Fic: Rewriting the Game; Dead Man's Hand (Sherlock)
Title: Rewriting the Game: Dead Man’s Hand
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Lestrade, Molly
Rating: 15+
Summary: Moriarty has made a decisive move in their game. Now Sherlock must decide what to do with the hand left to him.
Sequel to Rewriting the Game
Warnings: Angst. Drug use. Character death.
“Sherlock... I made you a promise at the pool. Remember? I said I was going to burn your heart out. And I am. This is the kicker, you’ll like this twist. I’m going to give you exactly sixty seconds, exactly, during which time John can say anything he wants to.
“Then, I’m going to blow him up anyway.”
“NO!” Sherlock was on his feet, hand slamming the desk. “No, that’s not how the game works, Moriarty, I solve the puzzle and you give him back to me in one piece!”
“Sherlock,” John said quietly.
“No!”
“Sherlock, be quiet,” John said, his voice shaking. “I’ve only got fifty one seconds. Less. I’m not spending them with you hurling abuse at him.”
“Tell me where you are. Tell me, we’ll...”
“Sherlock. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to, catching.... catching Harry. If she hit that girl, she needs to face the law. I don’t blame you.”
“John.” He held the phone, cradling it to his ear.
“This isn’t your fault either. Him being too gutless to finish me off himself, refusing to set me free, it’s not your fault. Promise me you’ll get him, Sherlock. Don’t let him keep killing.” His voice cracked with a sob. “No one else can. Get him for me.”
“No, no, John, I can’t... I can’t do this. This is.. I care.” The words were barely a whisper. “I care.”
“That’s why you’ll get him...” Breath. “I care too, Sherlock.”
There was a crack and the line went dead.
“John?!” He knew he wasn’t there and he couldn’t stop himself. “John?!”
The whole incidents’ room was silent, watching as Sherlock clung to the phone and kept whispering John’s name over and over.
Phones started ringing. Donovan was shaken to action, grabbing one and listening to the other end before hanging up. “Sir...?”
Lestrade blinked and looked up at her.
“An explosion has been reported... under 221b Baker street.”
Horrific understanding trickled into Sherlock’s mind. John had been in the basement apartment, 221c. He’d been right there the entire time, at home and now it was all gone.
Photos. Clothes. Papers. Laptops. Everything John owned was in that apartment and Moriarty had taken even the memories of him in that one action.
Home is where the heart is.
Sherlock stared at the phone in his hands, then started as it began to ring again. His lips twisted and he angrily pulled out the battery, shoving it in one pocket, the phone in the other and took off without a word for the door.
“Sherlock! Sherlock, wait!” Lestrade called after him, but Sherlock didn’t even pause, forcing Lestrade to run to catch up with him. “Sherlock! Where are you going?”
It was patently obvious where Sherlock was going. He didn’t dignify the man with a response, just swept out towards the street, gaze flicking up to where he could see smoke billowing up into the sky from the explosion.
“You can’t go,” Lestrade said and he grabbed Sherlock’s elbow.
Sherlock drove the elbow back to dislodge Lestrade’s grip, spinning sharply on his heel to drive his other elbow into the DI’s shoulder to send him off balance. He smacked both hands sharply over his ears to stun him and then used a double handed shove to send him to the pavement.
Then he was off, hailing down a taxi before anyone could get out and stop him for having just assaulted a police officer.
Lestrade should have known better than to try and stop him.
It was his own damn fault, really, Sherlock thought coldly as the taxi sped towards Baker Street.
Ambulances sped past them, squad cars racing to reach the scene, to close it off before journalists got them and got into it. Sherlock could vividly picture it; closing his eyes, all he saw was the way that a suicide bomber was torn apart and how sickeningly unfair it was that John had survived that in Afghanistan only to be put in a vest himself.
I care too, Sherlock.
The taxi came to an idle, but there was no traffic lights before their next turn.
“I think they’re here for you, sir,” the cabbie called back.
Sherlock looked up.
A black car was parked in front of them, filling the road. One had pulled up behind them.
“Yes. Yes, they are. A lady will sort out the cost and a fee for the inconvenience.” He opened the door and stepped out, standing there as the door on the front car opened and Lenore stepped out, followed by the man himself.
“Mycroft.”
“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s expression was somber, an excellent impression of empathy and condolence. “Sherlock, I’m sorry-”
“For what? That you didn’t have surveillance on him? That another part of your city was blown up and you can’t find him? What are you sorry for, exactly?” A cold wind hit them, whipping Sherlock’s coat to the side, still open, his hands in his pants pockets. “Because I know you’re not sorry about the good Doctor. You don’t care about people.”
I care too, Sherlock.
He closed his eyes, trying to block the echo of those last words.
“Sherlock.”
He growled slightly at his brother’s interruption.
“I am sorry about John. He made you... he was your friend and he looked after you. I appreciated those things. He was good for you.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet? Now you’ve held me up long enough for the police to make a mess of the scene, I really need to get going.” He turned around.
“You’re not going to Baker Street, Sherlock.” Mycroft’s footsteps came closer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back there before the coroner’s team have been through.”
“You mean before they finish gathering up whatever splatters of gore and flesh remain of the body.”
“Yes.” Mycroft didn’t touch him. Mycroft knew better. “You don’t need to go and see that.”
“I’m an adult, Mycroft, I’ll decide what I do and do not need,” he snapped.
“I see,” his brother said softly.
Sherlock spun on his heel, ready to defend himself, but it was already too late. The taser hit him in the arm and after a moment of pain, the world went black.
*~*~*
He was lying on a bed that smelt familiar and warm. A warm hand brushed his hair back from his brow.
He felt sick, but safe. The hand stroked down his cheek and then went back up to petting his hair. “You’ll be okay. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me, hm? I don’t just say these things to listen to myself talk, you know, Sherlock.”
He moaned an agreement. He’d agree to a lot right now if he could just stay here, warm and safe.
“Sherlock.”
“Sherlock.”
His eyes flew open.
Mycroft was sitting next to him, hands laced and leaning forwards. “You’ve been out for twelve hours. I would have preferred not to have to sedate you, but I was not going to let you go and be exposed to the bloodshed of your best friend’s body.”
Sherlock sat up, ignoring his brother and looking around instead. Curtains closed, but night sky visible. Familiar room. He was at Mycroft’s town house.
“You can leave now, if you want, but I would ask you to reconsider.”
Sherlock grabbed his coat from the door and pulled it on, flinging open the door and stalking out, back towards the streets.
Mycroft had cost him valuable time. And the damn drugs were making him drowsy, despite the cold night air.
He hailed down a taxi and told it to go to Baker Street.
He had to see. He had to taste the smoke and smell the explosives and feel the rubble under his fingers.
He had to feel John’s death so he’d stop turning to speak to him and instead enact vengeance for him. Like he asked.
Even now, twelve hours on, smoke tainted the air, the chemicals of the explosion heavy on his tongue as he paid for the ride and walked slowly towards the police tape.
Officers kept the perimeter. Flood lights lit up the remains of the building, collapsed in and down. Debris of their lives was strewn across the street and fluttered in the wind; Sherlock caught a piece of paper with one hand and read it.
‘Eggs, bread, jam, butter, nicotine patches.’
A shopping list. His fingers lingered on the scrawled writing before he made himself let go. It was just paper. Just waste.
“Holmes?!”
He looked up as Donovan hurried over, still wearing one of those ridiculous looking forensics suits. “Don’t look so shocked, I live here.”
“You shouldn’t be here. Go back to your brother’s,” she said firmly.
“Where’s Lestrade?” He pushed past her and ducked under the police tape.
“Someone assaulted him and left him in medical treatment, he’s not back on until tomorrow morning, you arrogant son of a bitch,” she growled.
Sherlock kept walking. He could see blast patterns, the pavement torn up and the bricks ripped outwards. And blood, blackened with the heat, sprayed and splattered across the area, dark pools were pieces had been removed and sent to the morgue.
“Intact hand, sir!”
His head snapped up and he strode to the edge of the pit they were working in, looking over the edge as Anderson picked his way to the junior officer.
“Get out from in front of the... Holmes? Is that you?”
“Who else would I be?” He pushed his hands in his pockets. “What body piece is it? Left or right?”
“You shouldn’t be here, Holmes, go-”
The word ‘home’ died between them. Sherlock gave Anderson a nasty smirk. “Well, I rather have come home, haven’t I?”
“You can’t be here.”
“Of course I can. This game is for me, Anderson, it’s about me, how can I hope to stop him if I don’t examine the scene?” He skidded down the rubble. “Now, where’s that hand?”
“No. Holmes, no.” Anderson stepped in his way. “You can’t be here and you’ll compromise the case-”
“Oh be quiet you tedious little man,” Sherlock said, pushing him aside and striding past, pausing as the hand came into view.
He had really expected it to be broad, tanned, with blunt nails and little scars under blood and soot and burning. Not thin and wrinkled, not pale and elderly.
Not Mrs Hudson’s.
He blanched and turned away, hand going to a wall to hold himself steady, breathing through his nose.
“Christ’s sake, Holmes, go back to your brother’s,” Anderson sighed. “Sally can drop you over there.”
“No!” He straightened up, pushing away the shock and grief. “I think not. It’ll take more than just a hand to stop me doing my work. I see dead hands all the time, this is not different.”
“She was your land lady.”
“And he was my flat mate, and you’re the thorn in my foot, hobbling me doing my work, do you have a point?”
“Don’t make me have you arrested, Holmes. I can and will.” Anderson held his ground. Sherlock would’ve been impressed if not for the fact that currently, he was just being a pain in his neck.
“Go on then. Arrest me. See how far you get in stopping Moriarty without me.”
Anderson hesitated.
And then nodded. “Officers. Arrest this man.”
Sherlock felt somewhat smug as they dragged him off to the police car. Irrationally, upsettingly smug.
*~*~*
Lestrade fetched him from lock up the next morning and took him down to the bomb site again. They were obviously confident they had removed all the bits of bodies lying about the place if he was being allowed down here and he almost wanted to prove them wrong, to dig up something unexpected.
He was given the run down. They’d identified Iris Hudson from the hand and were running tests on everything else, to sort out what was her and what was John.
The bomb was the same as the others, semtex, vest, detonated on the body. Official identification could take up to a week, and that was the lab dedicating time and work to it as a priority.
Mycroft tried calling him twice in the car down, but he just hung up on him until he was standing in the ruins of his home and honestly couldn’t see a thing of any use, just broken memories.
“What?”
“I wanted to find out how you are. I’m worried about you.”
“Go to hell, Mycroft. I don’t need babysitting.”
“Isn’t that what John did for you?”
He hung up on him again and dug out a glint of metal from a pile of bricks.
John’s strong box. Sherlock knew from snooping that it had his army medals in it, a few photos. A painful surge rose through his chest, like nausea, like he wanted to scream and cry and laugh hysterically at once.
He pushed it down and set the box to the side. That was his now.
More investigation gave him nothing about how it was done, no decent leads.
It did yield a few more intact objects. His violin, the case battered but the instrument no worse for wear. He found John’s gun, slipping it into the pocket with John’s phone. Both their laptops, neither working but the hard drives were potentially salvageable. A photo of Mrs Hudson and John at New Year’s, both rosy cheeked and blacked with soot.
Lestrade helped him while co ordinating the evidence collection. His gathering was less practical for leads, things like surviving clothes and books that were more intact than not. A lot more of John’s belonging had survived than Sherlock had feared, because of the location of his bedroom no doubt, on the top floor.
The urge came back, the feeling of sickness and tight, choking pressure when Lestrade came over with John’s striped jumper. Sherlock had almost ripped it from his grip, wanting to cling to it in a most unhelpful and pointlessly demonstrative way.
He used offered evidence bags to gather the items up. Technically it was all evidence, but Sherlock had no compunction about stealing evidence for his own needs and wants, so a few of the bags were added to the back of the taxi he took off in, speeding back to Mycroft’s apartment.
He had ignored fourteen phone calls from his brother in that time.
Mycroft was at work, so Sherlock let himself in and made his way to the spare room he had been in the night before. In there, he set out his stolen bounty which wasn’t really stolen because Lestrade knew he had it.
He needed to change. His clothes smelt awful and he needed a shower and a wake up. He stole a pair of his brother’s pants and a shirt, which would be too big, but at least they were clean and didn’t smell like the blast site and had a shower that lasted far longer than he meant for it to.
When he got out and dressed, he had curled up on the bed for a while, staring at the small collection objects that marked the life of John Watson.
He wasn’t able to focus. He was distracted and kept coming back to those awful emotional things that wanted to happen. So when Mycroft called again, Sherlock actually answered it for distraction. “What?”
“I have the CCTV footage for you. Of outside Baker Street.”
It was Mycroft’s apology. “I need a computer. Mine isn’t working.”
“I’ll have one delivered with the discs. Lenore will bring it around, along with some new clothes. Mine simply aren’t flattering on you.”
Sherlock hung up and grabbed his coat and wallet. He needed fresh air.
He needed to be able to think.
And he knew just how to do.
John would be so disappointed.
John was exploded bits of splatter and gore, he pointed out to himself angrily, so he didn’t get to have an opinion anymore.
*~*~*
By the time Lenore arrived with the computer and discs, Sherlock was feeling decidedly brighter, his mind snapping and cracking and alive. He grabbed the machine, starting it up before he even had it on the table and sorting through the discs to find the ones he wanted.
“Sherlock?”
He looked at her. She had set aside the clothes that he didn’t need right now.
“I’m sorry about John. He was a nice man.”
He assessed her body language, her voice, the way she moved, looking for hints of deception, of her true feelings, of the indifference and coldness that was her signature.
It wasn’t there.
She was sincere. He looked away. He didn’t want sincerity. He wanted Moriarty at his mercy.
“Remember to eat sometime tonight. Inspector Lestrade is planning on stopping by after work to go over that footage with you.” She turned away, the phone coming out again. “Mycroft won’t be home until late.”
Sherlock ignored her, focusing on the laptop.
He heard her leave, deleted it from his mind and focused on the footage. There was hours of footage to go through and every second was important. Every second could reveal something, a tell tale sign of what had happened.
But there was nothing apparent until the moment that the man walked up to the door, knocked and sprayed John in the face as he opened the door. Three more rushed from the car and into the house and then the door was slammed shut.
They were inside for half an hour before leaving. One was being supported between two others, his leg dragging and his head rolling. Sherlock felt vaguely smug at the knowledge that John had managed to inflict serious damage, to the man who had opened the door from the build of him.
He re watched the sequence fourteen times, picking up every detail he could. One peeling away at the end, probably to set up a sniper post or to confirm in some way. Two helping the later, one driving, the other two in the back.
John was taken by surprise. The spray was probably mace or the like, to disorient him, make him easier to subdue, but John was practiced with desert fighting, wouldn’t have gone down easily.
The time stamp was confusing though. There was nearly half an hour between them leaving and the first phone call. Why did Moriarty wait twenty eight minutes? Was if because John wasn’t in a fit state to respond? Did they need that time to rouse him? Then why the half hour in the flat? Was it to deal with Mrs Hudson? Though an elderly lady was hardly would slow them down.
Was it the difficulty setting up a sniper? That made sense. Or, more likely, it was in fact waiting for John to rouse. If they had been forced to knock him out to get him into the vest and restrained, then he may have taken some time to rouse be able to read text off a screen.
In fact, given what they did to his face, it would have taken quite a while.
Which still didn’t help him.
The door unlocked and creaked open slowly.
“Go away, Lestrade, I’m busy.”
The man in question appeared in the doorway. “It’s two in the morning, Sherlock. You haven’t slept since you started the last case. You need some sleep.”
“Nonsense.” He started the footage on take fifteen.
“Sherlock, you’re not going to be any help if you don’t rest.” Lestrade sat down next to Sherlock. “Fuck. You look awful, Sherlock. When did you last eat?”
He shrugged. He had deleted that, it didn’t matter.
“What about drink?”
“Cup of tea, thanks,” he murmured. The man was not big, but clearly well built. Ex-athlete.
“That wasn’t- oh, fine.” He got up and trudged to the kitchen. “Where’s your brother?”
“Work. Ruining some economy or other, setting up a banana republic, who cares?” He certainly didn’t. He wasn’t helping catch Moriarty, so he was pointless right now.
“Sherlock, stop demonising your brother. He’s trying to help. We all are.”
“Trying is certainly the word for it! You’re all useless. Not one of you has come up with anything useful yet.”
“So enlighten me.” Lestrade came back with a cup of tea for Sherlock and coffee for himself. Sherlock dimly noticed that he looked fairly terrible. “What have you found?”
“There were four attackers. Mrs Hudson wasn’t home at the time, she returned six hours later, completely unaware of the bomb in the basement. She wouldn’t have thought twice about neither of us being home, it was fairly normal.
“John disabled at least one, he’s carried out by his friends. They spent thirty one minutes in the flat and a further twenty eight minutes doing something else before the call was made. Given John was maced or the like, potentially they had to wait until his sight was clear enough to read the screen.”
“Okay.” Lestrade drank his coffee. “And how does that help us?”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment.
He grabbed the cup and hurled it into the wall. “It doesn’t! There isn’t a single damn lead on where he’s crawled off to!”
Lestrade didn’t even flinch, just looked up with a level, accusing gaze. “How much have you had?”
Sherlock didn’t bother to reply. They both knew what Lestrade was talking about. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting Moriarty and using his skull as an urn for John’s ashes.
“How much?”
“What does it bloody matter?!” He flung himself out of the chair. “It doesn’t, it’s irrelevant, all that matters is finding that bastard and making him pay!”
“Christ, Sherlock, he’s been gone two days you’re already back on the coke?!” Lestrade was on his feet immediately. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong with me, Lestrade, I just needed to think for a while without the insipid waste of the police and my brother being dead weights around me!” He grabbed a paperweight, hurling it at Lestrade, who ducked with admirable speed. “Just go away and let me think!” Mycroft’s civil service award went next, until Lestrade backed into a room and shut himself in to avoid Sherlock’s anger.
Sherlock flung himself onto the couch, glaring reproachfully at the laptop. Eventually, he settled on his back on the couch, feet on the arm and plucking discordantly at his violin.
He plucked and he thought and he tried to pull together all the notes and threads but nothing happened.
He turned to ask John to get him a cup of tea and he remembered.
And then even the violin felt like too much effort.
*~*~*
The next day dragged by. A second hit kept him functioning and kept Lestrade furious but the Inspector still came with him when he went out walking, examining Baker Street.
He wanted to find the sniper’s nest, a place where the lower windows would be visible. He should have checked it sooner; he blamed Lestrade and Mycroft for addling him over those first crucial twenty four hours when it should have been patently obvious.
Without the window, it was hard to line up, but with Lestrade’s help, he managed to work out a playing field. They walked the streets in silence, checking each building until Sherlock spotted the tell tale markings of a fire escape having been used after the blast. Scrapings in the soot and ash, lighter sprinklings over it.
They climbed up to the roof and found why nothing had been spotted from the air.
A small camouflage shelter had been set up, perfectly matching the roof it sat it. Sherlock had to admire the precision in the deception, such perfect mimicry.
He climbed inside.
There was a package, addressed to him by name. He took it and stepped back while Lestrade called for forensics to get up there and comb the place for anything that might lead them back to Moriarty.
Sherlock crouched down and pulled out his pocketknife, sliding it along the edge and emptying the contents out.
A vial of water filled with pollutants and soils. A matchbox car. Five playing cards. And a photo, big and glossy and horrifically in his face.
John, side of his face bloodied, eyes red and swollen and strapped in the bomb vest. The flash of the camera clearly had him blinded, he flinched away from it.
Sherlock looked over the items. What was the message? What was Moriarty taunting him with this time?
He looked over the car, nothing interesting at first until he peered closer. Someone had meticulously crafted a tiny driver in the front seat.
He put it aside and looked at the water. Brownish, chemical pollution maybe. A sniff of it told him it was a major industrial flow.
“The Thames.”
“What?” Lestrade looked back at him. “What are you talking about?”
“This water is from the Thames.” The high was fading and he was feeling sick and weak. “What does it mean, Sherlock, a car, a photo and the Thames...”
“And the dead man’s hand.”
Sherlock looked up. “The what?”
“Dead man’s hand. Black aces and eights, the hand Wild Bill Hicock allegedly held when he died.”
The last card got Sherlock’s curiousity. He picked it up slowly, turning it over.
The Jack of Hearts, with a heart burned through it.
“There’s evidence in the Thames. He’s left us a lead and it’s a car in the Thames,” Sherlock breathed out.
Lestrade was on the phone instantly, organising teams to scout along the Thames. Sherlock moved away from him, holding the Jack of Hearts still and the photo of John.
Then he pulled his phone out and made the call.
“Yes, Sherlock.”
“I need a favour, Mycroft. I need to know what cars were dumped in the Thames since the explosion.”
He hung up, knowing the information would be sent through as seen as it was found. He shoved his phone in his pocket again, his hand brushing over the heavy weight of John’s sig.
“Sherlock?”
“Mycroft will notify us when the site has been located. Have the winch team ready for extraction.” He looked at the photo again, his mind niggling and telling him something was wrong.
Everything was wrong. John was dead. Mrs Hudson was dead. Moriarty was ahead in their game.
The address came in. It felt like it had taken moment and a life time at once. It was probably about seven minutes.
Sherlock grabbed Lestrade. “The game is back on, Lestrade, the game is back on. We have a location!”
Lestrade grabbed his radio, looking at the phone to read off the location while they scrambled back down to street level and towards a squad car.
Squad cars were faster, sirens got them running red lights and he knew the short cuts. Lestrade was willing to listen to his instructions as he directed them, bouncing in the seat and running off adrenaline.
He was out of the car before it had even full stopped, racing to the river’s edge and watching eagerly as everything was set up. The divers were arriving to locate the car underwater, the crane was being parked and braced.
A diver surfaced and swam to the shore, talking to Lestrade, who paled and looked at him.
He wasn’t surprised to see Lestrade come over to him immediately afterwards.
“I’m not leaving.”
“I think you should,” he said softly.
“I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing more he can do to me.” He looked where the diver was signalling all clear and the crane operator was looking to Lestrade.
“I... wouldn’t count on that. Please, Sherlock. Trust me.” Lestrade looked awful, he noted, even worse when he was pallid and pleading softly.
“Pull up the car,” Sherlock said with a cold voice.
Lestrade closed his eyes and signalled for the car to be raised. “This wasn’t your fault, Sherlock.”
“Of course not,” he stated, watching as the car was slowly winched out, the doors open to drain the water.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Lestrade murmured, as the front came clear and Sherlock could see the slumped body in the front seat.
“It wasn’t your fault,” echoing in his ears as his addled mind took in the details, the dark blonde hair, the ugly cable knit jumper, as he took off running towards the car, leaping over the tape and up to the car door as it was being moved to the pavement.
He was pale, his skin pruned from the water and sickly, pallid pale. His lips were blue tinged and his eyelids looked bruised and water trickled from his mouth.
“No,” Sherlock heard someone whisper.
The car hit the ground and he sank to his knees all over again, hands gripping to the sodden wool of John’s jumper, where his hands were tightly bound behind his back.
There was an agonised sound too close to him, a sound he distantly categorised as emotional grief and total loss. His head dropped down to press to John’s arm, cold and wet and stinking of the Thames and death and he felt scalding heat on his face as his control cracked as he started to cry.
A bag went unnoticed pinned to the steering wheel. Inside of a photo of the two of them, walking down the street, smiling at each other.
The heart was burned out of both of them.
End Two Complete.
But maybe it could have gone another way...
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Lestrade, Molly
Rating: 15+
Summary: Moriarty has made a decisive move in their game. Now Sherlock must decide what to do with the hand left to him.
Sequel to Rewriting the Game
Warnings: Angst. Drug use. Character death.
“Sherlock... I made you a promise at the pool. Remember? I said I was going to burn your heart out. And I am. This is the kicker, you’ll like this twist. I’m going to give you exactly sixty seconds, exactly, during which time John can say anything he wants to.
“Then, I’m going to blow him up anyway.”
“NO!” Sherlock was on his feet, hand slamming the desk. “No, that’s not how the game works, Moriarty, I solve the puzzle and you give him back to me in one piece!”
“Sherlock,” John said quietly.
“No!”
“Sherlock, be quiet,” John said, his voice shaking. “I’ve only got fifty one seconds. Less. I’m not spending them with you hurling abuse at him.”
“Tell me where you are. Tell me, we’ll...”
“Sherlock. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to, catching.... catching Harry. If she hit that girl, she needs to face the law. I don’t blame you.”
“John.” He held the phone, cradling it to his ear.
“This isn’t your fault either. Him being too gutless to finish me off himself, refusing to set me free, it’s not your fault. Promise me you’ll get him, Sherlock. Don’t let him keep killing.” His voice cracked with a sob. “No one else can. Get him for me.”
“No, no, John, I can’t... I can’t do this. This is.. I care.” The words were barely a whisper. “I care.”
“That’s why you’ll get him...” Breath. “I care too, Sherlock.”
There was a crack and the line went dead.
“John?!” He knew he wasn’t there and he couldn’t stop himself. “John?!”
The whole incidents’ room was silent, watching as Sherlock clung to the phone and kept whispering John’s name over and over.
Phones started ringing. Donovan was shaken to action, grabbing one and listening to the other end before hanging up. “Sir...?”
Lestrade blinked and looked up at her.
“An explosion has been reported... under 221b Baker street.”
Horrific understanding trickled into Sherlock’s mind. John had been in the basement apartment, 221c. He’d been right there the entire time, at home and now it was all gone.
Photos. Clothes. Papers. Laptops. Everything John owned was in that apartment and Moriarty had taken even the memories of him in that one action.
Home is where the heart is.
Sherlock stared at the phone in his hands, then started as it began to ring again. His lips twisted and he angrily pulled out the battery, shoving it in one pocket, the phone in the other and took off without a word for the door.
“Sherlock! Sherlock, wait!” Lestrade called after him, but Sherlock didn’t even pause, forcing Lestrade to run to catch up with him. “Sherlock! Where are you going?”
It was patently obvious where Sherlock was going. He didn’t dignify the man with a response, just swept out towards the street, gaze flicking up to where he could see smoke billowing up into the sky from the explosion.
“You can’t go,” Lestrade said and he grabbed Sherlock’s elbow.
Sherlock drove the elbow back to dislodge Lestrade’s grip, spinning sharply on his heel to drive his other elbow into the DI’s shoulder to send him off balance. He smacked both hands sharply over his ears to stun him and then used a double handed shove to send him to the pavement.
Then he was off, hailing down a taxi before anyone could get out and stop him for having just assaulted a police officer.
Lestrade should have known better than to try and stop him.
It was his own damn fault, really, Sherlock thought coldly as the taxi sped towards Baker Street.
Ambulances sped past them, squad cars racing to reach the scene, to close it off before journalists got them and got into it. Sherlock could vividly picture it; closing his eyes, all he saw was the way that a suicide bomber was torn apart and how sickeningly unfair it was that John had survived that in Afghanistan only to be put in a vest himself.
I care too, Sherlock.
The taxi came to an idle, but there was no traffic lights before their next turn.
“I think they’re here for you, sir,” the cabbie called back.
Sherlock looked up.
A black car was parked in front of them, filling the road. One had pulled up behind them.
“Yes. Yes, they are. A lady will sort out the cost and a fee for the inconvenience.” He opened the door and stepped out, standing there as the door on the front car opened and Lenore stepped out, followed by the man himself.
“Mycroft.”
“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s expression was somber, an excellent impression of empathy and condolence. “Sherlock, I’m sorry-”
“For what? That you didn’t have surveillance on him? That another part of your city was blown up and you can’t find him? What are you sorry for, exactly?” A cold wind hit them, whipping Sherlock’s coat to the side, still open, his hands in his pants pockets. “Because I know you’re not sorry about the good Doctor. You don’t care about people.”
I care too, Sherlock.
He closed his eyes, trying to block the echo of those last words.
“Sherlock.”
He growled slightly at his brother’s interruption.
“I am sorry about John. He made you... he was your friend and he looked after you. I appreciated those things. He was good for you.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet? Now you’ve held me up long enough for the police to make a mess of the scene, I really need to get going.” He turned around.
“You’re not going to Baker Street, Sherlock.” Mycroft’s footsteps came closer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back there before the coroner’s team have been through.”
“You mean before they finish gathering up whatever splatters of gore and flesh remain of the body.”
“Yes.” Mycroft didn’t touch him. Mycroft knew better. “You don’t need to go and see that.”
“I’m an adult, Mycroft, I’ll decide what I do and do not need,” he snapped.
“I see,” his brother said softly.
Sherlock spun on his heel, ready to defend himself, but it was already too late. The taser hit him in the arm and after a moment of pain, the world went black.
*~*~*
He was lying on a bed that smelt familiar and warm. A warm hand brushed his hair back from his brow.
He felt sick, but safe. The hand stroked down his cheek and then went back up to petting his hair. “You’ll be okay. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me, hm? I don’t just say these things to listen to myself talk, you know, Sherlock.”
He moaned an agreement. He’d agree to a lot right now if he could just stay here, warm and safe.
“Sherlock.”
“Sherlock.”
His eyes flew open.
Mycroft was sitting next to him, hands laced and leaning forwards. “You’ve been out for twelve hours. I would have preferred not to have to sedate you, but I was not going to let you go and be exposed to the bloodshed of your best friend’s body.”
Sherlock sat up, ignoring his brother and looking around instead. Curtains closed, but night sky visible. Familiar room. He was at Mycroft’s town house.
“You can leave now, if you want, but I would ask you to reconsider.”
Sherlock grabbed his coat from the door and pulled it on, flinging open the door and stalking out, back towards the streets.
Mycroft had cost him valuable time. And the damn drugs were making him drowsy, despite the cold night air.
He hailed down a taxi and told it to go to Baker Street.
He had to see. He had to taste the smoke and smell the explosives and feel the rubble under his fingers.
He had to feel John’s death so he’d stop turning to speak to him and instead enact vengeance for him. Like he asked.
Even now, twelve hours on, smoke tainted the air, the chemicals of the explosion heavy on his tongue as he paid for the ride and walked slowly towards the police tape.
Officers kept the perimeter. Flood lights lit up the remains of the building, collapsed in and down. Debris of their lives was strewn across the street and fluttered in the wind; Sherlock caught a piece of paper with one hand and read it.
‘Eggs, bread, jam, butter, nicotine patches.’
A shopping list. His fingers lingered on the scrawled writing before he made himself let go. It was just paper. Just waste.
“Holmes?!”
He looked up as Donovan hurried over, still wearing one of those ridiculous looking forensics suits. “Don’t look so shocked, I live here.”
“You shouldn’t be here. Go back to your brother’s,” she said firmly.
“Where’s Lestrade?” He pushed past her and ducked under the police tape.
“Someone assaulted him and left him in medical treatment, he’s not back on until tomorrow morning, you arrogant son of a bitch,” she growled.
Sherlock kept walking. He could see blast patterns, the pavement torn up and the bricks ripped outwards. And blood, blackened with the heat, sprayed and splattered across the area, dark pools were pieces had been removed and sent to the morgue.
“Intact hand, sir!”
His head snapped up and he strode to the edge of the pit they were working in, looking over the edge as Anderson picked his way to the junior officer.
“Get out from in front of the... Holmes? Is that you?”
“Who else would I be?” He pushed his hands in his pockets. “What body piece is it? Left or right?”
“You shouldn’t be here, Holmes, go-”
The word ‘home’ died between them. Sherlock gave Anderson a nasty smirk. “Well, I rather have come home, haven’t I?”
“You can’t be here.”
“Of course I can. This game is for me, Anderson, it’s about me, how can I hope to stop him if I don’t examine the scene?” He skidded down the rubble. “Now, where’s that hand?”
“No. Holmes, no.” Anderson stepped in his way. “You can’t be here and you’ll compromise the case-”
“Oh be quiet you tedious little man,” Sherlock said, pushing him aside and striding past, pausing as the hand came into view.
He had really expected it to be broad, tanned, with blunt nails and little scars under blood and soot and burning. Not thin and wrinkled, not pale and elderly.
Not Mrs Hudson’s.
He blanched and turned away, hand going to a wall to hold himself steady, breathing through his nose.
“Christ’s sake, Holmes, go back to your brother’s,” Anderson sighed. “Sally can drop you over there.”
“No!” He straightened up, pushing away the shock and grief. “I think not. It’ll take more than just a hand to stop me doing my work. I see dead hands all the time, this is not different.”
“She was your land lady.”
“And he was my flat mate, and you’re the thorn in my foot, hobbling me doing my work, do you have a point?”
“Don’t make me have you arrested, Holmes. I can and will.” Anderson held his ground. Sherlock would’ve been impressed if not for the fact that currently, he was just being a pain in his neck.
“Go on then. Arrest me. See how far you get in stopping Moriarty without me.”
Anderson hesitated.
And then nodded. “Officers. Arrest this man.”
Sherlock felt somewhat smug as they dragged him off to the police car. Irrationally, upsettingly smug.
*~*~*
Lestrade fetched him from lock up the next morning and took him down to the bomb site again. They were obviously confident they had removed all the bits of bodies lying about the place if he was being allowed down here and he almost wanted to prove them wrong, to dig up something unexpected.
He was given the run down. They’d identified Iris Hudson from the hand and were running tests on everything else, to sort out what was her and what was John.
The bomb was the same as the others, semtex, vest, detonated on the body. Official identification could take up to a week, and that was the lab dedicating time and work to it as a priority.
Mycroft tried calling him twice in the car down, but he just hung up on him until he was standing in the ruins of his home and honestly couldn’t see a thing of any use, just broken memories.
“What?”
“I wanted to find out how you are. I’m worried about you.”
“Go to hell, Mycroft. I don’t need babysitting.”
“Isn’t that what John did for you?”
He hung up on him again and dug out a glint of metal from a pile of bricks.
John’s strong box. Sherlock knew from snooping that it had his army medals in it, a few photos. A painful surge rose through his chest, like nausea, like he wanted to scream and cry and laugh hysterically at once.
He pushed it down and set the box to the side. That was his now.
More investigation gave him nothing about how it was done, no decent leads.
It did yield a few more intact objects. His violin, the case battered but the instrument no worse for wear. He found John’s gun, slipping it into the pocket with John’s phone. Both their laptops, neither working but the hard drives were potentially salvageable. A photo of Mrs Hudson and John at New Year’s, both rosy cheeked and blacked with soot.
Lestrade helped him while co ordinating the evidence collection. His gathering was less practical for leads, things like surviving clothes and books that were more intact than not. A lot more of John’s belonging had survived than Sherlock had feared, because of the location of his bedroom no doubt, on the top floor.
The urge came back, the feeling of sickness and tight, choking pressure when Lestrade came over with John’s striped jumper. Sherlock had almost ripped it from his grip, wanting to cling to it in a most unhelpful and pointlessly demonstrative way.
He used offered evidence bags to gather the items up. Technically it was all evidence, but Sherlock had no compunction about stealing evidence for his own needs and wants, so a few of the bags were added to the back of the taxi he took off in, speeding back to Mycroft’s apartment.
He had ignored fourteen phone calls from his brother in that time.
Mycroft was at work, so Sherlock let himself in and made his way to the spare room he had been in the night before. In there, he set out his stolen bounty which wasn’t really stolen because Lestrade knew he had it.
He needed to change. His clothes smelt awful and he needed a shower and a wake up. He stole a pair of his brother’s pants and a shirt, which would be too big, but at least they were clean and didn’t smell like the blast site and had a shower that lasted far longer than he meant for it to.
When he got out and dressed, he had curled up on the bed for a while, staring at the small collection objects that marked the life of John Watson.
He wasn’t able to focus. He was distracted and kept coming back to those awful emotional things that wanted to happen. So when Mycroft called again, Sherlock actually answered it for distraction. “What?”
“I have the CCTV footage for you. Of outside Baker Street.”
It was Mycroft’s apology. “I need a computer. Mine isn’t working.”
“I’ll have one delivered with the discs. Lenore will bring it around, along with some new clothes. Mine simply aren’t flattering on you.”
Sherlock hung up and grabbed his coat and wallet. He needed fresh air.
He needed to be able to think.
And he knew just how to do.
John would be so disappointed.
John was exploded bits of splatter and gore, he pointed out to himself angrily, so he didn’t get to have an opinion anymore.
*~*~*
By the time Lenore arrived with the computer and discs, Sherlock was feeling decidedly brighter, his mind snapping and cracking and alive. He grabbed the machine, starting it up before he even had it on the table and sorting through the discs to find the ones he wanted.
“Sherlock?”
He looked at her. She had set aside the clothes that he didn’t need right now.
“I’m sorry about John. He was a nice man.”
He assessed her body language, her voice, the way she moved, looking for hints of deception, of her true feelings, of the indifference and coldness that was her signature.
It wasn’t there.
She was sincere. He looked away. He didn’t want sincerity. He wanted Moriarty at his mercy.
“Remember to eat sometime tonight. Inspector Lestrade is planning on stopping by after work to go over that footage with you.” She turned away, the phone coming out again. “Mycroft won’t be home until late.”
Sherlock ignored her, focusing on the laptop.
He heard her leave, deleted it from his mind and focused on the footage. There was hours of footage to go through and every second was important. Every second could reveal something, a tell tale sign of what had happened.
But there was nothing apparent until the moment that the man walked up to the door, knocked and sprayed John in the face as he opened the door. Three more rushed from the car and into the house and then the door was slammed shut.
They were inside for half an hour before leaving. One was being supported between two others, his leg dragging and his head rolling. Sherlock felt vaguely smug at the knowledge that John had managed to inflict serious damage, to the man who had opened the door from the build of him.
He re watched the sequence fourteen times, picking up every detail he could. One peeling away at the end, probably to set up a sniper post or to confirm in some way. Two helping the later, one driving, the other two in the back.
John was taken by surprise. The spray was probably mace or the like, to disorient him, make him easier to subdue, but John was practiced with desert fighting, wouldn’t have gone down easily.
The time stamp was confusing though. There was nearly half an hour between them leaving and the first phone call. Why did Moriarty wait twenty eight minutes? Was if because John wasn’t in a fit state to respond? Did they need that time to rouse him? Then why the half hour in the flat? Was it to deal with Mrs Hudson? Though an elderly lady was hardly would slow them down.
Was it the difficulty setting up a sniper? That made sense. Or, more likely, it was in fact waiting for John to rouse. If they had been forced to knock him out to get him into the vest and restrained, then he may have taken some time to rouse be able to read text off a screen.
In fact, given what they did to his face, it would have taken quite a while.
Which still didn’t help him.
The door unlocked and creaked open slowly.
“Go away, Lestrade, I’m busy.”
The man in question appeared in the doorway. “It’s two in the morning, Sherlock. You haven’t slept since you started the last case. You need some sleep.”
“Nonsense.” He started the footage on take fifteen.
“Sherlock, you’re not going to be any help if you don’t rest.” Lestrade sat down next to Sherlock. “Fuck. You look awful, Sherlock. When did you last eat?”
He shrugged. He had deleted that, it didn’t matter.
“What about drink?”
“Cup of tea, thanks,” he murmured. The man was not big, but clearly well built. Ex-athlete.
“That wasn’t- oh, fine.” He got up and trudged to the kitchen. “Where’s your brother?”
“Work. Ruining some economy or other, setting up a banana republic, who cares?” He certainly didn’t. He wasn’t helping catch Moriarty, so he was pointless right now.
“Sherlock, stop demonising your brother. He’s trying to help. We all are.”
“Trying is certainly the word for it! You’re all useless. Not one of you has come up with anything useful yet.”
“So enlighten me.” Lestrade came back with a cup of tea for Sherlock and coffee for himself. Sherlock dimly noticed that he looked fairly terrible. “What have you found?”
“There were four attackers. Mrs Hudson wasn’t home at the time, she returned six hours later, completely unaware of the bomb in the basement. She wouldn’t have thought twice about neither of us being home, it was fairly normal.
“John disabled at least one, he’s carried out by his friends. They spent thirty one minutes in the flat and a further twenty eight minutes doing something else before the call was made. Given John was maced or the like, potentially they had to wait until his sight was clear enough to read the screen.”
“Okay.” Lestrade drank his coffee. “And how does that help us?”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment.
He grabbed the cup and hurled it into the wall. “It doesn’t! There isn’t a single damn lead on where he’s crawled off to!”
Lestrade didn’t even flinch, just looked up with a level, accusing gaze. “How much have you had?”
Sherlock didn’t bother to reply. They both knew what Lestrade was talking about. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting Moriarty and using his skull as an urn for John’s ashes.
“How much?”
“What does it bloody matter?!” He flung himself out of the chair. “It doesn’t, it’s irrelevant, all that matters is finding that bastard and making him pay!”
“Christ, Sherlock, he’s been gone two days you’re already back on the coke?!” Lestrade was on his feet immediately. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong with me, Lestrade, I just needed to think for a while without the insipid waste of the police and my brother being dead weights around me!” He grabbed a paperweight, hurling it at Lestrade, who ducked with admirable speed. “Just go away and let me think!” Mycroft’s civil service award went next, until Lestrade backed into a room and shut himself in to avoid Sherlock’s anger.
Sherlock flung himself onto the couch, glaring reproachfully at the laptop. Eventually, he settled on his back on the couch, feet on the arm and plucking discordantly at his violin.
He plucked and he thought and he tried to pull together all the notes and threads but nothing happened.
He turned to ask John to get him a cup of tea and he remembered.
And then even the violin felt like too much effort.
*~*~*
The next day dragged by. A second hit kept him functioning and kept Lestrade furious but the Inspector still came with him when he went out walking, examining Baker Street.
He wanted to find the sniper’s nest, a place where the lower windows would be visible. He should have checked it sooner; he blamed Lestrade and Mycroft for addling him over those first crucial twenty four hours when it should have been patently obvious.
Without the window, it was hard to line up, but with Lestrade’s help, he managed to work out a playing field. They walked the streets in silence, checking each building until Sherlock spotted the tell tale markings of a fire escape having been used after the blast. Scrapings in the soot and ash, lighter sprinklings over it.
They climbed up to the roof and found why nothing had been spotted from the air.
A small camouflage shelter had been set up, perfectly matching the roof it sat it. Sherlock had to admire the precision in the deception, such perfect mimicry.
He climbed inside.
There was a package, addressed to him by name. He took it and stepped back while Lestrade called for forensics to get up there and comb the place for anything that might lead them back to Moriarty.
Sherlock crouched down and pulled out his pocketknife, sliding it along the edge and emptying the contents out.
A vial of water filled with pollutants and soils. A matchbox car. Five playing cards. And a photo, big and glossy and horrifically in his face.
John, side of his face bloodied, eyes red and swollen and strapped in the bomb vest. The flash of the camera clearly had him blinded, he flinched away from it.
Sherlock looked over the items. What was the message? What was Moriarty taunting him with this time?
He looked over the car, nothing interesting at first until he peered closer. Someone had meticulously crafted a tiny driver in the front seat.
He put it aside and looked at the water. Brownish, chemical pollution maybe. A sniff of it told him it was a major industrial flow.
“The Thames.”
“What?” Lestrade looked back at him. “What are you talking about?”
“This water is from the Thames.” The high was fading and he was feeling sick and weak. “What does it mean, Sherlock, a car, a photo and the Thames...”
“And the dead man’s hand.”
Sherlock looked up. “The what?”
“Dead man’s hand. Black aces and eights, the hand Wild Bill Hicock allegedly held when he died.”
The last card got Sherlock’s curiousity. He picked it up slowly, turning it over.
The Jack of Hearts, with a heart burned through it.
“There’s evidence in the Thames. He’s left us a lead and it’s a car in the Thames,” Sherlock breathed out.
Lestrade was on the phone instantly, organising teams to scout along the Thames. Sherlock moved away from him, holding the Jack of Hearts still and the photo of John.
Then he pulled his phone out and made the call.
“Yes, Sherlock.”
“I need a favour, Mycroft. I need to know what cars were dumped in the Thames since the explosion.”
He hung up, knowing the information would be sent through as seen as it was found. He shoved his phone in his pocket again, his hand brushing over the heavy weight of John’s sig.
“Sherlock?”
“Mycroft will notify us when the site has been located. Have the winch team ready for extraction.” He looked at the photo again, his mind niggling and telling him something was wrong.
Everything was wrong. John was dead. Mrs Hudson was dead. Moriarty was ahead in their game.
The address came in. It felt like it had taken moment and a life time at once. It was probably about seven minutes.
Sherlock grabbed Lestrade. “The game is back on, Lestrade, the game is back on. We have a location!”
Lestrade grabbed his radio, looking at the phone to read off the location while they scrambled back down to street level and towards a squad car.
Squad cars were faster, sirens got them running red lights and he knew the short cuts. Lestrade was willing to listen to his instructions as he directed them, bouncing in the seat and running off adrenaline.
He was out of the car before it had even full stopped, racing to the river’s edge and watching eagerly as everything was set up. The divers were arriving to locate the car underwater, the crane was being parked and braced.
A diver surfaced and swam to the shore, talking to Lestrade, who paled and looked at him.
He wasn’t surprised to see Lestrade come over to him immediately afterwards.
“I’m not leaving.”
“I think you should,” he said softly.
“I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing more he can do to me.” He looked where the diver was signalling all clear and the crane operator was looking to Lestrade.
“I... wouldn’t count on that. Please, Sherlock. Trust me.” Lestrade looked awful, he noted, even worse when he was pallid and pleading softly.
“Pull up the car,” Sherlock said with a cold voice.
Lestrade closed his eyes and signalled for the car to be raised. “This wasn’t your fault, Sherlock.”
“Of course not,” he stated, watching as the car was slowly winched out, the doors open to drain the water.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Lestrade murmured, as the front came clear and Sherlock could see the slumped body in the front seat.
“It wasn’t your fault,” echoing in his ears as his addled mind took in the details, the dark blonde hair, the ugly cable knit jumper, as he took off running towards the car, leaping over the tape and up to the car door as it was being moved to the pavement.
He was pale, his skin pruned from the water and sickly, pallid pale. His lips were blue tinged and his eyelids looked bruised and water trickled from his mouth.
“No,” Sherlock heard someone whisper.
The car hit the ground and he sank to his knees all over again, hands gripping to the sodden wool of John’s jumper, where his hands were tightly bound behind his back.
There was an agonised sound too close to him, a sound he distantly categorised as emotional grief and total loss. His head dropped down to press to John’s arm, cold and wet and stinking of the Thames and death and he felt scalding heat on his face as his control cracked as he started to cry.
A bag went unnoticed pinned to the steering wheel. Inside of a photo of the two of them, walking down the street, smiling at each other.
The heart was burned out of both of them.
End Two Complete.
But maybe it could have gone another way...