Chapter Text
***
Miss me? Miss me? Miss me?
The looped words that put Secret Service on high alert and made the whole Great Britain panic only few hours ago, still sounded in Sherlock’s head like an annoying theme from an advertisement or a broken record. He was watching a short movie which had been showed on all these screens time after time trying to find something that would give him a clue: mismatched frame, movement, something, anything. Unfortunately, the animation was monotonous and - except for the obvious fact that someone was able to break the security systems and take over the television network and also electronic billboards all over the country - there was absolutely nothing special or untypical in it.
There was a moment when thoughts about a magical code that could opened every lock returned to his head but he considered that it was ridiculous from the start – if it existed this whole thing wouldn’t look like this and it wouldn’t end up after three minutes and forty-one seconds of primitive image which disappeared as suddenly as it showed up. It would be something like thunder, Moriarty or his wannabe (that was also possible) would appear after this show one way or another, and there should be an attack or maybe a spectacle, final proof that he, the consulting criminal, had actually risen from the dead. His London rats would have gone crazy instead of staying quiet and minor offenders would have started their criminal dance.
At first Sherlock expected a repeat of the events that took place before his fake suicide but in the end he lost any hope for something so… predictable. It would be illogical to expect that Moriarty would show his power again by opening the locks that were seemingly impossible to unlock but the silence seemed even more strange. On the other hand – he did it, he showed off by taking control of all monitors in the country for almost four minutes. He showed off and disappeared. And so there was the most important question: why would anyone do something like this?
Less than four minutes. Exactly two hundred twenty one seconds. Touché.
He took his cell phone which was stubbornly quiet, not counting irrelevant messages from Mycroft – asking if he had any idea what happened and what he was going to do – and John who was worried if everything was ok. Angrily, he threw the phone back on the table and started watching Moriarty’s movie once again. Gritting his teeth, he tried to find anything useful in the chaos reigning in his mind palace. When he was looking at the screen, his vision was stabilizing and new ideas and possibilities were showing off… and when he was turning the clip off, all these things and his attention were going to hell. And because of that, he had to turn the ‘repeat’ button time after time.
Letting his emotions take control of him and his focus…? That was unacceptable.
Over the past few weeks when he had been solving Magnussen’s case, taking drugs, rehabilitating after being shot and finally spending some days in prison, waiting for judicial decision, his ability to make deductions deteriorated. His mental and physical condition wasn’t the best, he felt distracted and no matter how hard he tried to focus – it didn’t do him any good. Maybe it was the matter of fact that he didn’t have much material to analyse but... every time he turned the player off, his head was full of everything that happened lately again: John’s marriage and how it made their relationship less close, finding out about Mary’s lies... the moment when he got familiar with Magnussen’s tactics – searching for people’s pressure points and using them for his own purpose. A moment when he realized how and how easily this man could put pressure on him in an effective way - John, Irene Adler, Moriarty… Redbeard. The hound of Baskerville. And the moment he found out what John’s and his Wife’s From Hell pressure points were. Sherlock snorted with irritation, thinking about all these embarrassing sentiments that made him shoot Magnussen down in front of dozens of policemen and his own brother. That time he thought it was the only solution and the only kind of heroism he could afford but now – after few days and nights – he saw it a little bit differently. There weren’t any regrets and, for sure, he didn’t feel guilty because the world was a better place since that slimy monster had died; however, for his own mental health, he tried not to focus on that burning feeling that he made so many mistakes that day, from the moment of leaving Christmas dinner to shooting Magnussen. Or even earlier, when he was just planning but it all went wrong since Mycroft’s great mind wasn’t supporting him like it did during Lazarus.
The TV with information canal broadcasting was silent but after a while Sherlock turned it off and closed two of three laptops, leaving only this one on which he was watching the already famous animation. He pushed play and closed his eyes, listening to repeated words, generated with speech synthesizer. When he heard those, he could forget about a disappointment with himself and simply go back to the time when he was running with John around London without any emotional commitment, hunting criminals, looking for Moriarty or just having a good time. Or even before, when boredom was his worst enemy, after that – Mycroft and after him: the whole stupidity of the world; when he didn’t care about feelings and they weren’t any threat to him.
Miss me?
Yes, he did. Maybe he didn’t miss Moriarty as a person – it would be some kind of deviation – but he missed those times when things weren’t simple, but they were logical and interesting at least. When the adventures meant races and shootings, not preparing a speech for friend’s wedding; the wedding which wasn’t supposed to change anything and yet changed everything. He missed the times when his relationship with John was based on solving riddles and living together, not like now – rare conversations, dramas involving Mary and short text messages about a suburb house loan or choosing a wallpaper. Did it matter anything that he bought the same one as they had in the living room on Baker Street? Sherlock didn’t suppose he would ever visit them to see it.
He sighed and opened his eyes, looking at Moriarty’s motionless face for a while – the clip ended and stopped on the last frame. Miss me? The answer was so obvious. When everything important to him was gradually falling apart, cases became insipid and less absorbing, when John left with Mary and became an exemplary civilian, the drugs stopped being fun and Janine, who was the most interesting person he lately met, didn’t speak to him – he missed those times even more and in this case ‘those times’ meant one, particular person.
The forum on his website thanks to which he had been able to contact Moriarty before the meeting at the swimming pool – when he had been playing with him in hide and seek, while John and Lestrade were oh, so outraged – was lying fallow and he really doubted that anyone visited it except for the stupid fans enchanted with his hunting hat. There was only one thing he still had after the game with that twisted psycho: his old phone number, that Sherlock had never forgotten. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible that Moriarty was still using it. For a start he should consider the less probable option – somehow Moriarty survived and this whole show was just a trick. His or one of his supporter, some sick fanatic or, God forbid!, Mycroft’s who would be able to do such thing just to save Sherlock from a suicidal mission. According to his estimating there was a 20% of chances that his text message would be received by anyone and less than 1% that Moriarty himself would get it. But there wasn’t any reason not to try.
He took his phone and for a few minutes twiddled with it, gliding with fingertips on the screen. His mobile was rather new but ordinary – a perfect smart phone for someone who didn’t care neither about technical innovation nor colourful gadgets, but also didn’t mind buying new equipment if it seemed to be useful. Of course, not like this hideous pink property of Jennifer Wilson or Irene’s custom-made knick-knack. Each of them (well, first one was a duplicate made by Moriarty) were closed in his desk as the souvenirs. He turned his eyes towards this desk and froze for a moment, somehow reminding himself the text flirts with The Woman. Well, it was called a flirt by John, whose phone, by the way, he should steal at the first opportunity and make it a part of his collection too. The right corner of his lips raised slightly and after a while his fingers danced across the screen:
Yes. A short look at the face on the monitor. How about a cup of tea?
***
Before he experienced Magnussen’s pressure points method on himself, he didn’t think much about it. He usually knew where to hit to hurt someone the most but he wasn’t doing that to make anyone suffer but to solve a case and did it rather automatically than wilfully. Some of the people he knew would think differently for sure but nevertheless, it didn’t make him a sociopathic scum. And, before Magnussen used that tactic against him, he hadn’t really realised the power of manipulation and blackmail.
When he woke up next morning – one look on his phone, no answer from Moriarty’s number but also no report about not delivering the message – he started thinking about his own pressure points again. He had too many of them and some of them… he hadn’t even seen as a pressure point until Magnussen mentioned them; a Redbeard, for example. That made Sherlock realise how sensitive he became. There were just so many potential risks when he was emotionally attached to things that could become tools of blackmail or causing trauma, if used properly. He wasn’t always like that but lately he became soft, even more than most of the ordinary people. They usually had one, maximum two pressure points – their kids, a secret, little junkie brother, a spouse’s past. Sherlock had a whole palette of them and those were only things which was mentioned by Magnussen and which Sherlock was aware of. He didn’t even want to think how many of them were hidden deep inside his heart, buried and forgotten at the bottom of his mind palace.
Straight from his bedroom he went to the living room where he took a tea prepared by Mrs Hudson and, drinking it slowly, he started web research reading blogs, forums and information portals. Although Sherlock spent this way almost three hours, he looked through only few conspiracy theories invented by Internet society. There wasn’t anything serious but those cases made his morning much more entertaining because, despite of being really annoying in real life, primitive minds were so amusing when they tried to think. Some of the ideas you could find even worthy of considering but they weren’t something that he wouldn’t have already come up with. But netizens were excused by the fact that social media never said anything about verified details of a Moriarty’s death – actual or fake. So those poor people went back to their ridiculous theories from 2-3 years ago: Darren Brown, masks, romantic conspiracy between two consultants - detective and criminal, secret participation of Molly Hooper and few more, less popular. From the newest theories, the most fascinating was a 2-page essay proving that Moriarty is John Watson and he showed his fake face as a Richard Brook to cause confusion before his planned attack in Dublin. An appearance of ‘seemingly’ extinct passenger pigeons over the capital was supposed to be a proof of that. When Sherlock finally read information binding those two issues he was so shocked that he had to save this absurdity on his computer.
When he got tired of following those crazy ideas, he changed into ordinary clothes, nothing conspicuous, so no coat with the stand-up collar, crimson shirt or, God forbid!, the hunting hat, and left his flat on Baker Street by jumping out of the window from John’s old bedroom. The crowd of reporters made leaving his apartment without being seen impossible so he had to jump on roofs and lanes for a while before he left the area full of paparazzi. Sherlock didn’t even hope he could somehow follow Moriarty or someone responsible for yesterday’s show using the homeless network but he had to try, without using his phone at all. For somebody with such hack skills intercepting information or hunting Sherlock’s people wouldn’t be a problem and he didn’t want to expose anyone to danger. Ok, if there was someone who can hack every system, the cameras of CCTV wouldn’t be difficult as well but... he wasn’t about to make anything easier or simply show his intentions as if it was nothing to hide. Sherlock met with few people and asked them to send some questions to anyone they were able to get in touch with. His people were supposed to search for anything unusual, particularly the big rat, Moran – the man got out of a prison in suspicious way and Sherlock gave him up long time ago so he didn’t know any details – and also Moriarty/Brook himself, even if, spoken loudly, it sounded ridiculous.
After sending all messages, he visited Bill Wiggins in his dingy cubicle on an attic of old tenement house, somewhere in the downtown. His quarters could be called a hole although this definition suited a basement more than an attic. The bathroom looked like it was taken from a horror movie and there wasn’t any doors, however half-open kitchen looked better than a combination of laboratory and garbage which Sherlock had on Baker Street. A young man walked around his flat a little bit unsteadily, trying to clean up his coffee table in the cluttered living room and preparing a tea. He put a bowl with snacks and tray full of red apples in front of Sherlock but detective didn’t even look at any of this. He was only waiting patiently until his tea in a chipped kettle was brewed.
“So what’s up, Shezza? That Christmas thing didn’t go too well, did it?” he finally said, falling on a dilapidated chair opposite to Sherlock.
“What do you actually know?”
“Magnussen’s dead, they said on the news” he turned his head and put up the hood of his sweatshirt on. “I didn’t believe in this story of shooting by the burglars even for a minute.”
“If you did, I would think you were retarded.”
“So... it didn’t go like you planned. I’m only surprised that you were gone for a couple of days and the doctor is still walking free like nothing happened” he said and Sherlock frowned.
“What makes you think that John killed him?” detective asked coldly and Bill rolled his eyes and looked at his wrist, dislocated few months ago.
“He has some blow. And he’s a soldier. I can easily imagine that man killing someone just because things aren’t like they were supposed to be.”
“John didn’t have a clue what I was about to do back then. I shot Magnussen when a high treason and selling state secrets were an alternative.”
“What about the treasury?”
“It existed only in his head. Now it’s gone forever.”
“Pity.” Bill sighed and Sherlock looked piercingly at him. “It’s like with Irene Adler’s phone. Nobody knew what would be worse: disclosure of information or destroying it until you found out what exactly was in it”
“In Magnussen’s head there was nothing I would like to use in any way” he growled and gritted his teeth, remembering the man who disgusted him so much.
“Really? So you don’t want to know what are your enemies pressure points? I’m sure you weren’t Mycroft’s only one. And Moriarty? Imagine this! Pressure point of the consulting criminal!”
“I really don’t think Moriarty had any.”
“Moriarty can still have them” Bill laughed and took a kettle, swung it for a while and put back on a table. “I’d bet all my money that he is still alive.”
“How much it would be? Ten pounds?” Sherlock snorted while Bill chuckled foolishly.
“It’s not that bad. Well, Shezza, how much would you bet that Moriarty is alive, sitting somewhere in London, taking his next steps?”
“Not a penny. It would be a game of negative result.”
“We’re chemists, not mathematicians, my friend” Bill said with a wide smile on his face. “But if you are so stubborn with your probability calculus... How much? That he didn’t shoot himself in his head, that he ran away and disappeared?”
“Two percent” Sherlock answered thoughtlessly. “And five for the fact it wasn’t real Moriarty. Ignoring all conspiracy theories.”
“Did you read this one about Moriarty being the doctor?” he asked pointing out his laptop which was connected to a huge TV that looked way too expensive to be taken from legal source.
“I wish I didn’t tell you all these things” Sherlock mumbled and meaningfully looked at the kettle, realizing that one more minute and tea will be overbrewed and good for nothing. Bill laughed and, as if he did this to tease Sherlock, he reached the table but then pulled back and started moving the cups. As he saw detective’s killing look, he finally filled them with tea, adding milk and spilling a little bit on the table.
“Who else would listen to your twisted stories since you don’t have neither John nor Janine anymore?”
“The skull” he snapped which made Bill snort slightly.
“You can’t talk into space. The doctor broke you. Now you need real listeners.”
“Few more comments like this and you will replace my friend on the grate” Sherlock said coldly.
Bill smiled and took one of the apples. He started cutting them into half-moons, looking up at Sherlock from time to time. The detective stayed silent, drinking his too milky and too strong tea, staring nowhere. John made better tea. Comparing to Mrs Hudson’s tea, this one deserved only to be flushed in the toilet.
“So...” Bill said after two minutes „You went to Appledore, talked to Magnussen and it turned out to be no treasury, he didn’t want to cooperate and moreover he intended to hand you over to the police as spies and traitors. You shot his head off, police and Mycroft came… and now you are here. This is all I know or guessed. Am I missing something?”
“I had no idea that Mycroft had been waiting for an opportunity to get this guy for years while Mycroft had no idea I was going to kill Magnussen.”
“What did he do to make you shoot him? Because I don’t believe you simply...”
“It’s not your business. He hit my pressure point. That’s all you’re going to hear from me.”
“He was teasing the doctor” Bill said, weirdly satisfied and when he saw confirming irritation on Sherlock’s face, he gave him a broad smile.
“My parents’ house. What happened in there?” detective asked, didn’t even bothering to ask to change the subject. “I know Mycroft’s story. I need the real one.”
“He woke up faster than he should. I suppose he properly dosed his punch.” Bill answered completely bored „His men came, beat the hell out of me and left. Whole story. Oh, before he left, Mycroft had said that he could accuse me of high treason at any time because he had evidence. So I said he wouldn’t do this because thus he would have to accuse his little brother in the first place. Now it’s a whole story.”
“Was he very mad?” I hope he was furious. He thought.
“In fact... no, he wasn’t angry at all” Bill shrugged and ate a piece of apple. „Wanna some?”
“And Mary?”
“What about Mary?”
“How did she react when she woke up?”
“Your doctor didn’t tell you?” Bill was honestly surprised. Sherlock gave him angry look but decided to answer and not to lie.
“We didn’t talk much since that time” he mumbled, staring at his cup and squeezing it a little bit too much.
“I see” Bill said without any spite nor interest. Sherlock frowned and, maybe contrary to himself, he kept talking like he was about to convince himself he wasn’t hurt.
“I was taken to prison. He came by for five minutes and we talked through a window with Mycroft and dozens of policemen staying close to us. After that we saw each other just yesterday when I was going to leave England and...”
“I really get it” he rolled his eyes “And, after few minutes, you landed back because Moriarty bla bla bla” Bill said with his know-all, bored tone. The same one, Sherlock used when he was the same age as Bill now. It was hard to tell if he was just showing off, trying to impress his idol or if it was simply natural for him. “And again you two didn’t talk because there was more important thing to take care of: your nemesis, resurrecting in an even better way than you did. And after that you left to collect your thoughts and start an investigation. And Mary...” he swallowed a piece apple and put a handful of nuts into his mouth. “She almost beat me up. Mommy had to calm her down because she was about to bite my throat. Hot chick. You know, it’s hard to believe she’s just your doctor’s secretary-nurse. I’m almost 100% sure that she had been doing something way more spectacular before she came to London.”
Sherlock clenched his lips and looked away but Bill, despite of his impressive (for an ordinary man) deduction skills, didn’t notice that the detective became more nervous when he mentioned Mary’s past. He could doubt this woman and have mixed feelings about her but he wasn’t intending to expose her by telling anyone about her past, even the most trusted person. It was enough that Mycroft started to dig and it was more than possible that he knew something… and Mrs Hudson heard way too much as well.
“Won’t you ask about your parents?”
“I don’t care” Sherlock shrugged and finished the tea. “You’ve told me all I wanted to know.”
“So you came here just to find out what the doctor’s wife did when she woke up after we had drugged her?”
“More or less.” He stood up faster than he should and his chair creaked loudly against such treatment, drowning the sound of his phone out. Sherlock got a message but ignored it and walked to the window to observe the street. “And I wanted to know was your opinion about Moriarty’s thing but you told me already. Any other ideas? Others than that absurdity online?”
“I think it’s him and I’d bet...”
“Oh, come on! You can’t have only one idea!” snapped Sherlock, suddenly realizing he sounded colder than he intended to. He cursed himself in his head. Short talk about John and Mary and he was mentally deficient.
“Any other idea would be ridiculous. You just said it! Once you’ve ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true .”
“You’re awfully easily deleting if resurrection of Moriarty is your last remaining option.”
“It’s the best one.”
“I saw him shooting his head off. I saw pieces of brain and skull in a pool of blood in which, by the way, his body lied. Dead body.”
“John saw how you were lying on the street after you had jumped from the roof.”
“John is John and I am me. I assure you that he can be deceived much easier. However...” he turned back and smiled devilishly. “Moriarty’s return would be the most interesting option of them all.”
“New Year’s wish?” Bill asked.
“If I believed in such crap, this is exactly what I’d wish for.”
***
Another two days, until New Year’s Eve night, Sherlock spent outside, avoiding reporters, cameras and Mycroft with his insistent and irritating questions if he already found anything. His genius brother was probably pressed by other government éminence grise, who wanted results. They didn’t kill him nor take him to a prison, so they had a moral right to expect something – well, that’s what Mycroft was telling him in the text messages which Sherlock ignored. He answered his brother only once by writing „I’m on a case, stop disturbing me”. That reduced amount of messages a little and made them nicer but it was still far from perfection. Finally he turned off the sounds of calls and messages from Mycroft thanks to what it didn’t distract him anymore. And besides… it made him spitefully satisfied.
Sherlock was watching, meeting with different people, some more suspicious than others, some who had far but still some connection to Moriarty’s web. Not too close to kill them right away but also not so far to delete them from his memory. Because Moriarty’s animation show was just one-off and there was no such demonstration after that, people started to think it was just hack attack of some bored kid from continent or some organisation or Russian intelligence. Even Sherlock himself doubted more and more that Moriarty could return but still, if there were some tracks, he wasn’t sure and kept digging.
Nothing came from that. When he came back home the last day of the year it was late afternoon and he was so exhausted and frustrated that he started to look at Mycroft’s reports made by police and intelligence. To sum up: they had no idea who, from where or how caused the attack. They only had some clue about the way and tools used. It wasn’t helpful at all because his knowledge about hacking the systems wasn’t enough for this case, so information on which tool someone used didn’t make any difference for him. As the matter of fact, even what they found was so discrepant and useless that he could use those materials to set fire in his grate. Which he actually did. He put his chair closer to fire, sat and turned on YouTube on his laptop to watch some clips recorded on cell phones. They all showed cities covered by moving billboards with Moriarty’s face. On the clips he heard passers screaming, traffic and a little bit overdue Christmas carols. He was watching some of mixed clips when his phone made a sound. He didn’t even bother to stop short movie, it was just message from John that New Year’s Eve party is on and he reminded Sherlock should clean up his flat before he, Mary, Molly and Lestrade arrive. And they will come at 9 at the latest. He read it with one eye.
Sherlock didn’t remember inviting anyone for this night (he actually doubted it) or even talking with John about it, but those were information that he deleted from his Mind Palace very quickly. But when he was about to answer the doctor, something else got his attention. Sherlock rewound a clip few seconds back to see a beautiful house, surrounded by trees and plain areas with dry heather. In the foreground there was well preserved access road, next to which he could see some information boards which ruined the view. And were rather invalid. But all of these were electronic showed Moriarty’s face, which could get attention of all potential viewers. Sherlock had a feeling that something’s wrong so he downloaded the clip and watched it all over again, searching for something that didn’t match but the only suspicious thing was that one he saw before. He couldn’t turn his look away but also understood even less.
There was no chance that some psychedelic fan could make this video, all in all – what would the point? And who actually could... Sherlock shook his head and paused the clip, looking at the view like from landscape and Moriarty’s face over and over again. Although he was almost sure, he checked archive weather forecast on 3 different websites – all were consistent. Over 7 days ago was the last time when it was snowing in England and looking at this clip, place where could be heather – at the beginning of December, it was snowing for 2 hours and then snow turned into annoying drizzle.
And this snow, too weak to melt, wet and fine was on the clip, during two seconds part.
New conclusions filled Sherlock’s mind with the speed of light. He excluded the possibility that that movie could be recorded in actual time even abroad because screens with Moriarty were shown only in England. The only way left was to record it before or after his ‘death’. If someone did it later, abroad was the only option – again not snowing for a long time – and this would be worth digging deeper if first version was a blind alley. However, if it was made earlier, the whole thing should be prepared by a perpetrator of attack because no one could know about the animation or what it will be used for. So if an author caused himself so much trouble with it, it had to be some point... And putting this online had to be very important to him.
If it was someone who wasn’t connected to Moriarty, nothing like this would be done. However Moriarty himself or finally - unfortunately – his men or some moronic wannabe... they could ask Sherlock to dance one more time, giving him a clue this way and waiting for him to solve another riddle. Detective stifled a laugh and immediately went into action as he felt that his hands are shaking of excitement.
The movie was uploaded few hours ago by some youtuber who was a specialist of connecting video parts and turning them into mixed clips of different information, virals and news. He was online almost all the time, even on New Year’s Eve. Sherlock sent him a message and he responded few minutes later – he had created that clip using his favourite videos with Moriarty, showed on monitors and yes, he had the sources written down. No, he doesn’t remember that part with lovely, village house because he was connecting only videos recorded by people in cities, arcades or electronic shops... And no, about these two seconds – he didn’t have a clue why it had appeared in his video. Sherlock thanked him and this time shouted of joy. Suddenly he jumped off his chair and, still holding his laptop, rotated on his own axis and then went to his desk. Sherlock dropped everything that laid on it on the floor and next he started to put all his computers, one beside one. Because they were in different corners of his flat he had some problems with finding them. That meant Mrs Hudson cleaned his place again. Looking for his equipment he made quite a mess but he didn’t care.
He was checking few videos at the same time and after a quarter he found two more that included the village house but in different presentations – the first one didn’t last even two seconds but the second was longer than five. None of the authors knew how this part got into their clips and they both stated they hadn’t seen it before. Each of them was an ordinary person, who creates such crap in their free time (checked on social portals, schools, workplaces, photos of childhood, regular activity on a board, virtual farm active for couple of years and almost 100 of ‘friends’ but connected with each other in a logical way). What’s more, that kid who created the clip with over five seconds part was more than willing to help and he sent Sherlock the original version of his video, thank to what the detective was sure that someone hacked those animations. He was ready for the next step of his research.
Heather, plain, snow. Not much, especially since he had to take recording outside the country into consideration. Sherlock started searching for a clue on news boards because they were fake for sure - advertisement of non-existent companies, imaginary names of places, addresses, names, phone numbers... it was a way to nowhere. He decoded dialling codes in few minutes but it didn’t help at all. The casual places, not connected with each other in any way. The detective analysed all the words in addresses, looking for some code. He put them in many different ways but this all made him even more frustrated... still this frustration was nice and motivating, even if “pleasant frustration” was surely an oxymoron. He tried to connect his thoughts in mind palace but he reached out only blank space. After a quarter he gave up, deciding that if he didn’t find a code for such a long time – it simply wasn’t there.
The excitation made his heart beat faster, and his breathing more shallow. He stood up and walked around his room several times, catching random things and putting them back on the floor or the table. He needed an impulse, a spark that would strike the genius out of him… and suddenly he knew what it was. He circled the table and, grinning like crazy, kneed on the floor, crawled to a closet and took some woody blocks placed under it. Blindly he reached the last one, emergency locker for cigarettes that even Mycroft didn’t know about, and took one packet. As he opened it, the man smelled the tobacco with rapt attention, feeling this particular delight. A moment later a cigarette was between his lips and as he lighted it and inhaled, he moaned with relief and satisfaction. Slowly, he came back to his desk, brushing away an ash to a flowerpot with a withered orchid – a gift from a fan or some grateful client – and started staring at the most important part of the five-seconds clip.
Once again, Sherlock was looking for the areas where heather grew, where it was snowing this season, even only once. Surprisingly, there weren’t many places like that and even fewer were it was snowing at early evenings (according to the colour of the sky, the video was recorded somewhere between five and seven pm) so the number of potential places decreased even more. He completed the list and focused on the kinds of heather and trees surrounding the house, then – the wind direction (he had to check archive of the weather forecast again). When he ruled out all the places that didn’t match, only one location left.
But before the name “SUSSEX DOWNS” sounded in his head like a triumphant symphony, the whole effect was crashed into pieces by annoying ringing of doorbell, then steps, laughing and finally knocking.
“Sherlock! The first guests have come!” Mrs Hudson said with wide smile on her face. And suddenly she got saddened when she saw how the living room looked like. “Dear boy, clean up this mess and for God’s sake, air this flat before everyone comes!” she turned back, caught Mary who was standing behind her and took the other woman to her apartment.
Sherlock didn’t look at the door but he knew perfectly well that only two women left, what meant he was in his room only with John, who must have come here with Mary. Pretending he was alone, the detective smoked a cigarette demonstratively. John cleared his throat and only that made Sherlock raise his head and look at the doctor.
“I texted to remind you of the party” he said trying to be patient. He bowed to pick up a sheet of Mycroft’s half burned report and threw it to a fireplace with a disgust. Some time ago a draft must have blown away some pieces of burned paper and now they were floating over the room. Sherlock didn’t care about it before because he was busy with solving the case, however when he saw it right now, he had to admit: the room looked horrible. “And you...” John said but frowned looking at the laptops on Sherlock’s desk and peeked at the screens over his shoulder. “What is this?”
“A case” Sherlock answered blowing the smoke into his face. John looked at him like he was about to kill the detective and the next thing he did was squeezing his wrist. The cigarette was taken from Sherlock and thrown to the grate. “Hey!”
“You won’t be smoking when my pregnant wife is in your flat. Now get dressed and... put yourself together. Molly and Lestrade will be here in any minute and you...” John looked at him up and down. „You are sitting in front of a computer, watching YouTube videos, smoking, and wearing a bathrobe.”
“It’s a case.” Sherlock repeated angrily. Sussex Downs. This was the only thing that was important to him at that time. He was about to connect the clues when his thoughts were distracted so he had reason to be irritated. “I was close to solving it when you all suddenly had to come and ruin this all.”
“You invited us.”
“I don’t remember inviting anyone.”
“Well, it doesn’t surprise me” John snorted with irritation. “Besides...” he frowned for a second forgetting what he wanted to say. “... why didn’t you tell me that you have another case?”
“It was too obvious” Sherlock said looking at him with a pity; what else he could do in such a situation? “Besides you wouldn’t be any help.” He closed his laptop with the weather forecasts and covered it with his hands.
“It didn’t go too well last time when you worked alone” John pointed out sarcastically; it wasn’t easy for Sherlock to hide the fact that John’s words hurt his ego, maybe because they were so true.
“It went perfectly” he said after few seconds. “Magnussen’s dead and I have Moriarty’s case opened once again.” He clapped his hands and smiled in creepy, totally insincere way. “Take care of your pregnant wife if such a case is too much for you.” Sherlock took the laptop from the desk and rose from his chair. “If you want to party while Moriarty is hiding somewhere in London – fine. I won’t be in your way.”
“Sherlock!” John yelled and grabbed his hand. “I know those last actions made you a little bit... confused. Don’t deny! I’m sure you have many things to do but, for Christ’s sake, it’s New Year’s Eve. You need to relax so please, go change and act like a normal person. You will feel better. Hm?” he bent his head looking at Sherlock so intensively that the detective couldn’t simply say no to him.
“Fine” he muttered and pulled out of his squeeze to go to the bedroom.
“Sherlock...” doctor hemmed and pointed a laptop that Sherlock was still holding.
“What?”
“Give me that and get dressed. The others will come here in any minute and I know you enough to...” seeing that Sherlock didn’t do anything, he took his laptop away. “Give me that! I know you. If I won’t take it from you, you’re going to lock yourself in the bedroom and won’t get out till morning.”
“Fine!” Sherlock repeated, more expressly and nervously and went to the other room. When he closed the door, he put his hand into the pocket of his bathrobe. He cursed in his head, realizing that there is no cell phone nor cigarettes. Sherlock looked around searching for something electronic which would let him find anything connected with Sussex Downs. There wasn’t anything like this in that room so, gritting his teeth, he opened his closet and took clean suit out.
While he was getting dressed he tried to find in his Mind Palace anything of that conclusion he had in his head just a moment ago. He couldn’t catch it. His skills failed and why? Because John showed up, talking about his child and wife, lecturing, touching him and acting like nothing had changed between them.
All in all, sometimes Mrs Hudson was right. Sometimes.
***