CHAPTER 56: IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

Sherlock and Giulia walk to the edge of the raised platform, then he instructs, "John, as soon as this repetition ends, and the blinking lights turn off, you'll prepare yourself for the new sequence. When the lights begin to flash again, you will start translating the Morse code into letters, writing it all down and dictating everything out loud as you go. Remember that you must always tell us four letters at a time: the first one for my left foot, the second for my right one, and two more for Giulia's feet. It is imperative that we step on the right tiles at the same time to keep the balance on the pressure table. I'm not too eager to find out what happens if our movements aren't perfectly coordinated. Is that clear?"

Giulia and John nod simultaneously. The doctor spreads out a music staff in front of him and mutters under his breath but still perfectly audible, "If anything happens to Mrs Hudson, I'll kill you both."

Giulia narrows her eyes at him. "No pressure at all. Right, John?"

She turns to Sherlock and quickly studies his impenetrable expression. "How can you be so calm and detached?"

"I thought you could see right through me; I am not. I'm scared to death. Mrs Hudson is like family," he stops and frowns. "Actually no. Unlike my actual family, I do like her and enjoy her company."

Giulia rolls up her eyes. His utter disrespect for his relatives is counterbalanced only by his genuine affection for the poor landlady that is currently fighting for her life.

"I'd do anything to save her." His voice cracks at the end, and he glances away.

She lowers her eyes to her feet and murmurs half-serious, "Including swaying a clumsy woman across a mortal pressure table? I still can't dance, and you know it."

He shakes his head at her concerns. "Don't think of it as a dance but as a sequence to reproduce scrupulously on the floor. Just focus on touching the right tiles, and you'll be fine."

"What if I stumble and fall?" Her eyes dart feverishly in all directions as panic takes over. Her mind imagines the worst scenarios, spinning out of control as she hyperventilates at the prospect of making a wrong move and putting everyone in danger.

Sherlock gently places his right index under her chin and guides her head up, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"I'll be there to catch you," he says, not a single note of hesitation in his words. His voice drops an octave when he adds, "I'm here for you. Despite what you may think of me, despite what I think of myself, in the end, I'm always here for you."

She takes a deep breath, holding his gaze. He is not lying. He is being completely, disarmingly honest.

John clears his throat, wrenching their attention off that exchange of glances.

"Alright, folks, brace yourselves. The first light has just gone off, and the rest will follow shortly. After a ten-second pause, they'll resume the sequence from the beginning. Best of luck," he mumbles, struggling to even raise his gaze on them. He isn't ready to say goodbye to either of them or Mrs Hudson. This deadly dance would better work.

Sherlock turns toward Giulia, delicately places his left hand on her hip, and interlocks the fingers of his right hand in hers; his cheeks redden at their touch.

"Is there anything you want to say before we risk pretty much everyone's life right now?" he asks in a low voice as the last blinking light switches off.

She purses her lips in a grimace. "I must say, this is the weirdest date I've ever been to."

He cocks a brow at her attempt at lessening the tension and corrects her, "It's not a date. It's an abduction."

"I wouldn't expect anything different in your company. Just think about it: you asked me out to an exhibition, and this is the second time we are going to dance together tonight. Not to mention that you brought me to the theatre twice, and we've even had a fight. It's definitely a date." She winks at him.

Sherlock doesn't have time to reply because John starts guiding them across that minefield.

"At first, we have India – Tango – Golf – Oscar. Then, Sherlock should put his feet on two identical tiles, both representing Tango, while I have signed Oscar and Uniform for Giulia. Then you must proceed with Golf – Hotel – Alfa – November, and after that, you go with Delta – Yankee – Oscar – Uniform. Then again, Golf – Oscar – Tango – Hotel."

They obediently follow his instructions while John moves his glance back and forth between the blinking lights and the paper on which he is frantically noting the letters

"Pay attention when you jump on India – Tango – Delta – India. Then turn slightly to the side with Delta – Yankee – Oscar – Uniform."

Double-checking the upcoming tiles in front of his friends and the letters he has just written, he shouts out to warn them, "Be careful with the next moves: the letters seem to refer to a few jumps on slightly distant tiles. It starts with Tango – Hotel – India – November, and goes on with Kilo – Yankee – Oscar – Uniform. Just another couple of complicated twists: Hotel – Alfa – Delta – Whiskey, then India – Tango – November – Oscar. Then swirl on Alfa – India – Delta – India, followed by November – Alfa – Hotel – Uniform. Again, Golf – November – Oscar – Golf. Then, I have registered 8 more letters and the sequence is: Alfa – India – November – India, and November – Delta – Alfa – Tango."

As they mechanically step on the panes indicated by John, Giulia repeats his every word under her breath to ensure the correctness of her moves.

"My squares were the hotel sign and the uniform, then the Academy award and the golf club."

She is so focused on anticipating the other two steps that she doesn't realise she clumsily crossed her legs with her last movement, losing her balance. Her high-pitched scream reverberates through the wall of the room, freezing the blood in John's veins as he whips his head up and watches her tumble forward as if in slow motion.

Sherlock grabs her wrist with a lightning movement and stops her fall with a sharp jerk, catching her right before she could touch the ground. She remains immobile, panting and staring at the floor a few inches below her face. He helps her to her feet, and they carefully position themselves on their respective tiles to catch their breath. When she straightens up, he realises that his hand is still clutching her forearm. He gently lifts his fingers one by one, breaking off his iron grip.

"Apologies. This is probably going to leave a mark," he says, glancing at her flushed skin.

She hints at a smile. "I'll settle for a little bruise. I can't even imagine what would have happened to me if—" she starts, but he interrupts her.

"I told you I'd catch you."

"Are you two alright? Is Giulia okay?" John cries out.

They turn their heads to him, suddenly realising that they are almost halfway across the room.

"Yes, I'm good. That was a close call," she yells back; the note of relief in her voice is palpable.

"I think we have paused long enough. You can resume your precious instructions, now," Sherlock says, stealing a preoccupied glance at the monitor showing Mrs Hudson caught in her feverish convulsions. Her conditions are worsening.

Watson, who in the meantime has kept up his work of transcribing the Morse code on the music stave, doesn't look away from the blinking lights and lists the subsequent streak of steps.

"Keep moving forward on India – November – Golf – India, and then Kilo – November – Oscar – Whiskey. Later, you have Hotel – Oscar – Whiskey – Tango. Take a few steps backwards on Oscar – Whiskey – Oscar – Uniform, and November – Delta – Yankee – Oscar. After that, Uniform – Whiskey – India – Tango. Last, Sherlock should position both his feet on tiles with the Hotel sign, while Giulia must step on Alfa and Tango."

Giulia keeps her gaze fixed on the ground. All her energy is focused on touching only the tiles said by John, but the task gets harder by the second, and she is still shaken up by her previous misstep. When she checks out the upcoming panes, all colour drains from her face, and she murmurs in a wobbly voice, "Sherlock, this is getting extremely difficult."

He lowers his eyes to her terror-stricken face with his air of superiority. "That's because you're overthinking it."

"You told me to think about it in a logical manner," she rebuts.

He casts a glance at her unsteady steps. Her mind is playing tricks on her. If she keeps stressing that much on her every movement, she will eventually stumble and press the wrong tile.

When he speaks again, his words are nothing more than a velvet caress. He knows that the last thing she needs right now is for someone to fan the flames of her anxiety.

"Clearly it isn't working. You need to feel the rhythm. Just go with the flow."

"How?"

"Close your eyes," he whispers.

She goggles at him in horror and fear. "Are you crazy?"

He sighs at her stubbornness and lack of faith. "If you choose to trust me, you'll have to do it till the very last move. Just close your eyes, listen to your body, and follow my lead," he says softly, tightening his hold on her hip and giving her hand a delicate squeeze. Then he hums the same melody the orchestra played at the exhibition, just a few hours before. She immediately recognises the symphony that made them pirouette in the Hickman Gallery when they swayed together without a care in the world, and her muscles instantly relax, following Sherlock's expert touch. John's indications seem to barely reach her ear, yet her body reproduces all the right moves.

"India – November – Golf – Delta, then step on Oscar – Yankee – Oscar – Uniform. Then Kilo – November – Oscar – Whiskey. Slide to the right with Tango – Hotel – Alfa – Tango, and go forward with Hotel – Alfa – Uniform – November. Shift back to the left on Tango – India – November – Golf. One step forward with Tango – Hotel – Oscar – Uniform, and two steps backwards for both of you with Golf – Hotel – Tango – Whiskey, and India – Tango – Hotel – India."

Sherlock confidently guides their steps according to John's words. He looks down at the woman between his arms; she keeps her eyes closed, a tight-lipped smile on her mouth. She is well aware of the danger they are in, but a minuscule part of her can't help but enjoy herself when dancing with him. Fear is not the sole tyrannical emotion that got hold of her. While staring at her delicate features, witnessing her frailty and her strength at once, Sherlock feels like he was at the exhibition again. And for a split second, nothing else matters.

Lost in his daydream, he takes a step too far, and the point of his shoe crosses over one of the dividing lines between the tiles. Another small arrow is shot in his direction and pokes a hole in his trousers, grazing against the skin of his leg.

Giulia hears the whooshing sound and cracks her eyes open. "What was that?"

"A not-so-friendly reminder to watch my step," Sherlock replies enigmatically.

Pity. That Gucci tuxedo was a perfect fit, he frivolously grumbles to himself.

"Hold on, you're almost on the other side of the room," John intervenes. "Now, step on November – Tango – Hotel – Alfa. Then Sherlock should find two tiles with the Tango drawing for his feet, while Giulia must touch on Oscar and November. After that, there's a brief sequence to the right: India – Golf – Hotel – Tango, followed by Yankee – Oscar – Uniform – Golf."

Sherlock looks ahead to check the forthcoming panes then alerts Giulia, "For the next sequence, our respective tiles are at a close range. You should come closer."

She checks her steps and closes the distance between them with the next move. Now she can feel the heat irradiating from his body. They move in sync; the action of one of them mirrors the movement of the other, and they keep dancing effortlessly across the room. When Giulia stepped closer to Sherlock, his breath got caught in his throat and he stopped humming. It doesn't make a difference, though; she could never hear him over the drumming sound of her heart thumping in her ears.

John announces the last steps of that perilous dance. "Now move on Oscar – Delta – Oscar – Whiskey. Up next, we have November – Alfa – November – Delta, and India – Whiskey – India – November…" His voice dies in his mouth, and he frowns at the blinking lights. He writes down the last letters and stares confused at the music staff while the last twinkle dies out at the end of the repetition.

Giulia and Sherlock follow his instructions and come to a halt on their respective tiles, their eyes locked. After a second, Sherlock regains awareness of his surroundings and looks at the buttons on the wall a few feet away, still out of reach.

"What's going on, doctor? Did you miss the last move?" he shouts across the room with a hint of sarcasm.

John raises his gaze from the paper and shouts in response, "No, I didn't. But I have no idea how you're going to perform it."

"What's the problem, Houston?"

John shrugs, confusion painted all over his face. "I was expecting four letters for each of your feet, but I got only two instead. Apparently, your dance ends on two letters that have never been mentioned before: R and J, which in the NATO phonetic alphabet stand for—"

"Romeo and Juliett," Sherlock completes before him, earning a baffled look from Watson, who points out, "I thought you didn't know the NATO alphabet."

"I don't, but I'm quite the connoisseur of theatre and plays," he replies, lowering his gaze on the two tiles placed just below the button with the blood droplet. The panes show the images of two young people: a man looking up at a woman standing on a balcony. There is no need for a huge stretch of the imagination; they unmistakably represent the ill-fated protagonists of the renowned Shakespeare's tragedy.

John squints his eyes to look into the distance at the tiles in question, then he observes, "There's not enough room for both of you."

Sherlock simpers at him. "I can see that."

"Can't I just stay right here while you jump on the last two tiles, completing the dance?" Giulia suggests, but Sherlock shakes his head.

"It won't work. We are standing on a pressure table, meaning that every move counts as correct only when you lift the weight from a place to put it somewhere else. That's the whole point. If you stay on your tiles, the moment I step on the final two, it will be registered as a false move and God knows what might happen. We both have to leave our places," he explains with a pensive look.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't learned to fly yet."

He smirks at her remark and argues back, "Maybe we can still remedy that."

She looks anxiously up at him. "What does it mean?"

"That we'll have to improvise. I'm going to spin you forward in the air, and while you are mid-air, I'll position myself on the tiles, and I'll catch you in my arms so you won't have to touch the floor," he calmly presents his plan.

She gapes. "Sherlock, this is insane."

He gives her an eloquent look. "Yes. That's why we are the only two people that would be crazy enough to try it. Are you ready?" he asks, looking for her eyes.

She raises her gaze, and they exchange a long glance. She doesn't need to say anything or voice her terror: he can read it all over her face.

"I will catch you. I promise," he whispers, placing his hands on her hips with a firm grip.

She flinches slightly at his touch. After two dances together in the last few hours, his hands on her body feel familiar and still somehow foreign. Or maybe it's just the fear in anticipation of that dangerous move, she tries to justify to herself. However, a knot has been sitting in her stomach since they started dancing closer, holding on to one another. And she rationally knows that it has nothing to do with fear. On the contrary, between his arms, she felt invincible.

Sherlock stares into her eyes. "On the count of three. One, two…"

Before she realises it, he swiftly lifts her into the air, making her spin forward while he jumps on the Romeo and Juliett drawings. As her long dress wraps around her legs like a mermaid tail in the rotation, she shuts her eyes closed, unwilling to witness her fate. One second later, she lands in his arms. His right arm slides behind her knees and his left arm supports her torso below her armpits, bridal style.

"Three," he exhales, panting.

She flutters her eyes open and finds his aquamarine irises on her.

"Judging by the way you count, I'm fairly grateful that our dance was based on the alphabet and not the numbers," she jokes, to release the tension in her nerves. Curled up against his chest, she feels her stiffened muscles relax when she meets his gaze—exultation gleaming on his face.

"Thank you for this dance, Miss, but I believe now you should stretch your arm and press the button."

She blinks to break the spell of his magnetic eyes and darts a glance at the buttons to her left, mumbling, "Before taking on me the responsibility of Mrs Hudson's life, we all agree with John's intuition that the drop of blood is the correct answer, right?"

He nods. "Given that John single-handedly solved this round and led us all the way across the room while juggling two different means of coded communication without ever losing sight of our steps, he has my utmost trust now. But yes, his diagnosis of Mrs Hudson's symptoms was accurate and consistent with the historical connection to the dancing plague, matching the Muse statue and the dancing theme of the whole round," he recapitulates in a confidence-inspiring tone. "I would press the button myself, but, you know, my hands are full." He shrugs, and the movement makes her swing slightly.

She extends her arm until her fingertips come in contact with the drawing of the blood drop, then she takes a deep breath and pushes it. All their heads turn simultaneously towards the screen showing Mrs Hudson's room. They observe with bated breath as one of Moriarty's men approaches the old woman while carrying a tray full of medicines. He administers her some doses, and her spasms and convulsions lessen significantly.

After a couple of seconds, Giulia taps a finger on Sherlock's shoulder to catch his attention.

"You can put me down now," she says with a foxy grin.

He looks as if he suddenly awakened from a trance. It takes him a second to register her words, then he gently lowers her until her feet slide down to the ground.

"We did it. I can't believe we did it," John exclaims, beside himself with joy. He takes his pencil and throws it on the tiled floor to check the reaction of the pressure table. The pencil lands with a muffled thud, and nothing happens—no arrows are shot, no darts are fired through the air. He breathes a sigh of relief and starts dragging his feet painfully across the now-innocuous surface.

Sherlock turns to Giulia. "I'm glad we, you and I, cooperated efficiently on this one. In the end, we work better when we don't step on each other toes," he says sheepishly.

"Is that an inappropriate dancing pun?"

He shakes his head, dead serious. "It's a clumsy way to thank you for trusting me."

She parts her lips to reply, but he lifts one hand in the air to pre-empt her.

"Before you say anything, I know you didn't do that for me, and you were just trying to save Mrs Hudson. And I know that just dancing together won't wipe away how inadequate I made you feel during our previous round or any of the many mistakes I've made with you," he murmurs, a tinge of sadness in his deep voice. "But I saw something more in you during our dance—both of our dances together, actually. And I felt—" He clears his throat to dissemble his hesitancy. "I felt like we were sharing something… something more than the urge to save someone and the fear of failing. But if I'm wrong, please tell me now," he stutters.

She does a double-take in front of his uncommon display of uncertainty and trembling note in his voice. She cocks a brow at his nervous face.

"Since when do you need someone else's confirmation to trust your deduction skills?"

He twitches his lips to hide his disappointment as he draws one easy conclusion: She is shielding behind irony to dodge the question. Or rather, she is avoiding the answer.

"Look, this is all very new to me. Truth be told, I find it bloody difficult," he admits, evidently uncomfortable. Then he takes one step forward, coming closer and forcing her to raise her head to maintain eye contact.

"Oh, I understand," she replies. "It's not like I'm an expert at treading unsteadily over the edge of an abyss, tentatively proceeding hand in hand with someone who knows (or doesn't know) as much as I do about the next step forward."

An overwhelming sense of discouragement invades him, digging a pit in his chest. She completely misinterpreted his words, he reflects in dismay. He thought she would get the subtext. He hoped she would understand.

He shakes his head and his curly hair wiggles slightly. "I wasn't referring to the dance," he whispers, staring into her eyes, the intensity of his gaze almost intimidating. "I was talking about feelings and sentiment."

She gives him a meaningful glance as the hint of a smile curves up the corners of her mouth.

"So was I."

His eyes grow wide when he finally gets the underlying meaning of her metaphor. She was always talking about her way of dealing with feelings, too.

"To be a tad more plainspoken, about what you said of our dance and what you felt… You weren't mistaken."

When he smiles back, Giulia feels a sudden wave of happiness washing over her body. Suddenly, a clanging sound rouses her; a door placed next to the buttons swings open automatically, signalling them to proceed toward a new room. She instinctively turns her head to the dark corridor ahead and sighs. She forgot the Big Brother was constantly watching, and any remotely tender gesture between them would only hand Moriarty one more weapon to destroy them.

"We'd better not keep Moriarty waiting," she says awkwardly and heads for the door.

At that instant, John hobbles up to Sherlock, and he shoots an anxious look at his roughly bandaged leg.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, genuinely concerned.

"Crippled," Watson groans. "But I'll be okay. What about you?" he inquires, arching a brow at the faraway look in his friend's eyes.

Sherlock steals a glance at the back of Giulia's head as she crosses the threshold, and an instinctive smile creeps up his lips.

"As good as it gets."

John furrows a brow at his dreamy expression and follows his gaze. When he understands the cause of his state, he unconsciously lowers his eyes to the music staff in his hands, and his face clouds over. He shows the piece of paper to his friend, saying in a hushed tone, "Here are the letters that I dictated to you."

"I could hear you, y'know?" Sherlock replies sarcastically.

John remains serious. "This is for you," he insists, tossing the stave into his hands and limping out of the room.

Sherlock studies it. Even though John had initially jotted down the letters in a continuous line, once they finished their dance, he had noticed something in the sequence and had rewritten the entire piece, grouping the letters into words. The final product produced this message:

It got tough, and you got hit, did you think you had wit?

No aid in a hug, No gain in dating, I know how to wound you with hating.

Do you know that haunting thought within

that tonight you go down and I win?

*In the NATO phonetic alphabet, there are some mistakes or rather inaccuracies, such as the word Alfa with an F and Juliett with a double T. For the sake of coherence, I decided to stick to the NATO format.

Author's note: Dear readers, you probably noticed I didn't use the entire alphabet because it would be quite difficult, on a practical level, to represent some codewords through stylised designs. This is why the message itself isn't as grandiloquent as it could be expected from Moriarty. Just remember, I tried to create a rhyming threatening letter without using some key letters such as E, S, L or even R (which had to appear just once, in the end, for added symbolism). I hope you'll forgive me.