Coda
part elevenJohn wished he'd taken the time to change out of the remnants of his suit before dashing off to the rescue. Comfortable as it was on normal occasions, it had never been made with the intention of running through the wood. Though Sherlock seemed to be able to do anything in his own--tightly fit as they were!--John was having a somewhat awkward time of following Patience as the sweat clung to him and his skin became itchy from the rough rubbing and miscellaneous allergens in the air. It was much easier to concentrate on momentary discomfort than on the panic that motivated his legs over fallen branches and rocky terrain.
He wasn't sure how long they'd been running, or how much further they'd need to, or even where they were. He trusted Patience to know and kept his senses in tune to the sounds around them, waiting for a snap of a twig or rustle in the brush to give away the presence of someone other than themselves. He had to trust Billie to be Sherlock's gun if he needed it and himself to get to them before things got bad if they were indeed headed in that direction. As he missteped and felt another branch scrape over his shoulder, pulling at his jacket, it was hard to keep optimistic. Even realism was a little too dreary for him as things stood.
To his right he heard a rustling, his eyes searching till they pinpointed the swaying leaves under the tremble of a branch. He reached out, grabbing Patience by the arm as he pulled her to stop, forcing her down till her knees struck the earth. Her breath was shaky and short.
"What--"
"Shhh." John pressed his fingers to her lips for a moment before reaching around to pull the gun from his trousers. He gestured towards the thick line of trees where the echo of movement left only a few small leaves still shuddering without wind. Her eyes grew wider, her hand finding his thigh as she gripped him for strength.
They said nothing, even their breaths dissipating in the silence that stretched as John waited for a sign. In the desert he had been trained to look for the reflective glare of sunlight on metal. The desert was words apart from this, though, and the thick canopy of limbs above left little direct sunlight to catch and glimmer against the surface of any knife or gun. He felt the anxiousness building up in his bones until the leaves began their dance again, branches moving, twigs snapping. Patience's gasp fell behind her own hand as it clasped against her face. John raised his gun-arm, taking careful aim, still waiting for a physical signs of a threat.
When things went silent once more, John gave in to inspiration and pointed his gun at the air instead, letting off a single shot into the trees above. Patience all by screamed as she curled in closer but John kept his eyes open, locked on the waving branches, and eventually on the backside of a deer as it bolted off in the other direction along with an audience of birds and smaller animals set into a scurry.
"Deer," John said softly, exhaling long and deep before looking down at the terrified body curled along his side, fingernails digging painfully into his leg.
Patience looked up slowly, looking around with her hair falling in her face. "You're sure? It sounded--"
"I know. Fear plays tricks on you. Doesn't mean the next one won't be real so it's better we hurry."
She nodded as she stood, dusting herself off in a mostly cursory gesture before leading the way again, walking, then jogging, then falling back into a light run once the sounds fell back into a mask of vague ambiance.
Twice more he called Patience to stop, ordering her to her knees while he caught up at a crouch. A bird. Something unseen that took off far too fast in the opposite direction to be a man. John would listen to her breath and be reminded of his own even as he tried to ignore the pull in his thighs of tired muscles and the cries of his toes from one too many unseen rocks.
"How much further?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow as his heels sank into the moist soil.
Patience sighed loudly on her exhale, looking around at what seemed to John to be nothing more than the same trees they'd been running through since they'd entered the dense woods. "Not too far," she said, pointing ahead with confidence. "Boscombe pool is just there. I live a few kilometers past it. The reception there is good sometimes. We could stop and try Sherlock again."
John liked the sound of that. He helped Patience back to her feet one last time and as they walked quickly to the hidden clearing, finally a destination within sight as worry burrowed further and further into the forefront of John's mind.
Though he'd never been there before, the terrain looked as familiar as if he had. It was far from beautiful, more uncomfortable and dreary than anything else with the ground all but pulling at his soles and the insects more than happy to fly right into his face. Peacefulness was all John could give it credit for. The pool itself was quite large, a football field's length at least and just about as wide, but felt crowded by overgrowth from all visible sides. They were on the same side as the murder had occurred with the mess of footprints in the mud still embodying the bulk of the entire investigation. John didn't recall there being a boat tied up at the bank in any of Billie's video but the rest of it he could place easily, somehow managing to get his bearings. "Your home is that way, yes?" he asked, pointing in the direction Sherlock had walked when investigating Patience's trail.
Patience nodded, walking up beside him. "Yeah, we're not far now if he went there. Even closer if he's still at the Moran place." She pointed off just slightly east of the route they'd been looking down before turning north and pointing there as well. "If he's at the McCarthy place, though, we'll only be getting further away if we head towards my home."
John licked his lips, breathing in through his nose as he looked out upon their options. It wasn't a decision he need make on his own, though. His phone buzzed in his pocket, breaking their momentary silence, and caught him enough by surprise to make him jolt in his stance. "That's him," he said, even without having seen it. He fumbled for the phone, pulling it out and growing frustrated with the screen as he tried his sweaty fingers against the panel. It obeyed eventually, showing him a single message had been received and several more calls missed--all from the same number. John smiled briefly as he opened his messages first.
"Case one: Solved. Case two: Who told you about JM(x2)? - S"
John stared for a moment, unable to keep back the small, relieved smile that spread across his face. Sherlock was okay--better than okay if he'd solved the case; an answer to which John was increasingly interested in hearing. As for the other part, John felt immediately foolish. Of course there would be clues to the existence of the McCarthy brothers in the houses of the Morans and Turners. Childhood friends probably possessed pictures and other bits and pieces that would unfold into the unveiling. There were more important things for now, though. Discussing how he knew and what it now meant for them both was something that could wait.
John dialed his number, looking over at Patience as he held the phone to his ear. "Where's a good place to meet up with him?"
"Ah... Boscombe's really the largest landmark around here. It's just the estates and the town after that." Patience said, gesturing back the way they'd come.
"Boscombe it is then." He didn't like the idea of being away from eye witnesses but he wasn't about to prolong his separation in times like these from Sherlock. A town was much safer than relative isolation but they would get back there soon enough. Together. "See if you can call your father--anyone at all that should be notified about what's going on."
Patience nodded, digging in her purse, while John waited for Sherlock to pick up. He didn't wait long. "Who told you?" the detective asked, forgetting pleasantries completely.
"Hello to you too," John teased. "Look, we can talk about all that later. I'm at Boscombe with Patience, we were coming to warn you. Moriarty is threatening her life and I'm worried there's already someone around ready to take her out--maybe at her home. We're going to head back to-"
"John, shut up and listen to me very carefully. Do you have your gun?"
"Of course I have my gun. You think I'd--"
"Point it at Patience; we're heading to Boscombe right now to assist you."
John froze, his shoulders tensing. He would have liked to have said it was the slight shock of the order or the insinuation it carried that made a shiver roll down his vertebra. Neither of those were quite as chilling as the cold point of something hard pressing against his back, the prick of it hinting quite convincingly of it being a knife as he felt his gun being pulled unceremoniously from his trouser's waistband.
"Hang up, Dr. Watson," Patience ordered, the point digging in harder, stinging as sweat dripped into the small well of a scratch.
Sherlock's voice carried even as John pulled the phone from his face, both hands raising defensively from habit and training. "Patience Turner's maiden name is Moran," the detective said. "She's Sebastian's sister!"
John closed his eyes as he pushed the red button on his phone's screen, ending the call before letting the phone fall to the mud below.
We used to play together when we were kids... Practically our own little gang: the McCarthys, the Turners and the Morans...Sebastian went off with James and Patrick to join the army after school, I got married, and Jim disappeared...
"Fuck," John whispered, letting his head roll forward as he breathed in deep the musky smell of defeat.
It would mean a right handed killer hit him from behind, but the only footprints in the mud behind Charles's belonged to Patience...The marks on the dead man's cheek; it's a zipper imprint...He was hit with something with a zipper on it.
There was no bag.
"Jim didn't do it," he said with a disbelieving laugh, his chest constricting hard around his lungs with the weight of understanding. "Moriarty's fucking innocent. It was you; it was your fucking purse. What did you do, put a rock in it?" He couldn't see her but he could feel her and hear her, least of the sounds he wanted to hear being that of the safety on his gun being clicked off. He felt the muzzle press to the back of his neck as the knife point pulled away from his spine. "Why'd you do it?" he asked, trying hard not to swallow.
Patience sighed. "Because he was alive. I mean, how do you think I feel? My brother's in jail because of the man's stupid orders and here he is, alive and well, not lifting one god damn finger to help Seb but with all the time in the world to come play in the wood. And I heard everything he said. Everything. And I thought... it's not fair, you know? My family is going to rot in jail and he couldn't care less. I wouldn't stand a chance against Jim but... an eye for an eye; my family for his."
"So Hammurabi is your code."
"I wasn't lying about receiving that note. Jim's little way of letting me know he knows I killed his father and why. And he'll kill me. But not before I'm finished."
John's heart sank, the muzzle of his gun warm against his neck but still sending that tell-all shiver on a return trip. "Your brother killed people, Patience. Sherlock and I were just doing our job."
"I know," she said, and her voice was kinder for a moment before the hard press of the gun forced John's head forward, the returning point of the knife now in his thigh forcing his leg to step towards the bank of the pool where the small boat was tied. "I never planned for this, John, but I can't let the opportunity pass me by. If I'm going down, I'm taking Sherlock Holmes with me. For Sebastian and for myself as well."
John's mouth felt dry, his eyes focusing on the small rowboat as he wrestled with his options. "Why the boat. Where are we going?"
"Just out to the middle. We won't be bothered there. Less chance of an ambush from either Moriarty's men or Sherlock's." The knife caught him harder, stabbing in just slightly but more than enough to make John's body go rigid and his voice to hiss through his teeth. "You can't escape out on the water, either."
"You think I can't disarm you?"
"Think the collateral damage won't kill you?"
John bit his bottom lip, walking forward with the continued press of her weapons. "You don't want to do this. You really don't," he said, trying to think of something to keep them both on solid ground. "You need our help more than ever if Moriarty is after you. We have connections. The kind of information you have might even get you cleared of murder charges for the exchange. You never know. It doesn't have to be like this. It's not too late."
"Yes, it is." Patience twisted her knife and John stumbled, his knees hitting the side of the boat as the gun kept pressed against the notch of his skull and neck. "It was too late for Patrick when that bomb took him in Afghanistan. It was too late for James when that tumor made him nuts. It was too late for Sebastian when he listened to a madman instead of himself. And it's too late for Jim because the one who will get revenge on Sherlock Holmes is going to be me."