A/N It has been awhile. Honestly everything but the last paragraph has been written for a long time, but I found it hard to finally post this one. As I said last time this is rooted firmly in PRE-Season 4 of Sherlock. Any thing that happens in that season has no bearing on the canon of this story. I am actually staying a season behind until I finish writing this. Given my current speed I may never watch it lol. Anyone still reading I sincerely thank you. Not to be the type to beg for reviews, but honestly the nice things people have written to me are the only reason I have written anything in the last 2 years (OH Gosh I can't believe that its been so long). Third acts are hard and we've just broken into the home stretch.

oOo

Lestrade felt like lead as he made his way down the hall to his flat. The day had been draining, he had felt himself on the razor's edge waiting for any word from Serene. He knew her phone had died, he knew she was away with Sherlock and he trusted she would come to him tonight. However every text had sent his hands fumbling and his heart racing, he was disappointed again and again when it had not been her. No wonder men his age had heart attacks in pub washrooms, even a half relationship with a gorgeous French woman made him feel tired.

He made it to his door and paused to look at it. He ran a hand along the jamb willing the door to tell him if it had been recently picked. He was certain it hadn't. He unlocked the door and was greeted by the dimness of an empty home. He walked through without turning on the lights, the modest window in his living room let in enough twilight for him to shuffle about. He dropped his keys on the coffee table and shrugged out of his coat. He unbuttoned his cuffs rolling them to his elbows and dropped unceremoniously onto his couch. He rocked back and forth settling himself into the worn groove. He felt his eyes droop and the sounds outside his flat grew distant.

Sherlock had Serene pressed against him. It was dark and the whiteness his skin seemed to glow. Lestrade tried to focus his eyes. They seemed very far away, but also very close. He was trying hard to get up and walk towards them. He couldn't seem to move, or see them clearly, but he knew with burning heart wrenching certainty that he had been betrayed. Sherlock was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't make out the sense of it.

He woke up to the chirp of his cellphone. He grunted and blinked hard. A dream then, a bloody jealous dream about Sherlock Holmes. The room had gone dark, the light no longer the lavender of twilight, but instead the polluted darkness of a London evening. Serene had still not come. He checked his phone, hoping the message had been from her.

Instead some garbled spam stared back at him, a link to a dodgy website and sort of promise of money wired to his account. He angrily clicked out and threw his solid, department issue out of date blackberry onto the coffee table. He needed a drink.

Sherlock Holmes paced his flat, dropping pages from the crisp dossier his brother had couriered over to him hours ago. He had bounded up the stairs to find it leaning forlornly against the door to his flat. It was, for the most part, garbage. His brother was being willful again. This was not worth the trade he had offered and was certainly not all there was to know about Curt Hayes. Which left the question why had Mycroft bothered?

His thoughts were disturbed by the doorbell, minimal pressure barely made a noise before it was silenced again, someone then who knew the occupants and felt guilty about the hour. Not someone with keys or the ability to pick locks. Lestrade. He heard the familiar tread on the stair, one foot falling slightly heavier than the other, but not from an injury.

The door barely opened, Lestrade slipped himself through and made his way purposefully down the short stretch of hall. He was already talking.

"Right, I didn't want to be the one to do this." His hand held in front of him, his eyes roving the room, fixing anywhere a person could be sitting. Landing finally hesitantly on the door to Sherlock's bedroom. Sherlock had stopped pacing and stood still observing him. "I'm not a jealous man, but surely you've found a wall socket and a phone charger by now."

Lestrade's eyes are pleading with Sherlock for something that is beyond his understanding. He can see all the pieces but his mind won't allow him to put them together.

"If you are under the impression I am hiding Dr. Laurent somewhere in this flat, I'm not." Sherlock's eyes narrow, focusing on the pulse in Lestrade's neck, the way his shirt is crumpled but his jacket is not. He had been to his apartment then, had been there for a couple hours. "In fact, I dropped her outside of yours several hours ago."

"What?" Lestrade was giving him that slack jawed look again. Sherlock brushed passed him already making his way to the street.

"I assume you drove Detective Inspector?"

The question rouses Lestrade from his confusion and he follows Sherlock out of 221B Baker street.

Serene gasped as her head emerged from the luke warm basin of water, a hand was knotted painfully in her hair and the rivers that ran from her scalp to her wide gaping mouth caused her to choke more. There was no moment for her to catch her breath as she was being bent forward again into the water. She was held there until her body began to panic and convulse. Her instincts were to open her mouth to gasp and draw in air, but she would draw in only the bitter water that she had been spitting and drowning in for an hour. She was pulled up again. She tried to order her mind. Who had her? What did the water taste of? How many clues could she gather before she was forced back into the water?

Her hands, she had forgotten her limbs as her mind narrowed to the hand at the back of her head and her burning lungs. In the moment her head was forced in the water again she tested the limits of her limbs. Her ankles were shackled, but her hands were in front of her. By the feel of it she was zip tied. She had one chance then, it may bring on something worse than this slow death, but at least she could try. As the hand yanked her up again she pushed into and she felt the small give of someone trying to keep their balance. She was choking and coughing, but with her last bit of focus she brought her wrists painfully down onto her thighs. She felt the burn and snap of the plastic breaking. She was still blinded by water and she could barely walk, but her hands went to where she guessed the eyes of her attacker would be. There was a grunt of rage before she felt herself falling backwards. A weight landed on her, pinning her to the ground. She felt a stab of a needle in her neck and before she could see more than the flourescent light set in a plaster roof the world disapeared.

Mycroft laughed to himself as he saw Dodson struggle with the wet woman on the other side of the glass. It was barely a laugh, to his PA it sounded only like a sharp breath of air through his nose. It had been years since he had seen a civilian undergo Dodson's special skills, and it was evident from the current tangle of limbs on the worn linoleum that he had underestimated his target. It was a foolish mistake leaving her hands in front of her like that. Of course this part was only meant to scare her, she hadn't even been asked questions yet. He hoped Dodson hadn't used too much sodium pentathol, Dr. Laurent deserved a slightly more dignified end, even if she had maligned herself with the wrong Holmes Brother.

The street lights zipped across the windshield like small glowing orbs. Lestrade couldn't believe he had let Sherlock drive his car, but here he was sitting in the passenger seat desperately trying to organize his thoughts. Sherlock had dropped Serene at his apartment hours ago, but she had never made it inside. There were no good options. She had intended to meet him, she wouldn't have gone to his apartment to never even set foot inside and Lestrade was certain she had not been inside his flat. He may not be as sharp as Sherlock Holmes but he was certainly no dullard. His lock was unpicked and his apartment unentered. So who had taken her? Sherlock seemed to have a guess, as he had immediately thrown on his coat and demanded Lestrade's keys. The streets he was turning down were familiar, they seemed to be returning to his apartment. A fact that was confirmed when they pulled to a stop in front of the dull grey brick of his flat.

Lestrade jumped out of the car, turning back to peer in the car.

"You coming, then?"

He heard the locks on his own car clunk shut and Sherlock shifted it back into gear.

"It may not seem like it now, Lestrade, but I have just done you a favour."

And with that Sherlock veered back into traffic leaving a baffled Lestrade on his street corner.

"Blasted sod. You have my keys!" He shouted fruitlessly to the car that was quickly speeding away.

With Lestrade booted from the car Sherlock allowed himself to let loose his anger. He banged on the steering wheel cursing his damn brother. Of course it was Mycroft. He should have known from looking at that pathetic file, Mycroft didn't need to give him anything as he was going to capture an even more valuable prize. Fine, he could play hangman.

Serene came to gasping and restrained to a chair. Her hair and the front of her shirt clung to her still sopping. She had not been out long then, the back her throat tasted like garlic, sodium pentathol. That explained the nausea. It also predicted what was about to happen, she was going to be questioned. It was also not a drug that could be easily procured, unless you were a hospital or a government agency. Mr. Holmes then. It must be that they had found something to make a solid connection between Graham and her.

She heard the scrape of a chair. It hurt to lift her head, but she wanted to see the man that had her so entirely at his mercy. He pulled the chair up close to her, his knees practically touching hers. He looked older than he was, his skin was weathered and his hair had been dyed too black for his complexion.

"What's your name?" His voice was strained, he was angry at her. She glances around the room and sees the murky black glass of a two way mirror. There had been an audience then, when she had knocked them back to the ground. She had embarrassed him. He was invested some way in what he was about to ask her.

"Serene Michelle Laurent"

"Do you know why you are here?"

"Non"

"Do you know where you are?"

"Non"

"What does the name Black Hearth mean to you?"

Immediately images flooded Serene's mind of the silent men that stood watch over Graham. Their eyes constantly scanning the edge of the camp. They had expressed no interest in her when she lived briefly among them. Even though Graham had assigned one of them to be her private guard he never looked directly at her but some far off point behind her. He had not even had a name, they called him only Gamma. On ocassion other names had been whispered between them as they walked in rows on either side of Graham, 'Alpha', 'Romeo', 'Uniform'. The NATO Phonetic alphabet. She doubted they related directly to any piece of their identity.

"Ils étaient des soldats dans le village. Ils ont tué des gens."

"You understand English?"

Had she not been speaking English? Her head felt cloudy. Her body started to fall forward again.

Mycroft allowed himself a wry smile on the otherside of the glass. Truth serum was decidedly less effective when the brain had to sort between more than one language.

"Sir?" His PA said from somewhere over his left shoulder. Her voice always had a slightly bored quality.

"I am currently watching Dodson try and stretch his grade school french. It is ever so diverting." Mycroft turned slowly to her, preparing his icy smile. "What I am saying is this better be worth my turning around."

"Your brother has arrived."

"Reign in Dodson for me, tell him play time is over until I return." Mycroft barely inclined his head towards the glass. His PA's lips barely pressed together. It was her one tell. Dodson frightened her, or at least made her question something within herself.

Sherlock was pacing back and forth in Mycroft's office. Of course there was nothing on the desk, not even a pen. The room was devoid of anything that might suggest the man who occupied it, even the books which lined wall were impersonal replicas. Cardboard spines mounted on boards, their titles meaningless garbled words. Not that anyone would have the courage to try and remove a book from the shelf. Sherlock felt a tingle relentlessly down his spine, his fingers fidgeted, and he tried to order his mind. He heard the door click shut and the smallest pad of a leather shoe on carpet. Sherlock paused.

"Really Brother Mine, you look a bit peaky."

"Don't provoke me Mycroft, you know why I am here." He barely inclines his head in Mycroft's direction.

Mycroft walks passed by him to sit at his desk. Calm and collected. Everything Sherlock did not feel in that moment.

"There is some very convincing research that serious head injuries can cause mood swings, depression and drastic changes in personality. I have been wondering if that little fall you took has made you sentimental, brother."

"Are you torturing her?"

Mycroft leaned back, tenting his fingers and watching Sherlock over the long digits. He looked to all outside eyes the bewildered and introspective politician.

"Coercion is a better word, after all the Crown does not torture foreign citizens, bad for business."

"What's there to coerce? She is an entomologist.-"

"Have you really allowed yourself to become enraptured with someone so ordinary?"

"She doesn't know where he is. And nothing she could have known in Costa Rica would be of value to you now."

"In the last 48 hours she has had more access to a known terrorist than the British Government has had in an entire decade. That is not insignificant. Nor is it insignificant that within 72 hours of meeting her you have become a man consumed."

"Is that what is eating at you, Brother, that Dr. Laurent has my respect?"

"Is that what you want to call it?" Mycroft raised his eyebrow, his voice dripping with pity. It made Sherlock want to scream. He had barely slept, barely eaten and now his brother was sitting a scant few feet in front of him pushing all of his buttons. He felt reckless.

There was a dangerous light in Sherlock's eyes, Mycroft could see it burning and he watched his long fingers clench subconsciously. Normally this was his brother in need of a fix. A wiley uncertain creature who would fall upon the street hungry for oblivion. The fix in this instance was a woman. There was embarrassment as well, he wasn't used to seeing it in the set of his brother's jaw, but he could see it now. The situation was humiliating he supposed. Not only had this woman chosen an older, inferior man as her paramour, but now Sherlock must beg her freedom from his own brother. The situation did not lend itself to subtlety.

"Give me what I want, and I will release her."

"Really Brother, I am shocked I need to tell you. Are you losing your edge? Or is it the men under you have become even more useless? One visit to his apartment would tell you all you need to know."

"Or you could tell me, save Dr. Laurent some unnecessary discomfort." Sherlock was silent. Is it possible his brother really meant to test how far he would go? "A few hours ago you were offering me everything I am asking for now in exchange for the information on Curtis Hayes. Now you won't give me what you promised in exchange for the woman."

"Not the woman, a woman. I feel you have over stated her importance Mycroft. She is merely a tool in solving this case."

"And what case is that? From my understanding this was all finished the night you met Dr. Laurent. The killer was shot in an alley in the middle of murdering the good doctor. You are drawing it out unnecessarily. Are you trying to impress her?"

Sherlock swallowed hard, Mycroft was looking at him so calmly. Did he know? He had been to see Serene in her apartment, or more accurately his apartment, he could have easily found the answer without stepping from the elevator. Had Mycroft really been so distracted he had not seen the obvious. What had been weighing on his brother's mind? Weighing so heavily that he now had a woman he knew to be useless to him trapped in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence. The useless file on Curtis Hayes, the abduction of Serene and even, he now saw, the subtle hints at removing Lestrade from him. There was an unlikely factor he had not considered until now, it was something so unbelievably unlikely that it was in a strange way the only thing that made sense.

His brother knew, he knew about the coins, he knew about whatever shadowy figure Sherlock had been chasing. And even more important he wanted to keep Sherlock away from it. Mycroft knew that telling Sherlock as much would only drive him harder into the case, so he had done the one thing that could distract him; taken away Serene. Mycroft did not know Serene though, he did not know her loneliness or her affection for the man whose head Mycroft was asking for or the deeply disappointing way she was so tied to Lestrade. It was a gamble, but one which could pay off perfectly for Sherlock. Serene; scared, grieving and terrified of revealing to Lestrade the secrets she had been hiding would be driven directly to him. She would be vulnerable to influence and could be made to focus even harder on the case. Free from Lestrade, free from the distraction of the man she was trying to hide, her mind could reach its full potential.

"It seems I have been out played," Sherlock turned to his brother mimicking the impervious mask of disbelief his brother had affected earlier.

"So it seems." Mycroft inclined his head imperilously.

"I shall return to my flat then, I trust Dr. Laurent will be returned to hers."

"Conditionally, if I like your answer brother."

"Really Mycroft," Sherlock laughed disdainfully as he tucked his hands in his pockets. "One needs only to walk from the street to the elevator to know where your prey is hiding."

"Have a good evening Sherlock. Behave." Mycroft dismissed him with barely a glance and affected some pantomime of business with the paper on his desk.

Sherlock walked from his office and out into the night. He figured he had around 90 minutes before Serene came to him. Enough time to return Lestrade's car and return to Baker street. He hoped that Mycroft at least felt idiotic. Although the average person did not think twice when a hotel or apartment did not have a 13th floor and accepted it as superstition, it took only the most casual of glances from the street to see that Serene's building did have one, it was just the elevator did not stop there. And it took no observation at all to know that Serene conveniently lived on the 12th floor. The answer then had been simple, the man Mycroft sought was hiding in his own apartment, where the elevator did not stop.

Serene was dizzy, she was no longer soaking wet. Someone it seemed had changed her shirt. That realization was more terrifying than all the moments she had been awake for; that her body had been placid and vulnerable. She had nearly drowned in a basin of water but that moment didn't compare to the empty space of lost time she was now faced with. The moments before she had been roused by being held under water, and the way time had jerked forward for her in strange disjointed hours. It was now she felt sometime before midnight. She was in the back of a car with a thick bullet proof plate glass obscuring the driver. The windows too were heavily tinted. It gave the impression of traveling in a plush box. She did not know why she had been released and she was not entirely sure what she had been asked, even the man's face was hazy to her, it had all felt very real in the moment. However now she couldn't grasp any solid picture of what had transpired. She knew there was no escape from this black box, but she did not know where they were taking her, she reclined in the plush seat and tried to order her mind. She felt herself drifting back to sleep.

When she woke again she was in a hotel room, in bed on her side. The clock read 12:20 AM. She had not been there long. She sat up quickly making the room spin, she whipped her head around expecting to find an agent watching her. There was no one. She quickly ran her hands over her body, she was still dressed except her shoes, but she had no cellphone. Serene stumbled from the bed, fighting with the tangle of blankets that seemed to grip her limbs and pull her backwards. She felt drunk as she swayed her way to her shoes. She nearly fell over trying to pull them on, she did fall into the door as she rushed towards it. The thud was unreasonably loud and she giggled. Soon she was leaning against the door barely holding herself up, laughing so hard tears streamed down her face. She had to get herself together. She surveyed the room, judging from the window she was on the third floor of a hotel, facing the back alley. There was no windows across from her, nor were there any signs of a security camera. She was not under tight surveillance then, they probably assumed she would be out until morning.

She did notice the phone had been removed. Everything else about the nightstand pointed to its absence. No matter, the only number she knew by heart was Gregory's and while she felt a pang of regret she had not made it to him tonight, she could not involve him. Not until she knew Graham was safe. The world had stopped spinning enough she was able to peep her head out the door.

The hallway was empty. She could see a security camera at the end of the hall. They could watch her then, if they wanted. She closed the door and looked around her room again. There was no phone, or television or computer. She began pulling out all the drawers. and emptying their meager contents onto the bedspread. She found very little a pad of hotel note paper, a bottle opener, a laminated plastic menu for room service and the remote for the television which was strangely absent. She lay on her stomach and looked under the bed. Next she felt along the edge of the mattress hoping that this hotel was not as clean as under the bed suggested. She paused as she felt her fingers brush what she had been hoping for. The thin sharp edge of a foil packet. With shaking hands she tugged at the slip hoping it was not just the corner. From between the night stand, in the rim of the bed spring she pulled out the mangled shred of a condom wrapper. It was thin and torn. She would only get one shot. The back of the remote was sealed to prevent anyone easily accessing the batteries. With the help of the bottle opener she was able to pry the back free. She looked around the room for the smoke detector. If they were watching the hotel she would have only one chance to escape and that was through an unexpected commotion. She tore off many pages of the notepad, twisting them into a make shift torch. She carried her bounty to beneath the smoke detector and readied her materials. She held one end of the condom wrapper on the battery, she lined them up over her paper and lifted her hands like a sun salutation towards the smoke detector. She barely reached, she prayed she would be close enough. With clumsy hands she completed the circuit. Almost immediately the heat began to grow and the foil ignited, quicky catching the paper. Serene dropped the battery, sucking on her singed finger as she reached the rapidly burning torch upwards to the smoke detector. At first as the flame burned quickly towards her hand she thought she would run out of paper before she could set off the alarm. That her attempts had failed, but then like a heavenly chorus the fire alarm burst above her. Wailing in her ears she ran to the toilet shaking the flames out before the reached her hand. She unceremoniously chucked the nub of smoldering paper into the toilet before dashing out of her hotel door. The quiet hotel was coming to life around her, she heard scurrying as people were roused by the fire alarm and quickly made it to the hall way. A crowd of people formed in a confused jumble of pajamas, robes and blankets, each person bleary eyed and stumbling towards the stair.

Serene allowed herself to be caught up in the waves of people and carried into the street. She stayed in the back of the crowd as best she could until the reached the street. There she saw the black car parked across the street. As more people filled the front of the hotel she heard the car door close as an agent no doubt got ready to find her. It would not do to let a woman knocked out on sodium pentathol die in a burning building. The wail of the fire alarm was soon drowned out by the blaring fire trucks. Serene tried to make herself as small as possible as the agent ran through the crowd following the fire fighters into the building.

Free from observation Serene was able to slip into the night. She would have less than half an hour to make it to Graham before the agents realized she was not passed out in her bed nor was she in the crowd. It would be obvious where the fire had come from. She knew this street though, and she knew her apartment was not more than a ten minute walk from there. It made sense they couldn't drop her penniless and drugged on the opposite side of London. Serene knew she could make it in four minutes if she ran.

In the end it took her nearly twenty, once the adrenaline of the fire wore off she found her body sluggish and tired. She entered the lobby of her apartment, not knowing what she might look like, she knew she was a fool to think that Ministry of Defense would not have people watching her, but the lobby was empty and so was the street outside. Perhaps they had tapped into the security cameras. Deep within her the thought that their absence was a sign that they had completed their work sat like a small ball of thorns. It was all already out of her hands. She allowed the iris scanner to scan her eyes and the gentle whir of the elevator to lift her up, knowing her return had been logged somewhere far off and that she was no more than a mouse in a maze for Mycroft Holmes.

She felt both cold and hot as she made her way to her apartment door, her stomach felt like it was falling through the floor to the many stories below her. The door to her flat sat slightly ajar, the person who left had not bothered to close it properly. This was a small blessing as her keys had disappeared with her phone and wallet, but she knew it meant only one thing. She leant her head for a moment on the door, her hand bracing the knob so it would not swing forward before she was ready. She muttered into the door jamb in a jumble of words, to a passerby it might look like she was praying. In truth it was an apology, to Graham, to his house, to his family. She let the door knob go.

The door swung open and she could see him. Slumped in a chair facing the door. The chair had been moved, his placement intentional. If she did not want to she could leave the apartment now. Instead with small deliberate steps she walked towards him. The gun was clenched in his hand and the shot had gone in his right temple. Graham was left handed, but this would not matter. She knelt in front of him, barely breathing. With numb fingers she reached beneath his shirt where it was unbuttoned. Her fingers grazed his chest, she hoped to find it warm, but he was cold. The coin was gone.