's eyebrows shot up. "So we're up to that, are we?" he murmured, in what almost sounded like wonder.
"What?"
"Never mind. It's a pleasure to meet you properly, Master Holmes."
"Er, thank you. Likewise."
"And... sorry, I have to ask... How old are you?"
"Seventeen," Sherlock answered defensively, then brightened. "Do I look older?"
The Inspector's lips twitched. "A bit..."
"Oh, good! You probably think I'm awfully vain, but I'm supposed to be starting at Oxford next term, and Father was worried I might look too young to the other students."
"Because of Eton," Lestrade nodded, half to himself, then added hastily as Sherlock frowned, "Mycroft told me, he said you'd had a rough time there. I'm sorry."
Sherlock shrugged, biting the inside of his lip. "It could have been worse... Thanks to Myke, I wasn't even there a whole year. Why are we on the roof? Are we hiding from someone?"
Lestrade blinked at the abrupt subject change, suddenly looking very worried. "Er, yes... Yes, we are. And I'm so sorry, Holmes, but there's quite a few things I need to tell you."
"You dropped the fairy dust?!"
Lestrade resisted the urge to make a sharp retort. Holmes sounded far more concerned about that minor loss than he had about any of his kidnapped family! "It was my first time flying, remember? You were still out cold, and I couldn't get back down to the floor. Besides, there wasn't time, we only just got out before the gas filled the room completely!"
Holmes rolled his eyes with an exasperated groan. "Flying's easy! You just think about where you want to go!"
"Well, that would explain it, then: you weren't thinking! And all of my attention was on making sure you didn't float away altogether!" Probably best not to tell Holmes about the handcuffs, he wasn't at all sure his pride would endure it. "Well, never mind that now... Think you can get us down to the ground from here, since you're such an expert?"
"Probably," Holmes replied haughtily. "How much dust did you use, and how long ago?"
"I don't know! Definitely more on you than me." And he'd had plenty of dour imaginings to help him stay firmly on the roof since then... "And we've only been up here for a couple of hours."
"All right," Holmes sighed, making Lestrade long to clip the patronising brat around the ear. "It ought to do. Watch me, and do try to keep up!"
Lestrade watched intently as Holmes faced the ridge pole and rose up onto his bare toes, wriggled his shoulders slightly as if shaking off gravity's pull, sprang lightly upwards... and landed awkwardly back on the tiles with a cry of alarm, starting to topple backwards.
"Steady!" The Inspector caught Holmes's arm and hauled him upright. "Forget something?"
"No," Holmes scowled. "I just didn't find the right happy thought! Give me a minute!"
"Well, perhaps you should sit down while you're thinking." Lestrade sat down again as well. What had he been thinking about, the first time? Ah, yes... he could just picture that pretty, quiet village, thatched cottages around the green, perhaps a duck pond... and one of those old-fashioned pubs that had used to be someone's living room...
He heard Holmes gasp beside him. "How did you do that?"
"Do what... Oh!" Good Lord, he hadn't even noticed! "Looks like I found a good one, then," he said lightly, and focussed on remaining just above the tiles as he drifted experimentally to the left and right. Holmes had been right, thank goodness, it did seem to be largely a matter of willpower. "How's yours coming?"
"Fine!" Holmes snapped, looking away. "I must just be... tired, or something."
Lestrade snorted. "After spending half the day in bed?"
"Look, I don't know!" Holmes yelled suddenly. "All right?! It's not working, and I don't know why it's not working! I can't fly, I can't save anyone, and I can't fight your precious Moriarty!" A shudder seemed to pass through him, and he burst into tears.
Appalled, Lestrade landed with a thump back on the roof, and put his arm around Holmes as he sobbed. "All right, lad," he murmured awkwardly, "it's all right, I've got you..." He waited a few minutes more until the shaking eased, then took out his handkerchief and passed it over. "As for fighting Moriarty – good God, lad, whoever said you had to? Did you think you were supposed to face him in single combat, or something? This has been a joint operation between the Yard, Whitehall and... other people, for a very long time. Once I've reported back to my superiors about Mycroft and the others being taken, things are going to happen a lot sooner than Monday, believe you me!"
Holmes sniffled, wiping his face. "R-Really?"
"Really. You're not alone here, understand? You never have been. I don't know what kind of game Moriarty thinks he's playing with you, but he's bitten off a lot more than he can chew this time – and we're all going to see that he chokes on it, I give you my word."
"...You don't think he'll hurt any of them, do you?"
Lestrade sighed, torn between wanting to comfort the scared young man – regardless of what size body he was occupying! – and the need for realism. "I can't say for sure, Holmes, I wish I could... but given how careful the Professor's been so far to keep you in one piece..." God only knew why! "There's something he wants from you, that much is obvious, and if I were him, I'd wait to see just how inclined you were to cooperate before harming any hostages." Thank goodness he hadn't needed to explain how Holmes had become Moriarty's enemy in the first place! From what Lestrade could see, Holmes seemed to think it was a perfectly normal state of affairs to have a deadly archnemesis – as normal as swimming with mermaids or flying with fairies... And it was probably time to sift to the bottom of Holmes's extreme reaction to the loss of the fairy dust. Worry for his family had been part of it, certainly, not to mention jealousy that he hadn't been conscious to experience his first flight in years... but that couldn't be all there was to it. 'He took Wendy's passing so hard... and with Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys gone away, the rest of us must have seemed such poor substitutes...' And what the devil had Watson been playing at all this time? Keeping a secret supply of fairy dust on his watch chain, while claiming that there had been none left to get Peter back to Neverland...
"Sherlock," he said, gently but firmly, "if we're ever going to get you flying again, then I think there's something more we need to talk about. What happened between you and Tinker Bell? Can you remember the very last time you saw her?"
Another shudder, Holmes hunching his shoulders as if trying to burrow inside his tent of a nightshirt.
That would be a yes, then. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, but you need to tell me." Lestrade realised with a pang that he was now using the voice which he usually reserved for getting statements out of reluctant eyewitnesses. Well, if it worked... Holmes mightn't be offended by what he couldn't yet remember.
For a long moment, there was silence, and Lestrade was beginning to worry that he'd pushed things too far, when Holmes spoke, in a hoarse whisper. "Wendy didn't... didn't grow up without me, did she?"
The lump in Lestrade' throat felt horribly big, but he swallowed hard and made himself answer. "No, Sherlock. I'm afraid she didn't."
"Tink... kept coming back... couldn't seem to stay away... When Wendy got sick... I told her to fetch Slightly's glass thing to put in her mouth... She could get back to Neverland quicker on her own..."
"Oh, Sherlock... A thermometer couldn't have saved your sister. Even real medicine doesn't work like that." Lestrade felt like an idiot the moment he'd said it, but Holmes didn't appear to have heard him, anyhow.
"I waited... and waited... and Wendy just got worse, and worse... I begged her not to go..."
Lestrade tightened his hold again on Holmes's trembling shoulders as the tears began to fall again, silently this time. It should have been a fair trade, dammit, giving up eternal youth to be with the one you loved... "Did you..." he ventured at last. "Did Tink ever come back again?"
"The day they buried her..." Holmes gulped. "I was so angry... She hadn't found the glass thing, didn't even seem sorry Wendy was dead... and she wanted me to go back with her... and... and I..."
And Peter had obviously wanted that, too, even while resenting the fairy for failing to achieve the impossible. "But you couldn't fly?"
Holmes shook his head miserably. "I shouted at her... told her never to come back... It hurt... hurt too much..."
"Remembering the life you couldn't have," Lestrade finished softly. Poor boy... losing so much, in such a short time... "I can't save anyone..."
"Why...?"
"Hm?"
"...Why did she give it to John?"
"Ah. Honestly, son... I've been asking myself the same question. But knowing Wat... knowing your brother as I do, I'm sure he was trying to find the right moment to tell you, and that moment just never came. Think about it: first you were inconsolable and couldn't have used it anyway, then your new parents sent you away, probably without much warning... and then, well..."
Holmes nodded slowly. "You know, then. About the funeral."
"Yes." No wonder he'd worked so hard all those years to empty his 'brain attic' of everything prior to becoming Sherlock Holmes. "I'm so–"
"They all blamed me, you know."
"What?"
"For Wendy." Holmes stared bleakly out over the rooftops. "John said..."
"...Oh." Dear heavens... 'God forgive me, I can't even remember what I did say! I just remember Peter's face...' Had that been a lie? It could have felt like such a shameful thing to confess, on top of everything else. "Sherlock... however angry he was at the time, I know for a fact that John regrets every word he said to you that day. His face when he was telling Mycroft and I... He'd do anything to make amends. And you can frown at me like that all you want, it's the truth."
"Well, you would say that," Holmes muttered, looking away again. "He's your friend, isn't he?"
"Yours, too, young man!" Lestrade said sternly. "If John hadn't kept the thimble safe all that time, and told me about it at the crucial moment, we'd both be in much deeper trouble than we already are!" He saw Holmes shiver, and realised in chagrin just how long the afternoon shadows were getting. The detective needed to get airborne, soon... and Lestrade had just had an idea. "And if you don't believe me, you can ask Mary. Does that brave, kind-hearted lady strike you as the sort of person to marry a man who didn't deserve her?"
Holmes bit his lip, but then grudgingly shook his head, the corners of his mouth starting to lift. "Her voice... Just for a minute, I thought... And her stories... They were wonderful!"
Lestrade had to chuckle at his rapt expression. "Looked down lately, have you?"
"What?" Holmes gasped in delight as he realised he was now bobbing several inches above the roof tiles, then threw back his head and let rip with a blood-curdling screech that made Lestrade clap his hands over his ears.
"God, what was that – a banshee?!"
"Crowing!" Holmes laughed, looking disturbingly unabashed. "I always do that!"
That was perfectly true, Lestrade reflected grimly, but it had never sounded like a tortured rooster before! "Well, could you not do that again, please?" he said with as much restraint as he could muster. "Especially since Moriarty's agents are probably still out looking for us, and you've just pinpointed our location!"