Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ten seconds.

Ten seconds from the time John realises he’s lost track of the gun, the shot is fired.

The room goes quiet. The horrible laughter stops.

Sherlock’s eyes close.

The nightmare continues.

*-*

And when you think about it, John will later muse, the week started so well.

His first night shift at the new job was exhausting, but stimulating in the way that only a challenge you meet and master can be.

Sherlock picks him up for breakfast. They have a lovely meal, a wonderful stroll, and mind blowing sex, after which John drifts off, sated, warm, content.

He later pinpoints the moment he closed his eyes that day as the moment everything went radically to shit.

*-*

He wakes up at dusk to an empty flat, a note on his pillow, and no food in the fridge. He orders Chinese (enough so Sherlock will have something to eat when he comes home), watches telly, goes to bed. He doesn’t worry.

He doesn’t worry the next day, when he wakes and Sherlock hasn’t returned. He’s sure that Sherlock will stumble in any minute, ravenously hungry, overtired and overstimulated, and with a bit of an edge to burn off. John quite looks forward to it.

He does the hoovering and the dishes, runs some errands. Has some leftover Chinese. Reads the paper.

Around noon, he sends a quick text. All right?

He doesn’t really expect an answer. He doesn’t get one.

Teatime, he goes down for a chat with Mrs Hudson. He pays some bills, checks his email. Works on the new blog entry for a bit.

At six, he sends another text. When will you be home?

This time, he expects an answer. He doesn’t get one.

By the time he goes to bed, he’s a bit uneasy. He sends two more texts. When they go unanswered, he calls. Voicemail.

He goes to bed still a bit uneasy, but fully expecting that Sherlock will come in during the night, slide into bed and wrap himself around John.

He wakes up at five in the morning to an empty bed and no new texts.

Now he’s worried. It’s been nearly 48 hours, and he’s heard nothing from Sherlock.

John paces the sitting room, then sends another text. Sherlock, I’m getting worried. Please let me know you’re all right.

One text, Sherlock. Please.

He calls Sherlock’s mobile. Directly to voicemail.

He sends off another text. Greg, have you seen Sherlock by any chance?

It’s still too early to expect a response, but by now John is crawling out of his skin, so he takes a stroll through Regent’s Park.

He sits on their bridge and watches the swans, and tries not to panic.

He’s out on a case. Probably just got lost in his head.

But what if he isn’t? What if he’s in danger? What if he’s lying in the gutter, bleeding, unconscious, dead already?

He barely makes it home before the panic hits full force.

He finds himself on the bathroom floor, hands pressing into the cool tiles, trying to force air into his lungs.

Great. Can’t say I’ve missed this.

Five things. Come on.

When he’s calmed down, he forces himself to eat breakfast. Sends another ten texts to Sherlock’s phone.

Greg answers at some point. Haven’t seen him since that burglary case three weeks ago.

Another dead end.

Hours pass, while John paces the sitting room and thinks about what to do. He goes out and walks the streets until he’s tired himself out, watching the homeless he passes, wondering whether one of them knows Sherlock, can tell him where he is. He asks one or two, but they’re all hostile and uncooperative, which of course means nothing.

He’s this close to phoning Mycroft, but decides he’ll give it another twelve hours before calling in Big Brother. It’s an escalation he only wants to risk if he’s sure something’s wrong. He knows how much Sherlock resents Mycroft’s interference. And John himself would rather swallow a scorpion whole than speak to Mycroft right now. So. Not yet.

When he comes home, he hears a noise in the flat. He races upstairs, ready to rip Sherlock a new arsehole for scaring him and then kissing him until he’s breathless. He all but rips open the door to 221B only to find, not Sherlock, but Mycroft sitting in Sherlock’s chair, looking for all the world like he’s comfortably at home. And like nothing whatsoever has happened that would make him any less than perfectly welcome.

Never a scorpion around when you need one, John thinks with a self-ironic half-smile.

John hasn’t seen Mycroft since the day he had Sherlock throw him out of 221B. It takes all of his self-control not to take his anger and worry over Sherlock’s disappearance out on Mycroft, but John manages to restrain himself.

“I’d offer you tea, but then you might think I want you to stay,” he says as he sits in his chair, managing to keep his voice level, and relatively neutral.

“I won’t overtax my welcome,” Mycroft says cooly, his hands resting on his umbrella.

Too late.

“I wish to speak to my brother. I was unable to reach him by phone.”

“He’s not in,” John says, the obviously heavily implied in his tone. “You could have rung me before breaking into our flat, but I know these common courtesies are beneath you. Manners are for less busy men, I assume.”

Mycroft’s mouth does something complicated, and John bites down on a grin. Point for me.

“Where is my brother?” Mycroft asks when he regains control of his face.

John shrugs. Wish I fucking knew. “Out.”

“How informative.”

John shrugs again, but doesn’t answer. What’s there to say, anyway? Your brother is missing and I’m half out of my mind with worry, kindly fuck off?

Mycroft says nothing for a bit, just watches John in silence. John’s pretty sure it’s supposed to irritate him, and it’s working, too. John can feel his teeth grind as he watches Mycroft watch him, with his resting smug face.

“Well. This has been. Just lovely,” John finally says, getting up from his chair. “Don’t want to keep you.”

He goes into the kitchen and flicks the kettle on, trying not to think of the whisky bottle under the sink. Fuck, but he needs a drink right now. Which is exactly why he shouldn’t have one. Why he won’t, even though the sweet oblivion beckons strongly. But he can’t go down that rabbit hole, it never leads anywhere good.

“I know you worry about him.”

John grinds his teeth and counts to ten. “What of it?”

“I worry about him, too,” Mycroft says quietly, still sitting in Sherlock's chair.

“I know,” John admits grudgingly. He knows Mycroft does a lot of the harebrained things he does because he genuinely cares about Sherlock, and doesn’t know how else to express it.

“Is he investigating Charles Magnussen?”

John turns around to face Mycroft, confused. “Who?”

“He hasn’t told you?” Mycroft sounds… not as smug as John would have thought. He sounds a bit worried, actually.

Which freaks John the fuck out even more than he already is, honestly. “Who the fuck is Charles Magnussen?”

“A very dangerous man, and one Sherlock should stay well away from.” Mycroft pauses briefly, then he continues, quietly, “I know you and I have had our… differences of opinion… in the past. But I would appreciate it if, in this case, we work together. To keep Sherlock safe.”

“I’d never willingly endanger him,” John says hoarsely, looking straight at Mycroft. “Can you honestly say the same?”

You dangled him in front of Moriarty like a carrot, and fuck only knows what you let happen to him the two years he was away.

“I’ve been protecting him for as long as he’s been alive, Doctor,” Mycroft says sharply. “I’ve stood by him through everything, I’ve saved him so many times. The man you know now only exists because I saved him from himself.”

“Time to stop holding that over his head, don’t you think?”

Mycroft visibly bristles. “I’ve never done any such thing.”

“You still think you need to run his life,” John says, folding his arms in front of his chest. He’s done with this conversation. It doesn’t do anyone any good. “He’s a grown fucking adult who can make his own choices. And so am I, in fact.” He turns and goes back into the kitchen. “You can see yourself out.”

He goes into Sherlock’s—their—bedroom and closes the door, loudly. Just to be sure that Mycroft gets the picture.

Then he lets himself fall on the bed, an arm over his eyes, trying to get his emotions under some semblance of control.

Where are you? Where the fuck are you?

You can’t do this to me. Not again. You can’t run after dangerous people without me. Did everything you promised me mean nothing?

When Sherlock’s still not in at dinnertime, John phones Greg.

“He said he’s out on a case, you’re sure it’s nothing to do with the Yard?”

“I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with me,” Greg says, and John can hear that Greg’s worried, too. “I can ask around. Should I tell everyone to keep a look out?”

“Please.”

“Of course. I’ll phone you the second I hear something.”

“Thank you.”

It’s something. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Thirty minutes later, he gets a text. Good news, bad news. Good news, checked hospitals and morgues, nobody matching his description in either. Bad news, nobody’s seen him.

Thanks, Greg. Guess that’s a bit reassuring. Does the name Magnussen mean anything to you?

Officially, I only know he’s a media mogul, owns several news outlets. Unofficially, I’ve heard that he’s a crook more than once. Can’t prove anything. Nobody will talk. Is Sherlock after him?

The next words are hard to type. I don’t know.

Bit not good, mate.

John snorts and rolls his eyes. Oh, believe me, I’m well aware. He’s getting an earful. Need to find him first.

In case I find him before you do, I’ll kick his arse from here to next week.

John smiles grimly. No need. Leave his arse to me.

Gross.

Fuck off.

Will do. Pints next week?

’course.

By nine, John can’t take it anymore. He can’t sleep, he can’t think. He can’t concentrate. He shrugs into his jacket. Mrs Hudson’s door opens as he passes. She looks at him. He shakes his head. She presses her lips together, as torn between worry and anger as he is.

He nods at her, then walks out the door.

It’s cold, but anything is better than the empty, silent flat mocking him.

He doesn’t know why he ends up here. Maybe he’s a masochist. Maybe he wants to remind himself how much has changed.

As he stands on the pavement, looking up at that fucking rooftop, he thinks of the many, many, many, many nights he walked here, unable to sleep. Always drunk with grief, many times drunk with whisky, looking up as he does now, asking himself why why why.

You promised you wouldn’t do this to me again.

He takes a deep breath. He has to trust that something is going on that he doesn’t understand yet, but will. If he thinks that the last five months meant anything, he has to give Sherlock the benefit of the doubt.

Still. He has one more person to talk to.

He takes out his mobile. It rings twice.

“John?”

“Hey. Sorry for phoning so late.”

“It’s all right.” Molly doesn’t sound like he woke her, but she does sound worried. No wonder, the number of times he’s phoned since Sherlock returned can easily be counted on one hand. Of all their friends, she’s the one who most belongs to Sherlock. And he doesn’t think she’s exactly thrilled that he and Sherlock are now together.

“What’s up?” she asks, the worry in her voice increasing.

“Have you seen him? Has he been in touch?” John hopes his voice is steady, but he’s not sure. Half of him hopes that Sherlock’s been in touch, that Molly knows where he is, that she knows he’s fine. Half of him is almost blind with dread that, again, she was deemed worthy, while he was not.

“Who? Sherlock? No, I haven’t seen him since last Wednesday.” She sounds genuinely confused but, the thing is, she lied to his face for two years.

“Molly.” He takes a deep breath. Just because she lied then, doesn’t mean she’s lying now. “Please. If you’ve seen him or heard from him at all since Tuesday. Please tell me.”

There’s an audible pause and when Molly speaks, John can hear the tremor in her voice. “John. I swear. I haven’t seen him or heard from him since last Wednesday.” She pauses again. “I know you have no reason to believe me,” she continues, very quietly. “But it’s true.”

“Okay,” John says, breathing out, somewhere between relief and disappointment.

“John. He’s fine. He’s probably hot on some trail out there and has forgotten that time exists.” Molly’s tone is soothing and reassuring, but quite frankly, John doesn’t want to hear it.

“You mean he’s forgotten I exist.”

Molly snorts. “Right. Like he’d ever.”

There’s a trace of bitterness in her voice. If John were in a normal frame of mind, he’d try to reassure her. He knows Molly’s friendship is invaluable to Sherlock. But he’s not in the right frame of mind, and he’s this close to saying something he’ll regret.

“I need to go now. Please phone me if you hear from him.”

He hangs up before she has time to answer. The urge to verbally eviscerate her so he can release even a bit of his simmering anger is almost overwhelming. All the ugly thoughts he knows aren’t true are so strong now.

Two years he forgot I existed. Two years, not a word. Tossed me aside like a used rag, then was outraged when I wasn’t where he put me down.

It’s not true. He knows it’s not true. He has to believe it’s not true.

He walks until he can’t think anymore. Then he goes home and sleeps a few fitful, nightmare-plagued hours on the sofa.

The sun rises on day three without Sherlock. John watches the dust motes fly in the sunbeams of their sitting room. Is now the time to phone Mycroft? To swallow his pride and tell Mycroft to go looking for Sherlock?

The doorbell rings. Mrs Hudson answers.

A distraught woman, Mrs Turner’s niece. Something about her son, off his tits on drugs. She traced him to a drug den, but she doesn’t dare go in.

John opens the door to 221B.

It’s something to do. Something useful. And maybe he’ll even find someone to take out his anger on.

“I’ll get him. What’s the address?”

*-*

John slams the door to the sitting room, pacing, pacing, pacing.

He can’t remember the last time he was this angry.

Well.

He remembers.

But he doesn’t want to.

Short version. Not dead.

Lost track of time.

Fucking hell.

You trust me.

That absolute fucker.

The nearly debilitating worry is gone. Now all John feels is white-hot rage and the cool breeze of relief. He’s alive. He’s fine. Good. Now I can murder him with my bare hands.

Tea. He needs tea.

When he gets the cups out, he discovers his hands are shaking. He weighs one of their more ugly cups in his hands, then throws it against the opposite wall. Hard. It shatters into a million pieces. It’s oddly satisfying. He does it again. A third time. He feels a tiny bit better.

The front door opens. Sherlock comes in. Looks at him, at the floor, at John’s fingers, still clenched around another mug. He says nothing, just slinks in the direction of the bathroom.

John makes tea. Two mugs. Fixes Sherlock’s the way he likes it, puts it next to his chair. Then he sits in his chair, hands around the warm porcelain. Grounding. Breathing.

Sherlock comes out. He’s showered, shaved. His hair is damp. He’s dressed in a soft, grey cotton t-shirt and John's favourite dressing gown. It’s a very deliberate outfit. Look at how harmless I am. That’s how you like me best, don’t you. All domestic and soft.

John swallows. His eyes sting. He hopes it isn’t showing how glad he is, how relieved. Time for that later. Now there needs to be a reckoning. Forgiveness comes after accountability.

“Well?”

Sherlock looks straight at him and John can see the three days of little sleep and little food in his face, in the dullness of his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks, the pallor of his skin. “I fucked up.”

So far, so good.

As Sherlock enumerates the things he did wrong, as he methodically and clearly explains what he did, and why, John feels his hands start to shake again, his eyes sting, and his breath go funny.

Sherlock, who can be so intuitive sometimes, makes the tiniest movement, as if uncertain of his welcome.

John feels something in him break and the next thing he knows he’s enveloped in strong arms and pressed to a soft, grey, often-washed t-shirt that smells like Sherlock and home and everything good in the world. The love of his life is telling him, promising him, that yes, he fucked up, but he’s aware of it and sorry, and will do better. John holds on and breathes and reminds himself that he told Sherlock he was allowed to fuck up, to not be perfect, to be weak. Now all John has to do is forgive.

It’s surprisingly easy.

John’s quite frankly exhausted after that, so he orders lunch and a nap for them both.

They eat on the sofa, sides pressed against each other. Sherlock is scrolling through his phone, obviously feeling guilty as he reads the dozens of texts John sent him. John doesn’t say anything because he thinks a bit of remorse is good for Sherlock.

“What did you say to Lestrade?” Sherlock asks as he scrolls through his messages.

“That you’re missing. Why?”

“I hope he finds you in one piece so he can tear you a new arsehole,” Sherlock reads. “Graphic.”

John shrugs and says nothing.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow, but turns his attention back to his phone. “I’d better not show my face around Molly for the foreseeable future.”

John shrugs again.

Sherlock puts his head on John’s shoulder. “Did I mention I’m sorry?” he mutters into John’s shirt.

“Once or twice,” John says dryly.

“How many more times do you want to hear it?”

John drops a kiss in Sherlock’s hair. “I’ll tell you when you can stop. Meanwhile,” he says, picking up their plates to take them into the kitchen. “You can tell Mrs Hudson you’re back.”

Sherlock pulls a face. “You’re a sadist.”

John grins, already anticipating the glorious tongue-lashing Sherlock will receive from Mrs Hudson. It will surely be loud enough that John will hear every word of it upstairs. Forgiveness is nice, but a bit of penance is only fair. “Oh, believe me, love. I know."

*-*

The next morning dawns grey and dreary, and John feels like been run over by a bus. It’s been a harrowing few days and a restless night. He woke often, still needing to check whether Sherlock is truly back. They both had nightmares that kept the other awake, but neither was willing to go sleep on the sofa. They both needed the reassurance of body contact. When John’s alarm rings, Sherlock is clingy and unwilling to let him go, and John understands, he does. He doesn’t want Sherlock out of his sight either, but he has a half-shift this morning. And he’s unwilling to take a sick day in his second week of work because his boyfriend decided he needed to go on an intellectual bender. So John gets up, even if it is hard, because, quite honestly, he needs this. Needs the job and the hospital and a space just for himself, where he can be good at something that has nothing to do with Sherlock.

Now John’s barely awake and trying to force himself to face the day, but he just can’t yet. He’s sipping coffee and hiding behind the Guardian because reading Jay Rayner rip apart another restaurant where a meal costs more than John’s entire wardrobe is about the level he can handle right now. It’s easier to be enraged about the absurdities of late stage capitalism than to face the diffuse, nebulous threat Magnussen represents.

It’s still dark when he leaves the flat. The weather is dismal, but the cold morning air does something to wake him up. He changes, has a cup of tea at the nurse’s station, and by the time he grabs his first chart, he feels marginally more like a person.

Maybe this can be a normal day. Maybe things can settle down a bit.

On his first break, he scrolls through the Magnussen surveillance pictures that Sherlock forwarded to his phone. Suddenly, he knows that ‘normal’ has gone out the window for the foreseeable future.

*-*

On the tube back to Baker Street, with no patients to distract him and nothing else to think about, John’s mind becomes like a rabid squirrel trapped in a small cage, going round and round and round, with nothing productive coming of it. What the everloving fuck does Mary have to do with Magnussen? And how does any of it fit together?

He gets off the tube and goes straight to Tesco, because even though they’ve stumbled across another piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit, they still need to eat.

He comes home with two bags of groceries and a temper that’s still more than a bit raw.

When he enters the sitting room through the kitchen door, a familiar voice greets him. “Welcome home, dear. I’ve been waiting.”

He feels the hair rise on the back of his neck as he slowly turns towards the voice.

Mary’s sitting in Sherlock’s chair. She looks so different that he almost doesn’t recognise her. She’s dyed her hair a darker colour and she’s wearing a dark, subdued dress he’s never seen before, but something deeper has changed as well. Her face, her eyes, her body language. All are subtly different. It’s odd and disconcerting, the thought that she’s someone he shared a bed with, someone he lived with, and yet he feels like he’s truly meeting her for the first time. Like she shed a layer of skin.

She’s also visibly pregnant, and John swallows, his eyes lingering on her small bump.

He looks up and meets her eyes, suppressing a shiver, instinct recognising a predator. “Hello, Mary. How have you been?”

She gives him a small smile. “Tolerable. Morning sickness has passed, thank fuck.” Her voice has changed, too. It’s deeper, more natural. No longer trying to sound British. “First trimester was no fun. All alone, too.”

She’s shed the mask, but that doesn’t mean she’s stopped manipulating.

John doesn’t react. He’s not interested in mind games. He stopped feeling guilty that he left her for Sherlock the second he found out she wasn’t who she said she was. And if it wasn’t for the child in her belly, he’d throw her out on her arse right the fuck now. But she’s here for a reason, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious.

He turns to pick up the two bags he dropped to the floor and then shifts to put them on the kitchen counter, using the activity to cover his reaching for his phone. He hits speed dial one, hiding the phone behind his back. “Glad to hear it. Have you had your 20-week scan yet?”

“To be honest, it’s difficult to get good prenatal care when you’re wanted by the UK government,” she says dryly.

Sherlock isn’t answering. John hits redial. Come on, Sherlock. This is not the time to ghost me. Again. “Is that why you’re here?” he asks, mostly to stall. “I can help with that. I know a few OB-GYNs who’ll see you, no questions asked.”

Mary looks at him, then she nods, seemingly reluctantly. “That’s probably a good idea, I suppose. But that's not why I’m here.”

"Tea?" John asks, relieved as he hears the soft click of Sherlock picking up his phone. "Milk, two sugars? Or was that part of your persona?"

Mary laughs softly. "Why would I lie about something like that?"

John shrugs. “I don’t know why you’d do any of what you’ve done, so…”

“Why do we go to war?” Mary asks, looking at him frankly. “Mostly because there’s nothing for us to stay home for.”

John doesn’t want to point out that going to war and making a living as a paid assassin aren’t exactly the same things. Playing a game of semantics with her is a pointless exercise. He concentrates on the tea, reminding himself to stall. The longer he can draw this out, the more likely Sherlock will be here for the important bits of the conversation.

When he’s done making tea, he goes into the sitting room, where she’s made herself at home in Sherlock’s chair. "Here you go."

She thanks him as she accepts the cup. "That's the one thing I'll really miss about this place, the tea."

"Never thought you cared that much about it," John says, hating himself a bit for the tremor of emotion he can’t fully suppress. She doesn’t need to know that it’s kept him up at night. Wondering how much of it was real.

“I developed an appreciation for it over time,” Mary answers, giving him an insinuating smile that grates on his nerves. “But let’s get to the point, shall we.”

“By all means.” John inclines his head, inviting her to continue, reminding himself to stay calm, and not show when she hits a nerve.

“Magnussen,” she says, her tone cooly calculating, but John can see the way her fingers clench a bit around her tea cup.

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid, John, it doesn’t suit you,” Mary snaps.

John looks at her with raised eyebrows. Magnussen scares her. Interesting.

Mary huffs audibly in frustration. “You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re up against.” She pauses. “And neither do you, Sherlock,” she adds, a bit more loudly. “Let’s stop pretending he isn’t listening, shall we.”

Shit.

She holds out her hand for the phone.

John reluctantly pulls it out. Mary takes it and presses a button. “You’re on speakerphone.”

Sherlock’s voice over the speaker sounds calm, unruffled. It soothes John’s nerves immeasurably, just knowing he’s no longer alone, even if Sherlock is only on the phone. “Good afternoon, Ms Morstan. How have you been?”

Mary snorts. “Let’s cut the pleasantries, shall we. You’re messing with something you don’t understand.”

“Are we? Let’s see whether I’m far off the mark, shall we?” Sherlock says, still sounding cool as a cucumber as he rattles off deductions. “Mycroft gave you two assignments. John, and Magnussen. It was easy to get close to Janine, but when you got closer to Magnussen, you realised he had something on you. Something bad. You ran because that something actively threatens you, but you’re back because either he or Mycroft found you. And now you want something you can use against both. How close am I?”

“I never liked you much, you know,” Mary says honey-sweetly, but John can see that Sherlock’s words hit a bit too close to home.

“Very much likewise,” Sherlock answers.

“That’s neither here nor there,” John says, cutting Mary off before she can answer with a similar insult. This isn’t getting them anywhere. “What do you want from us?”

“We have a common enemy. And a common interest,” Mary answers, her tone softening on the second statement as her hand lands on her belly and she meets John’s eyes.

“Fine, then,” John says as neutrally as he can while his eyes linger on her bump. “You can state your case. Like every client who comes here, you can state your case. And then we decide whether we’ll help you or not.”

“It’ll wait until you’re here,” Mary says in the direction of the phone. “Until then, John and I will have a little parents-only talk.”

She hangs up and tosses the phone at John.

“Word of advice,” John says, trying to keep his tone neutral, even though he’s quietly seething, “If you want our help, antagonising him is massively counterproductive. Don’t make me choose. You’ll lose.”

“Did I hurt your affair partner’s feelings? How clumsy of me,” Mary says acidly, her hand still resting on her belly.

John rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck’s sake, Mary, I don’t even know your name. Nothing we had was real. You can’t cheat on a mirage.”

Mary presses her lips together and, for a tiny second, John thinks he’s actually hurt her. Then she gives him a small, nasty smile. “I scraped you off the ground that he trod you into like you were a piece of used gum. The least you owe me is your fucking life.”

John swallows and says nothing. She’s right and she knows it. He knows it, too.

They hold each other’s eyes for a long time.

“The ultrasound?” Mary finally asks.

John nods, glad to have something to do with his hands. He phones Sarah as her practice has an OB-GYN on staff. Always looking to help, she says that the OB can see see Mary if she comes within the hour, no questions asked.

“Thank you,” Mary says quietly after John’s hung up.

John gets up slowly and moves towards the client chair. He puts it in its place. “Here.” He makes an inviting gesture. “Here’s where you sit.” He gestures at his and Sherlock’s chairs. “And that’s where we sit, while we decide whether we want you.”

They hear the front door open and close. Steps on the door. John lets out a deep breath of relief.

“Fine,” Mary says, getting up to go sit in the client chair. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

John sits in his chair, watching carefully as Sherlock comes in and sits in his. And so the game begins once more.

*-*

This was a mistake, he thinks as they spend an afternoon researching, making plans, talking through eventualities.

This was a mistake, he thinks as he hands over his gun to Billy, reluctant but knowing it’s necessary. No gun, no proof. But he still feels bereft when Billy leaves with it, though oddly relieved as well. The gun was always a way out for him. If things got too bad, if he couldn’t bear it anymore….

Maybe it’s good that it’s gone. Maybe he doesn’t need it anymore.

This was a mistake, he thinks as he gets a text from Sarah with an ultrasound image and medical information about the pregnancy. The expected date of birth. The gender.

It’s a girl, he says to Sherlock and regrets it immediately when he sees the complex emotions flitter over Sherlock’s face.

When it’s time to leave, he grabs Sherlock by the lapels and looks at him long and hard. “Angelo’s, after? Just you and me and a candle?”

Sherlock smiles at him softly, a bit of the tension fading from his frame. “Always.”

*-*

Ten seconds.

Ten fucking seconds when he doesn’t pay attention to the gun Janine handed him while they were in the kitchen supposedly making tea. For ten seconds, he is too busy trying to assess how bad the damage is, where the bullet hit. He takes the first aid kit from a visibly upset Janine.

“I’m cold,” Sherlock mutters. He looks pale and shaky, clammy sweat on his brow.

“You’re going into shock, love.” John pulls the coat around Sherlock more tightly even as he bundles up gauze to stem the bleeding. The bullet went straight through Sherlock’s deltoid muscle and John hopes it didn’t nick the bone, but he doesn’t like Sherlock’s colouring and the way his breathing has gone funny. He’s pretty sure Sherlock is going to pass out on him. Low blood sugar, bad hydration, exhaustion, and a bullet wound don’t make for a good combination. He barks at Janine to call 999, because the wound might not be life-threatening, but he wants Sherlock in hospital and on a saline and glucose drip now.

Someone’s laughing.

Ten.

John looks up, sees Magnussen gazing down at them with a cool, wicked sort of amusement, as if they’re all just puppets in his little theatre, dancing for his enjoyment.

Nine.

“Stop it,” Lady Smallwood hisses.

Eight.

Mary moves, bends down.

Seven.

Lady Smallwood is faster.

Six.

The gun is in her hand again.

Five.

She points it at Magnussen, who’s still laughing.

Four.

“Don’t,” Janine whispers, “it’ll ruin all of us.”

Three.

“I don’t care,” Lady Smallwood says.

Two.

Her face is very white.

One.

She pulls the trigger.

The laughter stops.

Brain matter and blood splatter on the wall behind Magnussen’s desk.

Magnussen topples forward, like a puppet whose strings were cut.

“Fucking hell,” John whispers, looking down at Sherlock, who’s lost consciousness.

I need to get him out of here. Now.

“We’re all doomed now,” Janine whispers, looking at the corpse, blood drained from her face.

“We’re all free now,” Lady Smallwood says, her voice devoid of emotion.

Everyone’s frozen, watching her as she stands there, gun still trained on the corpse of the man who invited several known killers into his office and poked them with a stick.

John decides it’s time to move. He nods at Janine. “Help me with him, will you,” he says, gesturing at Sherlock. “We need to get him to hospital.”

“You don’t understand,” Janine says, pointing a shaky hand at Magnussen. “We’re all dead now. He… he said if he ever died, the vaults would open.”

“What vault? There’s nothing here,” A.J. says, gesturing at the walls. “I checked every inch of this office. There’s nothing here.”

“He has a server,” Janine explains, her voice shaking as badly as her hands. “At Appledore. A private Email server. He needs to enter a password every twelve hours. Otherwise a series of pre-programmed Emails go out to every newsroom in the country.”

Mary, A.J. and Lady Smallwood stare at Janine in shock. “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Mary hisses.

“Nobody said anything about killing him,” Janine says, looking accusingly at Mary and Lady Smallwood. “You both promised me everything would be fine. Now he’s dead and we’re all fucked.”

John decides that now is the time to stop fucking around and pulls out his phone to call 999 himself. He doesn’t care about any emails or whether he’s going to be arrested or anything, but he needs to get Sherlock to hospital. Now.

“Put down the phone, Doctor.”

John turns to Lady Smallwood, who’s pointing the gun directly at him.

“No.”

She cocks her gun.

“Are you going to shoot me?” John asks, looking from the gun muzzle into her eyes. They’re hazel and lovely and desperate.

“No,” she says, giving him a small, cold smile. “I’m going to shoot him.”

She points the gun at Sherlock.

“No, you won’t,” John says, making a quick calculation. If anything said in this room is true, then everybody here considers Sherlock the only way to get to Mycroft. It’s an entirely accurate assessment. “He’s of absolutely no use to you dead.”

“That’s correct, of course,” Lady Smallwood says, acknowledging the point with a nod. “But I could permanently disable him. What do you think? Knee?” She points the gun at Sherlock’s knee. “Maybe a permanent brain injury.”

“Stop this ridiculous posturing, we’re wasting time,” Mary hisses, and John can see that the second gun has made its way into her hand, even though she’s keeping it pointed to the floor right now. Smart, he thinks. Making herself an ally, not a target. “Didn’t you all hear what Janine said? We need to get to Appledore and destroy that Email server. Now.” She turns to Janine. “When did he enter the password this morning?”

“Not before ten, Mr Magnussen is a late riser and a known night owl.” Janine swallows. “Was, I suppose.”

“We have three and a half hours, then, to find that server and destroy it.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Lady Smallwood says, lowering her gun. “I’ll take Miss Hawkins to Appledore, and we’ll destroy the server.”

A.J. snorts. “Not before making a full back-up for the British government, I bet.”

“I won’t look at anything. You have my word.”

“Lady, your word means shit,” A.J. says cooly. “I’m coming along.”

“Me too,” Mary adds, matching A.J.’s tone. “I don’t trust any of you.”

John says nothing. He just wants them all to leave already so he can get Sherlock to a doctor. He checks vitals again and they’re strong and regular, even though Sherlock’s fluttering eyes and his confused mumbling tell John he’s still drifting in and out of consciousness. “Help’s on its way, love,” he whispers, dropping a kiss to Sherlock’s forehead.

“Doctor.”

John looks up, meets Lady Smallwood’s eyes. “If you would be so kind as to assist A.J. with the body.”

“Are you fucking mental? I’m not leaving him here,” he gestures at Sherlock, “and I’m not playing fucking Weekend at Bernie’s with the chap you just fucking murdered.”

“We need him,” Janine says, even though John can see that she’s this close to throwing up. “Biosensors everywhere in Appledore.”

“Fucking hell, you’re all completely mad,” John mutters. He straightens and addresses Lady Smallwood. “Listen. If you want to do this fucking asininely stupid thing, be my fucking guest, but I’m not going with you. And I’d suggest you stay here too,” he says to Mary.

“And let them pull my files from Magnussen’s server, so they can own me instead of him?” Mary says, smiling sweetly at him. “That’s not happening, love. Nobody’s ever going to own me again.”

“Fine. I’m still not fucking going.”

“Yes,” Lady Smallwood says, pointing her gun at Sherlock again. “You are.”

“Why? What the everloving fuck do you need me for?”

Lady Smallwood shrugs. “You’re a good bargaining chip, Doctor.” She cocks her gun. “We’re running out of time. Come with us or I shoot him somewhere far less benign, and I’ll hand anything I find on you on that server over to Ms Morstan.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” John mutters. “Can I at least call a fucking ambulance before he bleeds out on the fucking carpet? Because I can guarantee you, Lady Smallwood, since you pulled the fucking trigger: If he dies, you die too.”

They stare at each other for a few long moments. Then Lady Smallwood lowers her gun. “Fine,” she says, conceding the point with a tilt of her head. “I regret that he was hurt.”

“I’ll mention it at your sentencing,” John says dryly, then pulls out his phone.

*-*

“Of course it’s an unmarked van,” John mutters as they load Magnussen’s body into the back of a van that Lady Smallwood seems to have borrowed from the MI6 lot for her burglary.

“Shut up and take his legs,” A.J. growls.

“Unloading him will be a joy,” John grunts as he helps A.J. lift the body into the van. He follows the body in, sitting down next to Janine, who looks like she’ll throw up any second now. He refrains from elaborating about the joys of rigor mortis, because he doesn’t want her to barf. Again.

She’s already been sick twice, once when they removed Magnussen from the chair and once in the lift.

Nobody’s talking much as A.J., Mary and Lady Smallwood get into the van. Mary’s driving and Lady Smallwood is in the passenger seat. A.J. takes a seat opposite Janine and John.

Mary starts the engine and eases them out of the Magnussen loading dock into traffic.

An ambulance passes them, emergency lights and sirens on.

John hopes it’s the one he called for Sherlock.

He has an incredibly bad feeling about all of this. About leaving Sherlock on his own, about travelling in a van full of unreliable, dangerous, untrustworthy criminals on a mission to destroy something that might not even exist. And with a dead body, he’s reminded as Mary makes a dynamic turn and the body rocks against his foot.

He feels Janine’s eyes on him and raises an inquiring eyebrow.

“Do you get used to it?” she asks quietly, her pale face clammy with sweat.

“Dead bodies?”

She nods.

“Yes,” John answers, just as quietly. “And no. You learn to detach yourself, to stay sane. But dealing with people who died a violent death… it’s never fine.”

“I thought I wanted him dead,” she whispers, looking down at Magnussen’s body.

“You wanted him gone. That’s not the same thing.”

“He deserved to die,” A.J. says harshly. “He invited his own death and he laughed it in the face when it came from him.”

Janine turns to John. “Do you believe that?”

John shrugs. “I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that he didn’t bring this on himself. But I don’t think anyone deserves to die. Sometimes, people need to be stopped. And to achieve that, you need to kill them. That doesn’t mean they deserve to die. Sometimes, there’s no good option, so you choose the least bad one.”

“How do you do it? How do you stay so calm?”

It’s a good question. John isn’t sure he has a good answer. “Compartmentalisation,” John says, truthfully. “I spent two years in Afghanistan. You learn how to live in the moment.”

A.J. snorts. “Helps if you’re a stone-cold bastard from the get-go.” He gives John a long look. “You’ve got a type, Doc.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” John asks sharply, giving A.J. an ice-cold stare. “I suggest you pick the next words out of your mouth extremely carefully.”

If you even breathe Sherlock’s name, I’m going to fucking break every bone in your face. Naming them optional.

“Heard some of the shit the Holmes’ pulled on you. And then you poor bastard go and impregnate a psychopath,” A.J. says, giving John a sarcastic grin. “Con-fucking-gratulations, I guess.”

John silently counts to ten, admonishing himself to keep control. Survival is the goal here. Nothing any of these people think about him, or Sherlock, is of any consequence. They’re all scum. But this chap is, from the looks of it, simply dying to spill his guts about Mary and John needs the information. So he keeps calm and only raises an inquiring eyebrow. “Psychopath?”

A.J. smiles coldly. “What did she tell you about how she came to be here?”

“She said an opportunity arose for her to retire, so she took it.”

“You could say that,” A.J. says bitterly. “You could also say she fucked the only friends she had over a barrel for a few bucks.”

“You were friends? Difficult to believe.”

A.J. shrugs. “We were friends as much as you can be when you’re in our line of work. There were four of us. We were sort of a unit. Met in the CIA, went freelance together. More money in that, plus you can pick assignments. Don't have to do the nastier stuff.” A.J. shrugs again. “We called ourselves A.G.R.A, all of our initials.”

Janine points at his arm, at the small tattoo with the four letters in a circle. “Did all of you get one of these?”

A.J. nods. “Bet she had hers removed,” he says, gesturing at the driver’s cabin in front of the van.

John nods curtly. He certainly never noticed it.

“Anyway. We all had intel on the others, the fucked up stuff we did for the CIA, info about our families, our weak spots. To make sure we didn’t fuck each other over, each of us had all of it on a USB drive.”

“Mutually assured destruction,” John says softly.

A.J. nods. “That. Exactly. So. One day, we get a call. Some chick from MI6. British embassy in Tiblisi is being shot up by terrorists, someone’s holding the ambassador at ransom. SAS went in the front door. We went in the back. With one million pounds sterling in cash, to bribe the terrorists and make sure they released the ambassador and didn’t sell the military secrets they’d uncovered to the highest bidder. The others and I went in through the roof. Rose went through the sewers. She had the money.” A.J. swallows. “We lost contact with her about five minutes before everything went to absolute shit. Whole building exploded. I barely got out alive. Watched the others die. Thought she was dead as well.” He looks at Magnussen’s corpse. “I was laying low in Scotland, when this fucker found me. Told me things he knew about me. Turns out dear Rose was alive and well, and living a cozy little life in jolly old England. She sold us out twice. Once in Tiblisi, then to this fucker.”

“I don’t think she sold you to him. She would’ve sold herself as well,” John says, nodding in the direction of the driver’s cabin. “She might be amoral, but she’s not stupid.”

At least now we know what she’s after, he thinks.

A.J. tilts his head to the side. “You think the Lady with the trigger finger sold me out?”

John shrugs. “It makes the most sense, as she’s MI6 and probably knows everything there is to know about you. But honestly, I have no idea. And unfortunately, the one living person who could probably tell you is hopefully in hospital by now.”

Bad idea, Watson, he reminds himself. Don’t think about him. It’ll distract you. Distractions get you killed.

Of course he’s kidding himself, because the worry for Sherlock is a constant nagging in his stomach, a weight in the back of his mind. But he can’t let himself focus on it. He’ll need all his wits to get not only himself out of this alive, but his baby as well.

They lapse into silence after that, A.J. staring out of the rear window, apparently deep in thought, Janine’s fingers digging into John’s forearm as she obviously tries not to be ill again.

John clenches his fist and tries to find the headspace he found so easy to slip into when he was deployed. Think only of the now. The next ten minutes. The next hour. Think only of your surroundings, of what you need to survive.

He looks out of the rear window, tries not to think about Sherlock, in hospital, alone, disoriented, probably scared. Probably worried sick about him.

He fails.

*-*

“Some people have too much money,” John mutters as they glide up the marble drive towards a large, modern bungalow seemingly made mostly of glass. It was easy getting through the gate as Janine knows the passcode and the corpse supplied the thumbprint. Apparently, security is only on site when Magnussen is in residence, otherwise the man seemed to have relied on technology to keep burglars out.

John’s caught between nausea and a grim, slightly hysterical amusement as they cart the dead body out of the car and use his handprint and the code Janine supplies to again gain entry, this time to the house.

Inside, there don’t seem to be many walls. John and A.J. deposit Magnussen on a Persian rug in the entryway.

Lady Smallwood switches on her phone torch, revealing a large, open concept area that seems to unite the sitting room, dining room and bar, with a large fireplace and an even larger telly placed over it. Everything is white, or metal, or glass. A Persian rug before the fireplace and the fireplace itself are the only things lending warmth to the room.

“Where’s the server?” Lady Smallwood asks Janine.

Janine shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it. Mr Magnussen’s office is back there.” She gestures into the darkness.

“The server could be in the basement. Why don’t we split up and go looking for it?” Mary suggests.

“Like I’d leave any of you alone with all that information,” Lady Smallwood replies cooly.

“It’s a server,” Mary points out, exasperated. “I’m not hiding a laptop and an ethernet cable in here,” she gestures at her clothes. “And you took all our phones. Besides, I don’t know the IP address, or the username, or password.”

Lady Smallwood clenches her teeth. “Fine,” she finally says. “Janine, A.J., you stay with me. Doctor Watson, you’re with Ms Morstan.” She looks long and hard at them all. “Don’t be stupid, and we’ll all make it out of here alive, well, and free. If you try anything on me, I’m fully prepared to shoot first and ask questions later.”

John notices he’s not the only one whose eyes are drawn to Magnussen’s corpse. He probably isn’t the only one that has no trouble believing her.

“Come on,” Mary says, nudging John with her elbow.

He nods and follows her down the corridor, even as the others follow Janine into Magnussen’s study.

“She’s going to kill us anyway,” Mary mutters as they enter the large, modern, very metallic kitchen.

“Not sure she’s that cold-blooded,” John answers, pausing as Mary switches on the light.

She turns to him, and he notices that she’s not as cool as she’s pretending to be. She’s tense, and her gestures seem curt and nervous. “We witnessed her murdering someone. Would you let us go?”

“I probably wouldn’t have murdered him in the first place,” John says calmly, even while he’s thinking about whether he should reveal what he knows that she doesn’t. Namely that, by this point, he’s 100% sure that Sherlock has woken and deciphered the clue John left him, and that Billy’s homeless network has reported to Sherlock, as well. That means the British government knows exactly where they are and someone is on their way. And that someone is probably a heavily armed detachment of the SAS. That is if they’re not here already.

“You’re here because Magnussen has a tape of you murdering someone,” Mary says, raising an ironic eyebrow at him.

“I didn’t murder Hope,” John points out. “I shot him in the shoulder, because he was going to kill Sherlock. He died because of an aneurysm I was entirely unaware of.”

“And if you’d known?” Mary asks with a knowing smirk.

“I still would have fired because Sherlock was in mortal danger.”

“Which he put himself into willingly and with both eyes open.” Mary sighs, exasperated. “The lengths you’re willing to go to to protect someone who’s treated you like the dirt under his fingernails…”

“I’m not discussing this with you,” John says, cutting her off. “You have no right to judge me, or Sherlock, or anyone. I’m willing to admit that I’m in a glass house throwing stones, but I don’t need a lecture from you of all people. Especially since you’re as likely to fuck me over as anyone in this house.”

Mary hesitates briefly, then she reaches out and puts a hand on his arm. “John, listen. I’m not claiming to have led a blameless life and fuck knows you have no good reason to believe a word out of my mouth. But you and I, we have a common priority.” She grabs his hand in a surprisingly strong grip and puts it on her belly.

It’s shocking and not what John expected at all, but the second his hand makes contact with her pregnant belly, he can feel it. A tiny flutter against his palm.

It’s too much.

He snatches his hand back and turns his back on her to get his emotions under some semblance of control.

Calm the fuck down, he admonishes himself, but that’s far easier said than done.

That’s my daughter in there. Trapped in the middle of this fucked up situation.

“She’s not even born yet and we’re already failing her,” he whispers, looking out of the window at Magnussen’s perfectly manicured stone garden. It’s cold and artificial and perfectly neat. Like this house. Like Magnussen himself.

I don’t want to die here, he thinks. I don’t want anyone to die here.

“I know,” Mary says softly and, for a moment, he sees her reflection in the window glass. She looks genuinely sad, just for a second. Then she schools her features back into indifference.

“A.J. is going to try to kill me.”

John swallows. “You have the second gun.”

It’s not a question, but Mary nods anyway.

“Give it to me.”

Mary snorts, a small, humourless smile curving on her lips. “Not happening.”

John turns around to face her. “You know as well as I do that shoot-outs never end well.”

“I’m aware.”

He gestures in the direction of the front of the house, where they left the others. “He said you abandoned them to die.”

Mary shrugs, but she looks in the direction John pointed with a wistful expression. “I did,” she whispers. “I saw the bombs. There were so many of them. No chance for me to defuse. Radio was dead. So I had a choice. Take the money and run. Or die with them. I chose life.” She looks back to John. “What would you have done?”

“It’s a good story,” John says, meeting her eyes, remembering how many things she told him, in confidence, about herself, about her childhood, her friends, her school, her hobbies and passions, and how he doesn’t know if any of it is true.

“It’s the truth.” Mary tilts her head and gives John a small, wistful smile. “But I suppose you don’t have any reason to believe me.”

“I don’t have any reason to believe you won’t abandon me to die the second I’m no longer of any use l to you,” John points out, as it’s the pertinent point here. “Giving me the gun would go a long way to convince me I won’t end up with a bullet in my back. I promised that I’d protect you. That still holds.”

“John,” Mary takes a step towards him, reaching out to take his hand, but he snatches it away, unwilling to let her touch him. She raises her hands in a defensive gesture even as she shakes her head at him. “We slept in the same bed for over a year. We lived together, we planned a life together. Does all of that mean nothing?”

“You’re asking me that?” John looks at her, incredulous. “I wasn’t your anything, Mary. I was your fucking mark.”

Mary presses her lips together and takes a step back again, putting some distance between them. “How is it,” she says softly, “that you can forgive Sherlock for playing you for a fool, and still believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he loves you, but not understand that, maybe, you weren’t just my mark.”

So many times she made me laugh, made me think, made me get out of bed when I really didn’t want to face anything.

So many times she ever so subtly put me down, made me think I wasn’t worth loving, and that I was so lucky she picked me.

When I was on fire, he pulled me out.

You just stood there and watched.

“We don’t have time for this,” John says harshly. He needs this conversation to end. “If you care about me at all, you’ll have an opportunity to prove it by not just fucking off with my daughter after all of this is done.”

“Right,” Mary says, shaking her head. “That’s the price for my safety, isn’t it. Hand over my daughter to you and the psychopath so you can continue to play house. How long do you think it’ll be before he’s bored? Of you, of a baby, of bottles and diapers and sleep schedules and teething? How long do you think you have with Mr I-Don’t-Do-Feelings, when you come attached to a crying, whining, annoying baby?”

John swallows and tries not to react, to close his ears to her words. She knows nothing, he reminds himself. Nothing of Sherlock. Nothing of me.

He manages to meet her eyes, to shrug as if everything she just said doesn’t keep him up at night when he thinks of the future. “We can talk about co-parenting when we’re out of here and you’ve held up your end of the bargain. In the meantime, if you meant anything of what you just said, you can prove your good faith by not fucking off again.”

He turns and starts walking, then he turns back and adds, “Also maybe don’t shoot me.”

Mary huffs a humourless laugh. “I’ll try my best.”

Then she walks past him towards the stairs leading down to the basement.

*-*

“Nothing,” Mary says curtly as they rejoin the others in Magnussen’s study and reports their failure. No server in the basement or in Magnussen’s bedroom.

The state of the room speaks to the others’ failure, too. The study is different from the rest of the house, it’s small and not everything is white. It has many bookshelves and a modern leather reading chair, a small lamp, a comfortable-looking sofa, and a big mahogany desk.

It’s almost cozy, but the books are lying on the floor, the pictures have been taken off the wall, and the desk drawers have been broken into and their contents strewn all over the floor.

Lady Smallwood is sitting at the desk, Magnussen’s laptop in front of her.

“We haven’t found anything as well,” Janine says, stating the bleeding obvious.

John steps behind Lady Smallwood and looks over her shoulder as she tries and fails to gain access.

“If only we had someone who was really good at finding things and guessing passwords,” John says sarcastically. “You know, like, some detective?”

Lady Smallwood gives him a withering look. “I said I was sorry I shot him. I meant it.”

“Aren’t you also a detective?” A.J. asks, giving John a sarcastic smirk.

“I’m the muscle,” John answers, returning the smirk. “He’s the brain.”

“What do we do now?” Janine asks, her eyes on the clock on the wall, ticking away the seconds until Magnussen’s emails are sent and ruin all their lives.

Before anyone can answer, the desk phone rings.

They all freeze.

“Answer it,” Lady Smallwood hisses at Janine.

Janine, her hands shaking badly, grabs the receiver, but her voice is surprisingly steady as she answers the phone. “Magnussen Incorporated, Janine speaking, how can I help you?”

She listens for a moment, then she holds out the phone to John. “He wants to talk to you.”

John doesn’t have to guess who ‘he’ might be. He snatches the receiver from Janine and puts it to his ear. “What?”

“Is anyone hurt?” Mycroft’s voice is clipped and calm, nearly emotionless. “Does anyone require immediate medical attention?”

“No.”

“Good. I am assuming you are being held against your will.”

“No shit.”

“Can we keep the sarcasm to a minimum, Doctor Watson? We don’t have an endless amount of time.”

“Fine,” John grates out.

“Please let me speak to Lady Smallwood.”

John hands over the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

Lady Smallwood takes the receiver from John, then hangs up without a second’s hesitation.

“Not smart,” John says, meeting her steely gaze.

“I haven’t found what I came for,” she says cooly. “Find me what I want. Then we can negotiate.”

The phone rings again. Nobody dares pick up.

“Keep searching,” Lady Smallwood barks at them.

John moves towards the sitting room with big terrace windows and starts checking the few cupboards, even running his fingers along the walls to look for any secret compartments.

He can see the others searching the bar area, the dining room area. A.J. is smashing dishes, obviously frustrated. Every time a dish hits the floor, Janine and Mary both flinch, which seems to spur A.J. on.

“Careful,” A.J. says, as he breaks another dish on the floor, right next to Mary’s foot. “The stress can’t be good for the baby. Would be a shame if you miscarried.”

Mary gets up from the floor, white-faced with fury. “I wish you’d burned with the others,” she hisses. “You deserved it.”

A.J. takes a few steps towards Mary, but John gets between them and, to John’s surprise, so does Janine.

“Keep calm,” John says, meeting A.J.’s eyes, already calculating how much of a chance he has against this well-trained former soldier who has several inches and at least twenty kilos of pure muscle mass on him. Negotiate, don’t fight. For now. “She has the second gun, you idiot. You think she’d hesitate for one second to put a bullet into your useless skull if she thought you were a threat? The second someone starts shooting, SAS are going to crawl all over our arses, and I can guarantee they won’t hesitate to shoot first. So keep it the fuck together.”

A.J. glares daggers at Mary, but he reluctantly nods, and John lets go of his arm.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he asks Janine.

She nods at a nondescript milk-glass door at the back of the dining area.

“You’ll be okay here for a sec?” he asks, including both her and Mary in the question.

Mary nods, and Janine reluctantly does the same.

In the bathroom, John relieves himself, then takes a second to splash cold water on his face. Keep it together, Watson.

There’s a knock.

John turns to the door, but then realises that the knock came from behind him. John turns around and nearly starts with surprise.

There’s someone at the tiny window.

Two someones, in fact, one of which is incredibly familiar and similarly the person he wants to see both the most and least.

He opens the window, almost faint with both relief and fury. “What the actual fuck are you doing here? You should be in fucking hospital, you absolute walking disaster.”

Sherlock smirks at him. “Glad to see you too.”

John resists the urge to either throttle Sherlock or burst into tears of relief, but he can tell the smile he gives Sherlock isn’t entirely steady. “Mycroft is going to have a heart attack.”

Sherlock snorts, raising an ironic eyebrow. “Oh, believe me, he’s having kittens as we speak.” He turns serious, checking the room behind John. “How’s the situation?”

“Not good,” John says grimly.

“Guns?”

“Lady Smallwood has one, Mary has the other.”

“Pity,” Sherlock says, grimacing in obvious pain as he moves closer to the window.

“Does Mycroft know you’re here?” John asks, pressing up on his tiptoes to get a better view of Sherlock’s injury.

“Billy broke me out of the hospital,” Sherlock says, nodding at the figure hovering behind him.

“Don’t sprain me again, it was his idea,” Billy chimes in when John glares at him, but Sherlock silences him with a look.

“I phoned Mycroft when we got here,” Sherlock continues, “If he’d even suspected I would do this, I think he would’ve had me sedated.”

“Can’t even blame him for that,” John says, angling his head so he can have a look at the way Sherlock’s arm is secured to his body in a sling. It looks like it’s been done correctly, but he’d like to double-check. “I would’ve had you sedated.”

“You weren’t there,” Sherlock says softly, and for a second, John can see the raw vulnerability there. He can imagine how frightening this all must have been for Sherlock.

“You know that wasn’t by choice, right?” John says, meeting Sherlock’s eyes, wishing that fucking wall away, hating that this window is too small to even reach through.

There’s a tiny pause, then Sherlock says in an exasperated tone,“Of course I know, that’s why I was so worried. I knew you wouldn’t have left me there alone unless someone had you at gunpoint.”

“Well, I’m fine,” John says, giving Sherlock a small, relieved smile. “But for how long is another matter.”

“Why are you even here?” Sherlock asks.

John gives him a quick recap of the last two hours, and Sherlock listens attentively.

“All right,” Sherlock says at last, looking thoughtful. “Looks like I’m coming in.”

“No! Are you fucking insane? It’s bad enough that I’m trapped in here with three psychos. You just want to gift them another hostage?”

“John. You need me to break into that sodding laptop,” Sherlock says, his tone somewhere between reasonable and annoyed. “Besides, my presence in the house will mean my brother will hesitate before sending in his goons to shoot this place up.”

John grunts in annoyance, but he has to admit Sherlock has a point. “Fine. But for the record, I hate it.”

Sherlock gives him a small, soft smile. “Noted.” He turns to Billy, and his tone turns brisk. “Billy?”

“Yes, guv?”

“Go find Mycroft and give him a status report. Tell him I’ll phone him when we’re ready to negotiate.”

Billy nods and vanishes into the night.

Sherlock looks back at John. “Now. Would you kindly direct me to a convenient door?”

*-*

It takes some maneuvering to get to the back door without anyone noticing his absence, but John somehow manages it.

He opens the door and scrutinises Sherlock. He’s dressed in scrubs with his coat over top, which would look ridiculous on anyone else, but of course Sherlock makes it work. He’s also wearing a very obvious—and smart—kevlar vest, which reassures John ever so slightly. He’s also very pale and looks ragged and worried and fragile in a way that makes John’s heart hurt.

John drags him inside, holding on to his good arm, then he thoroughly checks the bandages, the sling fixing Sherlock’s left arm to his body, and his pulse and temperature. Sherlock lets himself be manhandled, giving John a soft, indulgent smile. “I’m fine,” he says quietly.

John takes a deep breath, then he backs Sherlock against the nearest surface and kisses him. It’s quick and dirty and desperate and so very fucking reassuring. Sherlock’s good arm comes around him and he kisses back with the same desperate edge John is feeling, the giddy joy of you’re alive and the sharp fear-bite of let’s make sure it stays that way.

They pull apart and lock eyes. John sees his own grim determination mirrored in Sherlock’s gaze.

“Let’s finish this, and then you’re going back to hospital, and you’re staying there. If I have to personally chain you to the bed, so be it,” John says, hands still lingering on Sherlock’s shoulder, his cheek, his waist. “I have handcuffs, and I’m going to use them.”

“Promises, promises,” Sherlock answers with a wicked grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“How much pain are you in?” John asks, eyes narrowing on the pallour of Sherlock’s face and his slightly uneven gait.

“It’s not that bad. Have felt better, though.”

“Understatement of the century, probably,” John grumbles, but he’s willing to let it go for now, because he knows if their situations were reversed, he’d be here under much worse circumstances.

Sherlock shrugs, wincing as the movement agitates his shoulder.

“Right, how do you want to play this?” John asks quietly as they move in the direction of the study.

“Straightforward,” Sherlock mutters, as he accelerates his stride and walks into the sitting room with a nonchalance of someone who was late for a dinner party.

Sherlock smirks at the assembled people searching every nook and cranny of the room. “You can all stop that now, it’s pointless.”

Mary, A.J. and Janine all stare at him like he’s an apparition.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” A.J. asks.

“London. University College Hospital, to be precise,” Sherlock answers, waving at them to stand aside as he strides into Magnussen’s study.

Lady Smallwood rises as Sherlock walks in, with John and the others in tow.

“Mr Holmes,” Lady Smallwood says, sounding as surprised as the rest.

“I know, I’m like a boomerang, can’t get rid of me,” Sherlock says, as coolly confident as if he was meeting Lady Smallwood for tea. “Now,” he adds, turning around to the five people standing around, staring, “who can type fastest?”

*-*

“He’s certifiably insane,” Mary mutters as they watch Sherlock look around the room, picking up books and papers seemingly at random, occasionally telling Janine to try out another password or letter combination.

“He’s trying to understand how Magnussen thought so he can break into the laptop,” John explains. He knows it’s not necessary, but he can’t resist the urge to defend Sherlock.

“That’s easy,” A.J. growls. “He thought Hey, let’s blackmail a bunch of dangerous people, I’m sure none of them will eventually murder me. He was an idiot.”

“Idiot savant, maybe,” Sherlock says from where he’s kneeling on the carpet, looking at the pictures A.J. ripped from the walls earlier. “He was smart enough to trap us all here, but not smart enough to get out of his own trap before it closed in on him.”

He gets up, swaying slightly for a second, and strides back to Janine. John follows, worried but trying not to show it, and wanting to be close at hand in case Sherlock’s strength gives out.

“You think there’s no physical server here?” John asks quietly.

“I think it’s a waste of time trying to find it at this point. If it was easily accessible, you would have found it already and, yes, then we could have disconnected it from the internet or destroyed it. But as things stand, our time is better spent trying to gain access,” Sherlock says, gesturing at the laptop with his good hand. “All of you. Make yourselves useful. Look for anything personal. Pictures, notes, letters.” He gives John a sideways look. “Nobody is an island. Not even the people who think they are. Not even people who want to be. There’s something here we can use.”

“Why not simply destroy the laptop? Or disconnect it from the Internet? Shouldn’t that do the trick?” John asks the perhaps obvious question.

Sherlock gives him a small smile. “Ever the pragmatist,” he says, his voice low and fond. John can tell that a part of Sherlock is enjoying this. The swashbuckling rescue mission, coming in and solving a problem they’ve all failed to solve, showing off his brilliant mind. But the tension in his body and the glint of pain in his eyes are telling John that Sherlock also hasn’t forgotten that they’re in grave danger. And that Sherlock is living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, when the adrenaline fades and the painkillers stop working, Sherlock will fold in on himself like a tent with the pole removed, and John knows that time is coming soon.

Great, he thinks. Another clock we’re working against.

“If we destroy the laptop,” Sherlock says, “there’s no guarantee that the emails won’t go out anyway, if there even are emails, which I honestly doubt. We know Magnussen liked having power over people and, if he had a contingency plan, it would mean he’d had to have admitted that he might lose power over at least one person. I’m unsure whether he was capable of admitting that was a possibility. But I suppose none of you are willing to take that risk?” He looks into the grim faces of the people surrounding him.

Nobody answers, which is answer enough in itself.

“Additionally, we have another problem,” Sherlock says, taking out his phone. “Currently this house is surrounded by black-clad men with machine guns, and this laptop is an excellent bargaining chip, as you are well aware of. Which means we’re running out of time, so I think we should call in the cavalry.” He gives John a small smirk. “I know a hacker who owes me a favour or two.”

Lady Smallwood raises her gun and points it at Sherlock. “Put down your phone.”

“Or you’ll shoot me?” Sherlock asks, eyebrow raised ironically, his voice cold as ice. “Let’s be very frank for a second, shall we? The second a shot is fired in this house, the power will cut, and we will all become acquainted with the finest men and women the SAS has to offer. If I’m already dead, they will have orders to shoot first. Right now the only reason you are still walking around and playing out this little farce is because you did not, in fact, kill me and because you hold hostages whose safety I personally value. This laptop contains information pertinent to the safety of the people here and I am as unwilling to let this information fall into the hands of the British government as you are. Now I suggest you put down the gun and let me do what I need to do to get into this bloody laptop so we can all go home. Or prison, in your case.”

“If you think I’m going to prison,” Lady Smallwood says with a small sneer, still not lowering her gun “you know nothing of how the world works.”

“We’ll see,” Sherlock says cooly. He holds Lady Smallwood’s eyes for a few tense moments more.

John can see Mary’s hand move to her back, where her gun is tucked into her pregnancy trousers. He catches her eyes and subtly shakes his head.

“Do it.” Lady Smallwood’s voice is tight with stress, and John notices her hands are not entirely steady as she lowers the gun.

John breathes out a sigh of relief as the tension in the room noticeably ratchets down. “Let’s do as he said,” John directs the others, then goes to look through the books on the floor while Sherlock dials a number on his phone. The others join John in the search, while Sherlock and Janine, apparently with the help of the person on the phone, continue trying to get into the laptop.

Most of the books are in Norwegian, but John knows the contents of the books are irrelevant, they’re looking for inscriptions, personal notes, receipts tucked between pages, pictures. John allows himself a small smile as he thinks about Sherlock’s words from before. Nobody is an island. Not even the people who want to be. How far you’ve come, love.

There. An inscription in what seems to be a Norwegian version of the New Testament. A name, a date from the 1950s. Anne Johannsen, maybe Magnussen’s mother?

He hands it to Sherlock, who nods at him in acknowledgement, directing Janine to try variations of the name and date, and John continues his search.

There’s so little here. No receipts, no ticket stubs, so very little personal correspondence. Mary finds a hand-written letter, but Sherlock dismisses it because it’s filled with profanities and death threats.

“Why would you keep that?” she asks as Sherlock waves her off.

“Fucker was a psychopath,” A.J. says as he listlessly pushes around the debris on the floor with his foot. “Reading death threats was probably the only way he could get it up.” He sneers at John. “Bit like this one, I bet.”

John ignores A.J. and continues looking for clues. What A.J. thinks is of absolutely no consequence to him.

“This is a fucking waste of time,” A.J. mutters.

“You got any better ideas, genius?” Mary snaps.

“I do, in fact,” A.J. snarls.

He moves so fast nobody sees it coming, which in retrospect, John thinks they should have. Before any of them can react, he has Mary against the wall and a knife at her throat. “How about I kill you,” A.J. whispers fiercely, his eyes burning with hatred. “How about I cut that baby out of you right here, unless your fucktoy’s fucktoy gets the fuck on with it?”

Lady Smallwood points her gun at A.J at the same time that John moves in to help as well, but it’s not necessary because Mary knees him in the groin, hard, then slams her knee into his head. A.J. goes down like a ton of bricks.

John catches Mary by the elbow and helps her sit down as she sinks against the wall, shaking. “All right?”

She nods shakily.

“The baby….” she pants, and John can see genuine fear in her eyes.

He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her other hand to her belly. “She’s fine,” John says quietly, feeling the small flutter underneath their joined hands on Mary’s belly.

“Rosie,” Mary whispers, locking eyes with John and giving him a small smile. “I want to name her Rosie. I… always liked the name.”

John swallows.

He can hear Sherlock clear his throat as if from far away.

He turns his head, looks at Sherlock, pale and shaky on his feet, a complex mix of emotions on his face.

“I’m in,” Sherlock says quietly, nodding at the laptop. He’s seated at the desk, and Janine is standing behind him.

They all gather around the laptop, except for A.J., who’s still on the floor, groaning. John moves behind Sherlock and puts a reassuring hand on his good shoulder, squeezing. Sherlock gives him a quick sideways look and a tiny smile, before they all turn their attention to the screen.

“There’s nothing here, nothing but the CCTV footage of you,” Sherlock mutters, half to himself and half to John, as he clicks from one folder to another, all filled with seemingly meaningless Magnussen Incorporate documents. “No videos, no scans, no pictures.” He turns to Mary. “What did he tell you he had on you, exactly?”

“He…” she whispers, “he asked me whether AGRA means anything to me.”

“And you filled in the blanks,” Sherlock says grimly. He clicks through another folder, then he sits back. “Oh. Of course. That explains so much,” he mutters softly, then turns to Lady Smallwood. “Do you use your personal phone for government business?”

“Of course not,” Lady Smallwood says, bristling.

“Are you sure? No occasional text chain? No accessing your email remotely? Ever?”

The colour drains out of Lady Smallwood’s face. “What are you saying?”

“There’s a missing link here,” Sherlock says, getting up, swaying slightly as he stands. John grabs his elbow, and Sherlock gives him a small smile, steadying himself, before he starts pacing, gesturing with his good hand. “How did Magnussen learn the truth about Mary and A.J.? Mary didn’t sell him the information, A.J. certainly didn’t, either. How did he know about your husband’s affair, Lady Smallwood, if you hushed it up? How did he know the letters even existed?”

“What does this mean?” Lady Smallwood whispers, her hands shaking.

“He hacked your phone,” Sherlock gestures at the laptop. “Classic tabloid tactic. Mycroft was after him, so he hacked the personal phone of one of his closest associates, hoping to find a pressure point. That’s how he got all the information about your husband’s affair. And maybe once or twice, late at night, when you had something urgent to do, you didn’t use your secure phone. Maybe once or twice, you slipped. Sent an email, or a text. You monitor the activity of foreign assets on British soil. That’s how he learned about A.J., that’s how he learned about Mary. The only thing he truly had was the CCTV footage of John. And he only had that because you gave it to him. I’ve deleted the files, and now this thing,” he points at the laptop, “is completely and entirely useless.”

“Are you saying,” Lady Smallwood whispers, “that he never had the letters?”

“Precisely,” Sherlock says cooly. “He knew they existed from your phone. Maybe he even had a few excerpts from emails you exchanged with the mistress when you paid her off. Everything else was showmanship.”

“Then all of this…” she says, looking at Sherlock, and then in the direction of the hallway, where Magnussen’s corpse is still lying on the carpet.

“Was for absolutely nothing,” Sherlock confirms grimly.

The gun falls from her hands as she sinks to the floor, all the fight gone out of her as the full weight of what she’s done seems to hit her like a ton of bricks.

Time slows in John’s head, as he watches the gun fall. Scenarios spin out in his mind, and in a split second of instinct, training and experience, he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that as bad as things were, they’re about to go spectacularly to shit. His mind spits out scenarios at lightning speed.

Get to the gun.

No time.

Mary. The baby.

She has the second gun. She will protect herself. And the baby.

Sherlock.

In that split second, he makes a decision.

He doesn’t even have to think about it. He acts on pure instinct, adrenaline and fear. He tackles Sherlock to the ground, even as A.J. springs into action to grab at the gun, just as John predicted.

Two shots are fired.

The lights go out.

Janine screams.

All hell breaks loose around them as the door is broken down and windows shatter. All the while, John holds Sherlock down, covering Sherlock’s body with his own, shielding both their heads with his arms.

“Don’t move,” John whispers, looking down at Sherlock from where they’re practically pressed together head to toe.

Sherlock’s good arm comes around him, and they hold on to each other as boots hit the ground, as harsh voices sound, as torchlight roams the room.

They can hear Lady Smallwood crying.

John doesn’t resist when the SAS agents drag him off Sherlock and order him to his knees with his hands behind his head.

“Careful with him,” he snaps harshly as the SAS agents pull Sherlock to his feet and make him kneel next to John.

Sherlock sways slightly, but he keeps upright while giving John a sarcastic smile. “The service in this establishment is appalling,” he says, his voice as shaky as his smile.

John smiles back, equally shaky. “Horrendous. I’ll leave a sharply worded review.”

The lights come back on, revealing A.J.’s corpse on the floor. Clean headshot. Lady Smallwood is still kneeling on the floor, hands behind her head like John.

No sign of Mary, or Janine.

John exchanges a look with Sherlock. Gives him a small, reassuring smile. No regrets. No matter what.

Sherlock smiles back faintly, then he crumples to the floor like a puppet whose strings were cut.

“Shit,” John curses as he moves to take care of him.

“Stay where you are,” a SAS agent shouts at him harshly.

“This is Mycroft Holmes’ brother. Do you want to be the one to explain to Mycroft why his brother wasn’t given immediate medical attention?” John barks, in his best Captain Watson voice.

The SAS agent almost snaps into parade rest, and John smiles grimly, then barks a few additional orders. “Get me a fucking med kit and radio for a helicopter. Now!”

The SAS agent scrambles to follow John’s orders as John bends over Sherlock to check on him.

He’s out cold, and covered in clammy sweat, but his pulse is strong and he’s breathing regularly. John checks his bandages and curses when he sees Sherlock has bled straight through them. “You’re so stupid,” John mutters into Sherlock’s hair as he presses a reassuring kiss on his brow. Reassuring for John, mostly.

“I tend to agree,” a cultured voice says from the door.

Mycroft steps into the room, his eyes falling on Lady Smallwood, who looks utterly defeated. “Elizabeth. I think you and I should have a long overdue conversation.”

*-*

Hospital gowns and hospital lighting suit nobody, not even Sherlock with his perfect bone structure and interesting colouring. The neon washes even him out, and that goes doubly so for John. He looks as exhausted as he feels as he washes his hands and briefly checks his reflection in the small mirror over the sink in the small bathroom of Sherlock’s hospital room.

Sherlock is still sleeping. He woke up very briefly when they landed on the roof of UCH, disoriented and obviously scared, but he calmed down immediately when he saw John and fell asleep again before they reached the A+E. His new colleagues were flabbergasted to see John with several SAS agents and his unconscious boyfriend in tow, and he knows he’s going to have to answer questions for weeks, if not years, after the incident. But they didn’t send him out while they took care of Sherlock. He got to see the X-ray that showed there was no damage to the shoulder joint, and he got to supervise as one of the junior doctors put the sutures in.

Now he’s waiting for Sherlock to wake while trying not to fall asleep himself in the uncomfortable hospital chair. He should go home—he needs a shower, a good meal and about sixteen hours of sleep—but he doesn’t want Sherlock to be alone when he wakes. Not again. Not ever again.

The door opens and closes.

John looks up when a takeaway coffee is held out to him. “Not poisoned, I hope,” he says dryly as he takes the cup.

Mycroft gives him a small smile. He too looks exhausted and John is surprised that it doesn’t seem like he’s even trying to hide it.

Mycroft sits down on the other side of Sherlock’s bed and, for a few minutes, neither of them speaks as John sips his—excellent—coffee and they both watch Sherlock sleep.

“Mary?” John finally asks.

Mycroft shakes his head.

“How did she escape?” John asks wearily. Not that it makes a difference. She’s gone. After all her professions, after all her assurances that she did care about John, after all her speeches about their common interest, she still used the first opportunity to fuck off with John’s daughter.

“Apparently there’s an underground tunnel that wasn’t on any plans, but which Miss Hawkins was aware of. Mary grabbed her as a convenient hostage, but seemingly let her go once they were out of the house. We found Miss Hawkins in a state of absolute terror out on the lawn. Mary was long gone, along with the white van you all used to get to Appledore. We’re searching for her intensely, but so far she hasn’t surfaced.”

“Are you going to charge her with anything?”

Mycroft shrugs. “We’re still piecing together what exactly happened. We’re going to need a statement from you and Sherlock soon.”

“A.J. would have killed her,” John says, feeling it necessary to point out, if only for fairness’ sake. “And my daughter with her.”

“That seems likely, from what Miss Hawkins said, he attacked Mary shortly before he died.”

“And Lady Smallwood?”

Mycroft sighs. “A similarly complicated case.”

Cold-blooded murder is complicated. I see, John thinks grimly. It is complicated, he does know that. Magnussen was a monster. But he was still a human being and John feels dirty for the part he played in the death of two people tonight.

“None of this is your responsibility to bear.”

John’s eyes snap to Mycroft. “Stay out of my head,” he grits out between clenched teeth. John doesn’t especially like it when Sherlock tells him exactly what he’s thinking, and he likes it even less when it’s Mycroft reading his thoughts.

Mycroft raises his hands in a defensive gesture. “I was merely trying to extend my most sincere apologies.”

“What the actual fuck?” John asks, gobsmacked. “Apologise? You? To me?”

“It occurs to me,” Mycroft says, looking down at his hands folded over his ubiquitous umbrella, “that much of this current situation could have been avoided, or at least ameliorated, if I had shown you even the smallest inkinling of trust.”

John doesn’t know what to say to that. No shit comes to mind, but isn’t exactly in the spirit of things.

“My brother’s health and safety have always been my highest priority,” Mycroft continues, “and until very recently, I regarded you as a liability to both.”

“Why?” John asks quietly, even though he thinks he knows the answer.

“Sherlock pretends to be strong, but really he is emotionally extremely vulnerable and, quite frankly, I had no faith in your affections for him given how you reacted to his return. And how long you fought against acknowledging your feelings for him.”

John concedes the point with a half-nod. From Mycroft’s perspective, he can see how his past caginess around admitting how completely Sherlock owns his heart could be seen as a liability. The truth is John was just trying to keep himself safe from what he thought would be disappointment and heartbreak.

“However,” Mycroft continues before John can say anything, “the way both of you conducted yourselves during recent events has proven me wrong.” Mycroft looks up at John, his eyes flinty. “He trusts you. Completely. There was not a second of doubt in his mind about you. I hope you realise what a privilege that is.”

“I do,” John says cooly, holding Mycroft’s gaze. He doesn’t need to tell Mycroft how hard-won this trust is and how much John cherishes it. How hard he and Sherlock worked to re-establish it, and how scared John was that it wouldn’t hold if tested. But it did. And he doesn’t need Mycroft fucking Holmes of all people to tell him how incomparably valuable a gift this trust is.

“I think maybe it’s time for me to recognise that when it comes to ensuring his health and safety, you aren’t a liability. You’re an asset,” Mycroft says, and he sounds like the admission has taken a considerable amount of effort.

Again, John restrains himself from answering No shit. Instead he just nods in acknowledgement.

Mycroft returns the nod, then checks his watch. “Your next shift in the A+E starts in six hours, correct?”

John rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck, I’d forgotten.”

“Understandable under the circumstances. I think your patients, which include my brother, would appreciate if you got some sleep.”

John snorts. “I’m not leaving him.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that,” Mycroft says gently. “I was merely suggesting that you have a lie down in the on-call room, and I will come and fetch you should Sherlock awaken.”

John hesitates. Mycroft is right, John needs to sleep rather desperately.

“John. Go lie down before you fall down,” Mycroft says, still in the same gentle tone. “He’d never forgive me if I allowed you to get hurt after he went to so much trouble to save you.”

John still hesitates. “You’ll come get me the second he wakes up?”

“I promise,” Mycroft says solemnly.

Trust, John reminds himself. Trust works both ways.

John nods curtly. He does a last check of Sherlock’s vitals then presses a kiss to his forehead, unheeding of Mycroft who has his eyes carefully riveted on his phone.

Then he goes looking for a bed.

*-*

It’s four in the morning when he gets a text from a hidden number.

For what it’s worth I’m sorry.

Another text follows. I’ll tell her about you someday. I’ll let her know her father loves her.

How very fucking generous of you John texts back, but when he sends the text, the mobile company informs him the number is no longer in service.

John rubs a hand over his face. He’s too fucking tired for this.

He forwards the text chain to both Sherlock and Mycroft. Maybe they can make something of it.

Then he goes back to sleep.

*-*

“This is disgusting. What even is this?”

“It’s soup, love.”

“No, it’s not. I’ve had soup before. This is, at best, mildly flavoured dishwater. At worst, it’s what results from heating up the water the cleaners squeeze out of their mops.”

“You need to eat, love,” John says patiently, his feet resting on the mattress of Sherlock’s bed. He’s brought his lunch to eat with Sherlock, and to let Sherlock steal most of it. He woke up at around ten this morning and has been, to put it mildly, an absolute bloody pain.

John’s phone beeps. Greg, checking in. How is he?

Complaining about everything. So. You know. Better.

Might swing by later. Molly too, even though she wants Sherlock transferred to Barts.

John rolls his eyes. I talked her out of that.

“Expect a revolving door this afternoon,” John says, nudging Sherlock with his foot. “All of our friends have been texting me non-stop asking how you are and when they can come visit.”

“They can come visit me at home, if they want,” Sherlock says petulantly, still glaring at his lunch tray like it’s a personal affront. “I don’t need to be here. I can rest at home.”

“I agree, generally, but let’s see what your doctors have to say.”

“You are my doctor,” Sherlock points out. “Can I have some of your chips?”

John smiles and hands them over. Sometimes Sherlock is very predictable. “I’m not your attending physician in this hospital, though. That would be a shattering ethics violation.”

“Like you care,” Sherlock says around a mouthful of chips.

“I might not, but the UK general medical council does.”

“Semantics.”

“Maybe, but you do want me to keep my medical license, right?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You’re being overdramatic.”

“And you’re clearly feeling much better, if you have enough energy to be this much of a brat.”

Sherlock sticks out his tongue and John laughs, as much from relief as from actual amusement.

There’s a knock on the door, and Mrs Hudson bursts in two seconds later. “Oh Sherlock, dear, I just had to come straight away,” she says, pulling Sherlock into what looks like an almost painful hug. Sherlock pats her back and tries to look annoyed, but John can see the small smile he reserves for their landlady.

John gets up off his chair and offers it to Mrs Hudson. “Perfect timing, Mrs Hudson. I need to get back to work.”

“Oh, thank you, dear,” Mrs Hudson says, kissing John on the cheek. “Have a biscuit before you leave.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” John grabs a biscuit from the box Mrs Hudson hands over to Sherlock, then plants a quick kiss to Sherlock’s lips. “I’ll be back to check on you later.”

“I’m fine,” Sherlock says with an eye roll. “Please come back with my discharge letter.”

“I’ll do my best. Be nice to the nurses, please?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes again.

John gives him a stern look. “I’m serious, Sherlock. I have to work here. If you can’t be nice, I’ll grant Molly’s request to have you transferred to Barts, then you can traumatise her nursing staff.”

Sherlock grips John’s wrist. “Empty threats won’t work on me. You’d never let me out of your sight.”

John pecks him on the lips. “If I have to choose between all the nurses hating me or you being transferred to another hospital where you become Molly’s problem, I might be tempted.” He gives Sherlock a mock-stern look. “Now please behave like an adult, eat your chips and regale our landlady with your dashing adventures. I need to see my patients and work on getting you home, where we can fuss over you in peace. And you can go back to just being a pain in my arse only.” He leans down and whispers, “Which I quite like, by the way.”

Sherlock grumbles something inaudible, but John catches Sherlock’s small, pleased smile and the slight flush on his face in the reflection in the window. He smirks, then leaves Sherlock to Mrs Hudson’s fussing and to pretending he minds.

Softie, John thinks with a smile as he goes back to work.

*-*

“Fuck, I feel like we haven’t been home in days,” John says as he eases Sherlock onto the sofa the next morning.

Negotiations with Sherlock’s doctors yielded a compromise. They wanted Sherlock to stay for another full day for observation, but John negotiated down to only one night of IV fluids and antibiotics, then home care.

“It’s only been about 36 hours,” Sherlock says, grimacing as he gets comfortable on the sofa. “But I see your point.”

John leans against Sherlock’s good side and sighs in contentment as Sherlock’s arm settles around him. “You scared me a bit,” he says, his eyes closed, burying his face in Sherlock’s shirt. Thank god Sherlock’s out of scrubs and back in clothes that feel and smell like him.

“Likewise,” Sherlock murmurs in John’s hair, dropping a soft kiss to his head.

“For a bit there, I wasn’t entirely sure we’d make it out in one piece,” John says.

Sherlock is quiet for a moment, then he says, “John,” in a tone that makes John sit up and turn to ensure he can see Sherlock’s eyes.

“What?”

Sherlock swallows. “Magnussen’s laptop.”

“What about it?”

“It wasn’t empty.”

“What?” John asks, feeling the blood drain from his face. “But you…”

Sherlock shrugs, one-armed, his left arm still immobilised against his body. “I lied.”

“Why?”

“There was a hidden drive on the laptop. I found it, but I couldn’t break in, so I hid it again, ” Sherlock says, looking down at his lap.

John takes his hand, gently rubbing his thumb over Sherlock’s knuckles. “What was on the hidden drive?”

“I’m not sure,” Sherlock says, “but if I had to guess, at least part of it pertained to ARGA.”

“So Magnussen wasn’t making everything up?”

“He didn’t make anything up, he deduced from fragments of information. He built a picture that let his victims think he knew much more than he actually did, and he relied on their fear and guilty conscience to fill in the rest. But yes,” Sherlock concedes with a nod, “he seems to have had a lot more information about Mary and A.J. than he had on the rest of us.”

“What did he have on Janine?” John asks. “Surely you deduced it.”

“Janine has horrid taste in men,” Sherlock says with a grimace. “I suspect she’s hiding from an abusive ex-boyfriend. Her Facebook has surprisingly few pictures of her for someone so active on the platform.” He rolls his eyes. “She sort of insinuated that she had hoped we’d get “closer” during your wedding reception.”

“Honestly, that sounds to me like she has excellent taste in men,” John says, taking Sherlock’s hand and pressing a kiss to his palm.

“Trying to get off with the gay man in love with the groom?” Sherlock asks, giving John a sceptical look.

John closes his eyes for a second and thanks the brief moment of illumination that made him see he couldn’t marry Mary. “I’m sorry I almost put you through that.”

Sherlock gives him a small, crooked smile, squeezing John’s fingers that are still clutching his. “‘Yes. Well. Can’t say I recommend planning the wedding of someone you’re in love with who is marrying someone else.”

“It’s so difficult to imagine, now,” John says softly, pressing another kiss to Sherlock’s palm, “how I could have ever thought I could marry her. Seeing her again…I realised I never knew her. I honestly thought she loved me.”

Sherlock visibly hesitates, then apparently decides that whatever he’s about to say needs to be said, even if he doesn’t want to, judging from his expression. “I… don’t think she’s as indifferent to you as we originally thought.”

“You can’t be serious,” John says, staring at Sherlock in shock. “Did you honestly believe a word out of her mouth?”

“No, she’s a consummate liar and a master manipulator. The only time anything that comes out of her mouth has a connection to the truth is if it serves her purposes.” Sherlock pauses a bit, then continues, more quietly, “But within that framework, I do think she cares about you.”

“Fat lot of good that did me, or you, for that matter,” John mutters, unsure what to think about any of this. “If she cared about me at all, she wouldn’t have fucked off with my daughter.”

“If she didn’t care about you at all, she never would have come to us with the Magnussen thing in the first place.”

“She needed us to break in,” John says, confused.

“Did she? I’m not so sure about that,” Sherlock says, freeing his hand from John’s to sketch an uncertain gesture. “Think about this: Why did she know the video existed? Because Magnussen showed it to her. Why did Magnussen show it to her?”

“Because he thought I was a pressure point for her?” John finishes the thought, still sceptical, and still vaguely uneasy.

Sherlock nods and John can see that the thought is as deeply uncomfortable to Sherlock as it is to John. It’s easier to think of her as a cold-hearted liar, somehow. If what Sherlock says is true, then everything becomes muddled again.

“Mycroft deleted the CCTV footage, by the way. I made him show me,” Sherlock says grimly.

John gives Sherlock a small, humourless smile. “Can you believe he actually apologised to me?”

Sherlock stares at John. “You’re making that up.”

“I swear to god, he actually apologised.”

“Was he drunk?” Sherlock asks, giving John a deeply sceptical look. “Were you drunk?”

“I might’ve been hallucinating with exhaustion,” John admits with a small shrug, smiling at Sherlock’s gobsmacked expression. “But I do distinctly remember him saying that, in terms of keeping you safe, he now considers me an asset.”

“No shit,” Sherlock mutters.

John giggles a bit. “I was this close to saying ‘Obviously’ to him, but I figured I should respect his efforts.”

“I still don’t believe this conversation actually took place,” Sherlock says, pointing a finger at John. “Film him next time.”

“I’m sure that would go over well. Mycroft, please repeat what you just said into the camera so your brother will believe that you are actually capable of remorse.”

Sherlock laughs, but the laugh devolves into a yawn big enough that John can hear Sherlock’s jaw joints crack.

“Come on,” John says, holding out a hand. “You’re still on bedrest.”

“Bedrest is boring,” Sherlock whines, but he lets John pull him to his feet and manhandle him to their bedroom with little to no resistance.

“Tell you what,” John says in his best ‘wheedling cranky detectives’ voice, “you get a few hours of sleep, have a decent meal, and I will make this bedrest thing vastly less boring for you.”

“Are you bribing me with sex?”

“Is it working?”

Sherlock considers for a few seconds while he lets John undress him. “It’s not not working,” he says, pulling John in for a kiss.

“You know,” Sherlock mutters against John’s lips, “I’ve read somewhere that you can reinforce good behaviour by treats before and after.”

“Oh, no,” John says, pulling back with a laugh. “Sleep first. Blowjobs later.”

“You’re no fun at all,” Sherlock grumbles, but he lets John manhandle him onto the bed.

“Oh, love, I think you’ll find that I am, in fact, an enormous amount of fun,” John says with an insinuating grin.

“Now you’re just teasing,” Sherlock complains, even as he draws John closer with his good arm, pulling him in until John’s lying with his head pillowed on Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s good arm holds him close, preventing him from moving away.

Like I’m going anywhere, John thinks as he yawns into Sherlock’s chest.

He closes his eyes and feels as the stress of the last few days slowly leeches out of him. He can feel Sherlock relax as well as they both melt into their familiar bed and each other.

“Sherlock.”

“Hm?”

John takes a breath and asks himself whether this is a good time to bring up what he’s been thinking about for months. What the last few days have only sharpened. He thinks of the ultrasound picture on his phone and the small flutter he felt when Mary pressed his hand against her stomach, and asks the question that’s been on his mind for months. “What do we do if we find Mary?”

Sherlock pauses for an almost imperceptible second. “We do what we have to do to bring your daughter home,” he says, and he sounds calm, but John can hear Sherlock’s heartbeat pick up under his ear.

He props himself up on his elbow to get a good look at Sherlock’s face. “Finding her is one thing. Raising her is an entirely different thing. Are you sure you want that?” he asks softly, his heart clenching in his chest as he sees the open vulnerability of Sherlock’s face as he goes through a series of complicated expressions.

“I want you to be happy,” Sherlock whispers, his heart in his eyes.

“I am,” John says quietly.

“I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

“I don’t.”

Sherlock puts his good hand on John’s face and smiles a bit sadly. “I want you to be here. All of you. I don’t want you to wonder. And if we don’t find her, if we don’t do this, you always will. And it will eat at you. You’ll always think about it. A part of you will always be out there, with her.”

John swallows. He can’t deny that what Sherlock is saying is true. He’ll always wonder. But. “I want you to be happy,” John says, borrowing Sherlock’s words as unable to find anything better.

Sherlock smiles at him, true and lovely and so very determined. “I am,” he says, pulling John down for a gentle kiss.

John leans into the kiss, then pulls back and looks down at Sherlock, tucking an errant curl behind his ear. “Maybe we should take this one step at a time. We still need to find her, after all.”

Sherlock pulls at John, and John takes the hint and lies back down with his head pillowed on Sherlock’s good shoulder. “True. So. Let’s stick to the here and now. You were going to make this bedrest thing more interesting?”

John laughs softly into Sherlock’s t-shirt. “No. You were going to sleep. And then I’m going to make bedrest very interesting indeed. So, my doctor's advice is to go to bloody sleep already.”

John can’t see Sherlock’s smile, but can hear it in his voice when he answers, softly, “Yes, doctor.”

John closes his eyes and breathes in that lovely home smell of Sherlock’s slightly unwashed body, the dusty sheets and Mrs Hudson’s laundry detergent. They have a long road ahead of them and he knows Sherlock is much more ambivalent about the prospect of raising a child than he lets on. And honestly, so is John. But right now, they’re here, they’re together, they’re safe, and they’re content.

And that’s so much more than just enough.