The darkness gave way to an audibly, liquid boom and frigid, piercing silence attempting to quench her scream of pure, unchecked rage. She kicked and fought the current, damming the cold, and swearing unholy pain upon the arms that encircled her from behind and yanked, depositing her on an embankment of dust like a drown cat.

"Son of a bitch!" She screeched, writhing from within. "I can't even die right on my own!" Her fist smashing a decent hole in the crumbled dirt.

"Of course you can, you daft witch," a male voice retorted hotly beside her. "Only I didn't let you."

Beth peered between the strands of her kelp-like hair to stare peevishly at the now familiar man next to her. "You? Who in the Hell are you anyway?"

He leveled his blue gaze at her, shaking dark water uselessly off his coat sleeve. "You cannot, honestly, be serious. You attempted to kill us."

She stared at him then, truly stared, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth as she did so, completely taken aback. She had attempted to kill them? So familiar and yet... not; why was that? She felt her ire rise again. She hated being toyed with.

"Quit trying to mess with my mind." She spat, kicking off her waterlogged boots and chucking them, with force enough to break off branches, into the large dead oak behind them.

Dumbfounded, he watched the shoes fly past, before standing to pace. "You- I can hardly-," his index finger shot out at her, "I warned you to stay out of the water, in which you failed spectacularly-"

"You think I like coming here every time I supposedly die?!"

"Bloody- I'm the one trapped here! Now possibly permanently since you've gone and stuck us with that dratted drug of his! I've given up the ghost for a fool's errand," he bemoaned to himself.

Lestrade felt the world fall away from her in one electric jolt, clutching her stomach with chilled fingers as an unknown pain radiated around her. A sorrowful expression swept over her, and in a weak voice she asked, "you're John Watson?" His eyes wouldn't meet hers, but his sigh certainly met her ears. "Oh my God," she intoned, another bolt spasming through her. "Are you dead? Am I?"

"I, I'm not entirely sure. I should be, you, on the other hand..." He ran a hand over his moustache and chin. "It's all changed up I'm afraid. I should have told you or Holmes what I could when I could, all that rot on learning in your own time be damned. I can't recall it all now and I fear we'll all be worse off for it."

Beth curiously pushed her hair out of her face to look up at him. "What do you mean?" Another thought. "You talked with Holmes? Which one?"

"Which one? My dear, he's one man. It's the link I can't remember, someone is behind that damn stream who shouldn't be. I knew once."

She curled in on herself, her once hot anger tempered in weariness and horror. "It's my fault, isn't it? I changed the game and changed you."

Watson knelt before her, drawing her eyes to his. "We don't know that for sure."

She laughed humorlessly, "don't we- ow!" A hand flew to her breast on the tail end of another galvanized bump. "Did you feel that?"

His brow knitted. "Feel what?"

"I don't know it, it's like an- aihh!" She crumpled against her knees, "what the Hell!"

"Miss Lestrade?"

"Ooo, I," she swallowed, "my vision is blurry."

"Blurry?!"

She felt rather than saw his hands on her shoulders as he pushed her back to peer into her eyes. "Can you see me?"

Blinking furiously she made a noise of derision, "No. I'm getting so tired of this," she huffed, trying, and failing, for a bit of humor.

"There's nothing I can see in-," the good doctor stopped short, his breath coming in a gasp as a violent, burning spear of something coursed horribly through them both. Her scream rang in his ears.

Through out the years of having Sherlock Holmes as a tenant Mrs. Hudson had seen and heard more than her fair share of strangeness, but this time she was sure the Devil rather than God had taken over her peculiar lodger. She clutched the cross about her neck, lost to her horror and unable to move from the side of the door to the small, spartan room off her kitchen as the man himself darted about turning knobs and fiddling with what he said were copper strings of some sort attached to a behemoth of metal, glass, and things she could not comprehend. All of it near filling the room, and all of it attached to the poor child she'd come to view as her own.

With every swish of a lever Elizabeth's body would contort and then fall flaccid once more. Each time the Detective would mutter obstinately under his breath and adjust something else. It was too much, far too much.

"S-stt-stop it, Mr. Holmes, stop it now!" She squeaked, "this is beyond you, beyond God w-with this nonsense."

"To Hell with nonsense!" He roared, "she's come back twice now, what's a third?" He sent a visibly arching bolt through the prone form.

Mrs. Hudson choked on fresh tears. "More than I can take! The Devil take you Sherlock Holmes, the Devil take you."

"Only if he helps!" He replied, paying no mind to his landlady as she near fainted away against the wall at his declaration, her bosom heaving under her black blouse.

She knew she ought to fetch someone, anyone, Dr. Watson, the elder Mr. Holmes, a priest at the least, to stop this bout of insanity from continuing. He would be for a straight jacket at this rate, if he wasn't already. But oh she feared him at this terrible moment, feared his wrath upon her, and upon the continuing desecration of the newly dead. Then, Elizabeth's glassy eyes flew open with a back snapping spasm of electricity and stayed open. Swallowing a petrified shriek, Mrs. Hudson ran, and ran all the harder when Holmes' cry of "I need more!" reached her ears. She barreled into Alice at the top of the first floor stairs, urging the frightened girl out the door. "I'll not have this any long, go hide at your sister's, I'm fetching help."

Scarcely able to nod, Alice allowed the older woman to usher her out into the late afternoon sun and down the street. She never would return to Baker street, far too terrified of the man who called it home, and the madness therein. Luck, however, would shine on Mrs. Hudson as she tried to hail a cab for herself and the maid at the corner of the block. Hearing Dr. Watson's voice calling her name from within a hansom coming to a stop filled her with sharp relief, meeting the doctor half way out the cab.

"Oh thank God you've come back Dr. Watson, I was going to fetch you. It's urgent. Oh he's in a right state I tell you, something wicked has him this time," she said in a single breath, wringing her hands unconsciously.

"Beg your pardon?" Watson asked at the same time a deeper voice from within the cab asked, "define wicked."

Mycroft Holmes pulled himself out of the carriage after Watson in a stately huff. Steel grey eyes darted over the frantic Mrs. Hudson, and alighted on the maid with a frown. "Take the girl where she wishes, we will walk from here," he spoke uncharacteristically to the cabby, indicating her to the cart with a wave.

"And you too, Mr. Holmes? Oh, the Lord be praised." She turned fast on her heel back towards the flat, the men following her lead.

"What in the world is going on, Mrs. Hudson?" Watson asked, more than confused by her agitation.

Ignoring the inquiry all together, and giving Mrs. Hudson's state no more attention than he would a persistent fly, Mycroft merely stated, "he's done something to the body."

"He's what?! He was as a statue when I left him a few hours ago! Mrs. Hudson, has he really?!"

"You best see for yourselves, nothing I do matters to him," she fretted, letting them into the house. "He's down there." Her shaking hand indicating the basement, and her refusal to go further with them.

Dr. Watson near flew down the steps, picking up the pace when he heard the younger Holmes' voice rise in excitement. Mycroft merely frowned, and followed as fast as his frame would allow. Both men came to a dead stop, for once in a shared state of shock, at the sight that awaited them.

Sherlock's lips twisted into what no one should call a smile as he watched his brother and friend absorb his work. As expected, it was Mycroft who recovered first, and Sherlock addressed him. "Will you stop me, brother mine?"

Cold eyes now tempered with what might have been concern met Sherlock's wild gaze. "Not yet."

Sherlock clasped his hands. "Brilliant. What say you Watson? Watson!"

Coming around, the doctor's stare when from one brother to the other and back again, "what the Hell are you doing to her? Let her be in peace!"

"No! Oh, no, Watson, not yet. It's not done with yet."

Watson stomped his foot in frustration. "She's dead! Properly this time! Let her poor soul rest in peace, you did enough when she lived for God's sake! This is an unpardonable act."

"But that's just it, Watson! Everything leading to this exact point in time is unpardonable by all, I simply couldn't see it. She still doesn't fit, nor does anything upon closer inspection; we are blind, Watson."

Coldly. "On that we at least agree, you are blind, Holmes." Turning to the elder, "surely you will not allow this to continue."

As if weighing his response, Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose, completely aware neither of the two men before him would act until he spoke. "Your tale was alarming enough for me to alter my day. In seeing it's truth, however, I am inclined to agree there is more to this. One chance, Sherlock, one. If it fails... Let. It. Alone."

Sobering slightly, Sherlock answered his brother with an unflinching, "agreed."

Watson threw his hands up in frustration. "Fine," he spat, "do as you will."

Sherlock turned to him cautiously, "your belief in me dwindles still."

"How can it not? Look at what you are doing!"

"As does mine, Sherlock."

Appearing as though he had been slapped, he let the majority of his nervous energy drain away, leaving behind a more temperate man. "I see it is not only to God I must answer. Very well, gentleman."

It was almost as if the great detective had been humbled with the singular and haunting way he moved, adjusting dials, wires, and connections under the gaze of those closest to him. After a quiet moment he turned to them, hand fidgeting with the power lever. "As promised," he swore quietly, letting the weight of his arm push it down.

A clap of light jumped through several of the cords, causing all three onlookers to start. Their faces contorting into unabashed alarm as the dead girl tilted her head back and let loose a sound so guttural it border on glass shattering in their eardrums.

"Turn that damn thing off! Now." Mycroft bellowed, his thick hands over his ears.

The silence that came after was stifling, as none of the men could remove their eyes from the twitching, breathing body of Elizabeth Lestrade. Mycroft leveled a glare at his brother as he spoke, "Dr. Watson, would you look her over?"

The doctor nodded as he moved, slowly and in mild horror. "This is impossible... a trick surely." He sat on the edge of the worn bed, checking her vitals. "This is... I...," unshed, unacknowledged tears sat in the corners of his eyes. "The baby won't have survived," he said uselessly, at last. "The Devil has you, Holmes. I don't think I can stomach this."

He moved to leave, and Sherlock took hold of him. "She lives." It was almost a question.

"You're a damned man," Watson replied, shaking him off and exiting the room.

Holy crap, right? Five years for me to make an up date. I promised I wouldn't abandon this, and I aim to keep my word. Especially now since I've figured out all the loose ends and how to wrap them up more or less neatly. I'm running off four hours of sleep and a ton of coffee, but I was too excited to not write and upload. I also have more than this written, but decided to use it for the next chapter as I felt the natural scene shift was here. I don't have a beta either, so you're getting this raw. The title comes from Five Finger Death Punch, their song "Wrong Side of Heaven" off The Wrong Side of Heaven and The Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 1 album (2013).

A HUGE thank you to everyone who left reviews for my previous chapters too, your kind words are part of the reason I kept the faith that I will finish this. This one is for you.

Always, Anna.