Mary chose her time carefully – the morning commuter rush was an excellent cover, the sea of people making it difficult to pinpoint a single face and the dummy Oyster card neatly masking her movements. An app on her phone kept its location as her flat, freeing her up from having to leave it behind.

The restaurant was otherwise deserted at this hour, but it scarcely mattered. Those who ran it did so with the utmost discretion in mind, and entry was restricted to those with the right access code. There was no risk of anyone wandering in from the street and overhearing something they shouldn't.

She'd been here only twice before, and once had been for dinner, to evaluate the place as a potential meeting point.

The prices here were well above Mary Morstan's pay grade – not that she was paying herself. The job came with perks as well as risks; she probably would have taken it regardless, to keep the boredom at bay and out of genuine curiosity about the events surrounding Holmes' captivity in Pakistan.

The credit card paid by Charles Magnussen was a welcome luxury, though.

Her contact was waiting for her when she arrived, as planned. Mary slipped into the seat across from him, glancing up to signal a waiter. The food here was never short of amazing, and she owed it to herself not to waste the opportunity.

When the server had taken her order and vanished, her contact gave her a name, mobile number, and address. No paper or text trail – Mary memorized the information, repeated it back to ensure it was accurate.

"Are you absolutely certain?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Who's watching him?"

"Security, his own. Plenty of it." She memorized details and descriptions as they were given to her, the briefing interrupted only as the waiter returned with tea and coffee. Security shifts had been ascertained, as had numbers on duty at any given time, and the plate numbers of any unmarked vehicles that followed at safe distances, keeping a watchful eye.

The target's schedule was also detailed, apparently somewhat erratic, which Mary suspected was deliberate. It would make him harder to trace, to those who might be interested.

"Anyone else watching him? Anyone official?"

"No."

"They're good," Mary pointed out.

"We're better," he replied with a shrug. They paused again as the food arrived, and Mary nodded when they were once again left alone.

"Best times?"

"Late morning or early afternoon. Before eleven-thirty, after one-thirty. Not over lunch, but there are the fewest people around then. Staff out on errands, mostly. The wife works, two kids are adults and not there, one is at boarding school. He tends to be alone then, as much as he ever is."

"Understood."

"Two days from now. Thursdays are the best. Mistress comes at lunch, but leaves at one for work."

"Always?"

"So far," he replied. Mary nodded again, taking a sip of her tea. It could be dealt with it necessary, although it would make things less messy to get the target alone. She didn't want to kill anyone, and suspected that the target would cooperate gladly to avoid that outcome.

"Good," she said. "Give me the layout. Start with the street."

Mycroft gazed at the report on his desk, expression blank only from years of practice. Internally, the storm was kept at bay simply because he had no desire to feel it, but if he'd let himself, the anger – the fury – churning just beneath the surface would have bubbled over and spilled out like a raging flood, annihilating everything in its path.

He leaned back in his chair, pressing his palms together, index fingers resting against his lips.

They were supposed to have found everyone. All of his intelligence – MI5, MI6, even several helpful CIA, CSIS, and ASIS agents, had sworn they had identified and captured them all.

It had taken years. Four years, to be exact. A few of them had escaped to the far flung reaches of the world, hoping to go unnoticed by those scouring the globe on his behalf, but they'd been thorough.

They'd found them all.

Except this one.

He'd dodged the net, slippery and sly, retaining his freedom while his accomplices fell, one by one.

They hadn't named him – but then again, they hadn't named each other. The names had come through the diligent efforts of intelligence officers, through countless hours of legwork, of greasing the right palms, of listening to the right whispers.

And from what Sherlock had remembered and described, which had in no small way helped those spearheading the hunt.

But this one… this one.

The gall of it.

Mycroft drew in a slow, deep breath, letting it out even more slowly.

Not only had he escaped, had he kept living in freedom, but he had the audacity to do it in London.

Right under Mycroft's nose.

Driving the same streets, breathing the same air as Mycroft – worse, as Sherlock. Sharing a city with the brother they'd stolen from Mycroft, whom they would have murdered if it hadn't been for the skill and finesse of one particular woman. A woman who, several years before, had made herself a particularly troublesome complication in Mycroft's life.

One well-timed intervention had changed all of that. She had been there when Mycroft's people hadn't been, several steps ahead of them the entire way, and it was that – the space of an hour, perhaps two – that had kept Sherlock alive.

His people had been close, but not close enough. They were good.

She was better.

But this…

No one, no matter how good, had seen this. One errant strand had drifted away without catching Mycroft's attention.

How many times had he seen Sherlock? Had he deliberately put himself in Sherlock's path, just for the satisfaction of knowing he could? Trusting that Sherlock, despite his remarkable memory, wouldn't recognize him?

Mycroft closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath to banish the thought. It was a distraction, a fantasy buoyed by the rage, and it served no purpose.

Whatever freedom he'd enjoyed up until now, he wouldn't be enjoying it much longer. Plans were already in motion – there was no recourse for this. Only a final, and very permanent, solution.

But there was someone who needed to be told.

Ignoring the irritation at having to make this call – especially to this particular person – Mycroft picked up his phone, arranged a secure line, and waited.

Irene ended the call, pressing her mobile against her lips, appreciating the cool brush of metal as an anchor that kept her from slipping away in her thoughts. Her gaze focused on the painting on the wall opposite her, on a swirl of colour and shadow. How odd, she thought, that she would notice that so sharply now, when she was so absorbed by something else.

Ten years ago, her very thorough report on Sherlock's rescue had been, by the nature of the situation, incomplete or uncertain in some places. One of those was the number of captors holding him – she'd dispatched three herself, one to get herself into the room, and the other two to get herself and Sherlock out. There had been others, of course, and they'd tried to pursue, hampered by the plans she'd put into place, scattering as soon as they realized they'd lost their prize and exposed themselves.

It hadn't surprised her when they'd been hunted and captured. Mycroft Holmes was not a man to take personal insult lightly, not when his own family was targeted. Anyone enduring a conversation between Mycroft and Sherlock might not imagine the lengths Mycroft would go to in order to protect his brother, and would find themselves very unpleasantly inconvenienced if they tested that assumption.

Some people were stubbornly and irrevocably stupid, and there didn't seem to be anything that could be done about that.

She sighed quietly, refusing to chase a ten year old recollection unaided. Her past self had been especially helpful in that regard, and it hadn't been difficult to press Mycroft into giving her copies of her written statement and transcripts of all of her interviews. They were her words, after all, and it had been a small price to pay for returning his brother to him alive.

She had Sherlock's statements as well, but ignored them for the time being, not wanting to be biased by details outside of her experience, or swayed by the variation between his recollections and hers. Irene recognized that, despite Sherlock's phenomenal memory, her own account of the situation was more accurate, given the way he'd been treated.

She walked herself carefully through the events of that night, starting with the house – a typical dwelling on a typical street, stone with wooden shutters, nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the block.

No, she told herself, refocusing. It wasn't enough to start at the moment she'd slipped inside, using an access point from the adjoining house, unguarded because it was deemed too small for anyone but a child to use.

A child or a thin adult woman.

Irene paused, straightening slightly, reaching out without thinking to shut her monitor off.

She had counted everyone she'd seen on the street while scouting the location, and had counted all of people she'd encountered inside the house. Three men inside – or at least three who'd had the bad luck of meeting her – and seven people on the street at various times before she went inside, passing by in ones or twos.

She focused on her reflection in the darkened screen, a flash of irritation flickering through her eyes, tightening the edges of her lips.

She hadn't made the same mistake ten years ago, but now she'd caught herself discounting the two women she'd seen on the street, concealed by their clothing and the darkness, hurrying somewhere together. Back then, everyone Irene had seen had been a potential opponent, no matter how innocuous they seemed. Now, with hindsight, she could safely ignore the passersby – but she'd only been ignoring the women.

It was a very stupid oversight, and one she shouldn't have been guilty of. None of the people she worked with made that kind of mistake – at least, not more than once.

But there were, Irene could admit, some people it was easy to underestimate, whose appearances belied the intelligence and skill underneath. Sherlock's entire organization was built around that kind of deception, and she'd used his own ignorance of her capabilities once before, the first time they'd met. Granted, he hadn't actually known it was her he was looking for, and she'd had the advantage of knowing the identity of the man set to track her by Mycroft Holmes.

She drummed her nails absently on the desk, turning away from the monitor, gazing at nothing.

She didn't normally suffer such lapses in judgment, so she'd either made a mistake, or had been trying to tell herself something.

It wasn't women in general she'd discounting, it was the women in the area, that night. They'd slipped through her mind like water through her fingers, because there wasn't anything distinguishing to fix them in her memory. Oh height and gait, certainly, but while height couldn't be altered, gait could be, and behind dark veils at night, even their eyes weren't easily visible. She'd shrouded herself the same way, turning herself into a shadow, someone unremarkable and barely there.

No one had paid her any attention – or even noticed her – because she fit in. She looked as expected.

Irene refocused, drawing a pad of paper to her and plucking a pen from the brass holder on the desk. She made a list of everyone who had come into her life, even tangentially, since the night when Mycroft had sprung Charles Magnussen on his unsuspecting brother. Men and women, so as not to prejudice herself, and included those who had recently re-entered her life as she began taking on her old clients.

When she'd exhausted her memory, she went back further – there was no reason to assume that the dinner at Mycroft and Angela's had to be the starting point. It took some doing, and she was vaguely aware of the clock quietly ticking away the minutes, and of a distant gratitude toward Alexander, who had deftly taken on nannying duties as expertly and as tolerantly as he did every other aspect of his job.

She added Aaron's name to the list for the sake of completeness, then began crossing off names of people she was absolutely certain were above suspicion, starting with her son. Doing so made her smile slightly – as cautious as she had every right to be, it was unlikely that an infant could be that resourceful. She would surely have noticed that level of precociousness.

Eliminating names didn't take long, because she knew very few people on the list well enough to dismiss any suspicions. A few clients who had earned her trust across the years. She re-wrote the list, making as many notes as she could on each of them as she went. The more notes she was able to record, the more secure she felt about that person. It was those whom she barely knew, who touched her life only in passing, who worried her. Jennifer O'Haughan – Janine Hawkins – was on the list, of course; there was no way she could not be. It was likely Jim's sister was unaware of the complications she was causing, but there was still a possibility that she wasn't an ignorant player in all of this.

Irene circled the names with the fewest notes, then rewrote the list again, drawing their connections to herself, to Sherlock, to Mycroft, to Gabriel, and to Charles, and noting where the relationships overlapped. Most of these were professional – while Irene did have friends outside of her professional circle, they tended to be actors she'd known in her performing days who had no real connections to Sherlock or any of his people.

She jotted down the few she knew the others had met and when and why, to the best of her recollection. Certainly a few of them had expressed interest in Sherlock or Charles, and the occasional man had had that interest returned, but never for very long and never with any complications when things ultimately ended.

Irene sat back, passing a hand thoughtfully over her lips. That seemed too tenuous; she made a note to check up on a few of them, but doubted it would be much worth her time. It was the more recent names that bothered her, and one in particular, aside from Hawkins and whoever was impersonating Richard Mitchell.

Sherlock had personally vetted Mary Morstan and his background checks would have put any intelligence agency to shame, not to mention that his protectiveness of John eclipsed even his normal levels of suspicion. He wouldn't have let anyone work so closely with John if he'd caught even a trace of something amiss about them.

Then again, they'd all missed Janine Hawkins until Jim had slipped up and whispered something about her, and Irene had been able to catch Sherlock very much off his guard the first time they'd met.

It was extremely difficult to do, but it was possible to outwit Sherlock Holmes. Irene didn't flatter herself that she was the only person able to do it – she was among the very few, but the sheer number of people on the planet made it likely there were others.

It was conceivable that Mary Morstan was just a part-time nurse and nothing more, but she had arrived on-scene shortly after the dinner at Mycroft's, and around the time that Janine Hawkins became known to them. It was probably just a coincidence – after all, John really had needed a nurse for some time, and it frankly surprised Irene that Sherlock's limited patience for John being bogged down by work hadn't run out any sooner.

She drew another circle around Morstan's name and slipped the pen back into the holder. There was no sense in telling Sherlock about this now, not when he was preparing to move into Hawkins' life. It could be nothing, and if it turned out not to be, Irene had enough resources of her own to deal with any problems that might arise.