(Highlander/Sherlock) The Adventure of the Improbable Lovers for oneiriad
Title: The Adventure of the Improbable Lovers
Author: sentientcitizen
Fandoms: Highlander/Sherlock
Characters Duncan MacLeod, Amanda; Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Pairings: Duncan/Amanda
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~4,800
Spoilers: Spoilers for the Highlander episodes “Methos” and "Forgive Us Our Trespasses"; set a few years post-series. No explicit spoilers for Sherlock; set a few months post-mini-series.
Warnings: Swearing, guns/gun violence, off-screen sex, temporary death
Disclaimer: Highlander and Sherlock belong to their respective creators. I own nothing, etc.
A/N: Thank-you to my beta sophia_sol, who saved you all from having to witness the truly preposterous quantity of typos I’m capable of producing. :)
Summary: Amanda finds the perfect gift for the man who has everything. John finds the perfect case for the man who has to have more.
“This is... this is beautiful work,” Duncan says, unable to keep the reverent tones from his voice. Looking a little shocked, he sinks back into the couch cushions, staring at the blade in his hand. “A Heian period tachi blade, I think. It’s...” and his eyes narrow. “This tempering pattern...Amanda, tell me you didn’t.” He flips the sword over. “Amanda, that’s Sanjo’s signature - this is the Crescent-Moon Munechika! You stole the Crescent-Moon Munechika!”
She grins, trying to dazzle him with smile. “You’re welcome.”
“No! Amanda, you can’t - this is one of the five great swords under heaven! Do you have any idea what this is worth?”
She makes a dismissive noise, moving around behind the couch to examine the blade from over his shoulder. “Only, what, twenty-five million yen? I’ve seen pricier blades.”
He cranes his head to stare at her, exasperated. “Not the money, Amanda! To the people of Japan, this is worth, this is - I can’t believe you stole the Crescent-Moon Munechika!”
“Traditionally,” she says, looking annoyed, “the correct response would be ‘thank-you for this wonderful birthday present, Amanda, please let me take you to bed so that I may more thoroughly express my gratitude’.”
She leans over the back of the couch, trying to drape herself over his shoulders, but he twists out of the way, jumping up and turning to glare at her.
“Traditionally,” Duncan grinds out, “one doesn’t steal the -”
“-Crescent-Moon Munechika, yes, I know. “ She braces her chin on one hand with an impatient sigh. “But then one has to answer the question, what does one get for the man who has everything?”
“A gift basket! A nice set of bath oils! Not this!” Duncan is pacing now, the sword clenched tightly in his hands. “Amanda, the British Museum is not just going to let this walk away, and neither will the Tokyo National Museum. They’re going to find you.”
“Nonsense.” She waves away his worries with a flippant gesture. But he knows her well enough to see a hint of embarrassment lurking in her eyes. “After all, I’m the best. Besides. They’re not looking for me anymore, I promise.”
“Amanda...”
She ducks her head a bit, and peers up at him through her lashes, an almost theatrically sheepish look on her face. “I might have had a little accident when I was making my getaway.”
“How little?” he asks, resigned.
“I may have taken a teensy fall off one of the balconies when I was making my escape. And, well, I was holding the sword wrong, and...”
“I can fill in the rest, yeah. You died,” he says, sinking back down to the couch. There’s a sort of exasperated affection in his voice. Experimentally, she leans forward to rest her head on his shoulder - and he doesn’t move away.
Amanda grins.
* * *
“This is boring,” says Sherlock.
John winces. He’s learned to fear and respect those three simple words. “You haven't given it a proper chance, yet.”
“It’s a theft,” says Sherlock shortly. “Everyday, pedestrian theft. Nothing exciting about it at all.”
“Theft from the British Museum,” John points out.
Sherlock ignores him. “Why does Lestrade even bother?” he demands of the world. “My mind is wasted on these idiocies. Didn’t you tell him to send us something interesting?”
John opens his mouth. John closes his mouth.
“Sorry,” he says, instead of asking the obvious question. Sherlock was bound to catch on eventually - it doesn’t really matter how he did it.
It doesn’t surprise him, really, that the case is only vaguely diverting. He’d been secretly hoping for a gruesome murder or two - and the fact that he just thought that is probably a sign that he’s been living with Sherlock too long - but it had been rather short notice. John knows damn well that Lestrade only summoned them out of pity... and maybe a vague feeling of gratefulness to John for playing the role of human shield between Sherlock and the DI’s staff. But probably mostly pity. It didn’t take a consulting detective to deduce that John had been fairly desperate by the time he’d called Lestrade.
Sherlock sniffs disdainfully.
They round the corner, and find Lestrade is standing beside a bloody mess of a crime scene. Sherlock’s eyes light up at the sight.
So. More than just a theft, then.
Looking up, Lestrade nods an acknowledgement and waves Sherlock over. “Got an interesting story from the guard,” he says, by way of greeting. Sherlock is already crouched down, examining minute smudges of blood through his magnifier. “Says he heard a bloody awful crash, came running out to investigate, and found a woman lying on the floor, skewered right through by a sword. Looked like she’d taken a tumble off one of the balconies, and landed wrong. Well. Landed worse, anyway. Guard pulls out the sword - not the best plan of action, but he was panicking - then drops it on the floor and runs off to call the ambulance. When he gets back, the woman and the sword are gone. A quick check into the Japan exhibit and we find that their centerpiece sword’s missing, which, let me tell you, Tokyo is not going to happy about.”
Lestrade glances over at Sherlock, and flinches. John’s flatmate is thoughtfully rubbing together his now blood-covered fingers, staring at his hand with narrow-eyed focus. The effect is rather macabre. “Deducing time of accident based on coagulation rate,” John tells Lestrade pleasantly. The DI looks impressed, and John absently rubs the inner crook of his elbow, which still aches slightly. How Sherlock had talked him into donating his own bodily fluid for that particular experiment is still a point of minor confusion for John.
Sherlock frowns at his hands. “Where’s the guard now?”
“At the hospital himself,” Lestrade answers. “Apparently he’s got a bad heart, and this whole experience was a bit of the shock to his system. We’ll be interviewing him more thoroughly in a few days.”
“Then take me to the display,” Sherlock says. Standing, he casually wipes his bloody hand off on the shoulder of Anderson’s blue crime-scene coveralls. Anderson gapes, momentarily stunned into silence. John tries not to snicker. Beside him, Lestrade makes a noise that could have been strangled laughter as easily as it could have been a strangled protest. “I need to see where the sword came from,” Sherlock says, ignoring them all.
Lestrade leads them up the stairs to the British Museum’s Japan exhibit, keeping up a running patter as they go. John’s leg protests the climb, and he wishes, briefly, for his cane.
“We’ve taken prints, of course,” Lestrade says as they enter the room, “but I’d still appreciate it if you’d try not to disturb-”
“Oh, for - look, look at what’s in front of you,” Sherlock interrupts, gesturing sharply at the cases. Obediently, John and Lestrade turn to look. “She passed by more than a dozen of these little swords on her way in. Why not take them?”
“Because they’re not as valuable?” Lestrade guesses. “Not worth her time?”
“Wrong,” Sherlock snaps, a look of utter scorn on his face. John doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for the DI. Lestrade should know by now that Sherlock has no respect for people who make guesses when they could deduce the answer. “Lower value means less security and an easier time finding a buyer. And they’re smaller. She could have grabbed half a dozen and been gone before the night guard even knew she was here, then sold them for more than double what the Crescent-Moon will fetch her. But she didn’t touch them. So it’s personal. Either there’s something specific about this sword, or she did it for the thrill - or both.”
“Couldn’t she just have had a buyer lined up for the Crescent-Moon?” asks Lestrade.
Sherlock rolls his eyes, as if this statement isn’t even worth his breath. “If her buyer was willing to pay enough to make her forget the little stuff, then it’s personal for the buyer,” he says.
Lestrade takes a deep breath. “Right. I’ll pass that on to the team.”
“And if you get anything more out of the guard, you’ll let me know,” says Sherlock. It’s not a question.
Lestrade sighs. “Yeah, I'll let you know.” The DI exchanges a rueful nod with John, then wanders away. John watches him go. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that Sherlock has wandered over the balcony, attention already elsewhere, staring off into a world only he can see.
So John draws closer, and raises an enquiring eyebrow. “Well?”
“Interesting,” Sherlock says, so softly that John almost doesn’t hear it.
“Mmm,” John agrees, although he’s cheering like mad in the privacy of his own skull. Interesting. Thank God. Their flat may yet survive the week. “It must have been pretty personal, to be worth that much to our thief.” He steps to the edge of the balcony and looks down at the blood, splattered across the floor below them. It is, in his professional opinion, a lot of blood. A hell of a lot of blood. Something isn’t right.
“No, not that,” Sherlock murmurs, a gleam in his eyes. John knows that gleam a little too well. It means that there’s going to be trouble, and an endless struggle to make Sherlock eat something, and probably body parts in his kitchen again, and maybe a whole lot of danger.
“The blood?” John asks, trying to squash the rush of excitement that surges up within him. All right - so maybe Sherlock wasn’t the only one suffering from boredom. Not for the first time, he suspects that there’s probably something a bit wrong with him. But he’s too caught up in the moment to care.
Sherlock gets that slightly startled look on his face, the one John used to find vaguely insulting, before he understood just how seldom Sherlock looked that way. It’s the look that says, my God, you’re not actually a complete idiot. “Yes, exactly. That’s at least five pints.”
John nods, understanding. “She’s dead, then,” he says, with a bit of regret. Then, remembering one or two miraculous battlefield revivals, he adds, “Or if she lived, she didn’t walk out of here on her own. She had an accomplice of some kind, or maybe a rival, someone who dragged her away while the guard was calling for help. So... maybe her accident wasn’t an accident. Was the other thief trying to hide a murder, or get her to safety?”
“Neither,” Sherlock says, smug now that he’s in control again. “There was no partner. Observe - she pushed herself up.” He points some tiny detail of the scene, presumably obvious to him, but indistinguishable to John at this distance. “She stumbled, but got her feet up under herself.” His finger flicks over a precise centimeter, indicating... perhaps that long smear? “She braced herself against the nearest solid object, for just a moment - and then she walked away.” And now Sherlock points unerringly to a tiny smudge on a pillar, which, to his surprise, John is actually able to pick out of the bloody mess.
“Impossible,” John breathes, leaning slightly forward over the rail, as if the slight distance would grant him a closer look. “Could she have- no, the guard said the sword went right through her. He pulled it out himself. But it can’t really be her blood. It’s impossible.
“No, it’s improbable. And yet it happened.” Sherlock is grinning now, too. “Which means there’s something here I’ve missed.”
Well, John thinks, somewhere between excited and resigned, at least it’s not boring..
* * *
“Paris,” says Sherlock, confidently. He doesn’t meet John’s curious glance, which is unusual.
But John knows his part in this script, and so he asks: “How do you know?” He peers at the pictures and evidence bags pinned into the sprawling spiderweb on their wall. He can’t yet see the pattern in the strands of yarn that stretch from pin to pin, and he’s very carefully not bouncing on his toes as he waits for Sherlock to show him the order in the chaos. Not that Sherlock ever explains himself, not precisely, but if John pays close enough attention... It’s like that book of Bev Doolittle paintings his Mum had, when he was a kid. All he sees now is snow and rocks, but with a few words from Sherlock, suddenly there’ll be a whole herd of horses standing right in front of him.
Sherlock stares at the wall, jaw clenched, then admits with poor grace, “Lestrade figured it out.” John can’t quite disguise the amusement on his face, and Sherlock scowls. “I gave him the patterns to look for,” he snaps at John. “He had his people rummage through the records for me.”
“While you were busy with more important things?” John suggests dryly, turning away from the apparently useless web of evidence.
“Naturally,” says Sherlock, loftily. “To my endless surprise, his team of incompetents actually managed to find a few dozen matches. Mostly useless, of course, but once I weeded out the obvious inconsistencies the remaining crimes clearly pointed to a Parisian base of operations.
“Clear to anyone, or just you?” John asks, sinking down to the couch. He makes the gesture as casual as he can manage - he doesn’t feel up for the patented Sherlock lecture on psychosomosis and the unfortunate power of an ill-trained mind - but it’s a relief to be off his aching leg. It’s not that he thinks for even a moment that Sherlock won’t notice he’s in pain, it’s just that he’s holding out hope that his flatmate might not bother to mention it, if John can keep it from slowing him down at all.
“Clear to anyone with half a brain,” says Sherlock, absently. “So, probably just me, yes. Don’t you need to pack?”
“Pack?” John repeats, blankly.
Sherlock makes an impatient noise. “Pack. For Paris.”
John considers saying something about jurisdictional lines. Then John considers the odds that Sherlock is going to let something like the law keep him away from the mysterious not-as-dead-as-she-ought-to-be thief.
Then, with a sigh, John stands and heads to his room to pack.
* * *
Sherlock had put Lestrade’s men to work again. Of course, he hadn’t bothered to tell them what he’s actually deduced from the data they found for him. John gets the distinct impression that Sherlock wants to be able to crack this one for himself, without police interference. Which, presumably, is why they’re going from apartment to apartment, looking for their suspect.
The home they’re currently standing in front of is something of a novelty, in that it’s not an apartment at all. It’s a barge. “Mr. MacLeod is an antiques dealer,” Sherlock had explained, “specialising in swords. More importantly, he once dodged a rather serious accusation of theft by revealing the real thief, a woman, to the police. The combination makes him quite interesting to us, don’t you think?”
John had assented that yes, that made Mr. MacLeod very interesting, just like all the other (dead-end) leads they’d investigated today. To be honest, as far as John’s concerned, the most interesting thing about the man is that given a choice, he chooses to live in a barge.
Sherlock mounts the steps - the gangplank, really - with John a few paces behind him, and knocks on the door. They wait there for a few long moments. Then, with a shrug, Sherlock pushes the door open and walks right inside.
“Sherlock - you can’t -” But, of course, he can, because waiting is boring, and after a moment’s hesitation John lets out a frustrated growl and follows his flatmate.
Sherlock is standing in the middle of the room, staring at a man who must be Duncan MacLeod. His hair, dark and curly, is just barely long enough to stay in the silver clip he’s currently using to pull it back out of his face. He’s... a rather tall man. Huh. Taller even than Sherlock himself. And certainly heavier built. By now, John knows that Sherlock is no slouch in a fight, and John’s not bad himself, war wounds or no war wounds... but he still finds himself offering up a private prayer that Sherlock won’t piss the man off enough for this little meeting to come to blows.
(Unlike, say, the meetings with interesting leads number two, three, and six. It’s been a long day.)
There’s a heartbeat of silence. Then:
“Duncan MacLeod,” the man says, holding out his hand. He looks hastily dressed, but, thankfully, more amused than annoyed to have had utter strangers let themselves into his home. “Mind if I ask what you think you’re doing?”
Sherlock doesn’t move.
With a sigh, John steps forward. Sometimes he wonders if the only reason Sherlock keeps him around is to serve as a set of prosthetic social skills, a tool for tending to the niceties while the great consulting detective thinks on more interesting things.
“John Watson,” he says, grasping MacLeod’s hand. The taller man’s eyes flick down to their clasped hands, then back up to John’s face. John braces for the usual bone-crushing grip of macho idiots everywhere. To his surprise, MacLeod’s handshake is firm but polite. “And this here is Sherlock Holmes. Sorry about all this. It’s, er - Sherlock?”
He steps back, then half-turns, meaning to give Sherlock an accusing glare. He expects Sherlock to be settling into one of his skillful impersonations of a normal human right about now, preferably one that will explain to MacLeod what they think they’re doing. An interested antiquary, perhaps. A drunkard convinced he’d walked into his own barge. An old friend of a friend. A car accident victim in desperate need of a phone and a stiff drink. Something.
Instead, to his surprise, Sherlock is gaping at Macleod. John doesn’t think he’s ever seen Sherlock gape. Glare, certainly, or ponder, but gape?
Sherlock’s mouth opens once or twice before he finds his voice. “You’re all wrong,” he tells the Duncan, sounding indignant. “Your pieces don’t match up. You look at the world like a soldier - you even spotted my gun.”
“You have a - you brought my gun?” John asks. “Sherlock, we talked about this!”
Sherlock ignores him. “But nothing about you suggests military training or organised crime. Born and raised in Scotland, but you’ve been living in America. From the sound of it, you must have tried very hard to lose that brogue. But that ridiculous hair clip... that’s patriotic pride. And the accent would have given you an edge, selling antiques to Americans. So why?”
“Maybe I wanted to blend in,” suggests Duncan, mildly.
Sherlock snorts. “You dress to blend, certainly. Very modern, very fashionable. But all these little bits and pieces scattered about the place - not especially valuable, most of them. Not very fashionable at all. Which means they have sentimental value. Old family pieces, I’d say, if they weren’t from a dozen different countries. I’d think you were newly wealthy, trying to look cultured and not knowing how, if you weren’t an antique dealer. Your job is to tell the excessively rich how to look cultured.” Sherlock is pacing now, coat swirling around him. “And you know how to use a sword. Not a fencing foil. A katana, maybe, or a tachi.”
“How can you possibly know what kind of sword he uses?” John can’t help but ask.
Sherlock and MacLeod both turn to stare. Their expressions suggest that the answer should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.
John sighs. “Never mind.”
“Which could explain the British Museum theft,” Sherlock continues, as if John had never interrupted. “A passion for ancient Japan and an appreciation for swordsmanship, and caught up in the nouveau riche idea that money really can buy anything. But you don’t... you move like an old man,” he says.
From the back of the barge comes a startled sound. A women has appeared, rising up from behind the couch where she was hiding. For a brief moment, John entertains that wild notion that he’s looking at their mystery thief. But she moves with a grace that reveals her to be uninjured. Well. Actually, she moves like a woman who just -
John tries not to blush. He’s no Sherlock, but even he can deduce that he’s looking at Duncan MacLeod’s lover.
Sherlock, predictably, doesn’t look surprised to see her. Neither does MacLeod, who sighs. “S’Amanda,” he says, nodding toward her as if that’s all the introduction she needs. Not breaking eye contact with Sherlock, he adds dryly, “I’ve got a few years left before they’ll be offering me senior’s discounts.”
Sherlock shakes his head, impatient. “It’s the way you hold yourself. You’re settled in your skin. You seldom see that anywhere but retirement homes and monasteries.” It’s the kind of vague statement John would have excepted Sherlock to scorn, but the detective sounds certain of himself. “And your friend, Amanda - she’s just the same. All wrong.”
“We could be monks,” MacLeod suggests. He seems amused.
“You’re no monk,” says Sherlock, derisively confident. Suddenly, John’s gun is in his hand.
“Sherlock - ”
“Shut up, John,” says Sherlock, not looking away from Duncan MacLeod. “And you’re not afraid of me, Mr. MacLeod,” he adds. “I’m pointing a gun at your heart, and you’re not afraid. I wonder what that means?” He tilts his head, grey eyes intense.
MacLeod doesn’t so much as blink. “Perhaps - ”
And without warning, Sherlock fires the gun.
John’s heart almost stops. He hears the voice of everyone who ever warned him about Sherlock - dangerous, unpredictable, violent. Sociopath. In the distance, beyond the pounding of his blood in his ears, he hears Sherlock calmly ordering Amanda to stay where she is, or he’ll shoot her too.
John’s stumbling forwarded almost without thinking, a field medic’s instincts, when the pain in his leg flares up without warning and brings him to his knees beside MacLeod’s prone body. A pulse, a pulse, there’s - there’s no pulse. Sherlock’s a fucking brilliant shot, and at such close quarters... the bullet went right through MacLeod’s heart, if John doesn’t miss his guess. Shit. Shit. He doesn’t have the tools, he doesn’t have -
“John,” says Sherlock. He’s not raised his voice, but something in the tone of it reminds John of his first CO, his first firefight. “Leave him.”
Numb, John obeys the order, hauling himself unsteadily to his feet. Shit. He trusts Sherlock, but this doesn’t make any sense. He can’t see where the danger was, can’t see why he would... and even then, he can’t understand why Sherlock would kill the man without getting his answers first. Fear of boredom motivates Sherlock far more effectively than fear for his life.
Some small part of his mind is already wondering if he can cover this up. If there’s a way to protect Sherlock.
“John,” says Sherlock’s voice, quietly. “Look at her, John.”
John obeys, raising his head to meet Amanda’s eyes. Her expression isn’t really what he would have expected from a women being threatened by the gun-wielding madman who’d just killed her lover. She doesn’t look scared, or grief-stricken, or even angry, not really. Just... annoyed. It’s the kind of expression he’d expect to see if she’d just been told her flight was bumped.
Why...?
And on the floor, Duncan MacLeod gasps back into life.
* * *
It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, coming back from the dead always hurts.
Still gasping, he twists his head towards Holmes and Watson. The latter is staring at him, wide-eyed. The former looks... smug.
As he pushes himself upright, Duncan considers trying to make some excuse about a bulletproof vest. Considering the way his hands are sliding beneath him, the hardwood floors slicked with his own blood, he doesn’t really think they’ll buy it. Dammit. He has no idea what the hell is going on here, there’s a bullet hole in one of his favorite shirts - again - and this whole situation is a disaster in the making. And even if it’s bound to make things worse, he has every intention of inflicting some quite justifiable thuggery on the two lanky-limbed Brits the second he’s on his feet. It’ll be good stress relief.
But before he can carry out his plans, Holmes throws backs his head, and laughs in sheer delight. Handing his gun to the rather shell-shocked looking Watson, the man crosses the space separating them in a few easy strides, and offers Duncan his gloved hand.
Duncan silently accepts the assistance, mostly to sneak a peek at Holmes’s wrist - no tattoo, which is almost a shame, because at least that would have made sense. He understands how to deal with rogue Watchers. Insane civilians are a different type of trouble entirely.
“I was right,” Holmes proclaims gleefully. There’s a surprising about of strength in those skinny arms, and he hauls Duncan upright with apparent ease. “Immortal. You’re immortal. I knew it.”
“What?” is about all Duncan can manage.
Behind him, simultaneously, Amanda gives that fake-sounding laugh that means she’s too startled to bluff skillfully, and says, “I simply don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m with Amanda on this one,” Watson puts in dryly. His voice shakes only slightly.
Holmes laughs and turns away, coat swirling like a cape. Before Duncan quite knows what’s happening, the man is sinking down onto his couch with all the arrogant bonelessness of a cat. “You’d better change that shirt,” Holmes recommends, smug. “Or you’ll get blood all over your barge. I fancy a cup of tea.”
“That’s his way of saying he wants someone to make him a cup of tea,” Watson says in that same dry voice, doing a very good impression of a man hanging on to self-control by more than just his fingertips.
To Duncan’s shock, Amanda turns towards the kitchen, apparently intending to put the kettle on. He shoots her a look that says, are you crazy? She sends him a shrug that says, well, what do you want me to do?
“What the hell is going on here?” Duncan demands.
To his surprise, Holmes addresses the answer not to him, but to Watson. “They’re immortal,” he explains to his friend. “Completely immortal. They don’t age, they don’t get sick, and they don’t die. They’re the missing piece in a puzzle that’s been niggling at me for years.”
‘They don’t die’, full stop, not ‘they don’t die unless you take their heads’. So either Holmes doesn’t know about the Game, or he isn’t telling. Which might just mean that neither man is headhunting. Thank God for small blessings. “How did you know?” he demands of Holmes.
“That’s impossible,” says Watson flatly.
“Use your brain,” Holmes demands, eyes gleaming. “It happened. Therefore, it’s merely improbable.”
Duncan has to force himself to unclench his jaw and count slowly, silently to ten. In Gaelic. “How. Did. You. Know,” he asks again, enunciating each syllable with excruciating care. “You shot me. You must have been certain.”
“See, you’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Watson says. “Try living with the man for a few months, you might change your mind...”
Reaching up, Holmes accepts a steaming cuppa from Amanda, who’s looking for more amused than Duncan thinks the situation calls for. Wrapping long fingers around the mug, he looks over at Duncan, a smirk playing across his features. “When I read Chemistry at Oxford, the Oriel College administration had something of a difficult time finding me a roommate.”
Watson snorts, and mutters something that sounds unflattering.
“In the end,” Holmes continues, still smirking gently at Duncan, “the only person who proved able to tolerate my company was one Adam Pierson. Who was, I might add, significantly better at blending in than you two are. It took me days to realise something was wrong.” He wrinkles his nose, and sounding slightly indignant, adds, “And it took me until today to figure out what. The bastard was even cleverer than I gave him credit for.”
That’s it, Duncan thinks resignedly, as Amanda’s amused laughter fills the barge, Methos dies.
-END-
Prompt:
Sherlock / Highlander: A crime has been committed - only Sherlock is getting more and more frustrated, since there's simply no way for the thief to have survived doing it, yet she did...
Author: sentientcitizen
Fandoms: Highlander/Sherlock
Characters Duncan MacLeod, Amanda; Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Pairings: Duncan/Amanda
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~4,800
Spoilers: Spoilers for the Highlander episodes “Methos” and "Forgive Us Our Trespasses"; set a few years post-series. No explicit spoilers for Sherlock; set a few months post-mini-series.
Warnings: Swearing, guns/gun violence, off-screen sex, temporary death
Disclaimer: Highlander and Sherlock belong to their respective creators. I own nothing, etc.
A/N: Thank-you to my beta sophia_sol, who saved you all from having to witness the truly preposterous quantity of typos I’m capable of producing. :)
Summary: Amanda finds the perfect gift for the man who has everything. John finds the perfect case for the man who has to have more.
“This is... this is beautiful work,” Duncan says, unable to keep the reverent tones from his voice. Looking a little shocked, he sinks back into the couch cushions, staring at the blade in his hand. “A Heian period tachi blade, I think. It’s...” and his eyes narrow. “This tempering pattern...Amanda, tell me you didn’t.” He flips the sword over. “Amanda, that’s Sanjo’s signature - this is the Crescent-Moon Munechika! You stole the Crescent-Moon Munechika!”
She grins, trying to dazzle him with smile. “You’re welcome.”
“No! Amanda, you can’t - this is one of the five great swords under heaven! Do you have any idea what this is worth?”
She makes a dismissive noise, moving around behind the couch to examine the blade from over his shoulder. “Only, what, twenty-five million yen? I’ve seen pricier blades.”
He cranes his head to stare at her, exasperated. “Not the money, Amanda! To the people of Japan, this is worth, this is - I can’t believe you stole the Crescent-Moon Munechika!”
“Traditionally,” she says, looking annoyed, “the correct response would be ‘thank-you for this wonderful birthday present, Amanda, please let me take you to bed so that I may more thoroughly express my gratitude’.”
She leans over the back of the couch, trying to drape herself over his shoulders, but he twists out of the way, jumping up and turning to glare at her.
“Traditionally,” Duncan grinds out, “one doesn’t steal the -”
“-Crescent-Moon Munechika, yes, I know. “ She braces her chin on one hand with an impatient sigh. “But then one has to answer the question, what does one get for the man who has everything?”
“A gift basket! A nice set of bath oils! Not this!” Duncan is pacing now, the sword clenched tightly in his hands. “Amanda, the British Museum is not just going to let this walk away, and neither will the Tokyo National Museum. They’re going to find you.”
“Nonsense.” She waves away his worries with a flippant gesture. But he knows her well enough to see a hint of embarrassment lurking in her eyes. “After all, I’m the best. Besides. They’re not looking for me anymore, I promise.”
“Amanda...”
She ducks her head a bit, and peers up at him through her lashes, an almost theatrically sheepish look on her face. “I might have had a little accident when I was making my getaway.”
“How little?” he asks, resigned.
“I may have taken a teensy fall off one of the balconies when I was making my escape. And, well, I was holding the sword wrong, and...”
“I can fill in the rest, yeah. You died,” he says, sinking back down to the couch. There’s a sort of exasperated affection in his voice. Experimentally, she leans forward to rest her head on his shoulder - and he doesn’t move away.
Amanda grins.
* * *
“This is boring,” says Sherlock.
John winces. He’s learned to fear and respect those three simple words. “You haven't given it a proper chance, yet.”
“It’s a theft,” says Sherlock shortly. “Everyday, pedestrian theft. Nothing exciting about it at all.”
“Theft from the British Museum,” John points out.
Sherlock ignores him. “Why does Lestrade even bother?” he demands of the world. “My mind is wasted on these idiocies. Didn’t you tell him to send us something interesting?”
John opens his mouth. John closes his mouth.
“Sorry,” he says, instead of asking the obvious question. Sherlock was bound to catch on eventually - it doesn’t really matter how he did it.
It doesn’t surprise him, really, that the case is only vaguely diverting. He’d been secretly hoping for a gruesome murder or two - and the fact that he just thought that is probably a sign that he’s been living with Sherlock too long - but it had been rather short notice. John knows damn well that Lestrade only summoned them out of pity... and maybe a vague feeling of gratefulness to John for playing the role of human shield between Sherlock and the DI’s staff. But probably mostly pity. It didn’t take a consulting detective to deduce that John had been fairly desperate by the time he’d called Lestrade.
Sherlock sniffs disdainfully.
They round the corner, and find Lestrade is standing beside a bloody mess of a crime scene. Sherlock’s eyes light up at the sight.
So. More than just a theft, then.
Looking up, Lestrade nods an acknowledgement and waves Sherlock over. “Got an interesting story from the guard,” he says, by way of greeting. Sherlock is already crouched down, examining minute smudges of blood through his magnifier. “Says he heard a bloody awful crash, came running out to investigate, and found a woman lying on the floor, skewered right through by a sword. Looked like she’d taken a tumble off one of the balconies, and landed wrong. Well. Landed worse, anyway. Guard pulls out the sword - not the best plan of action, but he was panicking - then drops it on the floor and runs off to call the ambulance. When he gets back, the woman and the sword are gone. A quick check into the Japan exhibit and we find that their centerpiece sword’s missing, which, let me tell you, Tokyo is not going to happy about.”
Lestrade glances over at Sherlock, and flinches. John’s flatmate is thoughtfully rubbing together his now blood-covered fingers, staring at his hand with narrow-eyed focus. The effect is rather macabre. “Deducing time of accident based on coagulation rate,” John tells Lestrade pleasantly. The DI looks impressed, and John absently rubs the inner crook of his elbow, which still aches slightly. How Sherlock had talked him into donating his own bodily fluid for that particular experiment is still a point of minor confusion for John.
Sherlock frowns at his hands. “Where’s the guard now?”
“At the hospital himself,” Lestrade answers. “Apparently he’s got a bad heart, and this whole experience was a bit of the shock to his system. We’ll be interviewing him more thoroughly in a few days.”
“Then take me to the display,” Sherlock says. Standing, he casually wipes his bloody hand off on the shoulder of Anderson’s blue crime-scene coveralls. Anderson gapes, momentarily stunned into silence. John tries not to snicker. Beside him, Lestrade makes a noise that could have been strangled laughter as easily as it could have been a strangled protest. “I need to see where the sword came from,” Sherlock says, ignoring them all.
Lestrade leads them up the stairs to the British Museum’s Japan exhibit, keeping up a running patter as they go. John’s leg protests the climb, and he wishes, briefly, for his cane.
“We’ve taken prints, of course,” Lestrade says as they enter the room, “but I’d still appreciate it if you’d try not to disturb-”
“Oh, for - look, look at what’s in front of you,” Sherlock interrupts, gesturing sharply at the cases. Obediently, John and Lestrade turn to look. “She passed by more than a dozen of these little swords on her way in. Why not take them?”
“Because they’re not as valuable?” Lestrade guesses. “Not worth her time?”
“Wrong,” Sherlock snaps, a look of utter scorn on his face. John doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for the DI. Lestrade should know by now that Sherlock has no respect for people who make guesses when they could deduce the answer. “Lower value means less security and an easier time finding a buyer. And they’re smaller. She could have grabbed half a dozen and been gone before the night guard even knew she was here, then sold them for more than double what the Crescent-Moon will fetch her. But she didn’t touch them. So it’s personal. Either there’s something specific about this sword, or she did it for the thrill - or both.”
“Couldn’t she just have had a buyer lined up for the Crescent-Moon?” asks Lestrade.
Sherlock rolls his eyes, as if this statement isn’t even worth his breath. “If her buyer was willing to pay enough to make her forget the little stuff, then it’s personal for the buyer,” he says.
Lestrade takes a deep breath. “Right. I’ll pass that on to the team.”
“And if you get anything more out of the guard, you’ll let me know,” says Sherlock. It’s not a question.
Lestrade sighs. “Yeah, I'll let you know.” The DI exchanges a rueful nod with John, then wanders away. John watches him go. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that Sherlock has wandered over the balcony, attention already elsewhere, staring off into a world only he can see.
So John draws closer, and raises an enquiring eyebrow. “Well?”
“Interesting,” Sherlock says, so softly that John almost doesn’t hear it.
“Mmm,” John agrees, although he’s cheering like mad in the privacy of his own skull. Interesting. Thank God. Their flat may yet survive the week. “It must have been pretty personal, to be worth that much to our thief.” He steps to the edge of the balcony and looks down at the blood, splattered across the floor below them. It is, in his professional opinion, a lot of blood. A hell of a lot of blood. Something isn’t right.
“No, not that,” Sherlock murmurs, a gleam in his eyes. John knows that gleam a little too well. It means that there’s going to be trouble, and an endless struggle to make Sherlock eat something, and probably body parts in his kitchen again, and maybe a whole lot of danger.
“The blood?” John asks, trying to squash the rush of excitement that surges up within him. All right - so maybe Sherlock wasn’t the only one suffering from boredom. Not for the first time, he suspects that there’s probably something a bit wrong with him. But he’s too caught up in the moment to care.
Sherlock gets that slightly startled look on his face, the one John used to find vaguely insulting, before he understood just how seldom Sherlock looked that way. It’s the look that says, my God, you’re not actually a complete idiot. “Yes, exactly. That’s at least five pints.”
John nods, understanding. “She’s dead, then,” he says, with a bit of regret. Then, remembering one or two miraculous battlefield revivals, he adds, “Or if she lived, she didn’t walk out of here on her own. She had an accomplice of some kind, or maybe a rival, someone who dragged her away while the guard was calling for help. So... maybe her accident wasn’t an accident. Was the other thief trying to hide a murder, or get her to safety?”
“Neither,” Sherlock says, smug now that he’s in control again. “There was no partner. Observe - she pushed herself up.” He points some tiny detail of the scene, presumably obvious to him, but indistinguishable to John at this distance. “She stumbled, but got her feet up under herself.” His finger flicks over a precise centimeter, indicating... perhaps that long smear? “She braced herself against the nearest solid object, for just a moment - and then she walked away.” And now Sherlock points unerringly to a tiny smudge on a pillar, which, to his surprise, John is actually able to pick out of the bloody mess.
“Impossible,” John breathes, leaning slightly forward over the rail, as if the slight distance would grant him a closer look. “Could she have- no, the guard said the sword went right through her. He pulled it out himself. But it can’t really be her blood. It’s impossible.
“No, it’s improbable. And yet it happened.” Sherlock is grinning now, too. “Which means there’s something here I’ve missed.”
Well, John thinks, somewhere between excited and resigned, at least it’s not boring..
* * *
“Paris,” says Sherlock, confidently. He doesn’t meet John’s curious glance, which is unusual.
But John knows his part in this script, and so he asks: “How do you know?” He peers at the pictures and evidence bags pinned into the sprawling spiderweb on their wall. He can’t yet see the pattern in the strands of yarn that stretch from pin to pin, and he’s very carefully not bouncing on his toes as he waits for Sherlock to show him the order in the chaos. Not that Sherlock ever explains himself, not precisely, but if John pays close enough attention... It’s like that book of Bev Doolittle paintings his Mum had, when he was a kid. All he sees now is snow and rocks, but with a few words from Sherlock, suddenly there’ll be a whole herd of horses standing right in front of him.
Sherlock stares at the wall, jaw clenched, then admits with poor grace, “Lestrade figured it out.” John can’t quite disguise the amusement on his face, and Sherlock scowls. “I gave him the patterns to look for,” he snaps at John. “He had his people rummage through the records for me.”
“While you were busy with more important things?” John suggests dryly, turning away from the apparently useless web of evidence.
“Naturally,” says Sherlock, loftily. “To my endless surprise, his team of incompetents actually managed to find a few dozen matches. Mostly useless, of course, but once I weeded out the obvious inconsistencies the remaining crimes clearly pointed to a Parisian base of operations.
“Clear to anyone, or just you?” John asks, sinking down to the couch. He makes the gesture as casual as he can manage - he doesn’t feel up for the patented Sherlock lecture on psychosomosis and the unfortunate power of an ill-trained mind - but it’s a relief to be off his aching leg. It’s not that he thinks for even a moment that Sherlock won’t notice he’s in pain, it’s just that he’s holding out hope that his flatmate might not bother to mention it, if John can keep it from slowing him down at all.
“Clear to anyone with half a brain,” says Sherlock, absently. “So, probably just me, yes. Don’t you need to pack?”
“Pack?” John repeats, blankly.
Sherlock makes an impatient noise. “Pack. For Paris.”
John considers saying something about jurisdictional lines. Then John considers the odds that Sherlock is going to let something like the law keep him away from the mysterious not-as-dead-as-she-ought-to-be thief.
Then, with a sigh, John stands and heads to his room to pack.
* * *
Sherlock had put Lestrade’s men to work again. Of course, he hadn’t bothered to tell them what he’s actually deduced from the data they found for him. John gets the distinct impression that Sherlock wants to be able to crack this one for himself, without police interference. Which, presumably, is why they’re going from apartment to apartment, looking for their suspect.
The home they’re currently standing in front of is something of a novelty, in that it’s not an apartment at all. It’s a barge. “Mr. MacLeod is an antiques dealer,” Sherlock had explained, “specialising in swords. More importantly, he once dodged a rather serious accusation of theft by revealing the real thief, a woman, to the police. The combination makes him quite interesting to us, don’t you think?”
John had assented that yes, that made Mr. MacLeod very interesting, just like all the other (dead-end) leads they’d investigated today. To be honest, as far as John’s concerned, the most interesting thing about the man is that given a choice, he chooses to live in a barge.
Sherlock mounts the steps - the gangplank, really - with John a few paces behind him, and knocks on the door. They wait there for a few long moments. Then, with a shrug, Sherlock pushes the door open and walks right inside.
“Sherlock - you can’t -” But, of course, he can, because waiting is boring, and after a moment’s hesitation John lets out a frustrated growl and follows his flatmate.
Sherlock is standing in the middle of the room, staring at a man who must be Duncan MacLeod. His hair, dark and curly, is just barely long enough to stay in the silver clip he’s currently using to pull it back out of his face. He’s... a rather tall man. Huh. Taller even than Sherlock himself. And certainly heavier built. By now, John knows that Sherlock is no slouch in a fight, and John’s not bad himself, war wounds or no war wounds... but he still finds himself offering up a private prayer that Sherlock won’t piss the man off enough for this little meeting to come to blows.
(Unlike, say, the meetings with interesting leads number two, three, and six. It’s been a long day.)
There’s a heartbeat of silence. Then:
“Duncan MacLeod,” the man says, holding out his hand. He looks hastily dressed, but, thankfully, more amused than annoyed to have had utter strangers let themselves into his home. “Mind if I ask what you think you’re doing?”
Sherlock doesn’t move.
With a sigh, John steps forward. Sometimes he wonders if the only reason Sherlock keeps him around is to serve as a set of prosthetic social skills, a tool for tending to the niceties while the great consulting detective thinks on more interesting things.
“John Watson,” he says, grasping MacLeod’s hand. The taller man’s eyes flick down to their clasped hands, then back up to John’s face. John braces for the usual bone-crushing grip of macho idiots everywhere. To his surprise, MacLeod’s handshake is firm but polite. “And this here is Sherlock Holmes. Sorry about all this. It’s, er - Sherlock?”
He steps back, then half-turns, meaning to give Sherlock an accusing glare. He expects Sherlock to be settling into one of his skillful impersonations of a normal human right about now, preferably one that will explain to MacLeod what they think they’re doing. An interested antiquary, perhaps. A drunkard convinced he’d walked into his own barge. An old friend of a friend. A car accident victim in desperate need of a phone and a stiff drink. Something.
Instead, to his surprise, Sherlock is gaping at Macleod. John doesn’t think he’s ever seen Sherlock gape. Glare, certainly, or ponder, but gape?
Sherlock’s mouth opens once or twice before he finds his voice. “You’re all wrong,” he tells the Duncan, sounding indignant. “Your pieces don’t match up. You look at the world like a soldier - you even spotted my gun.”
“You have a - you brought my gun?” John asks. “Sherlock, we talked about this!”
Sherlock ignores him. “But nothing about you suggests military training or organised crime. Born and raised in Scotland, but you’ve been living in America. From the sound of it, you must have tried very hard to lose that brogue. But that ridiculous hair clip... that’s patriotic pride. And the accent would have given you an edge, selling antiques to Americans. So why?”
“Maybe I wanted to blend in,” suggests Duncan, mildly.
Sherlock snorts. “You dress to blend, certainly. Very modern, very fashionable. But all these little bits and pieces scattered about the place - not especially valuable, most of them. Not very fashionable at all. Which means they have sentimental value. Old family pieces, I’d say, if they weren’t from a dozen different countries. I’d think you were newly wealthy, trying to look cultured and not knowing how, if you weren’t an antique dealer. Your job is to tell the excessively rich how to look cultured.” Sherlock is pacing now, coat swirling around him. “And you know how to use a sword. Not a fencing foil. A katana, maybe, or a tachi.”
“How can you possibly know what kind of sword he uses?” John can’t help but ask.
Sherlock and MacLeod both turn to stare. Their expressions suggest that the answer should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.
John sighs. “Never mind.”
“Which could explain the British Museum theft,” Sherlock continues, as if John had never interrupted. “A passion for ancient Japan and an appreciation for swordsmanship, and caught up in the nouveau riche idea that money really can buy anything. But you don’t... you move like an old man,” he says.
From the back of the barge comes a startled sound. A women has appeared, rising up from behind the couch where she was hiding. For a brief moment, John entertains that wild notion that he’s looking at their mystery thief. But she moves with a grace that reveals her to be uninjured. Well. Actually, she moves like a woman who just -
John tries not to blush. He’s no Sherlock, but even he can deduce that he’s looking at Duncan MacLeod’s lover.
Sherlock, predictably, doesn’t look surprised to see her. Neither does MacLeod, who sighs. “S’Amanda,” he says, nodding toward her as if that’s all the introduction she needs. Not breaking eye contact with Sherlock, he adds dryly, “I’ve got a few years left before they’ll be offering me senior’s discounts.”
Sherlock shakes his head, impatient. “It’s the way you hold yourself. You’re settled in your skin. You seldom see that anywhere but retirement homes and monasteries.” It’s the kind of vague statement John would have excepted Sherlock to scorn, but the detective sounds certain of himself. “And your friend, Amanda - she’s just the same. All wrong.”
“We could be monks,” MacLeod suggests. He seems amused.
“You’re no monk,” says Sherlock, derisively confident. Suddenly, John’s gun is in his hand.
“Sherlock - ”
“Shut up, John,” says Sherlock, not looking away from Duncan MacLeod. “And you’re not afraid of me, Mr. MacLeod,” he adds. “I’m pointing a gun at your heart, and you’re not afraid. I wonder what that means?” He tilts his head, grey eyes intense.
MacLeod doesn’t so much as blink. “Perhaps - ”
And without warning, Sherlock fires the gun.
John’s heart almost stops. He hears the voice of everyone who ever warned him about Sherlock - dangerous, unpredictable, violent. Sociopath. In the distance, beyond the pounding of his blood in his ears, he hears Sherlock calmly ordering Amanda to stay where she is, or he’ll shoot her too.
John’s stumbling forwarded almost without thinking, a field medic’s instincts, when the pain in his leg flares up without warning and brings him to his knees beside MacLeod’s prone body. A pulse, a pulse, there’s - there’s no pulse. Sherlock’s a fucking brilliant shot, and at such close quarters... the bullet went right through MacLeod’s heart, if John doesn’t miss his guess. Shit. Shit. He doesn’t have the tools, he doesn’t have -
“John,” says Sherlock. He’s not raised his voice, but something in the tone of it reminds John of his first CO, his first firefight. “Leave him.”
Numb, John obeys the order, hauling himself unsteadily to his feet. Shit. He trusts Sherlock, but this doesn’t make any sense. He can’t see where the danger was, can’t see why he would... and even then, he can’t understand why Sherlock would kill the man without getting his answers first. Fear of boredom motivates Sherlock far more effectively than fear for his life.
Some small part of his mind is already wondering if he can cover this up. If there’s a way to protect Sherlock.
“John,” says Sherlock’s voice, quietly. “Look at her, John.”
John obeys, raising his head to meet Amanda’s eyes. Her expression isn’t really what he would have expected from a women being threatened by the gun-wielding madman who’d just killed her lover. She doesn’t look scared, or grief-stricken, or even angry, not really. Just... annoyed. It’s the kind of expression he’d expect to see if she’d just been told her flight was bumped.
Why...?
And on the floor, Duncan MacLeod gasps back into life.
* * *
It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, coming back from the dead always hurts.
Still gasping, he twists his head towards Holmes and Watson. The latter is staring at him, wide-eyed. The former looks... smug.
As he pushes himself upright, Duncan considers trying to make some excuse about a bulletproof vest. Considering the way his hands are sliding beneath him, the hardwood floors slicked with his own blood, he doesn’t really think they’ll buy it. Dammit. He has no idea what the hell is going on here, there’s a bullet hole in one of his favorite shirts - again - and this whole situation is a disaster in the making. And even if it’s bound to make things worse, he has every intention of inflicting some quite justifiable thuggery on the two lanky-limbed Brits the second he’s on his feet. It’ll be good stress relief.
But before he can carry out his plans, Holmes throws backs his head, and laughs in sheer delight. Handing his gun to the rather shell-shocked looking Watson, the man crosses the space separating them in a few easy strides, and offers Duncan his gloved hand.
Duncan silently accepts the assistance, mostly to sneak a peek at Holmes’s wrist - no tattoo, which is almost a shame, because at least that would have made sense. He understands how to deal with rogue Watchers. Insane civilians are a different type of trouble entirely.
“I was right,” Holmes proclaims gleefully. There’s a surprising about of strength in those skinny arms, and he hauls Duncan upright with apparent ease. “Immortal. You’re immortal. I knew it.”
“What?” is about all Duncan can manage.
Behind him, simultaneously, Amanda gives that fake-sounding laugh that means she’s too startled to bluff skillfully, and says, “I simply don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m with Amanda on this one,” Watson puts in dryly. His voice shakes only slightly.
Holmes laughs and turns away, coat swirling like a cape. Before Duncan quite knows what’s happening, the man is sinking down onto his couch with all the arrogant bonelessness of a cat. “You’d better change that shirt,” Holmes recommends, smug. “Or you’ll get blood all over your barge. I fancy a cup of tea.”
“That’s his way of saying he wants someone to make him a cup of tea,” Watson says in that same dry voice, doing a very good impression of a man hanging on to self-control by more than just his fingertips.
To Duncan’s shock, Amanda turns towards the kitchen, apparently intending to put the kettle on. He shoots her a look that says, are you crazy? She sends him a shrug that says, well, what do you want me to do?
“What the hell is going on here?” Duncan demands.
To his surprise, Holmes addresses the answer not to him, but to Watson. “They’re immortal,” he explains to his friend. “Completely immortal. They don’t age, they don’t get sick, and they don’t die. They’re the missing piece in a puzzle that’s been niggling at me for years.”
‘They don’t die’, full stop, not ‘they don’t die unless you take their heads’. So either Holmes doesn’t know about the Game, or he isn’t telling. Which might just mean that neither man is headhunting. Thank God for small blessings. “How did you know?” he demands of Holmes.
“That’s impossible,” says Watson flatly.
“Use your brain,” Holmes demands, eyes gleaming. “It happened. Therefore, it’s merely improbable.”
Duncan has to force himself to unclench his jaw and count slowly, silently to ten. In Gaelic. “How. Did. You. Know,” he asks again, enunciating each syllable with excruciating care. “You shot me. You must have been certain.”
“See, you’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Watson says. “Try living with the man for a few months, you might change your mind...”
Reaching up, Holmes accepts a steaming cuppa from Amanda, who’s looking for more amused than Duncan thinks the situation calls for. Wrapping long fingers around the mug, he looks over at Duncan, a smirk playing across his features. “When I read Chemistry at Oxford, the Oriel College administration had something of a difficult time finding me a roommate.”
Watson snorts, and mutters something that sounds unflattering.
“In the end,” Holmes continues, still smirking gently at Duncan, “the only person who proved able to tolerate my company was one Adam Pierson. Who was, I might add, significantly better at blending in than you two are. It took me days to realise something was wrong.” He wrinkles his nose, and sounding slightly indignant, adds, “And it took me until today to figure out what. The bastard was even cleverer than I gave him credit for.”
That’s it, Duncan thinks resignedly, as Amanda’s amused laughter fills the barge, Methos dies.
-END-
Prompt:
Sherlock / Highlander: A crime has been committed - only Sherlock is getting more and more frustrated, since there's simply no way for the thief to have survived doing it, yet she did...