Fic: Everything a bit broken, 5/5
At the Yard, Donovan was waiting in Lestrade’s office. “Only you,” she said, “only you would want to fuck up your own investigation.”
“Are they here?”
“Lestrade’s with them, isn’t he,” she said, and left.
“Well, she’s over her pity, at least,” Sherlock said, leaning against Lestrade’s desk.
“That’s something, yes,” John said. “What are you going to ask them?”
“It’s more important what I’ll observe,” Sherlock said. He looked down at his hands as though inspecting his fingernails. John noticed they weren’t shaking anymore, at least not so as he could see them. “I do hope they haven’t been changed into prison garb.”
“They’re in the second interrogation room,” Lestrade said. “But you’re not going alone.”
Sherlock frowned. “John can --”
“Hah. No. You’re not interrogating my suspects without me present,” Lestrade said. “Dr. Watson, you can observe through the glass, if you’d like. Donovan will attend as well, and we’ll record it. I don’t want anyone’s attorney bringing this back against us.”
John nodded. Sherlock sighed and said, “Very well. If we may.”
They followed him down the hall a short way, and Lestrade swiped a card and punched in a code that John had no doubt Sherlock was memorizing. Then he paused, his hand on the doorknob, and seemed ready to ask Sherlock if he’d had any second thoughts. Sherlock sighed and started to reach for the door himself. “Ok, ok. Just nothing ridiculous, all right?”
“Never,” Sherlock said. They walked in.
John followed Donovan into the next room, where a one-way see-through mirror let him observe the whole thing. It was a very plain room -- white walls, a white table, six chairs set around it, and across from him, two men who matched Sherlock’s description nearly perfectly. Short haired, muscular, tough looking criminals. One had a scar above his lip; the other had both ears pierced with metal studs. They both wore just white, sleeveless shirts that exposed their tattooed arms. The scarred one was taller and had dark hair, bulky arms, and a scummy little smirk. The other appeared more nervous, eyes darting between the two men.
John was glad they’d stopped at the cleaner’s on the way in. Sherlock had his coat back on, looked every inch himself -- towering, swift, sure. He stood instead of taking the seat next to Lestrade, and John figured this was as much for effect as it was to keep him from wincing in pain in front of these men.
“All right,” Lestrade said. “You know we’ve got you dead to rights on four different accounts of robbery and assault.”
“I reckon we do,” the dark haired one said. His voice was deep and his English surprisingly full, proper, not the broken rural dialect John had anticipated.
“That’s Maxwell,” Donovan said, quietly. “The other is Kippler. Ex-con, like he said.”
John nodded. Maxwell was still staring at Sherlock, and Sherlock was returning the gaze.
“So if you’ve got us so sewed up,” Maxwell said, “what’s he doing here?”
“Investigating,” Sherlock said, his voice very crisp.
Maxwell laughed. “You’re a cop?”
“Not exactly,” Lestrade said. “But he’s here at my invitation.”
Sherlock tipped his head. “You’re not from here,” he said, looking at Maxwell. “Scotland.”
“Sure,” Maxwell said. “Not since I was a lad.”
Sherlock nodded. “Is that where you met him?”
“Who’s that, love?”
“Professor Moriarty.”
Maxwell frowned. “Say again?”
Sherlock shook his head. “He might’ve gone by a different name, though I doubt it. The man who put you up to this.”
Maxwell laughed. “Put us up to what, exactly?”
“Attacking me.”
His grin was insidious. The other man, Kippler, finally spoke in a somewhat squeaky voice. “Max, maybe we shouldn’t --”
“Oh, fuck it, Kip, he’s right, we’re done in,” Maxwell said. “No reason not play with this one, then, is there? Not that I haven’t already had a decent chance at it, once.” He looked up Sherlock up and down, his tongue hanging out a bit, and John nearly punched the wall.
“Steady,” Donovan said.
Sherlock cleared his throat. “It’s a bit crowded in here, isn’t it?”
Lestrade sighed, then glanced up at the glass and pointed toward Kippler. Donovan stepped into the hall; a moment later, an officer walked into the room and escorted Kippler out, and Donovan reappeared. “Hope he knows what he’s doing,” she murmured. “I would’ve cracked the quiet one.”
“He always knows what he’s doing,” John said, and Donovan rolled her eyes.
Inside, Lestrade had gone back over a few mundane details with Maxwell, who was offering a steady stream of “may just be,” and “sounds like an interesting story” to everything he said. Neither confirming or denying, exactly. It was too cute by half, but John appreciated that Lestrade was trying to buy Sherlock a little time to get his head on straight.
Finally, Sherlock shook his head. “May I see his hands?” Sherlock asked.
Lestrade’s head turned, and John knew his expression without being able to see it: Are you nuts? Sherlock spared him a glance, and after a moment, Lestrade sighed, rose, and uncuffed Maxwell’s hands from behind him. Maxwell stretched them out in front of him and flexed his fingers. “Bring back some memories?” he asked, rubbing his own neck.
“Bastard!” Donovan said, and John couldn’t have agreed more heartily.
“So you’re in charge, then,” Sherlock said, and Maxwell laughed.
“You remember me,” he said. “That’s sweet.”
“If you’ll tell us about who hired you,” he said, voice still -- how? -- steady, “I’m certain the D.I. could discuss certain allowances.”
Lestrade started to say, “Now hold on --” but Maxwell had already jumped in.
“Hired us? Sweetheart,” he said, and he was grinning wolfishly as he leaned forward, “why, I believe that was you, wasn’t it? Flashing your money around --”
“This is not --”
“-- tossing that hair about, why, you know, I didn’t even know you were a bloke to start with,” Maxwell said. “But of course, you were. That mouth. God. No one’s got to hire me for --”
“That’s enough out of you,” Lestrade said.
Sherlock was just staring at the man, his face entirely blank, if a bit pale. When he spoke, his voice was lower than usual -- though John wasn’t sure anyone would notice. “You know as well as we do that your friend Kippler is the weaker link,” he said. “Whatever you don’t tell us, he will. He’s in a room down the hall breaking apart right now, I’d bet. All it will take is a mention of his mother, and I imagine he’ll tell us anything we want to know. Dear religious woman like that.”
“That’s assuming he knows anything you want to know,” Maxwell said. “Nice trick about his mum, though. He’d probably tell you I’m the pope if you threaten her. Stand up real well in court, won’t it?”
Lestrade sighed. “What would help you in court would be talking to us straight.”
Maxwell chuckled. “Is this the one you were talking about, then? Your boyfriend, is he?”
John sucked in a quick breath. Good god, this had gotten out of hand but quickly. Inside the interrogation room, Lestrade was looking up at Sherlock. “Why doesn’t he stop this?” John gritted out.
Donovan said, “It’s up to Sherlock, isn’t it? Always knows what he’s doing, right?”
“I’ve explained - “Lestrade began, but Maxwell kept talking.
“If you’re this Morty fellow he was on about, well, I imagine it’s been tough times for you at home, hasn’t it?”
“I believe you know exactly who Detective Inspector Lestrade is,” Sherlock said. “He’s the one who’s arrested you. Now, if you’ll just tell us about the call.”
Maxwell was facing Lestrade, now, not even looking at Sherlock. “It’s not that I don’t see what you see in him,” he said. “But he’s got rather a mouth on him, doesn’t he? There are ways to stop him talking, of course --”
“Mr. Holmes is a consultant,” Lestrade managed, “and I’d like to remind you you’re incriminating yourself right now.”
He leaned forward a bit, his cuffed hands forming a peak. “You know, he was asking for you,” Maxwell said, still looking at Lestrade. “Kept telling me you wouldn’t let us do it. Telling us you’d be very angry.” He grinned. “Are you angry, Detective Inspector?”
“I’ve had enough of you,” Lestrade said. “Sherlock, have you got what you need?”
“What were you paid, exactly?” he asked. “Enough to buy those shoes, certainly.”
“You should know that exactly -- four hundred quid for me, all said and done, plus the money from the watch. Kip got his take, I got mine.” He grinned. “You shouldn’t carry so much cash, should you, now?”
“Yes, it must have seemed a fortune for you, after all that terrible farm work. Is that where you met? Or, no, perhaps when you were meeting your bookie.” Sherlock steepled his fingers. “Is that why your wife left you? The gambling debts piled up, left her without, well, without everything you’d promised. Add to that your impotency --”
Maxwell’s face had been growing red; it was now a dangerous purplish color. “You know quite well that’s not true!”
Sherlock’s eyes were narrowed but flashing; John could see it from where he stood, feeling stunned and bruised. “Yes, but that’s a whole different area than making it at home, isn’t it? Couldn’t exactly use a gun on her, could you? What was it? Was she a bit too demanding? Bit too smart for you, constantly making you feel a little less than manly?”
“She’s nothing like that!”
“Yes, well, I wonder what she’ll have to say when we ask.”
“You leave her out of this.”
This time, it was Sherlock that gave him an unpleasant look up and down. “Can’t say as I blame her for leaving -- it’s hardly a picture of masculinity I see before me now, someone who’s so easily tricked into --”
Maxwell lurched up out of his seat, face dark, eyes bulging, and Sherlock flinched so heavily backward that he tripped and stumbled into the wall. Lestrade was on Maxwell in half a second and had him face-down on the table, arms pinned behind him, but nothing was stopping his mouth running. “You leave her the fuck out of this! I’ll find you, I’ll do it again, I will fucking mess you up -- I will ruin that pretty face, do you hear me? You will dream about the first time, you will wish--”
Sally Donovan’s arm suddenly shot out across John’s chest and pushed him backward; he’d been already half-out the door. “Don’t,” she said sharply, and left him there to assist Lestrade herself. John still stepped into the hallway after her, not sure what to do.
They wrestled a still-shouting Maxwell into the hallway and into the waiting grip of two men from the jail. The entire department seemed to pause to observe the spectacle, until Lestrade gritted out, “Back to your jobs, everyone.” He told Donovan to get the tape, and John stepped around her and into the interrogation room.
Sherlock was standing, one hand on the corner of the table, looking down at it as if for evidence. He didn’t seem to react when John opened the door. “All right?” John said. He nodded, briefly, but didn’t speak. “He’s gone, now,” John said, even more quietly. “Come out of here, yeah?”
Sherlock nodded again. John didn’t like his silence. This didn’t feel contemplative; it felt empty, blank, frightened and frightening. He held the door, but Sherlock waited until he stepped out to walk past him. No touching again, John thought. A bad sign.
“Christ, Sherlock,” Lestrade said from behind John. “You had to wind him up?”
“Emotional reactions can be useful,” he said. His voice was flat and soft.
“Yeah.” Lestrade shook his head. “All right. Come on, back to my office. Let’s hear it, then.”
Sherlock didn’t move. “Those are the men you’re looking for.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Lestrade said. “Now I want to know what you saw.” Sherlock shook his head. He briefly opened his mouth, then closed it. “What, that’s it? This whole exercise, and -- and nothing?”
Sherlock cleared his throat, then rubbed his hand against his neck. “They are who you say they are,” he said. He turned and started to walk away.
“Nothing? You -- Sherlock, come back here!”
Sherlock stopped. He was still facing away, but from several feet back, John could see his shoulders shaking. He felt like everyone in the office was watching them, watching this play out. “If you require me in your office right now,” Sherlock said, voice so hoarse his words were barely coming through, “you’d best get a bin.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s going to vomit,” John said, hurrying forward and grabbing Sherlock by the elbow, ignoring his small shiver of fear, and hustling him to the men’s lavatory. Inside Sherlock broke free and shoved into the first cubicle and swung the door shut on John’s face, then fell to his knees with a groan. John winced at the noise of him being sick and felt a certain, medical coldness begin to clear his head. Sherlock hadn’t even had breakfast to speak of, he thought calmly. The noise came again, this time accompanied by a heavy, heaving sound like a sob, and John wished he’d thought to bring the pain medication with him. Gut-wrenching vomiting and broken ribs were an awful combination. If he wasn’t careful, he might do himself more damage. Perhaps a sedative.
He heard the toilet flush.
“All right?” John asked, lurking just outside the door.
“No,” Sherlock said. “No, John, I don’t think I am.”
“I’m going to open the door, then.”
Inside, Sherlock was leaning against the wall, face green-white, eyes clenched shut. As John watched, he dissolved into a terrible fit of coughing that left him pale and gasping. Tears were streaming from his eyes. John stepped back and grabbed a handful of paper towels, and he offered these, because there wasn’t anything else available at the moment. Not a bottle of whiskey, not a gun, just the echoes of Sherlock’s agony against the tiled restroom walls.
After a moment, he took the towels and gave his face a harsh scrub. As John watched, he pulled his legs up a bit and sighed, a heavy, broken sound. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose. “This is intolerable,” Sherlock said, holding a towel to his mouth
“Yeah,” John said. He crouched in the doorway. “What’d you see?”
Sherlock closed his eyes. “It wasn’t - wasn’t him,” he muttered.
John flinched. “What? But you just told -“ He stopped. Of course Maxwell was the man who’d done this. So Sherlock must mean something else, someone - oh. “Not Moriarty, you mean.”
Sherlock didn’t move. “Just a random robbery,” he murmured, then laughed harshly and briefly, before groaning again. “How did I miss -“
“Because you’re not the detective on this one,” John said. “You’re the victim.”
Sherlock looked up at that. John had avoided the word so studiously until now, but there was no denying it. This wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a setback, it wasn’t just some bad day at the office. There’d been a crime.
“I hate it,” Sherlock said, finally.
“God, I know,” John said.
There was nothing else to say. This situation had no solution, at least not a fast one. The men had been caught; they would be punished; and John knew, already, that wouldn’t matter. The damage they’d done, the vulnerability they’d made Sherlock realize, was something a prison wouldn’t protect against. It would make every investigation now more difficult for them both.
“I suppose we should go,” Sherlock said after a moment. His voice had recovered, a bit, and when he pulled the towel away, there was no fresh blood on his face.
“We don’t have to yet.”
Sherlock offered a small smile. “It’s rather statistically unlikely that not a single member of the detective corps will need to use the loo for another twenty minutes,” he said. “Lestrade’s been blocking the door since you came in.”
“Ah.” John stood, slowly, and offered a hand to Sherlock. He took it and slowly clambered to his feet. He was still white-faced, still unsteady. John wanted to protect him, somehow, shield him from the eyes of the many detectives beyond that door. They couldn’t see as much as Sherlock could, certainly, but they could all see, and John knew there was more showing on Sherlock’s face than he’d ever want them to know.
Sherlock looked down at his coat: it was rumpled, and there was a smear at the lapel. “Disgusting,” he said, and John helped him take it off. John went to the sink to run it under a bit of water, while Sherlock took the next sink to briefly wash his face. “I should imagine I’ll get a volume discount, soon, for the number of times that’s gone to the cleaner’s of late.”
“You want mine?”
Sherlock shook his head. “You can’t protect me from this, John,” he said, quietly, almost tenderly.
“You can’t stop me trying.”
“No.” Sherlock straightened his jacket. He looked just fine, except for his trembling hands and the bright, raw redness of his eyes. “Let’s get it over with, then.”
They walked out together, shoulder to shoulder, and Sherlock kept his head up. John carried his coat and opened the door to Lestrade’s office. Sherlock stepped inside, and they were followed after a moment by a visibly stunned Lestrade. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Whatever for?” Sherlock asked. “They’ve done this for at least two years,” he said. “You should be looking beyond the coffee cart pattern. Find his bookie, and you’ll be able to figure out when the whole thing started, I’d think.”
“Right,” Lestrade said. “I suppose his friend will give us that.”
“I’d say so.” He shook his head. “The Moriarty path is, of course, a mistake. I should have recognized it when - well. I credited those two with more skill than was perhaps appropriate.”
“You did bring them in,” Lestrade said. “You’ve saved others this.”
Sherlock nodded, but it was perfunctory. At the moment, John almost understood. He didn’t give a flip about others at the moment. He cared about Sherlock, about getting him home.
“Let me know when they’re to be in court,” Sherlock said. “I’d like to see that.”
“Me as well,” John said.
On their way out, Sherlock took his arm. It was devastating. John thought for a moment he might weep, himself, knowing that the strength had all but been knocked out of his companion. Instead, they made it downstairs and into a cab without incident, without anyone - thank Christ - trying too hard to be concerned. They took a cab home and Sherlock didn’t say a word the whole time, though he did lean his head against the glass in the car. He just looked so fucking awful, John thought. Beyond the bruises and the bloodied nose, there was the vacancy in his eyes, the bewilderment where there had always been confidence. The quivering hands. The tightly closed eyes. He wondered what kind of treatment might even be possible. A therapist? What a laugh, for Sherlock. They’d have to find the world’s smartest therapist. Someone he’d respect and fear, perhaps. Mycroft might know.
In the flat, Sherlock gave no pretext before he climbed the stairs and locked himself into the bathroom. This time, John didn’t even try to make excuses to himself about waiting outside. He heard the shower curtain being pulled, heard the water begin to rush, and then nothing. He called out when there had been silence for too long, and Sherlock said, “I’m fine,” and they did that every five minutes for the next twenty-five. When Sherlock finally emerged, he was shivering and his skin was wrinkled and John didn’t let him get away with slinking off to his room alone. He followed, and he sat on the bed and stayed while Sherlock dressed, and then when Sherlock lay down and put his head in John’s lap he stroked his wet, cold hair and didn’t bother to tell him things would be all right. They wouldn’t. They weren’t. They couldn’t yet be.
He stayed with Sherlock that night, and the next, and the next. He wasn’t sure whether any healing was happening on the inside, but Sherlock at least started to feel better, physically. After a week, his face was beginning to fade back into its usual smoothness; his neck was clear and unblemished; even his ribs had progressed to just “painful,” instead of being an emergency when he twisted wrong. Lestrade sent a box full of cold cases, and after ignoring it for three days, Sherlock finally deigned to read them and then got interested. He set up an elaborate experiment in the kitchen to test the likelihood of someone weaponizing bathroom mildew. John didn’t complain; he just made sure they went out for meals.
After another week or so, Sherlock still flinched, but not all the time. He wouldn’t go back to Scotland Yard yet to discuss anything with Lestrade, but when it came time to go to the Crown Court to see Maxwell and Kippler face a judge, Sherlock said he was fine. He didn’t bother to say he’d go without John, and John didn’t bother to pretend he’d ever make him. They just put on their coats, together, and went.
John wasn’t sure what he was expecting, really. A guilty plea from Maxwell, he knew that. Kippler had provided even more information about the things they’d done, and that was going to send them both away - though Maxwell for much more time. John found that rather satisfying, though also, well, a bit underwhelming. He wished he could deal with the man himself.
Sherlock, as though knowing his thoughts, had hidden his gun somewhere devious. “You can have it if you want it,” he’d said the night before, “but only if you really, really want it.”
Of course he did, and of course he didn’t. He wasn’t going to prison just because it might, for one second, make him sleep a little better at night - because that’s all it would be, a momentary relief. The problem wasn’t that Maxwell existed and did evil for no good reason - no deducible reason; the problem was that there were men like him everywhere. Men without motives, men without means, even, who still managed to commit appalling - if small - crimes every single day.
So he would go to this court hearing and watch justice, as it was, be done. It was all he could hope for, all he could ask for.
He had no idea if it would be enough for Sherlock.
They took a seat near the back at the beginning of a long string of hearings. Lestrade had said he expected the case to come up within the first hour, so John held their seats at the end of a long bench. He thought they’d watch and then leave, maybe have time to get a cup of tea with Lestrade after the whole thing. Sherlock would love to talk about his cases, John thought; it would take his mind off of all of this.
The court was called to order, and Sherlock shifted restlessly next to him. John put a hand out to his knee, a brief, bare brush against his suited leg, and Sherlock nodded. Didn’t touch him. He was fine.
On the other side of Sherlock, a woman was crying. Her face was pink with it, her eyes swollen. She’d been up all night, probably, John thought. Sherlock probably knew her whole story by now, but he wouldn’t ask. He could imagine. Maybe her man or her son was up here on charges. Maybe she, like them, was there to see some thin, unsatisfying bit of justice done. John would have liked to be closer to her, so that he might offer her a handkerchief or interrupt her crying just briefly, but it was fine.
“Appropriate soundtrack, at least,” Sherlock murmured, leaning close.
John nodded. “Wish they’d get on with it,” he whispered in return. The first case seemed to have something to do with a car jacking. What a ridiculous crime, John thought. Who in their right mind wanted a car in London?
“Boring,” Sherlock muttered, clasping his hands together. Next to him, the woman’s sniffles grew louder, moving right toward sobbing.
The barrister called their case.
Maxwell didn’t look any different. He was dressed in prison garb, as was Kippler; they’d been denied easy bail, and John was certain that was Mycroft’s influence, somehow. Maybe Lestrade. There was an experienced prosecutor working the case, not some hand-me-down who’d lost a bet, and John credited their friends with that, as well. He didn’t imagine there were many state lawyers who wanted to go to bat for Sherlock - not when his unorthodox methods so often made their cases a nightmare at trial - but many of them were willing to put up a good fight when Lestrade asked. John had no doubt that he had.
The men shuffled to their table, and John was aware only of them and of Sherlock’s sudden rigidity next to him. His knuckles had gone white. His face, too, was pale. “The judge and the prosecutor have a history,” he said, but John didn’t miss the slight hoarseness in his voice.
The crying woman had picked this moment to gather her things. She pulled a large bag onto her lap and started shuffling noisily through it, the sobbing growing worse. Sherlock leaned forward, as though to hear better, and John wondered whether he should put a hand on his back.
The balliff announced their names and read off a list of things they’d been charged with. Armed robbery: eight counts. Petty theft: fifteen counts; sexual assault; two counts. So the man in Kensington had decided not to pursue his case after all. “Pity,” Sherlock said between his steepled fingers.
“How do you plead?”
Kippler’s lawyer spoke first, addressing the court very formally before entering a guilty plea. Next, Maxwell, who had opted to represent himself, started to speak - but John couldn’t hear him, as the crying woman had stood up. He turned to look at her, to shush her or something, and noticed that Sherlock was doing the same. “Don’t,” Sherlock said, a low, terrible moan.
The woman looked at him, and John started to say, “What’s -“ and then she looked away and stepped up on to the bench. There was a gun in her hand.
“I’m so sorry!” she cried, and before the shots had even rung out, John had grabbed Sherlock and dragged him to the ground and into the aisle. He covered Sherlock’s body with his own, in a crouch like he hadn’t tried since the war. The woman was shooting, and shooting, and shooting; it was an impossible number of shots, fast but again and again. John realized slowly his ears were ringing and his heart was pounding; the woman had actually stopped shooting minutes before, and now her body was lying on the ground near them, a neat bullet hole in her left temple and an explosion where the rest of her head had used to be.
Sherlock was still under him, curled against the side of the bench, one hand over his head. John backed off of him, asked if he was OK, then asked again when Sherlock clearly didn’t hear him.
“What’s happened?” he asked, sitting up slowly, one hand to his chest.
“Are you hurt?” John asked.
“Tell me,” Sherlock demanded. His breathing was ragged. Christ.
“She’s - she’s shot someone,” John said, and realized how unhelpful that was. Sherlock was dangerously wan. “I’m going to find -“
“She shot them,” Sherlock murmured. “John, it’s true, isn’t it.”
He nodded. He hadn’t seen anything, but it was all that made sense. There were screams and cries of “Medic! Is there a doctor!” from the front of the courtroom. John couldn’t help his instant reaction; he turned, started to stand, then looked at Sherlock. Sherlock swallowed hard. “The woman,” he said.
“Dead,” John said.
“Oh god, no,” Sherlock said, softly. “No, she can’t - be - she -“
“Sherlock, stop it,” John said, pushing him smartly back against the bench. He was gasping for air in shuddering, appalling breaths.
He tried to push John’s hands away. “I need - to - see -“
“Is it your chest? Does your chest hurt?”
“John, please,” he said, and John wasn’t sure what he was being asked for, just that something was going horribly wrong.
He heard the clatter of a gurney and looked up, grabbed the trouser leg of a young medical tech running past. “This man is hurt,” he said. “I’m a doctor, he’s got a punctured lung, perhaps, I need oxygen.”
The medic glanced from him to Sherlock and then to the front. “Right,” he said, and dashed back a few paces, grabbed a kit from another medic, and then handed it to John. “What else do you need?”
“Help,” he said, turning back.
Sherlock had sagged to the side - no, John realized, he was pitching himself to the side, trying to crawl over to the dead woman’s body. His hand was reaching toward the pool of blood encircling her head. “It’s not - it’s not - “ Sherlock was saying, but he was having trouble even forcing the words out.
“Easy,” John said. “Easy, it’s fine, it’s all - Sherlock, she’s dead, she can’t do anything else.”
“She’s not the one,” he rasped.
“Not the what? No,” John said, “I don’t care. Breathe, Sherlock, if you pass out I’m putting you in the ambulance.”
Sherlock nodded and took a deep breath. “Not a - not a puncture,” he said, allowing John to guide him back to a seated position.
“Does your chest hurt?”
“Incredibly.”
John grabbed a stethoscope from the medic’s bag and pulled it on, then started to unbutton Sherlock’s shirt. He was still panting, but the bemused grin he struck made John feel much better. So did the fact that his breathing and heartbeat sounded fine, if too fast.
“Are they dead?” Sherlock asked, and it took John a second to realize he was looking up and past him, to where Lestrade had stopped.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“He’s all right, we’re all right,” John said. “Just a bit much excitement. What’s happened?”
Lestrade’s face was red; there was a smear of blood on his trench coat. He crouched next to them as John pulled back from Sherlock. The medic took back his stethoscope and began to give Sherlock a more thorough look. “Both of them shot. The little one, Kippler, got it in the neck, might be OK, but Maxwell’s a complete goner. Twice in the back of the head, once through the chest. How did she even get a gun in here?”
“She was next to us the whole time,” John said. “Sobbing. She was - she was distraught.”
Lestrade crossed his arms. “I’d say that much is clear.”
“Oh get off,” Sherlock said, pushing the medic away. “Get me up. I need to see them.”
Before John could even say it, Lestrade said, “No. No. Absolutely not, Sherlock, I can’t -“
“She didn’t want to kill them,” he said.
“No? Well, she did a bang-up job.”
Sherlock sighed, coughed, then spoke in a hoarse voice. “She also didn’t shoot herself, as even your lame forensics men will see in a moment, if you’d bother to call.”
John looked over at the body. Of course she’d killed herself. Gunshot to the head, woman holding a gun - oh. Again, the wrong side of the head. Again. “Wait,” he said. “You’re not thinking…”
Sherlock nodded. “This time I’m right,” he said quietly.
They made it back to their flat after another two hours. Sherlock recovered enough to get involved in the forensics himself, with John trailing along, trying to get him not to overdo. It was useless, of course, and by the time they got home they were both dead tired. Sherlock stumbled as he walked up the stairs, and John barely caught him from falling.
“Easy,” he said, and Sherlock nodded.
They’d learned enough to be very, very worried. The woman sitting next to them was a mother of twins from Hampstead. The twins had been found in a car park outside Gatwick just after the shooting; their whereabouts had been text-messaged to their father, who had been at work, oblivious. In the car, there was a bomb and a small video camera, which the police figured had been broadcasting to the mother’s mobile phone all morning. She’d been made to go to the court and shoot these two men, knowing that if she didn’t, her children would die.
They speculated that it was her admission before the shooting - “I’m so sorry!” - that had made Moriarty order she be killed, regardless. That shot had come through the closed window, and by the time Sherlock had convinced them all that they were looking for a second shooter, everything had been cleared from the building next door. The trail was cold, but it did, at least, lead undoubtedly to Moriarty.
“But why?” John had asked, and no one - not even Sherlock - had been able to hazard a guess. There was still no connection between the men and his criminal empire. The woman, too, seemed to be as random a choice as his other bombing victims.
Sherlock staggered into the flat and fell immediately into his armchair. John took off his own coat and went straight for the kitchen. He filled the kettle and turned it on, then set about finding tea and anything that looked even slightly edible. His hands were only now beginning to feel unsteady.
“John,” Sherlock called.
“I know, two sugars,” John said back. “We’re out of milk, though, so you’ll have to make do.”
“Could you come here a moment?”
John sighed and set down the tea bags and mugs. It would take a moment for the water, anyway. “What is it?”
In the living room, in the middle of the floor in front of the couch, there was a vase of roses. Beautiful, lush red roses, at least two dozen, in full bloom. They had not been there when they’d left.
John swallowed hard. Sherlock was peering at them from the sofa, now, where he’d apparently moved. “I don’t suppose Mycroft…” John said, and Sherlock shook his head. John circled the flowers. “Should we call someone?”
“There’s a card,” Sherlock murmured, and before John could advise against it, he reached out and snapped it up. “Feminine,” Sherlock said, studying the envelope. It held two words: Sherlock Holmes.
He drew out the card slowly, narrating. “Commercially made. Plain, cheap, probably what came free. Same handwriting. Cheap pen.”
“What does it say?”
Sherlock smiled in a way that expressed absolutely no joy. He turned the card around. Two words, again: Only me.
John frowned. “What does it -“
“I was right,” Sherlock said.
“Moriarty? He was involved with Maxwell and -“
“No,” Sherlock said. “Not at all. But he’s sending me a message, now.” He tucked the card back into its envelope and then back into the bouquet. “No one’s going to kill me but him.”
John shuddered. “That’s - it’s positively -“ He crossed and sat next to Sherlock. They both kept staring at the roses.
“I did want him dead,” Sherlock said, after a moment, his tone too light.
John nodded. “Me, too,” he said. “But that’s different.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, though he sounded doubtful. “I suppose it is.”
John stood and grabbed the vase. “What are you --?” He opened the window, looked out, then dropped the whole pile onto the sidewalk below. The explosive sound of the crashing glass was heady and cathartic. He wished he had ten more vases to throw. He turned to face Sherlock. “Don’t start,” he said. “Don’t you dare start thinking you’re like him or you owe him. He had them killed for fun. Because it’s a game. And you - you hid my gun for a reason.”
“I did,” he agreed.
John nodded. “As for this, I’ll show him how grateful I am, someday, by making sure no one gets a clean shot at him during his trial.”
Sherlock smiled, briefly, then looked down at his own hands. “John,” he said, voice quiet. “You’re a very good man.”
John smiled. “I reckon I am,” he answered. He put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, and there was still a tremor, but not much. It was getting better. “I know you think this means you’re on a case, now, but you’re still taking tea and then rest this afternoon.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, nodding. John pretended not to notice when he dabbed at his eyes. “That sounds fine.”
And it would be, John figured. Soon enough, it would be.