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He had to admit that none of his other ideas had worked. This hell he was caught up in, of trying to make changes to get out of this cycle of repeating his life and then napping at one point and waking back up in the flat with the limp and the cane...it was beginning to get irritating. He had to try and pinpoint something that would make a big change, keep everything that went wrong from going wrong yet again, or really, all the things he’d tried so far…
Bloody hell, this was giving him a headache.
But the more he thought about it, he realized it was all Eurus’s fault, and that should be where the change was made. No flirting with the pretty lady on the bus, no. This time, get her to admit who she was and what she was doing and maybe get her into custody before that day.
A simple plan, or rather a simple idea, but those were usually the ones that worked best, right? Simple ideas were hard to muck up. Simple plans were easily put into action, executed and finished. So the simpler it was, the better the chance it would be to succeed, right?
Oh, if he had known how very wrong he was to be, he would have just gotten her number and told his wife and let her handle the pretty little nightmare from hell in high heels. Mary probably could have done a simpler job.
He’d told Sherlock he’d gotten a case: follow the pretty young woman and confront her about the things she was planning to do to...a friend. Which was true, he supposed. She had been planning on torturing both of them and Mycroft as well, though he didn’t really consider Mycroft a friend. And Sherlock agreed, but not without some skepticism. And Sherlock joined him on the bus that day.
That was the first mistake, the gravest. She didn’t flirt but she kept staring, and it rather annoyed Sherlock. He’d been in a piss-poor mood that morning, and he was admitting that there may have been more to his and Molly’s relationship than most thought when he finally noticing Eurus looking for the umpteenth time. “What is it?” he asked flatly.
“Just studying you,” she replied. “I’m an artist.”
“Well, don’t. I’m having a conversation with a friend and your leering is unnerving me.” He turned back to John and she fumed for a moment before John motioned to Sherlock. “What?”
“That’s your sister!” John hissed.
Sherlock blinked and he saw he had said it too loud. She’d heard. Her face paled for just a moment, but before Sherlock could scoff or say anything at all she was up, ballpoint pen in hand…
...then ballpoint pen in Sherlock’s neck.
Moments later she was almost tackled to the floor of the bus by concerned citizens, but she managed to get around them and get lost in the crowd. John was too busy trying to save Sherlock’s life, though, to notice she was gone. It took time for an ambulance to get to them but they managed to keep the pen in place, keep the pressure on the wound, and by the time John got to the hospital and sat in the chair next to Sherlock he felt the urge to doze. If he woke up in the past again, he thought to himself as his eyes fluttered closed, he’d have to remember confronting Eurus head-on at this stage could have near deadly effects...