The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 1: Bad Blood

Sherlock Holmes is brought back from the mission and the exile that was to be punishment for killing Charles Augustus Magnussen before it even starts - to solve a problem for England. The problem turns out not to be the one expected.

For someone escaped the deadly chaos of Appledore, with a photograph in his hand, revenge in his heart and murder in his mind. Friends, relations and victims of Charles Augustus Magnussen find out the hard way that the man may be dead, but his influence still casts a long shadow.

While John Watson needs to win back everyone's trust and prove he still deserves to be at the party. So he sets out to solve another mystery altogether - who, and why, is William Sherlock Scott Holmes?

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The world is a circle without a beginning….or rather, this story begins and picks up without a pause straight from the end of Things We Lost In The Flames. Which itself was the backstory to, and lost scenes from, the S3Ep3 His Last Vow

To which this is the sequel; so if you have not read that, this will make very little sense at all. So go and read that first..

You've done that? OK, thank you. So now read on:

Chapter One, this chapter, therefore transits from the end of His Last Vow through the contemporary scenes on board the plane from The Abominable Bride and tries to make sense of the background to the complex wordplay therein, especially the depths of angst, subtext and strange relativity of conversation between Mycroft and Sherlock, which appears to encompass past events (and sadnesses) which only they know, and are never clarified or explained in the TV script.

So let's see if, in this story, we can cover this ground and begin to explain it!

This complete new story covers an intense narrow timeframe of several days between S3 and S4.

To repeat: Series Four is not part of this story. Nor does S4 foreshadow it in any way.

One brief scene reference in the next chapter alludes to the only scene in S4 directly connected to content of S3 Ep3.

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When Oblivion

Is calling out your name,

You always take it further

Than I ever can.

(Dan Smith: Oblivion)

Sophocles got it right He might have died at the age of ninety one while trying to recite a long sentence without drawing breath, the fool, but he still knew what he was talking about.

Oblivion. What a blessing for the mind to dwell on, a world away from pain. Yes, that was what he had said. Too true. But why did he never explain how to find oblivion? And to stay safe in that oblivion once you have achieved it? So think.

Ah, yes. There's more.

Acting as your own sovereign power, grant yourself oblivion for past offences. I'm trying to! Like that one. Who actually said that?

Oblivion covers old wounds. Thank you, yes. New ones too. That's the idea.

Sleep is a bit of lovely oblivion. Well, it would be….

He had managed - despite the effort, despite the sweeties - to achieve far too little time away from the world in blessed oblivion, in what now seemed merely a momentary bliss of dreams and distance and rest.

Yet the world was dragging him back into it again, and far too soon. Hammering him over the head without respite. Pushing and shoving him back into consciousness, into clarity, and back again into a world of his own cleverness.

How he hated his own cleverness. When he wanted none of it. Not right now. Not yet.

Oh well. No rest for the wicked.

And I have been pitifully wicked. And wretched. Forgive me father, for I have sinned….I have killed and I have been killed. Is this my punishment, then? No rest nor respite? Not ever? Another sort of purgatory, is this?

OK, then, if that is the only deal on offer, I accept it. Take it as some semblance of things getting back to normal if not taking it with gratitude. It could be death, after all. It certainly felt like death. Should be death.

So I must make the best of a bad deal. Play the game, not the hand.

"Well, a somewhat shorter exile than we'd imagined, Brother Mine. Although adequate given your levels of OCD."

Oh, great. The very last voice I wanted to hear. Can't you just bloody well stop revelling in my inadequacies, stop the carping? Just for once, Myc? Give me a break?

Sherlock Holmes stared at his brother across the gangway of the little private jet, stared with empty and distracted glassy eyes. He could hear his own voice running away with him, but had no idea what he was saying…or why…or what about…..

Oh yes, Mind Palace stuff…. Newgate Calendar stuff…..Thomas Ricoletti and his abominable wife Emilia….that case…the bride who died, then came back. Killed her husband and conveniently died again. Been working on that puzzle in my head.

Why did I think of that one anyway? Oh yes - parallels. Moriarty apparently coming back from the dead. I definitely came back from the dead. Emilia seemed to have come back from the dead. Anything one can learn from all that?

The world is a circle….Let's compare notes! . Hiya. Jim. Jim Boy…..No. Moriarty made me think of the case, but something else made me think of Ricoletti. Who? What? Think!

Ricoletti. Rico…... Yes. Ah, yes. Rico. Enrico. Not Ricoletti. Rico. Enrico….something. Bolero? Dance, skating, music. No. Baillero. Song, French, sheep, No. Badass. Not quite. Ah! Yes! Baldissi. …Yes. That's it. Baldissi. Enrico Baldissi. Rico….

John is talking. Mycroft is talking.. Now I am talking. What am I saying? Am I saying anything worth saying? Tune back in…..

He made an immense effort to see, to concentrate.

Mary. Still in that hideous bright red coat that hurts the eyes, plonked herself in the seat facing him, leaning forward. Looking at him with concern, her nurse's face on. Not what is needed now. No. Definitely not.

Mycroft sitting across the aisle. Peering at him with that big-brother-knows-best face. Disappointment and resignation screaming silently out of him.

Well, the grateful euphoria for keeping the wheels of the western world turning didn't last long, did it? Nor the assumed humility of calling me back to sort things out. Again.

Stopstopstop. Self pity, is it? Sentiment, even? I must be feeling unwell. That's what happens when you eat sweeties that mess with the mental pathways of the brain. And my pathways are a bit weird at the best of times.

Try being kind to me Mycroft, just for once. Think of that as an astonishing new ploy that might just work. But until then don't hassle me for dealing with all the woes of my world in the only way I know how.

After all, you were not supposed to be with me now, this minute. And I chose - while on my own - not to accompany myself either. So leave me alone and get over yourself.

Sherlock Holmes started to unclip his seat belt Wanting to get away, stop being looked at, release the pressure in his head. Looked up at his brother, at his best friend, his best friend's wife - all peering at him with concern. He could hear words dribbling out of him…something about Ricoletti and being in his Mind Palace to sort that problem out. Because that problem might be an indicator. Might not. Who could tell when interrupted mid thought?

Concentrate! Get a grip! You can overwhelm the sweeties if you concentrate and turn it into a mental game of leap frog. If you can be bothered. If it is worth it.

"Yes? So?" the voice he heard that did not quite seem to be his own was peevish, ragged. "It's been five minutes since Mycroft called."

It's more like twenty, but who's counting? Honestly?

Turned his head to look up at his brother. A brother with a tight frown of concern, but artic eyes. "What progress have you made? What have you been doing?"

John Watson, standing in the aisle beside Mycroft, laughed, a touch bitterly.

"More to the point. What have you been doing?"

Sherlock Holmes sniffed, concentrated hard, tried his most haughty voice.

"I've been in my Mind Palace. Of course."

"Of course." John Watson nodded a little, replied as if he didn't believe a word of it, which caused his friend to glare at him and frown.

Kill someone and no-one trusts you any more. Disgraceful.

"Running an experiment," he explained with slow condescension. and even slower thought process. "How I would have solved the crime if I'd been there in 1895."

Simple when you say it out loud. Where's the problem? Hmmmn. Thoughts skittering away. Too many sweeties. Bit too much of a mixture….bit of a misfire.

"Oh, Sherlock."

Mycroft looked - sounded - angry, disappointed, and turned away. While Mary took Sherlock's phone from the shelf beside her and started looking at it with absorbed concentration and a small smile.

"I had all the details perfect."

Say it, say it because my brother doesn't want to hear about the Mind Palace and the Ricoletti's and a murder that has been a mystery for well over 100 years. A murder I could solve. Have I solved? Not just theorised? Had I nailed it?

So I should tell him…convince him…that I haven't been idle for the last few minutes. That I was still working, even when I believed I was flying to my death. Because that's what I do for you, you bastard! Take the blame, carry the can, pull your irons out of the fire.

So stop resenting me for it. And the way I do it. Just because it isn't your way!

"I was there. All of it. Everything. I was immersed."

Is it working? Is he finally understanding that I am truly doing my best? Even though my brain is not my own at the moment?.

"Of course you were." Patronising, disengaged. Judgmental. As ever.

"You've been reading John's blog. The story of how you met." Mary Watson looked up and spoke. A voice of calm, ignoring Mycroft, distracting Sherlock. Looked up and smiled into Sherlock's eyes; warm, candid, honest. The only person remotely on his side here? But he could not allow himself to be seduced by that.

He looked away, out of the window. More concrete. More bland grass. Nothing new. Except a small confession.

"Helps me if I see myself through his eyes sometimes. I'm so much cleverer…."

Frowned, realised that was open to misinterpretation, the exact opposite of the real meaning. Sounded arrogant, not humble. There are times to feel humble and now - tired, demoralised, off his head with sweeties - was the absolute time to feel humble and to be humble. To see the bottom, yet barely register that the only way from here should be up.

"You really think anyone's believing you?"

That twisted voice again. So Mycroft really has taken the wrong line. As usual. Give me a break, Myc.

"No, he can do this, I've seen it," John Watson spoke up in his defence, finally. Good, faithful John Watson. "The Mind Palace ,It's like a whole world in his head."

"Yes, and I need to get back there."

Well. In a manner of speaking. Leave me alone, Let me think! Why do none of you ever let me think?

Sherlock's voice was unequivocal. Taking refuge in 1895 was easier than facing Mycroft here and now; Mycroft at his most waspish. Mycroft who a few minutes ago had been begging for his help.

"The mind palace is a memory technique," Mycroft explained to John Watson, sharply condescending while ignoring his brother now." I know what it can do, and I know what it most certainly cannot."

"Maybe there are one or two things that I know and you don't," Sherlock returned, stung. The sense of betrayal by his brother was very strong suddenly. And tasted bitter. He tried to repress the telltales; no stimming. No breaking out in anger….

But mental exhaustion threatened. By the thought that the goodwill he had won so hard by taking down Magnussen,- and dared to think he might have also earned by agreeing to return to tackle the Moriarty problem - was goodwill that might have lasted for no more than ten minutes.

Thought - had even dared to hope - that at some point he might finally have earned some brownie points and be given the benefit of the doubt. Not praise, never praise. Just acceptance, acknowledgement, recognition of the facts.

All he had been through, all he had done….he had even wilfully stepped over the precipice to be called back from exile at the last minute. Pulled himself back up the cliff and defied gravity.

Yet even now nothing had changed. Still scorned, denigrated, still misunderstood, then. He was used to it, expected nothing else. But just sometimes….he looked away and tried to keep the anger down. But the sweeties had lowered both his tolerance and his self control, and he knew it.

"Oh, there are," Mycroft agreed tartly, years of experience buried in those three simple words. And then in a different tone of voice: " Did you make a list?"

Sherlock Holmes looked away, back out of the window again, his agitation betrayed by wild, quickly hooded eyes, his chewed thumbnail.. Deep breaths - control control control - then turned back to face his tormentor.

"Of what?"

"Everything Sherlock. Everything you've taken."

The little brother rolled his eyes and turned his head away. Turning his tears away.

It is always the role of an older brother to torment the younger. And Mycroft was very good at it.

John Watson was watching the exchange between the two closely. He knew how they bickered and point scored. But this was something else, something different. Something older and closer to home, something he did not understand. He just knew that both brothers were hurting, and Mycroft must have just said something significant, because something had happened to upset Sherlock, who was now hurting worst of all.

What had Mycroft said that had brought such misery to the surface?

"No, no, it's not that," he interjected, wanting to break the glare between the two men that seemed to be creating it's own static electricity. "He goes into a sort of trance. I've seen him do that."

Even as he spoke he realised Mycroft was not listening to him, all concentration on his brother. And Sherlock was not looking or listening to him either. Sherlock who then, without comment, took a folded sheet of pale grey writing paper from his breast pocket, held it out towards Mycroft and then, eyes holding his brother's, dropped it onto the floor with a lazy insolence bordering on disdain.

Mycroft looked across at John Watson with no expression whatsoever, and it was Watson who stooped to pick up the list. He unfolded it, recognising the cramped tiny writing as Sherlock's, and began to read.

His face grew cold with shock at the variety and strength of pills on that list. Looked across at Sherlock with horror.

Mycroft sighed. Disillusioned, disappointed. As if he knew the contents of the list without even looking. Because the list was just history repeating itself, John Watson realised.

"We have an agreement, my brother and I. Ever since that day…." Somehow he omitted to mention what day, what pills, what shock and horror he was thinking of. And clearly was still haunted by. But Sherlock knew, and that was all that counted.

Sherlock did not answer or retaliate, merely bit his lip and said nothing. Eyes full of memories that threatened to overflow. If anyone took the trouble to look. And to see.

Nobody else's business, Myc. Not yours. Not even my only friend's business. Back off.

"Wherever I find him….whatever back alley or doss house …there will always be a list."

His voice was stronger, more disdainful, now. Complaint, was it? Or a sort of compliment? Pain or pride? This was Mycroft Holmes. It was impossible to tell.

Sherlock still did not speak, continued to worry his lip, closed his eyes and looked away. John Watson sat down heavily opposite Mycroft and gestured with the list. He, too, had experienced finding Sherlock Holmes in a drugs den. He knew the intense feeling of waste and frustration that must be consuming Mycroft.

"He couldn't have taken all of that in the last five minutes."

"He was high before he got on the plane," Mycroft's voice was cynical and certain, pitched slightly too high for the impression of arch indifference he was feigning.

Mary Watson, who had been scrolling through Sherlock's blog with a little smile playing on her lips, who had been paying no attention at all to the conversation around her, replaced Sherlock's phone where she had found it, and produced her own from her bag.

" He didn't seem high," John Watson demurred, uncertain of Mycroft's mood, what he did or did not know and what he would or would not say.

" No-one deceives like an addict." Mycroft's voice strove for supercilious dismissal. But sounded more like hurt pushed down and away.

"I'm not an addict," Sherlock Holmes' voice was curt, but his eyes and attention were elsewhere. And he spoke as if reciting a testament learnt years ago by rote; something empty and mechanical. "I'm a user. I alleviate boredom and occasionally heighten my thought processes….."

" For Gods sake! This could kill you. You could die."

John Watson's voice was full of horror. Anger. That terrible sense of waste. Sherlock Holmes turned calm, unmoved eyes to him and slid them away again.

I know. Why would I not know? Doctor!

John Watson did not hear the words, but he felt them as strongly as if Sherlock Holmes had shouted them. Saw the eyes flare directly at him for a second, then die back.

"Controlled usage is not usually fatal, and abstinence is not immortality." The same empty phrasing.

Mycroft, frustrated by the exchange, saw Mary Watson was taking no interest in that at all, and turned to her, irritated and craving distraction.

"What are you doing?"

"Emilia Ricoletti. I'm looking her up."

" Ah. I suppose we should …."

Sherlock rolled his eyes but said nothing.

"I have access to the top level of the MI5 archive," Mycroft for once sounded more helpful than arrogant.

"Yep, that's where I'm looking." She didn't even bother to look up as she spoke.

"What do you think of MI5's security?" he asked with polite precision. As if to prove the point that he had things, more important things, to think about other than his troublesome little brother. As if anyone else needed to know that, or would believe it.

"I think it would be a good idea," she responded, lightly critical, concentration elsewhere. And read out: "Emilia Ricoletti - unsolved."

I did tell you all that in the first place! Why does no-one ever listen to me?

Sherlock lowered his head and put it into his hands. Spaced out. Drained physically and mentally by drugs and crippling anti climax. Exhausted in body and spirit. Mary nodded her approval of him, her wordless sympathy and her silent agreement.

"Like he says…."

Sherlock lifted his head again then to listen to her , but still with eyes closed.

"Could you all just shut up for five minutes? I have to go back." Vexed, stressed, impatient. "I was nearly there - before you stepped on board this plane and started yapping away."

"Are we interrupting your session?" Watson snapped, sarcastic. As if he had borrowed the tone and the mood from Mycroft.. While Mycroft, equally stressed, spoke with the distressed timbre John Watson normally used when he ran out of alternatives.

"Sherlock, listen to me…."

"No, it only encourages you." The answer snapped back, swift and harsh, quicker than thought.

"I'm not angry with you."

This was not the sort of thing Mycroft Holmes normally said. Nor the tone of voice he usually employed. John Watson watched with sharpened interest; positive he had missed something this time. What was going on here between the brothers that he neither knew nor understood?

Sherlock Holmes half rose out of his seat as if goaded beyond endurance. Goaded by such placatory words? How? Why? But he controlled himself and sat back without a word. John Watson looked from one brother to the other, hoping one of them would explain…..

Pleading now, Mycroft? With me? What have I done to deserve that? What have you done to feel guilty about now, brother mine? ".

But he knew really. Really he knew.

In that bare holding cell at Paddington Green they had stood and faced each other.

Mycroft had come to deliver the verdict on his fate. Not knowing Elizabeth, Lady Smallwood, had already told Sherlock Holmes what was going to happen.

He dropped an overnight bag at his brother's feet.

"Fresh clothing. Suit and so forth. You have been in the same garments all week. Will want to look smart for departure."

"Touching of you to care," Sherlock said, politely unimpressed. "Although you are no doubt more concerned about the image I might present to the world and how that would impact upon you if I appeared in public sweaty and crumpled."

Mycroft opened his mouth to deny, but then decided to do so would prompt more opprobrium, so merely twisted his mouth in anger and swallowed it. The boy had been sorely tempted to retaliate. And it could have been worse. Let it go…

"We do not feel imprisonment and punishment are appropriate reparation for your unauthorised murder of Charles Augustus Magnussen," Mycroft said.

"Really? Even though you sound like the hanging judge at a children's party?"

"Sherlock….."

"I know, Mycroft. 'Be a good boy, Sherlock. Take your medicine, Sherlock. Take your punishment like a man.' Heard it all before."

"Sherlock…."

"You wouldn't kill me. You won't send me to jail. So what do you want me to do to demonstrate my contrition? Clearly not wear sackcloth and ashes - he flung a gesture towards the luxury of the clean clothes - " Should I write a thousand lines - 'I must not murder nasty men who want to blackmail my brother'? "

"Stop it! Just stop it. That's not fair….."

"Oh, really? Which of us has been in this rat hole for the past week?"

"Which of us is a murderer?"

"Someone had to do it. And just because you usually send others to do the dirty work does not mean you have no blood on your hands!"

"At least it's not your blood!"

"You don't have to tell me that. Or remind yourself." He pulled a breath and self control. "Stop torturing yourself. I don't appreciate it. I never have."

They glared at each other. Sherlock was the first to look away, to turn his back, to strip and change his clothes, bundling the dirty garments into the overnight bag.

"I already know I am undertaking a suicide mission. The one we originally discussed on Christmas Day." The cool voice pre emptied what Mycroft was about to say, and his voice gave nothing away. Facing into the corner as Sherlock was, Mycroft could not see any expression. "I hope you are satisfied, for once."

Mycroft heard the bitter words spoken so neutrally, and had no answer. All he could see at that moment were the scars his brother had brought with him from Serbia, and shoulder blades that stood out too harshly in a frame too thin. The view brought his brain to an appalled halt.

Mycroft Holmes took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. This was harder than he had expected.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. Sorry there is nothing we can do to punish that is good enough for you. But a court case and a guilty verdict would serve no purpose except expose too many people, too many situations, even more national secrets.

"Obviously there would never be a death sentence. Putting an IPP in place on you would have no grounds, and cause it's own problems, The mission is a clear and visible penance. Controlled and private. Sackcloth and ashes indeed."

"And you had to support that, did you?"

"If there had been an alternative, any other way to wipe your slate clean….."

"Don't apologise to me, I've told you before. I can't bear it. I knew what I was doing when I shot Magnussen and I would do it again.. I had no alternative, and I understood the consequences. That I must die as a result.

"Understood that more clearly than you, obviously. Because you stopped the SF squad shooting me. You should not have done that. You have created this situation, not me."

He risked a glance. Mycroft had bent his head and looked away. Admission indeed.

"Sadly for you, I am not an angel of death nor a victim of my own impulsive nature. I did what I had to do."

"If you say so."

"I know so. And so do you. So does Lady Smallwood. Doing what had to be done does not make me a hero, merely an instrument. So let's get on with it, shall we?"

He straightened his jacket, clean and tidy again, and strode to the cell door, Waited for his brother to knock so they could both be allowed out. This time.

Mycroft Holmes shook his head to dispel the memory.

Whatever is he saying now? Some meaningless rubbish about not being angry with me? Well, bully for good old Mycroft.

"Oh that's a relief. I was really worried. No…. hold on… I really wasn't."

"I was there for you before. I'll be there for you again."

Into a sharp shattering silence even the Watsons could feel, the brothers looked at each other. Another internal exchange. Neither backing down. Mycroft on the edge of apology but not yielding. Sherlock on the edge of anger but not revealing.

"I'll always be there for you," Mycroft persisted. Sincere, out of character. Not knowing how to make things right with his brother when this time it was more important than ever. To make things right…in case he never saw him again, in case his fear for his little brother overpowered him. In case the stew of drugs he had taken might still overwhelm him.

Trying to say that he really did know how much he owed his little brother. Just that the job he did made objectivity vital, all encompassing. Unyielding. "This was my fault."

He braced himself for the outburst in response to that admission. An admission, he realised belatedly, he should have made days - weeks - ago. Expected all the anger, the invective, the verbal abuse, the scorn that he deserved. But it did not come.

"It was nothing to do with you."

Dismissive words, tired, unanswerable, with eyes turned away and apparently bored with this conversation. Something inside Mycroft bled a little. Sherlock turning away, refusing to engage, giving him forgiveness, showing he understood his brother's position. Telling him with silence, in the only way he could, that he was not blamed, but forgiven.

That the past still impacted upon the present, and it should not. That the sadness and guilt Mycroft always carried with him - how he had failed his baby brother when that baby brother had most needed him - achieved nothing. That he always felt the weight of it as much as his brother dismissed it. Something that had shaped their past and something they both recoiled from.

Too much damage this time, Mycroft registered. Sherlock had been allowed too much time to suffer.

"A week in a prison cell… I should have realised….." he stuttered, and stopped himself from giving himself away even more than he already had. This was ridiculous! He never stuttered!

"Realised what?" Two words that were a major concession, almost an apology in themselves. Recognition too, not just a question.

"That in your case solitary confinement is locking you up with your worst enemy."

Sherlock sighed and rolled his head back into the rest.

"Oh for gods sake!" he cried. And buried his head in one hand.

From somewhere in the subconscious came words he had heard so often before….

"Morphine or cocaine?"

In real life or his Memory Palace? Or just that constant nag of conscience always beating in his head?

"What did you say?" looked up and frowned at John Watson, sitting opposite.

"I didn't say anything."

"No you did, you said - 'which is it today: morphine or cocaine?'"

Sherlock stared at John Watson, who stared back, looked confused. While Mycroft sat up and peered at his brother again.

All the lights seemed to go out and Sherlock Holmes slumped down in his seat. Cold, and sweating and unconscious.

"John . Quickly. Attend to him."

"He's in a drug stupor. Surely you can see that?" John Watson snapped. "And he clearly does not want attending to. He wants…" he remembered Sherlock Holmes words; from the hospital, from Appledore, from times in between. And added, in something like anguish, "….oblivion."

"Well he bloody well isn't going to get it!" Mycroft Holmes surged to his feet with an urgent outburst worthy of his brother. "Bring him round! Get him back! Whatever you have to do!"

"Jesus, Mycroft! I'm not a miracle worker. And I don't even have my emergency bag with me….."

He leapt to his feet to drop the seat back so Sherlock could lie flat. Took his pulse and when Mary wordlessly passed him a little packet of emergency wet wipes from her handbag, he took the sweat off the strained face, murmuring all the while.

"Sherlock…come back to me. Back to us…..fight this….come on, we need you awake and thinking…Come on, wake up, It's John….."

Sherlock jerked awake, opened glassy unfocussed eyes, pupils dilated. After a moment he came to properly, recognised John Watson leaning over him looking worried, one hand on the headrest as if about to reach out and soothe the tormented head. Mary Watson stood behind him, waiting to react, Mycroft hovering and attempting to both watch intently but also appear disinterested.

"Miss me?" Sherlock asked with a too knowing smirk; not quite himself, the voice not quite in register.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes of course I am." Irritation in the voice, a frown. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"'Cause you probably just OD'd. You should be in hospital." Mary Watson's voice was human and concerned, not medical and brisk. It would have warmed his heart if he had let it.

"No time." He started to get up. "I have to go to Baker Street now. Moriarty's back."

The surge of energy that got him to his feet failed him suddenly. He stumbled, and almost landed on his knees in the aisle at Mycroft's feet. Pulled back with a disconcerting wobble, shook his head gently - trying to regain sense and balance, and not faint again.

"I almost hope he is if he saves you from this," His brother's voice was low and oddly flat and sincere.

This was the last thing Sherlock wanted to hear. As Mycroft wordlessly held up his little brother's list as some concrete and final proof of sadness and disappointment, Sherlock refused the dumb show, snatched the sheet from Mycroft's hand and, eyes locked with those of his brother, storm grey to ice blue, tore up that vital list and defiantly dropped it on the floor.

"No need for that now," he snapped briskly, referring to both the list and the pills rattling around his head still, averting his eyes "I've got the real thing. I have work to do."

It sounded like the old incisive intelligence, the old energy. But he was wobbly still, and he knew it. Stepped forward to leave the plane, but Mycroft checked him.

"Sherlock…." More placatory now, almost beseeching. Highly unusual.

Sherlock Holmes slowly raised his eyes to his brother again. The expression was vaguely connecting to his brain, vaguely questioning. But not conceding anything.

"Promise me."

The two words were a plea and so softly spoken, John Watson barely recognised the tone of voice as Mycroft's at all.

He registered the brothers were again having one of their silent internal dialogues no-one else could even get close to or translate.

There was a tiny hitch of thought and breathing from both of them. Then Sherlock shook his head a little, looked away and round, then back to his motionless brother.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked, eyes suddenly focussing down, voice irked and angry. Deflecting. "Shouldn't you be off getting me a pardon or something,? Like a proper big brother?"

It was meant to be a barb, and as such it hit home. A rare touch that went through and behind Mycroft's armour. John Watson dared not look at the older brother's face, but Mary was staring, face calm and assessing. He would ask her later…

Sherlock seemed to make a decision, squared his shoulders and moved forward. Without a word of excuse or apology he buffeted Mycroft out of his way with his shoulder, and Mycroft visibly, consciously, let him.

Mycroft Holmes seemed to sag within himself, as if exhausted. Mary Watson sensed him close his eyes, drained and resigned. But still he said nothing, and the Watsons passed in front of him without comment on their way to the exit, in the wake of Sherlock.

The soft "Dr Watson," was barely above a whisper, but John Watson heard and turned back. There was only the two of them in the cabin now, and finally Mycroft Holmes could be honest and speak without reservation.

John Watson stood braced, chin raised, jaw fixed, waiting for something imperious, peremptory, cynically dismissive. As usual. But what he got were three words of appeal. Honest, simple, heartbreakingly real.

"Look after him…" Mycroft Holmes said despite himself; half plea, half command. And John Watson saw the hand gripping the umbrella handle until the knuckles were white, the hollow look in the eyes, the downturned mouth. And, most disturbingly then, a small but totally genuine smile. For him.

"Please…"

John Watson was so moved by this untypical and totally human behaviour that he could not speak. Merely gave a brief, firm, military nod, a salute with the eyes, and turned away and left the plane, down the steps and back onto the runway..

Did not see Mycroft stoop to pick up the pieces of the list, which he tucked between the pages of his pocket book.

o0o0o

"Hang on!" Watson called across the runway to the fast moving back of Sherlock Holmes, who was in the act of donning the Belstaff while crossing the concrete to the black limousine that had brought the Watsons to the airfield. "Explain!"

Sherlock Holmes shrugged the coat into place on his shoulders, turned back with a wicked grin on his face. Speed covering the fact he was still weak and not completely focussed.

"Moriarty's alive then?"

Stepped in closer to his friend. Who struggled with the coordination needed to take his gloves from the coat pocket.

"I never said he was alive. I said he was back"

"So he's dead?" It was Mary Watson who asked him to repeat the obvious. Obvious to him, anyway.

"Of course he's dead. He blew his own brains out. No-one survives that. I just went to the trouble of an overdose to prove it."

He grinned at them both, somewhere between bold and sheepish, and far from being in total control of either his words or thoughts.

The effects of the sweeties was still making his head swim, colours that looked too bright, voices that weren't quite in sync to his ears - while a voice that should have been his sounded weak, disembodied somehow.

"Moriarty is dead, No question. But more importantly….." he raised his head to avoid their sharp looks and even sharper words to declare: "I know exactly what he's going to do next."

He grinned, tipped off balance and only stayed upright by falling against the side of the car with a thump. Grinned even more.

"Not tipsy," he said sternly, more telling himself than John and Mary. But not sounding as if he much cared either way.

The grey suited driver - thickset, middle aged, grey hair cut en brosse and in the process of holding the car door open for the three passengers - impassively put out a steadying hand which somehow managed to swing Sherlock Holmes loosely round in a half circle.

"Oh! Hello!"

Sherlock Holmes lurched forward and round and suddenly sounding like an eager small boy, gave the driver a huge smile and put up a hand to touch - to stroke even - the driver's face.

The Watsons exchanged puzzled looks at such untypical behaviour. Put it down to the drugs in his system.

The driver repressed a smile and simply put out his other hand and caught Sherlock as he fell, effortlessly posted him through the car door and onto the back seat in one fluid movement, and spoke as he did so:

"I think he will need propping up, Doctor Watson. One of you either side, I think?"

The logic was indisputable, and they moved to comply.

With Mary on one side of the semi conscious consulting detective and John on the other, the car sped back towards London.

Husband and wife looked at each other across the body between them.

Sherlock Holmes was slumped in the middle, eyes half closed, humming a little tune to himself. The sweat was standing on his skin again and he looked grey.

"Sherlock? You OK?" Mary Watson's voice was pure nurse. Low, concerned, professional interest. She had her hand on his wrist; a racing pulse, but she knew he could have been worse.

"Oh, hello Mary! What you doing here? Wheresa plane gone? Oh. Car. Yes. Too many sweeties, sorry. Supposed to be in mid air to Eastern Europe by now you know. Flying to fly. Makes sense."

He had turned to her and was smiling ingenuously at her. She couldn't resist smiling back.

"Where we going? Going home? That's good. Home, James!" he giggled and waved his hands expansively. Flopped about a bit. Caught the eye of the driver through the rear view mirror.

"He OK?" the driver asked.

"He will be. Despite appearances to the contrary, he knows exactly what he has taken and his physical responses to it," John Watson replied grimly. "He's done this before. Not his fault the four hours of oblivion he had anticipated got interrupted."

He put a hand fondly onto Sherlock Holmes's knee, his anxiety, fear and despair quietening now. "He'll be OK. Sleep and black coffee. His usual cure-alls."

"Thank you, Dr Watson," responded the driver quietly and paid attention to the road again.

"But where are we going?" Mary Watson asked, reasonably enough.

"Back to your home, Madame. I collect you, I return you. All part of the service."

There seemed no more to say.

Occasionally the Watsons smiled at each other and made a comment as Sherlock hugged his drug haze to him; and they braced him carefully around corners so he did not fall to either side.

At one point he did slide down sideways as the Rolls took an unexpected hard left and ended up with his head in John Watson's lap. Watson absently put his hand on the dark sweaty head and curved his hand around the skull to stop the head bouncing.

The grazes on the right side of the face had all but gone now, but that face was too pale and gaunt, and it hurt Watson's heart to see it. So the head stayed where it was for several miles until Sherlock seemed to come to with a convulsive jerk and a yelp. before sitting bolt upright, realising he was in a car with John and Mary Watson and he was safe. But then sitting too upright and too tense, rocking gently, hands firmly held between his knees to stop them shaking.

"You all right, sir?" asked the driver with sharply spoken solicitude, looking back into the rear of the car far too often to be comfortable.

"I told you. Never call me 'sir.' " For the moment the old curt authority was back and the head snapped up to underline the words..

"My apologies, Mr Holmes."

"Nor that, either. Makes me sound as if I'm Mycroft. I'm not Mycroft. Thank God."

The drivers lips twitched, but he said no more.

Finally, the car drew gently to a stop outside the Watson's front door.

The driver stepped out of the car and opened the rear door on Mary's side, helping her onto the pavement with a solicitous professional smile and a strong supporting arm. But when John got out on the offside and moved around the car and onto the pavement to reach in for Sherlock, he found the solid bulk of their driver barring his way.

"No, sir."

The two words were softly spoken, but there was a sudden military snap of authority in the voice and the stance that had not been there before, and Watson recognised that. Braced his own shoulders and there was suddenly too much testosterone standing on one square foot of pavement.

"He needs looking after," John Watson said, calmly but firmly, army captain manner back in place. "As well as his friend, I am his doctor. And my wife is a nurse. He knows us, and he knows our home. We are the best people to look after him until he recovers from this overdose."

"Yes, Dr Watson. I do understand your reasoning. And I understand that you would want to look after your friend. Highly commendable. But he is coming with me."

"No, he's not."

"Yes he is. Sir."

The quiet voice came with a quiet smile, but had hardened. The chauffeur put a hand to the smaller man's left shoulder, gripped and twisted and brought John Watson softly and efficiently to his knees.

"Fuck!" The pain in the scar of the old rifle wound was excruciating, and Watson dimly recognised that this man was no mere driver; this was someone who not only knew exactly who he was, but also where and how to hurt him.

"There's a good officer." The quietness of the words were suddenly full of menace, and the chauffeur did not raise his eyes from John Watson as he almost negligently put out his other hand to stop Mary Watson - subtly different in body language now, pregnancy or no pregnancy - as she came instinctively to his aid.

"I don't think so, Mrs Watson. I would hate to have to subdue a pregnant woman. Such a heavily pregnant woman, too. You really would not like that level of agra - vation, now would you? "

The very deliberate play on words used her code name - AGRA - and she stopped in her tracks, face suddenly pale and more than wary.

"Who are you?" she asked, hoarse, stricken, and John Watson stopped breathing while they both awaited the answer.

"Why, a mere chauffeur, Madame. Lady Smallwood's chauffeur."

"Who's Lady Smallwood?" asked John Watson automatically.

The chauffeur lifted a calm and professionally bland look towards the two of them. Helped John Watson efficiently and without fuss back to his feet.

"Oh. You are out of the loop, aren't you, Dr Watson?" He paused, flickered a glance at the motionless figure still in the car. "Mr Holmes has not told you anything, has he? Does he not trust you any more, sir? "

John Watson struggled to find his feet, mentally and physically, fighting the rush of blood to the head those words caused, and the chauffeur let him. Shocked at the echo of Mycroft Holmes' very words on the runway, while waiting for Sherlock's flight to return home.

And he was more than worried now.

"And which Mr Holmes is that, smart arse?" The words forced their way past a clenched jaw and barely suppressed fear and fury.

"Looks like both of them to me. Sir," the driver observed mildly.

John Watson braced himself against the implied double insult and demotion. And stood firm.

"Sherlock is my concern right now. And Mycroft asked me to look after him."

"Yes, sir. But my orders are to take him elsewhere. And the authority I have is in this case superior to Mr Holmes' senior. I am sure you still understand what a chain of command is."

"Who are you?" It was John Watson's turn to ask.

"Not that it will be of any help to you, sir, but my name is George Bradshaw."

"I don't know you. Sherlock has never mentioned you to me. And I can't let him be taken away by someone I don't know - someone he doesn't know."

The older man in the elegant grey suit, apparently now ignoring John Watson, had bent and leaned into the car, taking Sherlock gently by the shoulders, tipping him carefully to lie him down across the long rear seat and guiding his head onto a folded travelling rug while tucking the Belstaff around him like a blanket.

Sherlock was unresisting, loose limbed, vaguely smiling. So very unlike his usual self neither of the Watsons could take their eyes off him in a sort of fearful fascination.

"He will be fine," said George Bradshaw in such a pragmatic way it did not sound reassuring. "Don't worry."

"I'm worrying already," Watson replied shortly. "I don't know you from Adam. How can I let you just drive off with my friend when you don't even know him?"

"Did I say I don't know him?" George Bradshaw stood upright. Turned his head back to the interior of the car. Raised his voice.

"Mr Holmes, sir. Could you tell Dr Watson who I am?"

Sherlock opened his eyes.

"Bradshaw. George. Ex-Colour. And will you fucking well stop calling me 'sir'? How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Sherlock! This man wants to take you away with him….."

"'Course he does. Rescues me. Good at it."

Another whoozy smile. A vague flap of a hand. Eyes closed. John Watson stared at the man who had just shot a look of such solicitude towards the consulting detective it stopped in his throat whatever he had just been about to say.

"Convinced now?" The man Sherlock had just confirmed as George Bradshaw had his hand on the rear door ready to close it, and to leave.

John Watson hesitated, lifted a hand, not knowing quite why. And suddenly the driver smiled. He had realised the Watsons had acquiesced and would finally let him drive away with his disputed cargo.

"If it makes you feel better, sir, I am at liberty to tell you that I knew Sherlock before he was Sherlock. When he was still William."

"I didn't even know his name was William until a couple of hours ago. How could I not already know that? What's that all about?"

For a moment Bradshaw's expression softened.

"Not my place to say," he replied levelly. "You need to ask him. But don't be offended when he won't tell you."

He shut the door and moved round the back of the car to the driver's side, and took his place behind the wheel.

"Don't fret, sir. He will be returned to Baker Street safe and sound tomorrow, when he is over this."

The driver sketched a salute, and John Watson returned it before he even realised that was what he was doing.

He put his hand on the door.

"I'm not happy with this."

"No sir. I do understand. But that's the way it is."

John Watson havered, leant in to see Sherlock comfortable and relaxed, almost asleep on the back seat. Was almost reassured

""He will be fine, Dr Watson, honestly. I know how to look after him. I've done it before."

"When he was still William?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me."

"Not my place, sir. You must ask him yourself if you really want to know. He won't tell you, but you may want to try and find out anyway."

"And how do I do that?"

"I could tell you to observe him. Properly look at him. Very few people bother to properly look at him. Or try to read him."

The driver nodded, the epitome of brusque, terse military care.

As the electric window rose, John Watson thought he heard George Bradshaw say:

"Find who he really is, understand him and earn back his trust, John."

But before he could react to that the car silently swept away from the kerb, leaving the Watsons standing on the pavement feeling alone, belittled and a bit lost. Even though Sherlock was back. Even though Eastern Europe had not claimed him nor killed him.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

Author's Notes:

There was a great deal of TAB dialogue to navigate round and through in this chapter, but so much of it shows attitudes and references to the past, and sets up events to come, so is included.

This story runs through a very tight narrow time frame between S3 and S4. It has no relevance or relativity to S4. Apart from one brief scene reference in the next chapter.

George Bradshaw makes his first appearance in the O'Donnell short story The Browning Version. And then in Things We Lost In The Flames. He appears in actuality as Lady Smallwood's chaffeur at the start of His Last Vow, turning her car round to go to Baker Street.

Ex-Colour: Former Colour Sergeant. A Colour Sergeant in the British Army, or Marines, is an unusual and non commissioned rank between Sergeant and Warrant Officer. NATO codes the rank at OR-7. A CSgt wears the insignia of a monarch's crown over three downward pointed chevrons. Basically the senior NCO of any company, who protects the ensign, the post is usually only given to a senior serviceman who has distinguished himself on the field of battle.

Sophocles: Ancient Greek playwright and philosopher, author of The Theban Plays and Oedipus Rex and Electra, among others.

Thomas and Emilia Ricoletti: The characters whose unexplained death and murder are the McGuffin that drives the action of the Mind Palace adventure in The Abominable Bride.

OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; A common mental health disorder in which a sufferer has obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. See charity website OCD-UK for more information or help.

Newgate Calendar: Also known as The Malefactor's Bloody Register this was an 'improving' publication of the C18th and C19th Originally a list of executions and serious crimes, the title was adopted by a variety of blood and thunder publishers and became a racy record of period crime. From which also came the case of Henry Fishguard. Available to buy as books, or view online.

IPP: Imprisonment for Public Protection. A UK legal order of imprisonment of no set time period and for no set level of criminality. Individual case critical.