Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, but he owns me.

A/N: Surprised myself. Found the time to write another 5k words. BOOM!

I may post another chapter this month (February 2015), or I may not. It won't be long between chapters, so don't worry.

Read, enjoy, review.

Chapter 66

"Thicker Than Blood"

January 19th

Early Morning

Somewhere in London

No one will harm you. Get out of the car, Violet.

Violet shuddered, gripping her mobile so tight the case creaked. She dug one-handed through the folds of her coat, finally grasping the handle of her Taser, eyes lifting to scan the area around the Jaguar in which she sat.

The warehouse was decrepit, crumbling around the car, the pavement reduced to gravel, water dripping and pooling in the shadows. It was quiet enough she could hear the drip drip drip of oily water, the scent of long-ago chemicals filling the car with the air system off.

She jumped as the mobile chimed again.

Now, my child.

What? What does…who is this?

Violet felt a river of unease, and terrible curiosity run through her core, and her hand was moving for the door handle before she gave thought to leaving the car. She opened the door and stood, clutching her coat together under her chin, a stiff breeze billowing about her feet. The wind caught the door and slammed it shut, and she was thankful she maintained her grip on her mobile and Taser, the weapon hidden in the folds of her coat.

Echoes bounced along the concrete walls in the darkness, the morning light too weak to penetrate too far into the warehouse. The sound of the door shutting traveled deep into the cavernous dark ahead of her, and she stared, somehow knowing that her abductor was there, watching.

"This is all Mycroft's style, all cloak and dagger and old world mystique," she called lightly, her voice echoing, "Though you did have to resort to subterfuge to get me here."

No response…..at first. She heard it, faintly at first, then with more certainty as it grew louder.

Someone was chuckling.

It was rich and deep, velvety and smooth, like the finest chocolate. It came out from the shadows, and seeped into her pores. A current of something powerful ran over her skin, akin to static discharge, prickling and energizing. This sound was familiar, so close to another's laughter that she was about to call a man's name, but someone who couldn't possibly be here…

"I can hear you, show yourself," she challenged, stepping away from the car, towards where she thought the sound originated. Shoulders back, chin up, she refused to show fear.

It may have been her imagination, but she thought she saw a silhouette, tall and slim, a shadow among shadows, darkness against darkness. There was movement, and Violet braved another few steps forward. She peered hard, almost able to see the defined shape of something. She wanted, needed to see who dared copy Mycroft Holmes, dared to take her from under Sherlock's nose.

She wanted to see who would call her Holmes, and call her child.

"Who are you?" she asked again, quietly, closer now, so close the darkness was defined, the tall shape before her a man most definitely.

"My darling, you know who I am," rumbled her apparition in the darkness. He was closer than she thought, a mere arm's reach away.

"Holy fuck!" Violet gasped, stumbling back a step, ready to fall. She lost her grip on mobile and Taser, and they clattered to the gravel as she fell too. She cringed, anticipating the scrape of cold stone and the chill of damp clothes.

Until death-white hands reached out from the black, and lifted her back to her feet, cradled gently in steel-bands that resembled arms. She was held in the lightest of embraces, against a solid frame of a muscular man, hands pressed to muscles under a fine silk shirt pulled tight across his chest. The fabric was cool to the touch, but the warmth of the flesh underneath gave credence to the fact that this was no ghost, but a man.

A ghost, a dream, a hallucination…he can't be here.

A hand buried itself in her hair on the back of her head, and she found herself hugging the stranger, face resting on the column of his lean neck. She breathed in, and the scent of freshly carved wood and hot metal swept across her senses.

A dream, a sweet, impossible dream….memory and present overlapped. She'd felt these arms around her before…long ago.

A kiss dusted gently over her brow, and she sighed.

I am dreaming. This is a dream…..

Her heart knew who this was. Her mind, the ever effervescent and quicksilver tool of the Holmes lineage, was at once quieted, shocked by the impossibility of the reality she was currently experiencing. Her eyes closed, her shoulders relaxed, and she rested, feeling at once safer, and more endangered, never more alive than this instant in time….

"Not possible," she exhaled lightly, wrapping her arms more securely around the lean waist under the thick long coat. The chill of the abandoned warehouse was banished, and the creepy environment no longer held any danger for her. She was in the arms of the deadliest creature to ever walk the halls of mankind, and she had nothing to fear. "This is a dream, it must be….because this is impossible."

She would never fear her own father. She couldn't.

He loved her, a fact she knew better than the most basic of base code in programming.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth," he murmured in her ear, and she could hear the smile in his words.

"I think I've gone mad at last, just like my uncles…and my father," she replied, smiling now as well in the shadows. "I should be screaming, and running, but all I want is for you to hold me. I've gone mad."

"There is no shame in madness, my daughter. For we Holmes do it with flair and originality, and eclipse all lesser mortals," Sherrinford Holmes assured her, and Violet snorted in laughter. Her father's answering chuckle drifted in the darkness, and Violet embraced the dream, even if it was insanity.

"Welcome home, Violet Holmes."

Highgate Cemetery

January 19th

Greg dialed, eyeing Sherlock as the detective glared at him with an intensity in his celestial gaze that threatened to burn a hole in his skull.

"Gregory? Is something wrong?" Mycroft asked as the line opened, which wasn't surprising since it was barely over an hour since they'd seen each other last.

"Did you send for Violet?" Greg asked, kicking at some ice clumps as he paced between markers. He put the mobile on Speaker, and Sherlock didn't even acknowledge the courtesy, so focused was he.

"I sent a car for her just a moment ago, yes," Mycroft answered, mildly exasperated. His voice sounded faraway and tinny through the mobile's speakers, the wind not helping. "Tell Sherlock he cannot monopolize her time, she has chosen to assist me, and unless she chooses otherwise…"

"Darling, did you send a car that picked her up a couple of minutes ago, or did you just send the car for her now?" Greg stressed, seeing the need for the distinction in Sherlock's demeanor.

"The car cannot have picked her up, as it has yet to reach Highgate…Who has Violet?" Mycroft roared over the phone, his mind making the intuitive leap that someone else had Violet.

"I was hoping that was you. A car we all thought was one of yours picked her up about five minutes ago, and Sherlock is convinced she was abducted," Greg quickly filled his lover in, warily giving Sherlock room as he prowled along the roadway, moving like a predator about to pounce upon prey.

"For all his faults he is correct more often than he is wrong," Mycroft stated curtly. "I've started a trace on her mobile. It will find her in thirty seconds, standby."

The three of them, John, Greg and Sherlock, waited in the cemetery, surrounded by the long dead, and the recently departed. The living all gave them a wide berth, Sherlock's stance and eyes conveying his need to rend idiots and fools limb from limb. The wind howled, a hollow sound that sucked any joy and hope from the false cheer of the golden morning light.

"I have her. Abandoned warehouse, outskirts of town. I've sent the coordinates to your mobile, and alerted MI6." Mycroft spoke swiftly, and Greg's mobile chimed as it received the information. "Gregory, retrieve my niece and bring her to me, along with the fools who dared to take what is mine."

"C'mon boys, I've got the place here," Greg said as the line dropped, waving his mobile. Though he wasn't fool enough to think Mycroft wasn't aware of everything going on around them. Once the spymaster's eye moved to a target, he rarely missed a thing.

The Warehouse

"Come, my dear. They are coming for you, we have little time left," Sherrinford said, and Violet blinked up at him, suddenly tired and lethargic.

"What? Who's coming?" she murmured, raising a hand to her temple, a dull throb building in her head. "What's wrong with my head?"

"There was a sedative expelled as an aerosol in the car just before you stepped out, so as to keep you from panicking. An unnecessary step, but I was convinced by my companion that wasting time calming you would lead to my capture. He was right, though I do apologize," her father replied as he stepped back, taking a firm hold on her elbow, holding her steady as she weaved on her feet. "Just breathe, child, the effects will wear off in a few moments."

"Dad, did you drug me?" she tried to shriek, albeit quietly, the drugs keeping her from getting too worked up.

"Yes, Violet, I did. You're perfectly fine, I'd never hurt you."

"You're all the same," she said quietly, snorting on a giggle that tried to break free. "Sherlock does things like that all the time."

"Though with less finesse, I assume," Sherrinford answered, helping her walk along the broken floor of the warehouse. Her half boots were stylish and sexy, though ill-suited to walking on rough terrain. She was thankful for his hand on her arm even as she resented the necessity.

"He messes around with the dosage too much, I've been lucky enough to not get caught," Violet said, and finally laughed, the peal ringing out through the vast empty space as they neared a rear wall. "He gets John on a weekly basis. Took my daddy to bring me low." She laughed again, and Sherrinford smiled at the joyful sound. She wanted to skip, but couldn't tell her legs to move right.

"Are you really here? I though Mycroft killed you," she mused, trying not to pout. He gave her an indulgent look, lips quirked in a small twist. "And I thought you were a monster. My Daddy, the serial killer. Why are you so nice to me?"

"Mycroft tried, I am, and because I love you, my child," he patiently answered, and Violet had to take a second to think about his answers.

"I know you do," she whispered, and she was suddenly dizzy. Her head found his shoulder, his arm around her hips, holding her up as they kept walking away from the car. "Never doubted that."

"Never?" he whispered as the shadows swallowed them whole.

"The only thing I remembered about you was that you loved me," she whispered back, just as she passed out.

Sherrin slung his daughter up into his arms, striding from the main floor of the warehouse to a rear loading dock where the limo waited, idling. She was all long limbs and loose elegance, her flawless features relaxed in slumber. The drugs were hitting her harder than anticipated. He had been looking forward to talking to her in the car during the ride to his safe-house, but he would content himself with holding his wayward child in his arms instead.

So many years wasted as her mother hid her from him, his child grown and now a woman. A brilliant, intelligent, beautiful and talented woman. And yet still his little girl.

"Too much happy gas?" James asked as he got out of the driver's side of the limo and opened the rear door for him and his precious burden. James had already removed the disguise he'd worn to the cemetery, and the wild look was back in his dark eyes, no longer hidden by the shades.

"She took too long deciding to get out. A miscalculation on your part," Sherrin said, giving his companion a hard glance before gliding across the seat, his daughter safe in his arms.

"No worse for the experience," James replied, and he laughed quietly to himself as he got in the limo and pulled away from the warehouse. "I told you this would work."

"You drop the mobile?" he asked through the open partition, navigating the limo down a narrow alley between warehouses. They were not too far away from where Jaime Moriarty nearly lost her life saving Violet. At that thought, Sherrin held her closer, tucking her beneath his chin, her lovely face relaxed in sleep.

"She did, actually," Sherrin answered, "I just declined to remind her."

Violet's head lolled across his arm, and he put a hand on her fair cheek, brushing away strands of her long black hair. It was the longest it had been in years, as if she felt it were finally safe to let herself go, here in London. She was obviously starting to think of this place as home. That pleased him; it was his intention to call London home as well.

He saw in her face his own; he saw her mother too. Her smile, the way she looked sideways at others, the way she moved. Many of those traits were similar to his own, but were mostly her mother's. The lovely, the eternally missed, Evangeline. His first, and only love.

James was dear to him, closer than any who had ever dared to love him, but what he felt for the eldest Moriarty was nothing compared to the love he felt for the child in his arms, and the woman who birthed her. It took him years, but he eventually found his wayward wife and child.

Too late to save Evangeline, her illness progressed past the point of hope. Violet, already a self-sufficient and highly capable young girl of thirteen, managed to evade the long reach of the American child services, and the men he'd sent to retrieve her. She'd erased herself from the system, by the brashest and most devious means possible, and gone to ground. He hadn't found her again until she'd returned to England, and met her uncles, purely by chance.

Or so she thought.

By the grace of the genetic lottery he was a fair hand at mathematics and engineering, and often made forays into computer and software programming. It was during one of his artistic dry spells that he came across hints of an intrepid young hacker, who many in the underground ethos of the internet claimed was the creator of the mythical Clean Slate. He knew how Violet managed to disappear, as the clues were there for anyone smart enough to put the pieces together; so this young hacker could very well be his daughter.

He'd hacked the hacker; he found she was searching for information on colleges and schools in England. Here in London, actually. And she did not know it, but her uncle, the young Sherlock, was going to the very same university that both her father and her mother had attended years before. It was too perfect a chance. He stopped chasing his child, and let her come home, and she thought the whole time it was her idea.

It took some doing, but laying the groundwork, the suggestions into her searches and research for her to attend the very same university as her family were planted. And so the youngest Holmes came home at last, and with her father watching as best he could from across the Channel, Violet met her uncles, first the youngest, then the middle Holmes son.

Sherlock acted predictably, discerning most of Violet's past and then her identity in fairly short order. The emotional implications kept Sherlock removed for a time, but Violet's nature and her personality eventually won over her uncle. Mycroft was the real surprise; instead of completely ignoring the young woman loosely attached to his brother's small circle of acquaintances, Mycroft utilized her skills, and monitored her influence on his younger brother. Sherrin was still amazed Mycroft hadn't recognized Violet for who she was immediately, but then Mycroft had a talent for denial. His guilt over betraying and killing, so he thought, his eldest brother must have done much to damage his psyche.

Sherlock and Mycroft may not have been the best to guard a young woman of fifteen, but despite his animosity towards his younger siblings, Sherrinford knew that both Sherlock and Mycroft would never let anything irreparable happen to his only child. They were the perfect watchdogs, even if they thought they'd made the decision to play her guardians themselves.

For their entire lives he'd manipulated and controlled them, and this would be no different. It was time for his daughter to claim her heritage, take her place by his side, and choose.

Choose if she would be her mother's daughter, or her father's.

Now all he had to do was ensure that when her uncles died, that Violet's love for him would outweigh her hatred and anger. She loved Sherlock and Mycroft; she would just have to love him more.

It would be a daunting task, but one he'd accomplished before. After all, her mother died still loving him.

Mycroft exited the town car, taking in the flurry of activity around the abandoned warehouse where Violet's mobile GPS signal was last pinged. According to his techs, the device was still active, and somewhere inside the building.

"Sir! You can't go in there yet, we haven't cleared the building!" a man in tactical gear yelled as he tried to stop Sherlock as he shrugged off a restraining hand, John Watson on his heels as always.

"The building is clear, you fool! She isn't here anymore, too much time was wasted!" Sherlock retorted over his shoulder as he entered the open bay doors, John with his weapon out at his side, sweeping in front of them as they disappeared into the shadows.

"Sorry, darling, neither Sherlock nor John would wait," Gregory said as he moved to his side, out of breath. "Her mobile is still inside, and was active just a few minutes ago. She could be in there."

Mycroft eyed the building, and came to the same conclusion as his younger brother. Violet was no longer here. This area was a warren of back alleys and roads, buildings and access points. She was gone.

"No, Sherlock is right. Violet is gone," Mycroft stepped away from the car, and made for the building, Gregory at his side. "Her mobile is here, but she won't be. Access the CCTVs in the immediate vicinity, live feed and rewind twenty minutes."

"On it," Gregory said, calling over a young officer and whispering instructions to him, even as he watched Mycroft approach the open doors.

Gregory caught up to him as Mycroft made the doors, but both men stopped as Sherlock and John materialized from the shadows, Sherlock holding Violet's flashy and very high-tech mobile in his hand.

"What is it?" Mycroft asked impatiently, and John gave him a small, tight smile, the one Mycroft always assumed John wore in battle. It was less a smile and more of an unspoken promise of violence.

"Whoever took her knew her, knew we would be coming for her in short order, and made every effort not to scare her," Sherlock said, and he tossed the mobile. Mycroft barely caught it, but he saw the texts clearly enough. "She got out of the car willingly, and spoke for some time with her abductor. She dropped her Taser along with her mobile. I saw no signs she tried to pick either up again. Though I am concerned, tracks suggest she was carried out at some point."

"So she knew her abductor, but did not go with him or her willingly. I'll have a search made on her mobile and laptop, run her acquaintances here in town, see if anyone she knew has recently come to the city." Mycroft waved hand at a nearby MI6 agent, who was close enough to have heard his wishes. The agent melted into the crowd, presumably to begin implementing his instructions.

"There was a smell in the car," John murmured. "Harsh, yet sweet. Very chemical."

"A gaseous sedative, used to keep her calm," Sherlock said, turning to face the darkness in the building.

"Who could do this, and why Violet?" John mused, looking back in the same direction as Sherlock.

"Many have wanted Violet, for similar reasons. Woodley was the outlier," Mycroft offered, voice stark and barren of inflection. Greg put a hand on his shoulder, offering silent support. He was glad for the touch and what it offered, though he showed no sign of it outwardly.

"She was to be in your care now, brother," Sherlock snarled suddenly, and the glare he leveled at Mycroft made him instinctively retreat a step. Greg held him steady, but the wrath emanating from his little brother was a live thing, and he was surprised that the air wasn't burning from the strength of his emotions.

"Sherlock! This is no one's fault!" John admonished. "We'll find her, I promise."

A quickly as the rage appeared it was gone just as fast, Sherlock returned to his usual apathetic pose. His eyes, carved stones from the sky, burned with an intensity that left the still vulnerable part of Mycroft's heart aching. Sherlock gave him a stare he could not decipher, yet when his brother pulled his eyes away, he felt judged, and found wanting.

Sherlock spun on his heels, his coat and scarf flying high on the wind, curls lifted with his movement. John gave him and Greg an apologetic smile, before chasing after his lover.

"Haven't seen him like that in a while," Greg murmured.

"He'll bear watching, my love," Mycroft told him softly, watching until the lean shadow of his brother and his doctor were out of sight, "Whoever took Violet will not have time to fear me; Sherlock will tear them apart before we get there."

"Better get moving then, don't want to be too far behind him. I'm used to cleaning up behind your brother, but that doesn't mean I like doing it," Greg said, and Mycroft let him pull him back towards the cars.

"Why take Violet in such a way?" Sherlock spoke, startling John where he sat beside his lover in the cab.

"Maybe it was easier?" John replied, trying to help.

"Explain," Sherlock ordered. Though John knew better than to assume Sherlock needed him to explain his point, he knew that speaking his ideas out loud helped Sherlock refine his own.

"Well, she's used to being picked up like that. Mycroft sends that car, and off she goes," John stated, and he nibbled on his lip, thinking hard. "Literally dozens of times in the last few months. I saw nothing unusual about the pickup this morning, so whoever planned this knew Mycroft's routine, and Violet's."

"Anyone with a minuscule amount of intelligence could deduce Violet's behavioral patterns. Mycroft's townhouse, the Leinster Gardens safe house, our flat, Mrs. Hudson's, the café and the nearest shopping centers."

"What's Violet doing at the safe house?" John asked, curious despite the urgency of her absence.

"Using the neighbor's internet to avoid leading anyone back to our flat. She goes there when she's doing something particularly illegal or invasive," Sherlock replied idly, staring out the window, trying to think. "I'm in my mind palace, give me a few moments."

He'd told John he was going to internally replay the last two weeks of memories of his niece, trying to find anything anomalous to explain who had Violet.

"Wait a second! Violet's hacked the Pentagon from a hotel room, MI6 from your mother's kitchen, and every other first world nation from our flat and she goes there for the 'invasive' hacks?" John asked, incredulous. "What is she doing that warrants removing herself to a safe house?"

"Haven't asked," Sherlock murmured, eyes nearly vacant, "wasn't interested."

"Maybe you should have been, considering your niece was just kidnapped!" John snapped, finally exhausted of patience. Sherlock barely twitched, slouched in his seat, as the cab tooled around town, aimless, as per Sherlock's instructions.

"The texts were concerned, familiar in nature. Not to me," Sherlock waved a hand at John as he made a face, "but for Violet. The tone, the inflection, the wording. All very protective, a touch impatient. Someone who knows her, and didn't want her to be frightened. Knew her first instinct would be to run, then fight. He knew what to say to her."

"He?"

"Yes, 'he'," Sherlock whispered, heavenly eyes alight. "He called her, 'my child'."

"Priests do that. Address parishioners as 'my child'," John said, wondering. "So why the drugs, if he were so concerned with how she was handling the situation?"

"Perhaps he knew that what he was going to say would frighten her? Or maybe once she knew who was kidnapping her, she would have run."

"But her tracks…you said she walked willingly up to whoever it was," John didn't bother trying to hide his confusion. The whole situation was confusing.

"I'll alert my network, and contact some mutual acquaintances we have in common," Sherlock told John, sitting up straight. "Take us to Baker Street, 221B."

"What?" John was truly lost now.

"Violet is in no danger, John. I suspect she'll be back soon."

"How the hell do you know that?" John all but screamed through clenched teeth, ready to explode. Sherlock's intransigence and his withholding of his apparent deductions on Violet's current well-being was enough to make John angrier than he'd been in a long time.

"Peace, John," Sherlock finally turned to him, and John found himself pulled to Sherlock's side under his arm. John tried to stay stiff, but soon relaxed into the warm embrace of his lover's arms.

Just as suddenly as he grew angry, John relaxed, the emotions leaving him. Sherlock's familiar scent, the way he felt against him, the way they fit together, all of it was enough to soothe John's worries, or at least push them back enough for him to enjoy the moment.

"She's fine, John," Sherlock whispered. "We just need to wait for her to come home. I'll find out who took her, whether directly from her mouth, or from one of my contacts. I have an idea, anyway. If I'm right, the person who has Violet is perhaps, in a strange way, the safest person for her to be with."

"Keep your secrets, then," John groused, trying not to pout.

"We all have secrets, my love."

Sherlock held John, the smaller man now dozing as they drove through London's streets, evening traffic slowing their progress home. The winter days were shorter, the sun rapidly setting, the temperature dropping even faster. It was unseasonably cold, and Sherlock was feeling it, too.

He was cold to his very bones. He kept seeing the texts, the last one in particular. There was only one person in all of Violet's life who would call her 'my child'. But he was dead, slain these last nineteen years. By his own brother, no less.

So perhaps it was just a coincidence, a strange inflection on a crazy man's part to speak to Violet so, to take her with such care and precision, all aimed at ensuring she went calmly and without injury. If she were taken for profit or gain of some kind, with coercion the means of guaranteeing her compliance, then she would not have been taken in such a way. The more fear instilled, the greater her chances of cooperating. Violet was brave, but practical. If she was confronted by violence to her person or death, she would do as needed to survive, even if that meant doing as her captors wanted. Woodley was the exception; his manner and actions did nothing but put Violet in the mood to fight back.

When the cab drew up in front of their flat, John was asleep. Something about the motion of the vehicle and being in Sherlock's arms made John fall asleep faster than being drugged.

Sherlock helped John into their home, and poured his unresisting lover into bed. He stood over his lover, clad in his coat and scarf, and waited until he was certain John was not going to wake.

There was a serial killer in London slaying beautiful young women who all bore a superficial resemblance to each other, and a woman who was long dead from terminal illness. His niece, the daughter of Europe's most prolific and successful killer in the last century, was missing.

Finding the killer could very well lead to finding Violet. And Sherlock couldn't find his man with John in tow. He would not, could not, endanger his lover with hunting this particular monster. First, Sherlock would need to prove that his current killer, Violet's abductor, and her late father were all the same monster.

Going to Mycroft was out of the question. Nothing made Mycroft more irrational, more unbalanced, than the very mention of their older brother. His guilt may have lessened since Christmas, but it was a burden Mycroft would always carry. Family was everything to Mycroft, and the fact he was forced to slay their brother, even though he was a monster, weighed heavily on the middle Holmes brother, and that would never change.

So help from Mycroft would not be forthcoming, not until Sherlock had the proof he needed. If he went to Mycroft now, with nothing but intuition and instinct and half-formed deductions, then Mycroft would drum him out of his townhouse and never speak to him again.

Sherlock left the flat, and walked down the darkened street. The traffic was light now, the evening rush over, and the shushing sound of tires through slush was a far off roar. He gathered his coat tightly to his neck and raised the collar, hands in his pockets. Face down, his features hidden, Sherlock disappeared into the shadows off of Baker Street.

Late Evening

St Bart's Hospital

Beep beep beep…..

"Here's the last of your pain meds for the evening, Sergeant Donovan," the nurse said with a stiff smile, handing over the small white cup and a glass of water. Sally took them, and gratefully swallowed the medicine, chasing the pills with a mouthful of water.

Her side, back and shoulder ached something dreadful, and she was glad she was no longer attached to the IV bags. The saline and blood bags had bothered her more than she wanted to admit, and having them taken off had been a relief.

"How many units did I end up needing?" Sally asked, voice rough. She was ready to sleep, but she needed to know just how bad it had been. Molly would only tell her so much. The pathologist had left, something about a body from Highgate she needed to examine.

Wondering why Molly would need to examine a body from a cemetery only made her head hurt in addition to the rest of her aches, so she gave up on that topic.

"You got two units, dear," the nurse said, kindly patting her hand and taking the now empty cups. "You're in better shape than a lot of the bombing victims here. Some people got plenty more than just two units. It's a good thing we had a surplus."

"I bet," she murmured, the drugs taking effect fast. She recalled the heat of the fires, the brutal shock of the blast, and was grateful to escape her memories in slumber.

Sherrinford's House

Late Evening

Jim spied through the open doorway, as his lover gently deposited his daughter in the bed, arranging her limbs to a comfortable position. He snorted softly, astounded on some level at the care Sherrin took, daughter or not.

His mobile vibrated in his suit pocket, and he pulled it out, the screen bright in the dark hallway. He opened the text, and grinned.

"What has you smiling, my dear boy?" Sherrin asked, and Jim looked up to see his lover standing over him in the doorway.

Jim turned the mobile so Sherrin could see the screen, and he was rewarded by a feral smile lighting the eldest Holmes' face.

"Ah, well done, my dear James. I look forward to seeing the fruition of your plans in the weeks to come," Sherrin told him, and Jim let the older man lead him from his daughter's door, shutting it gently behind them. He put his mobile away, and skipped a little with pride and glee. Until he recalled that he didn't hear the door lock click.

"You won't lock her in?" Jim asked, craning his neck to double check that Sherrin had not, in fact, locked the door.

"She won't want to leave, not right away. I'll earn her trust faster if she thinks she has choices," Sherrin said as they walked down the dark hallway to the stairs.

"She's your daughter," Jim said, shrugging. She wasn't part of his plans, but Sherrin's, and he knew better than to interfere.

"That she is, my dear boy," Sherrin growled, and Jim gasped as big hands spanned his waist, pushing him to the wall. Sherrin pushed against him, long and lean, all dangerous muscles and deadly grace. Jim all but melted, and tipped his head back in submission, silently begging his lover to take, to touch, to taste.

And he did.