The Eternal in the Ephemeral

Hello! And Goodbye!

morganstuart — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:38:06 GMT

Hello, everyone!

I'm still alive. :) But I'm moving from LiveJournal.

You can find me and my stories (new and archived) here on Dreamwidth, here on Archive of Our Own, and here on Fanfiction.net.

If you find me at any of these places, please say hello!

May the Force of others be with you.

Make the Lay of Long Defeat (Rogue One)

morganstuart — Sat, 04 Mar 2017 12:47:32 GMT

Title: Make the Lay of Long Defeat
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Things might have gone very differently at Saw Gerrera's hideout on Jedha..
Author's Note: This takes place during the events depicted in the film Rogue One and diverges from canon. After reading Matt Forbeck's quote (below) from the Rogue One junior novel, I asked myself, "What if?"
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Depictions of injuries, torture and its aftermath, and character death

“Cassian might have been in worse spots than this one. He just couldn’t remember when. He only hoped that when they finally reached the rebels’ hideout, Jyn wouldn’t sell him out to Saw Gerrera. It would be so easy for her to deny him and his mission and just have Saw kill him…”
– Rogue One: A Junior Novel, Matt Forbeck

Jyn Erso was neither idealist nor crusader. She had made that clear. She viewed her universe in purely personal terms: pain and its absence, freedom and the want of it.

It seemed like folly then to build Operation Fracture on the shifting sand of her coerced loyalty. But Captain Cassian Andor was in a better position than most to understand why the Alliance leadership could not afford to wait until a perfect opportunity for action presented itself. The Rebels would – to be precise, he would – have to make the problematic plan work, somehow.

The burden lay heavy on his shoulders, and he felt the weight of it.

He had been grateful for Jyn’s quick thinking when she insisted that he be included in her audience with Saw Gerrera. He had hoped to put the Alliance’s plea to Gerrera himself after foster father and daughter had their moment of reunion.

He hadn’t counted on finding a failing wreck of a man in place of a formidable leader. Clearly, neither had Jyn.

The cool defiance she had shown on Massassi Base masked, as Cassian had suspected, not hate but hurt. It proved no match for Gerrera’s pitiable state and genuine (if half-mad) warmth.

Independence was her first priority, but clearly she also yearned to be convinced that she hadn’t been thrown away and forgotten. And who wouldn’t?

When Gerrera protested that past abandonment had been meant as protection, she faltered.

When he whispered in his broken voice, “Not a day goes by I don’t think of you,” tears filled Jyn’s eyes, although she refused to let them fall.

Cassian felt it, as unmistakable as the Jedha stone beneath his feet: Jyn was not there alongside him, speaking to Saw Gerrera. Jyn was with Gerrera – in sympathy, if not solidarity – and Cassian and his Cause were unwanted trespassers.

“But on this day?” Fragility shone through Gerrera’s paranoia. Jyn took a step forward, meeting it with strength, shoring up the man.

“So you did get a message from my father? Because that’s what his Alliance thinks.”

She jerked her chin at Cassian but kept her eyes on the one who had raised her.

“I’m here because of him, Saw, but I’m not with him. The Alliance gave me no choice. I was the Empire’s prisoner, and then I was theirs, someone to use to get through your door. If it’s true that my father built a weapon for the Empire, they want him to testify to the Senate.”

“We’re on the same side here,” Cassian said, raising his still-bound hands in a gesture of conciliation. He kept his voice soft, non-confrontational, all too aware of Gerrera’s instability and the armed guards at his own back. “If you—”

“The Senate?” Saw wheezed, ignoring Cassian. “The Senate gave us… the kriffing Emperor… in the first place.”

“I know,” Jyn agreed. The half-smile that twisted her mouth held no humor. “And when in doubt, form a committee, right? Because that always works so well.” These sounded like Gerrera’s own well-worn words being given back to him, a kind of personal offering.

“Maybe there’s a better way,” Cassian countered, trying to sound reasonable, to salvage something from this. Gerrera was, after all, the only path he had to Galen Erso – or any fresh intelligence about the planet killer. “You know more than we do. Let’s talk—”

“You and your Alliance… and your talk!” Saw’s laugh was sudden and harsh, and it sent him to his oxygen mask. He glared at Cassian as he drew what was obviously an excruciating breath. “Action must be taken… and my people will be the ones to take it. And…”

The ailing veteran turned, fumbled for his cane, and then leaned his weight into it, hand trembling.

"…Speaking of my people… did you think I’d ignore the deaths in the city?”

Without warning the butt of a blaster came down brutally hard on Cassian’s shoulder, and he buckled to his knees with a wounded sound.

“This is the one who killed them, Saw,” the guard said.

Gasping, Cassian looked to Jyn. “If I hadn’t, you’d be dead right now. You know that. I did it to save your life.”

Her shrug was more than a dismissal, Cassian realized. It likely was his death sentence.

“I was in harm’s way in the first place because you put me there,” she said.

He read no malice in her eyes, but no investment in his fate, either. She was doing what her file had suggested she always did when on her own; she was looking out for herself, because few others ever had.

Again Cassian opened his empty hands toward Gerrera. “I’m sorry about your people. I am.” He meant it. “Surely you—”

“Alliance,” Gerrera sneered. “Always talking.”

Cassian swallowed, rethinking his tactics. He made no attempt to regain his feet, but rather settled himself back on his knees. “Then tell me how to make things right,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. “Please. We have the same enemy, and it seems that enemy has a new weapon. We have to act now, and we should work together. We want the same thing here.”

Gerrera took a staggering step forward, metal grinding on stone. “We do not, Captain…. No, we do not.”

His smile was beatific and quite possibly insane.

“Because I want you turned over to my soldiers for justice” – Gerrera spat the word and then paused to struggle for another lungful of air – “and to hell with the Alliance.”

A glance at Jyn showed her to be unmoved. “I just want my freedom,” she said simply.

“Trust works both ways?” It was a question and an accusation, the last card Cassian could play on his own behalf. His conscience – still dogged, despite all that had been asked of it – reminded him of what he had been tasked with doing if he found Galen Erso. It was one more bitter thought he swallowed down like bile.

An unreadable expression passed across Jyn’s features – but only once, and then she sighed. “When it works at all. And how often is that? You’re the spy. You should know.”

Indeed.

Cassian set hope aside. The mission came first, and he couldn’t afford to let his own survival instinct get in its way.

“Listen to me.” A second guard joined his comrade, freeing Cassian’s hands only to re-secure them behind his back. Cassian kept his focus on Gerrera. “I must pay for those deaths. I understand. Give me to your people, but” – his captors hauled him to his feet – “talk to the Alliance. Please. Share what you know about this superweapon, about Galen Erso.”

When only silence met him, he added, “Don’t you see? The fate of the galaxy’s at stake!”

He looked from one to the other once more, desperate for any foothold. The words planet killer reverberated in his skull.

“Worry about your own fate,” Gerrera rasped. “Let me worry about the galaxy.”

Despair clawed up Cassian’s spine.

Gerrera nodded to the guards. “He’s yours. Avenge your comrades.” He turned to Jyn. “I have something to show you.”

***

By the time Cassian’s escorts shoved him back into main cavern, he had settled on a strategy. His horror at the magnitude of his failure lay just below the surface of his mind, ready to swallow him whole, but it had to wait.

A hush fell across the gathered soldiers when he appeared. The Tognath guard on Cassian’s left announced, “Saw says he’s ours to kill!”

As cheers and snarls of approval echoed, the Tognath tightened his already punishing grip on Cassian’s arm. Cassian relaxed into the bruising hold, drawing himself up with as much dignity as any bound prisoner could muster.

He pitched his voice to carry. “I did what I did only to protect Jyn Erso. That grenade would’ve killed her. I acted on instinct to save her life. That’s not an excuse; it’s an explanation. I am sorry, truly, about your comrades.”

Curses and jeers and malevolent glares assured him that his words changed nothing. More fighters appeared from nearby chambers and passageways, and several of those in the central area rose to their feet.

Cassian soldiered on. “I understand how this works. I know you want my blood. Just give me one minute to speak to you first, please. What harm could it do to hear a dead man’s last words? Besides, I killed stormtroopers in the Holy City, too – stormtroopers who were there to hunt you. Surely that counts for something.”

Looks were exchanged. The relative quiet that answered Cassian couldn’t be mistaken as receptive, but these men and women observed a code of sorts, and he had bought himself one more minute.

“I’m here on behalf of the Rebel Alliance. We’ve learned that the Empire may have developed a new superweapon, one that’s capable of destroying an entire planet.” He paused for a breath to let that penetrate. “Saw Gerrera may have the key – or at least a clue – for acting against it. I’m here to say you don’t have to fight this alone. I’m asking – begging – you to encourage Saw to share information with the Alliance, or do it yourself, so we can do our part to meet this threat.”

He scanned the faces of his executioners, willing them to see his sincerity.

“This is a critical moment. If this window of opportunity closes – if a planet killer is unleashed on the galaxy – it may spell the end of any resistance to the Empire. Your people, my people, we can’t afford to be divided. Our cause is the same: we have to stop this weapon from being used.” He licked his dry lips. He felt spent and empty, and the horror called to him. “It’s up to you now.”

For several heartbeats a surreal kind of pause descended on the little drama.

“In the end, Saw will make the decision and we’ll follow his lead,” murmured a frail-looking Twi’lek from his chair.

And Gerrera was no longer entirely in his right mind. So Cassian’s failure was complete, then.

He stood unmoving, absorbing the blow.

“And you, Captain, won’t be alive to see it,” the Twi’lek added.

At an abstract level, Cassian comprehended the rationale for the kind of crude vengeance they had in mind. From Gerrera’s perspective, he had a motley fighting force composed of all types, from true believers to cynical mercenaries, with most falling somewhere on the spectrum in between. They needed cohesion. Giving a prisoner over to them for group violence reinforced a sense of shared kindship, while also keeping them hardened for the next bloody work he ordered them to perform.

From the soldiers’ perspective, acting in honor of the fallen offered some modest proof that their deaths (and, by implication, lives) mattered to those with whom they served, and that their comrades would mourn them – and avenge them, if possible – when their own ends came.

This latter idea, in particular, struck a poignant note for Cassian, because he knew he couldn’t exactly say the same. In accepting an Intelligence agent’s life, he had knowingly embraced a similarly solitary and invisible death. The Rebellion was his family, to be sure, but due to the clandestine nature of his service, it could be neither a close nor a warm one.

Cassian denied himself permission to think on the exception to this rule, the true friend he hoped was safe in the ship even now.

At any rate, the statistics had warned him to be prepared: less than a quarter of Alliance operatives survived to finish their twentieth mission. Before he had ever heard of Jyn Erso, Cassian already appreciated he was living on borrowed time.

It seemed he had survived just long enough to fly this vital mission into the ground in spectacular fashion. And how many would pay for the mistakes he’d made here? How many lives would his failure cost?

Only one last self-appointed task remained.

He knew Gerrera and many of his extremists viewed members of the Alliance as cowards. He could try, in some small way, to prove that assumption wrong.

Chin up, shoulders back, Cassian gave a grim nod to the Twi’lek. “Get on with it, then.”

The Tognath had never released his hold on Cassian, but now the human guard took a harsh grip on his other arm, as well. Suspended between them, bound hands curling to fists behind his back, Cassian waited as a huddle of nearly a dozen fighters of different species and genders resolved into a rough queue before him.

Just as the first soldier stepped forward, a calm voice sounded from the other side of the cavern.

“May the Force of others be with you. May the Force of others be with you. May the Force of others be with you…”

Instinctively Cassian turned his head to seek the source of those words. At the front of the barred cell stood the larger of the two imprisoned Guardians of the Whills, the one so devastatingly efficient with his heavy repeater cannon. Slightly hunched in deference to the cave’s low ceiling, arms crossed across his wide chest, he stood as Cassian’s silent, scowling witness.

Cassian could barely make out the man’s partner in shadowed silhouette behind him, sitting and staring sightlessly at the opposing stone wall, the chant on his lips. This wasn’t the blind man’s mantra from their forced trek across the sand – “I am one with the Force; the Force is with me” – but a blessing. Not “I,” but “you.”

A prayer, Cassian thought. For him?

His face was still turned toward the Guardians when the first blow fell.

***

Few jeers came now. Any noticeable undercurrent of sadistic glee had all but disappeared, and the individual acts of mourning and retribution made by fists and boots and truncheons and tools took on a grim ceremonial note.

Cassian managed to keep his jaw clenched against all but the most involuntary grunts and hisses for some time, rocking back and doubling over in the prison of his captors’ grasps, or folding to his knees, only to be hauled upright and presented in all his vulnerability to the next attack. He heard ribs give way with audible cracks; he tasted gore after agony ruptured deep in his belly.

As the strikes began to accumulate, wearing him down while tearing him apart, memories surfaced from the corners of his nightmares in a sickening collage. Some possessed specific faces and titles; others were blurred phantom he knew only as “collateral damage.” As saboteur, spy, and assassin, wearing names such as Joreth Sward and Willix and Aach, he had traded parts of himself in the process of carrying out his orders, holding to the conviction that the ends would justify the means.

He had compromised his own soul for the sake of a just Cause, only to fail it now in its most desperate hour. Did this failure render all of the blood he had shed meaningless, all of the wrong he had committed unjustifiable? What was left of him, to satisfy the ghosts?

Throbbing behind every pulse beat of anguish, every unwanted recollection, one thought returned in constant refrain: planet killer.

The guards allowed him to crumple to his knees and remain there after a particularly vicious blow to his already wounded abdomen. He gulped air in small sips, at last raising his head just as a diminutive Talpini drove a heavy boot up between his legs.

At this, they released him to crumple to the floor, wet-eyed and retching weakly. He hadn’t eaten a proper meal in at least a standard day; all he brought up was acid and blood. In quick succession well-aimed kicks caught him repeatedly, savaging his kidneys and forcing something in his shoulder to give. He heard himself scream.

Next a defiant “What? What?” pierced the cavern.

The blind Guardian ceased his steady chanting.

From his awkward position curled in on himself, Cassian could sense that even those who had opted to be passive spectators rather than active participants were turning their attention elsewhere. Bodies shifted and gave Cassian a partial view as one of the younger humans charged at the prisoners’ cell. He struck its bars with a metal pipe only a hand’s breadth from the face of the Guardian standing there, presumably for the mere satisfaction of watching the imposing man flinch and back away.

Except the Guardian did neither. He didn’t even blink. Arms still crossed, he only stared at Gerrera’s man with something like disgust in his shadowed eyes.

“Got something you want to say, old man?”

“Respect!” bleated an onlooker from the far end of the cavern. “He may be our prisoner, but he is a Guardian.”

“You’re right, Kullbee,” the Twi’lek agreed.

“So… what is it?” the soldier repeated after a beat, this time muted, chastised.

The Guardian’s gaze slid to Cassian where he lay panting and pressing the side of his face to the cold stone. “What he said deserved to be heard.”

The rumble of his words resonated deep in the cavern, filling up its empty spaces, a stark contrast to the clear, bright tone of the other’s chant, which had seemed to rise above them on another plane. It was as if the two voices found harmony, even when each spoke alone.

Returning his attention to the young soldier, the Guardian added, “But if you’re going to kill a man, do it. Make it clean.”

No response came. After several heartbeats, moving figures obscured Cassian’s view of the barred cell. The blind Guardian resumed his chant.

Gratitude welled up in Cassian like blood from another wound, even as a new kick clipped the back of his skull, blurring his vision.

It was the last one.

A sudden alarm ran through the assembled band. Some kind of emergency summons from Saw Gerrera? Cassian understood little, muddled as he was and shivering now, except that the next blow was temporarily postponed.

Urgent hands dragged him across the uneven floor and hoisted him to a semblance of verticality that Cassian had no hope of maintaining on his own. Awareness dimmed as they manipulated him; the complaints of his injuries united into a deafening chorus.

His captors gave him a mighty shove. As he pitched face-first toward the cave floor, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Strong arms caught and cradled him, as if he weighed nothing at all. As if he were something valuable.

***

“Are you with us again, Captain?” The blind Guardian’s voice came from somewhere above his head.

Cassian’s mouth was dry, his tongue foul. He cleared his throat, tasted fresh blood, and coaxed his jaws into movement.

“Cassian,” he murmured. “Cassian Andor.”

“Captain Cassian Andor,” came the prompt answer, “we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Chirrut Îmwe, and this is Baze Malbus.”

He had felt two pairs of hands making gentle inquiries against his wounds as he climbed back to awareness. Opening his eyes now, he blinked as the second Guardian came into focus, frowning down at him: Baze.

The man half-held Cassian, supporting his back and neck as one might embrace a child, keeping his weight from resting on his bound hands and avoiding added strain on his wronged shoulder.

“Easy. No sudden moves or deep breaths,” Baze said, “or you’ll put a rib through your lung.”

Cassian nodded his understanding, eased by such frankness.

“I’m sorry. You’re here because you helped us. You saved our lives, and this is the thanks you get.” Cassian’s words tumbled out now, slurred with pain, stretched thin on shallow air, laced with the guilty knowledge that he had warned Jyn against making friends with such dangerous strays as the last remaining Guardians.

“You didn’t lock us in this cage, Captain,” Chirrut said, seemingly unperturbed. “And all is as the Force wills it.”

A derisive snort welled up through Baze’s chest in answer. Cassian recalled enough from the men’s previous exchange over a mountain of downed stormtroopers to suspect that Baze scoffed at mention of the Force and not Chirrut’s words of absolution.

As if to confirm this, Chirrut added, “Baze Malbus was once the most devoted Guardian of us all.” Chirrut may have meant his pronouncement to convey dramatic irony, but what Cassian heard was sorrow.

Baze let the comment go unchallenged, and Cassian thought he heard an answering pain in that silence.

As the galaxy so often saw fit to remind him, Cassian wasn’t the only one who had lost everything.

Chirrut brushed Cassian’s sweat-matted hair away from his brow and then began to comb his fingers through the tangle in deliberate, measured strokes across the crown of his skull. Under his breath, in barely a whisper, the blind man resumed his mantra: “May the Force of others be with you. May the Force of others be with you...”

There was a method to the Guardians’ ministrations. Cassian had identified the cold fog descending on him earlier as shock, and now the warmth of Baze’s support and the repetitive stroke of Chirrut’s fingers grounded him, restoring a degree of clarity.

Cassian could not remember once being touched like this – with a kind of unconditional, selfless care – in the two decades since his father fell.

He was under no allusions; this wasn’t restoration for the wounded, it was comfort for the dying. Even so, the raw, animal hurt in him quieted. He could think again.

“Three things,” he said, and Baze raised his eyebrows in silent query. Chirrut did not pause his near-silent words, but Cassian was certain that he was listening, too.

“One: in the inside of my right boot, you’ll find a kit with a lock pick. When you see your chance, get yourselves out of here.” Bending his right leg, he put his calf within Baze’s reach.

A light kindled in Baze’s dark eyes. “Thank you.”

“Two: the silver disk above my left breast pocket: it’s my transponder. Unscrew it and take it, please. My droid, Kay-Tu – you saw him in the Holy City, he’s a KX-series Imperial droid, but I reprogrammed him – he’ll follow it when he doesn’t hear from me. I’d rather he find you than my body and no answers.”

He paused, fighting for air, and Baze tightened his hold briefly in silent support.

“We remember the droid. Kay-Tu?” Baze said.

Cassian nodded, concentrating on the steady strum of Chirrut’s fingers against his scalp in order to slow the rate of his shallow breaths. “Kay for short. Tell him it’s his call, what he does next: return to the Rebels, do something else. Stay and help you? He’s a good friend.” His voice wavered with emotion. “Best I ever had. He deserves a choice.”

A thought occurred to him. “If you can get to our gear on the table, you’ll find my comm unit. It’s tuned to the ship. Kay is waiting there. Tell him I said to pick you up, and he’ll trace your location and come immediately. Tell him,” – the torment in his belly, never stilled, was steadily mounting, and he swallowed around it – “tell him, ‘Cassian knew you remember Jenoport,’ and he’ll trust you.”

“Cassian knew you remember Jenoport,” Baze repeated.

“Yes. He’ll understand.” Cassian gathered himself for more effort, appreciative of Baze’s considerate silence – no useless platitudes about saving his strength, no reassurances that he would be fine – and Chirrut’s never-faltering chant and touch.

“Three: under the transponder, there’s a pill. Put it under my tongue? It won’t activate ‘til I bite it.”

“Suicide?” No judgment, only clarification. Baze’s free hand was already at work unscrewing the silver disk.

“They want to drag this out. I don’t.” He suspected it might be a moot point anyway, given his internal injuries, but it seemed important, somehow, to know that he had the option. “Thanks for speaking up for me, earlier.”

With a half-shrug, Baze said, “Courage deserves respect.”

Cassian held onto that as he drifted.

Without intention, Cassian found himself recalling his father’s dead body through the senses of his six-year-old self: oddly pale, stinking of charred flesh from the blaster burn, cold in a way that mocked the inherent warmth of the man in life.

When Baze tapped his lips with a finger, Cassian opened his mouth, lifted his tongue, and accepted the pill with a nod.

Shortly thereafter, he came back to himself with a start and a half-smothered cry.

Abandoning his mantra, Chirrut said, “Easy, Captain, easy,” and cradled Cassian’s head in both hands.

“Your gut?” Baze asked, bracing him as he shook with pain. “You took some bad blows. Must be hemorrhaging.” Cassian rocked, fighting the instinct to twist into a fetal position around his agony, knowing his ribs couldn’t take it.

Even as he shuddered, a spike of hope drove through him.

“One more… one more thing,” he said, his voice shredded. “If you see a young man in an Imperial pilot uniform, then—”

“He’s dead,” Baze said.

As swiftly and overwhelmingly as hope had returned, all of the breath left Cassian, and he sagged against the two Guardians with a ragged, defeated sound.

“In the next cell. I killed him.” The parallel lines etched between Baze’s brows deepened. “He wasn’t Imperial?”

“Defector,” Cassian whispered. “With news of the weapon.”

Baze made a growling noise, and then added, “His mind was gone. Torture. He didn’t know who or where he was.”

“Then it doesn’t…” The sheer futility of all of it – the pilot’s ordeal, the Alliance’s Operation Fracture, even Jyn’s defiance and poor, mad Saw Gerrera’s struggle – swept over Cassian, wetting his eyes, blurring his vision of the skulls and bones embedded in the wall of this cave-turned-crypt-turned-cell. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

He twisted weakly with the pain. Chirrut smoothed his hair back again. Chirrut's other hand, Cassian saw, reached out to grip Baze’s shoulder.

As his wounded body wrestled with its limits, Cassian’s breath came like a small child’s after a fit of weeping, in shallow, hiccup-like starts and stops. “I have done… such terrible things,” he murmured. “Terrible things.”

Baze made a fist, thumped it against his own chest, and then pressed it to the spot above Cassian’s heart. The gesture was archaic, but the message was undeniable: I have, too.

This is what war does to us.

“You’ve built a prison for yourself of guilt and grief,” Chirrut said. “You’ve carried heavy burdens for such a long time, all alone, in the service of what’s right. I may be blind, but I see you through the Force, Captain Cassian Andor. And that prison isn’t you.”

Chirrut leaned forward so that Cassian would know of the soft smile on his face.

“Behind those bars, you are luminous.”

Even if it was a kindly-meant lie, Cassian thought, his heart broke in thanks for it.

“Be at peace," Chirrut added. "There’s nothing to fear from what follows.”

Time seemed to stretch out for Cassian in an infinite moment of grace, suspended there in the unexpectedly gentle hands of these two deadly, feral children of Jedha. In fact, it was more than he had ever expected for himself.

The catacombs began to rumble. Shouts sounded from Gerrera’s people. More soldiers fled the cavern.

“Proton bombs,” Baze said, turning his eyes to the ceiling.

Chirrut shook his head. “No.” But he ventured no alternatives.

Planet killer.

Understanding dawned. Duty called one final time.

“Get out,” Cassian gasped. “Call Kay. Go.”

His tongue maneuvered the pill. He closed his eyes and bit down with all of his strength.

THE END

Vital Stats: This story was completed in March 2017.

This story borrows freely from the details and text of Alexander Freed’s Star Wars: Rogue One novelization and Pablo Hidalgo’s Star Wars: Rogue One – The Ultimate Visual Guide.

The title refers to the lines “I will make the lay of long defeat and draw the chorus slow/I'll send this message down the wire and hope that someone wise is listening when I go” from the exquisite song “When I Go” by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer.

My Best Invisible Boy (Rogue One)

morganstuart — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 02:06:37 GMT

Title: My Best Invisible Boy
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Cassian Andor gave his life for the Rebellion while on Scarif. He gave his life to the Rebellion twenty years earlier.
Author's Note: This takes place before and after the events depicted in the film Rogue One.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Depictions of warfare, injuries, and the aftermath of torture, non-explicit mention of off-screen violence and the possibility of underage sex

Chapter 1: You Could Go Under Cover/Make Your Great Escape

Celebration consumed Massassi Station like hungry fire.

Even cooler heads who could not mistake winning a battle for winning a war knew that the destruction of the Death Star represented a crucial turning point in this struggle. The galaxy now had proof that the Empire was not invulnerable. Once-silent sympathizers would dare to become vocal supporters of the Alliance; the ranks of the rebels would swell with new recruits.

One laughter and song-drenched night of drinking and coupling and affirming life, of cheering a princess and farmboy and smuggler and Wookie and each other, certainly could be justified – especially now, while the Empire reeled from this blow.

General Draven didn’t begrudge the others their festivity.

But that didn’t mean he felt like taking part.

Only a skeleton staff remained at critical posts. His footfalls echoed in corridors that were usually active with personnel, day or night.

This was the best time for it. He didn’t need an audience.

The short row of lockers sank back into the ancient stone of a hallway that led to guest quarters. Intelligence operatives rarely received permanent barracks assignments; they were in the field most of the time. They passed their brief stays at the base in the impersonal comfort of temporary rooms. An individual locker was the only show of permanence their would-be Massassi home provided.

After setting the empty box at his feet, Draven stared at one locker for several moments before overriding its security code and opening its door.

So very few things, and most of them single-minded in their practicality. Small tools. Spare socks. A battered transponder awaiting repair. A tube of the eye drops favored by human pilots to combat the strain of long flights.

A lone piece of candied bofa fruit by itself on the shelf, still wrapped.

No threads left to dangle, no mess for others to clean up. An extraordinary agent to the last. Undercover even here.

Draven forced a deep breath. The sound was overloud in the vacant space.

“I’m sorry, Cassian,” he said.

***TWENTY YEARS AGO***

Draven woke remembering she was there, reaching for her. But he was alone in his bed.

He found her wrapped in his shirt and staring out his viewport, a mug of steaming caf cradled between her hands.

“Kivren?”

They had kept things casual between them. It made sense in a time of war, when uncertainty and upheaval seemed to be the only constants in the galaxy. Considering that one of them was military intelligence and the other a civilian pilot, and they rarely found three days together in every sixty, it seemed wise simply to enjoy the connection they had without the complication of added expectations.

At least, that’s what Draven understood Kivren Bo’s position to be. If he were foolish enough to want more, he wasn’t going to compound his folly by saying so.

Her focus remained on the stars. “I can’t get Carida out of my head.”

He rubbed at sleep-blurred eyes and frowned at her reference to the Colonies world. Why now?

Months had passed since that unfortunate incident, and even then it was more footnote than headline.

He held his tongue, giving her time to say more. After a pause she did.

“You do see the problem, right? Not that long ago we lived in a Republic that had no standing army. We’ve gone a long way in the other direction in a very short time.” She turned to face him, brown eyes bloodshot with lack of sleep. “If citizens who are protesting the increased militarism of the Republic are killed – by Republic blasters in Republic hands – then that sort of makes their case for them, doesn’t it?”

“What happened at the Carida military academy was tragic,” he said. Even to his own ears, those words sounded hackneyed and hollow. “But we’re at war, Kivren. We don’t have the luxury of forgetting that. Talk of demilitarization must wait until there’s peace. Then –”

“Then what?” she asked. “Do you really think the giant war machine of the Republic will just dismantle itself? That all the power concentrated on Coruscant will just” – she detached a hand from her mug and made a shooing gesture – “trickle back to the civilians on their homeworlds?”

For several heartbeats they stood there, frozen in frustrated silence. She was hitting a bit close to home, given the nature of Draven’s work. Not that he was an ideologue. He was a most practical man. And practically speaking, he knew this debate could go on and on in circles until they were both ill with it.

Before he could formulate a reply with any chance of making things better instead of worse, Kivren shook her head. “No, I don’t want this. I don’t want to fight with you.” She deflated before his eyes, sinking into the modest standard-issue sofa, tucking her legs under her.

Wordlessly he refilled her caf and poured a mug for himself, and then he settled next to her. Something had pulled her from his bed, and it wasn’t abstract politics. He was willing to wait until she was ready to talk.

“I was just there,” she said at last.

“Carida?” This was news.

“It was a one-off gig between regular runs. You know me: the more of the galaxy I can see, the better. I like to get boots on the ground and explore at each stop. Of course the war has made that a lot more difficult.”

And dangerous, Draven added to himself.

Kivren blew across the surface of her drink to cool it. Her gaze grew distant as she fell into memory.

“There was this boy.

“He was throwing rocks at a line of Republic walkers moving up the central lane of the capital. Not laughing and running away, as if he’d been dared to do it by friends. No, deadly serious. Committed. Rock after rock, like he was fighting his own private war.

“He was all knees and elbows: a little undersized and a lot underfed. I thought he’s just a baby and then I saw his eyes: huge and dark and so sad. He had the eyes of an old man – one who’s outlived everyone he’s ever known.”

The story seemed to catch in her chest. She shifted and cleared her throat.

“The street cleared when the walkers showed up, so the boy and I were practically alone. After a time I pulled a ration bar out of my pack and offered it to him.

“He needed it – he was practically vibrating with need – but he didn’t move. Instead he asked, ‘What do you want for it?’ He wasn’t some feral, raging child. He spoke softly, warily, as rational as any adult, with a voice like... well, like music.

“I could tell he wouldn’t trust me if I said I didn’t want anything from him, so I said,
‘I’d like some information.’”

“‘Whose side are you on?’ he asked.

“I told him I was new to the planet, and I didn’t have a side. I just wanted to understand what I was seeing. Why was he throwing rocks at the walkers?

“He said, ‘I want them to go. I want them to know we don’t want them here. We just want to be free. We want to live our lives and not be killed.’ He couldn’t have been seven years old.”

At her glance, Draven shook his head mutely. What could he possibly say?

“I asked him if his parents agreed with the rock throwing. He said his mother had been with the Force since he was a baby, and his father – Papa, he called him – had been killed earlier that year.”

“And then, then, he said, ‘It’s not safe on the streets at night. Be careful. Leave if you can.’ I asked him what he did when it got dark, and he said, ‘I hide until morning.’ I must’ve looked horrified, because he said, ‘I’m good at hiding.’ Not bragging, just… reassuring me.

“I tossed him the ration bar. I doubted he’d ever come close enough to take it from me. He thanked me first, and then he inhaled it.”

She applied herself to her caf once again, blinking hard.

After some moments, she added, “He asked me where I was from, and I told him I was a pilot, and so I was from many different places. He changed like that.” She snapped her fingers. “His eyes lit up. You could see the intelligence and the curiosity in them. He seemed genuinely happy to learn that we both liked ships and droids and space.

“And then a group of clone troopers came out of one of the state houses, and the next moment he was gone. Nowhere to be found. That remarkable gift of a boy.”

Half-turning to face him fully, Kivren continued. “When I got back to the ship, I accessed the reports of deaths on Carida this year. One of the protesters killed at the demonstration at the military academy was the mirror image of that little boy, if you added another twenty-five or thirty years. Same dark hair and soulful eyes. Same intent expression.”

She rested a warm hand on his knee. “I know you care. I know you’re doing your damnedest for the galaxy, which is a lot more than I can say for myself. I know that. But right now, what you’re doing, what everybody’s doing, it isn’t good enough. I’m going to keep waking up in the night and imagining that little boy, hiding somewhere in the dark, until… I don’t know what. Some kind of change happens. Somehow.”

Draven could only digest this; he had no useful reply, and to her credit, Kivren didn’t seem to expect one. He just held her until the morning refused to be denied, and then they parted, Draven for his office and Kivren for her ship.

She didn’t return to him again. He confirmed she was alive and unharmed, and then he taught himself to let her go. The galaxy soon shattered around him – the Republic transformed into Empire, the Jedi exterminated – and there was no time for anything else, anything for himself, even if he had known how to ask for it.

Kivren proved to be right about the giant war machine of the Republic.

She also proved to be right about the remarkable boy.

It took Draven two years to connect the pieces. After his defection to the Rebellion, he had set himself to intensive research, flagging potential recruits for the unglamorous but desperately necessary work of Alliance intelligence. He was reviewing a file he had opened some time earlier on a former member of an insurrectionist cell turned anarchist activist in the Outer Rim, a gifted child with a penchant for dismantling advanced combat machinery with little more than sticks and stones, when Kivren’s story resurfaced in his mind with all the impact of point-blank blaster fire.

Seconds later a search confirmed that the dark-haired, dark-eyed protestor killed at the Carida military academy was Edrian Andor.

Kivren hadn’t exaggerated, either: young Cassian was the living image of his late father.

Draven added a note to the boy’s file and moved it to the top of his queue for immediate action.

If he had been the idealistic or romantic sort, the kind who sought deeper meaning in random coincidence or nursed a secret belief in destiny, he might have wondered if this was what they meant when the starry-eyed echoed weighty phrases such as “the will of the Force.”

But Draven was a most practical man. And he had work to do.

***SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO***

“You already know everything that’s happened in my life,” the boy said, measuring Draven. Not hostile, not scared, merely trying to understand. “Now you want to know what makes me tick. You want to know if I’m bad. Or broken.”

An efficient definition of a psych eval if ever Draven had heard one.

“Well, are you?” Draven wasn’t known for his delicacy. Besides, the boy’s forthrightness begged to be returned in kind.

As they walked side by side, pacing back and forth in the rubble beside Draven’s hastily-camouflaged ship, the boy mimicked Draven’s body language, back straight and hands clasped behind him. He was still mostly knees and elbows and dark, dark eyes.

The boy’s answer apparently required time. Draven got the impression that prosecution and defense were presenting complicated arguments behind the boy’s somber expression.

“I try not to be,” came the decision at last, simply put.

Draven considered this. “I think you’ve answered both concerns, then,” he said, “because I suspect that’s the best any of us can do.”

This made an impact.

The boy halted and lifted his chin, meeting Draven’s scrutiny. “With or without you, I’m fighting the Empire. That’s the right thing to do. But if you’ll take me with you, sir, I’ll fight your way.”

Draven was accustomed to shouldering great responsibility, but upon hearing those words, he abruptly felt the strain of it.

He leaned forward, closing some of the distance between their heights. “You and I, we’ll do what we do not because we enjoy it, but because someone has to do it, and we know we can.”
When the boy nodded, Draven knew they understood each other.

He extended his hand. “Welcome to the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Mr. Andor.”

***

Draven had his speech chosen, his rebukes planned: The Kid, as young Andor had been dubbed, was neither a pet nor a mascot. He had earned his place at this dubious excuse for a work-in-progress base, and no one should forget it. The boy had a great deal to learn from the specialists assembled here, but no small amount to teach them in return.

Take him seriously: Draven would hammer that point home.

The tirade turned out to be wholly unnecessary.

By the time the pilots and slicers, intelligence operatives and munitions experts paused to consider the smallest satellite thriving in their orbits, The Kid was already a fixture, as accepted – and, indeed, as relied upon – as the lights at their ceilings and locks on their doors.

Draven allowed himself a moment of satisfaction one night, witnessing The Kid sitting shoulder to shoulder with seven comrades around a table in the mess hall. When Andor ducked his head to blush and giggle at some ribald joke, Draven felt an undeniable surge of relief that the boy still could do both, after all he had seen and done in his brief life.

The relief passed quickly. Draven could read the writing on the wall, and he could render a competent translation: in five years, more than half of the rebels at that table would be dead, and The Kid would be a fourteen-year-old veteran agent with a laugh like strangled tears.

There was nothing Draven could do to stop what was coming. He could only make certain the side he had chosen was equipped to the best of his ability. He could only sell them all, himself included, as dearly as possible.

In their own individual ways, Draven thought, each of the rebels accepted this.

Even Andor.

Especially Andor.

Chapter 2: Won’t It All Fade Away/If I’m Only Made Out of Clay

***ELEVEN YEARS AGO***

“I need you to keep talking, Lieutenant.”

“Right… m’sorry…” Anyone with training could hear the evidence of shouts and screams in that shredded voice, the proof of internal injury and fading strength in those shallow, wheezing breaths.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Only someone who knew Captain Hera Syndulla could detect the sharp bite of urgency beneath the calm flow of her words. “But I think you’re concussed, and I know some of your ribs are broken, and you’ve had Force-knows-how-much electricity run through you: I don’t think now’s the time for a nap. Here, wait, let’s get another blanket on you.”

As the Twi’lek moved about her cabin, the sounds of her motions echoed in the confined space of the modified VCX-100 light freighter.

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” she continued. “I’ve been recording this for Colonel Draven, like you asked, and you’ve already made a thorough preliminary report. As soon as we’re within range for encrypted data transfer, I’ll send the file to him. For now, just talk. Anything on your mind. Free associate. Tell a joke.”

In other words, Draven need not listen to the rest of the recording. He already had the facts.

Alone in his office, he let the audio play.

“Like… y’rdroid.” That from Andor.

“Chopper? Okay, maybe that is a joke. He’s not exactly what I’d call a charmer. He’s more of an acquired taste.”

Electronic hoots and warbles flooded the tape.

“He likes you, though,” Syndulla said with a chuckle. “He says you know how to make an entrance.”

“Nakedan’ bleedin’an’ semiconsciousssss?” Andor was faint and slurring badly now.

“I’m sure our reputation precedes us, but believe it or not, that’s not just another day on the Ghost.”

A truncated hiss, likely an attempt at a laugh.

“Seriously though, Chopper and I have been through a lot together. We keep each other company. I don’t need to tell you it can be lonely, doing what we do.”

Draven strained to hear a muted grunt of agreement.

“The rebel movement is coming together, but Alliance intelligence? We’re the ones who don’t get invited to the party – we can’t be, thanks to the nature of our work.” Comradely empathy filled her every syllable, and not for the first time, Draven thanked powers he didn’t believe in that Syndulla was the operative closest to the scene when Andor’s distress signal came.

“Oweyou… one.”

“I think this counts as half extraction, half self-rescue. That was pretty ingenious, how you got out your message. In fact, I’m going to steal that little maneuver for my own bag of tricks, so I’m calling us even.”

“ThoughtIwasn’t…”

Syndulla seemed to be waiting for more, but the rasping fragment hung in the air, unfinished.

After a time, she said, “I can see why: that was a near thing. Too close.

“And it was the Imperials’ mistake, leaving you alive,” she added, and something fierce blazed up in the fire of her tone. “That error is going to come back and bite the Empire where it hurts, Lieutenant. I can feel it.”

The ship’s sensors interrupted.

“Right, we’re within range,” she said, once again all business. “I’m going to send this recording ahead of us to Colonel Draven, so he’ll be up to speed by the time we get to base medical. I’m going forward now… No. No, wait.”

The transmission grew garbled, the sounds confused. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, Draven held his breath, concentrating.

“Stay with me, Lieutenant Andor.” A high, faint sound of pain. “Muscle spasms come with the territory after electroprod torture. Hold on. You don’t want to send a rib through your lung now. We’re almost there. Breathe. Steady. Breathe. This will pass.” After several beats, “Come on, Lieutenant. Breathe.”

Abruptly the audio went dead.

***

“I thought I’d find you here.” Draven parked himself beside Syndulla where she leaned against the wall facing the monitor of Andor’s room.

“That wasn’t the most professional report ever, sir,” she said, raising her cup of Tarine tea in salute, “but it seemed to calm the lieutenant and give him focus, letting him recount what had happened. My first priority was keeping him conscious.” Her features twisted in a grimace. “I think he was concerned he wouldn’t make it to a proper debriefing. And given the hemorrhaging…”

“I’ve received a thorough update from medical. He’s going to recover. You did very well, Captain.”

She shrugged off the praise. “I know I’m stating the obvious, but he did well. This phase of his mission went to hell in a spectacular fashion, and he found a way to turn it around, get the intel anyway, and save another operative’s work in the process. Then he faced interrogation to keep his cover intact and, half-dead, engineered his own rescue.” She wiggled a green finger. “Don’t think I’m not taking notes.”

“My recruits are impressive, if I do say so myself.” They shared half-smiles of satisfaction, devoid of joy. Then they fell into silence, both of them studying the pale face on the monitor.

“While I’ve been waiting, I read as much on his early background as my clearance would allow,” Syndulla continued after a time. “I’m glad our paths crossed, even if I could’ve wished for better circumstances.” She gave her tea a penetrating look. “He’s very young.”

“Not so very much younger than you.” Draven let his breath go in a gust. The next words hollowed him out: “And young is how Colonel Daniyek likes them.”

Syndulla turned on him, eyes huge, lekku stirring with distress.

“Easy, Captain. Andor knew. Of course he knew. He had a choice. He elected to accept the assignment.”

“Colonel.” The word was anguish.

“Getting agents in the door isn’t the same as prostituting them, Captain.” Yes, that line came easily enough. Draven had repeated it to himself more times than he could count. “If Daniyek were close enough to touch—”

“—he’d be close enough to kill,” Syndulla said. “And somehow that’s better, making the boy an assassin.”

“Lieutenant Andor is already an assassin, Captain Syndulla. And a saboteur and a spy, not unlike yourself.” The face he showed her was mild. After all, if she were less invested, less committed, Andor might well be dead right now. “You know better than many that the Empire doesn’t pull its punches. Neither can we. If we see an avenue open to attack the enemy, we use it.”

Making a wordless sound of distress, Syndulla slumped back against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Andor believes in our cause more than anything. That sustains him.”

Her disposable tea cup crumpled in her hand. Without looking, Syndulla tossed it into the mouth of the trash receptacle on the wall. “I wasn’t questioning him. Or his commitment. Or his courage. I’ve seen ample proof of what he’s made of.”

“You can’t tell me you’ve never leveraged the fact you’re a beautiful Twi’lek female on behalf of your field work, either, because I know better.”

The unfairness of those last words left a bitter taste in Draven’s mouth. On his way here he had extended Syndulla’s authorized clearance to cover this operation in progress, because saving Andor had required it, and now she was one of the very few who could act as a sounding board about it. That wasn’t a license to ask her for absolution. For that matter, he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he felt the need to do so in the first place.
They were at war. No one would thank him for using half measures.

“I can’t imagine,” she said, eyes still closed, “what it’s like to be you.” After a beat, “Sir.”

Folding his arms, Draven said, “Some days are better than others.”

Her lips quirked. Eventually she righted herself to stand by his side once again.

“May I ask you a question, Colonel?” Syndulla was subdued now, considerable restraints firmly in place.

“Yes, of course.”

“In all the times you’ve given him a choice, has Lieutenant Andor ever turned down an assignment? Even once?”

Of course not, he thought automatically.

She didn’t pause for a reply. “I’m due for takeoff in thirty, sir. I know he’s not awake, but I’d still like to say goodbye, if I may. Emergency extractions make fast friends.”

“I’ll intercept any overzealous med droids,” he said, gesturing to Andor’s door.

Her question rattled around in his skull as he watched the tableau unfold on the monitor.

Captain Syndulla sat in the chair beside Andor’s bed, taking one of the lieutenant’s hands in her own. For several minutes she simply regarded him. Then, leaning forward, she spoke.

Draven read her words from her lips: “Your father would have been proud of you.”

***EIGHT YEARS AGO***

“You wanted to see me, General?”

“At ease, Captain.” Draven set his datapad aside and ran a hand over his face, trying to encourage his mental gears to change. When he focused on Andor, he wanted his complete attention to be on the young man.

He took a swallow of caf and grimaced when he found it to be cold. Setting his mug down where he’d found it on his desk, he was vaguely aware of the fact he’d likely reenact the same scene in mere minutes.

Now, Andor.

From Draven’s perspective, the captain looked in need of a shave and haircut, a weekend’s worth of generous meals, and a week’s worth of quality sleep. In short, the same as usual.

No clue to the mystery at hand.

Those dark eyes were on him, alert and questioning.

“Your last mission was a great success, Captain, even by your high standards. You didn’t disable the plant so much as dismantle it; if the Empire means it to open, it must be rebuilt first. And of course, removing the lieutenant governor’s man, Stayten, from the equation – you made a neat job of that – renders rebuilding unlikely, if not impossible.
Well done.”

Andor nodded once in acknowledgment. They both knew this summary of recent events was a deviation from the norm. Draven’s practicality was his hallmark, and his preferred operating procedure in the aftermath of a mission involved picking up the pieces, burying the dead, and then getting on with things.

Draven cleared his throat.

“I’ve seen your requisition for supplies.” Andor’s eyes slid from Draven’s to focus on the empty wall beside him.

“Everything is in order, save for one request,” Draven continued.

He paused, but Andor did not return his gaze.

“One of the many things I appreciate about you, Captain – I have for years now – is that I can give you the outcomes I need and trust you’ll work out how to accomplish them on your own. Your subsequent report will then tell me what I need to know, and only what I need to know, without extraneous details.

“But in this case, you haven’t told me what I need to know.”

Nothing.

Draven allowed himself a bracing breath.

“I need to know what happened out there to leave you in need of a replacement for your suicide pill.”

A furrowed line etched itself between Andor’s brows, making him appear both absurdly young and unspeakably tired at the same time.

“It’s protocol that you don’t touch that pill unless you intend to use it,” Draven soldiered on, ever more aware of how off balance he felt and deeply resenting it. “I’ve tried to read between the lines of your report, and I can’t find anything to explain why you did.

“I know you’re under tremendous pressure, but look, son—” Draven choked on his own unintentional choice of words, pulling himself up short.

Andor blinked in surprise, still frowning at the wall.

“I’m sorry,” Draven said after a beat, studying his half-empty mug. “That was inappropriate. I didn’t mean—”

“No. No, it’s okay, General,” Andor voice came as a hushed and hurried whisper. “It’s fine.” Softer still, “Please. It’s not what you think, sir.”

Several seconds passed.

Draven pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Then sit and report, damn it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Andor sat, straightened himself, and after a pause he began without preamble, still speaking as if he didn’t want to be overheard, but steady for all that. “I report only what is relevant to the mission’s outcome, sir. As you said.”

“And?”

“On this last assignment, the detonations went off just as planned. The explosions fed on the combustibles already in the plant. Their combined force was… significant. Each took down a weight-bearing structure, triggering further collapse.”

Draven nodded.

“I waited and watched until I was satisfied. I was preparing to melt away, disappear into the city, when I heard a cry.

“There was a temporary trash receptacle at the back of the property. I checked it before I set the detonators. Maybe its metal shielded her heat signature from my scan when I made my final once-around the building before lighting it up. Or maybe her heat signature was so faint it didn’t register on my binocs. But she was there: a little Rhodian girl. She must’ve been sifting through the garbage, looking for food or clothes.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “The explosions had torn her apart. She was still alive. In agony.”

Draven held to his composed expression while Andor fought to do the same.

“She was beyond help, but I had to do something. I could’ve slit her throat, or shot her with my blaster, or broken her neck with my bare hands. But I’d already done enough violence to her, sir. And she’d already known enough fear in her life.”

Expressive hands gestured in the air, punctuating Andor’s earnest words. “To a child, a pill represents medicine. It means healing. It means hope. You understand? I knew she’d see I was trying to help her. And she did.”

His animation left him. He hands fell limply to rest on his thighs.

“And then she was gone. And I left her there with the trash.”

Draven began to search for the applicable stock phrases, but the young man continued. “I know her life, weighed against the thousands we saved by destroying that plant, is considered acceptable collateral damage. I know I had to make my escape or compromise the entire mission. This isn’t the first time innocents have been caught in the crossfire, and it won’t be the last. All I can do is live with that and try to do better next time. I know all of this, sir, and I’ll deal with it.”

Andor leaned forward, and Draven found himself mirroring the movement.

“But she mattered, sir.”

Here was the half-starved boy who had found the strength to throw stones at walkers.

For a moment, Draven could not speak. And then, “You’re quite right, Captain. She did.”

Andor nodded again, a curt jerk of his head, and Draven regained his equilibrium once more.

“As you said, I don’t usually include details like this in my report,” the young man added, repeating himself. Of course there had been other events such as this. Of course.

Only the Force knew what Andor withheld from the record and shouldered alone after any given assignment. And the Force and Draven didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry for burdening you with this. I didn’t think how it would look from your perspective. The pill.”

Draven waved the words away.

“I know I ignored protocol,” the young man continued, “and I’ll accept the consequences.”

Putting his palms on his desk, Draven pushed himself back an arm’s length, as if this change in position could provide helpful perspective. Unfortunately the galaxy appeared every bit as flawed from this altered vantage point.

“Captain Andor, you already live with more consequences than any sane person should. Keep trusting your instincts; I do.”

Draven pointed toward the door. “Your requisition is approved. And this conversation is over.”

As Andor reached the threshold, Draven added, “Your next assignment isn’t immediately time sensitive. Take a personal week, if you want it, before you head out.”

The dark eyes widened with something like alarm. “Thanks, but if it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d rather get on with it.” He gave grim, tight shrug. “I prefer to stay busy.”

Draven blinked, understanding.

“As do I, Captain. As do I.” He refocused on the controlled chaos at his desk, rolling his neck to stretch aching muscle. “I’ll have your prep materials to you tonight and you’ll be cleared to leave first thing tomorrow.”

Chapter 3: Then Only Those Who Can See You/Will Be Better Off Because They Can

***FIVE YEARS AGO***

Draven found Andor sprawled on the deck of his U-wing, surrounded by tools and droid parts, nimble fingers fast at work inside a carboplast-composite cranium.

“Don’t get up, Captain,” he said, before Andor even registered his presence. “I must say, I didn’t believe the rumors. But here you are.” Draven sighed. “What the hell are you doing?”

Glancing up with a quick, grease-streaked grin, Andor returned his focus to his work. “I’m using my down time between assignments to release stress and improve hand-eye coordination, the better to serve the Alliance.”

Draven was unmoved.

“No? Okay. My wise mentor and superior officer always taught me that ‘need to know’ works both ways.” Shifting some of the droid innards, he popped a small hand tool between his teeth and spoke around it, tool dangling like a death stick at his jaw. “Are you certain you need to know? After all, technically speaking, I am equipping myself for future missions in a manner that costs your division absolutely nothing. I am, for all intents and purposes, recycling trash.”

Draven cocked his head, studying the man before him. Perhaps, he thought, this was Andor happy.

“You do know that we have professional, full-time slicers here,” Draven countered. “None of them has ever successfully reformatted an Arakyd Industries KX-series security droid.”

“I know, sir. Some of them tutored me when I was younger.” He reclaimed the tool from between his teeth and shrugged. “And they never managed it, because they never really wanted it to happen. I do.”

“And why is that, exactly?”

Setting aside the K-2 unit’s head, Andor nodded with the air of an actor preparing for his cue. Clearly, he had rehearsed this.

Unfolding a finger for each of his points, he said, “He could prove invaluable on undercover assignments – he can scan and access Imperial communications frequencies, for example, and he knows the specs of more than forty Imperial ships, and his presence would lend instant legitimacy to any operational alias – and he’ll also be a great help in the day-to-day business of other missions: as a co-pilot, as a transport for heavy gear, as a stand-by for emergency extraction, as—”

“Enough!” Draven raised his hands in surrender. “Clearly you’ve given this some thought. But do the benefits outweigh the potential risks?”

“I’ll accept those risks.”

“I’m serious: this isn’t the kind of pet you want turning on you. Before it goes anywhere, you’ll have to satisfy Major Harinar that it won’t revert to type and kill you in your sleep.”

The twinkle in Andor’s eyes belied his solemn expression. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“And seeing an Imperial security droid walking the halls of the base will make a number of personnel uncomfortable. Consider stamping ‘I belong to Master Andor’ on its chest plating in bright paint, so everyone knows exactly who to blame.”

“I won’t let him disrupt anything,” the young man promised. “How often am I on base? I can tell him to lie low those rare times when I am.”

As he tapped a finger on a section of the KX’s exoskeleton, Andor’s voice went soft, almost wistful, as if he were sharing a secret. “And he’s going to call me Cassian. Not Master. Not Captain Andor. Not Joreth Sward or Willix or Aach or any of my other aliases.”

He aimed for another grin, but the effect was more poignant than cheerful. “I need to hear my real name before I forget what it is.

“You understand, don’t you, General?”

Draven treated the question as rhetorical.

“You can chalk it up to morale,” Andor continued, still more serious than moments before. “I want someone to talk to on my missions other than myself. Who better as a partner than a fellow rescue? We can be creatures of the Rebellion together.” Andor gave the shoulder of the KX-unit a friendly pat.

Draven pursed his lips and then said, “Spoken like a romantic, Andor.”

“I don’t know about that, but it gives me hope, imagining a different life for this droid, trying to make it happen. It feels like another blow against the Empire.” Andor rubbed at his nose, spreading grease from his fingers, and then ran his hand through his hair. “And if not – well, it is my time off, sir.”

Who could argue with that? And when had Andor last accepted an offer of a few days' rest? If this was what it took, Draven would abandon his half-hearted resistance.

“Believe it or not, I had cause to seek you out beyond the desire to verify this” – Draven waved his hand at the pieces of the KX unit – “dubious experiment. I have an opening in the Albarrio sector for a new Fulcrum.”

Andor sat straighter, alight with interest.

“Fulcrums are classified, of course, but I know that you know both Ahsoka Tano and Hera Syndulla serve in such a capacity. It just so happens that your name was the one each gave me when I asked for a recommendation. You were my first thought, as well.” It pleased Draven, seeing this news work on the young man. “Your duties wouldn’t be full time, of course; this would be in addition to other assignments.”

“Recruitment? Yes, sir. You know I want this. Thank you.” Draven waved him down before Andor could rise.

“Congratulations, then. If you succeed with your project here, you can consider this” – he jerked a chin at the dismembered droid – “your first recruit to the Alliance.” Draven tried on a brief smile of his own.

“Give K-2 a chance, sir. Maybe he’ll win you over.”

“I won’t hold my breath.” Draven sobered. “Captain, as Fulcrum, you’ll be shepherding people into this movement to do dangerous work. I know you’ve served during difficult times, but darker days are ahead, and we are going to need all of your resourcefulness, and practicality, and” – he glanced at the KX parts despite himself – “hope before we see light. I am once again putting my trust in you.”

Andor gave him a nod like a salute. “I understand. I won’t let you down. Thank you, sir.”

Five years later, that was how Draven would remember Andor: grease-stained and disheveled and for some minutes almost content, buried to the wrist in the artificial brains of his soon-to-be friend, a child’s hurts and a soldier’s burdens and a believer’s commitment written plainly on his face.

Thanking Draven for the opportunity to do more.

***PRESENT DAY***

The celebration no doubt continued throughout the base. Draven had set the box with Andor’s personal effects on the desk in his personal quarters and retreated to his standard-issue sofa. He brought with him a companion he rarely invited, for fear that it might make itself too welcome for too long: a bottle of Corellian whiskey. Only tonight, he told himself.
He felt far too much. And Draven was a most practical man: he knew the bottle contained a simple and efficient anesthetic.

Tomorrow he would sort pride from pain and get on with the business at hand. He would do his damnedest to finish what Andor had started.

And to learn what Andor had yet to teach him.

A good intelligence officer never stopped analyzing the data. Draven knew Andor had stolen victory from tragedy, somehow discerning when to lead and when to follow and how to unite five unlike humans and a reprogrammed droid, mostly strangers to each other, into a seamless strike team. He had known which of his fellow Alliance agents was, like he was, in need of redemption more than survival. He had grasped far more than Draven ever had shown him, and now Draven was prepared to be the student of the young man he had known so well – and hardly known at all.

Draven’s door chime sounded.

Not an emergency, not an official communiqué: a personal summons. He couldn’t recall when – no, if – anyone besides himself had ever been in his quarters on Massassi Station. And as for the hour, nighttime was bleeding into early morning.

Still fully uniformed, Draven answered the door.

He blinked, trying to interpret what he saw. The human was slender, slight, in off-duty trousers and a plain shirt. Not one of his agents. A boy?

“Most people see only the white robes, not the Chandrillan woman,” Mon Mothma said. “Put on a pair of pants and I might as well be in full-body armor and helmet, for all that anyone recognizes me.”

“Ah,” Draven said.

“The hour is obscene, General, but I couldn’t sleep, and it occurred to me… well. Many lives were lost on and above Scarif and in the attack on the Death Star, and we have many brave souls to remember and celebrate. But.”

She bowed her head for a moment, as if she might find more words at her feet.

“But it occurred to me that you lost someone of special import.”

She looked up, and a tentative hand reached out to him and hovered in the air near his upper arm. He stared at her fingers.

“You raised Captain Andor, General. You saw him through everything he gave – and gave up – for the rebel cause. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. I just wanted to check on you. I wanted you to know that… that we honor his heroism and his sacrifice, and we will remember his example. Most importantly, I wanted you to know that you’re not alone in your grief.”

Draven swallowed.

“That’s all. I’ll just say goodnight, shall I? Or good morning, rather. I just…” She began to retreat with the same grace with which she did everything else. “Your family here is thinking about you.”

“Please,” he said. A distress call.

“What?” She took a step forward again. “What can I do for you?”

She did touch him this time, a quick press of cool fingers to his cheek. Her fingertips came back wet, he saw, and that was strange, because Draven never wept. He could not afford the luxury of tears.

But he had resolved to learn what Andor had yet to teach him. The boy who had wanted to be free. Who had wanted them all to be free.

“Senator, you can help me drink a toast to Captain Andor, or two, and then you can take the bottle with you.” Draven stopped, corrected himself. “Cassian. His name was Cassian.

“And I’m Davits. Please, call me Davits.”

Capt. Andor is one of the most capable agents within Rebel Intelligence. He is a valuable fighter on the battlefield, able to handle missions ranging from reconnaissance and infiltration to assassination and sabotage… Capt. Andor has worked with the rebels since he was a child. It is no exaggeration to say that we are his family. He is absolutely loyal to the rebel cause and will do whatever he must to achieve our goals.
– Gen. Draven to Commander Mothma, Rogue One: Rebel Dossier

I have never doubted Capt. Andor’s abilities or his dedication to the rebel movement. He is truly one of our best and brightest… I am concerned about him, however. I understand that for our rebel movement to survive, brave men and women must do terrible things that we’d rather not talk about. But what happens to those men and women afterward?... If we succeed and overthrow the Empire, what kind of life will someone like Capt. Andor have?
– Mon Mothma to Gen. Draven, Rogue One: Rebel Dossier

THE END

Vital Stats: This story was complete in January 2017.

Both the title and story are inspired by the lyrics of “Invisible Boy” by Tori Amos from the album Unrepentant Geraldines.

Credits:

Re: “Twenty Years Ago”: Details about the death of Cassian’s father and Cassian’s early years in the Outer Rim come from Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide. Both the name Edrian for Cassian’s father and the character of Kivren Bo are original to this story.

Re: “Eleven Years Ago”: Hera Syndulla, Chopper, and the Ghost come from Star Wars: Rebels. (Chopper also appears in Rogue One, and General Syndulla is paged the film, as well.) Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide notes that Cassian knew “from experience the efficacy of Imperial interrogation.”

Re: “Eight Years Ago”: Cassian’s “lullabye” suicide pill is featured in Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide.

Re: “Five Years Ago”: Major Harinar is identified in Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide as the Alliance Intelligence officer in charge of captured Imperial technologies. Ahsoka Tano, who first appeared in Star Wars: Clone Wars, was identified as one of the Fulcrum operatives in Star Wars: Rebels.

If you like, you may read my "Up the Alleyway" as the Cassian-and-K-2 missing scene in this story.

Up The Alleyway (Rogue One)

morganstuart — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 23:17:12 GMT

Title: Up the Alleyway
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: K-2SO didn’t expect him back until daylight. Cassian Andor had to survive until then.
Author's Note: This takes place before the events depicted in the film Rogue One.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Depictions of attempted murder, injuries, and the aftermath of torture, non-explicit mention of off-screen violence

The darkness had fangs and claws, and it seemed determined to shred him into pieces and swallow them all.

Captain Cassian Andor fought back with everything he had. The problem was that, as first minutes and then hours unfolded, he had less and less: less strength, less fight, less blood in his tortured body.

If he were questioned (again!), he might find it a challenge to produce even the name of this crime-infested wreck of a moon. He almost certainly would not be able to recall the filthy alley in which he now lay, for all that it was feared and celebrated as the single most dangerous lane in the capital city.

It certainly deserved its reputation. That much he knew.

As he struggled to remain still and silent where he had crawled and secreted himself, half buried under debris and garbage, he became a captive audience to horrific sounds. His mind constructed narratives around the multi-species screams and grunts and pleadings: one professional-style execution. One beating-turned-murder. Three other violent assaults, at least one culminating in rape.

Cassian understood that with any movement or noise on his part, the shadows would erupt in predators who would take delight in finishing what his interrogators had started. That had been the whole point of disposing of him this way in the first place. He’d been unceremoniously dumped here to die by the underworld boss who (with implicit Imperial blessing) ruled over this blighted turf; anyone who set foot or talon or paw on this street would know that Cassian had been put there only for hurting, not helping.

And so Cassian gritted his teeth and served as blind and sickened witness to what others suffered, nursing the conviction that his own story might yet end differently.

He endured, because that was what he did. He didn’t have the luxury of choice.

Both literally and metaphorically speaking, he had always traveled lightly. Just now he felt the weight of only two significant burdens.

First and foremost, there was the Cause.

He was a realist, and he fully understood that less than a quarter of Alliance operatives lived to complete their twentieth mission. With more than a dozen already under his belt, Cassian acknowledged the odds stacking ever higher against him. His best chance for success and for survival – the two weren’t synonymous, of course, and he ranked their importance in exactly that order – was to keep his attention on the here and now.

Cassian needed to live long enough to report to General Draven. His initial assignment had unraveled due to faulty information, true enough, but that was the way of this work, and what he had discovered in the process would likely prove far more useful to the Rebel Alliance than his original objective had been. His agony would have been more than worth it, if it advanced the Cause.

The second weight had a name: K-2S0.

Who would look out for K-2SO if Cassian lay cold and dead in the gutter? He tried to imagine what future could lay before the droid no one else had thought worthy of salvaging, no one else had championed, and the question pained him as much as any of his wounds.

Man and machine – each defined by what he had lost, by the fact he fit in no other place in the galaxy save the one now defined by his duty – had grown to be friend and family to each other. And these were concepts with which neither possessed significant previous experience.

Cassian found it meant something quite profound to him, to understand someone and to be understood in turn.

***

K-2 didn’t expect him back until daylight. Cassian had to hold out until then.

He drank in steady, shallow breaths and worked his dry throat around the bitterness of old vomit and gore. Moment by moment, he held back the night.

It bled into early morning. Then the alleyway added insult to injury.

He didn’t begrudge the handful of youth who, moving along the lane in a close pack for mutual protection, upending rubbish and filth in the hunt for anything salvageable, stumbled across his prone form. After all, Cassian knew firsthand what it was like to fall through the cracks of a broken society and balance on the knife’s edge of want.

Human memory was selective, of course. When he thought of his early years in the wilds of the Outer Rim, he remembered his inherent sense of the wrongness of his universe. He recalled scrounging and mourning and fearing – that and yearning for freedom, although he had been far too young to articulate this well, to do anything more than throw rocks and shake a small fist.

He wanted to believe his younger self would have checked a body for signs of life before stealing the boots from its feet. Then again, he admitted to himself, perhaps that was wishful thinking. Perhaps the child Cassian, like these pathetic scavengers, would have preferred not to know if he were plundering the dead, the drunk, or the desperately wounded.

It hardly mattered now. With his face turned away from the street, blanketed in stinking refuse, he did his best to impersonate a corpse.

To be fair, this didn’t require much effort.

They took his boots. They left his jacket, however, after noting the security-grade shackles that bound his wrists behind his back. Removing the jacket would have meant cutting it to ribbons first, and what was the point?

Besides, as one of the pack discovered and explained to his peers, the jacket was soaked with blood, anyway. No real loss.

As the sound of the gang’s retreat faded, Cassian shifted slightly, adjusting the awkward drape of his torso to press the wounds on his belly and side more tightly against the ragged block of ferrocrete beneath him, the only pressure he could contrive to try to staunch the bleeding. Broken bones grated, and his misshapen shoulder throbbed in nauseating time with his pulse.

The lane seemed colder now, and not only because his socked feet felt the bite of the night air. The non-encounter with the youth, and the choking sense of come-full-circle futility that came with it, threatened to hurt Cassian in a way his interrogation hadn’t managed to do.

He couldn't afford that. If the fangs and claws of the darkness dragged him down, he suspected he would never rise back up again.

And so Cassian fought back with all he had. And he kept fighting.

Inexorably, whatever meager light he had known in his short life retreated further and further, like the glow of the sky seen from the bottom of an ever-deepening well.

***

A light touch carding through his hair shocked Cassian back to awareness. His sudden start ignited agony in all of the wrong places, and before he could draw breath to cry out, he passed out.

A sharp slap revived him.

“You are in exceptionally poor condition, Cassian. Do try to stay conscious.”

The frantic refrain of danger! thundered through his skull for several disorienting heartbeats. Then the blurred fragments of Cassian’s reality resolved into clarity, centered by that most welcome voice.

Two preternaturally bright eyes shone in the shadows.

“Kay,” Cassian managed at last, the ghost of a sound.

“I know you said not to expect you until dawn, but your transponder indicated that your location was fixed in the same outdoor – and might I add unsavory – location for four point three-seven local hours. That seemed suspicious.

“Besides, you didn’t leave me enough to do while you were gone. I was bored.”

Cassian smiled. A cut on his lip reopened, and he tasted fresh blood.

“I’ve cleared the alley of hostiles, located the nearest safe house, and confirmed it’s stocked with medical supplies,” K-2 continued, shifting Cassian with smooth efficiency, ignoring his gasps and hisses, freeing his bound hands and tucking his good arm against the worst of his wounds.

“That said, I am less than optimistic about your chances. My initial assessment of your injuries…”

Cassian allowed both the words and the pain to wash over him. K-2 rose, cradling his charge in his arms, tilting Cassian until aching human forehead rested against cool droid plating.

K-2’s litany of dire wounds and dismal odds continued. Cassian took comfort in it.

He understood what it meant. And he knew from experience that the times K-2 claimed to be least optimistic invariably became the times when the droid proved to be the fiercest ally anyone could hope for.

Hope.

That was what Captain Cassian Andor felt.

“Thanks, Kay.” Cassian’s lips formed the words. His voice was gone; his eyes were wet.

Dawn was nowhere in sight, but the biting, clawing darkness was in full retreat.

***

"The last time Cassian had hurt so bad, K-2SO had carried him to a safe house and along the way enumerated his every injury, thoroughly assessed the likelihoods of infection and permanent nerve damage. It had been the droid's way of showing he cared -- or at least the droid's way of showing he was invested in his master's fate."
- Alexander Freed, Rogue One novelization

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2017.

Originally written for this prompt at the Rogue One Kink Meme.

As You Now Are in Your Blood (The Professionals)

morganstuart — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 15:35:41 GMT

This wasn't the Lewis Collins tribute I'd originally planned -- that one is in progress -- but this happened anyway.

Title: As You Now Are in Your Blood
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: The Professionals
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Bodie faces a no-win scenario.
Author's Note: This is offered in memory of the unforgettable Lewis Collins.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Implied violence, torture, and character death.

"Bodie, is it?"

The whisper cut through the blackness, throaty and hoarse from newly-shed slumber.

Springs creaked as the old man turned — an unhurried movement, carefully measured — to switch on the lamp.

The single light bulb offered a feeble protest against the night, almost failing to reach Bodie where he stood at the foot of the bed.

"You knew it was me."

"How many people do you imagine are capable of slipping past my security?" Cowley blinked into the shadows as he eased himself up to a sitting position. "And if your captors sent only one of you for me, then you were the logical choice, 3.7."

His sidearm rested on the opposite bedside table, Bodie noted. The Cow had chosen the light, not self-defence.

Bodie's own weapon grew heavier in his grip. He lowered himself to sit on the corner of the mattress.

These few months had aged Cowley to a shocking degree. His hair, mussed from sleep, framed his lined face in a dishevelled, sandy-grey halo. "Is your partner still alive?"

It cost Bodie effort, unclenching his jaw to reply.

"Not for much longer." Because disobedience had its consequences. But he mustn't think of that.

As he shook his head the room swam before his eyes. Clinging to his cold resolve, he rode out the wave of dizziness and the cruel pain that fuelled it. "What they–" He swallowed. Cleared his throat. "He's fought harder than anyone I ever saw. You'd be proud of him, sir."

"I'm proud of you both, my lad." Cowley was matter-of-fact, devastating in his forthrightness.

No triple-think now in these darkest hours before the dawn.

"We never stopped searching for you," Cowley added. "Twice these past weeks we attempted extractions at locations that… Well. You're not here to catalogue my failures, are you? Not ones you know all too well."

"The original intel was wrong," Bodie said. "On purpose. We walked into a trap. There's a plant somewhere inside pulling strings, even now. We've heard the names Parkhurst, Maddock, and Claremont, and repeated mention of Brussels."

Cold sweat followed fresh agony. Bodie mopped his sleeve across his brow and shivered. If only he would take aim; if only he would squeeze the trigger… "You must've come close to us, though. They moved us more than once to keep a step ahead of you."

Cowley twined his fingers together and folded his hands over his pyjama stripes. After a considered pause, he said, "They treated you to 're-education,' I expect? Is that what we're calling it these days?"

Gesturing toward his temple, Bodie said, "Been re-wired a bit, yeah." Pain ricocheted inside his skull, punctuating the admission, but he forced himself to square his shoulders under the Cow's scrutiny. He almost believed the man could make out each scar left by the long weeks of syringes and electrodes and struggle against restraints.

Bodie wasn't the same man anymore.

He wasn't quite as scrambled as his torturers believed, either. But dear God, what he'd done to convince them otherwise…

Blood on his calloused hands. Forgiveness on Ray's pale, determined face.

"I had to come here," he continued, hearing how the strain drew his voice taut. "If I—"

"You needn't explain," the Cow interrupted. "I do understand the endgame in play, 3.7." Bodie read weariness in those dark eyes coupled with resignation and regret.

No fear, of course. Tough old bastard.

The undisguised fondness, however — that took Bodie by surprise, given the circumstances.

There would've been fight in the old man if another would-be assassin had loomed over him in the middle of the night with loaded weapon in hand, Bodie knew. But not now. Not for him. Just this profound, calm dignity.

Bodie bowed his aching head over his semiautomatic. Tears prickled behind his lids, but the fire in his brain seemed to turn them to scalding steam.

The torture would end, if only…

"Your guards downstairs." Burning knives stabbed behind Bodie's brow, through his eardrums, into his throat. His nostrils flared and his breathing grew shallower as the pistol sang to him like a siren. "The agents. They're unconscious, but they're alive. Should come 'round any minute."

"Thank you." It was clear that this knowledge lifted a burden from Cowley's shoulders, as Bodie had known it would.

Each heartbeat reverberated like a thunderclap in Bodie's chest. He couldn't swim against the rising tide of artificial compulsion much longer.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"As am I, laddie." The Scottish burr thickened. "For you and for Doyle. For this whole bloody mess."

Now was the time.

Bodie recalled his partner breathing faint words into his ear, fierce despite their choked hush. Acceptance of this shared sacrifice. Faith in Bodie's strength. Absolution.

He raised his pistol. Cowley lifted his chin and went still.

Bodie's hurried whisper was soldier-sharp, nearly silent but urgent as a scream: "I didn't cut the outside lines. For Christ's sake, sir, call for backup. They're watching and waiting, but the sound of the shot will buy you and the lads some time. Get this plant before he gets you."

Only then did horror dawn on the old man's features.

Bodie squeezed his eyes shut against the sight. He slid gracelessly from the bed to the floor, crumpling to his knees like a child at prayer. With a herculean act of will, he turned the gun barrel away from his mentor to rest against his own temple.

A shout carried his name like a plea. Frantic movement shook the mattress.

"'Sbeenapriv'lege," Bodie managed through white-hot agony, and he meant it.

Freedom for two, bought with one bullet. Safety, he hoped, for the one they both served.

He too chose the light.

THE END

Vital Stats: The title refers to the lyrics "As you now are in your blood/ Fall in light..." from "New Year's Prayer" by Jeff Buckley.

Originally written in December 2013.

Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 4 of 4 (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:34:04 GMT

Title: Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 4
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: When the media declares open season on Greg Lestrade, the hunt begins.
Historian's Note: This takes place during the Great Hiatus.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Assumed character death, depictions of violence, torture, attempted murder, and injuries, and mention of PTSD-related disorientation and nightmares
Read Part 1
Read Part 2
Read Part 3

John braced himself on the ceramic sink and watched the water circle the drain and disappear. Now and then drops that he'd splashed on his face would fall and join the exiting flow. He had scrubbed his hands and forearms to a bright, raw pink, but he fancied that Greg Lestrade's blood and vomit continued to cling to him, as tenacious as the man himself.

Evidence that the recent hours were reality rather than nightmare.

They would, of course, transform into nightmare soon enough. John had no doubt that his subconscious had just added several new terrors to its already impressive repertoire, and they would revisit him when the nights were darkest and he was most alone.

He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck as he sought to fit the sharp-edged fragments of the early morning together into something like a linear narrative.

He recalled hearing gunfire and shouting. He'd thrown himself forward to shield Lestrade at the same time he'd drawn his pistol. One of Mycroft's people had thought quickly enough to disengage the floodlight trained on them; that had made them far less of an easy target, but it also had left them smothered in profound darkness.

He recalled the muffled impact as another team member had met the immovable object of Mycroft Holmes and failed to guide his long form into a protective crouch. He recalled the hush of Mycroft's call for a report and the coldness of his instructions to use whatever force was necessary to contain the threat.

Most clearly of all, John recalled a choked sound of distress and "Godhelpme," the brutal retching as Lestrade once again had been sick, the feel of convulsions under his night-blind hands as that tortured body had tried to wrench itself apart.

After that, Lestrade could not be coaxed back to proper awareness. The only coherent words he'd spoken were a weak, "Notyourfault, John... 'msorry." John couldn't even be sure for what failure Lestrade was extending pardon or holding himself accountable.

John had answered with his heart: "It's not your fault either, Greg. None of it. And I'm sorry, too. Now stay with me, all right? Don't you dare give up now."

More shouts and another volley of gunfire had echoed across the countryside, devoid of any clues as to distance or direction. Then the thunder of an approaching helicopter had drowned all other noise. John's entire universe had collapsed to the scale of Lestrade's next heartbeat, next breath, next second of life.

Now John stared into the draining water and felt... nothing. And far too much.

It took him a moment – or was it minutes? – to realise that another man had entered the lavatory. John looked up into the mirror and found Mycroft's reflection returning his gaze.

"Is there news?" John asked as he turned off the tap.

"No, he's still in surgery," Mycroft said, and he held out a neatly stacked bundle. "My personal assistant took the liberty of visiting your new flat. She thought you might appreciate a change of clothing."

John glanced down at himself and grimaced. "Oh, God, yes. Ta very much."

He didn't question how Mycroft already appeared freshly shaved, washed, and dressed in what was obviously a newly-laundered suit. John didn't think he could handle the larger mysteries of the universe just then.

Anthea's choices for him brought an unexpected tightness to John's throat. His earth-toned plaid shirt, well-worn jeans, and oatmeal jumper: they were among his favourites, his wardrobe's equivalent of "comfort food." Somehow, she'd known.

"That was most kind of her," he added, touched.

"She said wasn't paid enough to go through your pants," Mycroft said with a cryptic non-smile of the Mona Lisa sort. "Feel free to take that however you choose."

"Um." John blinked. "Right."

He cleared his throat and deposited the clothes on the counter.

"I believe I owe some of your people an apology," he began.

Mycroft turned his head on one side in mute enquiry.

"On the helicopter. I think for a time things were... a bit not good." He turned, clasped his now-steady hands behind his back, and met Mycroft's eyes as if he were facing a firing squad. "You asked me to come with you because you thought I could help, but instead I put everyone in danger."

"I asked you to come with me because I believed you could save Greg Lestrade's life," Mycroft returned. "And you did."

"What I mean is—"

"John. Do give me and mine some credit." Mycroft peered down his nose at him as he tapped the tip of his umbrella on the tile floor. "You'd been taken in the midnight hours to an unfamiliar outdoor location, only to be rescued from gunfire via medical transport, complete with a critically wounded patient under your care; given your background and experience, some disorientation was only to be expected."

He punctuated his words with pursed lips. "It mattered not one whit whether you thought the helicopter was headed for London or Kandahar; what mattered was that you knew who Lestrade was and what treatment he required. Which you did. At all times.

"If you'd presented a danger, you can be assured that my professionals would've handled it. On the contrary, according to the reports I received, they followed your lead because your expertise and abilities quite obviously exceeded their own. They credit your singular skill as the sole reason Lestrade arrived here alive. As do I."

Turning his face away as if in revulsion, Mycroft added, "Now do get out of those clothes. You look like a butcher escaped from a nineteenth-century penny dreadful."

John swallowed, absorbing the compliment hidden inside the scolding.

"Yeah, well," he mumbled as he peeled off his shirt, "I knew it wasn't a proper flashback. Not enough corpses."

Eyes primly averted, Mycroft rocked in his Italian shoes. "Oh, but there are corpses at the end of this story, John." His words were toneless and precisely enunciated. "However you're not the one responsible for them, in any sense of the term."

Stripped to his vest, John found new crimson stains on his skin that wanted cleaning. "What the hell happened out there?"

Mycroft didn't answer immediately. "The two youngest Carlsons – the ones you saw on the film – were given Lestrade's 'hit' as a kind of coming-of-age test. Which, it goes without saying, they spectacularly failed. The younger of the two desired a trophy of his first kill, but the syndicate denied him. It's not part of the Carlson signature, he was told; for that matter, carving bits off of Lestrade might've caused him to bleed out too quickly and ruin the overall effect."

John grimaced, stepping out of his soiled jeans.

"The gunfire you heard was the two of them returning to the scene against orders to collect that memento. And encountering our resistance." Mycroft swivelled, and his eyes found John's in the mirror. "The younger had every intention of performing an amateur castration on Lestrade in order to have a souvenir fit to keep in a jar. As proof of his own criminal prowess."

"Dear God." John shuddered. "They admitted it?"

Mycroft's face was blank. "Let's just say the older of the two survived his compatriot and partner in crime by several very informative minutes."

John closed his eyes as he shrugged into his jumper.

For some moments they said nothing.

"If you're readying some lecture about due process, about the ethics of my serving as judge and jury and executioner, please unburden yourself now." Mycroft inspected his nails. "I expect I'll be busy later."

"How old were they?" John asked.

"Does it matter?"

"I'd like to know."

"The law calls them minors, though only just. Their family hoped to call them men." In a softer voice, yet still without inflection, "I think we would agree they were old enough to know not to stab and whip and beat and kick a man to the point of death."

"Yes," John said. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then repeated, "Yes."

He stared at the haphazard pile of sodden clothing he'd created.

"Some of the bravest people I've ever met," John said haltingly after a time, "have put their lives on the line all over the world to fight for the rule of law. To fight against men who've wielded the kind of arbitrary and unaccountable power you seem to have. Men who kidnap. Interrogate. Make people disappear."

He shook his head, still studying the blood-soaked fabric at his feet. "I'm not always comfortable with what you do, and I'm not sure I'll ever be. But I know without a doubt that due process is currently failing a truly good man, and today you saved him." John gave a noncommittal huff. "God knows I'm not going to lose any sleep over the bloody Carlsons. I was prepared to shoot them myself to defend us."

Crouching to gather his clothes, he ran a hand over his face. "Y'know, I honestly didn't get the fact you two were 'allies.'" He gave the word ironic weight and quotation marks with his fingers. "You and Greg."

"I'm sorry if you think less of him now." John recognised Mycroft's biting tone from former petty squabbles with Sherlock.

"No, I don't," John said quietly. "I think more of you, actually."

Mycroft made no reply.

When John rose, Mycroft glanced at the cast-off clothing and then threw a pointed look toward an oversized rubbish bin. With a nod, John binned the pile.

"Dare I ask where we are?" John said. "I have no idea. This doesn't look like any hospital I've ever seen in London. Or, you know, anywhere."

"It's somewhere safe," Mycroft said. "Leave it at that for the present."

"And you'd stake your life on that? That it's safe?"

"My life and yours. And Lestrade's." Mycroft was drawing intricate, invisible patterns on the tiles with the tip of his umbrella.

"For how long?"

"As long as needed."

"And you said you didn't have unlimited resources."

"I don't." A brief Cheshire-Cat grin. "There are times, however, when I have access to those who do."

John snorted. Then he sobered.

"It was a very close thing, Mycroft. He nearly haemorrhaged to death. One organ ruptured, two more punctured. A man doesn't heal from that overnight. And his hands: he'll be helpless until his fingers heal. That won't only be a horror all its own for a man as self-sufficient as Greg; it will be dangerous. He'll be more vulnerable than he's ever been."

"Mmmm, my concerns exactly." Mycroft continued working his umbrella along the tiles. "Suitable arrangements will have to be made.

"For example" – there was a studied nonchalance to Mycroft's words – "I have a spare room that would be available for the short term, in a home well guarded around the clock by trained security forces. More than one room, as a matter of fact, should Lestrade need someone with medical expertise nearby for those first critical weeks after he's been released, someone who wasn't... settled... elsewhere. I may not be in London or even in the country the entire time, but I wouldn't need to be, would I?"

"I'll – right, yes," John managed. "An arrangement like that... it might be workable. In the short term. Um. Something to keep in mind."

"Yes, do that."

"And what happens next? With the Yard's investigation? His hearing?"

"A bridge we will cross when we must. Perhaps we can use this attack as leverage against the Met. Perhaps new evidence will come to light before the question is ripe. Or perhaps it would be safer for all concerned if the wider world, temporarily at least, believed that Greg Lestrade perished at the Carlsons' hands."

"What? Fake his own death?" John was shocked at the thought.

An elegant shrug. "It's been done." Then, with a smirk, "Tedious man that he is, Lestrade no doubt will want to be a part of any discussion about the details of his future."

"How dare he."

After a beat, John added, "Mycroft, what I said earlier, when you came to the flat, about not being your minion anymore–"

"You've never been my minion, John. I'm keenly aware of the fact." Mycroft ceased his invisible etching. As John finger-combed his hair into order before the mirror, the elder Holmes lurked by the wall like a disconcertingly benevolent gargoyle, hands folded before him and anchored on the handle of his umbrella.

"Right. Well. If you call on me in the future, that is, in the long term..." He sighed. "I won't shut the door in your face. At least without hearing you out first. But save the showing-up-on-my-doorstep routine for true emergencies, like this one." He turned, crossed his arms, and thrust out his chin. "Otherwise, you can just phone me. On my phone."

Mycroft nodded. "Understood."

EPILOGUE

In the corner of the room, Mycroft Holmes angled his BlackBerry just so, took a digital photo, and sent it on its circuitous and encrypted way. The number to which he forwarded the image would be changed within the next thirty-six hours; the recipient it represented was identified only by the title "Unknown Caller" in Mycroft's list of contacts.

The picture he'd taken revealed two men. Ordinary. Dull. Altogether remarkable.

The one reclined in the bed was grey-faced and silver-haired and attached to an alarming number of tubes and wires, but he was breathing on his own, finally in recovery after the last of a marathon of surgeries. The other man curled in a chair by his side, head tilted back and mouth hanging open in exhausted sleep.

The photo offered proof of life.

Vulnerable life. Life currently in Mycroft's charge.

The phone vibrated in Mycroft's hand. The text read, "The room is secure?"

Mycroft typed, "My own handpicked guards stand watch. Only MH, MrsH & a few of my staff know who is here. When he can be moved safely, they'll both be taken to a secure location."

John's head shifted slightly and found another position. The fingers on his left hand flexed open and then closed into a fist. His snores devolved into snuffles.

Another text followed: "I will send the Carlsons a message."

"I was under the impression I already had," Mycroft replied.

"It's worth repeating," came the response.

Lestrade made a soft growl of complaint and frowned in what was obviously less-than-peaceful slumber, rocking a heavily-bandaged hand.

Mycroft stepped closer to the bed and rested his fingertips on the blanket beside Lestrade's feet. He remained frozen there until the man sighed and descended back into drugged oblivion.

"The more names you add to your list, the longer you delay your return," Mycroft noted in his next message. "I will handle this." He couldn't resist adding, "It's not always about you."

The reply was abrupt: "Yes it is."

Attached to this text was a grainy photo obviously taken from a distance as daylight surrendered to dusk. Mycroft narrowed his eyes. The older of the two men on the hotel balcony, stocky and florid-faced and cradling a bottle between meaty hands, was Jay Carlson, the patriarch of the Carlson clan.

The slender man at his side leaning a hip against the railing was at least a generation younger, with a mild, boyish face that easily could have shifted from bland to quite fetching, given the right context. His slight smile in the picture, however, was as unsettling as his dark eyes were cold. Mycroft knew this man used many names. One was Sebastian Moran.

"I see," Mycroft typed, after a heartbeat's pause at the revelation. "Do as you will. You always do anyway. But be careful."

"You should worry about L & J. I'm holding you responsible for their safety."

Mycroft glanced up at the two. They held rare distinctions, these empty-handed refugees from the natural disaster known as Jim Moriarty, whether they knew it or not. They had Sherlock's true concern, and they had Mycroft's absolute trust.

Of course, they had paid for both. Dearly and repeatedly. Greg Lestrade had nearly given his life's blood this day.

Mycroft's word – in this case at least – was his bond. He texted, "I will."

And he would. Constantly.

They were, after all, his allies.

THE END

Note: The title refers to the lyrics "If I could only give you everything/You know I haven't got./I couldn't have one conversation/If it wasn't for the lies,/And still I ought to tell you everything..." from the song "Bad Reputation" by Freedy Johnston, which I find very evocative of the mood of the Great Hiatus.

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2013.

Originally written for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.

Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 3 of 4 (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:22:13 GMT

Title: Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 3
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: When the media declares open season on Greg Lestrade, the hunt begins.
Historian's Note: This takes place during the Great Hiatus.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Assumed character death, depictions of violence, torture, attempted murder, injuries, and, in later segments, mention of PTSD-related disorientation and nightmares
Read Part 1
Read Part 2

John lost track of time and distance as they put London behind them. The sedan turned from one less-travelled road to another. Rolling fields replaced city blocks.

The late night died, and early morning was born.

"You trust that source of yours?" John's question sounded overly loud in the dense silence that had grown between the two of them, and he flinched at it. "Because if we're mucking about in the arse-end of nowhere and Greg's back in London–"

"I trust my source," Mycroft confirmed, intent on his phone.

John pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "And we have some hope that 'disposed of' doesn't mean 'buried in a shallow grave' or 'dismembered and scattered' because…?"

"Because one of the signatures of a Carlson syndicate hit, when the situation has allowed for it, is brutality." After a beat, Mycroft clarified, "That is, of the 'an-autopsy-will-confirm-it-took-quite-a-very-long-time-to-die' variety."

And that was the good news. "Right."

Worry was pointless, and John knew it. There was nothing he could do to be of help at this moment. But try as he might, he couldn't pull his old soldier's trick of having a quick kip before the action, the better to possess ready energy when it was most needed. He could find no calm. Every time he closed his eyes, the footage of Lestrade's torment replayed in full.

And then his imagination extrapolated from there…

They stopped beside what was more of an overgrown trail than a proper rural lane. Within minutes the woman John knew as Anthea joined them. It was a testament to the primal instincts of the human species that, despite John's bone-deep concern for Lestrade, his brain recorded a picture of the woman – black-clad and aglow in their headlights, the very image of Emma Peel reborn – for his future (and very private) reference.

While John inhaled the energy bar and bottled water Anthea provided, she made her report to Mycroft. The elder Holmes nodded, consulting both his BlackBerry and hers, standing in passive acceptance as she wound a heavy scarf about his neck and tucked a silver flask into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

The conference between the two was brief. Upon its conclusion, both vehicles made their way – maddeningly slowly, without lights – onto what appeared to be a private family farm, finally ending their journey far from any buildings, beneath a low huddle of trees.

The two teams that met them there were small in number but obviously elite, outfitted not only with state-of-the-art weapons but also the finest night-vision and heat-seeking gear. After swift consultation with Mycroft, paired sweepers in all-terrain vehicles deployed in a search pattern designed to cover the many acres as efficiently as possible.

John fretted.

He appreciated that it was a wise tactical decision for him to wait for the scouting parties to do their work, to be centrally located when (not if) the call came for medical assistance. But he needed to be doing something, anything, in the interim, or he'd go mad.

With his medical kit strapped to his body and his pistol tucked into his jeans, he played the torch he'd been given over the uneven terrain and paced back and forth. Each pass took him farther from the elegant vehicles incongruously parked in the early-winter tangle of neglected pastureland, farther from the hushed sounds of the makeshift operations base of those dedicated to the hope that they might rescue a living person rather than discover a cooling corpse.

That was how he heard it.

Ragged and pitifully faint. Exactly what one would expect from a desperately wounded man.

John rushed back to Mycroft.

"A distress signal," he panted. "Weak. Something striking metal. A dull sound."

Mycroft considered him. "John, the countryside is littered with metal in various states of disrepair, and sounds carry. A rusting piece of farm equip–"

"No, no, you don't understand. It wasn't random; it was Morse code. And I'm going."

He didn't wait for a reply. Scrambling down the slope and over the next rise, he doggedly struggled around twisted roots and over loose rocks, straining to locate the source of the summons.

Each time the signal faltered, he muttered, "C'mon, Greg. One more time," and he went still until the sound was repeated.

His trek ended in a shallow depression at the base of a small ridge. At first glance, the spot appeared to be a hollow where dried leaves, broken branches, and other debris blown by the wind and washed by the rain had gathered naturally over the course of the season. He waded into them with both arms swinging and abruptly struck the decaying hulk of an aged automobile.

Before John could send up an alert, one of Mycroft's men materialised at his side, fitting a prise bar to force open the boot of the vehicle.

"Please, God," John breathed. "Please."

***

Bless him, Greg already had provided the most crucial information John required. He was alive. He was conscious. He was lucid and obstinate enough to spend his remaining strength signalling for help that he believed wasn't coming.

And that strength was waning fast.

The boot lid groaned its complaint and then surrendered to the prise bar.

For the space of a heartbeat, what John saw made no sense to him. Then he understood in part what Mycroft had meant in describing the Carlsons' "it-took-quite-a-very-long-time-to-die" method of operation. The mineral-wool matting was excellent insulation; a body beneath it would not lose heat quickly.

As a blanket, it was comfortless to the point of cruelty.

"Sir, let me," said the team member, indicating his well-protected hands and forearms, and he peeled back the abrasive layer with deft grace.

John began a steady litany, knowing the words had their own job to do even as they bought him time to assess his patient: "Greg, it's John. John Watson. I'm here with Mycroft Holmes. Help's on the way. Hold on, mate. It's over."

As his torch light roamed over Lestrade's brutalised body, John ruthlessly forced down the anguished OhJesusGod clawing its way up his chest and locked it away for a later time.

Hoping to convey his identity through touch alone, he rested his fingers lightly on the crown of Lestrade's head.

"I'm going to cut this blindfold off now, all right?"

"John?" A dry husk of a croak. A shallow rasp of breath. "John. Yeah."

John manoeuvred his kit for easy access, thankful that its contents were so familiar that he could locate most by touch alone. He swiftly found the scissors and used them.

Gore pasted the blindfold's fabric to the lacerated face, and John worked it free with care. "I need more light," he called over his shoulder, before saying to Lestrade, steadily and evenly, "Quick thinking, using Morse code. Led us straight to you."

"Tryin'… stay'wake... stayfocuss'd…" Each syllable required considerable effort, John could tell, as Lestrade marshalled the shredded remains of his voice and forced them past uncooperative lips. "Carlsons, John. Mightbenear."

"Mycroft reckoned it was them. His teams are here, armed to the teeth."

And speaking of Mycroft's teams, a woman began making quick work of assembling a portable floodlight to illumine the interior of the boot.

John peeled the last of the blindfold from Lestrade's one properly visible eye and said, "Here's the torch, just for a half a mo'–"

"Knowthedrill…" Lestrade flinched and gasped at the sudden brightness of John's light. "'Mnotconcuss'd. Theywantedme. Aware."

And that lone, dark eye was indeed aware, almost disconcertingly so. John accepted the fierce sensibleness he found there, shining through clouds of suffering, like the gift that it was.

They would deal honestly together. They both knew this situation was dire.

"So, Mr I-Know-The-Drill, what's first? Let's start with where this fresh blood's coming from." There was so much of it, and Lestrade's vital signs told John nothing he particularly wanted to hear.

"Belly. Knife. Coupletimesdunno." That explained the coil of his foetal position, tighter even than the close confines of the boot required. "Shallow'nough… totaketime… butJesusithurts."

"Right. I want to keep you as still as possible until transport arrives, but we need to get pressure on those wounds." As John located bandages, he asked, "What else do I need to know? What's most urgent?"

Blistered burns rippled as Lestrade's throat worked, swallowing.

"Ribs'r'dodgy… leftside. Can'tbreathedeep."

"I think maybe we can ease that a bit by shifting your arm, once the tie's off. And we'll need to be very careful when we move you." After a few seconds more, "Okay, I want you to hold your position, and I'll fit these bandages in tight. Hang on, Greg."

As John wedged the compress between Lestrade's thighs and abdomen, the wounded man groaned.

John needed another hand, possibly two.

"Allow me, Doctor," came a somewhat breathless voice. "A medical helicopter is en route. Fifteen minutes." Long fingers joined John's on the bandages and pressed firmly.

Lestrade groaned again, but this time around a name: "Mycroft." Then, badly slurred, "Getyourrrhandsssdirty."

"I'm glad you appreciate my sacrifice," Mycroft said, bending low. "Do put some effort into making it worthwhile."

John spared Mycroft a glance – the elder Holmes looked just as dishevelled and human as any middle-aged man of inaction should've done who'd fought his way over unfamiliar terrain in the middle of the night in a bespoke suit and Italian shoes – and then he returned to his labours, both grateful and bemused.

The zip tie around Lestrade's ankles parted under John's knife with a snap. Severing its mate, which bound Lestrade's wrists behind his back, was a more delicate operation, as most of the man's fingers were broken and several had been stripped of their nails. John eased the useless hands into the least awkward positions possible, one at Lestrade's back, one at his chest.

Leaving Lestrade naked, a grotesque patchwork of blood and bruises, was the Carlsons' parting insult. John unpacked a small shock blanket and folded it around his patient's torso. As John made to unstrap his kit, he found that Mycroft was a step ahead of him.

"Really, John, that jacket is all but useless. Assist me here." Mycroft shrugged an arm out of his long wool coat, and John helped him with the rest.

"Ta," John said. He arranged the added layer over Lestrade, who gave a hoarse moan of appreciation for the warmth.

As they waited, John did what he could do, exposing one section of Lestrade's body at a time. And as he worked over the man, he saw, and he observed.

He deduced.

Lestrade had inflicted the ugly gash along his bearded jaw himself, sawing his face against the jagged innards of the boot in order to slice through the cloth that gagged him. He'd obviously been violently sick – one cheek now rested in the congealing, blood-streaked puddle – but not before he'd managed to cut the gag free. He'd saved himself from asphyxiating on his own vomit by his quick thinking.

He'd achieved the dull thumping sound John heard by striking his heels against the hollow interior of the boot where it met the back column of the passenger seat. Lestrade's heels were one of the only points on his body that could've withstood such repeated use; not even the soles of his feet had escaped the Carlsons' brutality. How long he had shifted and struggled to find the angle and motion necessary to produce a noise that carried, John couldn't imagine.

John felt a fellow soldier's admiration – after all, Lestrade was also a veteran, albeit of a different battlefield – for how the man had kept his wits and training about him, fighting a solitary campaign against despair and agony there in the darkness. All with no expectation that a living soul would ever learn of his valour.

As if on cue, Lestrade ground out, "Thought… I'ddieherean'… No one. Wouldknow."

His admission was as steady as his broken voice could make it. It wasn't meant only for John.

"Indeed," Mycroft said in a low and confidential tone. "But as I believe we've already established, Greg, you're something of an idiot."

A ripple ran through Lestrade, joined by a wet-ugly-frothing hiss of air between his teeth. A whine of pain, also a genuine laugh.

A wave of affection washed over John. In its wake came a scalding sense of yearning for something he'd known and treasured. And lost.

Then there was gunfire and shouting and no time at all for memories.

END OF PART 3

Read Part 4

Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 2 of 4 (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 23:33:34 GMT

Title: Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 2
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: When the media declares open season on Greg Lestrade, the hunt begins.
Historian's Note: This takes place during the Great Hiatus.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Assumed character death, depictions of violence, torture, attempted murder, injuries, and, in later segments, mention of PTSD-related disorientation and nightmares
Read Part 1

John Watson opened the door of his new flat and immediately shut it again.

He took a deep breath. Then another. He counted to ten.

He reopened the door. Mycroft Holmes continued to loom there like a particularly grim example of civic sculpture.

After a short, sharp shake of his head, John thrust out his chin. "Right. This? This is not going to happen. This isn't my life anymore, Mycroft."

He pointed at the chest of the elder Holmes as he bit his tirade into brittle, staccato phrases: "I'm not going to find you. Standing on my doorstep. Or following me. In your big, black car. If you're running low on minions, pop off to the shop. Buy more. Whatever this is, my answer's no."

Because whatever this was, it couldn't bring Sherlock back.

John lowered his hand, clenched it into a fist, and, after a heartbeat, buried it in his jeans pocket before any tremor could betray him. His frailties might not be secrets, John thought, but that didn't mean he had to advertise them.

Mycroft failed to acknowledge John's volley in any way. He didn't even blink.

"Are you quite through, John? Because I'm here on a matter that's most urgent indeed."

"Um, there's more," John admitted, "but I think I hit the high points."

Narrowing his eyes, John realised he was unsure how to read the man who stood before him so preternaturally still, sans umbrella, gloved hands clasped like a supplicant. Mycroft was undeniably present, as formidable as any force of nature, but those cool blue eyes were looking through John, fixed on another point. More than preoccupied, John reckoned. More than anxious.

It occurred to John that this might be Mycroft afraid.

And what could the man possibly have left to fear, when the worst already had happened on the pavement below St Bart's?

The fight seeped out of John like blood from a wound. He retreated a step, and Mycroft angled his way through the door.

At once John became aware of how pathetic the sterile sitting room with its stacks of unpacked boxes must appear, and he mumbled, "I'm not exactly… settled." It was an understatement. A blanket description of his life.

Mycroft, however, displayed no Holmesian inclination to scrutinise his surroundings. He made no move to remove his coat or seek a chair. He simply turned on John and asked, "When did you last see or speak to Greg Lestrade?"

Frowning, John closed the door behind them and rested his weight against it. "Why? What's wrong?"

"When?"

"Not recently." Squeezing his eyes shut, John rubbed at the furrows between his brows. "If you haven't noticed, we've both contracted a kind of social disease; neither of us can buy a tin of beans without inciting some kind of media orgy. It’s far worse for him now than for me. I thought contact between us would only fan the flames."

Not that there was anything much left to say.

John's memories marched unbidden to a half-shy conversation after Sherlock's graveside service.

"If you want to punch me in the face," Lestrade had offered, "I'll hold still."

To John's shame, there'd been a moment when he'd wished to do just that. Of course, John had also wanted to beat his own skull into the pavement next to Sherlock's shattered body. Grief knows little reason.

A brief and awkward exercise in anguish had followed Lestrade's invitation, as each man attempted to absolve the other of guilt too weighty to shoulder. Lestrade was sorry Sherlock had ever been put in handcuffs. John was sorry they'd ever removed them.

Now John shrugged at Mycroft. "We haven't talked since… maybe a fortnight after the funeral." That seemed tragic, somehow, now that he was forced to face it. "Why?"

"The media orgies, as you put it, effectively declared open season on him," Mycroft explained, kneading his hands together. "He's now missing and, I have good reason to believe, in immediate danger."

"Oh, God."

Mycroft took a step forward, leaning his weight into his words, filling John's vision. "I need your decision now: will you help me save his life, if it can be saved?"

John was already reaching for his jacket. "Anything I can do. What do you need?"

"I assume you keep medical supplies on hand?"

"I've got a small first aid kit for minor injuries, cuts and bruises and the like" – he passed Mycroft and waded into the sea of boxes, certain of his destination – "and a larger field kit prepped for… well, much worse."

"Bring the field kit," Mycroft instructed. "And your service weapon."

***

John schooled himself to silence as the black sedan sped into the night.

His experience with medical and military hierarchies had taught him the discipline of the need-to-know scenario, and so he kept to his generous side of the spacious back seat and tried to calm himself with the press of his medical kit against his leg and the bite of his loaded pistol at his back. He knew he couldn't help Lestrade by distracting Mycroft as the man received reports and issued instructions.

John listened, though, when Mycroft was speaking rather than texting, and he gathered from repeated phrases such as "satellite images," "surveillance photos," and "intercepted footage" that the manhunt for Lestrade was yielding fruit.

After some while – John had lost track of the time, as he was quite literally as well as figuratively in the dark – Mycroft straightened and turned toward him, a motion John sensed rather than saw.

"It appears that the Carlson syndicate is to blame. The clan is known for its long memory and patience, and its patriarch publically swore vengeance after his third son was convicted for murder some years ago. It was one of Lestrade's first cases as DI." Anticipating John's question, he added, "Before he began consulting with Sherlock."

Mycroft held out his BlackBerry for John to view.

"Fortunately for us," Mycroft continued, "the youngest Carlson generation is composed of imbeciles."

A film clip began to play. The jerky, blurred image resolved into the blunt fingers of a square, masculine hand bound at the wrist with a zip tie. John noted the swelling and bruising of the knuckles, the lines of gore where the flesh had split with repeated impact.

Wherever this man was, he hadn't gone willingly.

"See 'ere?" came an adolescent whine from the phone's speaker. "'Ere's the line where a ring used to be. No one's waitin' at home for ya anymore, eh, Inspector? No one's keepin' yer bed warm?"

Chuckles sounded from at least two different sources. With nauseating fits and starts, the camera pulled back to show an angled view of the owner of the hand: Greg Lestrade.

His sound eye, the one that wasn't swollen shut, shifted slightly as his captors moved, tracking their positions without acknowledging them directly.

He'd been beaten bloody and secured to a metal chair. The tautness of his posture and the restraint of his breathing suggested that he was managing considerable pain, and John ticked the line "possible internal injuries" on his mental checklist of horrors.

"What'd she do, yer wife," a second voice chimed in, "find 'erself a real man?"

Lestrade gave no indication that the taunt had struck home, but in the dimness of Mycroft's car, John grimaced and dug his knuckles into the meat of his thigh.

On the BlackBerry's screen, a hand in a simple latex glove – no fingerprints, John realised – shot out and closed around Lestrade's naked ring finger, wrenching it backward. A sickening crack followed, and Lestrade thrashed once in his bonds, hissing through clenched teeth.

Off-screen, someone giggled.

"Give us that, yeah?" It was the first voice, squeaking with mirth. "The inspector needs more decoratin'."

The gloved hand reappeared, parting Lestrade's shirt and the torn remains of his vest to reveal his bare torso. John noted the spongy bruising along the man's side and added "possible rib fractures" to his inventory.

Then his attention turned to the scattered pattern of circular marks that wound their way down Lestrade's throat and into the dark hair dusted along his sternum.

A cigarette materialised between latex-covered fingers.

Lestrade's single-eyed gaze fixed on a spot in the middle distance and remained there. His lips became a thin white line.

"If they ever find yer body, it'll be by mistake." The young man's words carried a sneer. "Sure as fuck no one's lookin'."

John ground his teeth as the glowing end of the cigarette descended on an exposed nipple. The muscles corded in Lestrade's neck. His measured breaths grew harsher. At last John heard a distant, swallowed grunt of a noise, then answering laughter.

"Oi!" The bellow came from a far older man, a different direction. "Thattaphone? Whatthefuckyathinkyerdo—"

The frame span wildly, and the clip ended.

John blinked in the sudden darkness.

"Today's youth and social media," Mycroft murmured. "It's possible that the future of crime detection lies not in investigating, but simply in waiting for the perpetrators to record, tweet, text, or post their transgressions."

John turned his face toward the night. "And that's what you took away from that scene, is it?" He couldn't help himself. "Here's what I got: Greg's doing his best because he's a stubborn, bloody-minded, brave bastard, not from any sense of hope. He doesn't think anyone's coming."

An impatient sigh. "I saw the footage, John." A hesitation, and then, more subdued, "We believe it was filmed approximately twelve hours ago."

"Twelve hours?!?" John choked. "But—"

"I'm using unofficial channels of information where I can, and that takes time. Even in the best of moments, I don't have unlimited resources, contrary to popular belief. And this is decidedly not the best of moments. Handling this… situation… requires unprecedented circumspection until we can be certain who has contributed to it."

As John caught his breath, he digested that. "You think there's some greater conspiracy behind this."

"Sins of omission may be just as potent as sins of commission. It would serve the self-interest of many parties for Lestrade to disappear, taking the scandal he represents with him." Mycroft shifted his weight on the seat. "My people and I are following this trail at the same time we're covering our own. For his safety as well as ours."

"But, God, Mycroft, in twelve hours…" The words died on John's lips.

"We may yet have time." Mycroft's voice was utterly devoid of expression. "They were in no hurry. They wanted their fun."

Once again John scrubbed his fist along the denim plane of his leg, back and forth in a precise line, heating it with friction. A coiling spring.

***

John's helplessness gnawed at him, and his simmering anger – so close to the surface these days – finally bubbled over, seeking an outlet.

"Why are you doing this? I didn't think daring rescues fell under your job description. I thought you were more about" – he flapped his hand vaguely – "kidnappings and interrogations. You know, making inconvenient people disappear."

Pushing, almost hoping Mycroft would push back.

Dear God, but he missed Sherlock.

"The night is still young, Doctor." Silk and steel combined in that answer, and despite his better nature John felt a blossom of heat uncurl low in his belly as he imagined what might be in store for certain cowards who tormented good men. "And if I don't, who will? I hardly think ringing up the police is the strategy indicated here. Considering."

But that wasn't enough. "If you wanted to help Greg, why wait 'til now, when he's lost everything? Why not help him keep his warrant card in the first place?"

It felt more than a bit surreal, this adrenaline-bathed dialogue in the dark, sheltered from the black night by tinted windows, shadow upon shadow upon shadow.

It felt like truths might be spoken that otherwise wouldn't find voice.

Mycroft appeared to give John's question genuine consideration. "We are all constrained by our positions," he said. "To overstep one's boundaries is to jeopardise the very power one has to be of service."

Then the lecturing cadence fell away from his speech, and his voice went quiet. "Lestrade understands this. That's why he didn't defy his DCI when he was ordered to arrest Sherlock; he knew that if he'd been disciplined or removed, he wouldn't have been able to serve as Sherlock's inside advocate and assist my brother in clearing his name. Of course, events took a different course."

After a lengthy pause, Mycroft added, "There was nothing I could do."

Whether he was referring now to Lestrade or Sherlock or both, John couldn't be certain.

This begged the question, of course, of why Mycroft cared, why he'd expend his energy on a disgraced and powerless man who could no longer be of use to him and his Machiavellian machinations.

Mycroft seemed to read John's mind. "I can count the number of individuals who passed what I've dubbed my 'warehouse test' on one hand. I can count the number of men to whom I owed my brother's life on two fingers. You are one of those. The fact Sherlock isn't here now doesn't negate the importance of what you both accomplished for him."

John held his tongue and listened.

"Surely you didn't think I was the reason Sherlock became the world's first and only consulting detective, rather than another dead junkie found overdosed in a gutter?"

John had no answer, but he doubted Mycroft expected one. It seemed as though Mycroft needed to talk about Sherlock every bit as much as John desired to know more about him. That made a pitiable kind of sense to John. He only hoped he wasn't hearing Greg Lestrade's eulogy in the process.

"I walked my brother through the doors of a dozen of the most exclusive rehabilitation facilities in Europe, and he walked or crawled or ran or climbed back out again – in some cases, before I'd left the carpark. But he went willingly to Lestrade's office. And spare sofa. And, once he was clean, crime scenes."

Clues began to fall together in John's mind, puzzle pieces at last reuniting with their missing mates.

He recalled Lestrade's unexpected appearance in Dartmoor, and his token protest at being considered nothing more than the elder Holmes's errand boy. He'd never denied close association with the man or long familiarity.

Sherlock had suggested that Mycroft thought of Lestrade as his "handler"; the level of trust this implied from a man who worried so about his brother was extraordinary, John realised. How long had Mycroft tested the man, observed him, to discover his true worth?

Then John thought of that most fateful night, that ridiculous and amazing night, when he'd entered the circle of panda cars and ambulances, half-expecting to be led away in handcuffs for the shooting of the cabbie. Mycroft's black sedan had parked alongside the police tape, and Lestrade's team hadn't looked twice. If anything, the Yarders had treated the presence of the "minor government official" as commonplace. Expected.

John had left the scene with Sherlock, giggling and flying high on the wings of adrenaline and wonder and rediscovered strength, but Mycroft had shown no intention of departing. Had he stayed to compare notes? To conspire?

To chat?

Mycroft's distress when he'd knocked on John's door less half an hour ago took on new significance.

"You… you're friends."

Not that he couldn't picture Lestrade as the friendly sort. Far from it. John had enjoyed more than one evening of pints and darts and football at the pub with him.

But Mycroft...

"A man in my position has no friends, John," Mycroft said at last, with a sharp edge to his voice that John couldn't identify. "But if he's fortunate, he may have allies. And if he's intelligent, he will protect those allies whenever he's able to do so. As a long-term investment, if you will."

Just then Mycroft's phone vibrated with a plaintive buzzing sound. Its antiseptic blue-white glow bathed his chin and nose and brow as he studied an incoming text.

His expression remained shuttered, but he inhaled sharply.

"What?" John said. "What is it?"

Instead of replying, Mycroft thumbed the intercom to speak to the driver. "We have new information. I'm sending you the details."

He typed rapidly for several seconds, and then he made a call. "Change of plan, my dear. I'm sending you new directions. Coordinate with the other team and report back. Time is of the essence."

"Mycroft," John said, "what the hell is it?"

"According to my source, Lestrade's been removed."

"Removed. Removed? Why can no Holmes bloody say what he bloody means? Removed from that room in the video?"

"From that room. From that building. From London itself."

Mycroft's eyes never left his BlackBerry. "I mean taken to the countryside. Disposed of."

END OF PART 2

Read Part 3

Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 1 of 4 (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:55:46 GMT

Title: Everything You Know I Haven't Got, Part 1
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: When the media declares open season on Greg Lestrade, the hunt begins.
Historian's Note: This takes place during the Great Hiatus.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Assumed character death and, in later segments, depictions of violence, torture, attempted murder, injuries, and mention of PTSD-related disorientation and nightmares

The man had made himself all but invisible in the far corner, sitting with his back to the other patrons and his shoulder to the wall. Anyone who surveyed the establishment from its entrance or bar would assume that the booth was unoccupied.

Despite the barrier of furniture between them, Mycroft Holmes could see the man clearly in his mind's eye, forearms braced against the polished table, hands curled around his glass, head bowed.

Not exactly in the spirit of the venue, to be fair. This wasn't some dank, dark pub, but rather an upscale bar newly renovated in an attempt to bring a bewildering clash of colours and styles together into a cheerful chorus of "fusion."

Then again, the painfully overwrought brightness of the setting meant it was an unlikely place for this man to be, and that in itself made it a shrewd choice of destination.

The aging bartender exuded a quiet competence at odds with the self-conscious trendiness of his surroundings. Mycroft could tell he was the sort who was equally adept at offering a sympathetic ear or minding his own business, depending on the mood of the customer. He proved doubly amenable once he discovered that Mycroft was a man of especially refined (that is, expensive) taste.

Mycroft read the bartender's life story and personal character in the cut of his shirt, the faded scar above his left eyebrow, the brush of his blunt fingertips against the aged bottle. The elder Holmes adjusted his approach accordingly.

"Haven't seen you round here before, mate," the bartender offered noncommittally as he poured Mycroft's brandy.

"No." Mycroft held the man's gaze and nodded in the direction of the booth in the back. "And you haven't seen him at all."

Mycroft maintained a smile – somewhat more pleasant than daunting, he knew the shades of meaning well – as he watched for understanding and then agreement to dawn in the bartender's expression.

"Right you are, sir," the bartender said after a beat. He accepted the offered cash without glancing at the bill's denomination and then turned away without another word.

Satisfied, Mycroft nodded, took up the snifter, and made his way to the lone figure in the corner.

For a moment Mycroft stood beside the booth.

The man didn't respond.

Then his hands released his glass and clenched to fists on the tabletop, and he straightened as if readying to push himself to his feet, to fight or flee as needed. At last he turned his head, and his eyes grew wide, and his breath left him in a great huff.

"Bloody hell."

"Good evening to you, too" – Mycroft caught himself before he could say "Detective Inspector."

"Bloody hell," Lestrade repeated, sagging back, deflating. "Mycroft."

"May I?"

"Yeah." Relief was written in every line of his body, but the way Lestrade sighed the word made it sound like defeat. He waved Mycroft to the opposite seat. "Go on, then."

As Mycroft settled himself, his brandy, and his omnipresent umbrella, Lestrade added, "Not the wisest thing, though, being seen with me. You should realise that."

Mycroft brushed imaginary lint from his sleeve. "If all goes well, neither of us will be noticed." He observed Lestrade from the corner of his eye. "I've followed the reports in the press. They've been…"

"Brutal? Yeah." Lestrade shook with mirthless laughter as he revolved his glass in a series of ninety-degree turns between his fingers. "On the bright side, at least the bastards aren't dogging John Watson's every step these days."

"I expect the attention explains your new 'look.'"

Lestrade smoothed a hand over the silver-streaked hair along his jaw and gave a diffident shrug. "If it puts even one journalist or photographer off my trail, I reckon it's worth it."

The beard suited him, but Mycroft didn't say so.

"About the suspension, the hearing" – this was harder than Mycroft expected, as he had little practice with such an admission – "there was nothing I could do."

Lestrade glanced up at that, and genuine surprise creased his brow. "Never asked you, did I?"

"You did not," Mycroft confirmed.

"We both know if the inquiry's legit, they'll find in my favour. Sherlock was the real thing, and every deduction he made was backed up with old-fashioned police work by me and my team. I did my due diligence. Couldn't have secured convictions otherwise. Any honest investigation will confirm it."

The words came in a rush. Rehearsed. Repeated, obviously, if only to himself.

For several heartbeats, blue eyes held brown. "And you think it will be an honest investigation," Mycroft said.

Lestrade looked away first. Very deliberately, he raised his pint and took several long swallows. Once he'd replaced the glass on its coaster, he murmured, "'Course not."

Mycroft nodded and readied the mental script he'd prepared.

But Lestrade surprised him.

"How are you, Mycroft? Really?"

And how was he meant to answer that? He still lived in his familiar home; he still held his accustomed position. He still possessed a full staff dedicated to his support and safety, bound to him by esteem and loyalty. Lestrade could claim none of these things.

"Yeah, thought so," Lestrade said, very softly. "I miss him, too. God, I'm so sorry."

Mycroft blinked, at a loss.

After another healthy pull on his pint, Lestrade said, "Why're you here? Somehow I doubt this is one of your regular haunts. Sure as hell isn't mine."

"I was going to ask you the same question." Mycroft shepherded the conversation back toward the path he'd originally charted. "A man in your line of work accumulates enemies, Greg. And the media coverage of your suspension has announced in no uncertain terms that you're now alone, without defence or backup—"

"—and that the higher-ups at the Yard wouldn't exactly call out the cavalry if one morning I turned up missing. In fact, they'd probably be relieved." Lestrade grimaced. "I can read between the lines, y'know."

Mycroft crossed his arms. "And yet you're here, in the open, on your own."

Lestrade returned his gaze with frankness. Sleeplessness and stress and no little grief had etched new lines on his face and framed his eyes in shadows. "Am I supposed to respond to that, or just sit here like a good lad while you deduce everything you want to know?"

Before Mycroft could reply, Lestrade said, "No, don't answer. I'm here because if I'd spent another minute in that empty flat I might've crawled into a bottle and never climbed out. At least if I have a pint or two in public, I know I'll stop."

With his chin Lestrade indicated the night that lurked beyond the bar's front windows. "Wouldn't do to meet the monsters in the dark when I'm off my face. Self-preservation and all that."

He took a measured breath and managed to appear both embarrassed and defiant as he traced the grain in the wooden armrest with a finger. Mycroft let the silence spill out between them until Lestrade spoke again.

"I'm staring down fifty with no marriage and no home to speak of. All I have left is twenty-six-plus years on the force, and the bureaucrats want me to walk away from that for their convenience."

He shook his head, a man of few words unused to confession.

"I can't do it, Mycroft."

Lestrade forced himself onward with a kind of grim determination, seemingly content for Mycroft to serve as silent witness to this rare unburdening.

"I won't. Not if they demote me to constable or worse. It's all I've got, and I'll not apologise for doing my job, and I'll not make it easy for them to throw me away like yesterday's rubbish because I believed – still believe – in a man who helped me stop murderers."

After a beat, Lestrade looked up. With a rueful sigh, he added, "And it would be a hell of a lot easier to salvage whatever dignity I have left if you weren't staring at me like I'm something oozy in a slide under a microscope."

As forthrightness met finesse headlong, any awkwardness between them was familiar enough to be almost comforting.

"I came here" – Mycroft cleared his throat, off-balance for reasons he couldn't quite name – "to tell you that you have an alternative. There's a place for you. On my staff."

Lestrade actually laughed, a throaty, incredulous sound. "Doing what, pray tell? Washing your windows? Shining your shoes?" He ran a palm over his mouth, pausing to scratch at his new beard before waving a hand to dismiss the notion. "You forget I've seen your people, Mycroft. They're half my age with twice my education."

"And only a small fraction of your experience," Mycroft countered. "And none of why I trusted you with my brother in the first place."

At Lestrade's raised eyebrow, Mycroft added, "Surely you recall the warehouse. What was it? Almost seven years ago."

"Bit of a blur, really. I remember thinking you were going to have me shot. I remember trying not to piss myself." Lestrade's features gentled into a fond expression at odds with his words. "And I remember telling you where you could shove your money and your spy games."

"Ah, I was thinking of that last part, yes."

Lestrade leaned forward and began to reach out, but he halted before he touched Mycroft's sleeve. He'd not consumed nearly enough alcohol in the long or short term, Mycroft thought, to make his eyes quite as bloodshot as they were.

"Throughout our years of" – Lestrade gestured vaguely between them – "cooperation, I've done what you asked because I chose to. I could honestly say, 'You're not the boss of me.'" He offered a brief, crooked grin. "Can't give that up now, can I?"

Mycroft scowled at the stubbornness of the man, even as an answering smile tugged at his lips.

The moment passed.

"Anyway, could be a moot point." Lestrade drew back and refitted his fingers to his glass. "I may be prosecuted, when all's said and done."

And if prosecuted, then possibly convicted.

Neither man noted that incarceration for a career policeman would be a death sentence – or worse. That was understood.

"It won't come to that," Mycroft said. "The Met fervently desire less publicity on this matter, not more."

Lestrade nodded.

Mycroft finished his brandy without tasting it at all.

The bar's mood music presented as much of a relentless assault on the senses as its décor.

At last Lestrade said gruffly, "Ta for the offer, but I'm not your mess to clean up. Made my own bed, didn't I? Now to lie in it."

Mycroft drew a breath to protest, but Lestrade cut him off with a quiet, "Please, don't."

After a swallow that nearly drained his glass, Lestrade rose – no trace of unsteadiness there – and ducked his head. "This was good of you, Mycroft. Very good. I won't forget it. Whatever happens."

He left without looking back, drawing his coat around his body like makeshift armour, hunching into the scant anonymity it promised.

Raising a hand in a final salute.

Six days later, Mycroft's surveillance team reported that Greg Lestrade was nowhere to be found.

END OF PART 1

Read Part 2

When Your Belly's in the Trench (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:17:41 GMT

Title: When Your Belly's in the Trench
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: The next time that door opens, John Watson will kill the person on the other side.
Historian's Note: This may be read as taking place either during the second series of Sherlock or after the Great Hiatus.
Author's Note: Special thanks to sherlocksscarf and comma_kaze for their early encouragement.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Non-graphic depiction of injuries and related trauma, allusions to off-screen violence and torture

The image on the screen was nothing short of chilling.

Greg Lestrade shivered and ran a hand over his stubbled face. Around him Mycroft Holmes and the SAS team hummed with precise, ordered activity as they readied for the final act in this desperate play.

No one paid Lestrade any heed as he blinked grainy lids over burning eyes, struggling to persuade his gut to share with his brain why this felt so bloody wrong.

The footage from the basement represented a real-time view, but the portrait it captured hadn't changed since they'd forced their way into this room over the wounded and dead bodies of its guards. Exactly who those criminals were and what they'd wanted were questions for a later, less frantic hour.

The darker of the two grey smudges on the screen, Sherlock, lay unmoving at the back of the bare cell in a loose foetal position facing the wall. Only the tip of his ear, his pale brow, and his lank, lifeless curls were visible against the pillow of John's jumper. Both Sherlock's coat and John's jacket were tucked over and around him, sheltering his still form from the camera's scrutiny.

A lone hand escaped the covers, curled inward above Sherlock's hidden face, slender fingers drawn toward the palm. A stained swatch of plaid at the wrist suggested a makeshift bandage fashioned from a torn strip of John's shirt.

Try as Lestrade might – the poor quality of the picture certainly didn't help – he couldn't distinguish any motion at all, any evidence that the consulting detective still breathed.

The second grey smudge on the black-and-white film presented an equally disturbing sight.

John had planted himself between Sherlock and the single entrance to the cell. He hunched, not quite crouching and not quite sitting, rocking forward and back, forward and back without ceasing. Lestrade didn't know if the repetitive motion was intentional or involuntary, an effort to keep himself awake or comfort himself, or merely a helpless physical response to unimaginable trauma.

Clues to the two men's ordeal were written on John's body. His vest and jeans, his only clothing, were torn and soiled. His right arm pressed tightly against his side over a particularly dark-blotched patch of fabric. Dried blood appeared at his knuckles, wrists, and ankles, bruises on his arms and neck. His face, too, might've been marked, but the beard he'd grown over these days of imprisonment shadowed his cheeks and jawline.

John looked wounded and exhausted and utterly terrifying. His nostrils flared. His battered, rocking body coiled like a spring. His wide eyes rarely blinked and never left the door.

One thing was clear: whatever the bastards had done to Sherlock, John wasn't going to give them a chance to repeat it.

Lestrade didn't doubt that John had every intention and capability of killing with his bare hands the next person who walked into that room.

So Mycroft's plan made sense, didn't it?

"… long precisely from the release of the gas until your team can enter the cell?" Mycroft's words waded into Lestrade's consciousness.

"Masked, four minutes, sir. We can have them to the ambulances within another four. Done in eight."

"Excellent, Major. Have your men…"

The whine of hurryhurryhurry, the current soundtrack to Lestrade's lumbering thoughts, wound itself up to a shrieking pitch.

Never mind that Lestrade was running on the fumes of coffee and cigarette smoke and stubbornness, that he couldn't remember the last bite of food he'd eaten or the last uninterrupted half-hour of sleep he'd had.

Never mind that this was Mycroft Holmes's show, his brother they were here to rescue, his genius driving the mission, and Lestrade was present only as a courtesy, only because he might get underfoot and make a mess of things if, as he'd threatened, he launched a separate search for the missing Sherlock and John.

Never mind that at the moment he had nothing but blunt instinct to offer against Mycroft's razor-edged intellect.

"Mr Holmes," Lestrade said softly, mindful of his position here (or lack thereof), as deferential as the situation's urgency and his own nature would allow.

"Not now, Detective Inspector," Mycroft answered, without a glance in Lestrade's direction.

Lestrade considered his shoes and swallowed.

"Mycroft. Please."

The elder Holmes was nodding to the officer. Giving the go ahead. Releasing the proverbial hounds.

Lestrade stepped forward and put his hand on Mycroft's arm, forcefully turning him.

The room went silent.

Mycroft brought the full weight of his gaze to bear on Lestrade, and then he narrowed his eyes.

It was oddly humbling to realise that the strain was wearing on this man, as well.

The elder Holmes appeared to be his composed, immaculate self – when had he found time to shave, to change his shirt? – whereas Lestrade knew that he himself looked like the wrong end of a week-long pub crawl. But Lestrade could see them now, the miniscule chinks in Mycroft's armour. Threatening to widen, to split apart at their welded seams.

They made this moment all the more dangerous.

"Unhand me," Mycroft murmured. All around the room, well armed members of the Special Forces shifted their weight.

Lestrade licked his dry lips. He knew he had only one chance at this. "You're thinking like Sherlock, not like John, and it could get your brother killed."

If, Lestrade didn't say, he's not dead already, and John is guarding a corpse.

Mycroft blinked. Lestrade released him.

"Give me a minute to explain," Lestrade said. "Two. Please."

Mycroft studied him.

A wave of an imperious hand marked Mycroft's decision. "Major, please have you team stand by."

"Yes, sir."

Crossing his arms, Mycroft drew himself up and peered down his nose, making the most of the meagre two inches between their heights. He fired the word like a weapon: "Explain."

Undeterred, Lestrade gestured toward the monitor. "John's hurt. He's traumatised. He's not in his right mind. The only thing keeping him upright is his single-minded determination to protect Sherlock at all costs."

Something flickered behind Mycroft's eyes.

Oh, God, it was impatience.

Lestrade pressed on, raking his fingers through the bedlam of his hair. "I know you think the gas is the safest way to subdue him, but this is John Watson we're talking about. If the soldier in him doesn't identify the sound or smell of the gas, then the doctor will identify its symptoms."

Shaking his head, Lestrade said, "He's waiting for the enemies' next move, and he'll interpret the gas as their attempt to eliminate the only obstacle keeping them from Sherlock: John himself. He'll have, what, fifteen seconds before he's incapacitated? Thirty? Plenty of time to act."

Turning his head on one side, Mycroft asked, "To do what, exactly?"

"In his current state, he might well choose to end Sherlock's life rather than leave him to more torture."

Mycroft's eyes widened fractionally.

Trust a genius Holmes to miss the all-too-human variable in his haste, to overlook an impulse born of the heart (or gut or balls) rather than the mind.

The thought that he'd spotted a possibility that had escaped Mycroft gave Lestrade no satisfaction. On the contrary, he only felt wearier. If that were possible.

With a grimace, Lestrade added, "John could break Sherlock's neck in less than five seconds and then surrender to the gas, believing he'd given your brother a painless death instead of abandoning him to whatever hell the bastards had planned for him."

"You think John would do this." A statement and a question both, scarcely a whisper. Mycroft cast off his pose and leaned forward to catch the response.

"Yeah, I think he might." Lestrade slumped and rubbed his eyes, grateful that the pissing-contest portion of this nightmare was concluded. "I reckon he'd do almost anything to keep his comrade from falling back into enemy hands."

Lestrade sensed that his wartime metaphor had made its point.

After a pause, Mycroft cleared his throat and asked, "What do you propose that we do?"

"There's no speaker in the room; we can't talk to him from here. Might not've helped anyway."

Lestrade thrust his hands into his pockets. "Someone has to go down and open that door. Not a soldier. Not a stranger with a uniform and weapons. Someone familiar. Someone non-threatening. Someone unwilling to hurt John in the process of helping him." He shrugged. "And then we all pray to God that John doesn't rip him limb from limb."

He forced a deep breath and then released it into the deafening silence that answered him.

"Look, I didn't say it was a good plan."

"Time is of the essence," Mycroft reminded him.

Lestrade filled in the blanks: Sherlock might be dying. Right now.

"I know," Lestrade said. "I know."

"Are you volunteering, Detective Inspector?"

Mycroft might be familiar, but no one could call him non-threatening. Lestrade pursed his lips and stared at the image of John, rocking and waiting.

What else could he do? Lestrade was desperate. They all were.

"Yeah, God help me," he mumbled. "Guess I am."

***

"What's the point of a stab vest? He's got nothing to stab me with!" Lestrade fretted.

"Humour us, sir," said one of the soldiers. Lestrade ground his teeth and obeyed.

"Do you know how to use one of these?" Another SAS officer offered his Sig P228.

"I do, but shooting either John or Sherlock rather misses the point, don't you think?"

The man shook his head and forced the gun into Lestrade's hand. "This is for your protection, sir. If you want to go in alone—"

"I do."

"—then take this."

Lestrade grimaced and tucked the sidearm under the stab vest and into the waist of his trousers. "I thought you said you were certain the building was clear of hostiles."

"We are, sir. And we have all access points covered." The man didn't smile. "But sometimes even we can be wrong."

"Jesus," Lestrade sighed.

The SAS team parted as Mycroft stepped forward, holding out an earpiece attached by a cord to a transmitter/receiver. "We'll be in contact at all times."

"Right."

As Lestrade adjusted the communications device, Mycroft fixed him with a penetrating stare. "We'll try your way first, Detective Inspector. If it doesn't yield rapid results, we'll try mine. One way or another, we need those two out of there and in the ambulances sooner rather than later."

"Just give me time, yeah?" Lestrade said. "Give John a chance." He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I understand. I do. We want the same thing, you and I."

Tension pulled Mycroft's features taut. Lestrade knew better than to take it personally.

"The key card for the door." A red-brown smudge marred one corner, no doubt a souvenir from its most recent owner. Mycroft withdrew a pristine handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the card clean before handing it to Lestrade.

The detective inspector accepted it with a nod.

A final glance at the screen showed no changes in the cell downstairs. "Right, then," Lestrade said.

"Good luck, Greg," Mycroft said, sotto voce.

"Ta, Mycroft."

Halfway to the door a familiar sound caught Lestrade's attention. He turned to see Mycroft's personal assistant unlatching the lid from a thermos flask. He knew the thermoses by sight now, the one that carried Mycroft's blend of tea and the one that carried Anthea's own preferred roast of coffee.

More than once over the recent days, when Lestrade had been swaying with fatigue, she'd wordlessly shared a cup of that coffee with him. He thought of the bite of the dark brew, the rich fragrance from those expensive beans…

An idea fired between tired synapses.

Sensing Lestrade's regard, Anthea looked up. Her wilting curls had disappeared into a French twist, and there were lines between her brows and around her mouth that hadn't been there at the beginning of this search.

"One for the road?" she asked, gesturing with the thermos. It was the first time she'd spoken directly to him.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I could use it all. If you'd be so kind?"

She neither hid her bemusement nor asked any questions. "Of course." As he took the thermos from her, she added, "Do try not to get killed."

"Thanks. I'll do my best." Thermos tucked under his arm, he headed for the stairs.

***

Even awash in adrenaline, Lestrade felt that his sleep-deprived mind shuffled and shambled at old-school zombie speed, struggling to catch up to events. And, God, if ever he needed his wits about him, it was now.

Nothing in his training had prepared him for this. It was hardly a proper hostage situation, was it? He didn't seek to subdue or neutralise John; John was the hostage, the one Lestrade needed to protect.

Pausing at the door, card at its slot, Lestrade prayed he'd do more good than harm, for all three of their sakes.

"John," he called out. "John Watson. It's Greg Lestrade. From Scotland Yard. I'm here with Mycroft Holmes. Everything's all right. You're safe." A deep breath. "I'm going to open the door now."

After settling the thermos on the floor, he slid the key card through the lock and then carefully eased the door open. When he was certain it would remain that way, he folded to his knees in the doorway, putting himself at John's level.

The competing odours of blood and sweat, vomit and waste assailed him. From the corner of his eye, Lestrade made out a pile of sodden rags at the far end of the cell where John apparently had improvised a toilet of sorts and tried to contain its mess.

"John," he repeated, spreading his empty hands. "John, it's over. It's all right."

The rocking stopped.

John was alarmingly pale beneath the beard and blood and bruises. His breathing hitched, and then he began to pant in short, sharp bursts through his nose, an engine kicking into high gear. His left hand flexed and knotted, and Lestrade saw fresh blood well up and drip from a damaged knuckle.

The camera hadn't done justice to the fearsome intensity of the man.

The hair stood up at the back of Lestrade's neck, even as his heart swelled in sympathy for John's suffering and admiration for his valour.

"You know me, John." Lestrade summoned the voice he always used when speaking with child witnesses: low and gentle, as rumblingly reassuring as he could make it. "I'm Greg. Greg Lestrade from the Yard. I'm here to help you and Sherlock. We need to get you both to hospital."

John's eyes were wide and bloodshot. They saw Lestrade, to be sure, but they reflected no glimmer of warmth or relief, no spark of recognition.

"Don't look much like myself in this getup, do I?" Lestrade continued evenly. "I'll just shed some of this gear, yeah?"

When the stab vest's Velcro fastening parted with a rip, John flinched. Lestrade cursed himself for a fool and then continued removing the garment, drowning the sound under a persistent flow of calm words. "Don't need this now. We're safe. Mycroft's team has swept the site. No one will hurt you again, and no one will hurt Sherlock."

With the vest gone, Lestrade knew the gun would be visible at his waist.

"Don't need this either, do I?" Moving in slow motion, Lestrade withdrew the weapon and placed it on the far side of the vest, out of easy reach.

The rasp of John's panting seemed magnified in the confined space.

Given the state of John's disassociation, Lestrade appreciated how woefully inadequate his brainwave had been. But it wasn't as if he had a Plan B.

"What I do need, John, is for you to be here, now." He reached out and claimed the waiting thermos. "Some of my colleagues swear by the senses in times like these. They say an unexpected scent or taste is the best thing to wake a man up and remind him of when and where he is."

He poured a splash of coffee into the lid-turned-cup. "Don't know if you'll fancy this, or if you'd rather I drink some first. But just smell it, John. It may be the best coffee I've ever had."

Settling back onto his knees, Lestrade told himself to be patient as the dark brew did its job, filling up the dismal cell with its bold, bitter scent.

It was possible that a few of the clouds began to clear from John's eyes. It was possible that Lestrade only imagined it.

"Just outside there are ambulances waiting, John," Lestrade continued after several seconds. "Anything you could tell us now would help the paramedics be better prepared." He wetted his lips. "What should they know about your injuries? What should they know about Sherlock's?"

John's blank expression hardened into a closed fist.

Mycroft's cultured accent sounded in Lestrade's ear, soft and urgent. Lestrade ignored it.

"No, that's fine, John. You don't need to say a word. They're professionals. Mycroft would bring only the best. They'll know what to do, won't they?" He gestured toward the coffee and shifted. "Fancy a—"

"Move. Back." The rusty croak sounded nothing like John's voice. "No one. Touches. Him."

"I understand." Lestrade held very still. "No one touches Sherlock. I won't do anything, not without your say."

He shook his head, blinking back his emotion. "You shouldn't've had to protect him by yourself, John. We've been looking for both of you for days. I'm sorry we took so long to find you."

"Back." With a thrust of his chin, John indicated the hall beyond the door. "Against the wall."

"All right." Lestrade rose and retreated, one backward step at a time. When his shoulders touched the far wall, he sank to his haunches. "I need you to look at me, John. You know me. And you know we need to get you and Sherlock to hospital."

A moment before everything unravelled, Lestrade understood what was going to happen. What he'd allowed to happen.

His mistakes. So obvious now, a heartbeat too late. So stupid.

Instincts refined by millions of years demanded that Lestrade either flee now or fight John, but he shoved them aside, unwilling to do either. Instead he just hunched there, sick with regret as John surged forward in a blur.

Mycroft's voice was white noise in his brain.

John landed on his belly and slid into the open doorway. He scooped up the pistol in a two-handed grip, released the safety, and aimed it unerringly at a point between Lestrade's eyes.

For a second that seemed to last aeons, all was silent. Then John groaned in pain, a throttled, raw sound like falling timber, and he curled slightly toward his right side. Sweat beaded on his brow, but his rigid mask of cold determination never slipped.

"Jesus, John," Lestrade breathed. He raised his hands. He wondered if they were trembling. John's weren't.

"It's him, isn't it?" John frowned at Lestrade's… what? His temple? Lestrade floundered, trying to imagine.

Then, with something almost like pity in his hoarse rasp, John said, "He got you, too."

Comprehension dawned. "No. No, it's not Moriarty."

Moving at an unhurried pace, keeping his fingers well in view, Lestrade unclipped the earpiece and withdrew the transmitter/receiver from where it rested at the base of his neck.

"It's Mycroft," Lestrade said with a sigh. "Telling me I'm a bloody idiot, I expect." He placed the device on the floor beside him with care, microphone pointing upward so Mycroft could hear them as clearly as possible. "But that's Sherlock's job, isn't it?"

"We're all idiots to Sherlock." John rose on his elbows, then pushed himself up to his knees. "But he also thinks you're the best of Scotland Yard."

Lestrade blinked. "Does he?"

"Actually, no." John straightened with unexpected speed, squaring his shoulders and shifting the pistol to his right hand. The left clenched as though he planned to follow the bullet with his fist. "He says that of Greg Lestrade. I don't know who the hell you are."

Chest heaving, John glared at him like the wrath of God incarnate.

Christ.

A bead of sweat trickled down Lestrade's spine.

He cleared his throat and willed his voice to be steady. "Idiot to idiot then," he said, "tell me how I can prove it to you. Because that's who I am. And this" – he gestured vaguely between them – "believe it or not, was a rescue attempt."

"It's a bit rubbish, isn’t it?"

"Yeah, well. I'd say it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn't. It was the best we had, though."

"Right." John snorted. "I'm meant to believe Mycroft has the SAS at his command" – his breathing came too fast, too short – "and yet he sent you in here single-handed to save us?"

"Ah, no. No, that was my doing, actually." Lestrade pressed his palms to his eyes. His head pounded, demanding caffeine and nicotine and blessed slumber, and this really wasn't the time. "And, for the record, he didn't 'send me in'; I volunteered." He let his hands fall to his thighs. "Mycroft wanted to gas the room and bring you out unconscious."

John shook his head, swaying a bit on his knees. His response was a toneless whisper, cold and blade-sharp: "I'd've killed Sherlock myself before I let that happen."

Lestrade sagged against the wall, suddenly boneless with a relief as poignant as pain. Whatever else had gone awry, whatever else happened next, that at least had been right. Thank God.

After a beat, Lestrade asked, "He's still alive, then? Can you tell me that, at least?"

"He's hurt. He… What they…" Pressing his lips to a thin white line, John lifted his chin. "But we were talking about you."

"About me."

"You expect me to think" – he coughed shallowly, a grating sound – "Mycroft would stand by and let me shoot you?"

A laugh welled up before Lestrade could contain it, not quite as hysterical as it might've been. "Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact." He shrugged, pulling at the knots of tension in his shoulders and neck. "He's here for his brother, John, and he'll get him. Losing you in the process would be… well, a significant calamity for him. Losing me would be more like a temporary inconvenience."

He threw a meaningful glance at the still form at the back of the cell, and then returned his attention to John. "I can live with that. Or not, as the case may be. Wouldn't be here otherwise."

He let his head fall back against the wall with a dull thump. "Honestly, I hope it won't come to that. But none of this is your fault, John, and I know it."

As gently as he could, he added, "You're not thinking straight, John."

"Of course I'm not!" John staggered to his feet and moved to crouch at Sherlock's side. The Sig trained on Lestrade never wavered as John's left hand searched out Sherlock's brow, neck, and wrist before resting protectively on a coat-draped shoulder.

"John, he should be in hos—"

"No one knows that better than I do."

Lestrade nodded. He was certain that was true.

"I have to be sure," John said, and it sounded as though the words had been dredged up from a dark and horrifying place. "I can't trust anything, and I have to be absolutely sure. You understand?"

"I do." And he did. There was so much at stake here.

John fixed a searching gaze on him.

Then, out of nowhere, John asked, "Is it as good as it smells? The coffee?"

"Yeah, it is."

John appeared steadier on his feet this time as crossed the room, although he moved with the conscious effort of a wounded man constantly negotiating with his injuries.

One-handed, John emptied the cup into the thermos, resealed the flask, and tossed it to Lestrade. "Have some, then."

"Thanks."

The encounter was taking on an increasingly surrealistic flavour. Lestrade wondered if he were being offered a last meal of sorts. The brew tasted as bitter and brilliant as he remembered, and its warmth felt like comfort as it flooded his throat, even if it burned like acid once it hit his vacant stomach.

He drained the cup, begging the caffeine to kick in as soon as possible.

When he rolled the closed thermos over to John's bare feet, John surprised him by drinking straight from the flask, gulping several swallows as though he was dying of thirst – which, Lestrade realised, might not have been that far from the truth.

With a visible effort at self-control, John set the thermos aside. "So where's Mycroft, then?" he asked, peering at Lestrade with a somewhat sharper gaze. "Now that things have gone pear-shaped?"

"Good question, that," Lestrade said. "I'd've thought his team would've charged in by now. Maybe…" Maybe Mycroft trusted him to make this work somehow. Maybe he thought this was acceptable progress.

Surely not.

"Don't know," he admitted.

His ankles were beginning to complain, so he stretched his legs out and sat down properly, back to the hallway wall. "Putting together another plan, I s'pose. The gas won't work, now the door's open." He opted for complete honesty. "This is a tough one, John. You're enough to scare us shitless, you know."

"You don't seem scared." Another cough.

"Years of experience, mate. To be perfectly honest, I'm terrified."

John's eyes narrowed, but Lestrade soldiered on. "You're traumatised, and I'm afraid of sending you 'round the twist. And I'm afraid for Sherlock – and for you – every minute we spend chatting here instead of getting you the medical treatment you need."

"Not for yourself?"

"That, too. I don't want to die, John. 'Course I don't."

"But you will if I pull the trigger."

"If you aim to kill, I'll die." He held John's eyes with his own. "Is that what it'll take, to prove to you we're not the bad guys? My not defending myself?" He spread his hands. "Because I'm no expert and I'm no genius, John. And I don't know what else to do."

A battle played out across John's haggard features. It pained Lestrade to watch, and he dropped his head into his palm.

This didn't shut out the sound of John's ragged breathing.

Enough, Lestrade thought.

"For pity's sake, John, sit down before you fall down. You can shoot at me from your arse as easily as from your feet."

The plea put John in motion.

He nodded to himself abruptly, raised and extended his gun arm, and took one, two, three deliberate strides directly toward the detective inspector.

Lestrade flinched and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," John wheezed.

Lestrade pressed his back to the wall and his palms to the floor.

"I had to be sure. The Greg Lestrade we know is" – John's voice broke, and he cleared his throat – "a very patient man, as well as a good one."

Lestrade opened his eyes. Blinked hard. Released the breath he was holding in an explosive gust.

After Lestrade accepted the offered Sig, John turned and slid down the wall beside him with a choked moan. Then he bent forward, hand to his side and head toward his knees, breathing in stuttering gasps.

"Christ, Greg. That. My God."

"'S all right, John. Everything's all right. We're fine." He wiped his brow with shaking fingers.

"How long?"

"Six days, give or take."

"Oh, God."

When he thought he could trust his legs again, Lestrade rose and reclaimed the transmitter/receiver.

John wasn't fine, not by anyone's standards, but when Lestrade raised a brow and gestured with the device, asking his mute question, John nodded before scrubbing his hands across his face.

"Are you there?" Lestrade asked, holding the earpiece to his ear.

Mycroft's answer came immediately. "What's the best way to proceed?"

That was not the response he'd anticipated.

Even so, he didn't hesitate. "Send in the paramedics. No SAS. John's hurt, but he can make it to the ambulance under his own power. He goes with Sherlock. They're not to be separated."

"At once," Mycroft said.

"Thank you," John whispered.

Lestrade pressed the half-full coffee thermos into John's hand, and then he indicated the room with a jerk of his chin. "May I?" Asking permission.

John sat straighter, a gesture like a salute. "Please do." Two simple, hoarse words.

As approaching footsteps echoed in the hallway, Lestrade sank to the floor at Sherlock's side.

THE END

Note: The title refers to the lyrics "When your belly's in the trench/ Then your heart's gotta mobilize" from the song "Mobilize" by Grant Lee Phillips.

Vital Stats: Originally written in June 2012.

Originally written for the Rupert Graves birthday celebration at dilestrade and for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.

I Would Understand (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Thu, 31 May 2012 01:18:32 GMT

Title: I Would Understand
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Is there another jumper on the roof of St Bart's?
Historian's Note: This takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall," discussion of suicide

He paced back and forth under the cloudy evening sky, empty hands in empty pockets, staring at the mute stone under his feet.

This is where it had ended.

His consulting detective's – his friend's – life. Not down below on the pavement, but here, where Sherlock made the choice to jump.

Here, too, had ended Moriarty's great game.

And his own credibility and career, apparently.

Numb under repeated blows, Greg Lestrade faced the fact that questions were all that was left to him.

And what chance did he have of fitting together pieces of the answers now, without access to his notes and files or the Met's databases and resources?

He had all the time in the world to find out, didn't he?

He was no sprinter, Lestrade; he'd turned to Sherlock for short, brilliant bursts of intellectual speed. No, Lestrade was a long-distance runner. Slow sometimes, plodding in pace, but indefatigable. He usually got there in the end.

This time there was no promise of justice at the conclusion of the race, but that made little difference. His grief and bewilderment and stubborn need to make sense of something, anything, that had occurred here: they were quite enough to be going on with.

One foot followed the other. There and back and there and back. Reciting the few facts he knew for certain required a pitifully short span of time.

He willed the stone, that silent witness, to give up its secrets. To speak to him.

"Greg?"

He blinked at the tentative sound and turned. John Watson's sudden presence on the roof was one mystery too many on a day far too long. It did not compute.

"John." He scrubbed a hand over his face, but the mental fog refused to lift. "Didn't expect to see you here."

There was nothing casual about the studied neutrality of John's voice or features. Feet set apart, arms open at his sides, he was as pale as the building beneath them and just as unmoving.

"It's the very last place in the world I want to be, actually." John's soft words nearly failed to carry. His fingers twitched.

"Right," Lestrade said, attempting to muddle through. "Then why're you…?"

"Good question, that, considering my track record with this sort of thing."

Scanning their surroundings as if it were a hostile alien landscape, John appeared to be fighting both the urge to take cover and the desire to hit something very, very hard.

"But the others said I had the best chance, and I couldn't just..." John swallowed. Replanted his feet. Returned the full weight of his earnest gaze to Lestrade. "So here I am, praying that it's the thought that counts."

Lestrade shook his head, feeling as though he'd been dropped in the middle of someone else's conversation.

"Greg, let's get off this roof." John gave a jerky nod in the direction of the stairwell. "Let me buy you a pint. We can talk. We haven't done since the funeral."

"I don't—"

"I understand. I do, more than you know. But listen. Please." Christ, the man was all squared shoulders and clenched fists now, starting to breathe hard. "You don't have to do this. Not today. Not ever."

John's eyes darted from Lestrade to the ledge and back, judging the distance.

Oh. Oh.

His first instinctive reaction, as rapid as a reflex, was fury. What genius thought it was a good idea to send John up here to the scene of Sherlock's farewell? As if the man hadn't gone through enough. God, it was cruel.

It was for him.

Full understanding followed a second behind, staggering Lestrade. Literally. He retreated a step, shifting his weight to find balance, and John started forward with a strangled "No!"

Then they both froze, gazes locked.

"I wasn't going to..." Lestrade left the whisper hanging in the air between them. "Jesus, John. Why would you think—?"

"They took your warrant card today," John said. "You didn’t go home. Or to the pub. Or anywhere expected. Do you realise how long you've been up here? What were we supposed to think?”

Never mind that Lestrade's suspension from duty was mere hours old and he'd told no one yet. Then again, who was there to tell? He was alone.

Wasn't he?

"We?" His voice sounded small in his own ears.

"Molly stays updated on the comings and goings on the roof these days. She's been desperate with worry since you arrived. It didn't take her long to learn the news from the Yard."

A strained grimace twisted John's expression. "Mycroft's concerned, as well. He hasn't returned my texts for the last six days, but now his messages are one constant distress signal. I'm afraid you're currently the star of his own personal CCTV film festival. He thought... We thought..."

The words left John panting. He bent and braced himself, palms on thighs.

"Sit down, yeah?" Lestrade said, as John struggled for composure.

"I will if you will."

They ended up side by side, backs to the ledge. John's hand shot out and crumpled a handful of Lestrade's shirt into a tight fist, anchoring the older man to the roof, confirming he was safe.

Lestrade held still.

It shocked him, the thought that anyone had followed his own personal drama (or was it farce?) at the Yard. That anyone had cared what followed.

That this fierce but kind doctor-soldier, this good man, had proved willing to wade through a private hell to make sure Lestrade survived another day.

"Some rescuer I am," John said at last, releasing his grip, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "My mind thinks I'm down there on the street, looking up. My body thinks I'm in Kandahar. And all of me thinks I'm going to be sick, so mind your shoes."

"How can I help?"

"Don't move. Sit there." John forced a deep breath and released it through pursed lips, and then repeated the action. After a beat, he added, "Bastard."

Lestrade couldn't be sure at whom the epithet was aimed. He felt a right bastard, to be sure, for being the catalyst if not the actual cause for John's distress.

"Reckon punching me would make you feel better?" he asked.

"Much," John said. "So don't tempt me."

Lestrade nodded. "Don't worry. I have a healthy respect for your left hook."

John chuckled, a painful, wheezing sound.

"I never was planning to do that, you know," Lestrade murmured, like an apology.

"What? Follow Sherlock's footsteps into thin air? Or off yourself in general?"

"Well... follow Sherlock's footsteps," Lestrade admitted, knowing and hating how that sounded.

Hadn’t thought it through yet, had he? What would come after. When it – all of this – finally hit him, it would knock him off his feet; he knew that much.

He needed answers first. One thing at a time. One foot after the other, for the distance.

"Just trying to wrap my head around it," Lestrade said. "We know Moriarty ate his gun. We know Sherlock told you a mouthful of lies. And we know he jumped." He shrugged. "Got to fill in the rest of the blanks before I bloody well understand what it all means, and what comes next."

"Yeah, I know," John said simply. He lifted his chin, wiped his sweaty brow with an unsteady hand, and glared at something only he could see. "I know, mate."

And he did, Lestrade realised.

John's words were a bandage. A lifeline, even. Perhaps, Lestrade thought, he'd needed rescuing after all.

"You're the detective," John said after a time. "Where do we start?"

Lestrade's throat grew tight. He raked his fingers through his hair.

After several heartbeats, he found his voice. "With that pint, I think. But I'm buying."

THE END

Note: The title is drawn from lyrics to the song "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind, which begins, "I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend."

Vital Stats: Originally written in May 2012.

Originally written for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.

Five Boxes (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:01:33 GMT

Title: Five Boxes
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: After Sherlock's fall, what is left?
Historian's Note: This takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Implied spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall"

#1

"All right, mate?"

The cabbie has every right to wonder. They've arrived, after all. They're in front of 221B Baker Street, and John is simply sitting, staring straight ahead, giving no indication he's going anywhere.

He's a fly caught in amber, a fossil in stone. He can't move.

The cabbie turns, an expression of growing concern replacing his impatient scowl.

"Give us just a mo', please," John mutters. He pulls out his mobile with grim determination, as if he's drawing his sidearm.

Mrs Hudson's greeting is warm and grounding, but it doesn't hold the key to unlock his traitorous legs. He kneads a hard fist into his thigh and imagines a bruise blossoming beneath the sturdy denim.

"Hello, Mrs Hudson."

"Oh, John. It's good of you to ring." After a beat, "I came across some things, dear. Tidying up."

Not packing, bless her. Nothing so final.

"Detective things, you know, mementos from your cases," she continues. "I thought… well, he'd want you to have them. I put them in a box for you."

He squeezes his eyes shut.

Those few tragic seconds play before him in continual loop, projected against the dark screen of his eyelids. Sherlock's spreading his arms, pitching forward, falling…

When he opens his eyes once more, he's grateful that Mrs Hudson doesn't know he's sitting there, just outside her door, paralysed. The fingers that clutch his mobile are shaking.

"I can't," he manages at last, not even finishing the thought, not naming what it is he can't do. "Not. Just. Now."

There's understanding and sympathy in her pause as well as grief. He can hear them above the sound of his own forced, measured breaths.

"Of course, dear." Her voice grows hushed as she agrees. "There's no hurry."

He nods.

The doctor in John whispers that deep cuts bleed out or fester if not quickly tended. The soldier shouts him down, exhorting John not to confuse a wise tactical retreat with surrender.

There will be other opportunities for this battle. There's no need to send the wounded to the front line today.

When he speaks again, his words are for the cabbie, not Mrs Hudson.

"Take me back. Now. Please."

#2

She's hugging herself so tightly she can scarcely draw breath.

There are words she must get out – she can feel them rising up to choke her, sharp and agonising, like razorblades in her throat – and she prays to God she hasn't missed him, she's not too late.

A young man is planted outside the DI's door. He looks bloody miserable there. The new lad: yes, of course it's him. Lestrade has too much history with anyone else.

The higher-ups might be celebrating the chance to see the back of Lestrade for a time, but they're in the minority. The rank and file of the Yard show him the kind of respect that's won over time, not freely given. Sally doubts another officer could be found on the premises willing to escort him to the exit.

This man – boy, really – shifts from foot to foot as she approaches, as if he feels guilty for following the orders he's received.

She pretends he isn't there and peers over his shoulder into the empty room. It looks exactly as it did before Lestrade left. Before that message from St Bart's drained all colour from his face and sent him running.

Christ.

No, her first impression wasn't quite accurate: the office doesn't look exactly the same. A cardboard box sits on his desk atop the stack of papers.

"I'm sorry, Sergeant," the young man blurts out. "He's already gone."

She's damned if she knows what her next move is.

Hell, she's damned anyway, isn't she?

He seems to take her silence as an invitation to unburden himself. "They said to tell him he could take his personal effects with him. I brought the box. But."

"But," she prods.

"He said his case files and notes aren't just personal, they're his life." He fidgets, and Sally fights the urge to slap him. "Those stay here, you know. He'll have no access. Protocol. I told him so, and he… he just walked off. Told me to bin anything that was left. Said it didn't matter."

She gazes back into the familiar room – not just vacant now, but soulless, and it's her doing, God help her – and she swallows.

Personal effects. Like a litany, she recites the list to herself. There's a dark tie he keeps in the left-hand bottom drawer of his desk. He wears it to funerals, and to visits with bereaved families when delivering bad news, and to meetings with superiors when receiving bad news.

Beside it there's an empty picture frame Sally salvaged from the rubbish bin after removing the photo of his ex-wife. The glass is broken, but it's quite a nice frame. She's hoped someday he'll have need of it again. Molly in the morgue always has a smile for him, it seems.

God knows he deserves…

His stash of nicotine patches and emergency cigarettes migrates according to his mood and need, but it's somewhere in there.

On top of the file cabinet sits the mug she got him for his last birthday, the one that reads "London's Finest." It mocks her from its solitary perch.

Before she knows what she's doing, she presses her hand to the glass of the door.

"Sergeant," the man says.

She ignores him.

#3

It matters not one whit that the others don't speak. He can hear them thinking. Of course he can.

He can hear them reading the headline to themselves, rolling the words off their mental tongues, tasting its scandal: "Suicide of Fake Genius."

The Diogenes Club resounds with the silent echoes of its members' scorn and contempt for his baby brother, a man none of them is worthy to judge.

There is far more to the story than even this intelligentsia knows. Then again, Mycroft muses, there always is.

In Mycroft's mind there are many mansions; he enters the distant one on the horizon and follows a labyrinth of stairways and corridors to an underground chamber that houses a secret, soundproofed room.

Hardly a room. A cell, rather. A box.

Access requires a retinal scan, a digital fingerprint, and the recitation of an arcane code phrase in both Classical Latin and Old English.

He folds his long bulk into the cramped compartment and seals the door behind him.

In that most hidden space, Mycroft screams.

#4

His hands are thrust deep into his pockets. His shoulder rests against the wall. He's not hunched, exactly, but braced, as if unsure of his welcome. His gaze is fixed on the pavement as she opens the door.

"Mrs Hudson." He straightens and nods his head in that respectful way he has outside of crisis moments, giving the impression of a bow. Then his eyes are on hers, dark and shadowed and more than a bit bloodshot. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know, dear," she says. "As well as can be expected."

She doesn't return the kindness of the question, because it's clear that he can't say the same.

She's no consulting detective, true, but she can deduce from his unshaven face and his casual trousers and shirt that he isn't on the job. That's another aftershock from the recent tragedy, she guesses.

For someone who lives for his work as the detective inspector so evidently does – she knows that sort well, doesn't she? – exclusion from it must be a form of slow torture, if not death. Especially now, with so many unanswered questions, so much that wants explaining.

She regrets handing him disappointment. He has the look of a man who needs no more of it.

"I'm sorry, Detective In—"

"Greg," he offers.

"—Greg, but John's not here. He's… taking some time away. I can get you his temporary address, if you like."

"No. No, actually, I knew he's gone. I thought I'd drop by to see how you were getting on." His shrug is somewhat self-conscious as he runs a hand through his silvering hair. "To ask if you need anything."

Lovely man.

"Oh, that's very kind of you, dear."

It's good of him to trouble himself, but she realises what he, perhaps, does not: he's the one in need. He's here because he doesn't know where else to go, what else to do with himself.

The signs are all too familiar. Hardly the first broken man to turn up on her doorstep, is he?

Her boys. They'd healed from their past hurts so well, each growing stronger in his own way, it seemed, and growing together in the process.

Then one fell from the roof of St Bart's, and three shattered.

She recalls Lestrade at Sherlock's funeral, at the morgue as John related the confusion of Sherlock's last message, here at Baker Street on the terrible evening of the arrest…

The thought of that night nearly moves her to tears.

And if it affects her that way…

"Right then," Lestrade says into the awkward silence. He withdraws one step, then another, broad shoulders sagging. "Good to see you. I'll just—"

Oh no, this won't do.

"He knew. Sherlock," she interrupts. "John told me that you rang to warn him that night. You'd never have done it if you doubted him. If I can see that, dear, you can be certain he did."

Lestrade goes perfectly still. Then he slumps, seemingly fascinated by the sight of his own shoes.

"That message he told John to give us – what was he thinking? I can't imagine – was meant to convince us. Because he knew we still believed in him, you and I. He knew."

Perhaps she's crossed some line of propriety, but age has its privileges, and she trusts her instincts about this. She can't mend the situation, but she'll do what she can to mend its other survivors.

Finally he turns a searching gaze on her. "You think so?"

"I do," she says.

He nods and ducks his head.

"Thanks." One simple, gruff word.

"And as for what I need, Greg," she says, extending her hand to him, "I need some company for tea. You'll join me, won't you? I do insist."

At that, he attempts a smile.

She wipes her eyes as he follows her inside.

He pales at the sight of Sherlock's freshly-washed test tubes and beakers in boxes on her kitchen table. Without being asked, he stacks them neatly in a corner, handling each with the fierce protectiveness due a newborn child.

#5

He likes to call them "boltholes," these invisible pockets of safe haven he has secreted about the city. They're grotty flats and dismal bedsits wedged into dark corners where no respectable citizen would wish to peer for long, camouflaged by general deterioration and not-so-benign neglect.

They're just the thing when Sherlock needs to disappear for a time, to conduct his hunt from a private base of operations.

Mycroft discovered a few of them years ago during one of his more infuriatingly interventionist periods, instantly ending their usefulness. Sherlock hasn't yet forgiven his big brother for that.

Lestrade stumbled upon another on a night Sherlock doesn't recall too clearly; he resents this intrusion rather less, although he'll never admit it, since the good detective inspector's interference alone likely kept Sherlock from becoming one more of many junkies who'd overdosed and died in that particular ruin of a building.

This is one of the oldest of his boltholes; it has survived Mycroft's meddling and Lestrade's do-goodery and his own various experiments with the most effective ways to make untraceable use of the family funds.

It's now paid for itself, many times over.

It smells of dust and disuse and less wholesome things, but Sherlock isn't fussed. His thoughts are decidedly elsewhere.

Primarily on the safety of three ordinary, boring, brilliant individuals.

His tasks are as straightforward as they are challenging: collect new data, analyse the power dynamics within Moriarty's now-leaderless organisation, and make certain key figures from said organisation are dead.

Only then can Sherlock be sure those three lives are no longer at risk.

To focus on this driving imperative, he fights to ignore the inconvenient and shockingly potent emotions he scarcely admits to himself: the loss and loneliness he feels at the severing of those three ties, the regret at the pain he's caused. The anguish of this caring lark.

He fights to ignore the mental image of Lestrade slumped at his desk, Mrs Hudson collapsed at home, and John, his John, splayed on the pavement at his feet. Lifeless.

He also fights to ignore the small box under the fourth floorboard behind the bed that promises to make the burden of his new existence bearable. The box is still there, after all this time, singing its siren song with exquisite clarity. Sherlock appreciates that he could open it and disappear in every sense, and his three friends would carry on without him, and it would be so simple…

It won't happen. He has investigations to conduct, plans to make, criminals to kill.

A game to win.

A life to resume.

He drowns out the box's song with the sound of his own voice. It rises and falls in a perpetually one-sided conversation with his absent blogger.

EPILOGUE (A BONUS BOX)

It's a charming cottage, and John imagines it will require little effort to make it feel like home.

As he waits for the kettle to boil, he wanders to the sitting room. He's found the perfect spot for his desk, near enough to the fire to be cosy on winter evenings. Perhaps he'll finally do as Greg often suggests and edit his old blog posts into book form.

For now a maze of boxes dominates the space. If he doesn't unpack them, the chore won't be done. The beehives have Sherlock's full attention.

He turns to the nearest box and peels back its flaps.

And he is ambushed.

He stares. Time passes.

"John?" The pitch of Sherlock's voice suggests he's already said the name several times.

With a deep breath, John pulls himself back to the present. "Look what I found." He holds his discovery up for inspection.

"The ear hat, John? Really."

"I don't suppose there's much call for deerstalking 'round the apiary."

"None at all, actually."

"Right." John continues to study the hat in his hand, even when his vision goes a bit blurry.

"John?" Softer this time.

"I asked you, you know." After several heartbeats, John blinks up at his friend. It's an old man's self-indulgence, this, but he is an old man, after all, and he reckons he's earned it. "For one more miracle. And you gave it to me."

Sherlock considers him with a pale-eyed, unreadable expression, then shifts his weight, clears his throat, and twitches his long, manic fingers. "Yes. Well. I asked you for a cup of tea. It seems one of us must live with disappointment."

For a moment neither speaks. At last John shakes his head.

"You," John says in a solemn tone, "are an idiot."

And there it is, that half-mad grin that John would follow anywhere.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in April 2012.

Originally written for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.

This is a "Five Vignettes" story. Each of these Sherlock stories is a standalone work written in a similar format. My others are as follows:
"Five Nightmares"
"Five Ghost Stories"
"A Little Night Reading: Five Vignettes"
"Five Birthdays"

Observed (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:42:33 GMT

Title: Observed
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: He watches over the faithful.
Historian's Note: This takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Author's Note: This is a 221b ficlet (221 words, the last beginning with "b").
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Implied spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall"

The two men arrived separately within seven minutes of one another. Two hours and forty-six minutes after the latter entered the pub, they exited together.

Despite the layers they wore, he could read the familiar language of their bodies, trace the changes their shared fellowship had wrought.

The sag of the older man's shoulders spoke more of chronic weariness now, a bit less of punishing defeat.

The tense lines drawn by grief and anger in the younger man's limbs had eased slightly; his hands, no longer clenching into restless fists, gestured as he spoke. He nodded to punctuate a comment he made, glancing up at his companion with a wry twist of his lips.

This wasn't quite a proper smile; the answering gruff exhalation wasn't quite a proper chuckle.

It was as close to "fine" as either man had appeared in eleven weeks and nine days.

As the two parted, he deduced from past experience details he couldn't see: Lestrade tucking his chin into the worn folds of his scarf, the tips of John's ears turning pink from cold.

Each man setting his jaw, anticipating a new day.

They would meet again, not as mates sharing a few laughs, but as the last adherents of a dying faith seeking communion, reaffirming truth.

"Sigerson" would be watching.

His friends, they still believed.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in April 2012.

In "The Adventure of the Empty House" by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes explains that he used the name "Sigerson" as an alias while pretending to be dead during the Great Hiatus.

Even The King (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:40:47 GMT

Title: Even The King
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: "Only a fool never doubts."
Historian's Note: This takes place during events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Author's Note: This is a 221b ficlet (221 words, the last beginning with "b").
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall"

"And then, even the King began to wonder."
- Jim Moriarty's "The Story of Sir Boast-A-Lot," as told to Sherlock Holmes, "The Reichenbach Fall"

"Only a fool never doubts."
- King Arthur to Sir Lancelot, Camelot

He'd come to terms with the fact he wasn't infallible years ago, and he'd swallowed a great deal of black coffee and cigarette smoke and personal pride since then.

To Lestrade's mind, that was the beginning of… if not wisdom, then pragmatism: the humility to ask for help, to seek out others' insights when they might prove useful.

Any honest detective second-guessed himself.

Added to that, Lestrade had Sherlock's repeated word - and the Chief Superintendent's as well - that he was an idiot, didn't he?

When the objections first appeared, of course he wondered.

He was duty-bound to do so.

Never mind that the thought burned like ashes and bile. Never mind that discovering he'd been not only a dupe but an accessory to some murderous charade would break him, as surely as superiors' reprimands and a wife's betrayal and the daily sight of violent death hadn't done.

He stared down "what ifs," scrutinising his recollections of past cases, imploring the facts to speak clearly for themselves.

They vindicated him and his loyalty. Swiftly. No, he hadn't been mistaken.

Not about Sherlock, at least.

But the team Lestrade had assembled, the colleagues he'd respected, the very institutions he'd long served, all so readily manipulated, twisted: they were another matter entirely.

As for the promise of justice…

Oh, he doubted.

Bitterly.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in April 2012.

The Soul in Deep Distress (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:57:56 GMT

Apologies for my long silence! RL became very, very busy all of a sudden. \o/

Title: The Soul in Deep Distress
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: John Watson knows who is the true soldier of Baker Street.
Historian's Note: This takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Author's Note: This is a 221b ficlet (221 words, the last beginning with "b").
Acknowledgment: This is for the wonderful freya_fsc, who asked if I might try another 221b story.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall"

The therapy session proved even more useless than John had expected.

He climbed the stairs to his flat with leaden steps, like a man marching to his own execution and lacking the strength to care.

From his chair he gazed alternately inward and outward. Both views revealed a yawning chasm no act of will could possibly bridge or fill. A man might lose himself in that cold void. He could fall.

When she appeared in the doorway he started, wondering that he hadn’t heard her halting ascent. Her hip troubled her this time of day.

“I made scones.” She raised the tray like an offering. Her eyes reflected familiar grief, but the set of her lips was stubborn.

Not for the first time, he reminded himself who was the true soldier of Baker Street, who was the heroic old campaigner. He knew damn well it wasn’t Captain John Watson.

“Tea, Mrs Hudson?” He forced himself to rise and move without the tell-tale limp.

“That’s my job, dear.”

Relieving her of her burden, he said what they both knew: “No. Actually, it isn’t.”

He settled the tray on the table, pulled out a chair for her. “Please.”

Please.

Ignoring the chair, she opened her arms.

He leaned into her warmth with the trust of a child, pressing his cheek against her brow.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in March 2012.

The title was inspired by the following verse:

"The soul perishes not of dark
But of cold.
The soul in deep distress
Seeks not light but warmth,
Not counsel but understanding."
-Author Unknown

There in the Shadows (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:37:24 GMT

Title: There in the Shadows
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: After "the fall," an attack on Lestrade proves that Sherlock's friends aren't as alone as they thought.
Author's Note: Happy birthday to cookiefleck! I hope this is "right up your alley," so to speak.
Historian's Note: This takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Chinese Translation: available here and here by freya_fsc
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Graphic descriptions of injuries, spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall" and ACD canon

The summer night trailed cool fingers down the back of Lestrade's neck, and he shivered. He turned up his collar before thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. The streetlights offered only a feeble protest against the mist; their dimmed glow left much of the street bathed in shadows.

Groping in the dark, he thought to himself, literally as well as figuratively.

It was better than lying sleepless in his flat, staring at the ceiling as late night stumbled into early morning, making bets with himself about how long his sanity would linger before it, too, deserted him.

He might be on suspension, and the resources of the Yard – not only its databases and personnel, but even his own files, his own notes – might be closed to him for the foreseeable future, but no law said he couldn't walk and look and think.

Slowly but surely Lestrade was putting two and two together. Several world-class assassins had converged on this area lately. The proximity to 221B Baker Street was, of course, obvious. Less clear was what, if any, relation they had to a name that mocked him from the periphery of his research, faint and fading like the final echoes of a half-voiced whisper: Moran.

Lestrade’s instincts told him that if he could decode the purpose behind the assassins’ presence and movements, or their link to the late Moriarty or elusive Moran, it might help to translate this recent tragedy into something that he could understand.

He didn't know what exactly he thought he'd discover here in the dark, in the middle of the night, as he paced out the distance between the temporary – and now presumably abandoned – digs of killers for hire. He prayed he’d know something relevant when he found it.

In the end, it found him.

Or, rather, they did.

Five against one, and all five were half Lestrade's age or younger. Each carried various weapons, as well, whilst Lestrade was armed only with grief and frustration and the bitter dregs of bewildered outrage.

He didn't waste breath identifying himself. It was clear they knew who he was. They knew what they were about, too, forcing him back into the alleyway, angling him beyond the CCTV cameras' clearest lines of sight.

In a handful of minutes, the brutal struggle was over.

***

John Watson had showered and shaved and dressed, and he'd made plans to return to work, because that's what adults did.

He'd eaten because Mrs Hudson needed the distraction of cooking, of tending to him, as a respite from her own mourning. If her excellent meals were tasteless on his tongue, he'd done his best not to let on.

He'd noted the slight tremor in his hand, the limp in his step, without surprise or even interest.

When he'd encountered his own face in the mirror, he recognised its expression at once. He'd seen it painted across the features of fallen soldiers in the field the moment after they realised they were desperately wounded, the moment before the full agony of their injuries struck.

Bracing for the coming pain. Wondering if they could survive it.

When evening finally came, he changed into a t-shirt and track pants, and he moved from his chair to his bed. The nightmares followed him from wakefulness into sleep like a faithful shadow.

***

“Why?” The gasp was all Lestrade could manage, but God help him, he wanted answers, any that he could get in the final minutes – seconds? – remaining to him.

Rough hands pressed him back against the unforgiving wall. Lestrade blinked the eye that wasn’t swelling shut, but it did no good. He was most definitely concussed; the bastard who held the knife to his belly appeared as identical triplets.

“Why d’ya think, Detective Inspector?”

The blade sank deep. Twisted.

Lestrade thrashed and growled.

The knife withdrew only to plunge into his side, beneath his ribs, angling up toward his lung.

He couldn’t stifle his cry.

Not a clean kill. Intentionally messy. Intentionally cruel.

When they released him he collapsed to the pavement and curled protectively around his hurts. The attackers' parting kicks registered as insults as much as additional pain.

Once their footsteps had receded into the night, Lestrade shifted himself with care, panting shallowly through his nose and gritted teeth, squeezing his good eye shut against violent dizziness.

He clung to consciousness with resolve. He couldn’t panic. He had to make these last moments count. Perhaps whoever investigated his murder would connect the clues. Find those links for him. Follow them back to the truth about Sherlock Holmes.

If there was anyone left who hadn't been manipulated or bought or misled. Anyone left who'd care enough to look closely into the loss of the Yard's disgraced pariah. Come to think of it, his death would solve a lot of problems for the Met, wouldn't it?

He flinched at the thought as if it were another blow.

Attempting to apply pressure to his wounds, he tucked an arm tightly around his torso. With his other hand he searched out the mobile in his pocket. The clumsy effort all but undid him; the whine that escaped his clenched jaw scarcely sounded human.

At last the phone lay on the concrete beside him. His red-slicked fingers slipped along its surface. His blurring vision refused to focus on its screen.

“Jesus,” he hissed.

A cough tore him to his roots, leaving him wet-eyed and choking on frothy blood. Not enough air. Not enough time.

Christ, it hurt.

He spat and shuddered.

His trembling hand fumbled again with the mobile. He tried by touch, by memory, to coax the device into cooperating. Any of his contacts. Anyone.

Finally, a ring.

Please.

Another ring.

A recorded message in a haughty, well-remembered voice.

Lestrade sobbed a shallow breath. He could imagine how Sherlock would've sneered at the pathetic sentimentalism of leaving a dead man’s number programmed on his phone.

Ridiculous, the consulting detective would've said.

Lestrade was surprised that the answering mobile had survived. The number no doubt would be disconnected shortly. It only felt like Sherlock had been gone a lifetime; in reality, his fateful jump was mere days ago.

A tone. Then expectant silence.

It was a foolish waste of his waning strength, but Lestrade couldn’t help himself.

Pressing his brow to the damp pavement, he ground out, “You'reright… I’m… anidiot.” He gave a ragged exhalation, because a proper laugh would've been agony. “Ringin’… adeadman… t’say… I’mdyin’…” He turned his face to spit again, gagging at the thick coppery slide of gore on his tongue. “’ByeSherlock.”

He lacked the breath for anything more.

As his shaky grip tightened around the phone once again, the device shot out between slippery fingers, sliding just beyond his reach.

He groaned. He braced himself. He uncurled and strained toward it.

The resulting coughing fit left him distressed beyond all thought.

***

He struggled back to himself as hands roamed over his body. Perhaps his attackers had returned to put him out of his misery, or some petty thief had decided to take advantage of his helplessness.

Can't just lie here and take it, he berated himself, even if you are dying.

But the hands weren't striking or stabbing or searching his pockets, he realised. They were matter-of-factly rearranging his limbs in the standard recovery position.

He blinked his good eye and squinted into the darkness. It took time for the blurred image to make sense to his muddled mind.

Several layers of mismatched and ill-fitting clothes hung on a bony frame. Slender limbs folded into a sharp-angled crouch. Stringy blond hair escaped in shoulder-length trails from a soft, shapeless hat worn low, obscuring the youth's face.

One of London's homeless. Helping him.

The young man stripped off his top layer, a zippered hoodie far too short for his arms and torso, and pressed the wadded fabric against Lestrade's belly and side.

Lestrade's already too-shallow, too-rapid breathing hitched at the added torment, and he fought for air.

"Easy. Me mate's gone for help." The tenor voice held a strange blend of accents, as if he'd come from Oslo by way of Brisbane. "Seen you, haven't I? On the telly? You're the DI who worked with the fake genius detective, that fraud Holmes."

Despairing, Lestrade turned his face toward the concrete.

"No."

If it was the last thing he did – and it might well be – he was going to repeat himself one more time. Maybe this homeless youth, unlike Lestrade's superiors, unlike his bloody team, would listen.

It was a groan: "Notafraud."

The pressure on the makeshift bandage remained firm, but Lestrade fancied that he also felt gloved fingers brush briefly against his shoulder.

The unexpected kindness moved him.

He marshalled his energy and tried to gesture toward his pocket.

"'Sallright… 'fyouneed… money… Takeitall." He panted his words wetly onto the pavement. "Justleaveth'ID… sothey'llknowme… yeah?"

Silence.

"Takeit… 'sokay."

He heard a huff of air, and then, in that same unidentifiable lilt, "Don't be ridiculous."

Christ.

If only that voice had been deeper, that accent local: Lestrade almost could have convinced himself that Sherlock Holmes was alive. Just for a moment.

A wave of nauseating pain cramped through him, and he twisted under the stranger's hands, attempting and failing to remain silent. He wondered when the often-described numbness of blood loss and shock would set in; surely he'd earned just a bit of numbness by now.

At least he went instantly, Lestrade thought, mind wandering. At least Sherlock didn't suffer.

***

Sherlock Holmes opened his arms wide and fell forward into empty space. He hovered for a long time in the air, as if invisible hands cradled him, as if that fine-boned body were weightless. At last the consulting detective struck and broke himself against the harsh desert sands. Mortar shells exploded in every direction like a multi-gun salute.

A drumming sounded, urgent and overloud.

John sat up abruptly in his bed, sweating and breathing hard. The nightmare retreated a step but remained in clear view. Struggling to orient himself, John stared at a bare stretch of his bedroom wall.

It was past midnight, and someone was pounding insistently at the front door.

Moments later he was quick-stepping down the stairs, service sidearm in a now-steady hand. He found Mrs Hudson shrugging into her dressing gown, her bleary eyes wide with alarm.

"Stay back, Mrs Hudson," he said. "Let me."

She nodded and positioned herself behind him, a gentle palm on his back.

John opened the door.

The girl seemed familiar somehow, although John couldn't place where he'd seen her previously. Young, possibly still in her teens. Black, with several piercings and multi-coloured dreadlocks. Homeless, if the condition of her clothes was any indication.

That was it: Sherlock's Homeless Network.

"Doctor Watson, yeah?" she asked, sizing him up, noting his gun.

"Yes."

"Used to help Sherlock. Before. Thought you'd wanna know, wanna come: his cop's been stabbed." She jerked her chin to indicate the direction. "Looks like he's gonna snuff it."

Mrs Hudson gasped. Her fingers slid to John's arm and squeezed.

John forced a deep breath, resisting the desire to dash out into the darkness. After all they'd experienced, he had to expect a trap, look for betrayal. This girl was asking him to leave Mrs Hudson alone and unprotected, after all.

"Can you describe him?" he asked.

"He's white." She shrugged. "Grey hair. Dark eyes. Dead fit." She crossed her arms. "And bleedin' all over the fuckin' pavement."

Lestrade. Oh God.

What else could he do? If there was any chance this was true…

"Right. Come in, please." At her hesitation, he added, "I need to get my kit. You can describe where he is to Mrs Hudson, so she can send for an ambulance."

As the two women talked in the entryway, John took the stairs at a run. All traces of his limp had fled.

***

In seconds John had donned shoes and jacket and gathered his ever-ready doctor's bag, the contents of which would have pleased both a general practitioner and a tactical medic.

He'd also vividly relived his most recent encounter with Lestrade.

They hadn't spoken properly since that other day, since St Bart's, when John had recounted Sherlock's final words to Mrs Hudson and Molly and Lestrade together. Sherlock's body hadn't yet grown cold.

The two had exchanged little more than nods at the funeral. But what had there been to say?

Then, two days ago, the detective inspector had appeared unannounced at 221B well after dark.

"John, may I have a quick word?" Lestrade's bloodshot eyes had given the flat an appraising sweep. "Preferably in the kitchen?"

Bemused, John waved him in. "Tea?" he asked, appalled at how mundane the question sounded in his own ears, as if they both weren't wading through the wreckage of the world they'd once known.

"No, thanks. Shouldn't stay long." Lestrade strode in purposefully, turned on the tap, and gestured for John to draw near.

Still perplexed, John obeyed. Lestrade leaned close, well within John's personal space – the detective inspector smelled of coffee and cigarettes – and brought his mouth to John's ear.

Only then did John understand: Lestrade was taking precautions against possible surveillance.

"They're reviewing my old cases with Sherlock, looking for anything that doesn't add up," Lestrade murmured. "Some loose ends might lead them here. If there's anything you don't want the Yard to find, you'd best move it elsewhere for now."

He began to pull back, but John caught his wrist. Matching the whispered tone, John said, "If he kept drugs here, Greg, I don't know where he hid them. I never did."

A pained look creased Lestrade's wan features. "Not drugs." He studied his shoes. "Anything of yours." After several seconds, still more hushed, "Anything that could put a hole in a cabbie, for example."

John backed away and ran a shaking hand over his face.

It was Moriarty's legacy, that poisonous seed of distrust sprouting in John's mind.

Lestrade now was doing for John exactly what he'd done for Sherlock – crossing a line to try to warn him, to protect him, as best he could – and yet John could feel, somewhere beneath the shell-shocked numbness of recent days, doubt and suspicion seeking to graft themselves to the gratitude inside him.

Moriarty's handiwork. John's fault, his loss, if he didn't fight it, didn't root it out.

He wanted quite badly to sit down.

"Thank you," he wished to say. What came out of his mouth was a stunned, "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

After turning off the tap, Lestrade said, "I'd tell you that I'm not stupid, John, but I realise you have more than sufficient evidence to the contrary." Although his lips twitched as if to smile, the rest of him looked worn and disconsolate as he made to depart.

When he had doorknob in hand, Lestrade said, "I did my due diligence. Followed up behind him with paperwork on each case he solved, explaining the leaps he made, recording the evidence, dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't' twice. Had to, to get convictions that would stick. I've been over all of it again, and I'm convinced any objective inquiry would clear his name."

"But this won't be objective," John said.

Lestrade shook his head. "'Course not."

With a muttered farewell Lestrade had departed, leaving John to ponder the question of what would fuel his nightmares more effectively: knowing the Yard might find his gun, or facing the upcoming days without it.

He hadn't asked where this fiasco ultimately might leave Lestrade. Demoted? Unemployed? Prosecuted?

Or stabbed in an alley…

Now John was thankful he'd kept his pistol near. He tucked the weapon in the back of his track pants and hurried down the steps with his bag. At the foot of the stairs, Mrs Hudson handed him a torch and a folded blanket.

Bless her.

"I'll send for the ambulance now, dear," she said, holding up her phone as proof. "You'll be careful, won't you? Are you, you know," – she dropped her voice as she raised her eyebrows – "'packing heat,' as they say?"

"I don't know who says that, Mrs Hudson, but I will and I am." He kissed her cheek and gave her a quick smile. "Lock the door behind me. I'll ring you as soon as I can." He nodded to their visitor. "Show me the way."

***

"They're here," the youth said. He shifted Lestrade's arm to hold the blood-soaked hoodie in place, and then tucked Lestrade's mobile back into the detective inspector's pocket.

The young man's parting words were a brusque command: "Keep breathing."

Lestrade blinked. The youth was gone.

Lestrade was fast reaching the point at which each inhalation would cost him more effort than he possibly could expend. He was quite certain he'd never, in all of his hardworking years, worked as hard as he was doing now, just for oxygen, and not nearly enough of it.

A young woman's voice called out, "Sig? Where've you run off to, Sig?" Her boots jogged across Lestrade's line of sight and set his pounding head to spinning.

The next moment Lestrade heard a choked "OhJesusGod," and then different hands touched him, strong and steady and warm.

"Greg, it's John. John Watson."

***

Another familiar and broken form, sprawled in blood on the concrete…

For a heartbeat John froze, almost convinced that he was in his bed, lost inside another nightmare. Then he went to his knees beside Lestrade, taking in his patient's condition as rapidly and thoroughly as Sherlock once took in clues at a crime scene.

He wasted no time in draping the blanket across Lestrade's lower body. As he slid his folded jacket under Lestrade's head for a pillow, the wounded man clutched at his arm.

"John…"

"It's all right. Stay with me, Greg, but try not to talk. Help's coming."

Blunt force trauma to the side of head. Concussion. Stab wounds. Various contusions. But first things first: respiratory failure. He disentangled himself from Lestrade's grip and reached for his stethoscope.

"Moran," Lestrade wheezed. "Moran."

"Moran's the name of the one who did this to you?" John peeled back layers of sodden clothing, baring Lestrade's labouring chest.

"No… Dunno."

Dyspnea. Cyanosis. Tachycardia.

"John… beendigging" – the stubborn fool wouldn't quit, even though the effort was choking him and bringing fresh tears to his good eye – "Moran… an'Moriarty."

Their gazes locked.

John tapped on Lestrade's chest and listened, whilst at the same time trying to imagine what Sherlock would've gleaned from the words. "You're saying you've been investigating, and there's someone named Moran who worked with Moriarty. Someone who's still out there."

"Yeah… danger… b'careful."

And didn't that make John's skin crawl?

"Got it." And then, heartfelt, "Thank you."

Lestrade's eye squeezed shut. His nostrils flared. His neck strained.

Tension pneumothorax.

No sirens in the distance. No sign of help in the next five minutes. Lestrade wouldn't live to see the ambulance if John didn't act without hesitation.

Torch in hand, John delved into his bag for the needle decompression kit.

He assembled all that he needed and then bowed his face toward Lestrade's. "You're going to live through this, Greg. I promise. But I'm afraid the next couple of minutes are going to hurt."

A tortured, grunting whimper of a sound welled up from red-stained lips.

Lestrade had laughed.

***

John's professionalism carried him through the worst moments, but when the immediate crisis was averted, he allowed himself to moan a soft sigh of relief and wipe his damp eyes on the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Thank God Lestrade was a tough bastard. His confidence in John's skill, even when John had to make terrible suffering worse, was humbling.

Right, then.

There were other wounds to tend. But before that…

His hand went to the small of his back.

"Whoever's in the shadows over there" – he kept his voice matter-of-fact, pitched to carry – "either go away or step forward. Now. I'm armed, and I will shoot."

Then he thought of the members of Sherlock's Homeless Network and the key role they'd played in saving Lestrade. He stared blindly into the darkness. "He's going to make it," he added, more gently. "He's badly hurt, but he'll recover. He'll be all right."

Holding his breath, he fancied he caught a faint rustle as someone retreated into the night.

Lestrade began to whisper feebly, and John crouched to listen. "Sayyoudidn't… bringthegun."

"Heard the streets at night can be dangerous." He nodded toward his medical bag. "Don't worry. I'll keep it out of sight when help arrives. Now shut up, Greg, and let me finish saving your life."

Lestrade grimaced but remained submissive under the ministering hands.

The muted shriek of far-off sirens sounded only after the most difficult work had been done. Of course.

"Hear that? The ambulance is coming," John said. "C'mon, stay with me, Greg. Is there anyone I should ring for you?"

"No."

John read the silent word on Lestrade's lips and frowned.

That shouldn't have come as a surprise, John realised.

After all, Lestrade had lost his wife, his team, and quite possibly the rest of his colleagues and career, as well. He would've died in the alley this very night, utterly abandoned, if it hadn't been for the kindness of strangers.

John's own admission at Sherlock's grave remained written indelibly on his memory: "I was so alone." But of course John wasn't anymore, thanks to his late flatmate.

And Lestrade was less alone than he thought.

John set his jaw. He'd ring Mrs Hudson once they reached the hospital. And maybe Molly Hooper, as well. Yes, that was a good idea.

The ones who knew the truth. The ones who believed in Sherlock Holmes. The ones who deserved trust.

They were friends. And friends protected people.

Something that had frozen inside of John as he'd watched Sherlock fall began, ever so slowly, to thaw with the heat of… whatever this was. Defiance, perhaps.

His hand showed no tremor as it circled Lestrade's wrist, seeking his pulse.

"When you've recovered," John said with conviction, "I'll help you do more digging. We'll learn who did this to you. And together we'll find Moran."

The answering "Yeah" was desperately weak and hoarse, no competition for the growing whine of the sirens, but it was more than enough for John.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in February 2012.

The title comes from the lyrics "Close call there in the shadows/ There's a fear in the dark" from "Out of the Shadows" by Sarah McLachlan.

The name "Sig" refers to Sigerson; in "The Adventure of the Empty House" by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes explains that he used this name as an alias while pretending to be dead during the Great Hiatus.

"Moran" refers to Colonel Sebastian Moran from the same story (and others), who served as Moriarty's chief of staff and sought to avenge his death.

Passing Thus Alone (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:20:23 GMT

Title: Passing Thus Alone
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: It caught up with Sally Donovan just as late night became early morning.
Historian's Note: This character study takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."

It caught up with her just as late night became early morning.

When Anderson wasn't nearby to give a knowing look and encouraging nod. When the nameless others who had emerged from the Yard's woodwork weren't at her elbow, ready to speed her concerns to receptive ears. When her superiors weren't before her to praise her for her vigilance.

She blinked up at a ceiling she couldn't make out through the darkness.

It was no mystery, where the cornerstones were set: weeks, months, no years of frustration due to Sherlock Holmes. He'd celebrated the violent deaths of the victims. He'd mocked their family and friends. He'd insulted her team in general and her in particular, deducing intimate details, announcing private secrets, laughing at all-too-human foibles.

And he'd belittled her boss.

Perhaps that had been the most difficult to stomach: seeing Sherlock abuse Lestrade and then force the man to crawl back for more. Then she'd watched her mentor accept reprimands and lectures rather than the commendations and promotions he deserved as he shouldered responsibility for the misbehaviour of his consulting detective. Over time she'd convinced herself that Lestrade would lose his career, if not his life, if he continued to work with the Freak.

Her resentment had simmered and bubbled over a steady heat, ready at any moment to burn.

She realized now why all of this had been so easy, so quick, a whirlwind effortless to begin and, once in motion, impossible to resist.

With her anger, she'd made herself ripe for the picking.

In her mind, she'd cast herself as the responsible professional, the conscientious officer watching her superior's back, the clever detective connecting the dots and thwarting the sneering villain. In reality, she'd been an all-too-eager pawn in some madman's game of chess.

Manipulated. Used.

Played.

Helpless, when things spiralled out of control.

Before it was all over, she'd set aside proper procedures in favour of vengeful emotions. Before it was all over, she'd voiced her accusations before gathering actionable proof. Before it was all over, she'd gone over the head of the man she most respected and become the one who put his career, his very life's work, in jeopardy.

To the Met, her actions hadn't represented a defence of Lestrade's interests, but rather a vote of no confidence in his judgment.

Of course. It seemed clear to her now that the blood-red fog had passed from her vision.

What had she been thinking? She hadn't been thinking at all.

Lestrade faced suspension, investigation, perhaps even prosecution because of the reckless steps she'd taken. The man she once believed she'd follow into the very flames of Hell she now couldn't look in the eye.

All for someone else's agenda. All for some game. All to push Sherlock off a ledge and onto the pavement.

She twisted the duvet in her fist.

None of this made the Freak any less freakish, or his feats of deduction any less suspicious, or Sally Donovan any sorrier that he was gone.

But it did make her something she'd never before been: a rubbish detective sergeant.

And that was a fall of its own, wasn't it?

God help her.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2012.

Originally written for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.

The Time Was Wrong (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:23:41 GMT

Title: The Time Was Wrong
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Sherlock had asked more of Molly than either of them realised.
Historian's Note: This takes place after events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Author's Note: This may be read as a standalone work or as a sequel to the 221b ficlet "Volunteers." This is comprised of two parts, each a 221b ficlet (221 words, the last beginning with "b").
Chinese Translation: available here and here by freya_fsc

Part 1: When Are You Gonna Realise

It was enough that Sherlock acknowledged and trusted her. To Molly's surprise, she craved nothing else from him now but this.

There was another – warmer, gentler, more patient – from whom she might want more.

He'd always been kind to her, even when swaying with exhaustion or taut with frustration. Countless times he'd proved with actions and words that he valued her as an expert, a professional.

Recently, when she felt his appreciation dare to venture further, she'd accepted it as an unexpected but welcome compliment, knowing the foundation of respect on which it rested.

She'd promised herself that when his mourning period for his marriage ended, she'd gather her courage and show Greg Lestrade how very desirable he was.

A fall, however, had intervened.

Her first concern was for John. But John had proved tougher than anyone suspected – which was saying quite a bit, because his friends generally considered him the strongest thing since Superman. He'd lost the very centre of his universe, and he was reeling, to be sure, but he held steadfastly to Mrs Hudson, the clinic, and the fire Sherlock had rekindled inside him.

Lestrade had no such consolations.

He'd lost a friend, but he'd also lost his consultant, team, reputation, and life's work – and, quite possibly, future career. Perhaps even his freedom, if the inquiry went badly.

Part 2: It Was Just That The Time Was Wrong

Molly ached, observing from a distance as Moriarty's machinations yielded mayhem at the Yard. Groundless accusations. Circular investigations. Lestrade's suspension.

Lestrade redoubled his efforts to clear Sherlock's name and his own. Fighting an uphill battle against former colleagues behind closed doors, he reached out to no one – unsure of his welcome, perhaps, or unwilling to bring others down with him.

Until the day Molly found him at the coffee shop, poring over fresh memos, looking haggard and at his wits' end. He needed a friend. Molly yearned to be there for him.

She met his sheepish-shy offer of tea with a stammered protest that she couldn't, that she had "a thing" – she never could lie worth a damn – and then fled back to St Bart's, shattered. The expression on his face…

Which was precisely why she couldn't have tea with him. Or anything else.

One unguarded look from those brown eyes and she'd tell him everything.

She mustn't. Her secret protected not only Sherlock's life, but also John's and Mrs Hudson's.

And his.

Her mobile wailed.

I'm keeping abreast of his situation. He's not abandoned.

Most tellingly, Thank you, Molly.

Sniffing, then nodding, she squared determined shoulders.

No, John wasn't the only one who could soldier on.

She erased Unknown Sender's text with a tender touch of a virtual button.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2012.

The titles come from the lyrics of "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits.

Counting (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:39:04 GMT

Title: Counting
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Moriarty had ended his tally one name too soon.
Historian's Note: This takes place during events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Reichenbach Fall."
Author's Note: This is a 221b ficlet (221 words, the last beginning with "b").
Chinese Translation: available here and here by freya_fsc
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall," major character death

When Jim Moriarty explained the "extra incentive" he'd arranged to ensure the suicide and disgrace of the world's only consulting detective, Sherlock knew exactly for whom the three bullets were intended.

The man who was not his date.

The woman who was not his housekeeper.

The man who was not his handler.

The ones he trusted, the ones on whom he'd relied for so long. The ones who even now struggled against the poisonous lies that scuttled forth from Moriarty's web like so many thin-legged, eager arachnids.

The three were Sherlock's closest friends in the world, to be certain. But not his only ones.

Moriarty had ended his tally one name too soon.

"I don't count," she'd said, and in a manner of speaking, she'd been correct. Moriarty hadn't counted Molly Hooper. Fortunately, in the eleventh hour, Sherlock had.

He'd counted on her, in fact.

The thought struck him as he balanced on the ledge and considered the pavement below. For a heartbeat Sherlock allowed himself a silent laugh at Moriarty's oversight, which nearly had been his own, as well.

Molly Hooper, his friend, counted very much indeed.

It would be a testament to how much she counted when Sherlock disappeared into the background of his beloved London, whilst Moriarty lay cold in a viscous pool of his own blood.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2012.

I Sit Beside the Fire and Think (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:27:56 GMT

Title: I Sit Beside the Fire and Think
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: As Sherlock sleeps, John and Lestrade sit beside the fire and leave a number of things unsaid.
Historian's Note: This takes place during events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "The Hounds of Baskerville."
Author's Note: This is comprised of two parts, each a 221b ficlet (221 words, the last beginning with "b").
Chinese Translation: available here and here by freya_fsc

Part 1: John Watson

As John had expected, Sherlock toppled like a felled redwood upon returning to the inn, spent and insensate.

John found himself downstairs, welcomed by a roaring fire and Greg Lestrade.

“It’s nice, this,” Lestrade said. “Beats drinking by the warm glow of crap telly.”

“That it does.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“I’m a bit wound up still.”

John didn’t explain that he could’ve collapsed almost as easily as Sherlock, given his own exhaustion, but he wished to spare the other patrons of the inn. The “experiment” in the lab, the shooting of the hound, the detonation of the landmine: God only knew what his subconscious would do with such fodder.

He could shout himself hoarse with nightmares when he returned to 221B Baker Street, where such things – though rarer these days, to be sure – were accepted without question or comment.

Lestrade merely nodded.

Claiming the same chair from which he’d witnessed Sherlock’s earlier drug-induced meltdown, John wondered at how different it felt in the detective inspector’s undemanding presence.

“I’m not his boyfriend.” John said this simply because it came to mind.

“And I’m not his handler,” Lestrade offered in return.

Together they stared into the mesmerising flames, calloused hands cradling tea and whisky, respectively, until inexplicable mirth waylaid them.

John giggled, shoulders shaking helplessly; Lestrade chuckled, a deep rumble from his belly.

Part 2: Greg Lestrade

Once their fit had passed, along with some minutes of companionable silence, John said, “Good holiday, then?”

“Surprising, what a bit of sun and sleep can do for a man. I'd almost forgotten.”

Greg left it unspoken, how young he’d felt with the Kawasaki between his legs, the wind on his face, and the weight of responsibility temporarily off his shoulders.

And how old, when his body made it clear that catching up on countless nights of missed slumber was its chief priority.

He didn’t mention how anticlimactic it had seemed, when he finally located the perfect, solitary bridge over the perfect, picturesque stream and, with all of his strength, hurled his wedding ring into the uncomplaining water.

No music had swelled in the background; no lightning bolt had shot from the sky. He’d left that bridge the same man who’d gone to it, though more willing now to look himself in the eye during his morning shave.

“By the end, I was ready to be back,” he admitted.

To be needed, he didn’t say.

Mycroft’s request – not order, despite what Sherlock thought – couldn’t have been better timed.

Greg sipped his whisky, digesting the night’s dark events.

“Now we return to London,” John murmured at last, half-smiling.

“In all its glory,” Greg agreed. “And paperwork, crime scenes, and dead bodies.”

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2012.

The title comes from the lyrics of Bilbo's song in Rivendell in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Volunteers (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:27:55 GMT

Title: Volunteers
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: After an awkward Christmas party follows a lonely New Year's Eve.
Historian's Note: This takes place during events depicted in the second-series Sherlock episode "A Scandal in Belgravia."
Author's Note: This is a 221b ficlet: 221 words, with the last word beginning with a "b."
Chinese Translation: available here and here by freya_fsc
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Spoilers for "A Scandal in Belgravia"!

Molly glanced up from the corpse. "Oh! Didn't expect to see you here on New Year's Eve."

With a shrug, Lestrade said, "Volunteered. Others had somewhere to be…"

"And someone to be with" went unspoken.

She glanced toward his ring finger, but he'd shoved his hand deeply into his pocket, as a wounded animal curls around the source of its pain.

He passed her new paperwork. "Sorry you're stuck here."

"No, it's fine, really. I volunteered, too. Had enough of the holidays."

A kind, sympathetic smile crossed his face, gentling its lines, but failing to reach his eyes.

"She's an idiot," she blurted, then clapped her hand to her mouth.

For a moment he appeared puzzled. Then he slumped, shaking his head.

"Sorry," she offered. "But when Sherlock makes an announcement, it's hard to… unhear."

"I know." Lestrade studied his shoes. "And thanks. But if I'd been there when she needed me, not at work, maybe she wouldn't have looked elsewhere."

"Don’t.”

If you weren't so dedicated, Molly thought, you wouldn't be you.

"She is an idiot.” Unrepentant this time.

He coloured. Cleared his throat. "Well, for the record, so's Sherlock."

She grimaced, then grinned.

Softly, "You deserve a happy new year, Molly."

"So do you."

She crossed her fingers. He returned the gesture, then let himself out with a bow.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2012.

Originally written for this prompt at the "Laud Lestrade Fest" at dilestrade.

I'll Live to See Another Day (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:22:43 GMT

On this day exactly one year ago, my first Sherlock story was posted to an online community. Heartfelt thanks to all of you who have read my work and made me feel so welcome in the Sherlock fandom family!

Title: I'll Live to See Another Day
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: "This," she said with conviction, "was not supposed to happen."
Historian's Note: This takes place during events in the opening scene of the second-series Sherlock episode "A Scandal in Belgravia."
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to belleferret and killerweasel for kindness above and beyond the call of duty.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Spoilers for "A Scandal in Belgravia"! Descriptions of severe injuries and (temporary) death. Science fiction/fantasy elements.

The Operator picked her way through the smouldering rubble with precise, economical steps, slender arms outstretched for balance as the charred debris shifted beneath her feet.

Her presence made for a surreal sight, as if a renowned supermodel had walked directly off a runway and into a war zone.

Concentration forced her gaze inward. She was in the moment, but not of it.

"This one is dead," her partner said. She knew it already, of course, but Steel's even, dispassionate voice provided a welcome distraction from the groans and hisses of the tortured building as it spasmed all around them.

Sirens shrieked in the distance.

There was no need to look behind her, to see Steel's shaggy blond hair turned grey by angry ash and the settling dust of crushed concrete. In her mind's eye she easily could imagine the lifeless body he inspected: the elegant suit, the designer shoes, the gory crater where a smirking face once had been.

After a few more steps she found what she sought.

Framed and pillowed by twisted metal and jagged fragments of breeze blocks, two men lay entwined and unmoving, pasted together by their commingling and congealing blood.

"This," she said with conviction, "was not supposed to happen."

She paused for several seconds before kneeling, balking at the prospect of opening herself to the violent echoes of what had transpired, to the fierce wrongness of it all.

"And what did happen, exactly?" Steel asked from the other end of the room.

Of its own accord, one of her long-fingered hands reached out and brushed against a small patch of short, sandy-coloured hair that wasn't stained dark crimson.

She turned her eyes to the slender man (the detective, she divined) without removing her touch from the older one curled around him (the doctor-soldier-protector). "This one fired the weapon that detonated the explosives. He meant to stop the man you found, and he was willing to sacrifice himself and his colleague to do so.

"And this one agreed with his decision." Reconstructing the scene heartbeat by heartbeat, she considered the second figure, so very still beneath her fingers. "At the moment the weapon fired, he rushed forward, hoping to use his momentum to propel both of them to the relative safety of the pool. His body took the brunt of the explosion. He died… after brief minutes of agony."

Sapphire prided herself on her professional detachment. Usually it was easy enough to maintain distance where these humans were involved. But something about the man breached her defences.

She felt it with him, this doctor-soldier-protector, his awareness and acceptance of his own rapidly-approaching death, his gratitude that the sacrifice held meaning, his relief that his companion survived.

She heard his very thoughts, his emphatic We stopped him, his agonised It hurts ithurtsithurtshurtshurts, his final, earnest mental cry of Please, God, let him live.

For reasons she could not articulate, she felt the need to pause before continuing.

The air smelled and tasted of smoke and chlorine.

"The one who fired the gun survived a few minutes longer," she said, her attention once more on the detective. "He was blinded by the explosion, but he suffered little pain; his back was broken by his impact against the debris, and he felt no sensation from the chest down." She turned her head on one side, straining to catch something fleeting and faint.

In a softer voice, almost a whisper, she added, "His final thoughts were of wonder: at his companion's valour, at the mechanics of his own failing body, at what would come next."

For a moment Sapphire lost herself in the vision of the detective with the sightless eyes and the scalded chin and nose and cheekbones. She observed as he dragged his shredded arm toward the shuddering body that held so stubbornly to his own. The doctor-soldier-protector was haemorrhaging from half a dozen mortal wounds, muffling his sobbing breaths against the detective's shoulder, but Sapphire knew that the dying man had felt the embrace nonetheless, and that he had understood the gesture for what it was before he breathed his last.

"Take us back, Sapphire," Steel huffed as he made his way to her side. "I want to see."

***

The detective aimed the pistol. His friend gathered himself where he crouched, preparing to launch his body forward.

Across from them, on the other side of the Semtex vest, their antagonist stared in something like morbid fascination, his head undulating like that of a snake's.

Everything happened at once: one shot and three gasps, a mighty explosion and a desperate lunge.

Time shivered.

"Did you sense that?" Sapphire asked, her voice all but lost in the din. "The slip in Time."

"Yes," Steel affirmed.

Pieces of the outraged building rained down around them. As three bodies collapsed to the tiles – one instantly dead, one knocked breathless, and one choking in pain – Steel raised a small electronic device in his hand. The contraption began to vibrate and wail.

"I may have found the source of the disruption," he said. "I took this from the pocket of the one over there."

The villain, Sapphire thought.

"A mobile phone?" she asked. "It's an anachronism?"

"The music," he explained, brow furrowing as he accessed the menu of the archaic device. "Yes. A cover version of 'I Will Survive' – recorded, it appears, for the first reunion album of the band R.E.M. in 2015."

"And this is 2010," Sapphire noted. "That's it."

As Steel purged the phone of the problematic file, Sapphire turned her face away from the tableau before her, unwilling to watch the tears leak from the detective's wounded eyes as the doctor-soldier-protector struggled, faltered, and went still.

"There," Steel said at last. "Take us back again."

***

The detective aimed the pistol. His friend gathered himself where he crouched, preparing to launch his body forward.

Across from them, on the other side of the Semtex vest, their antagonist stared in something like morbid fascination, his head undulating like that of a snake's.

Everything happened at once: one shot and three gasps, a mighty explosion and a desperate lunge.

This time, the doctor-soldier-protector's low tackle carried the two men into the pool.

His body absorbed the worst of the explosion before it hit the water. His terrible wounds left him gasping, unable to hold his breath, and he drowned before they once again could claim his life. But as he had hoped, his companion survived.

The sirens grew shriller. Soon others arrived on the scene.

A frowning, silver-haired man, desperate with concern, broke free of the gathering personnel and plunged into the water himself. He bodily pulled the detective clear to safety.

Aside from bruises and cuts and burns, and the obvious inhalation of water, the detective was unharmed.

As the paramedics tended to their semiconscious charge, and other emergency responders began to secure the premises and prepared to search the rubble, the same man retrieved the broken frame of the doctor-soldier-protector from the pool.

Sapphire drifted toward this new arrival as he relinquished his second burden, stumbled to his knees, and failed to regain his feet. Hunching his shoulders and shivering in his dripping clothing, he turned a dark-eyed, bewildered gaze on the ruin all around him.

The seeker, she mused. The man's horrified grief was tangible, a physical presence every bit as real as his own.

"I said," Steel repeated, "something is still wrong."

Yes, Sapphire thought. Very wrong indeed.

Dimly she realised the mobile phone was playing music again – and had been doing so for a good while.

"The song?" she asked.

"'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough: The 2013 Funked-Up MJ Tribute Remix.'"

"Ah."

"Give me a moment," he said, frustration deepening his voice to a growl as he worked over the device, "and then take us back again."

***

The detective aimed the pistol. His friend gathered himself where he crouched, preparing to launch his body forward.

Across from them, on the other side of the Semtex vest, their antagonist stared in something like morbid fascination, his head undulating like that of a snake's.

Yet another song sounded from the mobile phone.

Ah, ah, ah, ah,
Stayin' alive,
Stayin' alive.

"That is by far" – disdain dripped from each syllable Steel uttered – "the worst music yet."

Sapphire allowed a small smile to tug at her lips. The rightness of the moment flooded her senses, filling her up, making her whole.

She felt an Operator's satisfaction – of course she did; they had accomplished their mission and restored the correct order of Time – but also something more. Indefinable and instinctive.

Perhaps such close proximity to humankind was affecting her in ways she hadn't anticipated.

The dark-eyed seeker would not grieve. The slender-boned detective would not weep. The sandy-haired doctor-soldier-protector would not suffer. These facts were good not only because they reflected the proper, intended chronology of the universe, but also because…

… because the men themselves were good.

Curious. What an odd thought.

"We are needed elsewhere," Steel said.

"Of course we are," Sapphire agreed.

And so are they, these good men, she added to herself, and then she disappeared.

***

"What happened there?" John asked.

After a pregnant pause, Sherlock replied, "Someone changed his mind."

THE END

Notes: The title is taken from lyrics to "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees, which serves as the ringtone for Jim Moriarty's phone in "A Scandal in Belgravia."

This is a stealth crossover with the British science fiction/fantasy series Sapphire and Steel (1979-1982). I tried, however, to provide all the necessary information for this to work simply as a Sherlock story.

This was inspired by the wonderful "The Lost Time Affair" by Maggie Flynn, as published in the fanzine The Kuryakin File #15 (1996).

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2012.

After All (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:16:33 GMT

Title: After All
(5th in the Sofie Series)
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: This is one way it might happen. There are, of course, many.
Historian's Note: This is the fifth story in the Sofie Series, which begins with "Mouth of Babes" and continues in "Facing Forward," "Sentry Duty," and "Lessons Learned."
Acknowledgements: Tremendous thanks to those of you who expressed interest in another story in the Sofie Series. I couldn't have done this without you. I offer this with love and gratitude.
Special thanks to cookiefleck and ghislainem70 for kindness above and beyond the call of duty.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Explicit violence, major character deaths, serious illness, and references to ACD canon.

This is one way it might happen.

There are, of course, many.

New universes are born every time we take a step, however small, or make a decision, however unintentional. Potential futures flow forth from our actions like ripples in water. Perhaps, amidst infinite possibilities, these exact events will take place.

Whether or not they do, the following is true.

Part 1: After the (Reichenbach) Fall

"Mrs Hudson's worried about you," Lestrade said, as he loosened his scarf and removed his gloves. "So am I, for that matter."

"There's no need." John refused to meet Lestrade's eyes. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

Ever again, he added to himself.

He understood this to be true, but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel much of anything at all.

"Tea?" John limped toward the kitchen.

Lestrade blocked his way. The detective inspector knew how to use his body to send a message, to provoke a response – John still remembered his studied, dramatic sprawl during that fake drugs bust – and now Lestrade was crowding him, forcing him to stop and confront the words of concern.

To be here, now.

John saw the scene distantly and imperfectly, as if watching it from across the street through weak and dusty binoculars. His own body responded with a soldier's muscle memory, tensing at the threat, readying for conflict.

The vague warmth of anything, even this anaemic excuse for a fight or flight response, came as a shock. Baffled and confused, he blinked up at Lestrade – and, Christ, the man looked wrecked and old as well as tired.

"Don't care if you hit me or hug me," Lestrade words came thickly. "For God's sake, John, do something. We already lost him, and we don't want to lose you, too. You're walking and talking, but you're gone. And you're needed back here with the rest of us poor bastards."

It was a generous thing to say, but no one needed him: ex-soldier, ex-doctor, ex-blogger, ex-flatmate…

Ex-everything.

"I won't insult you by saying I know how you feel," Lestrade continued. "'Course I don't. No one does. But I can sympathise. Lost someone of my own, didn't I? And now – well, I miss him, too. You must know that."

"I know." The voice might've belonged to someone else. "I know."

Lestrade backed away. John moved forward toward the kettle, a single-minded wind-up toy now freed to follow its original course.

It would've been different if there was some action he could take, someone he could hunt down and – no, John Watson wasn't above revenge. But there was nothing left to him but getting on with the business of living. He'd been making a bad enough job of that before Sherlock, and now…

"I was in pieces, before." John was surprised to realise he'd said this aloud. "He fixed me."

"You fixed him, too. He was better, in every way, after you."

"Now I'm…" A shrug. It hardly mattered.

"We're all broken, John," Lestrade said, with more patience and kindness than John expected he deserved. "Join the club, yeah?"

Even compensating for the newly-returned tremor in his left hand, John's motions were automatic as he busied himself with the tea and the mugs.

Lestrade had his own problems. John didn't mean to be a bother, truly he didn't.

"I don't want to bring out the big guns, John, but I will if I must."

"Big guns," John repeated. Funny choice of words for a man who, at the worst of times, carried only a baton. "You know Mycroft isn't in any—"

"I'm not talking about Mycroft," Lestrade murmured, slumping against the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping him upright, twisting his gloves in an unsteady grip. "I'm talking about my daughter."

***

"Today, anything you want," John promised.

Sofie frowned, and John almost believed that she could see the layers of ice that had frozen around him, sealing him in and the world out, thickening each day since Sherlock's fall.

Crossing her arms, she studied him with her young-old eyes, brown within brown within brown.

She took her time in responding.

"I'd like to visit Mum. With you, John."

Lestrade nearly choked on his coffee. "Sweetheart, that's not, now's not a good—"

"It's fine," John said, and for Sofie's sake he tried to smile, tried to pretend he was the man she remembered. "Like I said, anything Sofie wants."

"And some cocoa, too," she added. Then, a beat later, "Please."

***

Sofie handled the introductions at the gravesite.

"Mum, this is John. He's a doctor and a soldier and our friend. He's like a ninja meerkat. I'll explain later."

Her voice grew hushed, catching now and then as it rose and fell. "He's really sad now, like we all are, because our friend Sherlock died. If you see him, Sherlock I mean – he's tall with curly hair, and he's probably wearing a scarf and a long coat, and looking as if something smells rather bad – please tell him John and Daddy and I miss him and won't ever forget him."

She took a deep breath, held it for several heartbeats, and then released it in an explosive huff.

Then, matter-of-factly, Sofie threw out her arm in an expansive, unselfconscious gesture. "John, this is Mum."

"Right," he said. "Um. Pleased to meet you, Mrs—"

"Jenny," Lestrade supplied. He'd arranged the flowers over the cold ground and then eased himself down to kneel beside them. "She'd want you to call her Jenny."

Sofie nodded her approval, as if her very few, blurred impressions of the woman – more wistful imagination that true memory, Lestrade suspected – confirmed his assessment.

"Hello, Jenny," John said.

"I think," Sofie said, in a whisper that was every bit as loud as her speaking voice, "we should give Daddy some 'alone time' now. Can we go for a walk, John?"

At Lestrade's nod of consent, John allowed himself to be led away like a sleepwalker, one hand in Sofie's, the other clutching his cane.

The man appeared to be wholly numb, inside and out.

Lestrade watched them leave. "Aw, Jenny." The rest he said without words.

A good while later, he rose stiffly, stretched feeling back into his limbs, and set off in search of the two. He knew each turn and every bench in the cemetery, but his first sweep by the most obvious spots proved fruitless. Not for the first or tenth time that morning, Lestrade hoped this hadn't been a terrible mistake.

He didn't know exactly who or what to be for John now, any more than Mrs Hudson did, but he reckoned that several brisk laps amidst the dead and buried probably wasn't the straightest path to the man's emotional health.

But Sofie had asked.

Finally, just as Lestrade was making up his mind to ring one of them and ask their whereabouts, he found them. They were underneath an aged tree that sat gnarled and twisted and devoid of leaves, its smallest branches splayed like arthritic fingers groping at the sky.

John rested his back against the mighty trunk, his legs folded to his chest and encircled by an arm, his face buried against his knees. Sofie sat beside him, her head pillowed against his other arm, both of her hands wrapped around his. John's broad shoulders shook with muffled sobs.

The ice had broken at last.

Taking great care not to make a sound, Lestrade drew closer, until he could hear his girl's quiet murmurs.

"Easy," she said, patting the hand that held hers as she gave John's words back to him. "I've got you, soldier."

As if sensing her father's presence, Sofie looked up and offered him a red-eyed and watery smile.

***

It had required some work, but perseverance finally paid off, and Lestrade persuaded John to join a few of the Yarders for a pint. The result could hardly be called a hilariously good time, but everyone worked at it – John included – and after a few games of darts and a few colourful anecdotes, it felt comfortable and right.

The message, Lestrade thought, had been received loud and clear: even without Sherlock, John was part of the team. Valued. Liked. Needed.

Last-minute logistics had threatened the evening when Julia asked Lestrade if he might take Sofie. Fortunately for all concerned, Mrs Hudson volunteered to save the day, brightening at the prospect of a "girls' night in."

Upon returning from the pub, John and Lestrade found them curled on Mrs Hudson's sofa in the dark. The flickering lights from the telly played across two faces, one wide awake and one sound asleep.

Mrs Hudson put her finger to her lips.

As they entered the room, Lestrade gave a soft moan.

"Mrs Hudson," he whispered, "what have you done? I try to share things with her that we can enjoy together – Doctor Who, Star Wars, Harry Potter. This? I can never relate to this. I mean—"

She raised a hand.

"I had my lecture all prepared," she answered, primly and softly, "about how it set feminism back a century, and how she mustn't take such role models to heart. But Sofie beat me to it, Dear.

"She said, and I quote, 'Bella should get a hobby, and forget those stupid boys who follow her everywhere and sulk all the time.' Needless to say, I agreed wholeheartedly."

"I take it back," Lestrade said, hand over heart, with a bow. "Mrs Hudson, I love you."

"As well you should, Dear," she said, grinning. "Oh wait, just a moment." Her attention returned to the telly. She made an impatient gesture, shooing John out of her line of sight.

"If it's so awful, why are you still watching it?" John asked, keeping his voice low as he moved aside.

"Just when I think I can't endure another moment, the werewolf boy takes off his shirt, and I forget my objections." She gave him a mock stern glance. "At my age, John, I've earned the right to be shallow whenever I choose."

Flushed with the night's drink and camaraderie, John actually giggled. Lestrade and Mrs Hudson shared a conspiratorial look of triumph at the sound.

Bundled in Mrs Hudson's fluffiest peacock-coloured dressing gown, Sofie slept on undisturbed.

Part 2: After the Hiatus

"Once I told her, I had to bring her," Lestrade said, his hands resting protectively on Sofie's shoulders. "You understand."

John nodded, rubbed his hand across his face, and drifted toward one corner of the sitting room.

In its centre stood Sherlock Holmes.

Paler and thinner than before, if that was humanly possible.

Then again, perhaps it didn't have to be. The man had returned from the dead, after all.

He seemed unsure what to do with himself in this flat that had once been a home. He ran his fingers through his hair. He tugged at his sleeve. He steepled his fingers together and pressed them to his lips.

"Hello, Sofie," he said.

She stepped forward, out from under the shelter of her father's strong hands.

"It's really you," she said.

"Ah, yes. It is. Me. I'm not. Not dead." He licked his lips, looked to John, to Lestrade, and then back at the child.

Only she wasn't such a child anymore, John thought. Her rounded porcelain-doll face had grown leaner and longer. Now it was impossible to look at her and fail to see the teenager and young woman she soon would become. Dressed in her dark uniform-that-wasn't-a-uniform-but-really-was, her hair pulled back in a long braid, she seemed grave and intent and undeniably adult.

"Daddy said you did this to keep everyone safe."

"I did." He nodded. "I had to."

"It must've been hard for you."

"Yes." Quietly. "It was."

"I should…" Her bottom lip trembled. "I should feel sorry for you. I know I should."

Hearing the raw grief in her choked voice, both Lestrade and John moved forward, but she sidled out of their reach, making it clear that she wanted no consoling.

She wrapped her arms around herself. "If this was a movie, there'd be brilliant music playing, and the camera would go 'round and 'round the room, and then I'd hug you." Tears began to slide down her cheeks.

Sherlock went utterly still.

"But it isn't," she continued. "And all I can think of is how sad I feel – sad for myself and Daddy and Mrs Hudson and your brother, Mr Mycroft."

"Mycroft knew," Sherlock said, and his gaze dropped to his feet.

"Oh." A pause. "Then I guess I feel even sorrier for him."

Sherlock blinked, as if the thought had never occurred to him that this might've been difficult for his brother, as well.

"But most of all" – Sofie sobbed once, a broken-hearted sound that was almost more than John could endure – "I feel sorry." Little, gasping hiccups of breaths interrupted her words. "Sorry. For. John."

For several agonising seconds, the three men stood paralysed as Sofie wept.

"I'm glad you're not dead," she said, when she could continue. "I'm so glad, Sherlock. But right now, I don't want to hug you. Or talk. I just… I just want to go for a walk, I think." She threw a quick glance at her father. "Is that all right?"

"Yeah, Sweetheart. It's fine." She went to him, slipping her arm through his, and they turned to the door.

"John," Lestrade said, with a stricken look over his shoulder, and then, "Sherlock. Later."

Sherlock stared at the door in silence after they left.

Sofie didn't appear at 221B for almost two months.

The next time she did visit, she went to Sherlock as if he'd never been gone.

After throwing her arms around his neck, she thrust a book before his face, saying in a rush, "What do you know about ants? Because they're fascinating. I've been studying them. And I started an ant farm. I have a webcam set up, so you can watch it, too. I have some experiments planned."

For a long moment he considered her, and then he replied with equal fervor, "Excellent. I've long wanted to extend my research into the habits of ants."

Moving as one, they assumed their customary places on the sofa.

"Tell me everything you know," Sherlock demanded, "and then I'll tell you all about bees."

Part 3: After the Knife

It was perhaps the most surreal sight John Watson had ever seen – and considering who John was, and all that he'd witnessed, that was saying something.

In the course of his continual experiments, Sherlock had made a breakthrough that solved one of the cold cases Lestrade had showed him some months – or was it years? – earlier. Sherlock, being Sherlock, couldn't wait to share the triumphant news; he'd texted Lestrade for the address of the man's current location, and Lestrade, being Lestrade, gave it to him.

What they saw when they arrived was… in a word, surreal.

First, there was mayhem. Lestrade ran a calm and methodical crime scene, especially when Sherlock wasn't present. Here both his team members and various uniformed police were running about and shouting and projecting general confusion in a manner that instantly put John on his guard.

Louder yells then sounded, and bodies parted, and a rough-looking young man broke free from the crowd at a run, heading for the street, directly toward John and Sherlock. A second figure pursued – Anderson, of all people, still gloved and suited in full forensics gear. Anderson's face twisted into a portrait of fury, and with a terrible cry he lunged and managed a singularly graceless but effective tackle.

The young man went down hard, brow striking the kerb with a sickeningly wet crunch. John stood perfectly motionless for a moment, still on the wrong side of the police tape, registering the fast-growing pool of blood and the random jerking of the body. The young man, he realised, had no need of a doctor.

Anderson scrambled off of the youth, white-faced and panting. He blinked for several seconds, made an inarticulate sound, and then fumbled on his hands and knees toward the gutter, where he retched until he was empty.

John would've moved, either to check the body or to tend to Anderson, but as others on the force shifted or kneeled, he caught sight of a different scene, one his muddled senses couldn't quite comprehend.

If it had been anyone else but Lestrade and Donovan, anywhere else but a crime scene, John would've guessed they were lovers preparing to part.

Lestrade's face was pressed into Sally's shoulder, his arm around her back, his hand clutching her jacket in a fist. He shoulders hitched as if he were weeping. For her part, Sally had an arm around Lestrade, as well, and her free hand rested on his neck, her fingers in his hair in a pose that spoke of tenderness and consolation.

When she turned her cheek against Lestrade's chest, John could see her tears. Catching his eye across the distance, she mouthed, "Help!"

Sherlock was already running. John was right behind him.

As they drew near, Sally took a half-step back from Lestrade, and all became clear; he wasn't weeping, he was gasping for breath. His shirt was a bright crimson.

The attack wasn't a mere stabbing; it was an ungodly tearing, as if the youth had tried to gut Lestrade like livestock.

Over the next minutes, as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, John added a new nightmare to his repertoire: being fingers-deep in Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, quite literally holding the man together.

On the bad nights, the nights with dreams, when he wasn't reliving the war in Afghanistan, or recalling the feel of Moriarty pressing back against the semtex vest, or watching Sherlock fall, John would recall hearing the inhuman sound Lestrade made in his throat as he fought not to scream whilst John applied pressure to his ghastly wound.

Sally stayed at John's side, following his every direction without hesitation. Together they did all they could to keep her boss alive.

The man fixed his wet-eyed attention on John, clearly in agony but stubbornly refusing to panic. John said firmly, "It's bad; you know it is. But it's survivable. You can live through this. Just hold on, yeah? Keep fighting. Help's on its way." Lestrade nodded his understanding, and a ribbon of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

Sally took up where John left off. "We got him, Sir. The team's fine. No one's hurt. We'll contact Julia. Don't worry about Sofie. We're all here for her. Every step of the way. Just stay with us, Sir."

Several paces away, Sherlock gazed down at Anderson as the man sat on the kerb, shivering beneath a shock blanket, attempting to give a statement about his actions. Loud enough for all to hear, Sherlock said, "We witnessed the whole thing. It was unintentional. But, I might add, wholly deserved."

Hours later, Anderson joined them in the hospital waiting room, uncharacteristically subdued. Sherlock gave him a nod but said nothing.

Sofie's name was the first word Lestrade spoke when, against the odds, he regained consciousness.

***

There was a reason the fairer sex was John's department. Well, several reasons, and bloody good ones, truth be told. One of them was that he was capable of making that delicate transition from boyfriend to friend once a romantic relationship had reached its conclusion.

This was especially true in the case of his colleague Sarah Sawyer, a woman he both liked personally and respected professionally. His work with the clinic kept the two of them in contact. It was only natural that, when John heard she was headed to the same hospital where Lestrade was a patient, he asked Sarah to check in on the detective inspector.

Lestrade's stay had proved quite lengthy, thanks to the seriousness of the original wound and the severity of the infection that followed it. Sarah visited him two or three times on John's behalf; she visited him many more on her own.

Which led to the current discussion John was having with his friend.

"I may not always do the smart thing, John," Lestrade said, plucking and worrying at the hospital bedsheets, "but I try to do the right one. Dating your mate's girl isn't the right thing to do; I know that much. Not" – he indicated himself with a frown of disgust – "that anyone, especially a fine young woman like Dr Sawyer, would be interested in the likes of this."

John shook his head and sighed. Lestrade's ordeal had taken weight from him and given him more silver hairs in return. For God's sake, even a straight man like John could appreciate the detective inspector was gorgeous, and the wounded hero angle certainly didn't hurt his appeal, either.

"For one thing," John said, "she's not 'my girl.' We dated years ago, just long enough to know it wouldn't work. I spent a few nights on her sofa, when I was still learning to endure Sherlock" – Lestrade snorted – "but the operative words there are 'on her sofa.' It never went farther than that.

"There's nothing romantic between us. Both of you deserve to be happy. I'd lock you two in a cupboard together if I could, just to stop you mooning over each other and force you to do something about it. So don't blame your cowardice on me."

He paused in his pacing and held Lestrade's gaze.

"Second, I know for a fact that she fancies you."

Lestrade tried so very hard to appear as if this news didn't thrill him that John had to fight the urge to pat him on the head.

"She said that? Her very words: 'I fancy him'?"

Rolling his eyes, John said, "No. Her very words were, 'When he finally gets out of hospital and heals up, I want to jump his bones.'"

"Who's jumping whose bones?" Sofie asked, giving John a wave before making herself comfortable in the chair at Lestrade's side.

John quivered with a sudden mad desire to flee the room. Lestrade blushed and tried to sink deeper into the bedclothes.

"It's the twenty-first century, and I'm a teenager. I do know what shagging is. Now, who are we talking about?" When neither man answered, she gave a sly grin. "I hope it was Dr Sawyer. She fancies you rotten, Daddy."

"She does?" Lestrade smiled, then frowned. "I mean, how could you possibly know that?"

"We talk sometimes. Usually while you're asleep. She asked me how I'd feel about her asking you out, once you're well again. I told her I thought that would be brilliant."

Crossing her legs and swinging the top one merrily, Sofie winked at John.

"You did?" Lestrade asked faintly.

"I did. She's smart and she's kind and she thinks you're fantastic."

"Sweetheart," he said, his voice deepening to a gentle rumble, "I still love your mum."

She rose then and resettled on the edge of the hospital bed. "I love you," she said. "And Gran. And John. And Mrs Hudson. And Sherlock. And Orlando Bloom. And Rupert Grint." She shook her head, as if she was trying to explain a complicated idea to an imbecile. "You don't have to stop loving Mum. You've got a big enough heart to love Sarah, too."

John finally took pity on his friend, who looked more than a little overwhelmed.

"She passed the Sofie test," John said, granting his amusement and approval full play in his voice. "So what else can you do?"

When Julia's stroke took her a year later, Sofie moved in with Lestrade.

So did Sarah Sawyer.

***

Only one other woman in their created family passed the Sofie test, and her name was Mary Morstan.

She was Molly Hooper's friend. Once Molly introduced John to Mary, things progressed swiftly. Neither John nor Mary needed any convincing that this was true love.

One of John's fondest memories was dancing with his glowing wife on their wedding day, as friends and family drifted past in pairs. He could still remember Sofie's laughter as she threatened and cajoled Sherlock from the sidelines. By the time she succeeded in shepherding the consulting detective onto the dance floor, the slow ballad was ending. "Twist and Shout" came next, and attendees were treated to a spectacle none would soon forget – although no doubt many tried.

John posted footage, but Sherlock hacked into his blog and removed it.

The joy – and it was joy – was short-lived.

When he looked back, John would wonder why he'd ever believed that he could have it all: a loving wife, a warm home, and a successful practice, as well as Sherlock and his game.

If he'd told Sherlock "no" one night or a dozen, if he'd stayed at home with Mary instead, observing her rather than murder victims at crime scenes, would he have recognised the first signs of the cancer earlier? Would his doctor's instincts have told him that something was wrong?

His trained intellect knew the answer, and it offered him absolution. His heart would have none of it.

It was tragically easy to flee his house and its memories and resume life with Sherlock. John would make his home with the consulting detective for the rest of their lives.

Mary's funeral was a small and intimate affair. Sofie was studying abroad as part of her programme in international relations at university; it came as a surprise – but only for a moment – when she appeared at the graveside service, immaculate in her black suit, tall enough in her modest heels to look John in the eye.

Harriet Watson stepped aside without being asked, and Sofie took John's hand in hers.

Part 4: After the Bees

"Shall I leave the room, so you can interrogate John about me?" Sherlock asked over tea.

The cottage was cosy and welcoming, a mixture of John's homey touches and Sherlock's organised clutter. It suited the two men well, Lestrade thought.

"Would you tell me how you are if I asked?" Lestrade countered.

The expression on Sherlock's features suggested that many scathing and condescending answers came to his mind, but at last he said simply, "If you must."

Lestrade sighed and ran a hand through his white hair. "So? Gimme."

"At this stage, I am all but unchanged. You know my habit of deleting data that isn't immediately relevant to the work."

At Lestrade's nod, he continued. "Now it's as if another finger controls the delete key. I lose random information. Sometimes I regain it, and other times I don't." A shrug. "I leave myself lists and instructions. John helps with the rest. He doesn't seem to mind, and neither do the bees." A tight grimace of a smile. "I manage. And may yet for a number of years."

Somehow the dispassionate self-assessment hurt Lestrade almost as badly as the initial news had done. Sherlock was only in his mid-fifties. That remarkable brain had so many puzzles yet to solve.

Before Lestrade could reply, John entered with a tray.

"Scones from the village bakery. And Sherlock's honey."

"It's not my honey, John," Sherlock offered with a wry twitch of his lips. "I didn't make it. The bees did."

"Yeah, I did make that leap, Sherlock," Lestrade said.

"So what's this about retiring? Or not?" John asked. Lestrade saw the plea shining in John's eyes – to keep things as they were, as they could be for some time yet, and not to make this the first step of an overlong journey toward losing this remarkable man.

As ever, Lestrade tried his best.

"They want me to be – get this – a consulting detective." He couldn't help chuckling at Sherlock's look of outraged horror. Yes, this was the Sherlock he knew. "That is, consulting with various DI's teams around the country about how to liaise with members of the press and public, get the community involved in new initiatives, promote goodwill."

With a cheeky grin, he added, "They say that, beyond my years of experience, I have people skills."

"People skills," Sherlock began with undisguised disgust, "the last refuge of the—"

"That sounds brilliant," John said. "Have you made up your mind?"

"Still thinking it over. I do have options, thank God. I'm married to a successful doctor, after all. I could retire and become a kept man" – with a wink – "like Sherlock, here."

"The difference," Sherlock pointed out, "is that I do not have to – how would you put it? – shag for my room and board. John loves me for my mind, or whatever remains of it." With a wicked look of his own, he added, "Besides, on a regular basis he's sleeping with the woman who owns the local pub."

"Really?" Lestrade said. "John 'Three Continents' Watson strikes again!"

"Oh God." John groaned, dropping his head into his hand. "One stupid comment in one stupid blog post…"

Lestrade laughed, a deep sound from his belly.

"If you didn't notice," John said, pointing a finger at Lestrade, "he just called both of us whores."

"Better whores than idiots, mate." Lestrade helped himself to a scone and honey. "Before I forget, I have a serious question for you, Sherlock. I never can seem to get a straight answer from your brother."

"You and the rest of the human race," John said.

"What exactly are Mycroft's plans regarding Sofie?"

"Explain," Sherlock ordered.

"Well, when he offered her that internship that had them flying all over the world, I asked him not to show her any special favouritism. He said he was doing nothing of the sort: she had the highest recommendations of anyone in her class, and her language skills were invaluable to him. Fine. Fair enough.

"But now, the moment she's out of grad school, he's asked her to join his staff. I told her not to feel pressured, but every time he opens a door, she plunges forward, keen as can be. She even has that new retina-fit BlackBerry now. So…" He gestured, inviting Sherlock to respond.

"A BlackBerry," John muttered. "Reckon he's grooming her to be the next Anthea?" Anthea had never been the woman's actual name, and several successors had followed her over the last two decades, but he knew Lestrade and Sherlock would understand his meaning.

"The new Anthea. Ah, perhaps," Sherlock said with obvious reluctance. "Initially."

"What? What aren't you saying?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock seemed to take a sudden and intense interest in his teacup. "I believe, in fact, my brother is grooming Sofie to be the next Mycroft."

It was a lot to process. Eventually Lestrade made use of his open mouth by filling it with a bite of scone. John did the same.

For several heartbeats, all was quiet.

Then, "This" – Lestrade stared at his plate in awe – "this honey is amazing."

"Yes," Sherlock said, straightening in his chair with a serene smile. "It is, isn't it?"

***

Sherlock never let a chance to visit London pass him by, even if he thought the reason for it to be ludicrous. He told John that it was an outdated and meaningless gesture, storing a copy of his electronic files in a safety deposit box. John replied that it made him feel better to know that all of his blog posts, including the ones originally locked for privacy, were preserved somewhere more secure than their modest home.

A gesture could be meaningful in its own right.

He didn't want Sherlock Holmes to be forgotten, even if Sherlock Holmes forgot himself often enough these days. Saving the files was an act of defiance against a disease that refused to surrender its hold despite the best efforts of the medical community, and one Dr Watson, in particular.

They didn't split up and pursue their own time in the city as they would've done only three years earlier.

Between one moment and the next Sherlock could grow suddenly disoriented. He claimed he could deduce his way across London, if only John would leave a note with the time and place of their scheduled reunion in his coat pocket, but they never put this to the test. In fact, Sherlock seemed to feel most like himself when he was beside the man who had embodied safety to him for more than a quarter of a century.

This day had been an adventure. They'd followed their trip to the bank with lunch and a visit to Mrs Hudson's and Mycroft's graves. ("They aren't really here, John," Sherlock had protested, but he'd brought flowers, all the same.) The afternoon had turned to early evening as they wandered and browsed though little shops and took in the living hum of the city both had loved for so long.

At last, John explained that they needed to go if they were to catch their train.

As they passed by glass windows, John considered their reflections. Sherlock's curls were threaded with grey. He stood as tall and slender as ever, still intimidating in the latest of his many long, dark coats.

John's hair had faded more than turned; thanks to arthritis and the returning echoes of his past wounds, he once again used a cane, but this was a delicately carved work of art wrought in dark mahogany, a gift from Sherlock. John carried himself with the usual straightforward sense of purpose, but more slowly now, in deference to his own limping gait and to Sherlock's wide-eyed fascination with all he observed.

So many things that should've been familiar appeared new to Sherlock now.

As they made their way together, shoulder to shoulder down the pavement, John had the increasingly worrisome sensation of being watched.

The old CCTV cameras were no more; their almost invisible replacements had no need to swivel in order to follow his footsteps. John glared upward, imagining countless electronic eyes staring back down at him.

It reminded him of the time…

Three steps later a black sedan with tinted windows pulled up beside them.

The back door opened, and a shapely leg emerged. John huffed a sigh of wonder.

"I was hoping you handsome gentlemen could assist me," the brunette said as she straightened her elegant suit and strode forward with an air of authority.

She paused before Sherlock, and John held his breath, praying that his friend would remember.

Sherlock stared at the lovely young woman for several seconds, and then his cold countenance transformed into the warmest of smiles.

"Sofie."

"Daddy and Sarah send their love." She kissed his cheek and then John's.

"I find myself with three tickets for tonight's Wagner concert," she said, "and I've no one to escort me. Care to help a damsel in distress?"

John laughed. This one had never, not once in her life, been a damsel in distress.

"I love" – Sherlock glanced tentatively at John, who nodded encouragement – "I love Wagner." He looked back to Sofie. "Yes, let's go."

Sofie beamed.

Music was the greatest balm to Sherlock's troubled mind, a fact John was certain that Sofie knew well.

"Sure you don't have something important to be doing, y'know, like being the British government?" John said, blinking against a sudden dampness in his eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous." She turned, smoothly inserting herself between the two of them and linking her arms in theirs. "There's nothing more important than this."

THE END

Related Work: Read shaindyl's missing scene story, "Laying It On the Line".

Vital Stats: Originally written in December 2011.

I Wonder As I Wander (Sherlock and The Professionals)

morganstuart — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:10:05 GMT

Title: I Wonder As I Wander
(3rd in the Good Father Series)
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandoms: Sherlock and The Professionals
Disclaimer: These universes do not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: It's Christmas Eve, 2005. As a very private drama plays out between Lestrade and Sherlock, other eyes are secretly watching.
Historian's Note: This is a direct sequel to "Father and Farther," and knowledge of that story would be most helpful for reading this one.
Author's Note: If I've done my job properly, familiarity with one of these two programmes is all you need in order for the story to work. This fits in the same universe as my Sherlock story "The Distance Getting Close," but prior knowledge of that story is not necessary for reading this one.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Mild language and violence, discussion of drug addiction.

Bodie felt the cold this season.

It awoke the complaints of his old wounds. It added weight to the burdens he shouldered. It burrowed into his bones, reminding him of his years and his mortality.

Melancholy was Doyle's department, not his. Yet as one new field report followed another to glow expectantly on his computer monitor, Bodie found himself staring out of his study window, unable to focus, troubled by something he couldn't identify. On the other side of the chilled glass, the rain had ended, and flurries threatened a coming snowfall.

The bare limbs of trees appeared dead and brittle beneath their shrouds of ice. He imagined London, blanketed in white…

You're turning maudlin in your old age, he told himself. Grow a pair, yeah?

With a sigh of self-disgust he pushed back from his desk and wandered out of his study in the general direction of Ray Doyle. He found the man in their room. As he knew it would, the sight kindled fresh warmth inside of him, easing his unnamed aches.

"Wish you could come with." Doyle frowned at his own reflection in the mirror as he smoothed the lapels of his tuxedo jacket.

"I don't, sunshine. Politicians and bureaucrats making small talk and kissing each others' arses?" Bodie shuddered theatrically before donning a cheeky grin. "Rather be washing my hair."

Doyle shook his head, but his lips quirked as he fought an answering smile. "You're rubbish as a trophy wife, you know."

Leaning against the wall, arms folded, Bodie assumed an injured air. "Fine. Be that way, Raymond. Just don't come crying to me the next time a military junta needs thwarting or a terrorist cell wants identifying at the very last minute. I might've made other plans: a manicure, perhaps, or a mud bath."

Their gazes met in the mirror, wry and fond, and nothing else needed to be said.

It was a very small price to pay, all things considered, for Doyle to assume the social responsibilities that came with the directorship of CI-5 on his own, sans any "plus one." They'd always had to be discreet, hadn't they? It was second nature to both of them, to keep the personal well behind locked and bolted doors.

At least the reasons made sense now. Just as Doyle's position had pushed him onto the national stage, Bodie's had pulled him into the shadows. If it had been otherwise, no doubt a public cry would've been raised at two men, so close, holding such combined power.

How the Cow would've laughed at that.

After all, they still were chalk and cheese, weren't they? Even now. Each fiercely protective of his own domain, his own expertise, his own raison d'être.

Doyle could debate and wrestle with fine points of policy that would put Bodie to sleep; Bodie could accomplish certain delicate and necessary tasks that would leave Doyle sleepless. Doyle crafted broad strategies with years, even decades in mind, on the scale of an entire agency; Bodie's precise efforts were defined by minutes and seconds, executed by a personally-chosen handful of special agents. Doyle provided Her Majesty's Government with national security; Bodie, plausible deniability.

If they sometimes felt that the two of them were pitted against the world as well as each other, well, that was nothing new, either. Then again, that world was a far different place now than it had been when they were simply 3.7 and 4.5. Four bombs in fifty minutes mere months ago gave proof enough of that.

At the end of the day, it was enough that they could share their closely-guarded secret of a home. Bodie gave Doyle perspective and received compassion in return. As a result, Doyle brooded far less these days, and Bodie failed to grow callous. Both were better professionals, better persons, for it.

"Stop staring at yourself and go on, then," Bodie said. "And don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Doyle chuckled. "Hardly narrows my options, does it?" They walked together as far as Bodie's study. "Go easy on your agents, yeah? Wherever the hell they are, it's still Christmas Eve."

"Bah, humbug," Bodie said. At Doyle's glare, he added a "Yes, mum" with obviously mock contrition.

A pause. Then, tentatively, Doyle said, "You know, it's not too late. 'Tis the season, and all that—"

"Ray."

Here it was, the heart of the matter, the epicentre of Bodie's recent mood. It lay naked and tender before them, just as it had ever since the night Bodie learned he was a father. Doyle studied him, as if calculating how much weight to throw against an immoveable object. After several moments he signalled his surrender with a nod.

"Yeah, well, these people – politicians and bureaucrats, as you say – they don't have families; they have staff." The regret was clear in Doyle's tone. "I expect I'll be late."

Bodie shrugged. "I expect I'll wait up."

A gentle expression softened the lines engraved on Doyle's face, reminding Bodie of a much younger man with dark curls instead of grey bristles, faded jeans instead of formal wear. "Ta, mate."

Doyle's fingers brushed Bodie's arm, and then he was gone.

Bodie's eyes once again strayed to the window. He reminded himself that he should examine the incoming reports. Instead, despite his best efforts, he wondered what Christmas meant to an overworked and widowed detective inspector.

Less than two hours later, as Bodie's various channels of surveillance sang out in emergency alert, he headed for his car at a run to find out.

***

The security team at the house balked at the idea of Bodie driving into the night unescorted. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that he didn't require anyone's permission to do anything. Apparently his glower had not lost its power to move, if not mountains, then at least the muscled men who did a passable job of impersonating them.

He knew some of the agents would follow him, but from a discreet distance, and with a healthy degree of fear and trembling. He wouldn't arrive on the scene with a bloody entourage, thank God.

The location in question wasn't in the belly of gang territory, but it wasn't far from it. Seedy, one might say. Disreputable. Not altogether safe.

Just like the old days.

Bodie parked a couple of blocks from the address. He wondered idly if his car would still be there, in one piece, when he returned.

He walked at a casual pace, gloved hands thrust deep in the pockets of his wool coat, alert eyes sweeping his surroundings. The various weapons he wore fit naturally against his body, familiar and reassuring.

The streets were all but deserted, no doubt because of the weather, but from the windows rising up on either side of him Bodie caught glimpses of cheap tinsel and fairy lights, green trees and silver angels, festive bows and shining ornaments. A thick, frozen silence enveloped the space immediately around him, but distant echoes of traditional carols and contemporary party music ricocheted above his head, an incongruous blend of human voices, piano chords, and heavy bass tracks.

Perhaps the holiday season itself was getting to him. Bodie might've spent every single Christmas of the last forty-two years without his son, but this was the first Christmas that he was aware of that fact, the first that he realised what he had missed and what he was missing.

Sentimental fool.

He swallowed the bitter thought and frowned into the folds of his scarf. The matter at hand was what the hell he intended to do once he reached his destination.

Good question, that.

As he rounded a corner, shifting layers of darkness took shape and moved forward from the entrance of a narrow alleyway. A string of curses and street slang carried to him, with a few words repeated by various teenaged voices like a chorus: "wallet" and "watch" and "phone."

He had no time for it, no time at all.

"You don't want to do this," he told the world at large.

One youth stepped closer. Bodie registered the glittering of his eyes and his flick knife. "Fuck you, old man."

This one wasn't worth arming himself.

"Son," Bodie said, "go home."

The blade rose higher. "I said, fu—"

With one blow Bodie put the boy on the pavement. The knife clattered into the night, unclaimed. The youth blinked and groaned feebly, but he made no effort to rise.

"Anyone else?" The sound of running feet was his only answer.

He felt no satisfaction. These were only children; they should be indoors celebrating the season, not preying on anyone unfortunate enough to be out in the weather with them.

Bodie put another block behind him.

At the sound of an approaching car, he edged farther from the street. When a large black sedan drew up beside him and stopped, he halted in his tracks, heaved a sigh, and rolled his eyes.

The back door opened, and a feminine voice said, "You'd be warmer in here."

It was a waste of a perfectly good double entendre, for the elegant brunette spoke without inflection, eyes riveted to the BlackBerry in her hands. She was wrapped in fine fabric and fur like a tastefully understated extra from the set of Doctor Zhivago; Bodie had to move a pace closer to discern her face.

God, he thought, she's just a baby.

As if reading his mind, she glanced up at him. "Yes, I'm new. Yes, I'm young. But I'm highly qualified, in constant contact with Mr Holmes, and fully authorised by him to share information of certain interest to you, if you will return the courtesy."

"Or," she added, when he failed to reply, "you can freeze to death." Her eyes returned to her personal data assistant. "I get paid either way."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Bodie felt the urge to laugh.

As he climbed in, she slid over and settled a laptop computer on the seat between them. The moment Bodie closed the door, the driver pulled away from the kerb.

"I assume you're here for the same reason we are," she began. "What do you know?"

This was no time, Bodie reckoned, to indulge in a pissing contest with Mycroft Holmes or his proxy. "Word of an alleged suicide. Not uncommon during the holiday season, of course. But the identity of the body has yet to be reported, and so-called suicides do, on occasion, turn out to be murder. This area has seen more than its share of violent deaths. I know my—that is, I know Detective Inspector Lestrade was here, but unofficially, off-duty. Seemed unusual. Thought I'd look about, make certain… well."

She nodded. "The detective inspector was here because of Mr Holmes's brother. It seems they are both alive, and they have no connection to the victim."

For several heartbeats, Bodie closed his eyes. The sheer physical force of his relief took him by surprise.

"I should be able to verify that momentarily," she continued.

He considered the screen. "You're monitoring the brother's flat."

"He maintains several 'boltholes,' as he likes to call them, located around London. We don't know the exact number, but fortunately this is one that Mr Holmes discovered and routinely keeps under surveillance." Her slender fingers danced across the keyboard and then returned to her BlackBerry.

Bodie studied the feed. It revealed a dingy, miniscule space nearly devoid of furnishings. Empty at present.

He'd seen Greg Lestrade in a few televised clips from press conferences, but never in a candid situation, never when speaking solely for himself rather than the whole of Scotland Yard. An unspecified yearning welled up inside of him.

He loosened his scarf. The young lady continued typing.

The seat was spacious as far as luxury automobiles went, but Bodie was a rather broad-shouldered man bundled in many layers. He shifted to see the small monitor better, extending an arm behind the woman's shoulder to brace himself.

"Excuse me. May I, Miss…?" he asked.

Arching an eyebrow, she gave him a look that would've put any of Hitchcock's ice queens to shame.

"If you've read my file, then you know I'm harmless," he said.

"I've read portions of your file," she replied. "And 'harmless' is the very last word I'd use to describe you." Nevertheless, she leaned forward just a fraction, making room for his arm. "You may call me 'A.' Shall I call you 'B'?"

"Yes. Thank you, A."

Had he ever been that youthful, that keen to prove himself? Of course he had. He felt full almost to overflowing with advice he wanted to impart to her, insights about loyalty and commitment, discipline and realism that he wished he'd known decades ago as principles rather than mere gut instincts.

But who was he, really, in the final analysis? A man who hoped to catch sight of his son in someone else's surveillance footage. He held his tongue.

"I can show you a muted image of DI Lestrade, to prove that he's well," she said. "Then we'll take you back to your car, or wherever you wish."

"I'd like to stay and watch, if it's all the same to you," he said, perhaps a beat too quickly.

"Mr Holmes prefers that his brother not be seen in—"

"I don't give a toss about Sherlock Holmes or whatever state he's in." He wasn't a pleading man, but he dredged up a single, quiet word from a place that felt raw and, God help him, desperate: "Please."

She never looked once in his direction, but she went still as he spoke. Her brow furrowed, and then she redoubled her efforts on the BlackBerry.

Some moments later, an intercom buzzed. "We're being followed," the driver said.

They both peered over their shoulders.

"Four back, that's my team," Bodie said.

"That's fine," A confirmed to the driver. "They're with our guest."

Just then movement showed on the laptop. A shadow first. Then a gaunt young man stalked into the frame, one hand scrubbing through his dark curls. He appeared to vibrate with unspent energy, his motions jerky and unceasing.

Bodie looked to A, wordlessly asking permission.

She consulted the BlackBerry once more. "All right," she said. "If you continue to watch DI Lestrade, you may see Sherlock Holmes in this… temper... anyway. Needless to say, Mr Holmes relies on your discretion." As an aside of her own, she added, "I expect you'll owe him a favour."

"Of course." Bodie swallowed. "Thanks."

She met his eyes for a brief moment, her expression unreadable, and then she turned her attention to the film footage.

"—just what it looked like, a suicide," the young man was saying in a cultured voice, deeper than Bodie would've expected from that slender body. "Dull, dull, dull."

Gravelly words came from off-screen, thick with weariness and no little sarcasm. "Yeah, it's a shame that people aren't killing each other fast enough this holiday season to keep you entertained."

"You never understood," the young man – Sherlock, Bodie reminded himself – sneered as he rounded on the unseen speaker. "You and your microscopic mind, content to bleat out Christmas carols with the rest of the assembled sheep. That's all you're—"

"Never claimed that I know how you feel, did I?" Greg Lestrade interrupted. He moved into view with measured steps, wearing a nondescript suit, rumpled coat, and healthy five-o-clock shadow. His tone deepened into a placating rumble. "But I do recognise that your brain needs something to work on, or it chews itself to bits. I'm here to help, if I can."

"Oh, Saint Lestrade of the Perpetually Overactive Sense of Duty," Sherlock intoned, pacing around the other man like an erratic satellite. His designer shirt and trousers looked slept in, even though he appeared not to have slept for quite some time. "I'm surprised you're not volunteering for more hours now, to let your comrades with families spend extra time during this 'special season' with their wretched spawn."

"Already have." The answer was matter-of-fact. "Been at the office, then on call for as many hours as I'm allowed. I was headed home… but I got to thinking how long it's been since you had a case, how many parties would be going on tonight, how easy it would be…"

"Don't make this about me!" Sherlock was winding himself to a manic pitch, a wounded animal that in turn sought to wound. "You're just looking for an excuse not to crawl into a bottle and stay there 'til the holiday's over, to try to forget your life's not some sickeningly-sweet greeting-card advert." Then the young man blinked and nearly stumbled backward, as though he realised he had crossed some unmarked boundary between them.

They stared at each other.

At last Greg spread his arms, offering himself up to the vitriol of Sherlock's attack. His answer came without heat. "Yeah, all right. I should have a family of my own to celebrate with. That's hard to forget, this time of year." He shrugged. "Is that what you want to hear?"

The man's lack of artifice, of any kind of self-defence, appeared to drain the hostility from Sherlock. The young man crumpled and then curled in on himself. "I don't want to hear anything from you tonight. I'm not your responsibility… and you're not mine."

"No, I'm not yours. I'm just another supplier, aren't I? Another way for you to get a fix. Of interest only as long as I've got the goods." The composure with which Greg spoke the words only increased their impact. He rubbed his hand across his face and gave a humourless laugh. "Jesus, I'm too bloody tired for this."

Bodie frowned at the screen, at sea in the storm of emotions the scene provoked. He thought, quite distinctly, Doyle would be better at this than I am.

For several moments neither of the men in the flat spoke a word. Then Greg took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "Listen. You have four options, Sherlock. First: go home with me now. I'll get takeaway, feed you up, and you can have the guest room. When you've slept off whatever this is" – he waved his arm in the young man's general direction – "we can find something for you to do. Cold case files. Pending reports. Maybe I can pull strings, get you access to the morgue for some experiments, yeah?"

Sherlock remained unmoving, his long limbs tightened into a miserable knot.

"Second: let me take you somewhere else: a hotel, another flat, whatever, as long as it's clean in every sense of the word. Then tomorrow you can come by mine, or see your brother, or anything you fancy, as long as you stay away from the drugs.

"Third: I have you arrested right now." Sherlock's head jerked up at this, eyes wide, mouth open. "Don't play the outraged innocent; I know a search of this room will turn up more than enough cause. You spend the next hours in a cell – isolated, if you like, I can arrange it – well away from temptation. And I can get some sleep without imagining you overdosed in a gutter somewhere on Christmas morning."

Sherlock's mouth closed, and his lips compressed into a pale, thin line.

"Fourth: I walk away, leave you here, and we're done. No more consulting. I told you before, and I meant it: I won't have you at my crime scenes when you're using. Up 'til now, that's worked for both of us. Well, in fact."

"I'm not high, Lestrade. I'm bored." Small and tremulous.

"If I'd arrived later tonight, would the story be different?" No answer. "That's what I thought."

Long fingers tangled in dark curls. "You can't walk away from this. You need me." A threat, or a plea, or possibly both.

"I've lost more than one thing in my life that I needed, and I'm still here, Sherlock." Greg sounded tired, and older than Bodie felt, which was saying something, but remarkably steady for all of that. "I've solved cases without you. I made DI without you. Your work's important, but not more so than you are." He shook his head. "We could go 'round and 'round 'til the sun comes up, but I don't have the stomach for it. Make your decision. I'll be at the front door."

He moved to a dark drape of fabric on the threadbare sofa – a long coat, Bodie realised – and liberated a single cigarette from one of its pockets.

"Thought you were quitting," Sherlock mumbled.

"Yeah, thought you were, too," Greg replied.

As the detective inspector disappeared from view, A reached forward and tapped a key, pausing the feed.

"I trust that's" – she seemed at a loss for the proper term – "satisfactory?"

Bodie nodded and cleared his throat. Unsure what to do with himself, he reached for the flask in his breast pocket. He took a swallow and then offered it to the young woman.

"I'm on duty," she said, once more studying her BlackBerry.

"Did I say otherwise?" he asked.

Her lips quirked. She extended a delicately-gloved hand, accepted the flask, and brought it to her lips with easy grace. It was very fine brandy. She took one sip, then another.

"Thank you." When she handed it back to him, she looked him squarely in the eye once more for a fleeting second.

The car deposited him back on the very same patch of pavement where Bodie had been standing earlier. A was consumed with her personal data assistant. Preoccupied by what he'd witnessed, Bodie took his leave with a silent nod and half-bow – not that his hostess noticed.

Panda cars and an ambulance passed them and turned toward the rear of the building ahead, presumably on their way to claim the unfortunate suicide victim.

Before Mycroft Holmes's black sedan could pull away, the back door opened again. The young woman emerged and crossed the distance to Bodie in several swift steps, still clutching her BlackBerry.

"Happy Christmas, B," she murmured, and her free hand pressed something into his grip. Then she disappeared into the automobile, and it sped off, leaving Bodie to contemplate her unexpected gift.

He uncurled his fingers. She'd given him a lighter.

***

Bodie was following the pavement that led to the main entrance door as Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade emerged from the building.

It was a colossally stupid thing to do, Bodie knew, but he could no more deny himself this than his next lungful of air.

An automatic part of Bodie's mind catalogued the most apparent surface details: they were the same height, and roughly the same wide-shouldered, athletic build. Their eyes and chins were somewhat different. Their lips were quite similar, as was their hair.

Greg patted his pockets and swore softly under his breath, the cigarette dangling loosely between two fingers.

Bodie, the man of action who had fought – and, when necessary, killed – for decades across multiple continents, was seized by the overpowering urge to run. Instead he came to a halt and stood his ground, shamed by the trembling in his knees.

He watched as Greg took in his surroundings with a trained eye. When that dark gaze fell on him, it struck Bodie like a blow to the chest. It was all he could do not to gasp aloud.

Words failed him. Mutely, he held out the lighter. To his relief, his hand was steady, even if nothing else about him was.

"Ta, mate," Greg said, his throaty voice almost hoarse in the cold. He lit the cigarette and returned the lighter to Bodie's gloved palm. "Sounds like we may have a wet Christmas instead of a white one." He didn't act like a man who'd just had his life trampled upon by an ungrateful brat of a genius. Despite his visible exhaustion, he seemed admirably even-keeled.

"More rain, is it?" Bodie's question formed white clouds in the air.

"So they say." Calm and congenial. "You from around here?"

Bodie opted for something in the general neighbourhood of the truth. "No, haven't been in the area in years. Just needed to clear my head a bit. Park and walk a while, somewhere different. This time of year makes a man think."

"Truer words," Greg agreed. Then, with apparent concern, "Not the safest place for a late-night stroll these days."

"So I've gathered. I've had smarter ideas." Bodie shrugged. "About to call it a night, I think."

At that moment Sherlock Holmes exited the building, complete with coat and gloves and scarf. His long-legged strides brought him to Greg's far side where he stopped, shifting his weight and looking everywhere but at the detective inspector.

He hugged a rigid case to his breast.

"The first." It was hardly more than a whisper.

"Sorry?" That from Greg.

"The first option." Only slightly louder, still hesitant. "You meant what you said? About the morgue?"

Greg inspected the concrete between his feet. "'Course I did, you daft sod."

"Right. Well." Then, presented like an awkward apology, "I brought my violin."

Greg's response was quiet. "Thank you. Been ages since I heard you play." He rolled his neck and shoulders, stretching as if he'd just released a heavy burden, and took a long drag on the cigarette.

Sherlock gave a short, curt nod.

Just like that, the two seemed to regain some kind of balanced footing. Bodie didn't have to understand every nuance of the dynamic between them; it was clear enough that Greg, without any personal model to follow, had somehow divined the finer points of being a father. And for this night, at least, crisis had been averted.

"Well, I'm off," Bodie said, before his presence could become any more suspicious. "G'night."

"Think you'll be all right?" Greg asked. "We could walk you to your car, if..."

Dear God, Greg was trying to protect him, a stranger. At best the detective inspector carried a truncheon; Bodie was a walking arsenal.

The kindness in Greg's face was something Bodie fought to memorise on the spot.

"I'm fine," Bodie said. "Just around the corner. But thanks." Acting purely on instinct, he held out his hand.

Greg took it without hesitation. His grip was strong, forthright. "Right. Happy Christmas."

Bodie bound up all of the words of apology and praise and affection that he would never be able to speak, and he fed their meaning into far humbler phrases: "You, too. And happy new year."

Without a backward glance, Bodie retraced his steps. Only when he was well away did he wipe his eyes.

The ache that had been gnawing at his insides for too long grew quieter on the trek back to his car. Before Bodie climbed inside, he stood with his head thrown back, inviting the last of the errant snowflakes to land on his brow and cheeks and chin.

His son was safe. Wounded in some ways, to be sure, and tired and resigned, but far stronger than the injustices that fate had dealt him. Greg was a good man, truly, and with his patient influence, perhaps that mad younger Holmes might someday become one, as well.

Bodie had never been the sort who believed in fairytale happy endings; this imperfect and all-too-human one would do for tonight.

It was Christmas Eve. He'd received a gift he never expected. And he was going home to the man who could make him feel warm and young once more.

THE END

Note: This story takes its title from the bittersweet Christmas carol "I Wonder As I Wander" by John Jacob Niles.

Vital Stats: Originally written in December 2011.

Originally written for the "Discovered in the Christmas Tree" fest at discoveredinalj.

Or read it here at discoveredinalj.

Triage (Sherlock)

morganstuart — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:54:51 GMT

Title: Triage
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: Donovan didn't want to see this, and Sherlock didn't want to be seen – especially by her – this way.
Historian's Note: This takes place between events in the first and second series of Sherlock.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Descriptions of injuries, mild language.

Head lolling at an angle, Sherlock observed her with an over-bright gaze. "You're not…" His voice was breathy and far too high-pitched. "Enjoying… this…"

He sounded surprised.

Donovan stared at him. What the hell was she meant to enjoy? Kneeling in the damp in the middle of the night? Finding her boss face-down on the concrete? Minding the Freak whilst his flatmate gave emergency aid to Lestrade?

Sherlock glanced down at her hand where it held his sodden scarf to his shoulder, and then she understood.

For a genius, he could be astoundingly thick.

"No, 'course I'm not," she answered.

She leaned even closer to him, until she could feel the moist warmth of his shallow panting against her cheek. He couldn't twirl and stride off on those long legs this time. There were certain things he needed to understand.

"Listen: I've wanted to slap that smug grin off your face every time you've acted like someone's violent death was a gift-wrapped present meant for you. I've wanted to shut that clever mouth of yours every time you've insulted a victim, a victim's family or friends, members of my team, or me."

She took a measured breath, proud of the evenness of her voice. There was a reason Lestrade looked to her when it was time for a press conference.

"Most of all, I've wanted to force your words back down your throat every time you've belittled one of the best men I know and then made him thank you for it." She nodded in the direction of the fallen detective inspector. "You play with his career and his reputation and his life like they're your toys, and he lets you, because he cares more about stopping killers than protecting himself. If it were up to me, you'd never be allowed anywhere near him or a crime scene again."

Propped against the brick wall, Sherlock continued to study her with those alien, unsettling eyes.

"But not once," she continued, "have I wanted to see you stabbed and bleeding and left in a back alley. I wouldn't want that for anyone. That's why I'm a cop. You're the one who doesn't feel empathy, not me."

He made no reply.

His eyelashes were still wet from the involuntary tears inspired by his wound, and this made him seem fragile and young and, for once, absurdly human. So, too, did the darkening bruise on his cheek.

God, how much blood did that skinny body hold? The scarf at his shoulder was drenched and dripping, slippery and unwieldy now under her fingers. Ignoring the nauseating stench of gore, she reached for her own scarf and unwound it from her neck. As quickly as possible, she exchanged the two, putting more muscle behind the pressure in the effort to staunch the flow.

Sherlock thrashed once, a harsh jerk that rippled out the full length of his limbs; the grunt he made ended as a whine.

Automatically she opened her mouth to apologise for the added pain she'd caused, but she caught herself in time. "Go on then," she offered instead. "Say something. Anything. You need to stay conscious."

"Lestrade?" A whisper.

She risked a glance over her shoulder.

When Watson had intercepted her in the alley, drawing her down beside Sherlock before she could get to Lestrade, she'd nearly turned on him with the full force of her adrenaline-fuelled anger and fear. But of course, he'd been right: Lestrade needed his skill, not hers, and Sherlock required assistance, as well.

To be fair, she reckoned she had more reason to trust Lestrade to Watson than she'd given the doctor to trust Sherlock to her.

It appeared that her confidence in the man wasn't misplaced. Despite the cold bite of the night air, Watson had stripped to his vest. His jumper pillowed Lestrade's head; his jacket covered Lestrade's lower body. His shirt was turning a bright crimson as he pressed it with visible force against Lestrade's abdomen.

She could just make out the calm, steady rhythm of Watson's speech, punctuated now and then by the brief, ragged hoarseness of Lestrade's responses.

She sagged a bit in relief, and Sherlock shuddered beneath the scarf. Her coat slipped further down his torso, and with her free hand she drew it up and tucked it more closely around his sides.

"He's bleeding, but he's conscious," she said.

Some of the tension in Sherlock's sharp-angled frame eased at this news; she felt it through her fingers.

Unexpected, that.

"Keep talking," she urged.

He inhaled as if to respond, but only a gusty sigh followed. His eyes fluttered shut.

"Sherlock. Freak. Talk."

His lips twitched. "Not... just now."

She cursed silently to herself before trying another approach. "All right. Make me do all the work, then. What's today's date?"

"Boring." Alarmingly faint.

He began to list to one side. As she struggled to resettle him in a more upright position, he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth and held it, trembling. Then he was watching her again from beneath damp lashes, pale eyes glittering with shock, boneless as a rag doll.

"Tell me about the case," she said. "What’s your theory?" She waited a beat. "Come on, genius. Impress me."

"Not theory." His long throat worked as he swallowed. "Solution."

"Right. I'll believe it when I hear it." Deliberately provocative.

"Brent Maillard."

"Maillard did it? He wasn't even on our suspect list. What did you find out? How could you possibly know that?"

His brow furrowed in a pained frown, and once more his eyes fell shut. "Astigmatism," he murmured. "Steel-cut oats. Swine flu. Peter Tork." Then, emphatically, "Oysters."

Bloody hell. Was he was explaining his deductive reasoning or ranting in delirium? As likely one as the other, for all that she understood any of it. She couldn't begin to imagine how those seemingly random things related to one another or the alleged perpetrator.

At least Sherlock was still conscious, still talking. For that matter, her scarf was only partially stained; the blood came more sluggishly now. She reminded herself of Watson's reassurance that the wound itself wasn't that bad, as long as the bleeding could be checked.

"Keep firm pressure on it," he'd directed her, his personal plea audible beneath the professional instructions. "Keep him warm. Keep him awake."

She looked behind her once more and found the doctor returning her gaze. Strain had redrawn his features in stark, grim lines as he hunched against the chill. One of his hands forced the makeshift bandage against Lestrade's belly; the other curled around the detective inspector's wrist, monitoring the man's pulse.

"How long?" he called to her.

The ambulances, of course.

Before she could consult her watch, she saw his eyes shift and widen. The transformation was immediate as Watson shed his role of healer for that of protector, rising to a defensive crouch in front of Lestrade. Donovan swivelled in alarm, getting a foot underneath her, readying to shield her own charge from new threat.

The shadows moved at the mouth of the alley.

Anderson had found them.

"Check on the ambulances!" Sally shouted at him. "Two of ours are down!"

He jogged forward, mobile to his ear, nodding.

When she turned back to Sherlock, she found one elegant eyebrow raised.

"Two… of yours?" he whispered.

"Say you're insulted, and I'll happily feed you this scarf." She readjusted her hold on its fabric. Sherlock managed a rather anaemic snort before he grimaced.

Anderson spoke rapidly on the phone. Donovan's next quick glance revealed him handing Watson's jacket back to the shivering doctor and draping his own long coat over Lestrade in its place.

"No, don't you dare," she said, as Sherlock's head pitched forward. She eased it back to rest against the wall and patted his cheek lightly. "Stay awake. Your sidekick over there will murder me if you die on my watch."

"Not my… sidekick," he managed with obvious effort.

"Fine. Whatever you say. Keep talking."

"Cold," he said.

She adjusted her coat to cover more of his chest, folding a lapel over his uninjured shoulder, pinning it with his lax weight.

Anderson approached, scrubbing a hand across his stubbled face. "Five minutes for the ambulances."

"Lestrade?" she asked.

"Should be in hospital now. It's an ugly wound." He crossed his arms against the night air, hugging himself, clearly shaken.

Sherlock didn't look at Anderson, but Donovan could sense that the consulting detective was listening attentively.

"The doctor knows what he's about, though, I'll give him that," Anderson continued. "Sally, what the hell happened?"

"Seems to be related to the Yarbrough case. Payback, maybe. I can ID three of them, at least. So can Watson," she said. "Bastards."

"Need any help" – Anderson turned a cool glare on Sherlock – "with this?"

Donovan felt Sherlock's lean muscles tighten under her hand. With his injury, that must've hurt. Sherlock blinked up at her, eerily pale and utterly expressionless, awaiting her response.

"No, we'll do," she said. "Go watch for them at the street, yeah? And get the rest of the team here. The scene will need to be secured."

"Right."

As Anderson retreated, Sherlock nodded once drunkenly and slumped back against the bricks.

"Not long now," she told him. "Hold on."

An ugly wound, Anderson had said. Christ. No, she couldn't afford to dwell on that at the moment.

"Don'tforget," Sherlock slurred. She ducked her head in order to catch his fragile words. "BrentMaillard."

"Brent Maillard. You're certain?"

"Yes."

"Brent Maillard." She rocked back on her heels and searched his face, watching as his lids drooped closed. "Got it."

Beneath her coat his hand flapped vaguely, as if he'd intended to make one of his dramatic gestures but realised too late that he lacked the strength. "TellJohn. TellJohnto… ridewithhim… tohospital…" His tongue darted out and wet his lips. "Watchover…"

When his eyes opened abruptly, she started in surprise. For a long moment, they simply regarded each other, exhaling white clouds into the blackness together.

"Yeah, I will. Thank you." She meant it.

Sherlock broke eye contact first, turning his face away to stare into the dark, his bruised cheek to the dank wall. The trembling in his limbs intensified. If he could've melted into the bricks by sheer effort of will, she guessed he would've done.

It pained her merely to look at him, splayed out brokenly, gulping shallow sips of air. Just as much as she didn't want to see this, she understood that Sherlock didn't want to be seen – especially by her – this way.

Faced with such a portrait of miserable vulnerability, she recalled what she'd told him about empathy.

Shit.

"I'll ride with you, then," she said.

His answer was brittle, over-enunciated, and scarcely loud enough to hear: "Not. Necessary."

"Didn't say it was," she said.

Silence.

She straightened the drape of her coat so that its fabric warmed the bare flesh at his neck.

After several heartbeats, the wail of sirens echoed from a distance.

About bloody time.

"Can'tstopyou," he whispered at last. "Obviously."

"Obviously."

A final look over her shoulder showed Watson bending low over his patient, talking with gentle urgency, his free hand gripping Lestrade's shoulder. The doctor must have felt Donovan's eyes on him; he glanced up at her, his gaze sliding to Sherlock and back again, an anxious question on his face.

She offered him her best approximation of a smile, given the circumstances, and a nod that she hoped was reassuring. He responded in kind.

"Not long now," she repeated to Sherlock.

The sirens swallowed all other sound.

THE END

Vital Stats: Originally written in November 2011.