I don't own the characters or places!

James' first impulse was to search for cover somewhere. Maybe behind the couch, even if it wasn't an optimal hiding place. But that would also mean that Madeleine was in plain sight on the bed and the intruder had a clear view on her. Madeleine was their only chance to find Spectre, he couldn't risk her getting killed.

So he remained standing where he was, in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, his own gun was lying on the table and out of reach, but he'd been in worse situations like this. Slowly, James turned towards the window and wasn't at all surprised to see a figure clad in black standing there. He could tell that it was a woman, but a mask hid her features. Her gun was pointing at James.

"Good evening." He said, trying to buy himself some time. In his mind, a plan to overtake the intruder was already beginning to form. "Beautiful night, isn't it?"

"Hands behind your head!" The woman hissed. "And don't move. Otherwise, I'll shoot you." Her voice sounded familiar and it took James a moment to understand why.

Very slowly, he raised his hands and did as she said. His heart was beating fast in his chest, but James remained completely still. Calm. Collected. He'd done this hundreds of times before. This wouldn't make him panic.

"Those are harsh words." He said slowly. They were both talking quietly and until now, James thought that Madeleine was still asleep behind him. "Why not something a littler nicer? Like 'good to see you again' or 'what a surprise that we meet here, of all places'." The gun only quivered for half a second, but James knew that he'd hit a point. "What are you doing here, Mary?"

"Stop this!" She said, louder this time. She didn't even try to hide her anger. "Just shut your mouth! I won't hesitate to kill you. That we know each other doesn't make a difference."

"You mean that you came into our lives because of this all." James corrected her. "That's why you showed up in the first place, isn't it?" He heard noises behind him and knew that Madeleine was stirring in her sleep.

Her quiet voice only moments later confirmed his suspicion. "James? What's going on?" Her voice was still thick with sleep, but there was an alertness which again reminded him that this woman had been on the run most of her life.

"Just an old friend." James said calmly. "Stay where you are."

"Oh she can also join us." Mary said pleasantly. "I would like to get to know Ms. Swann a little better."

James kept his eyes on Mary. Behind him, it went still again. "Don't move, Madeleine. Just stay there."

"I'll shoot him if you won't come and join us." Mary's voice was cold. A sharp contrast to the nice tone in which she'd always talked to them.

"You won't." He argued. "There's a reason why you're here. Tell me, how long have you been working for them?"

"That's none of your business." She snapped. "Do I really need to remind you that I'm the one holding a gun here?"

Someone chuckled at this. And it was neither of them, but another voice. Deep and amused. James saw Mary tense and he was also surprised, but only for a short moment.

Then many things happened at once. Mary whirled around to face the new attacker behind her back, but Sherlock Holmes was already there and grabbed her arm before she could pull the trigger. They struggled with each other for a moment, but then another sound echoed. The click of yet another gun. This one was aimed at Mary's head. It gave Sherlock the opportunity to take the weapon from Mary and aim at her as well.

James had used this moment to run for his own gun and when he raised it, he turned just in time to see John Watson step in sight, his gun at Mary's temple. "If I were you, I would remain very still now. There are three weapons aimed at you and I doubt that anyone in here would hesitate to shoot you." John's voice was calm, but James could also hear the betrayal in it. Yes, they'd suspected all along that Mary was playing a game with them, but seeing this was something else entirely.

"Good to see you, James." John greeted him with a slight smile as he gestured for Mary to enter the room. Once they were inside, Sherlock closed the window behind them and drew all the curtains. "Q sends his greetings."

He couldn't hold back a chuckle at this. "Of course he sent you after her. Give me a warning next time, alright?"

"Everything was under control, 007." Q's voice sounded in his ear. "They told me not to alarm you." The annoyance at this was obvious in his voice.

"John didn't want to ruin the surprise." Sherlock replied dryly and gestured for Mary to sit down on one of the chairs. James wasn't at all surprised to see him pull a package of cable ties out of his coat.

While Sherlock tied Mary to the chair and searched her, James looked at Madeleine. She was sitting on the bed now, staring at all of them with disbelief. "What is going on here?! Who are these people?" She all but demanded to know.

"Friends of mine." James explained. "Or at least two of them." He glared at Mary.

John was still pointing at Mary with his gun, but he smiled at Madeleine. Despite the situation, his smile looked completely at ease. Calming. Even in the middle of the night and with a gun in his hand, it was impossible not to like him. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm John. John Watson. And that's Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock paused for a moment, glancing at Madeleine. He knelt in front of Mary and was just tying one of her feet to the leg of the chair, a frown on his face. James was a little surprised that she wasn't struggling, but maybe she just wasn't that courageous anymore with two guns pointing at her. "Charmed."

If the situation hadn't been so serious, James might have laughed at her expression. "The Sherlock Holmes?"

This time, Sherlock took the time to really look at her. Surely, he was already making lots of deductions about Madeleine. James needed to make sure to talk to him about it later. "Oh, you know us? Good. Saves us time to explain everything."

John chuckled when Madeleine just stared at him with her mouth open. "You'll get used to this with time." She didn't look convinced at this.

"Unfortunately." Mary muttered, earning her a sharp glance from the three men.

"No one asked about your opinion." James crossed his arms. "So why did Spectre send you?"

Madeleine was on her feet within seconds. "She's working for Spectre?"

James nodded simply. "She came here to kill me."

"And she wasn't very subtle about it." Sherlock stood up and went over to stand next to John. He was wearing his usual coat and James wondered how he could stand it in this heat.

The question was answered when Sherlock took it off, threw it on the couch where James had intended to sleep and rolled up his sleeves. John eyed him appreciatively, but if the detective noticed this, he didn't let it show.

"She was already behaving strangely during your last encounters, you all told us as much." Sherlock continued, grabbing the gun he'd thrown onto the couch as well. "Then we just needed Lestrade to give her some hints and see what happened."

"Greg didn't like it at all." John said with a look at James. "But he was good. After all, she caught the bait." He glanced at Mary then and a frown appeared on his face.

"What if this was all intentional? If I wanted you to follow me here?" She asked, her tone now mocking. "Maybe the great Sherlock Holmes has made a mistake."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If you had known about us following you, we wouldn't be here right now. You're good. Better than most people expect, I'd dare to say. Spectre hired you for a reason and I don't doubt that there would have been a fight hadn't we arrived just in time. You erased all your traces that lead to Morocco and this place expertly. Luckily, we saw your departure from London coming and took precautions." His lips twitched at this and James knew that Q was involved somehow.

"You change your identities fluently, even I was impressed by this and that means something. I assume it's all connected to the past you so badly want to hide, Mary. Or should I rather use your real name? Rosamund, quite a beautiful sound. Were you sad that you couldn't use the name anymore after that last job went wrong and you had to go into hiding? I bet you were happy when Spectre approached you and there was finally another opportunity to take matters back into your own hands." During his speech, Sherlock hadn't stopped staring at Mary through narrowed eyes. If James hadn't been used to this by now, he might have found it strange. A short glance at Madeleine told him that she was still trying to process the sudden change of events. The second in two days.

Mary stared at Sherlock as if she'd seen a ghost. "You can't… but how…"

"There's no way to just erase years of your life." Sherlock said simply. "If you dig deep enough, you can find many surprising things."

"It took me about half an hour." Q commented in James' ear. "She was part of a quite interesting organization. Remind me to tell you about it later."

John's lips twitched and James wondered whether it was because of Sherlock's words or if he'd heard Q as well. It would make sense that they had some kind of connection. After all, he'd sent them after Mary.

"Rosamund, hm?" James asked, raising his eyebrows. "What did Spectre promise you, then? To get your old life back? To get a chance to start somewhere again?"

"It's Mary." She argued immediately. "I've never liked my first name."

"Of course that's what they offered." John sounded thoughtful. "A new beginning. That's what you always wanted."

While she looked at John closely, there was a hint of sadness on Mary's face. Or was it longing? Sherlock moved a little closer to his boyfriend. "I thought that I'd managed to leave my old life behind. For a while, it was peaceful when I came to London. I found a new job and even some friends. For a brief while, I believed that I could be happy." Her expression turned cold. "Until someone showed up on my doorstep a few months ago."

"A man who wanted you to kill James." Sherlock concluded.

"They found out about my past and I knew then that it would be easy for others to do the same." Mary muttered. "They offered me to erase all traces about it in return for my help. There was an agent they were very interested in." Her eyes wandered to James. "But their information didn't seem to be completely accurate. They said you were lonely and that it would be easy to get to you. The moment I saw you together with your friends, I knew that they were wrong." Her eyes flickered to John and Sherlock again.

"What does Spectre want?" Madeleine slowly stood up from the bed, her expression hard. "Next to kill James. What's their plan?"

Mary laughed. A cold and bitter sound. "My order wasn't to kill James." She corrected them. "You, my dear, were an acceptable casualty. After all, they already removed your father from the equation. James, on the other hand, they want alive. I should bring you to them."

"To him." James barely noticed that John had grabbed Madeleine's arm to stop her from throwing herself at Mary. Surely, the mentioning of her father must hurt more than anything. "Franz Oberhauser."

"He uses a different name now, but yes, it's him." Mary stared at him. "I still don't understand why you are so important to him."

"Family business." James replied lazily and raised his eyebrows. "So where do they want you to take me? Where's Spectre's hiding place?"

"She doesn't know." Sherlock said before Mary could open her mouth. "That's the problem here. They promised to tell her after she caught you."

"We can still let her make the call." He argued, but when he saw Sherlock's expression, he feared the worst. "Can't we?"

John cleared his throat. "We stole her phone at the airport. She doesn't have it anymore." He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly looking embarrassed. "We thought that it might be better if she can't contact anyone."

"But it doesn't matter." Madeleine threw in. "My father was convinced that this place will lead us to them."

They all began to look around at this, even Mary on her chair. "L'Américain." Sherlock muttered quietly, a gleam in his eyes. "Your father came back every year?"

Madeleine nodded. "Every single year."

The detective abruptly turned to James. "Tell me where you didn't search yet."

While James and Sherlock continued to search the room, John sat down on the couch, gun still pointing at Mary. After a moment of hesitation, Madeleine joined him. "So Sherlock Holmes? London's most famous detective?"

John grinned at her. "The very same."

She looked around, grimacing at the chaos the two other men left in their wake. "How is it to run around such a big city and solve crimes?"

"Amazing. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"When did you two meet?" Madeleine looked from John to where Sherlock was just knocking on the walls.

He chuckled. "That's a long story."

"I think we have time." While Mary just rolled her eyes and the two others kept searching the room, John recalled the story of how he came back to London and met a certain detective.