CHAPTER 70: THE WINNER TAKES ALL

The ear-piercing sound of shattering glass accompanies the gunshot, as a thousand shards of the two-way mirror hail on the floor.

Simultaneously, someone breaks down the door and storms into the room, rifle laser points slashing through the darkness, scanning the space and refracting over the mirror splinters. Then someone shoots, and an incessant sequence of gunshots immediately follows.

Before the intruders came, when the room precipitated into darkness and a split-second before Sherlock fired the gun, Giulia felt his free hand grab her shoulder and push her down, away from his line of fire. Now she is crouching in the middle of the room, her hands protectively over her head, too stunned to process what is going on.

She hears Sherlock scream over the racket, "Don't shoot! It was just us three in the room, no guards."

And the gunshots immediately cease.

He shouts again, "Tell your men to go all the way across the room, Lieutenant Halliman. Moriarty was standing behind a two-way mirror. Go go go!"

She gapes. Halliman? Jake Halliman? As in her bodyguard? How does Sherlock know he is there? Surely he is as blind as her right now.

Several pairs of footsteps run across the room, and the gunshots resume shortly after.

Then Sherlock calls her name, anguish seeping from his voice. "Giulia? Giulia, where are you?"

That's her proof: he can't even see her two feet away from him. Then how did he know Halliman was there?

"Over here," she speaks up, and a Sherlock hunches over her, shielding her with his body, even though most of the laser points of the rifles are moving away from them now. He wraps his arms around her head and shoulders and holds her tight, desperate to keep her safe.

She clings to him and presses her face against his chest, inhaling his cologne; she can't see him, but she needs to make sure he is real and she can still breathe. She needs to make sure she is still alive. At that moment, all the trepidation, confusion, and fear of those frenzied moments wash over her like a tidal wave, and she bursts into tears.

Sherlock panics, and in the darkness feels around her body to spot a wound. He blurts out, "Are you hurt? Please tell me you're okay."

"I'm fine," she confirms through the tears and sniffles. "Sorry, I'm just very shaken up. But I'm in one piece."

He sighs, relieved. "Good. I believe this is our rescue team." He takes her face in his hands and gently wipes away her tears with his thumbs. "It's going to be okay. Just stay here with me and don't make any sudden moves. The last thing we need is to get caught in the crossfire."

They stay down, holding onto one another, in the dark, for endless moments until the light is restored in the room, and they can venture a glance around: there's no one else but John, hunkered down against a wall in a defensive pose, no visible injuries apart from his bandaged leg.

Eventually, a squad of MI6 agents frees them and escorts them outside, where a band of police cars and ambulances occupies the parking lot. The medical staff make John lie on a stretcher and dress his calf wound in some clean gauze. Giulia and Sherlock are standing by his side, when she suddenly asks the detective, "How did you know it was Jake Halliman who barged into the room?"

"Who the hell is Jake Halliman?" John interjects.

"An ex-Navy Seal Lieutenant and Giulia's MI6-provided bodyguard," Sherlock laconically replies.

John arches a brow and trails a judgmental eye from her head to her toes.

"Well, he's clearly not doing a great job since she got kidnapped and almost killed tonight."

"He is the one who stormed the room and saved us, apparently," Giulia says, shooting an inquisitive gaze at Sherlock. He still hasn't answered her question.

"I stand corrected," John comments and rests his head against the stretcher. "Does anyone want to fill me in on this guy?" He looks at Sherlock who, in response, nods towards a man approaching them with a beaming smile.

"Glad to see y'all are alright," he addresses the group, then introduces himself to John. "Good evening, Doctor Watson. I'm Jake Halliman."

John shakes his hand energetically. "Pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant. As far as I understand, you're the man we owe our lives to."

"It was a coordinated action involving tens of agents." He shrugs modestly. "I'm just a bodyguard looking after an extremely difficult person." He shoots Giulia a reproachful scowl. "I thought we had an understanding that you wouldn't be in the crosshairs tonight, Giulia. You said as much back at Baker Street."

She scrunches her face in a guilty expression. "Change of plans."

He grimaces and turns to the tall man next to her, stretching out a hand to shake his.

"Mr Holmes, always a pleasure to see you. I must say my opinion of you hasn't changed: you're brilliant but do lack judgment. Plunging into the claws of a criminal mastermind without any backup wasn't a smart move."

At that mention, Sherlock flinches as if reminded of something.

"Moriarty?" he eagerly asks, his eyes wild. He doesn't need to voice the full question: everybody knows what he is asking.

Halliman shakes his head ruefully. "He escaped. We don't even know how. The moment we broke in, guns blazing, he just vanished. We're still searching, of course—"

"You won't find him," Sherlock cuts him short. "Not until he decides to show up again. It's his move now."

Giulia frowns at the faraway look in his eyes, then her humanity takes over, and she asks, "And the hostages?"

"We've freed all of them." Jake reads from a small notepad. "Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, Doctor Molly Hopper, Mrs Hudson, and Mycroft Holmes are all being treated by the paramedics."

"There were two more hostages," Sherlock notes.

"Miss Irene Adler was released with all the others and was being cared for when she…" Halliman hesitates, "left the parking lot unseen. I'm afraid she's in the wind."

"No matter. She won't be back: she has far worse enemies here than the MI6," Sherlock says curtly, then adds tentatively, "What about-"

"Thomas Wellington," Jake takes the cue, "is in custody. He turned himself in."

Giulia presses her lips together, a hardened look in her eyes.

"Good. He has a great deal to answer for," she comments dryly.

Sherlock steals a look at his watch and changes the subject.

"By the way, you took your time, Halliman. You should have spotted the code at around 9 pm. It's now almost 4 am. Another couple of minutes and you wouldn't have had anyone to protect anymore."

"As soon as I saw the SOS, I notified the other bodyguard and my colleagues in the neighbourhood," Halliman explains. "I immediately ran to the theatre, saw the entrance doors riddled with bullets, and armed guards patrolling the grounds, and figured that something was going on inside, but I couldn't storm in all alone. I needed time to get some backup and organise a proper rescue mission. And it was very difficult to obtain the authorisation without the consent of Mycroft Holmes, who was unresponsive."

"Don't take it personally. He ignored my texts and calls, too, tonight," Sherlock gibes.

"Yeah, well, now we know why he was AWOL. The MI6 started the biggest manhunt in its history to locate him. Which didn't make my task of gathering men for this operation any easier."

Giulia flashes him a grateful smile. "Thank you for rescuing us, Jake."

He bows his head sheepishly. "Just doing my job. Good night, people."

He is about to march away when Sherlock calls him back. "Lieutenant Halliman?"

Jake half-turns around. "Yes?"

"My brother, your boss, suffered from hypoxemia and then was given a narcotic gas. He is going to need medical attention."

"Of course, sir. I will personally ensure he gets sent to the best hospital in London."

"No."

They all turn to look at Sherlock, appalled by his objection.

He goes on, "No hospitals. Just find two highly professional, extremely discreet, possibly mute, and definitely not easily offended nurses and send them together with Mycroft to his house. That is all, thank you."

"Yes, sir. Certainly, sir." He gives him a curt military nod and leaves.

Giulia stares at Sherlock; he notices her perplexity, so he drily specifies, "Mycroft hates hospitals. Childhood trauma."

Her mind flies back to the story the elder Holmes told them just a while ago and smiles tenderly at him.

"That's the nicest thing you've ever done for him."

"Almost every time he's been to a hospital, it was always for me: to visit me. God forbid the other way around should ever occur. It would mess up his power complex. He and I… we have a complicated relationship. I want to preserve our peculiar balance. He is the older brother: he must always be in control."

Giulia looks up at him, his sharp features made more chiselled by the blue flashing lights of the patrol cars. Yet he's never looked softer, more human. A statue with a warm, beating heart. He has changed.

They stay silent for a few minutes, the adrenaline and terror finally starting to ebb.

In the calm of the moment, John thinks about their last-second escape and bursts out, "Wait a second. How did your bodyguard find us?"

"He was simply at the right place at the right time," is Giulia's sibylline answer.

"To be a tad more specific," Sherlock intervenes, "he assessed the danger by standing on the London Eye."

Watson glowers at him. "And what was he doing on the London Eye instead of patrolling the area around 221B and preventing Giulia from going out at night with you without surveillance?"

The detective points at Giulia. "She let him have the night off and gave him her ticket to the London Eye."

"It was his birthday," she protests.

"Stop it, you two!" John rebukes them. "Can someone, please, explain to me what the hell happened? Did you seriously send your bodyguard away for a merry ride on the London Eye?"

"Yep. I gave him my ticket for the 9 pm slot, so I knew he would be up there at that time, which was a little after we got to the National Theatre, just a half mile away." She gestures to the landmark giant wheel in the background.

John follows the direction of her finger and massages his forehead.

"Fair enough, the two places are quite close and I guess he could even see the National Theatre from his glass pod on the London Eye, but I still don't understand how he could figure out there was something wrong down here by standing up there."

"About that," Sherlock chips in. "I think you owe Giulia an apology."

"Me? Apologise? For what?"

"For making fun of her marksmanship when we got surrounded by Moriarty's men in the parking lot and Giulia used her gun to shoot back. You assumed she couldn't even graze any of our attackers and clumsily hit the lampposts instead. What you didn't realise (what I didn't realise either, back then) was that she intentionally aimed at those lights."

This can easily be the most confused John has been all night, more than in any round. "Why would she?"

"To send a message. You're an army man, Dr Watson. Now do me the favour of thinking: she blinded three lampposts in a row, then left three shining, then shot down three more consecutively. Now imagine the scene: her bodyguard was on the London Eye, gazing at the city below. Lieutenant Halliman is an ex-Navy Seal, so we can assume he has quite the military instinct and wouldn't miss an unusual sign of danger or a desperate call for help. He looked down at the South Bank and saw three dark spots right where there were supposed to be three lights, and right next to that darkness, he saw three small lights, then again, three blacked-out lampposts in a row. Three short taps - three long taps - three short taps… Does it ring a bell?"

John stares at him, wide-eyed, as the logical answer blooms on his lips. "The Morse code for S.O.S."

"Bingo."

Watson turns to Giulia. "Did you really signal our position to your bodyguard having a ride on the London Eye by blacking out six lampposts in the parking lot?"

She shrugs cheekily. "Are you going to sue me for damage to public property?"

Holmes continues, "It was a shot in the dark—no pun intended, but she pulled it off."

"Hold on, Sherlock. Drop your patronising act: you said you didn't know what she was doing either, back then. When did you realise her seemingly random shots were, in fact, proof of her sharpshooting and she used that to send a rescue signal to her off-duty guard?"

The detective takes a deep breath. "When the lights in the last room flickered."

"You mean mere minutes before you were on the verge of shooting her?"

Sherlock nods. "When I noticed the apparent power shortage, I realised someone was toying with the lightning system and the power overload caused one lightbulb to blow out. It wasn't Moriarty, though."

"How could you be certain it wasn't him?" Giulia asks. "He had more than one surprise for us tonight."

"Because he sounded confused by it, too. Besides, he is a performer and in that room, he was also the main spectator: he needed a well-lit stage at all times. He would have never given up on watching the last act of his play. When the lights faltered, I realised I had recently met a person who is the exact opposite: someone who, by his admission, can work efficiently only in the dark. Back at 221B, Lt. Halliman told us that because of the trauma of his friend's death during a daylight raid in the dazzling sunlight of the desert, he hadn't been able to fire a weapon in bright environments anymore. The lightbulb that blew out reminded me of your firing performance in the parking lot, and I pieced it all together. You didn't miss: you blacked out precisely the right lampposts to leave a gigantic SOS message that could only be seen from the sky above our heads. I concluded your bodyguard must have traced us inside the theatre and was about to cut the power to raid the room, ready to shoot. It was a logical assumption."

Then he sighs and fixes his eyes on Giulia. "John can be excused, but I should've known better. I've been so slow. I should have remembered you know how to fire a gun. I saw you do that on Christmas Eve when I gave you that as a gift. When you shot at the smiley face in our flat without hesitation and with surprising precision, I deduced you knew how to handle handguns. I'm sorry I doubted your skills tonight."

After listening to his explanation, a sudden realisation dawns on Giulia, and she gapes.

"It was you. The first gunshot. As soon as the lights went off, you shot and broke the mirror."

He nods. "I knew I had just one bullet and there was only one rational thing to do: shatter the mirror to leave Moriarty exposed for our rescue team (can't really say in plain sight, given the darkness)."

John struggles to make sense of the moments immediately afterwards.

"Hold on. According to your reconstruction of the events, Lt. Halliman must have been the first to storm into the room when the lights were off, right? Even with his great instinct for the darkness, there were four people in front of him: Giulia, you, me, and Moriarty behind the now-shattered glass wall. I guess he's highly trained, but there was still a risk he shot one of us instead of our torturer, no? It wasn't a piece of cake to spot the right silhouette."

"You're right: it wasn't. That's why I tried to reduce the odds of collateral victims. I asked you to stay back, remember?"

John goggles, finally understanding Sherlock's seemingly emotional plea to stay away.

Holmes turns to Giulia. "And I ensured that Halliman wouldn't shoot at you either."

"How?"

"I knocked down a jar of almost colourless paint when going to collect the gun. I made it look like it was because of the tremors in my hand, but I'm a fairly talented actor. My hand wasn't shaking; I just needed to damp it with the content of that jar. I noticed the paintbrushes and pots on the table the moment we entered the room, and I picked up the sulphurous odour of the paint, like rotten eggs. The logical deduction was that they contained paint with zinc sulfide. One of its characteristics is that it's a translucent liquid, meaning that it…"

"Glimmers in the dark," Giulia finishes for him.

"Precisely. The theatre must have used phosphorescent paint on some stage designs. All it took was one simple move: I soaked my left hand in that liquid and blotted it with the handkerchief before approaching you to tell you goodbye. About that, thank you for turning it into quite the emotional moment: you gave me the perfect excuse to hug you."

She squints, recalling those agonising moments. "You patted on my back, but it wasn't an awkward affectionate gesture. You… you drew something on your tuxedo jacket."

He nods.

"What did you draw? What sign could possibly signal Halliman that I wasn't the target and he shouldn't shoot in my direction?"

"A smiley face."

She blinks, thinking back at the conversation they had with her bodyguard in their living at the beginning of that night.

"An omen of good luck," she murmurs, astonished. "He told you the story of the first smiley emoticon in the poem To Fortune and its propitious meaning, so you assumed he would never shoot at a smiley face. Unlike you," she jokes to ease her nerves. Then she raises her watery eyes on him. "You saved my life."

At that moment, the police officers come to take her aside and ask her some questions, and Sherlock's face clouds over as he mumbles under his breath, "No, you sent the SOS: you saved yourself. I was the one who put it in danger in the first place."

When Giulia is giving her statement some metres away, Sherlock and John are sitting side by side on the back steps of an ambulance.

"How's your leg?" Sherlock asks, suddenly realising this is the first time he has properly checked on his friend since he got injured. He was so caught up in the game that he just assumed John would soldier on, which he did, but it didn't make it any less than a titanic effort.

Watson grimaces. "Hurts like hell now that I've come off the adrenaline rush. I'm sure I'll be okay, though. But don't start any more crazy competitions with criminals, for now; I'll be benched for a while."

Sherlock gazes at him for a few seconds before looking away. He says in a low voice, "I hope you know I couldn't have done it without you."

"You weren't supposed to. You said it yourself, before the last round: Moriarty devised the whole game with all the three of us in mind. I had to be there, too."

"True. But what I meant—"

"I know what you meant," John interrupts him gently and meets his eyes for an instant, then lowers his gaze. "And I know we both find this stuff bloody difficult. So, before you tell me something robotic like 'my contribution and input were helpful', let me save us both the awkwardness. You can count on me anytime. That's it," and he gives him a quick pat on the knee.

Sherlock sighs. "It was a stupid idea, wasn't it?"

"You trying to be human?" John snorts. "It was endearing. Thank you for trying."

They both giggle, diffusing some of the pent-up tension of that dreadful night, then become serious again.

"He will be back," Holmes mutters, a distant look in his eyes.

John turns his head to him. "Moriarty? You think he will play with you again?"

"No. We're done playing. It won't be a game anymore. It will be a problem. And for every problem, there is a solution."

"Will he try to kill you?"

"It won't be that easy."

John frowns at that choice of adjective, but Sherlock goes on. "It'll be worse than that. He wants me destroyed."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm fairly sure I will understand when I see it happening."

"What will you do?" John presses him, striving to plan ahead.

"I'll let him. I'll let him do whatever he wants."

"What are you talking about?" John bursts out, frustrated. "This is not you—"

"No, it isn't," Sherlock cuts him short. "That's the whole point. He will turn me into something I am not just to bring me down. Well, I'll play the part for as long as necessary. I don't care what he might do to me. I'm prepared to do anything for the people who... count," he forces out.

John cocks a brow. "You care," he states, and there is a hint of pride in his voice.

The detective remains silent, incapable and unwilling to deny.

Watson gives him a moment to cope with his human nature, then says without hesitation, "Comes what may, Giulia and I, we will be there by your side. I promise."

Sherlock can't even meet his eyes: John wouldn't find gratitude in them but torn pain. That's what he is most afraid of.

They stay quiet for a few minutes, then Holmes says, "You know, Moriarty was right about two things."

John frowns, prompting him to go on.

"First, I got too close, and it almost cost me everything." While he speaks, he stares at Giulia standing by the entrance of the theatre.

John follows his gaze and understands. He sighs.

"Look, she avoided the worst. She is a remarkable woman. And you are… well, not exactly a great man. Sometimes, you don't behave like a man at all, more like a heartless machine. You've been pushing her away for quite some time now. Have you considered trying the opposite approach instead? I'm not saying it's going to work; there's no guarantee. But if my crazy existence taught me anything, life can be utterly unpredictable, and you can't anticipate what's gonna happen."

Sherlock stands and gets off the ambulance's steps. "And sometimes life can be quite obvious, and it's immediately clear what to do next." He starts walking away in the opposite direction from Giulia, towards the parking lot exit.

"Hold on," John calls him back. "You said Moriarty was right about two things. What was the second?"

He doesn't turn around when he answers, "He knew I would come out of this game with a broken heart."

He walks to the street, hails a black cab and takes off.

While talking to the police, Giulia catches a glimpse of him stepping away and stares with a lump in her throat at his receding silhouette until he gets into the taxi and leaves without a word.

And a second heart breaks that night.