Reichenbach Falls- A Different Take- 2/10
Title: Reichenbach Falls- A Different Take (Part 3 Of A Different Take Series/Universe)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters that are part of the BBCverse of Sherlock.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Moriarty, Moran, DI Lestrade, Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper, Mrs Hudson with Mycroft Holmes appearance a couple times.
Genre: Suspense, Drama, Angst, General, Friendship, Humor (as much one can be with this story), Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Death, Murder, Violence, Language,
Spoilers: Reichenbach Falls is the title of the third episode/season finale (or episode 6) of Season 2.
Summary: It's February. John and Sherlock have known each other for a year now, their friendship strong, the bond that is between them is understood by them, but not by everyone else. Moriarty's plans for the two of them have been coming to fruition since January. Everyone they know, have helped and are close to them (as close one can get to Sherlock that is) are in danger.
Author's Note: See prior chapters
Word Count: 2,047
***************************
Chapter 2
Black, Orange, Blue
***************************
***************************
February 10th
Time: 2:35
Location: Aeroplane
***************************
Sherlock looks at the mobile in his hand, tempted to turn it on. Most likely there will be at least one or two calls from Detective Inspector Lestrade.
Perhaps another from a possible client with an interesting case.
His mobile is plucked from his hand by John and put back into his coat pocket.
"You'll just make it worse."
True.
In about three hours, Mrs Hudson will come up to the flat. She does that, on the pretense of saying hello. Truthfully it's to do her usual mothering routine. John enjoys it, while Sherlock always found it amusing. She'll find the letter to give to Lestrade. Sherlock thinks it'll be another hour, maybe two before she remembers to give it to him.
Then she'll be at the Yard.
It will be the best place for her.
***************************
Location: St Barts
Time: 1 pm
Date: Janauary 15th
***************************
John watches as Sherlock eyes the results of his latest experiment. It's times like this when the doctor in him starts to object to Sherlock using recently deceased for experiments like these, but he knows this is one area his protests have no impact.
This is one of those things about a person that one has to find a way to accept and deal with.
"So the bruises came out like this?" Sherlock queries to Doctor Molly Hooper. "Hmm."
"I knew you would want to see it, instead of a text."
John smiles at the slight bite in her words. Over the past few months, Molly seemed to have grown more and more confident around Sherlock. Not as shy or timid, or starstruck as she used to be. Wasn't so easy to manipulate. In the past, it would take about two minutes, and a compliment for Sherlock to get what he wanted from her.
It took about ten minutes, bit more charm, and a promise to fill out the appropriate forms to do it now. Some days it took about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the mood that Sherlock caught her in.
John considered that an improvement. (Even if he did get stuck with filling out the appropriate forms.) He also considers that she had been through quite a lot in the past year, so perhaps the changes were a part of all that. First a boyfriend that was revealed to be a psychopath who runs a criminal organization, a car wreck during the summer, then framed for a series of murders in October. A second boyfriend revealed be a killer, (the one that framed her for the murders) and becoming a hostage in a standoff between Sherlock, John and a terrifically stupid forger who didn't want to go to prison.
Dr Hooper still had a horrendous crush, not helped since Sherlock saved her from prison and death. John could see that. She found a way to work around it and did quite well.
He knew Sherlock noticed. He wasn't quite as bullying or manipulative as he used to be with her. It seemed her having some backbone around him was a challenge to him. John knew Sherlock always appreciated challenges.
He was, however, a rude, antagonizing bully to her part time assistant and temporary replacement when Molly is not working, Doctor Andrea Caine.
Sherlock's foul mood, usually around when there is nothing to keep him occupied, had a tendency to return when Caine was around.
Then again Doctor Andrea Caine wasn't at all like Molly Hooper. When John met her, he thoroughly understood Sherlock's black mood. One meeting that John witnessed, he swore they would have come to blows if DI DI Dimmock hadn't been in the room. She was like Sgt Donovan, only Sgt Donovan was not as hostile as she used to be.
John could say that Sherlock taking a few days to recover from a beating he took to keep Donovan from being killed helped in that matter. Even though Sherlock said he only did it because Lestrade would have been quite upset over Donovan's death and that dealing with Lestrade mourning another's death is utterly annoying.
Sherlock's mobile buzzes, indicating a text. John watches as he takes another picture of the bruises, then reads the text.
Sherlock's eyes widen, and John straightens. Whatever his flatmate received, it wasn't good.
"Excuse me, Molly," he says quickly and heads out of the morgue, dialing a number. Molly looks a bit startled, looks at John then. John just shrugs and follows Sherlock out.
"When did he die?" He hears Sherlock ask. "How?" Silence then as whoever it is responds.
"What are the authorities saying?..... Right. Well true he did not live in a good area, may have been a mistake... No thank you for letting me know Mrs Bradstreet. My condolences," He adds in a somber tone before ending the call.
"Sherlock?"
"Billy Bradstreet, an American and a hacker I knew, was murdered a few days ago. His mother found him the other day," Sherlock says. His voice is toneless, detached. John can see the wheels spinning.
"He was a source for you?"
Sherlock nods.
"I'm sorry."
"That's three now."
"Pardon?
"Three of my sources in the States are dead now."
John tilts his head. "There were two others?"
Sherlock nods again. "An FBI agent and a private investigator. I got the news of their deaths that day I solved the Demery case."
A feeling of unease crawls into John's stomach at that. Three people that Sherlock knew, three of them that were sources of his, are now dead. That's...
Don't assume. Dangerous to make assumptions, as Sherlock has said in the past.
"How far apart are the deaths?"
"A few days. Callie Winter, the private investigator, was killed in her home. The police have claimed that they have evidence leading to her ex husband, according to her mother. She turned evidence against him a few years back, and he recently was released from prison. Agent Baynes was killed in a shoot out with suspected domestic terrorists."
Plausible. Events like that can and do happen with no connection in between them. The feeling in John fades.
"Billy Bradstreet was shot in his home. Apparently the police think it may have been a case of misplaced identity, as there were a few drug dealers living in the area he was in, including one in the same building he was in. He was shot twice. Once in the heart, once in the head."
John flashes back to the last time he saw someone killed in that manner.
Eliza and Paul Barrymore.
It couldn't be.. could it?
"Sherlock..."
"I know what you're thinking. Possibly.. perhaps he..."
John steps forward to close the few feet of distance between them, so they can talk quietly. "You've been covering your tracks a lot better though... giving all your information to the authorities, making sure to leave your name out of it. How would he know?"
"Moriarty is clever, don't forget that. Perhaps I had faith in the wrong person, and my name slipped. Either way Callie Winters died just a few days after the Rome heist was avoided, and the arrests were made."
John notices that Sherlock looks a little uneasy, but then again so does he. "Of course, it could be paranoia. I would like to think it is."
"It's not hard to think you see Moriarty's hand in anything, not anymore. But you may be right," John says softly.
"Sherlock?" John hears Molly's voice calls out.
"I have to go for a walk, think," Sherlock states.
"I'll go see what Molly wants."
Sherlock nods, and John watches as the tall consultant walks down the hall. When he turns the corner, John heads back into the morgue to talk to Molly.
***************************
Location: St Barts Morgue
Time: 1:30 pm
***************************
Molly watches John Watson depart the morgue, then she goes to her lab to check on some test results. She had been testing the pathogens found in a young woman's blood when that experiment of Sherlock's came to fruition.
Another successful day of not letting Sherlock Holmes overwhelm her. Sometimes it could be quite difficult, other days not so.
It was quite stupid to have a crush on the man, she knew that. He was never going to look at her in the same way she looked at him.
It was his eyes. If it hadn't been for those gorgeous pale blue eyes...
Molly was a sucker for the eyes. It was what led her to two of her boyfriends. They had such beautiful eyes.
Pity they were both killers.
She smiles at her thoughts. She never thought she would smile at being reminded that she had poor taste in men.
Two of them killers, the other one not capable of an emotional relationship with a woman, or anyone else.
Well perhaps some sort of relationship with Doctor Watson, although she doesn't try to figure that one out.
Molly remembers being quite resentful of John Watson at times. Of how he was the only that seemed to penetrate that armor around Sherlock Holmes, cementing a place in the detective's life in a way she had once wished she could have.
Now she didn't. She quite likes John Watson and feels sympathy for whatever he must put up with at times. They've had a few talks, and while she never outright admitted to her crush, the doctor knows about it.
Molly was just pleased that her crush no longer made her a fool one hundred percent of the time around Sherlock.
Just twenty percent now.
"Doctor Hooper?"
Molly spins in her chair, startled out of her thoughts. She frowns as she sees Doctor Andrea Caine.
"Doctor Caine?"
The brunette smiles. It looks odd on her really, since she's usually scowling. Molly silently chastises herself for that thought. Doctor Caine wasn't that awful.
"I was told you needed some help today, but not until later. I thought I'd come by early though."
"Oh.. yes well there's some testing that needs to be done. A bit of a backlog it seems. I could use the help."
The doctor nods and comes further inside, taking a white coat off the coat rack. "There's delivery person waiting for you, by the way."
"Oh?" Molly stands and crosses over the lab to the door. She peeks out into the morgue and sees.. a delivery man by the entrance to the morgue with a package.
"Keep an eye on that computer for a couple minutes," She says to Doctor Caine. "Let me know if the results come up."
Caine nods and Molly proceeds toward the delivery man. He's hovering outside of the morgue, as if he's trying not to show he doesn't want to be here.
"Doctor Molly Hooper?" He asks briskly.
"That would be me."
"Sign here," he holds out a clipboard.
"I didn't order anything."
"Didn't have to. Someone ordered something for you. I'm just the one that delivers it."
Right. She takes the clipboard, quickly signs it. He hands over the package as quickly as he takes the clipboard.
"Have a good day," he says gruffly, then hurries on down the hall.
Molly looks over the package with a burning curiosity.
It's not overly large, or heavy. She heads over to an empty slab, and takes off the wrapping, uncovering what she recognizes as one of those delivery boxes that hold flowers. The name of the company is unmistakably Irish.
She lifts the top, wondering who sent her flowers. No one she knows would send her flowers, not even on her birthday.
Molly lifts the lid, and her heart stops. The lid falls to the floor, her fingers now numb.
Three roses lay innocently in the wrapping. But deep down, she knows they are far from innocent.
One black, one orange, one blue.
Fear starts to thrum through her body.
The last time she received a delivery of these three roses, it was in April.
Jim had sent them.
NEXT CHAPTER
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters that are part of the BBCverse of Sherlock.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Moriarty, Moran, DI Lestrade, Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper, Mrs Hudson with Mycroft Holmes appearance a couple times.
Genre: Suspense, Drama, Angst, General, Friendship, Humor (as much one can be with this story), Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Death, Murder, Violence, Language,
Spoilers: Reichenbach Falls is the title of the third episode/season finale (or episode 6) of Season 2.
Summary: It's February. John and Sherlock have known each other for a year now, their friendship strong, the bond that is between them is understood by them, but not by everyone else. Moriarty's plans for the two of them have been coming to fruition since January. Everyone they know, have helped and are close to them (as close one can get to Sherlock that is) are in danger.
Author's Note: See prior chapters
Word Count: 2,047
***************************
Chapter 2
Black, Orange, Blue
***************************
***************************
February 10th
Time: 2:35
Location: Aeroplane
***************************
Sherlock looks at the mobile in his hand, tempted to turn it on. Most likely there will be at least one or two calls from Detective Inspector Lestrade.
Perhaps another from a possible client with an interesting case.
His mobile is plucked from his hand by John and put back into his coat pocket.
"You'll just make it worse."
True.
In about three hours, Mrs Hudson will come up to the flat. She does that, on the pretense of saying hello. Truthfully it's to do her usual mothering routine. John enjoys it, while Sherlock always found it amusing. She'll find the letter to give to Lestrade. Sherlock thinks it'll be another hour, maybe two before she remembers to give it to him.
Then she'll be at the Yard.
It will be the best place for her.
***************************
Location: St Barts
Time: 1 pm
Date: Janauary 15th
***************************
John watches as Sherlock eyes the results of his latest experiment. It's times like this when the doctor in him starts to object to Sherlock using recently deceased for experiments like these, but he knows this is one area his protests have no impact.
This is one of those things about a person that one has to find a way to accept and deal with.
"So the bruises came out like this?" Sherlock queries to Doctor Molly Hooper. "Hmm."
"I knew you would want to see it, instead of a text."
John smiles at the slight bite in her words. Over the past few months, Molly seemed to have grown more and more confident around Sherlock. Not as shy or timid, or starstruck as she used to be. Wasn't so easy to manipulate. In the past, it would take about two minutes, and a compliment for Sherlock to get what he wanted from her.
It took about ten minutes, bit more charm, and a promise to fill out the appropriate forms to do it now. Some days it took about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the mood that Sherlock caught her in.
John considered that an improvement. (Even if he did get stuck with filling out the appropriate forms.) He also considers that she had been through quite a lot in the past year, so perhaps the changes were a part of all that. First a boyfriend that was revealed to be a psychopath who runs a criminal organization, a car wreck during the summer, then framed for a series of murders in October. A second boyfriend revealed be a killer, (the one that framed her for the murders) and becoming a hostage in a standoff between Sherlock, John and a terrifically stupid forger who didn't want to go to prison.
Dr Hooper still had a horrendous crush, not helped since Sherlock saved her from prison and death. John could see that. She found a way to work around it and did quite well.
He knew Sherlock noticed. He wasn't quite as bullying or manipulative as he used to be with her. It seemed her having some backbone around him was a challenge to him. John knew Sherlock always appreciated challenges.
He was, however, a rude, antagonizing bully to her part time assistant and temporary replacement when Molly is not working, Doctor Andrea Caine.
Sherlock's foul mood, usually around when there is nothing to keep him occupied, had a tendency to return when Caine was around.
Then again Doctor Andrea Caine wasn't at all like Molly Hooper. When John met her, he thoroughly understood Sherlock's black mood. One meeting that John witnessed, he swore they would have come to blows if DI DI Dimmock hadn't been in the room. She was like Sgt Donovan, only Sgt Donovan was not as hostile as she used to be.
John could say that Sherlock taking a few days to recover from a beating he took to keep Donovan from being killed helped in that matter. Even though Sherlock said he only did it because Lestrade would have been quite upset over Donovan's death and that dealing with Lestrade mourning another's death is utterly annoying.
Sherlock's mobile buzzes, indicating a text. John watches as he takes another picture of the bruises, then reads the text.
Sherlock's eyes widen, and John straightens. Whatever his flatmate received, it wasn't good.
"Excuse me, Molly," he says quickly and heads out of the morgue, dialing a number. Molly looks a bit startled, looks at John then. John just shrugs and follows Sherlock out.
"When did he die?" He hears Sherlock ask. "How?" Silence then as whoever it is responds.
"What are the authorities saying?..... Right. Well true he did not live in a good area, may have been a mistake... No thank you for letting me know Mrs Bradstreet. My condolences," He adds in a somber tone before ending the call.
"Sherlock?"
"Billy Bradstreet, an American and a hacker I knew, was murdered a few days ago. His mother found him the other day," Sherlock says. His voice is toneless, detached. John can see the wheels spinning.
"He was a source for you?"
Sherlock nods.
"I'm sorry."
"That's three now."
"Pardon?
"Three of my sources in the States are dead now."
John tilts his head. "There were two others?"
Sherlock nods again. "An FBI agent and a private investigator. I got the news of their deaths that day I solved the Demery case."
A feeling of unease crawls into John's stomach at that. Three people that Sherlock knew, three of them that were sources of his, are now dead. That's...
Don't assume. Dangerous to make assumptions, as Sherlock has said in the past.
"How far apart are the deaths?"
"A few days. Callie Winter, the private investigator, was killed in her home. The police have claimed that they have evidence leading to her ex husband, according to her mother. She turned evidence against him a few years back, and he recently was released from prison. Agent Baynes was killed in a shoot out with suspected domestic terrorists."
Plausible. Events like that can and do happen with no connection in between them. The feeling in John fades.
"Billy Bradstreet was shot in his home. Apparently the police think it may have been a case of misplaced identity, as there were a few drug dealers living in the area he was in, including one in the same building he was in. He was shot twice. Once in the heart, once in the head."
John flashes back to the last time he saw someone killed in that manner.
Eliza and Paul Barrymore.
It couldn't be.. could it?
"Sherlock..."
"I know what you're thinking. Possibly.. perhaps he..."
John steps forward to close the few feet of distance between them, so they can talk quietly. "You've been covering your tracks a lot better though... giving all your information to the authorities, making sure to leave your name out of it. How would he know?"
"Moriarty is clever, don't forget that. Perhaps I had faith in the wrong person, and my name slipped. Either way Callie Winters died just a few days after the Rome heist was avoided, and the arrests were made."
John notices that Sherlock looks a little uneasy, but then again so does he. "Of course, it could be paranoia. I would like to think it is."
"It's not hard to think you see Moriarty's hand in anything, not anymore. But you may be right," John says softly.
"Sherlock?" John hears Molly's voice calls out.
"I have to go for a walk, think," Sherlock states.
"I'll go see what Molly wants."
Sherlock nods, and John watches as the tall consultant walks down the hall. When he turns the corner, John heads back into the morgue to talk to Molly.
***************************
Location: St Barts Morgue
Time: 1:30 pm
***************************
Molly watches John Watson depart the morgue, then she goes to her lab to check on some test results. She had been testing the pathogens found in a young woman's blood when that experiment of Sherlock's came to fruition.
Another successful day of not letting Sherlock Holmes overwhelm her. Sometimes it could be quite difficult, other days not so.
It was quite stupid to have a crush on the man, she knew that. He was never going to look at her in the same way she looked at him.
It was his eyes. If it hadn't been for those gorgeous pale blue eyes...
Molly was a sucker for the eyes. It was what led her to two of her boyfriends. They had such beautiful eyes.
Pity they were both killers.
She smiles at her thoughts. She never thought she would smile at being reminded that she had poor taste in men.
Two of them killers, the other one not capable of an emotional relationship with a woman, or anyone else.
Well perhaps some sort of relationship with Doctor Watson, although she doesn't try to figure that one out.
Molly remembers being quite resentful of John Watson at times. Of how he was the only that seemed to penetrate that armor around Sherlock Holmes, cementing a place in the detective's life in a way she had once wished she could have.
Now she didn't. She quite likes John Watson and feels sympathy for whatever he must put up with at times. They've had a few talks, and while she never outright admitted to her crush, the doctor knows about it.
Molly was just pleased that her crush no longer made her a fool one hundred percent of the time around Sherlock.
Just twenty percent now.
"Doctor Hooper?"
Molly spins in her chair, startled out of her thoughts. She frowns as she sees Doctor Andrea Caine.
"Doctor Caine?"
The brunette smiles. It looks odd on her really, since she's usually scowling. Molly silently chastises herself for that thought. Doctor Caine wasn't that awful.
"I was told you needed some help today, but not until later. I thought I'd come by early though."
"Oh.. yes well there's some testing that needs to be done. A bit of a backlog it seems. I could use the help."
The doctor nods and comes further inside, taking a white coat off the coat rack. "There's delivery person waiting for you, by the way."
"Oh?" Molly stands and crosses over the lab to the door. She peeks out into the morgue and sees.. a delivery man by the entrance to the morgue with a package.
"Keep an eye on that computer for a couple minutes," She says to Doctor Caine. "Let me know if the results come up."
Caine nods and Molly proceeds toward the delivery man. He's hovering outside of the morgue, as if he's trying not to show he doesn't want to be here.
"Doctor Molly Hooper?" He asks briskly.
"That would be me."
"Sign here," he holds out a clipboard.
"I didn't order anything."
"Didn't have to. Someone ordered something for you. I'm just the one that delivers it."
Right. She takes the clipboard, quickly signs it. He hands over the package as quickly as he takes the clipboard.
"Have a good day," he says gruffly, then hurries on down the hall.
Molly looks over the package with a burning curiosity.
It's not overly large, or heavy. She heads over to an empty slab, and takes off the wrapping, uncovering what she recognizes as one of those delivery boxes that hold flowers. The name of the company is unmistakably Irish.
She lifts the top, wondering who sent her flowers. No one she knows would send her flowers, not even on her birthday.
Molly lifts the lid, and her heart stops. The lid falls to the floor, her fingers now numb.
Three roses lay innocently in the wrapping. But deep down, she knows they are far from innocent.
One black, one orange, one blue.
Fear starts to thrum through her body.
The last time she received a delivery of these three roses, it was in April.
Jim had sent them.
NEXT CHAPTER