There was a strained silence between them as John and Sherlock walked down a quiet, half-lit London street. John knew perfectly well that he could hardly rely on Sherlock to be companionable at the best of times, so he broke the silence himself. "Where are we going?"

Sherlock looked up at him as though he'd been shaken from a dream. Then he turned his eyes back to the road and sniffed, "A source suggested I might be able to find a warehouse full of Moriarty's supplies at a certain location. That's where we're going."

The thought of Sherlock's "source" made John bristle- who else could it be, if not Irene?- but he hugged his arms around his chest and kept his mouth firmly closed. He would play nicely with Sherlock until Moriarty had been found and brought to justice, and then he was free to be as bitter as he pleased.

They walked on in silence for a long time, John having lost his urge to make small-talk. Eventually Sherlock led him down a drawn-out, sloping lane. The asphalt had been broken down and torn away long away for other uses and the ground beneath their feet with largely mud and stone. Most of the houses along the way had been flattened and picked through long ago, when the Old World fell and the New World rose from its ashes. A few skeletons remained though, the burnt shells looming at them through the darkness. John didn't frighten easily, but he found himself eyeing those old ruined houses warily, has hand tightening on his gun and his eyes carefully searching.

"Nearly there," Sherlock whispered. It seemed appropriate to whisper; this broken part of London didn't lend itself to booming voices.

John peered into the distance, seeing nothing but far-off shadows. "How can you tell?"

"Tyre marks," replied Sherlock, his voice soft. "There, and there."

"Those could be from anyone."

"Could be, but they're not," he answered mysteriously. He gestured for John to follow and continued down the path.

Eventually a shape ahead made itself distinct from the otherwise unending darkness: a building, squat and low, the windows boarded up and tagged with indecipherable graffiti. John glared at the building, his muscles tensing. He felt the way he often felt before battle, tense but eager, his senses heightened. Sherlock nudged him. "The warehouse."

"Are we going in?" he whispered, slipping his gun from his pocket and switching the safety off.

Sherlock smiled wanly. "Unless you'd prefer to linger outside until daybreak, yes." He strode up to the building, his eyes forward as though he implicitly trusted John to make sure it was safe. There was a thick chain hanging around the warehouse's big double doors, and Sherlock lifted it, regarding the heavy lock with cool interest. "I can pick this," he said off-handedly. He tugged a torch from his pocket and passed it to John, who flicked it on and pointed it at the lock, transferring his gun back to his pocket with a sigh.

Sherlock's fingers were steady as he worked at the lock. Twice he let out a huff of exasperation, and once his tools- which he kept in a little velvet fold of fabric in his breast pocket- slipped, making him grit his teeth, but after a few moments the lock clicked open, and his expression brightened.

"Amazing," John breathed, his breath forming a small cloud of mist between them.

Sherlock cocked his eyebrow. "You think so?"

John nodded. "Absolutely." He slipped the chain off the door-handles and set it gently on the ground, careful not to let it clank too much. Then he withdrew his gun once more, took a deep breath, and shouldered the door open.

It was even darker inside without moon- or starlight to cast whatever dim outlines it may. John held Sherlock back and waited for his eyes to adjust. The red crosses made themselves clear first, and John would've known those crosses anywhere. After all, he'd worn one on his shoulder for years. "What...?"

"What?" Sherlock budged his way inside. "What is it? Weaponry?"

John shook his head slowly and rubbed his eyes as though he could wipe away what he was seeing. "No," he said, his voice low. "No. They're medical supplies. Stolen from the military." His heart was beating dangerously fast. Supplies had always been an issue during the war. John had lost more patients than he could count to infections that could've been prevented if he'd only had access to the right tools. And to discover that this bastard Moriarty had been siphoning them off...

"John."

The ex-captain looked up into Sherlock's concerned eyes. He realized he was breathing heavy, and that his hands were balled into fists. "Sorry," he mumbled, forcibly loosing his fingers. "It's just..."

Sherlock nodded. He'd taken the torch back from John at some point, and now he swiveled it around the room. "It's personal now," he said, his voice loud enough that it echoed around the warehouse. "I understand."

Every movement of the torch revealed another stab of betrayal. Here were boxes and boxes of army rations; there were duffels brimming with hefty military-issue coats. A crate overflowed with boots, all of them in various states of wear and tear, some of them still glistening with blood. John lifted one and looked at it for a long time, a lump in his throat and enough adrenaline in his system that his fingers shook with it. Moriarty's men had picked those boots of John's fallen comrades. They'd stripped the bodies of soldiers, scavenged them for loot. It made him sick.

"I'm going to enjoy killing him," John said coldly, surprised at the steadiness of his voice.

Sherlock regarded him solemnly for a moment, then perked up, his eyes drifting to the door. "It sounds as though you'll be getting your chance soon, Captain Watson." He grabbed John's hand and pulled him outside, tugging John into a row of tall bushes, dashed out again and did up the lock, then tumbled into the bushes himself.

"What?" John hissed, but Sherlock shook his head. The answer revealed itself soon enough anyway, in the form of clicking hooves and creaking wheels. In moments a horse and buggy clattered its way up the lane, stopping just before the warehouse, the horse whinnying. The driver let out a long yawn and climbed down slowly, scratching his arse as he ambled towards the door. He tugged a key loose from his shirt and slipped the tie that held it from around his neck, then unlocked the doors and swung them open. Still yawning, he began bumbling around inside.

John lifted his gun and steadied it, setting his sights on the door.

"What are you doing, you idiot?" Sherlock growled, snatching his gun away. They fumbled over it until John found himself pressed into the dirt, his wrists restrained with just one of Sherlock's hands. "If we follow the buggy it will, in all likelihood, lead us to Moriarty. If we kill the driver, it won't. Do you understand?"

Of course John understood. It didn't mean he liked it. "Give me my gun," he snarled as menacingly as he could manage.

"Don't be ridiculous."

They tussled anew, with similar results. In the end John breathlessly agreed that perhaps Sherlock's plan was wisest, and they slunk out when the driver wasn't looking, sliding under the buggy and tucking themselves up against it. It was easier for Sherlock, whose height allowed him to tuck his feet into one axle and still grip the other with his hands, but John had to loop his arms around Sherlock's waist to keep himself from dragging on the ground. He worried, momentarily, about the proximity...but as soon as the buggy began moving he realized that being so close to Sherlock was the least of his worries. Having his bum occasionally collide painfully with the earth and his forehead with the underside of the buggy kept the ride incredibly unromantic. When at last the cursed vehicle stopped, he let himself droop to the ground with a relieved sigh.

"East End," said Sherlock quietly, lowering himself to the ground beside John.

It took John a moment to put the statement in context. "Why are we in the East End?" It made no sense. John had grown up in the East End; his mother lived there still. It was just a poor, residential neighborhood. Certainly not the sort of place a criminal overlord would do business.

Voices began to carry up and down the street, the sound of a thousand people murmuring at once. Babies wailed, children laughed and shouted. And they were all moving towards the buggy.

"All right, all right," the driver cried, heaving himself up and pushing his way through the sudden throng of people. "Nice and orderly, now, everyone! I want a tidy queue, understand, or nobody's gettin' nothing from me."

Astoundingly, the people obeyed. John and Sherlock wriggled out from under the buggy practically unseen, so focused was everyone on following the driver's orders. They slipped off to an alley entrance and watched.

What John saw broke his heart. "I need penicillin," said the woman at the front of the queue, settling her baby on her hip. "And a winter coat for my husband." The driver dug through the piles in the back of the buggy and passed her the items, then waved her along.

"A week's rations, please," said the next person in line, a young boy of ten or eleven. "Mummy's taken ill, so she sent me in her place."

The driver folded his arms over his chest. "You've a note, young man?"

Nodding eagerly, the boy drew a filthy sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to the driver for inspection. The driver read it over, licked his lips, and went back for the rations.

Each transaction went much the same. Women and children, with dirty faces and rags for clothing, politely asked the driver for something they needed- soap, bandages, powdered milk, shoes that weren't worn thin- and the driver tiredly retrieved it for them. No money was exchanged. And when the buggy was emptied, nearly an hour after it had arrived, the driver asked the people for suggestions on what to bring next time. They shouted out answers- "Combs!" "Toothbrushes!" "Something sweet, for the children!"- and the driver took notes in a little moleskin book, his tongue in his cheek and the stub of a pencil between his calloused fingers. Then he closed up the book, climbed up into his seat, yanked back the reins, and clip-clopped off into the greying morning.

The people dispersed, lugging their new belongings back to their homes. John watched them until the street was empty and silent, then sunk to the ground and pressed his back against the alley wall, his face in his hands.

"John?" Sherlock knelt down beside him and touched his wrist.

"I don't understand." The world seemed to be spinning. "Sherlock, I don't understand. Why? Why would Moriarty be passing out rations and medicine?"

For a long time, Sherlock was silent. Then he sat down beside John and spoke in a quiet, even voice. "Before Mycroft's war, Lord Moriarty once petitioned to my father about the issues of poverty. 'In order for us all to prosper,' he said, 'there must be a middle class.' He'd read it in a book, apparently. Poverty, he said, affected us all, whether we knew it or not. My father didn't care, not at first- the poor were poor and the rich were rich, and since he'd fallen in with the rich what did it matter? But slowly, over time, Moriarty's ideals began to interest him. Conveniently enough, my mother then decided to divorce my father and declare herself sovereign, and the civil war began. The issue, as it were, was never addressed."

John swallowed hard. "So, what? Moriarty is the poor man's hero?"

Laughing, Sherlock shook his head. "I wouldn't go that far, John. I've met Moriarty enough times that I can say, with reasonable certainty, that he cares very little about poverty in actuality. But he enjoys chaos. He likes to go against the grain, so to speak. With the ruling class owning ninety percent of the nation's wealth, it was a very unpopular opinion indeed to side with the poor. Who better to do it, then, than Lord Moriarty?"

"Gods above," John muttered, rubbing at the stubble on his cheeks. The damned nobles and their intrigue turned his stomach. Was nothing simple? Were there no clear lines, no obvious sides? How could he chose between light and darkness when they looked so similar?

"Dawn is coming," Sherlock said, sliding to his feet. He held out his hands to John. "We need to head back."

John took Sherlock's hands and followed him carelessly, too sick with doubt to do anything more.