Moran was good. Even in the urban area, he had military training that helped him disappear and stay hidden. And with Moriarty’s network funds, who knew what kind of money he had for resources. After two weeks of work, it didn’t seem possible to track him with any reliability. You were beginning to think you were lucky spotting him that day with Vic or maybe he was just being more careful. You didn’t have time to let him slip away over and over. You needed to bring the game to him before someone else died.
Even with your head down tracking Moran, you had caught the news of the bomb on Baker Street. The remains of 221B weren’t as bad as it could be but it was enough to make its point. Will and Rosie were off with Mr. and Mrs. Holmes on a last minute vacation and it was the only thing that allowed you to breathe. With the kids out of reach, that left only the adults to get this over with and it wasn’t getting done as fast as you hoped.
You closed your eyes and rubbed them gently. The hours of staring through binoculars and watching different buildings was definitely getting to you. This was never your type of work but it had to be now. Mycroft was doing his part while everyone else thought he was in critical condition at an unspecified hospital, Sherlock and John were probably recovered enough by now to be back at it, and Vic was working her angle on Moran’s business. But Moran had become just as much of a ghost as the three men you hoped to hell knew what they were doing.
You couldn’t get Eurus’s flash of recognition at the sight of you out of your head. It didn’t look like she mentioned it to Moran but she could have messaged him once she got in the car she sped off in. Did he actually see you and send his men after you or did she? Either way, they came after you. They had more than enough chances to kill you but that wasn’t the plan like the tranquilizer Eurus shot into John’s chest when she could have killed him. There was a much bigger game than to simply kill you in the streets, they needed you alive to be handed over to Moran or Eurus.
You snapped your eyes open and stared at the house you’d been watching for the better part of the day and wondered if maybe you were going about this all wrong. You didn’t have to find him, you could let him find you. Break into one of his houses, they would certainly have surveillance, and present an undeniable option. Plan b was always a reliable backup.
You turned on your mobile and called Vic. A couple of beeps notified you of messages as you waited for her to answer. You were just about to pull the phone away to look when her harried voice broke through. “Y/n?”
“What is it?”
“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you since yesterday!”
“I told you I was tracking…”
“Mycroft, John, and Sherlock are gone and I can give you one bet where they’ve headed.”
You shoved the key into the ignition. “Do you think Mycroft was right, that she wouldn’t hurt either of them?”
“How the hell could anyone say for sure? The girl was locked up when she was a child! It’s been decades since he’s really talked to her and he let fucking Moriarty in to have a chat. Listen, that backup plan we talked about the other night, after some actual sleep I have a few concerns…”
“Do you think Moran is working with her?”
“That’s the problem, I think they are and if this has so much to do with her brothers, if Moriarty set this up, I’m a little worried about why she’s working with Moran.”
“What if he’s the best chance we’ve got?”
“Radio silence on their end and it’s impossible to get a line to Sherrinford without Mycroft. So, this whole plan has a few holes. How much sleep have you gotten? You should come in and once we hear from Mycroft…”
“And what if we don’t?”
“And what if she’s waiting for you to be presented to her. Did you ever think of that? Come on, you need some real rest. Now that she’s gone all nostalgic with her brothers, what if she hooked up with someone that reminded her of her twin? Don’t you remember what Mycroft said about Sherrinford?”
“We don’t have a choice. Mycroft was confident he could shut that prison down and take control from whatever idiots let this happen.”
“He was confident that she couldn’t get out either.”
“Vic…” There was a noise outside of the car and you glanced around.
“What if we’re playing into their plan? You need some rest and we can…”
There it was, that tingling at the back of your neck. Maybe Vic was right, someone already had eyes on you. “Vic. Remember the rest of the plan.”
“What… Leave now!”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible at this point.”
Vic let out a quiet string of curses and then a crack in the window beside you was almost simultaneous with the hot burst of pain in your neck. You hissed and grabbed at the throbbing sting. It was buried pretty deep but you felt the tip and pulled until finally, the small projectile came loose. You tried to keep hold of it but it slipped from your grip before you could look at it. You stared at your hand and the shiny red paint that covered your fingers. It was so warm and smooth.
A deep breath vibrated through your ear and you could see Vic, her back straightening in her chair in Mycroft’s sitting room with the fire slowly undulating beside her. The heavy feeling settling throughout your body should’ve brought panic but Vic’s voice was warm honey being pulled like taffy. “We’re coming.”
“Make sure… Sherlock haswhaheneeds.”
“Fuck! Y/n…” The steering wheel in front of you bloated and the car seat seemed to envelop you in warm leather. Her voice swirled around you and seeped into your skin. “We’re coming. Do you hear me?”
There was a twinge of sadness but you couldn’t trust your own senses because of the drug that was icing your veins and pulling you into an artificial twilight. Maybe you were right and Moran would give you answers or maybe just like your worry over Mycroft’s assessment of Eurus, your own profile of Moran was lacking data.
Your eyelids were finally too heavy to fight and slammed closed. Who the hell did you think you were trying to play the spy? That was Mary and Vic, you were nothing but a tired mother, a haunted lover, and a scared…
~~
It was so hard to dig up and out of the nightmarish images holding you down but when you finally surfaced from the dream, the frigid hands against your skin didn’t completely disappear. That thick cold had settled so deep every part of your body seemed saturated, your skin, muscles, bones, and it even sluggishly flowed through your veins. You were groggy, off balance, and heavy. Lifting your eyelids took time and almost more focus than you could muster but then the pervading black dissipated and you stared forward until your vision partially cleared in the low light.
A dirty gray wall or ceiling, after a few seconds you confirmed you were laying down on a flat, hard surface. Gray ceiling. Your first thought was an old morgue but you couldn’t say for sure if the cold was coming from outside your body. The stiffness in your wrists and ankles changed as you tried to ground yourself by taking stock of everything you could identify. It wasn’t a stiffness in the joints but a pressure on them, a wide band. Straps. You were strapped to a smooth, possibly steel, table. Ankles, wrists, and across the pelvis.
A screeching door opened to your left and a man stepped into the room. You blinked to clear the white dots filling your vision from the sudden brightness but it only made it worse. You closed your eyes and listened. Boots, one set, heavy but rubber soled, stepped into the room.
“Ever the clever girl.” A surprisingly smooth, deep voice, his speech pattern was eloquent, educated. You knew it had to be Moran but you didn’t expect the twinge of familiarity. “You’re quite the patient little bee, aren’t you?”
It was a little easier to open your eyes this time and Moran stood at the head of the table staring down at you. His upside down face was unsettling but then nothing about this was meant to be a comfort.
“I saw you on a few cameras over the past few weeks and might I say, bravo. At least, on some of your stakeouts, but your lack of experience really stood out on a few.”
He grinned before lifting a wide leather strap into your view then hooked one side of it to the table almost underneath your neck. The cool leather lay against your throat as he attached the other end on the other side of your neck and with a few more clicks, it pulled to a snug fit. The pressure was uncomfortable but the message was clear; he was in control and things were not going to get better.
“Patience and persistence. Have you read my book? No? I once crawled into a drain pipe after a tiger I’d been tracking for days. He was wounded because a few of my shots just happened to miss vital organs but the ending wasn’t what I envisioned. I’ve learned a lot since that day and you,” he sighed as he brushed his fingers over your cheek, “I’ve been so patient.”
He walked around the table tightening the straps as he filled the room with the sound of his voice and the clicks of the ratchet straps. “I’m afraid we’ll have to take this slow.” Wrist, pelvis, ankle. “Since he’ll be out of the office for a day or two.” Ankle, pelvis, wrist. “Maybe a few depending on how many games my sister has lined up. She gets wrapped up in all her… stupid mind games but you and I will just have to get to know each other to pass the time. How does that sound?”
You had a smart comeback about his fake sister but held yourself back. Anger wouldn’t help you here, you needed to keep calm and get in his head. You needed more data to find out what he wanted to hear and what would give you more of a chance to get out alive. You tried to answer but your mouth wouldn’t move. That frigid realization had been pressing against you since you woke but maybe the drugs still in your system had numbed you to it until now or your brain was steering away to keep you calm. Nothing was responding because you were stuck in your mind and your body had been detached by a paralytic. Panic rose like bile in your esophagus. There was no reason for you to be strapped down and definitely not this tight except…
He was at the head of the table again and looking down with a smile that only made the growing profile in your head more horrifying. Hands on sadist.
“Oh, good. I love the silent types. During this part of our relationship, it’s probably best if I do all the talking, that way you don’t ruin anything. Let’s begin, shall we?“ He leaned down into your face, his minty breath hot and yet blending with the cold surrounding you, “oh, and the safe word is redbeard.” He laughed at his own joke, “we are going to have so much fun.”
The tear slipped down the side of your face and landed in your ear. You closed your eyes and dashed into the space in your mind that Sherlock had helped you enlarge and fortify. You found the door to 221B, pulled it open, and walked over to his chair before sinking down into its soft cool leather. You curled up and like a blanket thrown over your shoulders, the soothing sounds of his violin began to play. You could see the smile flitting across his face as he glanced at you and the melody changed. His fingers and his soul began to paint you a picture with a sweeping melody. You took shelter in that familiar warmth you always found when you came home.
~~
Vic tapped her fingernails nervously on Mycroft’s desk as she dialed Mycroft’s mobile yet again. She knew a clean-up crew had been sent to Sherrinford but no one was answering their damn phones. She had a sudden thought and dug inside his desk drawers until she found the small book he kept with important numbers. Sometimes being old-fashioned did come in handy. Flipping to the L section, she found Greg Lestrade and dialed the number. The second he answered, she yelled over him, “Greg, where’s Sherlock?”
“Who is this?”
“A friend of Y/n’s. Is he with you?”
“We’ve got everything covered…”
“Sherlock! Now!”
“Okay. Okay.” She listened to the background noise then heard Greg talking to someone else. There was some rustling then another voice.
“Who is this?”
“Sherlock, you don’t know me but I’ve been with Y/n.”
“Vic?”
She sighed, him trusting her a little would make this easier. “Yes. I’m sending something to Greg’s phone that you need to see but you’re not going to like it.” She pulled the phone away and forwarded the pictures she had received by text in the last two days.
The first picture was mostly in shadow, a small amount of dim light fell over a woman’s shoulder and back, her shirt torn and dirty, and the profile of her face was a silhouette but the second one couldn’t be mistaken for an art project. It sent a clear message. Y/n was tied to a chair but staring defiantly above the camera despite the bruising and blood that covered more than half of her that was visible. The text below it in a darker red, Come play.
“What is this?”
“There’s a number but he will only answer for you. I tried it twice but only heard… her.”
“He?”
“Sebastian Moran. You need to get on that helicopter now or I’ll have one sent to you.” She paused and glanced down at the wallet on the desk.
“When did you last speak with her?”
“Two days ago. I was on the phone when… something happened but by the time I got to her position, she was gone with no trace evidence. I received the first text almost exactly twenty-four hours later and the second one this afternoon.”
“Greg? Is there another helicopter?” His voice was urgent and fuller than it had been when he first took the phone.
“We can take Scotland Yard’s into London.”
“What’s going on?”
“That’ll have to do.” By the tones of the other voices, she had a good guess that all three men had seen the photographs. “Vic?”
“He will only talk to you. Once you get to London, your wallet and your temporary mobile will be waiting for you on Lestrade’s desk.”
“How did you..?”
“I work with Mycroft.”
“Right.”
“Once you get to Lestrade’s desk, make the call and follow his instructions exactly. Make sure the others understand the stakes. I’ll be in touch. Oh, and keep the wallet on you, don’t put it in your coat.” Vic hung up and grabbed her laptop, Sherlock’s wallet, and the mobile phone then left the office behind.
Vic’s focus slipped as a beat of fear shivered down her spine but she shrugged it off as she slipped her hand in the back of her waistband then curled around her favorite, most reliable Glock. She wasn’t going to lose another friend, not this one.
She had been through enough with Y/n that she could easily say this woman deserved so much better and yet she never complained and she never gave up. Some people were dealt a shitty hand and they crumbled, but others found a way to thrive pushing themselves to places they wouldn’t have gone otherwise and turn out so much better for it, at least in Vic’s opinion. Those were qualities that Vic tended to respect especially from someone who didn’t have the training and didn’t sign up for such a dangerous position.
Vic had always been a fighter and she had sensed a kindred spirit in y/n after the few conversations they had. She respected her long before she got the chance to be around her, to have conversations that were both enlightening and infuriating, to truly see how this woman strengthened under pressure and pushed the bounds so her child would not only be safe but still enjoy his childhood. Vic considered her a friend, the closest one she’d had in years, and she wasn’t going to lose another one, especially one that made her feel like she could be herself, at least the self she always thought deep down she was. She didn’t deserve another loss like that and Y/n sure as hell didn’t deserve to go out by the hands of a sick coward like Moran.
Strong, brave little Will didn’t deserve to lose his mother, Sherlock and John didn’t deserve to lose another important woman, and Mycroft, as much as the man could drive her through a wall, even he didn’t deserve to lose someone that he cared about no matter how much he pretended not to. No. This was one world that Moran would not destroy.
She slipped into the mode that fit like a glove as she reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed out the stairwell door. She was the twenty-nine-year-old working woman with a package to deliver. Her mother always said she was an amazing actress but film, television, theater, and tiny statues given out among fancy garments that probably itched like hell was just not her thing. This was where she thrived, where she found herself in sync with everything around her and used it to complete her role. She tightened the strap of the bag she had grabbed from the locker with the delivery company logo emblazoned on the front and headed for the front door.
The next phase of the plan began when Sherlock picked up his items and made the call but she wasn’t as confident as she had been that late night she and y/n thought up this plan. There wasn’t as much control as she liked but that often happened in cases like these. Too much going on created chaos and the only way to grab ahold of that thread of control again was to set the plan back on track. Once these pieces were dropped off, it was all in Sherlock’s hands and Y/n had always been confident in him.
She heard Y/n’s tired voice in her head as she moved out of the building heading for Scotland Yard, get this in his hands and I promise it will lead you to me.
“Hang tight, Y/n. We’re coming.”
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