Sherlock waved his plane ticket in his hand. "There's going to be a bomb on a passenger jet. The British and American governments know about it but rather than expose the source of that information they're going to let it happen. The plane will blow up. Coventry all over again. The wheel turns. Nothing is ever new."
That's a good idea, Danielle mused to herself. Like, a really good idea. If it worked the first time, there's nothing stopping them from doing it again. Except this little tiny ticking thought in the back of her head kept her quiet.
It's a very good idea. It's very well crafted. Mycroft Holmes was definitely one of the higher ups responsible for it. No wonder he was so stern at Buckingham Palace. No wonder nobody wanted the Woman having this information on her hands.
Now it is.
Now the Woman has it.
She has it. Right? No. Actually, no. Sherlock explained all of this to Danielle in a car as they were driving away from Baker Street. The Woman hadn't heard any of it. Sherlock only told them the word 'coventry'. How many other people remembered history class that well?
Then again, Danielle reminded herself, not everyone is an idiot like her.
The car pulled into Heathrow. The silent drivers took them past several airport terminals. Massive planes were parked in nearby hangers. The doors were all closed for the night.
Danielle fidgeted with her shirt. She wanted to speak but the Woman stayed in her head.
All of us should have dinner
All of us
All
All.
It's the way the Woman said it. Like an old joke between her and Sherlock. John made the joke plenty of times. The Woman texted Sherlock over 50 times. Obviously she was inviting Sherlock to dinner.
The Woman only messaged Danielle from Twitter. That's her professional account. Gifts were sent, but nothing she wouldn't send to other clients. Danielle was the same as everyone. Even in their messages, the Woman seemed focused on getting with Sherlock again. Danielle was just a middle man. Woman. Whatever.
Nothing about it felt special. Danielle wasn't special. Even in being attacked at the flat, it's just because she was there. The Woman came back to Sherlock's flat. It's always about Sherlock. Everyone's in love with Sherlock. The joke is on them, because Sherlock doesn't believe in it.
The Woman wasn't an idiot. She used Danielle too.
All
All
The car pulled over. A jumbo jet sat on the tarmac. Sherlock left, closing his door and it was loud. Danielle jumped out of her skin. She watched him walk off so she scrambled to catch up to him.
He paused walking. Danielle tried to see why. When she did, she truly did jump out of her skin. She quickly scrambled to grab Sherlock by the arm.
Neilson.
The American that tortured her.
Fuck, why was he here?
Sherlock, for his part, let Danielle hold his arm. He walked the two over to the jet stairs. "Well, you're lookin' all better. How ya feelin'?" Sherlock asked in a very overdramatic American accent. It's the kind of joke Danielle loved.
"Like putting a bullet in your brain...sir." Neilson replied.
She held him tighter. Sherlock merely chuckled. "I'll shoot you right back."
Neilson smirked. "With what gun?"
Danielle decided she actually wanted to push him into the jet turbine.
Sherlock held her tighter. He guided her to the stairs. They climbed up.
"They'd pin a medal on me if I did." Sherlock and Danielle paused, together as one. "...sir."
Danielle sneered at him. Sherlock began to move again, gently encouraging her to follow. She passed one more glare around her shoulder before joining.
==MPH==
The plane was dark. Danielle expected that from a red-eye flight. All the seats were full.
Danielle tilted her head. "Oh." She whispered. "What's happened here?"
Sherlock hummed. He reached over, kneeling down to see one of the people. "They're all dead."
Danielle yelped. She jumped back. This was- This was-
Did she mention the entire plane was full?
She looked around. Everyone was definitely dead. Skin grayed and hair wilting, sitting up in the chairs like the worst sort of mannequins. Danielle never saw this many dead people before. More dead than she had seen in her time with Sherlock and John.
"The Coventry conundrum."
Mycroft emerged from the shadows. "What do you think of my solution? The flight of the dead."
"The plane blows up mid-air. Mission accomplished for the terrorists. Hundreds of casualties, but nobody dies." Sherlock reasoned.
"Where did you get all of these people?!" Danielle snapped. She curled away from the bodies.
Mycroft only smiled. "Neat, don't you think? You've been stumbling round the fringes of this one for ages-or were you too bored to notice the pattern?"
Danielle turned to Sherlock. His expression told her he'd shifted to the Mind Palace.
"The missing grandfather." Sherlock recalled. "And the non-human ash."
Danielle widened her eyes. The cases. They'd had a few cases that stumped Sherlock or were immediately sent on their way. A body missing here, a body replacement here.
"We ran a similar project with the Germans a while back, though I believe one of our passengers didn't make the flight." Mycroft said.
"The Body in the Boot." Danielle recalled. She helped John title it. It was funny. Sad, but funny.
"But that's the deceased for you. Late, in every sense of the word." Mycroft remarked.
"How's the plane going to fly?" Sherlock asked. "Of course. Unmanned aircraft. Hardly new."
"It doesn't fly. It will never fly. This entire project is canceled." Mycroft said. "The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can't fool them now. We've lost everything. One fragment of one email, and months and years of planning finished."
He stayed in the same spot, just barely poking from the shadows. Yet his air crept in. Mycroft often kept a tight lid on his emotions. Frustration, often, as he dealt with people below his IQ range. Distaste of herself and John, the more common thing. This was a new reaction she'd never seen. They ruined his years-long plan to save people. Sherlock tended to shoot doorbells when they ruined his late night violin sessions.
"Your MOD man." Sherlock realized.
"That's all it takes. One lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special." Mycroft said.
"Hmm. You should screen your defense people more carefully." Sherlock remarked.
"I'm not talking about the MOD man, Sherlock; I'm talking about you." Mycroft slammed the end of his umbrella on the floor.
Danielle tensed. She wasn't sure if she wanted herself and Sherlock to run, or to bow under the pressure. To fall on her knees, begging for forgiveness.
"The damsel in distress." Mycroft smiled, exactly like a crocodile. "In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook. The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption; then give him a puzzle...and watch him dance."
"Oi." Danielle tried. "It's not his fault-"
"Oh but it is, Ms Nolan, it is." Mycroft snapped. "Tell me. I'm very curious. What was your role in this? Did she encourage him to solve it, or did you?"
"Neither. He just wanted to solve it." Danielle argued.
"Even you can't be stupid enough to believe that." Mycroft scolded. Danielle winced. She curled down on herself. "Oh this is absurd."
"Mycroft." Sherlock warned.
"How quickly did he decipher the email for her?" Mycroft asked Danielle. "Was it a full minute, or was he eager to impress?"
Danielle kept trying to talk. She really, really tried. The words of Sherlock echoed. The chemical defect of love. That's how he pictured it. Her feelings for him. He accepted her gift and attention the way her mother always accepted her gestures of love. Tolerated, held at a distance, and not an inch more.
Love Danielle Nolan? Nobody loves Danielle Nolan. Nobody wants to impress Danielle Nolan. Nobody in the world is stupid enough for that.
"I think it was less than five seconds."
Danielle was very sick and tired of people coming out of the shadows. The Woman appeared on the other end of the plane. She smiled at Sherlock, properly impressed.
As intended.
If she wasn't selling state secrets to terrorists, she and Sherlock would be perfect for each other.
"I drove you into her path." Mycroft said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
Danielle wanted to fall. It's a pity all the chairs were occupied by corpses.
"Mr Holmes, I think we need to talk." The Woman walked up to Sherlock.
"So do I. There are a number of aspects I'm still not quite clear on." Sherlock argued.
"Not you, Junior. You're done now." The Woman dismissed him. She walked around him.
Danielle stood in her way. She moved without being asked. Something built inside of her.
"There's more...loads more." The Woman held up her much beloved phone. The locked screen glowed in the dark airplane. "On this phone I've got secrets, pictures and scandals that could topple your whole world. You have no idea how much havoc I can cause and exactly one way to stop me-unless you want to tell your masters that your biggest security leak is your own little brother."
==MPH==
They'd moved by then. Mycroft brought the Woman to his home. Following along more for security, Sherlock and Danielle joined. The Woman sat smug and proud. Her hair was tied up so perfectly, and her dress was a perfect black. It actually reminded Danielle of the dress she'd been gifted.
Mycroft pointed at her phone. She put it on the desk between them. "We have people who can get into this."
"I tested that theory for you. I let Sherlock Holmes try it for six months." The Woman said. Danielle clenched her hands together. She squeezed her fingers until they were white. "Sherlock, dear, tell him what you found when you X-rayed my camera phone."
"There are four additional units wired inside the casing, I suspect containing acid or a small amount of explosive. Any attempt to open the casing will burn the hard drive." There was no joyful tone to his voice. He spoke in a detached, flat way. As if Sherlock Holmes was the robot that Anderson alway said he was.
"Explosive. It's more me." The Woman told Mycroft.
"Some data is always recoverable." Mycroft tried.
"Take that risk?" The Woman challenged.
"You have a passcode to open this. I deeply regret to say we have people who can extract it from you." Mycroft warned.
"Sherlock?" She called, like Sherlock was a dog to command. That thing continued to build in her belly.
"There will be two passcodes. One to open the phone, one to burn the drive. Even under duress you can't know which one she's given you and there will be no point in a second attempt." Sherlock reported.
"He's good, isn't he? I should have him on a leash-in fact, I might." The Woman teased. Danielle snapped her head around. The Woman cooed. "Don't worry, Danielle, you'll get one too."
"We destroy this, then. No-one has the information." Mycroft said.
"Fine. Good idea...unless there are lives of British citizens depending on the information you're about to burn." The Woman suggested.
"Are there?"
"Telling you would be playing fair. I'm not playing any more." The Woman reached for her purse. She grabbed a letter, passing it to Mycroft. It rested beside the phone. "A list of my requests; and some ideas about my protection once they're granted. I'd say it wouldn't blow much of a hole in the wealth of the nation-but then I'd be lying. I imagine you'd like to sleep on it."
Mycroft had lost his rage. Defeated, he wilted in his seat. "Thank you, yes."
"Too bad." The Woman waved her hand at him. "Off you pop and talk to people."
Mycroft exhaled. "You've been very...thorough. I wish our lot were half as good as you."
"I can't take all the credit. Had a bit of help." The Woman turned to finally acknowledge Sherlock and Danielle. "Oh, Jim Moriarty sends his love."
"Yes, he's been in touch. Seems desperate for my attention...which I'm sure can be arranged." Mycroft offered.
Moriarty.
Moriarty.
Moriarty helped you do this?
"I had all this stuff, never knew what to do with it. Thank God for the consultant criminal. Gave me a lot of advice about how to play the Holmes boys. D'you know what he calls you? The IceMan and the Virgin." The Woman smiled at Mycroft, sitting on the side of the table. She leaned in close to smirk at the elder Holmes. It's beautiful. It's evil.
Moriarty helped her.
He helped her do all of this, no doubt. How else did the Woman find a body so perfectly matching hers?
"Didn't even ask for anything, really. I think he just likes to cause trouble." The Woman mused. "Now that's my kind of man."
He's clever. He's so very clever but he's insane. The Woman isn't any of that.
Bubbling. Bubbling. More and more, higher and higher.
"And here you are, the dominatrix who brought a nation to its knees." Mycroft mused. "Nicely played."
Danielle stood up. "Shut up."
The Holmes boys turned to her. The Woman raised her eyebrows. "Sorry?"
"Shut up." Danielle repeated. "Really, honestly, shut up. I want you to shut up." The Woman opened her mouth. "Stop talking. Stop it. Stop all of it. It's- It's- It's too much. You are enjoying this. It's not okay so stop talking."
The Woman continued to raise her eyebrow. "Of course I'm enjoying this-"
Danielle shot up off the couch. She marched over to the Woman. The WOman actually leaned further back on the table. "You think you're better than them? Than Sherlock, or Mycroft? You're not better. You're worse. It's pathetic."
"Pathetic?" The Woman replied. "I'll be adding a whip to that leash."
Danielle smiled. A wide, deep smile that stretched to her ears. "You're in love."
"Oh dear God. Look at the poor woman." The Woman laughed, feigning nonchalance. "You don't actually think I was interested in him? Why? Because he's the great Sherlock Holmes, the clever detective in the funny hat? You're the one in love with him, Danielle, not me."
"And that's exactly how I know you're pathetic." Danielle continued to smile. "Because he knows I love him too. Let me tell you what he said to me. Love is a chemical defect found on the losing side."
It stung so deeply even still. Danielle can never forget it. It hurt already being humiliated in front of everyone at the Christmas party. Wearing a beautiful dress from a woman about to fake her death. Sherlock, poor Sherlock, lost in grief and disgust. He turned Danielle's feelings aside with no care.
Then he beat up Americans for her.
Things continued on like normal. Like it never happened. Like Sherlock hadn't broken her heart. Like Danielle hadn't spent a week locked away in her flat. Things were normal. Cases were normal. Life moved on.
And the Woman thought, what, that she was better? Smarter? That being this way was allowed after all the hurt she'd caused?
"Sherlock knows more about love than you." Danielle spat at her. "You, a dominatrix who can only get love when people pay you for it. Sherlock? He knows what love is. He knows when it's there, and when it's lost. He knows how it looks in a person. He saw it in me, and made it very clear he never wanted to see it again! So what makes you think he'd change all of that for you?"
The Woman tried to keep her smile. A more annoyed, frustrated frown was there instead. Mycroft watched the exchange like a betting man. It must be a struggle for him. He never liked Danielle, and now he wanted her to win.
"When we first met, you told us that disguise is always a self-portrait." Danielle snarled. "How true of you. The combination to your safe was your measurements. You give that away to anyone. But this...?"
Danielle snatched the phone away. Nobody stopped her. She never held it before. It held none of the weight she expected. She held up the phone, not even looking at it as she glared deadly blue eyes at Irene's shaking brown.
"...this is far more intimate, isn't it? This is your heart. So let's see if I can burn yours out of you."
Danielle pressed the first character.
The Woman's smile vanished.
"You're such an arrogant woman, that it never even occurred to you how dangerous this was. You could've used any code you damn well pleased, and walked off as the bloody Blackmail Queen of England." The landlady stalked up to the dominatrix, typing the second character.
The brunette fought hard not to flinch away at the rage in Danielle's eyes. Anyone would recognize them as the eyes of a Moriarty.
"But you just couldn't resist it, could you?" Danielle laughed. It's somehow a laugh of joy. Sprinkled deeply with guilt and shame, yes, but there's joy. The joy you find in a bully tripping over their tie shoelaces. The act itself is heartbreakingly painful, but it's satisfying to see them in pain for once. "It's so funny. I love it. I guessed it months ago, but I thought you were cleverer than that."
Danielle recalled it so vividly. Often, she recalled the little joke. Sometimes she unlocked her phone, nearly typing in the same letters just to make herself laugh. The joke was right there. It's so funny. It's so stupid. It's the joke of someone very much in love. A couple bound deeply together, wanting dinner but not hungry.
"Sherlock won't ever love me, because he thinks that love is a dangerous disadvantage." Danielle's fierce words were dulled by the wet scratchiness in her voice. If the consulting detective looked at Danielle in heartbreak, Danielle didn't notice as she typed the third letter. She kept her eyes on the dominatrix. "So screw you for proving him right."
Before she could finish the word, the Woman took hold of her hand.
Danielle forced herself to freeze. If she didn't, she'd slap the dominatrix hard enough to cut her cheek.
"Everything I said, it's not real." The Woman offered. She even made it sound sincere. "I was just playing the game."
"I know." Tears were still coming out of her eyes. "It's what you like." The last character.
I AM S-H-E-R LOCKED
She tossed the phone away. Mycroft caught it. Danielle kept her focus on the Woman. "You ever see my 'brother' again, tell him to sod off." Danielle warned. Her own heart was crumbling. She ignored it, not willing to have anyone see her like this. She barely turned to Mycroft. "I hope that this makes up for what we did tonight."
There was a hesitation. No one wanted to anger the landlady further. Mycroft suddenly realized he had been addressed, and that he was showing fear. "I'm certain they will."
Danielle nodded. She tried to run out the door. She couldn't look at Sherlock. If she looked at Sherlock, she wouldn't look away. There's no other way. Staring at Sherlock Holmes was the only thing Danielle Nolan wanted to do. But this time? Her heart would break. Sherlock hated these sorts of feelings. He'd push her away. It'd kill her the way Moriarty's bomb tried.
"Are you expecting me to beg?" The Woman asked.
She turned completely around on the balls of her feet. Her mad smile returned. "Yes, actually. Twice."
The Woman gulped. Her body shivered in anticipation. Those big brown eyes welled up with tears.
Good, Danielle thought, let your heart break. Let it shatter. Feel for a moment what Sherlock did. Feel what I did.
"Please." 1 "You're right." 2 "I won't even last six months." 3
The other woman squared her shoulders, eyes cold. "That wasn't twice." She replied. "Sorry I couldn't arrange dinner."
And then she left. Hurried, fast, to the first car Frankie/Anthea could pull up. She left Sherlock behind there. Let him make his own way home. In this car, all by herself, Danielle could finally let herself cry in peace.
