All Souls' Day. Part Two, Chapter Five. Siberia.
Title: All Souls' Day. Part Two, Chapter Five. Siberia.
author: ghislainem70
word count: 3,300 this chapter, 64,200 total (WIP)
Rating:NC-17
Warnings: explicit sex, graphic violence
summary: Mycroft, Lestrade, Sherlock and John race to foil a terrorist conspiracy called the Day of Wrath.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, BBC et al
Yellow diamonds in the light,
And we’re standing side by side -
As your shadow crosses mine
What it takes to come alive -
It’s the way I’m feeling,
I just can’t deny
But I’ve gotta let it go:
We found love in a hopeless place
Shine a light through an open door,
Love and life I will divide
Turn away,
'cause I need you more
Feel the heartbeat
in my mind
It’s the way I’m feeling, I just can’t deny
But I’ve gotta let it go:
We found love in a hopeless place
"We Found Love," all rights reserved Calvin Harris/Rhianna
Mycroft received the summons to MI6 headquarters while still at the scene of Singh’s arrest. Therefore he did not stop at his townhouse in St. John’s Wood, but went directly to the SIS building at Vauxhall Cross, also known as Legoland. He was dissheveled and, he had to admit, exhausted, neither of which conditions he ever permitted himself to be seen in under any circumstances. But he found that he really didn’t care.
This time his superior did not conduct the interview via videoconference. No, it seemed that all of the powers of MI6, and of agencies more secret than MI6, wanted in on the briefing. There were a dozen intelligence officers of the highest ranking seated around the glass conference table.
Mycroft squared his shoulders and prepared for battle.
No time was wasted before the first shot was fired.
* * *
"Holmes. You realize, of course, that your handling of Singh was profoundly . . . disappointing to us." This from a short, portly man with thick glasses and a renowned temper that Mycroft recognized as his superior’s superior: in fact, the current Chief of MI6, known, as all chiefs are, by the single initial "C": Sir Gordon Quaintance.
"I realise nothing of the kind." Mycroft had no intention of being pillioried. Even in secret. Even by C.
"We’re overlooking the business with the Chechens. Damned clever of you, that. We admit it, well played. But, damn it, Holmes, you should have brought him to us. Why involve the Met? Everything so - public. It will go on for years, now: the journalists, the trials, the questions. This could have been handled with delicacy - " Quaintance’s famous temper was on the rise, and he actually pounded the table for emphasis, incongruously. The lesser eminences around the conference table conspicuously overlooked this as though it were simply not happening.
"Please don’t obfuscate. Sir. I believe you mean secrecy."
"The entire affair should have been handled internally. Nobody knows this better than you, Holmes. A traitor; plutonium; MOX shipments. Everything could have been - contained. The business with the canisters and Aguirre, your Detective Inspector Lestrade, that was all quite enough for the public. But no. You - and your brother - together have brought this all out. People are terrified."
Quaintance gestured and someone queued up a muted video montage of news clips of the Day of Wrath - bombings, the arrests of would-be poisoners bearing the deadly canisters, the unconfirmed but rampant rumours of the MOX shipment having been hijacked and sunk by either the British or French navy (in fact, a British nuclear submarine), Singh’s arrest. And many of the clips featured Lestrade himself, who remained at the very forefront of international news. Mycroft’s own name had been carefully kept out of the press by his superiors. Vague stories of a wide-ranging joint sting operation between the Yard, MI5 and MI6 had been put about.
"That would appear to be as it should be," Mycroft said stiffly, looking away from the screen.
"Who appointed you to decide what the public should know? Who appointed you to clean house? You’ve never been one for leaking secrets before now, Holmes. Perhaps Singh is right on one point. Are you quite clear on your loyalties, Holmes?"
Mycroft laughed. "Don’t be absurd. There are secrets, and there are secrets. This was a terror plot that possibly equaled 9/11 and 7/7 together. No one has the right to keep these risks from the public. The only reason that the Day of Wrath group was able to arm themselves so - lavishly - was that we failed to be sufficiently vigilant. I should think that we had better start working a great deal harder on nuclear waste security, and a very great deal harder on our intelligence on black market movements of radioactive materials - of all kinds. Sir."
"Don’t presume to lecture us, Holmes. You don’t know all of the considerations - "
"I’m sure I can imagine them. Have you any questions of me, sir, or is this simply to be a schoolboy whipping?"
"You’ll be debriefed tonight. And despite your spectacular breach of protocol in the Singh matter, we happen to quite agree with you that it is absolutely vital that we ramp up our intelligence efforts in respect to black market movement of radioactive materials. You have anticipated us. You shall remain on 00 status. You are well up on your Russian and Chechen, and have your contacts still in place, obviously.
"After debriefing, report to Allardyce here. You have a new assignment."
* * *
The official line of the French authorities and of AREVA spokespersons was that Doctor Carre was insane.
Deemed conveniently unfit to face charges of attempted murder of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Carre was confined to a secure mental hospital to await his possible return to sanity.
No one expected this to come quickly.
Sherlock was of the private opinion that Dr. Carre was very sane indeed.
A team of the world’s top specialists in radiobiology were flown to France to treat Sherlock and John for radiation poisoning. The experimental regimen developed in AREVA’s lab was approved as a treatment for John and Sherlock only after being verified as the work of scientists completely independent of Carre. A triple cocktail of 5-Androstenediol (developed for the Pentagon), a genetically altered bacterial protein, and a novel chelating agent was administered.
The speed with which the cocktail assisted in their resistance, healing, and the elimination of polonium-210 and in John’s case, cesium-137 from their bodies was deemed nothing less than miraculous.
As was the timing of Sherlock and John’s dramatic rescue. In a few more hours they would have suffered far more damage.
Death.
But certain fundamentals were unavoidable. Polonium-210 and Cesium-137 are eliminated from the body through bodily fluids, as Sherlock well knew when he poured his own blood down Carre’s throat; also saliva and perspiration. No one trusted Sherlock after his desperate act of gouging open his own wrist. Sherlock and John were kept isolated from bodily contact with any of their medical team, who wore special shielded suits.
This was quite tolerable.
The prohibition of bodily contact with one another was excruciating. They were permitted to communicate only by webcam out of an abundance of caution.
* * *
Lestrade visited them daily, although he also was limited to webcam and not permitted to enter their rooms. He stayed as long as he was allowed, patiently entertaining them with tidbits of gossip from the outside world. They played online poker together incessantly. John was a terrible player and, to Lestrade’s surprise, a very sore loser but was also the most keen to play, always optimistic he would turn his luck around. Sherlock failed to understand Lestrade’s hints that he might, once or twice, just let up a little and let John win. Sherlock never lost.
But none of this sufficed to fully occupy Sherlock’s brain once he was feeling better, and Sherlock became very surly indeed at their long confinement.
Lestrade found a means of distracting him that he commenced with some trepidation. Sherlock was simultaneously fidgeting and bombarding John with messages on his laptop, the responses to which generally caused his lip to curl up with private amusement. However, there were long stretches of the day and night when John was not available to entertain Sherlock in this fashion due to the constant bustle of tests, examinations, consultations, meals and other indignities that punctuate hospital life everywhere.
Sherlock’s frustration and excruciated boredom finally became truly awful to behold. Lestrade exhausted his fund of anecdotes that held any scrap of interest. He steeled himself and broached a topic that he had never had the nerve to raise at any time during his acquaintance with the consulting detective:
"Tell me something about where you grew up, Sherlock. As a child."
* * *
"A new assignment?" Mycroft kept his voice smooth and steady, even unconcerned.
"Russia."
"Russia! Are you certain you don't mean -- Siberia?" Mycroft gave a short laugh.
"Moscow," C said brusquely. "Don't be surprised, Holmes. And that is only where we wish to start. Leaving aside what's been said, we all agree that under the circumstances, you’ve done remarkable work here. There is a consensus that you have your finger on the pulse of this scenario, so to speak. We don’t intend to waste this opportunity just because you’ve been - rash. But this time, no going rogue. You shall do as you are bid. I hope that is understood."
If this blow was unexpected to him now, he was well schooled in concealing his deepest feelings from everyone, especially himself.
"I understand," Mycroft said coolly.
* * *
Sherlock turned a basilisk eye on Lestrade. Lestrade looked back steadily. Once Sherlock realised that Lestrade was not thwarted by his display of pique, Sherlock drew breath and began.
"We - Mycroft and I - were raised in Kent. My father’s family’s home. Not an ancestral manse. I believe my grandfather bought it before the war. My father was not an hereditary lord; you knew that, I suppose. He was created a life peer. For achievement in science. Ethnobotany."
"What happened - to the house?" He really wanted to ask about their father; recalling Mycroft’s sadness in the villa at St-Jean-de-Luz.
"Oh, Mummy has a life estate: after that, it goes to Mycroft, I suppose. I never bothered much about Kent once I went to uni. Very dull. I much preferred Riddleston Hall as a child. Still do. I suppose you must be rather attached to Riddleston Hall now, as well, Lestrade," Sherlock said slyly.
Lestrade put it down to Sherlock’s extraordinary boredom that he would find it in any way amusing to tease him about his recent visit to Riddleston Hall. It was there that Mycroft had made a very straightforward and yet obviously terrifying declaration of his long-hidden feelings for Lestrade, taking Lestrade by surprise.
But not, apparently, Sherlock, who observed all.
Lestrade did not consider his emotional life, such as it was, an area to be either buried or deleted in the Holmesian fashion. He found himself smiling a little ruefully, despite his present pain. Mycroft was refusing to return his calls. But he, in turn, refused to read anything into this, and remained hopeful. He imagined that Mycroft had a great many demands upon him at the moment. It was impossible that everything they felt for each other had been so fleeting, fanned by their dramatic and harrowing adventures.
Sherlock was giving him a sidelong ironical look under his eyelashes, obviously trying to deflect the conversation away from himself.
"As it happens, I am," Lestrade said. "Very much. Is that all right with you, Sherlock?"
Sherlock made an elaborate show of looking indifferent and scowling simultaneously. "Yes. Of course. Do as you like - but I insist on alternate weekends where Mycroft is concerned, if you please, Lestrade."
Lestrade was feeling daring. After taking on terrorists, Sherlock’s prickly temper wasn’t so daunting, after all.
"Why is that, Sherlock? I don’t think Mycroft feels the same. Do you know he keeps a family portrait of you and he as children, at his bedside?" May as well go all in, he figured. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Sherlock looked uncomfortable. "I know the picture," he said vaguely.
"Why were you pulling away? In that picture?" In the picture, Sherlock, aged about nine, was pulling away, his figure blurred. Mycroft, looking close to eighteen, was trying to hold him still, pulling him back. Their mother and father, Anthony and Eugenia Holmes, stood proudly behind them.
"It was . . . my experiment. I didn’t want to stop for a portrait. It was about to explode. I wanted to save it," Sherlock said. But the memory was not a happy one. He did not smile.
There was a silence. Lestrade began to regret bringing it up, after all. But then Sherlock took a deep breath and continued, his voice tight.
"I have the same portrait, you know. It’s the last one. Of us all together. My father left the next day. For that expedition. To Borneo. He . . . .never came back."
"Sherlock -"
"I’m rather tired, Lestrade. Would you mind terribly checking on John." Sherlock turned the webcam off. Seated outside the window, Lestrade saw him turn his face to the wall.
* * *
Later that night, well after midnight, John awoke to the sensation of someone with bony elbows and long legs climbing into bed with him. This could only be Sherlock, and for a moment he believed they were somehow transported to 221b.
But a moment's glance told him he was still confined to his hospital room. His heart pounded in shock.
"Sherlock," he hissed. What are you thinking-- we aren't clear yet! We aren't supposed to-- get out of here, now." Sherlock was dragging the covers up and climbing in underneath. John swore.
"What happened to the alarms?"
"Jammed," Sherlock whispered against his ear. "And they've been lying to us, we've been clear for the past three days. I found out two days ago. Two whole days, I waited, John. It's perfectly safe."
"And you know this because-"
"I hacked the system when we first came here, John, and I've had a great deal of time to perfect my technique. There's no doubt at all - it's fine, John, it's all right now. Don't send me away. Please."
"How did you get in here without them seeing you?"
"Stop talking immediately, John," Sherlock whispered, nuzzling his warm neck, and hearing his greedy and yet contented sigh was more than John could withstand; hell, he'd never been able to withstand it. Sherlock's hands were lightly and inquisitively caressing the skin of his arms, his chest, tracing his scar, touching his lips with his fingertips. It wasn't in any direct way sexual, which didn't prevent John from getting instantly hard. But he ignored it, and so did Sherlock: this wasn't what this was. They were alive; they weren't going to die; they were allowed this again, the privilege to touch.
John touched the freshly healed wound on Sherlock's wrist, the horrible gouge from Carre's pen, and brought it to his own lips. "You're so-- so. . ."
Sherlock stopped whatever he might have said then with a gentle brush of his lips, just hovering on his own, not pressing in. Sherlock held there, breathing in, staring down at John intently, drinking in the color of his eyes, his eyelashes, the color and texture of skin, creases and rumples from the Afghan sun, from worry, worry about him.
"I meant what I said, John," he breathed against the corner of his mouth. John closed his eyes, everything electric, on fire after so long.
"Hmmmm. Stop talking immediately, Sherlock," he said, smiling and then taking his lips with his own.
"You don't want to stop this," Sherlock whispered when they came up for breath.
"Shhhhh.". John wanted those lips to stop moving altogether unless they were kissing his. He pulled Sherlock down to him, firmly, but Sherlock whispered against his lips, "John, I need to say it." John's eyes opened and they looked at each other, then.
John caressed his cheek. "Then say it, love."
"I love you, John," he said, over and over, feeling the words on his tongue, exotic and intoxicating. Finally John silenced him with another kiss.
"It's all right now. We're going to be all right. You'll have plenty of chances to tell me. It's not so hard, is it?" Sherlock kissed him until they were both dizzy.
It was hard; very hard, but that didn't matter anymore, and he couldn't remember, now, why he had ever thought that it did.
* * *
"One final thing," Allardyce said with an approving glance from C. The dramatic intonation warned Mycroft that what was coming was not going to be pleasant to hear.
"There is the matter of Detective Inspector Lestrade."
"I shall have to insist that you refrain from mentioning his name," Mycroft said.
Even though he had feared this, he felt a sick shock delivered when Lestrade’s name was mentioned here in this place. "Everything in this affair was done under my own personal authority. Lestrade has done nothing that was not under my express direction. I take full responsibility. But I won’t hear a single word against Detective Inspector Lestrade."
"You misunderstand, Holmes," Allardyce, a suave veteran of post-Cold War operations, was generally posted in Brussels and Munich and posed as a diplomatic attache. He was not making any particular effort to be diplomatic here. "Don’t be dense. We happen to feel that Lestrade acquitted himself well. Quite well indeed. Scotland Yard - well, he’s almost a civilian. But he’s made of strong stuff, that’s clear. Got out of some very tight spots. Quite the body count. Yes. And so we’d like you to bring him over. We can use him: He’s quite a hit in France, made some useful connections. Quite cozy with Sarkozy. Even Madame Sarkozy," he leered.
Mycroft was ready to rip this man’s throat out. "You will withdraw that remark, Allardyce." He said, low and vicious. Allardyce stepped back.
"I beg your pardon, Holmes. Didn’t quite realize - anyway. We thought you’d be. . . pleased. We aren’t blind, Holmes."
"I decline. I will never permit him to be recruited."
"Probably you should give him that choice himself. But if that’s your position, Holmes, we have another order for you. If we don’t bring him into the fold, you must sever that tie. Permanently. We feel strongly that you are far better off . . .playing with your own kind. Affairs with civilians always create unacceptable risks. You know this, Holmes. You’ve never given us cause for concern before - and that’s the way we want to keep it."
"My private life is no 'concern' of yours. You either trust me, or you do not."
"After the Singh affair, trust is very hard to come by. And you have no ‘private life,’Holmes. Whereever did you get that quaint notion! Now wake up. And report for debriefing at 0100."
* * *
The next day, John and Sherlock were released. Arrangements had been made for them to be flown directly back to London, courtesy of their erstwhile masters at MI6. Sherlock politely refused and made gestures to John to silence his objections. John observed him scanning his mobile.
"What are you doing, Sherlock," he asked impatiently. "Let’s take the ferry to Dover, then, if you don’t want to fly."
"Someone we need to see," Sherlock said abstractedly.
"No - Sherlock, no. Back to London. Now."
"It will take a day, less than a day. London can wait that long," Sherlock implored. John was happy enough to see the life back in his face, and if it wasn’t all down to his newfound access to certain feelings, well, John understood that. He hoped never to see that change.
"Tell me where, then," he sighed.
"Bayonne, you remember, John: That little coin shop."
* * *
Mycroft left Vauxhall Cross. He checked his mobile. He had several messages from Greg, who was still in France. He took the time in the car to listen to them.
He played them several times without recognizing that he was really just wanting the sound of his voice. He thought he could read everything in it: anger, fear, and frustration. Mycroft replayed, over and over, the scene at the mine tunnel in Willencourt.
Sending Greg down into hell.
Unable to imagine what he could say, now, Mycroft limited himself to a terse text that he was safe in London.
He stared at the little keyboard for a long time, hesitating, but finally put the mobile carefully away in his pocket.
And turned it off.
To be continued . . .
listen to We Found Love:Here
back: Four:Scorched Earth
next: Six: La Vie en Rose