Adult-FanFiction.org : Television / Streaming

Why Do We Fall?	By : darkangel1210 Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 1587 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don’t own BBC Sherlock or any of the characters, nor do I make any profit from writing this. Just too inspired by the show that I had to borrow them.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
A/N: I know, it's been ages for this story, hasn't it. This part has had more than its fair share of rewrites, but it's finally at the point that I'm happy with it so here is the finished chapter.
Thank you to everyone who has shown their support! You're all fab! :-)
Part Four
The screen in front of Sherlock immediately responded to the activation of the button he’d pressed, the display changing from the statistics of the person inside the machine to the procedure that would release the pressure valve on the door. A timer was shown on the screen, the digits black on a white background, and it was counting down the minutes and seconds until the machine would, theoretically, open to allow them a chance to have a look inside.
Sherlock watched the numbers as they counted down from five minutes, the amount of time required for the chamber to decompress, he was assuming, but how was that even possible? The required time for a normal round of decompression usually lasted about ten minutes for every one to two hours of compression, so, given the amount of time that had passed since the man was put inside the machine, his body should have required at least one week’s worth of decompression to allow his cells to stabilise to the atmospheric pressure of the outside world.
If it really only took the whole procedure five minutes to allow the body inside to acclimatise to the change of environment, what else could they have done in this facility? Or, perhaps the most pressing question, what had they done to the man inside the machine?
The sound of a bag being placed on the ground next to him made Sherlock turn in the direction of the noise, watching as John put his rucksack on the floor and started removing the extra clothing they’d bought with them, including a thick fleece, undergarments, trousers, socks and boots. Before they’d left the flat, Sherlock had ensured that the size of the clothing almost matched the measurements of the man he’d seen in his visions, not willing to take any chances in this cold weather or using the assumption that he would be the same size as he’d been in Sherlock’s memory. The clothes were therefore one size too big for him, but had been chosen specifically because the trousers and fleece could be adjusted to the correct size. Shoes and socks hadn’t mattered in adjustability, just warmth, so the boots had been waterproofed and had lots of padding, while the socks were made of wool to keep the insulation in.
John had just finished putting the items down on the floor, using the light from his torch so he could see what he was doing, before the monitor nearest to Sherlock started flashing a bright red, each pulse accompanied by a low pitched beep that startled them both with its frequency. Both Sherlock and John looked up at the screen although no new information was on display and, when the fifth beep sounded, the lights above their heads flashed with a surge of power, the brightness of the glow enough to make them shield their eyes against it.
“What the…!” John rubbed at his eyes when the light dulled down to a level where they could see each other again before staring at Sherlock in bemusement. “What the hell was that?”
Sherlock understood his partner’s confusion; the button he’d pressed hadn’t said anything about returning power to the building, for that was what the beeps represented on the chamber behind them; the system in the machine had prepared itself for the power surge that had caused the lights to shine beyond their natural level, the back-up procedures blocking off the excess electricity to ensure the information contained inside wasn’t lost. The button that had been on the monitor had clearly said ‘Emergency Release’ and he doubted that the small generator in the room behind them had enough power inside it to affect the lights to the degree that they’d seen.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his mobile phone, biting his bottom lip in frustration when he saw that he had no signal. Without a signal of any kind he wasn’t able to access the National Grid to see if power had been restored to the whole building or whether it was just this room and, more importantly where the power had come from, a piece of information that he sorely needed and was unable to retrieve from a trusted source; he would have to find out when they left the building.
“Sherlock?”
He pulled his eyes away from his mobile phone to look at John, seeing that the other man’s eyes were fixed on the monitor nearest Sherlock with a concerned expression on his face. Sherlock didn’t realise what it was though that was causing John’s concern, not until he looked at the screen and saw that a single word was displayed along the bottom of it in bold, black letters, the word itself sending a pang through his stomach as the machine began to beep at them again.

INTRUDER
Almost as soon as he’d seen the word, the sounds stopped and the screen now displayed various camera shots of the outside of the building, each one recording live footage. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed on one in particular, realising it was the front entrance of the building and in the far distance, just in range of the cameras, there were four figures moving in the snow, the flakes kicking up around their feet as they came towards the entrance.
Sherlock didn’t hesitate; he immediately began to pack the items John had put on the floor for the man inside the machine, putting them back into the rucksack and closing it, before removing his long coat and scarf and shoving them in a concealed gap between the computers, knowing that they would only hinder them in the events to come.
John watched what he was doing for a moment before he returned his eyes back to the screen where the men were on the CCTV cameras, and murmured a warning, “Sherlock,” when he noticed their proximity.
Sherlock, too, had noticed the distance being eaten up between them and the people outside, quickly pushing the rucksack into another space to hide it before he moved towards the exit of the room with John following close behind him. Sherlock quickly appraised the area in front of them as John came out from behind him, creeping out onto the platform into the office where the lights had also been turned on, and turning back towards the door to see that the keypad next to it had been activated with the renewal of power to the building. He didn’t allow himself to think too deeply on the reasons behind why the power had come back on, shutting the door behind them where the machine was still counting down from five minutes, and making sure the locks were in place, before hurrying with John down to one of the desks and crouching behind it as he looked at the other entrance to the office on the opposite side to the platform.
John gave him a questioning look once they were below the level of the desk, and directed his gaze back up to the door from which they’d come, glancing back over the top of the desk to ensure they were alone and pulling his head back down. “We can’t leave him there,” John whispered, his voice hard in his throat.
Sherlock shook his head. “We won’t leave him,” he replied, keeping half an ear open to signs of other people on their way to them. “We can’t let them get access to him, John. The power’s been restored for a reason; they must know that we’re here.”
John’s mouth thinned with frustration. “How could they know?” he whispered harshly. “The place has been deserted since the company closed down!”
“That you know of. We can’t assume that our whereabouts are a secret here; when the machine was opened it triggered something. It’s something we’ll need to look into, but our first priority is getting out of here; all three of us.” Sherlock motioned for silence when John went to speak and was more than a little unnerved when silence was what greeted him. The men must have reached the interior of the building by now, but no footfalls where on their way to them, no echoes resounding on deserted corridors, so he quickly moved from their position and towards the entrance that they’d come through originally. They both took a side of the still open door, taking a moment to steady themselves as John raised his gun up to his own eye level in a ready position. John threw Sherlock a look, the one that he’d seen too often to count and one that still possessed the same strength as the last time they were together before Sherlock’s fall.
Sherlock felt the answer deep in his bones, his blood singing in his veins with an intensity that made his heart pound, and nodded.
John’s eyes steeled before him, his training coming to the surface and taking over his body before Sherlock had a chance to breathe at the change. He watched as John checked the corridor for any signs of another person before moving forward to the area that would eventually lead to the stairs, Sherlock staying close on John’s heels. Their steps were light beneath them, both of them having had the required practise to ensure that their footfalls remained as unnoticed as possible and keeping their profiles low when they came to the staircase.
There was still no sound of movement above them, but Sherlock didn’t allow the silence to fool either John or himself, lying down on his front on the stairs and almost crawling up them in a steady pace, stopping just before his head came over the top step. He looked back over his right shoulder and saw that John was still crouched down at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for Sherlock’s signal to come up if the coast was clear, and nodded once before risking a glance over the top.
The corridor in front of him was empty, the lights above them clearing the way and showing the doors of the offices further down which had been left open from where they’d searched the rooms before. He waited for a few more seconds, breath held in his throat, and signalled for John to come up the stairs behind him as Sherlock stepped up and into the corridor.  He quickly went to the door of the second office on their right, risking a glance inside and, upon seeing it empty, utilising the room as coverage. Opposite him and a little back down the corridor, John quickly understood what it was Sherlock was trying to achieve and cleared the previous office before disappearing around the corner of the door, both of them quiet as they waited for the approach of the men they’d seen in the cameras.
There! Very faint, just small echoes, but echoes nonetheless. The sound of footfalls, heavy boots compacting with the floor and the shift of winter gear on the people wearing it as they adjusted their stances. Sherlock listened to the pattern of the boots, hearing the rhythmic thump, thump, thump, thump, of several feet which told him the group as a single unit were working together to clear the building. But the rhythm wasn’t a fast one; it was cautious, stopping every so often with the accompanying click of metal being gripped in the hands of the person carrying it as they swept the contours of the area in front of them. Armed than, with large weapons judging by the way the footsteps were made and each one made to accommodate the weight of the gun they each held in their hands.
Sherlock moved away from the doorframe and slid close to the wall until he reached the desk that was in the room with him, the sides of the wood reaching down to the floor and providing coverage for him as he hid behind it. The men in the hallway, probably mercenaries at the most because of the way they moved, were in the process of checking all the rooms in the vicinity and Sherlock concentrated on keeping his breathing shallow so he wasn’t spotted before they made it to the office he was in.
It was an inevitability that they would be found; he knew it and so did John. Five against two weren’t good odds, and they still had to find a way of getting out of the building whilst trying to get back to the machine which must have opened by now, and taking everything else that they’d bought with them as well. They would need to work systematically, taking out individual targets before going back for the person they’d hopefully released. Easier said than done, but they would need to try.
The situation called for a distraction to try and stop them from reaching the room where the man was being held, and as it was a given that both Sherlock and John would be found, he decided that the distraction would have to be themselves. The whole plan was ridiculous because Sherlock had no way of knowing that they wouldn’t just shoot him on the spot, but there was the equal chance that they probably wouldn’t. If they were really here because the machine had been activated, not because of their arrival, there was a very real possibility that they’d only come with weapons for whatever was inside the machine, not for anyone outside of it who didn’t pose a threat. Or he hoped so.
He calculated he had roughly two minutes before the men reached the room he was in and quickly stood up behind the desk, taking a deep breath before he began to rummage around the office. He heard the quickened footsteps of the men as they rushed to where Sherlock was making the noise, but Sherlock pretended to pay no attention and began pulling the drawers from the desk out, taking out the contents and scattering them on the floor. The sound of guns being pointed at him made Sherlock’s heart pound in his ribcage, for he had no way of knowing that this wasn’t it, that these men wouldn’t just shoot him, but his decision proved correct when the one of them spoke to him.
“Put your hands above your head.”
Sherlock huffed in a sign of impatience before doing as he was asked, taking in the profile of the other men as he raised his hands to the position demanded of him. He ascertained that they were indeed mercenaries, hired by someone who had the money to do so (given the equipment that they had on them), but also deducing that there wasn’t anything even remotely interesting about them. Besides the fact that two of them had been discharged from the army for causing grievous bodily harm to their commanding officers, they were civilians who had been hired for their less-than-moral stances and their ability to get a job done. All of them were in their mid-thirties, with one of them trying to repay the thousands of pounds of debt that he owed, while another was getting ready for the arrival of his fifth… no, sixth child and was running out of cash.
No, what concerned Sherlock most of all was the fact that the men had, for their main guns, silenced MP5’s with their secondary weapons being SIG handguns. Both firearms were the top of the range in their class, but the fact that they hadn’t been fired yet allowed Sherlock to give a small breath of relief. Evidentially their orders were not on a ‘shoot to kill’ basis, otherwise he would already be dead, but he needed to find out what their job was and opted for a different tactic. “I hadn’t expected Moriarty’s men would be so responsive,” he said disdainfully, watching the face of the one who had spoken to him as the other’s eyes widened in alarm upon recognising him.
“Bloody hell!” the leader said, coming into the room and lowering his weapon marginally as the shock of who standing in front of him began to sink in. He quickly lifted his right hand from the barrel of the gun and bought it up to his head, clicking at the microphone in his right ear and speaking into the mouthpiece. “Sir, you’re not going to believe this, but Sherlock Holmes is in the building.” There was a pause as the man listened to the response of his employer; but he didn’t take his eyes off Sherlock, instead motioning for Sherlock to go to the wall furthest from the door and keeping his gun trained on him. “Understood.” The man put his hand back on his weapon.
“So what does your boss want from you?” Sherlock asked, forcing a bored tone even as the palms of his hands were sweating in his gloves.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the mercenary said, turning to the rest of his party who lingered in the doorway and giving them the hand-signal to continue checking the rest of the building, which they did without a moment’s hesitation. Sherlock counted the seconds in his head, reaching three before the noise of John being located and disarmed resounded in the corridor, just a few moments before John was escorted into the same office as himself. John also had his hands raised above his head and had a blank expression on his face, marching curtly over to where Sherlock was standing and leaning against the wall behind them.
The leader of the party regarded Sherlock and John with an unreadable expression, lowering his weapon into a position of neutrality before stepping away from them, his men falling in behind him. “Move, back to the reception area. Now.”
The order was firm, allowing no rebuke from either Sherlock or John, and they grimly made to do as they were told, hands still raised in the air as they were escorted back to the front of the building.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
His heartbeat… again.
The rhythm was relaxed, a longer pause between each beat as the blood in his veins was pumped slowly around his body, as slow as the breath in his lungs that expanded his chest and re-oxygenated the cells that he was made of. But the whole process was sluggish, unhurried, almost as though it were an afterthought; his body seemed to only just remember that he needed to breathe because he needed the oxygen to live; that he needed his heart to beat to send that oxygen to the different places around his body. It wasn’t as fast as he remembered it being, the natural subconscious responses that kept him alive, and he remembered that he’d been injected before being taken into another room by the two doctors that had kept him imprisoned. The injection had likely contained a substance that slowed down his body’s metabolic rate; had in fact slowed it down to such a degree that he wasn’t aware that he was in any need of nourishment for the foreseeable future, foreseeable only because he had no idea where he was.
“If you don’t remember anything else we’ve said, then you must remember this. The date is the nineteenth of September, twenty-thirteen. This machine will keep you in suspended animation for as long as there’s power to keep it running, but you’ve only got three months. If you want to survive, you’ll need to find a way out and we can’t come back to help you. But you deserve a chance, do you hear me? You deserve that much.”
The memory came out of nowhere; the words flashing through his mind in the drawl of the Australian’s accent that he’d become so accustomed to since his imprisonment. The words were intentional, for they had been spoken directly into his ear; they were for him, his words, and the Australian had been adamant in his conviction that he must live. To succumb was to lose everything; all the hard work that the doctors had done throughout his time there, facing the same grey walls and smelling the same recycled air.
His lungs took in another inhale of the air around him, finding the action smooth and without hindrance, and the air which he breathed in was fresh. Filtered, no doubt, and likely from an outside source until it was fed into the compressed chamber, for his spatial awareness had since come into action and he soon realised that the space he was in was just big enough to house his body without the experience being uncomfortable. No matter what had been done for his comfort though, the small space didn’t have the capacity for half a day’s worth of oxygen, let alone the three months that they had given him to escape his confines alive.
His fingers twitched at the reminder, a nervous flex that irritated his palms and made him want to scratch them, even though he knew the reaction was entirely irrational and there wasn’t actually anything wrong with him. The flex told him that he was able to move to an extent now, whereas previously he hadn’t been able to move at all with the inhibitor in his bloodstream. He frowned, feeling the lines of his forehead on his face as he processed that information. The injection had slowed down his body’s natural processes and it had also prevented him from moving; it had done nothing less than that for the duration of his time in the machine he was being held in. So why was he able to move now? What was different?
He tested the muscles in his eyes, moving them around in his head, up, down, left, right, and then tried to open them, moving the lids that lay across his vision in a fluttery, non-fixed way. And huffed his breath out when he saw that, actually, opening his eyes hadn’t done a damn thing. The area in front of him was black; he raised his right hand to his face and couldn’t even see it, although he could certainly feel it there in front of him and when it touched his body. Face, neck, collar-bones, chest, all the way down as far as he could reach.
His fingers brushed the mask around his nose and mouth, a mask that fed the air directly to him and flushed out his exhalation through two sets of tubes that extended to the sides of his head and above him. In his right arm, at the crook of his elbow, there was another tube; this one was thicker than the ones above his head and the end of it had been put directly into his vein and secured with surgical tape. He couldn’t tell what it was that was being fed into him, but he assumed it was some sort of provider of the nourishment he would have needed through the months when he was unconscious. From the small amount of pressure there he guessed that it was still doing its job, pumping the liquid into him in intervals to allow his body to absorb the nutrients in small doses. So the suspended animation they’d put him in hadn’t halted his bodily function in its entirety; it merely kept him in as much the same state as he’d been when they first put him into the machine, although he still required the necessary supplements to be kept alive. And the serum itself hadn’t impeded his cognitive function either, his eyes seeing new memories with another man who had come into his vision. Interesting…
Eventually, though the process was a slow one, all the areas of his body were accounted for and each of them was responsive to the sensation of his hand on his body, the nerves coming alive under his fingertips and making the synapses in his brain fire under the sensory bombardment. Yes, he was very much alive and now in control of his body, that much was clear to him, but he was at a loss of what to do. He tried to stretch his body out and found that his head was almost to the top of the chamber he was in, his hands pressing flat against the metal above his head (being careful not to disturb the tubes which gave him his air supply), and below him at his feet the outcome was very much the same. His toes pressed into the door there, using them as an extra pair of hands as he wasn’t able to reach the space in the position he was in, lying flat as he was, but found nothing but a flat, circular surface under the sensitive pads of his flesh.
Having exhausted the limits of what he was able to accomplish in the space provided to him, he put his body back into the position it had been in before but was unable to quieten the frantic workings of his thoughts. He knew he had to get out otherwise he would die; there was no question of that, but the door hadn’t opened yet and he had no way of knowing how long it was that he was going to be kept inside.
Another thought crept from the back of his mind, hesitant and but not wholly unwelcome. It was a long shot but, as he was conscious now and he hadn’t been before, he knew that his sudden wakefulness must have come from an outside source because the machine itself had not been programmed to wake him up without outside intervention, even when the three months was finished. After that time it would have run out of power and he would have been stranded inside it. So maybe, just maybe, someone was there and they wanted to get him out.
There was a flicker on the glass surface in front of him, distracting him with a single flash of blue light, before the whole of the chamber was bathed in the same fluorescent colour coming from LEDs which lined the full length of the machine. He had to close his eyes against the light, the bright flash hurting them in its intensity, and underneath his feet he felt the whoosh of air rush into the chamber as the door was finally released.
He exhaled sharply at the sensation of cold air touching his skin, the warmth of the machine dissipating in a matter of moments as the fresh air from outside flooded the small space he was in. Experimentally, he lifted his hands to his face and removed the face mask, cautiously taking a lungful of air and coughing when the dregs at the back of his throat were irritated with the movement, and reaching down to the drip in his right arm to carefully remove it from his flesh. He lifted his head and looked down the length of his body, seeing another room from between his feet and remembering that the surface he was lying on was on a roller system. He reached his hands above his head and gave a small, soft push, testing the mobility of the surface. On finding it amenable to his movements, he gave a short, deep push to the wall above him, giving himself enough momentum for the surface to slide from the machine and out into the room without him tumbling from it.
The lights were much easier on his eyes now, not the garish blue from the machine, but a white glow that illuminated the whole of the room around him. He turned his head from one side to the other, using the extra room to test his mobility before pushing his arms beneath him and extending them, forcing himself up to a reclining position to better understand his environment.
It was bitterly obvious that it was cold; much colder than he’d anticipated because his skin had broken out into goose-bumps and his breath wafted out in front of him, a warm mist in the air of the room. He was alone now, but his eyes quickly narrowed in on the evidence of other people who had been with him in what he knew were just moments before. Next to him he could see the smudges of fingerprints on the keyboard, left over by the dust which had collected there and had now been disturbed after three months of no use. When he looked down at the floor around him, there were leftover wet shoe prints on the floor; two people, he saw, because there were only two sets of prints. But why had they left?
Gingerly, he pushed himself to an upright position, feeling the stretch of his muscles in his body with his movement as he flexed them to try and ascertain how much use he would have of them. They were aching but he hadn’t expected anything else, swinging his legs around to the right and placing his feet on the floor. His eyes looked down at the shoe prints again, finding the overall path of the people who had freed him and following it from around the corner of the room to the machine, and back out again. He frowned, seeing that one person had disturbed the dust close to the computers on one side of the room in two places and that the computers themselves had recently been moved. What had they been doing?
He tested his weight on his legs to ensure he wouldn’t fall over, using his hands to push himself up from the machine until he was upright for the first time in three months. A little unsteady perhaps, but nothing that he couldn’t manage. He walked over to where the person had been by the computers before kneeling down and pushing one of them to the side until he could see what had been put there, feeling his breath catch in his chest when he saw what had been hidden.
The rucksack was full of clothing which was almost his size, and the coat and scarf he found obviously weren’t for him but matched the sizing of the only other person he remembered besides the people who’d already been in the facility with him. He pulled out the clothes meant for him from the rucksack, putting them on with a quick efficiency and breathing a small sigh of relief when the warmth from the material began to stop the shivering his body had been doing to try and combat the cold. He took the scarf and coat from the hiding spot, his skin feeling the remaining warmth of the person who’d been wearing it which told him that it had only been taken off recently. Not long enough for the cold to take hold on the areas which had been wrapped close to the person’s body.
Gathering the items close to him, he turned back to the machine and saw that the screen was showing CCTV footage of the surrounding area outside the building, but there wasn’t anyone in the footage now. He put the clothes and rucksack on the machine next to him, accessing the CCTV system and changing the input from outside the building to the cameras which were inside it, frowning again when he found what he was looking for.
There were the two people who had come to get him; he recognised the taller of the two men who’d come to get him, remembering him from his visions when he’d been inside the machine, but he didn’t recognise the other man, changing camera angles and watching as they were escorted to the front of the building. They were clearly being moved against their will by the four men who were with them, their hands in the air as they ascended the staircase to the ground floor of the building, an area he’d never seen before. From the look on the two men’s faces, they weren’t holding out much hope for what would happen to them now that they’d been found.
‘I’ve need to get to them.’
He quickly turned away from the screen and walked around the corner of the room until he saw the main door, walking up to it and looking out the window to see the card reader. It was flashing a red light in regular intervals which meant that the door was locked and he didn’t have the card or the code on him to release it. He cursed under his breath, walking back to the computer and hacking into it to try and find another way out.
He took down the CCTV footage on the monitor, bypassing the firewalls and security on the system until he located the blueprints of the entire building. It became apparent that he wouldn’t be able to walk through the building like the others had done without being spotted eventually; he would need to utilize every advantage available to him and remaining hidden was the best way to do that. He looked up at the roof above him, his focus taking in the size of the ventilation grate which was just above the machine with an idea forming inside his head. He turned back to the monitor and brought up the plans of the building again, uploading the images of the ventilation shafts which ran throughout the entire building and taking mental notes of the way to the front entrance and the positions of the grates which were close to that area.
Leaving the clothing and rucksack on the machine, he took off his boots and climbed onto the tray to pull the grate from the opening to the shaft. It came away with little resistance and he put his hands into the opening, finding a handhold on both sides, and pulled himself up into the shaft. He took a moment to orient himself in the darkness, bringing the image of the plans to the forefront of his mind, and began to crawl his way through the small space in the direction that would take him to the front entrance where the two men were being held.

“You’re going to tell us what you’re doing here,” the leader said, his gun levelled at Sherlock’s head where both John and Sherlock had been told to kneel on the floor, “and no funny business. We’re not under obligation to keep you alive.”
Sherlock fought not to roll his eyes at the thinly veiled threat, looking around the room they were in as though he were bored of the whole thing, when in truth he was looking for a way out of this problem. They were back in the reception area of the building with their hands tied behind their backs, the mercenaries having used plastic ties rather than handcuffs, and they were facing towards the entrance with the four mercenaries standing in front of them, three of them standing behind their leader and watching the questioning.
“We’re looking for information,” Sherlock said after a brief pause, deciding that telling the truth as much as possible couldn’t do them any more harm than what they already found themselves in.
“What information?” the man asked, his voice demanding an answer that Sherlock didn’t want to give him.
Sherlock sighed. “I found out that James Moriarty used to fund this organisation before he committed suicide. I’ve come back to see if I can find out what he was funding so I can try and put a stop to it.”
The leader didn’t say anything to Sherlock’s statement, narrowing his eyes in what was a clear attempt to try and pick out the lie. “We know you found the machine,” he said eventually, “now tell us what you’re doing here, or I’ll have to force the matter.”
Sherlock wasn’t surprised by that; the machine was obviously being monitored by powerful people outside of the company so when it was activated they would have been informed of it, hence the alarmingly quick response from these men. He didn’t even put it past them that they already knew when he and John had arrived at the Park, making their own way here since Sherlock first broke into the building. But they had one thing on their side, at least. The mercenaries didn’t actually know what had brought Sherlock and John here to begin with, otherwise they wouldn’t be questioning them.
“Yes, we found a machine that still had power,” Sherlock said, completely unapologetic of his actions. “I wanted to know what was inside it, so I activated the decompression sequence to open the door.”
“And you’ve no idea what was inside?” the leader asked him.
Sherlock shook his head. “I could see from the displays that there was possibly a human being held there, but I don’t know whether or not that’s true. The decompression sequence was still being finished when we left.”
The mercenary remained silent, apparently believing everything Sherlock had said thus far, but Sherlock didn’t allow that small victory to cloud his judgement. He wanted to look over at John to see how he was faring under the pressure, but knew that to do so would look as though he was having a guilty conscience. No, it was better to keep eye contact with the leader and his men, just in case any of them got any ideas.
“How long was the timer set for the decompression?” the leader asked, his focus on Sherlock unwavering.
“Thirty minutes,” Sherlock said, not hesitating in the slightest at the lie. “The door won’t have opened just yet, if it ever opens at all. There’s a high possibility that the person inside is dead anyway.”
Sherlock could see it in the man’s eyes that he didn’t believe him, but he also saw that the ex-army soldier knew that he no physical proof of whether or not Sherlock was actually lying. “Keep an eye on the entrances,” he said to his men, keeping his eyes on Sherlock. “If he’s out, he could be anywhere. Assume that he’s hostile and shoot to kill if you have to.” He turned back to Sherlock, taking out his handgun and pressing it against Sherlock’s head. “One chance. Give us the information you came here for, otherwise you’ll be leaving in a body-bag.”
As the soldier was speaking, Sherlock felt a spike in his awareness that shot up his spine that had nothing to do with the almost crippling fear at having a gun pointed to his head, the feeling reminiscent of something he used to have when he was near the end of finding a target, when he was closing in on them for the final confrontation. He felt the hairs on his arms rise in response to the feeling, putting all his focus on keeping a straight face so the leader wouldn’t see the change when Sherlock finally saw him.
The man from his vision was behind the mercenaries and just to the left of them, having dropped down from the ceiling using an open ventilation shaft grate, and was quickly advancing on the first man on the far left. The leader ordered his men to watch the entrances to the reception area while facing Sherlock and John, but the entrances were facing away from the area where the man had dropped down, so they weren’t prepared for the assault when it actually came.
The man reached around the face of the first mercenary he came to, snapping his neck with a twisting motion before moving onto the next man, punching him in the throat when the mercenary turned to look at what was happening to his team member, crushing his windpipe and killing him. As the third mercenary turned his MP5 to take aim, the young man had already taken the SIG handgun from the second mercenary’s holster, disengaged the safety and fired at the third one, shooting him between the eyes and turning towards the leader who had finally looked to see what was happening to his men. The final result happened so fast that Sherlock barely had time to blink before it was all over, with the man from his vision stepping into the leader’s space and pushing the man’s handgun to the side away from Sherlock and John, sliding his own handgun up until the barrel was pressed against the leader’s chest.
Sherlock kept his eyes open for the kill, watching as the other man pulled the trigger that sent a bullet through the heart of the leader’s chest. Not as quick a death as a bullet through the head, but when the mercenary’s body slumped where he stood, the younger man took his weight for a moment and both Sherlock and John visibly startled when heard him speak for the first time, his voice heavy with regret. “I’m sorry.”
After the mercenary died, the young man lowered his body to the ground and laid it down so the man was on his back, engaging the safety on the weapon he still held and dropping down beside the dead mercenary to search his pockets. Sherlock watched him, his own shock trying to rear up inside his head; here in front of him was the man from his visions, the same person who had asked him for his help in freeing him from the company. Now that he was actually here, Sherlock felt at a complete loss of what to say or do, with the reality of it threatening to overwhelm him.
Sherlock turned to John at his side, seeing that his partner was completely unflustered at having seen four men die in less than two minutes, although his eyes were hard; he was clearly wondering what they were going to do now, with their hands tied behind their backs and in the company of a stranger who was more than adept at taking out dangerous and armed men, using a combination of his bare hands and skilled weapons training. Sherlock shared his concern, but was also hopeful of a different outcome.
The man pulled out a Leatherman from one of the pockets of the leader, flipping the knife up and turning to look at Sherlock and John beneath the bangs of his fringe. “I’m sorry you had to see this,” he said as he came around to the back of them, taking the knife and sliding it under the plastic ties to free them both from the restraints.
“They would have killed us,” Sherlock told him, meeting the eyes of the man when he came back around to the front and knelt down beside them. “You did what we would have done, given the chance.” He looked over to John, seeing his partner rubbing his wrists and regarding the young man in front of them with more curiosity than fear, a good sign.
“You’re the same man from Sherlock’s visions?” John asked the young man, drawing the other’s attention to him.
The other man nodded once, clasping his hands together on his knees. “Yes. But I don’t think we’ll have any time for further questions just now. When these men don’t report back, their employer will send someone to investigate. We need to leave this place before someone comes for them.”
“No, hang on,” John said, pushing himself up to his feet and keeping his voice soft but brooking no argument. “You’ve just killed four armed men by yourself and you’ve been in that machine for three months after being held captive at this facility. Can you at least tell us who you are?” Sherlock also got to his feet, watching the interaction between the two men as he stepped off to the side, maintaining a neutral position between them.
The young man waited for John to finish before also pushing himself up, coming just above John’s head height although his physical form was diminished, as though the exertion from the killing had exhausted him. “I don’t know,” the man said, his mouth turning up into a sad smile. “I don’t remember anything else besides this place.” He turned to look down at the bodies lying next to them, their life’s blood pooling on the floor, before turning back to Sherlock with his face flashing a moment of pain until he schooled his features. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
Sherlock stepped towards the other man, noting his appearance as he went into the younger man’s personal space and seeing that the man had left his shoes off but had put on the rest of the clothes that they’d bought with them. “You don’t need to be sorry,” he admonished gently. “You did what you had to do to keep us safe.”
The younger man stared up at him for a moment before taking his eyes away and looking at John, seeing the concern written across both of their faces. “Are you here to take me away?” he asked, his voice holding a faint quiver that he tried to hide. “Are we going back to Baker Street?”
“Yes, that’s why we’re here,” John answered, taking Sherlock by surprise. “Sherlock thinks it’s the best place for you right now and we have everything we need at the flat. You just saved our lives, so the least we can do is try to help you get your memory back.” John walked up to the man, holding out his right hand. “I’m Doctor John Watson and this is Sherlock Holmes.”
The young man smiled, taking John’s hand in his own and shaking it firmly. “Yes, I know.” He didn’t seem to notice John’s expression of puzzlement and it was an emotion was one Sherlock shared. If he couldn’t remember anything outside of this facility, than why did he know their names? “Thank you for taking me back with you,” the man continued, releasing John’s hand and bowing his head forward slightly, a gesture of respect. “I know you have no obligation to look after me, and you’ve already done so much by coming to get me, but I’m very grateful for your assistance.”
John chuckled, his first real one since this adventure began. “You might not be saying that when you see the state of the flat. Now, er, where did you leave your shoes?”
To be continued
A/N: The fight scene between the man and the mercenaries is my nod to a character that has inspired the creation of my OC since the very beginning - if you know who it is, or recognise the scene, please don't say anything in a review as I will reveal his identity when the time is right ;-)
Thanks everyone!
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Why Do We Fall?