Archive of Our Own

Work Text

Janine Watson didn’t believe in things like fate, especially not since she’d been shot and shipped home half-delirious and with no prospects. She had a fine pension, access to counselling, and a few more medals for her dress-uniform jackets, but…she didn’t have a job, she didn’t have stable housing, and she didn’t have any friends or family to talk to or go to when things got rough. So, when she woke up on the morning of 4 May, she was dreading the day for many reasons. It was hard to motivate herself to get out of bed and prepare for her day, but she did it. Grabbing her bag, she slung it over her good shoulder, picked up her cane, made sure she had her phone, and set off into the crowded, bustling streets of a city that just didn’t feel like home. And really, London had never been home, it was a place she had lived for a while, at different times in her life, but…it wasn’t home. She lived in a cramped studio-flat in Gloucester Place, never left except to make her counselling appointments or get food, which almost never got eaten, and didn’t really talk to anyone. She wasn’t even sure her neighbours knew her name. That was fine, though. As she walked from her flat to Baker Street Station, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. There was an air about the city, an unrest, that had her skin itching. She knew the feel of conflict but hadn’t ever expected to find it in London, thousands of miles displaced and a world away from Afghanistan. And she’d been home for about a year, so it wasn’t like she was unfamiliar with London or it’s many scandals and grievances. Janine didn’t encounter anyone who really got her attention until she got to Baker Street Station. She always took the same route to the tube station, walking down Gloucester Place to Marylebone Road, and down Marylebone to Baker Street Station. As she picked her way through the early-morning crowds, Janine was drawn to a low-key confrontation between a couple of commuters. One was a well-dressed businessman type, carrying a briefcase and overcoat as he rushed to catch his train, the other a less-well-off bloke about Janine’s age and taller (which wasn’t that hard when she was barely five-foot-seven) wearing ratty jeans and parka with a backpack over one shoulder, with messy dark hair and a day-old stubble. Apparently, by what she could understand, the younger bloke had only asked if the businessman had some spare change so he could get a ticket. It was what the businessman said next that prickled Janine’s ire.“I have better things to do than give my hard-earned money to a junkie! Go bother someone else, you freak!” He spat, brushing the other man off and going on his way. Janine watched the casually-dressed man stiffen and close up. Freak, to him, was not a new insult, but it was a painful one. He didn’t look like a junkie, and Janine knew what one of those looked like, ta. Irritated that common courtesy didn’t seem to exist in London, and exhausted from another sleepless night lost to nightmares and PTSD, Janine approached the man, careful not to startle him into any kind of violence.“Sir?” He didn’t respond right away, and she touched him on the arm, squeezing his wrist to get his attention, “Sir? Are you alright?”“Sorry?” He turned and blinked at her, focusing first on her hand, then moving up until he reached her face. She had encountered a number of the city’s homeless, had been among them for a few months right after getting back from Afghanistan. And she realized, with a start, that she knew this one.“Alestra!”“Scotty?” She looked him over, “Jesus, how long has it been since last I clapped eyes on you, son? You look better!”“Alestra, thank Christ! Oh, god, it’s you!” The taller man hauled her into a tight hug, “Oh, thank god.”“Come on, I’ll buy you breakfast.” She linked her arm through his after squirming out of the hug, and went about the first business of getting him a ticket before steering him into line at Starbucks. After procuring two coffees and pastries, she headed for her platform with Scotty in tow.“So, where are you going this morning?”“Saint Bart’s. I’m…uh, I’m meeting someone there.” Scotty looked around the crowded station, there was an air of wariness about him. He kept shying away from people and at one point, he almost bolted. When she looked to see what had set him off and her gaze fell on a couple of Transit Police going past on their routine patrols. They didn’t spare Janine or Scotty a second glance, but that didn’t keep him from startling like someone had put a gun to his head. The minute they were past, Scotty bolted. She tracked him to a nearby bathroom, breaking into the gents without a care. Thankfully, there was no one in the open areas, and only one stall was shut. She walked up to the door and rattled it.“Scotty? What happened? You know you can talk to me.”“I’m in trouble, Alestra. You shouldn’t be around me, you’ll get in trouble, too. I can’t let you get hurt.”“Scotty, don’t be an idiot. Get out here and tell me what’s going on? You don’t jump like that at the sight of coppers on a normal day, you’ve never cared about them. What kind of trouble are you in?” Her first thought was he was afraid of being mistaken for someone else, and specifically someone else who was wanted by The Met. The lock rattled and the door opened. Scotty came out, pale and sweating.“I’m afraid they’ll arrest me.”“Because you look like someone else who’s wanted by them?”“Yes.”“Who do you think you look so much like they’d arrest an innocent man?”“You know Sherlock Holmes?”“Oh, him?” She smiled and looked her tall friend over, “Yeah, I can see that. You do look an awful lot like him, don’t you? Been mistaken for him a time or two before, I bet.”“Just…just a time or two.” Scotty scuffed the floor with one shoe and looked up at her, his eyes a hazy grey under reckless curls and long lashes, “Would you still be my friend, Alestra, if I were a criminal?”“Everyone deserves a friend, Scotty, even criminals. I can’t imagine you’ve done anything that terrible, and even if you have, I wouldn’t turn you out.”“Okay. Thank you. You’re my only friend.”“I can’t be.”“You are. You don’t…you don’t look at me like other people do, you don’t treat me like other people do. If I was someone else, say if I had lied about something, would you hate me?”“Depends on what you lied to me about. I’m still not going to turn on you. If you’re in trouble, you’ll need help. Come on, let’s get to Saint Bart’s and worry about the mess you’re in later.”“You’re a very, very good person, Janine Watson.” He murmured, taking her hand in his. Janine had never told him her real name, she had gone by her middle name Alestra living on the streets.“How…did you find out my name?”“I looked you up. I wanted to know everything about you. You were so nice to me, I wanted to know what kind of person wanted to bother with the careless, mean likes of me. I never thought a decorated soldier who’s saved hundreds, thousands of people, would look at someone like me and think I was worth it.”“I’m no hero, Scotty, and I can barely afford rent at the place I live in right now. Why do you think I was homeless for so long?”“If you need somewhere to live, you can live in my flat, if you’d like. I…I can’t live there anymore, but you should.” He seemed to have come to a decision, “I may not see you again after today, but I want you to live in my house. You deserve it.”“You…uh, where do you live?”“Baker Street. I’ll write my address down for you. Here, this is my house-key.” He handed her a simple brass key and they boarded the train when it came. It was a quiet trip from Baker Street to Saint Bart’s, and Janine went with Scotty to the hospital. There, despite his best efforts to assure her that he didn’t need company anymore and he really didn’t want her to get into trouble if things went south, she stayed with him as he hid out in the chemistry labs. -&-Finally, around eleven-thirty, Scotty got a text message from someone. Apparently, it was whoever he was supposed to be meeting with. By that time, he had taken a shower and changed clothes and looked like a completely different person. She had the feeling that was very much the point of things. As she stood with him at the top of the stairs leading to the rooftop of the hospital, that was apparently where he was meeting this mystery person, Janine folded her arms and looked him over.“I’m not an idiot, Scotty. There’s something you haven’t told me. There’s a lot you haven’t told me.”“If you want to know, read the papers in the morning. But please, please don’t believe what you see.”“Who are you?”“Someone who has to disappear. Several important people need to believe I’m dead, and that’s what the papers are going to say about me. It’s not going to be my name, the name I gave you, but it’s me. It’s always me they’re talking about.” He took her hands, “Please, believe me, Janine.”“Call me Alestra. I don’t even know who you are, but I don’t think it really matters.”“What if I’m not…”“Stop! Alright?” She reached up and grabbed him by the lapels of a very nice Belstaff coat he had in his backpack, “Whoever’s on the other side of this door wants to destroy you, or someone just like you. You have to let them, but don’t you dare expect me to believe a lie! I’m a fucking soldier, Scotty! I’ve killed people in the name of my country for believing in a different god than I do, for being the wrong ethnic identity. You are innocent, whatever this is. You. Are. Innocent.”“How do you know that?”“I just do. Here.” She tugged on his coat, wondering at how different he looked now from earlier that morning, “Come down here a minute.”“What are you doing?”“Giving you something to believe in.” She touched the side of his face, smooth now after he shaved a bit of stubble. Janine smiled and leaned up on tip-toe to kiss him. He wasn’t expecting it, but he didn’t push her away. In fact, she was pulled off her feet a bit as long arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her. Janine gasped and held on as he pushed her against the wall of the stairwell. Instinct kicked in and she put her legs around his hips. This wasn’t supposed to be happening, things were changing too fast, plans were being ignored and modified. She heard a soft metallic clatter and pulled back from what seemed to be an endless kiss, gasping.“Shit. Shit, this shouldn’t…we can’t…”“Let me, Janine. Please, if it’s the only thing I do right today.” He begged, hands already on her belt and trousers. She dropped to her feet and made short work of her belt and trousers, he was quick to pick her up again and with her back against the gritty concrete wall and nothing between them but air and bare skin, Scotty asked her forgiveness before he took something she was happy to give him. No condom, he didn’t have one and she wasn’t going to stop to dig through her bag for the stash she kept in the bottom, but she was content to let him have his way with her when he slid home in a single heavy thrust. Janine groaned and buried her screams in his shoulder, muffled in that gorgeous coat, very aware of the dampness on her face. She held onto him long after they were put back together and cleaned up, the discarded wipes tossed carelessly into her bag after wiping down each other and their clothes. He leaned against her, forehead pressed to hers, flush with nerves, and asked her to do something for him.“Janine, do you have my number?”“I think I do. Why?”“I need you to do something for me. Something dangerous and potentially life-threatening.”“Okay? What can I do? What do you need?”“I need you to play along. I want you to go downstairs again, wait approximately ten minutes, and then I want you to walk out onto the street in front of the hospital over by the Ambulance Station on West Smithfield. Text me when you’re at the north corner just out of sight of the hospital, and I’ll call you. Since you know so little of what got me into trouble, you should be able to play off the dumbfounded friend. Someone watching me needs to think I’m going to do something risky.”“You’re not going to jump are you?”“Jump, yes. Die? Not if I do it right. But I need you to pretend otherwise. Can you do that?”“I think I can. I’ve seen enough violence and lost enough friends I can probably cry over you with someone else’s name in my head.”“That’s all I need. He’s not going to know who you are, his snipers aren’t going to know...”“Wait a minute.” She heard a keyword in there. She looked up at him, “Snipers? Who the hell did you piss off?”“No one you need…”“Don’t do that. You’re asking me to play a game, I’m asking you for the truth. I think you owe me that much, after what we just did? Who is it?”“James Moriarty. One of the smartest criminals in the world. At the very least in London.”“Mor…” Janine tilted her head, “James Richard Moriarty?”“You…know him?”      “I know of him. And he’s no world-famous criminal. He’s a two-timing local ganglord from Dublin raising hell across the UK.”“How?” Scotty frowned, and she looked towards the door, “Who are you to Moriarty?”“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But…I think I have an idea.” She smirked and took him by the hand, “If you want to get him off your back and throw the scent of his local network, I can help.”“How?”“How good are you at playing dead?”“What are you thinking?”“Can you trust me?”“Are you coming with me?”“You’re not going out there without me.” She kissed him on the cheek, “Come on, let’s topple a small-time criminal mastermind who can’t keep his network together because he keeps killing them off.”“Who are you, Janine Watson?”“Technically, I’m Jim Moriarty’s worst nightmare.”“Not one of Moriarty’s, but you belong to my brother. You worked Intelligence.”“For a while, yeah. Nothing serious, but it was certainly an experience.” She chuckled, “Come on, let’s go.”“I don’t suppose you have your service-pistol, by any chance?”“Of course I do.”“Loaded?”“Here.” She handed it to him as she shouldered the door open. He checked the chamber and cocked the slide. The magazine was full and a round was chambered before he handed it back to her. She didn’t put it back in her pocket but kept it in hand as she advanced on the man sitting at the edge of the roof, head down, The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” blaring from his phone at full volume. He was about her height, broader at the shoulders, dressed in an impeccable bespoke suit and overcoat, hair slicked back, sunglasses concealing his eyes and a carefully placed hand covering his face. Hearing their footsteps, or at least hearing Janine’s, he lowered his hand but did not move beyond that. And even then, he barely moved at all.“Ah. Here we are at last – you and me, Sherlock, and our problem – the final problem.” He held the phone up higher, thinking it was Sherlock and not Janine. Sherlock stood behind Janine, well out of danger.
“Stayin’ alive! It’s so boring, isn’t it?” He sounded so angry, frustrated. “It’s just...” he held his hand out flat with the palm down and skimmed it slowly through the air level to the roof, “... staying.” He pulled his hand back and briefly lowered his head into it while Janine took a few steps closer, pacing around in front of him a bit, just out of range of his periphery. He would have to look up properly in order to see her.“All my life I’ve been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction and now I don’t even have you. Because I’ve beaten you.” Janine looked over at Sherlock, who’s gaze narrowed and he took a few steps towards them. He stopped when Janine raised her free hand and folded his hands behind his back. She was standing right in front of Moriarty now.“And you know what? In the end, it was easy.” He shook his head, disappointed, “It was easy. Now I’ve got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. And it turns out you’re ordinary just like all of them.” He lowered his head again and rubbed his face before looking up and coming nose-to-muzzle with Janine’s pistol.“I’m not Sherlock Holmes.” She said calmly, “Clearly.”“Who…?” He looked around past her to Sherlock, as if making sure he had actually come up to the rooftop. “Don’t look at him, look at me. Up.” She took a step back and waved him to his feet, “I’ve spent six years looking for you, Moriarty. Six fucking years of my life tagged to one mission. You started causing trouble last year but I was too busy piecing my pathetic life together. It’s bad when even M doesn’t want me back on her rosters until I’m stable. That took a bit longer than I wanted and I may not go back.” She circled him once and carefully put him between her and the four-story drop from the roof to street-level.“I sure as hell can’t go back to the Army. And that was no thanks to your bloke Moran. Sorry to say he didn’t make it out of that little encounter alive. But you knew that. He made the mistake of coming to gloat and I bled him like a stuck pig. I was covered in so much blood by the time anyone found me they wouldn’t touch me until I’d been stripped of my clothes and rinsed off like a dog covered in mud from a run out in the rain.”“How did you survive?”“With a bullet in my shoulder? Good fucking question. Adrenaline, and the fact that I wasn’t about to die in that fucking desert.” She pressed the muzzle of her gun to his forehead, “Game over, Moriarty. You’re done playing with people’s lives.” Adrenaline had her on the edge of fight-or-flight, but the tremor in her left hand was absent. The tension and mortal peril were actually keeping her calm and in the moment. There was a very good chance things could go quite badly, people could be seriously injured or even killed, but she was...calm. Her heart was pounding in her chest, she felt fear, but she wasn’t really afraid.“You can’t get rid of me that easy. I have people in place to make sure dear Sherlock behaves.”“Three of them are already dead because you can’t figure out how to keep your own fucking operatives alive. The other three are easy to take care of.” She reached into his coat pocket.“Ooh, take it easy, sweetheart. Buy me dinner first.” He teased, looking past Janine to Sherlock, “I like your little girlfriend, Sherlock, she’s a keeper!”“And you’re a dead man. Shut up.” She found his phone and waved it at him, “What’s it take, a phone-call? A text? A code-word?”“Why should I tell you? They won’t take orders from anyone but me.” He chuckled, “I told em, last one to Sherlock Holmes is a sissy.”“And then you killed them off one by one as they outlived their usefulness. You’re a moron.” She huffed, “This ends here and now.” She looked over the edge of the roof and raised an eyebrow. There were people gathering below, just sort of loitering with no real clear purpose obvious to any casual observer.“Bit of an audience, it looks like. Yours, Sherlock?”“Most likely. You don’t look that upset.”“I told you.” She smiled at her trouble-mongering friend, “Takes a lot to throw me off, Holmes.”“I lied to you.”“For your own sake, and probably for mine.” She shrugged. “You, keep your fucking mouth shut.” She said this to Moriarty, who seemed to realize he was in trouble. Taking two steps back, she scrolled through contacts and text-strings, firing off a stand-down order to three contacts in the list under the heading “Reichenbach Job”. Then, once she had received affirmatives, she pulled the trigger before Moriarty could say or do anything else. Dropping the phone by the body, she retrieved her own phone and called a number she hadn’t had a reason to use in almost two years. It rang out and she paced along the edge of the roof, her balance almost perfect.
“Holmes.”
“Oh, good morning, Ice.” She chuckled, “You busy?”“Oh my god.” She heard the breathless exclamation, “Hedgehog?”“I’ve got a job for your blokes. Three targets. Are you ready?”“Of course. Fire away.” She would have caught him at the office, and she listed off the names of the assassins.“Take care of it for me.”
“Of course. And the outlying threads as well, my pleasure.”
“Thank you, Ice. What should I do with your brother?” She looked over her shoulder Sherlock, who paced around the body, muttering to himself and tugging on his hair. Irritated or nervous, one of the two.
“Get him out of London.”
“How far out of London? That’s a pretty broad territory. We can stay close or go far afield.”“The further the better. If you can think of anywhere safe, take him there.” It was one of the few times Mycroft Holmes sounded genuinely concerned for his brother’s safety, “Is he safe?”“He’s fine. Didn’t realise it was him until Moriarty said something, but you know me.”
“Loyal to the death and willing to do whatever it takes. Bless you, Watson.”
“You work on clearing up this mess and I’ll get back to you.” She smiled and hung up with Mycroft Holmes. The door opened behind them and a couple of men in street-clothes collected Moriarty’s body. Janine suspected they had orders and simply let them do their work.“Yours?” She asked Sherlock, she had known him as Scotty for almost a year, as the men zipped the body into a body-bag and dragged it away.“My brother’s. He’ll be cremated in private and his remains destroyed.” Sherlock looked at the grey sky, “Now what?”“We get to disappear.”“Did he say the further the better?”“Something like that. Any ideas?”“Hmm. We won’t be needed, will we?”“I doubt it.” She collected her bag and cane and took his hand, “We’ll know if we are. Your brother is not exactly subtle.”“I hear Scotland is rather lovely.”“Plenty of quiet places up there. I could do with a holiday in Scotland.”“Or even France, maybe. Further away.”“Oh, lovely place that is. Wine country is gorgeous and Paris is beautiful.”“Plane or train?”“Plane’s faster.” She rubbed her chin, “But Transit Police will be looking for you.”“There is that problem.” A problem they had narrowly avoided earlier at the train station. When they got out of the hospital, which took a while with all of the activity, they walked a few blocks before a black government car stopped after following them for a while. It was Mycroft. While they had been busy trying to get out of Saint Bart’s, he had been busy doing other useful things for them. He had two bags apiece packed for them from their separate lodgings, their passports (Sherlock’s was under a false name), and a plane waiting on the tarmac down at London City Airport. It would take them wherever they wanted to go. The plane and passport were already planned for whatever eventuality occurred, granted Sherlock didn’t actually get himself killed in the process (which he hadn’t, thanks to Janine), but Janine was a last-minute addition. She had no connections in London, no family or friends, and leaving for a few months to stay with the one friend she did have wasn’t going to be much of a problem.As they boarded the plane, they were still debating where to go to ground until Mycroft gave the word. They couldn’t actually agree, there were positives for both countries. Scotland was closer, the same language was spoken almost universally, and they could technically hide right in plain sight. France, on the other hand, was definitely on Mycroft’s “the further the better” list of sanctuary/exile countries. A different language was spoken, it was on a completely separate landmass, and Paris was a little over two hundred miles away. Any destination in Scotland would be almost five hundred miles from London. Still a decent distance. Standing on the boarding-stairs by the hatch, Janine pulled a quid coin from her pocket and held it up.“Fine, we’ll settle this the old-fashioned way. Heads, we go to Scotland. Tails, we go to France. That’s it. That’s the end of it.”“Always the gambler, Watson,” Sherlock smirked as he took the coin from her and passed it to the highly-amused pilot, who rolled her eyes and looked between them.“So that’s how it is? Destiny determined by a fucking coin-toss?”“Afraid so, Jenkins.” Sherlock grinned sheepishly. Chelsea Jenkins just shook her head and flipped the coin for them. It landed between them with a clatter and Janine crouched to look at how it had landed. Heads. Scotland it was. Home to their families for generations and seats to their clans. Janine took a deep breath and picked up the coin.“Home it is, then.” She pocketed the coin, wondering where exactly they would end up going. She had a few places in mind that were just out of the way enough no one would bother them. Good places to disappear for a bit. She wondered if the old ferry-house was still in the family. If her grandparents still held the policy that any of the clan who needed shelter could stay there for as long as they needed. She would call when they got to Glasgow. Waving to Mycroft, who stood by the car and watched, Janine ushered Sherlock onto the plane and found a seat.“I’ll have you two wheels-down in Glasgow in about an hour and a half, then. Buckle up.” The pilot came through. “Haven’t been that way in a while. Nice country.”“Time to disappear.” Janine buckled her seat-belt and looked at Sherlock, who was nervous but resigned. “You, stop. You survived, he didn’t, and it’s no one’s business but our own that you did. Okay?”“You shouldn’t have helped me, Janine.”“There was no good reason for me not to. And besides, I absolutely refuse to be someone’s final phone-call again. Even for show. No. I can’t do that ever again.”“Again?” he frowned, “What do you mean, again?”Janine just looked out the window as the plane lifted off the tarmac and became airborne. It still hurt, all this time later, to think about it. To know that she hadn’t been enough, hadn’t been able to talk her best friend out of a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And to make it worse, she had been four thousand miles away.“This phone call – it’s, er...it’s my note.” A distant voice broken by static and thousands of miles, begging her not to hang up. “It’s what people do, don’t they – leave a note?” She was remembering her last conversation with Ricky Benson, the last thing she had said to Janine.“Goodbye, Janine. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough. Thank you for being my friend. I love you.” That was the last time she’d heard from Ricky. Two weeks later, she was home for a funeral and had told a crowd of a hundred friends and family that all she remembered was Ricky saying “I love you” and then a gunshot as her best friend since forever put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. It was one reason Janine had never pulled the trigger on herself. Ricky had made her swear that she would never, ever let herself do something that stupid and permanent. Janine had promised, over and over, not to do what Ricky had done.“Only one of us is allowed to be a stupid fuck-up, Janine, and that’s not going to be you. You get to be the bright, brilliant soldier who can save lives and take them. I don’t have that kind of future, I’m not sure I ever did. Be the better of both of us. Be the best of both of us. Make me proud.” Those had been some of Ricky’s last words for her, a plea to be the better person, the best of both of them. Friends since practically before they could talk, she remembered when Ricky had been “Richard” before “Erica”, the drama and trauma of transition, the nasty, violent coming out when they had been eighteen. Their first kiss, two of them actually, the hours and hours spent in quiet places as she taught Ricky to love her body in all it’s forms, patching up broken noses and fractured bones when angry significant others took offence or a phobic cis-gender citizen decided Ricky was disgusting and less-than. A touch on her hand grounded her back to the present and she realized she had zoned out for quite a while. Sherlock sat across from her, face drawn in concern.“I thought I was the only one who did that.” He squeezed her hand, “Who were you thinking of?”“My best friend.” She pulled out the pocket-watch she had carried everywhere for four and a half years. It was a unique piece, the outer shell engraved with a series of concentric circles and lines. Sherlock took it from her and studied it, making deductions about the previous owner. When he realized that the owner was no longer alive, the pieces came together.“Oh.”“I told you. I said I could cry over your body with someone else’s name in my head.”“Janine, I didn’t…I’m so sorry.” He handed the watch back to her, “Will you tell me about them someday?”“I’d love to. Ricky would have adored you.” Janine smiled and tucked the watch away carefully. Really, Sherlock would have been just Ricky’s cup of tea. Tall, dark, handsome, intelligent. Just a bit cocky. Well, a lot cocky. But that was the kind of person Janine and Ricky had always enjoyed tumbling the most. It was always fun to see how long it took to bring someone like Sherlock to their knees, completely undone and at the mercy of Janine or Ricky, whoever had snatched them first. Most of the time, the two of them had worked together, doubling the effort and the blissful agony. Their targets had never complained.-&-An hour later, they landed in Glasgow. Leaving the airport, they picked up a hired car, Janine did the driving, and before they left the city, she asked where he wanted to go. She had several places in mind, but he was the one in hiding.“I…don’t know. I haven’t been here since I was twelve.”“Then, can I ask you to trust me?” She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled a number.“Of course.” He nodded and she waited for the call to ring through. It rang three times before it was picked up. Of course, they always answered if they were home, it wasn’t like they ignored phone-calls. Especially from family. And she knew her grandparents had her phone number. She had called them a few times since returning to London.“Janine Alestra Horatio Watson. It’s about fucking time you called.” Some things would never change. Her grandfather’s salutation was probably one of them. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh and caught her breath.“Hi, Gampi.”
“Well, what is it now, child? You don’t call without reason. Where are you, anyway?”
“Er, Glasgow. Something came up in London and…I had to leave. I have a friend with me, we need a place to stay. Is Ferry House available, by any chance?”“Oh, Janine. What did you do?” He wasn’t disappointed in her, he was intrigued. Her grandparents knew exactly what kind of work she did, tah, and they admired her for it.“Five years of hard work, and one frighteningly close call, all finished.” She checked traffic-patterns as she switched lanes, “I did my bit, now it’s someone else’s turn to finish the job. All I was responsible for was the lieutenant, the kingpin, and the local network. Most of my work was done before I even faced him, he killed off his own operatives.”
“And the lieutenant?”
“Dead before I left Afghanistan.”
“The head of the snake?”
“Dead, dead, and dead again.” She cleared her throat, “Can we stay in Camusnagaul?”“Ferry House is open to you, always. How long will you be staying, then?” Her grandfather asked conversationally. Sherlock held up six fingers. She nodded.“Through at least two seasons. Perhaps longer. It’s not my call to make, Gampi, I’m just responsible for finding a safe place to stay.”
“You and your friend are welcome to stay as long as you like. We would be very happy to have you.”
“Thank you, Gampi. Give my love to Granda, will you?”
“Oh, of course I will, love. We’ll visit after you’ve settled in. The house is stocked, but you know how to get to Fort William if you need anything.”
“We shouldn’t need much, and anything we do need can be acquired later.” She sighed as they started leaving Central Glasgow behind. “See you in Fort William, I’ll let you know when we arrive.”“Safe travels, my dear.” Her grandfather just chuckled and hung up first.“Where are we going?” Sherlock asked as she carefully entered the Ferry House address into her GPS. She opted for the more scenic route through Stirling and Pitlochery. They weren’t in any real rush, and Janine was willing to take things a little slower now that they were finally in Scotland.“Family property near Fort William. Clan seat’s outside of Leven, but my grandparents live in Fort William now. The family’s a little scattered these days.”“Oh.”“I’ve stayed at Ferry House many times over the years, it’s always been open to me. I’ll probably be the one to inherit it when my grandparents pass on.” She thought of her grandfather’s house, all lit up and warm, of hot toddies and warm blankets, bedrooms that smelled of the loch and heather and sun-warm cotton, a kitchen that smelled of tea, fresh scones, and peat. The whole house would smell of peat, the fireplace had never been converted and still burned peat-logs alongside central heating to warm the upper rooms. And tobacco for Alasdair and Hamish’s pipes. Ferry House didn’t actually belong to Hamish Watson, it belonged to Alasdair Harrow. Alicia Watson had passed away when Janine had been ten years old, it had been very sad, and most of the family had shunned her widower husband after it came out that Hamish Watson had entertained a polyamorous relationship with his wife and his oldest friend from childhood, Alasdair Harrow. Shortly after Alicia’s death, Hamish sold the house he and Alicia had kept together and moved in with Alasdair for the sake of company and being with a loved one. Now they lived together in a house on Achintore Road that also housed Hamish’s veterinary surgery on the ground floor with kenneling and storage in a small villa behind the main house. Ferry House in Camusnagaul had remained in the family and remained open thus to any of the family who required a place to stay for whatever cause. Janine hadn’t known Gram Watson that well, her memories of the woman were fuzzy but fond, but she had grown up loving Alasdair Harrow, whom she had always called Gampie and always would. It was rumoured in the Watson clan that Janine’s first real word had actually been Gampie, which was how he had gotten the title in the first place and no one had ever bothered to change it. He had always told her, every time they saw each other or spoke to each other, that if she ever found herself in need, he would always be there for her. And he had been. Through a tumultuous childhood and adolescence, through three years of medical school and ten years in the Army, three of those spent on classified duty for MI6, working assignments she had continued even after leaving the organization. She had departed just short of gaining a coveted agency, so close she could smell the ink on the paperwork. Mycroft had all but promised it to her if she felt like ever returning to MI6, and even M, who had been rather fond of her during her time with them, had offered her a place should she find herself in need of some work. -&-It was a five-hour drive from Glasgow to Fort William, they stopped along the way to get dinner and switch places driving. It was well after nightfall by the time they arrived at the small but spacious house on the western shore of Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe. The lights of Fort William glowed distantly across the loch, and a breeze blew up from the sea. Janine offered Sherlock one of the five bedrooms and retreated to her own room after she had closed down the house and went upstairs to get ready for bed, taking a Plan B pill with water, just in case. After taking care of business in the upstairs bathroom, she brushed her teeth at the little vanity-sink in the corner of her room. Every room had one, she had never asked why, but it was very convenient if the bathroom was occupied and you needed to get ready but didn’t need a shower. Turning the bed down, she climbed under the covers and was asleep in no time. The window was open, and she listened to the sounds of the Highlands. The occasional passing car, the water against the shoreline, the wind against the trees. It was a very different kind of nocturnal noise than she was used to in the city. It would certainly be a change of scenery for Sherlock, who slept in the next room. Janine slept well that night and woke up early enough to watch the sunrise over Loch Linnhe and Ben Nevis across the loch. She was sitting in front of the house with her laptop when she was joined by Sherlock. He had coffee, which she took with a smile.“Sleep at all last night?”“No.”“Mm. Probably won’t for a few nights.” She sipped at the coffee and looked out across Loch Linnhe. “But you are absolutely safe here, Sherlock. This is as close to a safe-house as we’re going to find up in the highlands.”“I like this house. It’s…cozy.”“I always loved this place, it’s always been a kind of refuge when I needed one. And since you’re not technically supposed to be dead, no one is going to care up here. People will recognise you, but Highlanders don’t judge like folks to the south do.”“I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.” He seemed a little at odds, but she didn’t blame him. That day was quiet, Sherlock explored a bit of Fort William on their side of things, and they settled into Ferry House.-&-Two days after she brought Sherlock to Fort William to save him from himself, Janine’s grandparents made the promised visit. Sherlock was out on a walk when they arrived, but she knew he would be back soon. Janine made her grandparents welcome and shared news with them, what little they didn’t have already.“So, word came our way that Sherlock Holmes got into a bit of serious trouble in London and no one’s seen hide or hair of him in two days. Hard for a bloke like that to just disappear.” Alasdair eyed Janine up and down.“But he did just that.”“And who’s going to bother with a little place like Fort William to find ‘im?”“That’s the idea, Gampie.” Janine sighed, “I don’t know how long we’re going to be here, but this was the safest place I could think of.”“And we would have insisted.” Hamish scolded, “Where is he, anyway?”“Went out for a walk. He likes to do that.” She heard footsteps on the gravel drive and smirked, “There he is.”“Janine!” He shouted from outside, she knew by the tone he was excited. Or nervous? One of the two. She went to the door and pulled it open, poking her head out.“Alright, Sherlock?”“I found something! I need your help, and the phone number of a veterinary surgeon, quite possibly!”“Oh for…Jesus, Sherlock, what now?” She looked over her shoulder, “Sorry, can you…”“Did he say he might need a vet?”“Yes, he did. Christ knows why.”“Hamish.”“Of course.” Her grandfather just smiled and got up, going out behind Janine and to the car they had driven over from Fort William. Janine heaved a sigh of relief and ran around the side of the house to find Sherlock. He’d found something, alright. And God alone knew where.“Oh, my god. Sherlock!” She stopped short at the sight of her friend sitting on the gravel, soaking wet and hugging something to his chest.“Please don’t be angry with me?”“Where did you find it?”“Down at the loch. I saw it struggling.”“Explains why you’re wet. Did you go in after it?”“Yes, I had to. Right off the ferry-dock, ten people saw me go in and pulled me back out.”“You idiot.” She looked up and over her shoulder, “Granda, we need towels and blankets! Please tell me you have your kit?”“Never travel without it, love.” Hamish appeared with his kit over one shoulder and his arms full of blankets and towels.“My grandfather’s a veterinary surgeon. Hasn’t retired yet.” She said in answer to the look Sherlock was giving the two of them.“Oh.” Sherlock looked up at Hamish with wide eyes, blinking water out of his field of vision, “Hello, sir. Thank you for your hospitality.”“Pleasure’s mine, son. Let’s get you and your find inside, then. Come on, lad.” Between them, Janine and her grandfather got Sherlock to his feet and back into the house. Alasdair had retrieved the folding table-pad and was laying it on the dining-room table. Putting down a protective padded sheet, they then laid down the water-logged, half-drowned creature Sherlock had rescued from the loch. It was a dog, or looked like one. The poor thing was in miserable shape, and Janine wondered for a minute where it had come from.“There aren’t many strays in Fort William.” Hamish murmured as they worked over the dog. “And no one’s missing a dog recently.”“Sherlock, what happened out there? What did you see?”“It was one of the fishing-boats. I couldn’t see exactly what they were throwing out, but I didn’t know what to do.”“Think the Douglases would know anything?” Alasdair folded his arms as he watched. Janine narrowed her eyes.“If anyone would, they’d be the ones. They’ve got eyes all over the Inland Seas. I’ll go see Ferdy and Rowena and see what they can tell me.”“Did you see the name of the boat that dumped this dog, then, Holmes?” Hamish looked up at Sherlock, who was pacing nervously.“I did. Absolutely.”“Then go with my granddaughter. She’ll be in touch with some sources of ours.”“Yes, sir.” Something in his brain clicked over and she saw a change of posture. He was still very concerned, being terribly fond of animals, but now he was running on a different circuit. This had gone from an emergency to a case. He liked that kind of thing.“Go get some dry clothes and I’ll take you to Fort William.” Janine stepped away from the table. “Will you take the dog to the clinic, then?”“Absolutely. You kids get in touch with the Douglases and local force, I’ll make sure this one stays with us.” Hamish smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “A bath, a good groom, and a couple of square meals should about do it for this one.”“A round of antibiotics just for good measure.” Janine had worked alongside her grandfather as an assistant at his clinic for several years, wondered if she could go back to veterinary medicine since working on humans wasn’t really in her cards anymore. All standard tests would be drawn and run, and they would look for the owners unless the owners were the ones who’d made the mistake of dumping the dog in Loch Linnhe where Sherlock could see them. In which case, Janine was not above pressing charges for animal cruelty and abandonment. Fifteen minutes later, she was waiting for the water-taxi. The ferry had already run, but she wasn’t waiting for them to come back. Sherlock stood beside her, doing something on his phone, dressed in dry clothes and looking suitably serious.“Don’t worry about that dog, Sherlock. Granda’s one of the best at what he does, everyone in Fort William knows it. Are you going to need a new phone?”“Yes.”“We’ll get that taken care of. Was everything saved to the Cloud?”“Always.”“Good.” She heard the rumble of familiar engines and raised her head, “Ah, our ride’s here. Come on.” She went down the jetty and caught the rope tossed out to her by Billy Douglas.“Watson.”“Douglas.”“What’s on? You sounded pretty urgent on the radio.”“We’ve got something we need your help with.” She looked over her shoulder, “Sherlock! Come on, time’s wasting!”“Hang on.” Billy leaned out and eyed Sherlock as he came down the jetty, “That’s not Sherlock Holmes, is it?”“Yep.”“Oh, Jesus. So it’s true?”“Not a fucking word of it. We’re trying to get things straightened out in London, but he can’t be in the city while we clear his name.”“So you brought him up here, knowing it would be a desperate moron to come after him.”“Precisely.”“Clever little bastard, aren’t you, Watson?”“Got to be, in my line of work.” She grinned at Billy, who offered Sherlock a hand onto the Wisteria Mare.“Mr Holmes.”“Mr Douglas.”“Sherlock, this is Billy Douglas. He’s a friend of mine, friend of the family going back a long time.”“Oh, just a friend?”“Shove off, Douglas.” She kicked at him as he danced out of reach.“Oi! If you rabble-rousers are done, we’ve got work to do!” Ferdy Douglas yelled from the wheel-house, “Hop to it, Watson!”“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Janine rolled her eyes and hopped onto the deck of the tour-boat she had spent summers driving as a job from the age of sixteen until she went to the Army. Using boat-hooks and blind intuition of exactly where they were and how deep the water was, they manoeuvred away from the jetty and got headed back towards Fort William. Janine stood on the bow of the boat for a while before doing a walk-around. Her balance was slightly compromised, but she used the rocking of the deck to her benefit.“What are you doing?” Sherlock asked as she passed him on one circuit.“I know this boat inside and out, the way it sounds now and how it should sound, the fastest it’ll go on a clear day and it’s idling-speed optimal for docking manoeuvres.” She leaned against the railing, “I kind of grew up here when I was a kid.”“Wouldn’t know that looking at you.”“You didn’t know I was MI6 either, did you?” She raised an eyebrow as he joined her.“Do you think the Douglases can really help us?”“Absolutely. And I’ll talk to the other captains. They don’t like people making a fuss and since none of us are missing pets, it’s a good bet someone snatched one of the strays and tried to dump them.”“Will the dog survive?”“Almost without question.” She sighed and watched as they came up on the Ferry Dock. They passed a number of boats coming and going, and Sherlock suddenly straightened, going very still.“What is it?” She asked softly.“That boat.” He pointed out a fishing-boat idling out on the loch, “That’s the boat. That’s them.”“Got it.” She nodded and patted him on the shoulder, getting a look at the name of the boat in question. “That’s the Felix Manara.” She headed for the wheelhouse and stepped in.“Captain.”“Ma’am.” Ferdy Douglas looked over his shoulder at her, “What’s on, love?”“Mind if I borrow your radio real quick?”“Be my guest.” He indicated the radios and she grabbed the radio-log. Flipping through the pages, she found the frequency for the Northern Constabulary’s Fort William Area Office. By the time they were idling up by the jetty, she saw the cars on the street above, lights flashing, and looked over her shoulder to see a couple of cutters closing in on the unawares Felix Manara.“So much for getting away with trying to drown a dog in Loch Linnhe.” She mused, leaning against the railings as they came up alongside their berth. A couple of local officers, neat in their familiar uniforms, were waiting to take the anchor-lines. Janine leaned down and picked up the coiled rope at her feet and held it at the ready. As soon as the boat bumped against the dock, she tossed her rope out.“Thanks for the assist, lads.”“Pleasure, ma’am. That the boat that threw the dog?” The older of the two pointed out at the idling, unwary Felix Manara.“That’s the same boat. I saw them do it, I thought they were throwing out lines or nets.” Sherlock watched the boat with sharp eyes, “I thought something was wrong, but I wasn’t expecting to take a swim.”“You…what did you do?”“He rescued the dog. It’s up at Fort William All Creatures Great Clinic.”“We’ll send someone up there, then.”“Doctor Watson will be happy to see you.” Janine looked up at the car-park above, “I guess you boys’ll be wanting statements, then?”“Uh, yes. The chief’ll want to talk to you. If you’re the ones who made the call?”“I did. On the radio just now.” Janine hopped the rail and landed sound-footed on the stable jetty. She batted off her trousers and held out one hand to the constables as Sherlock did likewise. Just up, she saw the Douglases talking with another lot. Good thing small-town forces took things like this more seriously.“I’m Janine Watson, Doctor Watson’s granddaughter. This is my partner, Sherlock Holmes. We’re visiting for a while, be here through to at least winter.” Janine didn’t hesitate to name Sherlock her partner.“Sherlock Holmes? The Sherlock Holmes?” Oh, boy, did their eyes get wide. “Oh, you’re the smart one! Did all that hard work in London, didn’t you? Damn genius!”“Squalling shame the way you got treated last couple of months.” The senior constable, he was about Greg Lestrade’s age, shook his head, “Nah, if you need work, laddie, we’ve probably gotta puzzle or two just mad enough for you to crack.”“Who would I talk to?”“You’ll meet ‘er. Name recognition’ll go a long way up here. But if you need hiding, we can hide you proper.” The man, probably a Hamilton if Janine had to judge, and she knew most of the families in Fort William, just smiled and offered his hand. “I’m Brantley Hamilton. This one’s my partner, Lucas Gaines.”“Oh, you are a Hamilton!” Janine chuckled as she shook hands with them, “I thought you might be! Spent a lot of my time up here when I was younger, much younger, know most of the families here. Or, I used to.”“Nah, I know you, kiddo.” Hamilton narrowed his eyes with a sly smile, “But not because you were one of the rascals running havoc up here with those Douglas boys. Nah. I know you from somewhere a little further away from here.”“Army?” Sherlock murmured. Janine nodded as she double-checked Hamilton’s ranks. Not a constable, after all. He was an inspector, just like Lestrade in London. But she had to give Hamilton’s constable props for being nice. What little she knew of Lestrade’s sergeant, she was not very nice to people who weren’t with Scotland Yard.“We don’t do things up here like they do back in London, but you’ll be alright.”“Fort William’s probably the size of all of Marylebone, things will have to be done differently.” Janine rocked on her heels. Hamilton offered to take them back up to the station, or they could walk. Apparently, they knew about Sherlock’s adversity to riding in police vehicles. And seeing as he’d narrowly escaped wrongful arrest barely twenty-four hours prior, it was completely understandable if he’d rather walk. It wasn’t that far from the West End Car Park, where they had tied up the Wisteria Mare, to the Area Office. Three minutes’ walk, maybe.“We’ll walk, tah. Who do we ask for?”“Rowena Douglas.”“Oh, that’s right.” Janine chuckled and took Sherlock’s hand, “She thought it was the right thing to do when I was in university.”“That’s what makes the Douglases such reliable resources, they run the place.” Sherlock mused, not minding at all that she’d taken hold of him that way.“Just about the way of it. See you up there, lads.” Janine waved at Hamilton and Gaines and set off on the short, three-minute jaunt to the Area Office. It didn’t take long to get there, and they stopped at the proper desk to ask to speak with Rowena Douglas.“Is she expecting you?” Oh, there was always one or two, everywhere. Some haughty clerk with a chip on the shoulder big enough to topple a mountain. Janine looked at Sherlock, who shrugged, and turned to the clerk.“If she’s not, she’ll take us anyway. Watson and Holmes, we’re here about the incident over across Loch Linnhe just a while ago. It’s kind of important, she’ll want to hear from us.”“What’d you say your names were?”“Sherlock Holmes and Janine Watson. We’re from London, with The Met.” Oh, nice move. Poor girl almost choked and went white as a sheet when Sherlock flashed an obviously-stolen badge. She never got a very good look at it, but Janine knew it had been stolen from Lestrade. She kept a straight face as the clerk called back to the proper office and then offered, very tamely, to show them the way.“No thank you, we’ll find it ourselves, constable. Good day.” Janine was already on her way, she knew where Rowena’s office was, thank you. As soon as they were out of earshot, she grabbed the badge from Sherlock and flipped it open again.“Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade. Where the hell did you get this?”“I pickpocket him when he’s been particularly annoying. I have more, you can keep that one if you’d like.”“You steal his badges? Sherlock, that’s awful!”“Oh, he doesn’t mind.”“Yeah, I bet he doesn’t. You idiot.” She pocketed the badge, “Don’t suppose you nick his handcuffs, too?”“Always.” Dangling said pair of handcuffs. Janine sighed and rubbed her forehead. They got to Rowena Douglas’s office and knocked.“I heard you halfway down the hall, Watson, I’m surprised you remembered your manners and knocked,” Douglas called before her knuckles touched the surface of the door. She knocked anyway and pushed the door open.“I’m not a petty teenager anymore, ma’am.” Janine stepped into the office, which hadn’t changed at all since she’d last been here. “Come in, Sherlock.” As soon as Sherlock was in, she closed the door.“Boy, if The Met has you two on rosters, London has a big problem.”“London always has a big problem.”“Who’s your tall friend, Janine?”“This is Sherlock Holmes, Rowena.”“Oh, I remember you, son. Cocky little shite, doesn’t look like that changed a bit.” Rowena sized them up as they stood side-by-side on the other side of her desk and chuckled, shaking her head, “That badge and cuffs were stolen from some unfortunate inspector with The Met, weren’t they? Good friend of yours, too.”“She’s smart.”“Didn’t get here playing stupid.” Janine cleared her throat, “You may have an animal-cruelty case on your hands this afternoon, Rowena, sorry about that.”“Neither of you two are a bit sorry. Nobody took a swing?”“Never set eyes on the bastards. Probably be a different story if we had.” Janine looked at Sherlock, who nodded, “Only thing that happened was this tall moron saw them toss the dog, and went straight into the water to save it. I think we’re lucky they didn’t have it netted or something.”“They did, but it got to the surface.”“Oh, Christ. Who was it? Did you see the boat?”“The Felix Manara.”“Jesus, that’s the Finley boys. Damn hooligans make you two and my sons look like fucking angels.” Rowena ruffled her greying hair with both hands, “Well, you two sit down and keep your mouths shut. These are yours. Don’t leave anything out.” She shoved a couple of reports across the table at them, “Over there.” A small work-table set to one side provided the space they needed and Janine shrugged. Taking one seat, she started in on her share.“Can I get you mad things anything?”“Coffee, please?”“Black?”“Two sugars, please.”“Be right back. Don’t touch anything.”“Yes, ma’am.” It wasn’t until the door closed again that either of them dared to breathe. Janine looked at Sherlock, who sat next to her, and snickered.“I like her!” His eyes were bright, “Too bad she’s up here! Oh, she’d be wonderful at The Met!”“Oh, she’d have them all running scared like rats on a sinking ship in no time! Think Lestrade would like her?”“Oh, they’d get along fine! She’s married?”“Um…” She frowned. “No? Don’t think she is. She’s Ferdy’s sister.”“Hmm.”“Don’t even think about it, Sherlock.”“Can I think about it but not act on it?”“No, because you’ll do both.”“You’re no fun.” He huffed, smiling too much to be serious. Janine rolled her eyes. Rowena came back with two cups of coffee and sandwiches from a break-room tray.“Knowing you two, you haven’t eaten in longer than is healthy. That’s for you.”“Thank you, Rowena.” Janine smiled at the woman who had been part of her life almost as long as she’d been alive. Sometimes she missed living up here, she missed Fort William. She sighed and took a sip of coffee. It was quiet in the office while she and Sherlock filled out reports like they’d done it hundreds of times before, which they sort of had, and Rowena did paperwork. They finished their reports and Rowena filed them properly, giving Janine a key.“What’s this?”“Storage. We’ve got a few cases you might like to work on. Not much happens around here, but it’ll keep you two out of trouble.”“Oh. Thanks, Rowena.” Janine palmed the key and went looking for the archives. They loaded four boxes with case-files and evidence packets, returned the key, and got a ride over to Fort William All Creatures Great Clinic. Alasdair and Hamish were there, and Janine saw the hired Land Rover she and Sherlock had driven from Glasgow. Loading the boxes in the boot, they went inside. The dog, for the safety of the other patients, was in isolation until they got the blood tests back. Janine suited up in a green short-sleeved jumpsuit and let herself into the kennel. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she leaned against the wall and watched the dog. It might have been traumatized earlier, but it was not afraid. It sat for a few minutes before venturing over as she talked to it in soft Gaelic and held out one hand.“Oh, you’re pretty, aren’t you? Just a pretty thing.” She stroked the dog’s head. It was a Flat-Coated Retriever, female, fairly young but…not a puppy. Maybe two or three years old. Janine smiled and rubbed the dog’s ruff as she got a tired whine and her lap was suddenly full of dog. “Okay, that works too.” Rubbing the dog’s belly, she noticed a fullness. Was this dog…something occurred to her and she looked over her shoulder.“Sherlock!”“Yeah?”“Can you do me a big favour?”“Of course. What’s on?”“I think I know why they tried to drown the dog.”“Oh?” In a heartbeat, he was coming down the hallway, “Is everything alright?”“Call Rowena, and find either of my grandfathers. I think we have a problem.”“Oh, she’s pregnant!” His eyes got wide as he understood, seeing where Janine’s hand rested over the dog’s belly. “They were…oh, no, they were trying to kill the puppies!”“And figured why not take out the whole lot at once!”“Oh, no. No, no, no. That’s not…” Sherlock looked sad and furious, “There had better fucking be a good explanation for this!” With Janine’s phone raised to his ear, he walked away again. Janine stayed with the dog, keeping her company. When Sherlock came back, Hamish was with him. Yes, he knew the dog was pregnant. As soon as he had her cleared, he was going to see about fostering her until the pups were born and then until they could be adopted. “We’ll do it.” Janine and Sherlock said it in tandem.“We’ll foster the mum and her puppies.” Janine stroked soft ears, “It’s the least we can do, anyway. Do we have any idea who the sire is?”“No, but Chief Douglas is going to do her best to get answers.”“Sherlock?”“Hmm?”“You want those answers, don’t you?”“But why would they let me anywhere near the suspects?”“Because you rescued their dog. You can’t stand cruelty to animals, and they owe a very good reason for this kind of abuse and neglect.”“Will you come with me?”“Do you want me to?” She didn’t really want to leave the mum, but if Sherlock wanted her along, she’d go with him.“Well, you are my partner, aren’t you? So, you should come with me. I mean, you can stay with the dog, but…”“You want company, too.” Janine smiled and leaned over to kiss the dog on the muzzle. “Sorry, Mum, but I have to go back to work. I’ll find out why they tried to hurt you and your puppies. Then, when you get out of here, you’ll come live with us. Nice warm house, lots of room, safe place to bring your puppies into the world.” She got a nuzzle and a lick and got up, making sure to close the gate behind her.“So you’re partners now, are you?” Hamish just looked all smug as he followed them down the hall. Janine looked at Sherlock, who shrugged.“Yeah, I guess we are.”“And already working the small-town cases together? All because he jumped into Loch Linnhe and saved a dog?”“Something like that.”“Why am I not surprised.” Hamish shook his head and saw them out. -&-Going back to the Area Office, they talked Rowena into letting them into the interview. Sherlock had done this before, was rather good, and watching him tear apart the Finleys for what they’d tried to do was a thing to admire. He was clinical and brutal and honest and the boys folded, admitting that they just couldn’t afford to keep the dog.“Well, that is absolutely no reason to do what you did! You don’t just throw a dog away because you can’t keep it! Put it for adoption, let someone else take care of her!” Janine leaned across the table, “I’ve seen a lot of stupid shite in my time, lads, but that’s not just stupid, that’s heartless and selfish. I hate to think of what else you’re willing to throw away because you don’t want it. I sincerely hope neither of you has children, or may the gods have mercy on all of us.” The brothers had gone pale while Sherlock destroyed them verbally, but they looked like they wanted to sink into the floor as Janine laid into them. Shaking her head, she pushed away from the table.“You two need to spend some time thinking long and hard about your priorities and your decisions. The next time you’re in here, we won’t be this nice.” Sherlock got up, brushing off the front of his jacket, “I think we’re done here.” With a nod to Rowena, who was trying so hard to keep a straight face, Janine and Sherlock left the interview room. As soon as the door was closed behind them, she leaned against the wall and caught her breath.“Think we scared ‘em?”“Did we get our point across? I think so.” Sherlock grinned, “You were rather good at that.”“If there’s one thing I’m not too bad at, it’s interrogating someone. I could have been a lot meaner to them, I’ve worked much harder suspects.” She shrugged and leaned her head back, “That was…fun.”“Wasn’t it? That’s what I do.”“Think we can solve Fort William’s crimes?”“Absolutely. Do you want to?”“Of course! And it’s more fun with a partner.”“Then yes, we can solve Fort William’s crimes together.” Janine sighed and the door opened. Rowena came out and locked the door behind her. The Chief Inspector looked from Janine to Sherlock and smiled.“That. Was spectacular. I knew about you, Mr Holmes, but watching you is a treat! Can you do that with a crime-scene?”“Of course I can.”“You might be very useful.”“We are at your service, ma’am.”“Good. I think we might have some use for you.” Rowena just smiled, pleased with something. Janine looked at Sherlock, wondering what exactly Rowena had in mind for them.“Come back to my office, why don’t you? I’m not quite done with you two.” Rowena went back towards her office, Janine and Sherlock obediently followed. Coffee was provided and they talked a bit.“So, how long are the pair of you looking to be in Fort William, then?” Rowena asked in that calm tone of voice that meant she was paying attention to every single thing you said and did. Janine looked at Sherlock, who shrugged.“A few seasons, maybe longer.” She looked at the woman who had been part of her life for so long, “What did you have in mind?”“Well, the way I see things right now is, I’ve got a former soldier and a disgraced consulting detective in my office with nowhere to go and nothing to do with themselves.” Rowena folded her hands on the desk and leaned forward, “Now, I know Janine could go work for her grandfathers and do quite well there, maybe even be content with the job, but…you, Mr Holmes? Oh, no, you require puzzles and stimulation for that great brain of yours or you go mad, tear yourself apart, get destructive.”“Ma’am?” Sherlock blinked a bit owlishly, he hadn’t expected Rowena Douglas to be quite so…smart. She had city-smarts, and the stubborn Highland constitution to get the job done right whatever the cost. It was what made her so good at her job.“Aunt Rowena?” Janine ventured carefully.“I can offer the two of you honest jobs for as long as you need them, but I won’t take you on as consultants. You can do so much better than that and deserve better.” Rowena’s eyes narrowed and she looked from Janine to Sherlock, “How much time can you give us?”“How much time can we…um. To Police Scotland? How much time are you asking for?”“Minimum of two years. Three, maybe.”“Two…years.” Janine tapped her fingers against her lips, trying to work out what Rowena wanted them to do. “That’s…that’s two years for probationary training. Periods at Scotland Police College Jackton/Police Training & Recruitment Centre in East Kilbride, or Tulliallan Castle in Glasgow for the first eleven weeks?” She looked at Rowena, who nodded. “And then Divisional training somewhere up here. Either here in Fort William, or further north in Inverness.”“Well, your skill-set is highly sought-after and transfers well to police-work, I suppose.” Sherlock tilted his head.“I said two of you.”“This one doesn’t play well with others, never mind playing nicely with police.” Janine looked at Sherlock, “He has a bad habit of speaking his mind about his “co-workers”, and he’s not very nice about it.”“I am aware of this.” And if anyone would know, Rowena Douglas would. “But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove himself worthy.”“But they’re going to know who he is.”“Not likely. Holmes isn’t an unusual name up here, after all, and you’ve got two other names we can pick from to keep your identity under wraps as long as it takes.”“Two…names?”“Well, unless I’ve forgotten, your full legal name reads William Sherlock Scott Holmes.” Rowena grinned behind steepled fingers, Janine had the sneaky suspicion she and Sherlock were going to be run into the ground to within an inch of their miserable lives, and as far as anyone south of the border cared, Sherlock Holmes was either dead or in hiding. Up here? They didn’t particularly care.“So, is that going to be William or Scott, then?”“William, ma’am.”“Excellent. And Janine, you’re going with him.”“Yes, ma’am.” Janine just nodded. Not like she was new to taking orders like that or anything. And right out of the Army, she would probably have less trouble adjusting than Sherlock would.“Now, I know you have taken on care of the Finley’s dog, so I’ll give you a couple of months to get that squared away.” She handed over packets to them and Janine looked hers over. The physical fitness aspect didn’t bother her much at all, getting back into shape enough to pass the final physical wouldn’t be too hard for her. But Sherlock? He had some work to do. A lot of what was required could be accomplished well ahead of time and held until needed, such as preliminary medical exams and drug-testing for Sherlock. In fact, Janine would be damned if she didn’t hear a soft whimper from the disgraced detective next to her as he read through the requirements. She chuckled and patted him on the arm.“I’ll help you, Sherlock. We’ve got…maybe two months before we need to seriously consider? Plenty of time. You’ll hate me before the end, but you’ll be in better shape to make it through the program. We’re doing this properly.”“Together?”“Absolutely.” She didn’t miss Rowena grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “How’s your stamina?”“Dismal?”“We’ll work on that.” Janine got up first and Rowena saw them to the street. They returned to the surgery to see how the Finley dog was doing. When the dog saw them coming, she lifted her head and wagged her tail.“That’s the first sign of life we’ve had out of her since you two left her here.” Hamish watched, “Did you ever get her name from those idiots?”“They named her Brill. We can do better than that.” Janine let herself into the kennel, joined this time by Sherlock, and sat on the floor near the gate. The dog struggled to her feet and shuffled over, sniffing Janine and Sherlock’s outstretched hands and giving a timid, grateful lick before she nuzzled under Janine’s hand and collapsed across her lap for some love.“What should we name her?”“Something proper.” Janine rubbed the dog’s ears, marvelling that she was so trusting of strangers after everything that had happened to her.“Victoria. Regina. Catherine. Gwendolyn.”“Victoria?” Janine tilted her head. The puppies would be adopted to good families, but the mother would stay with them, and they would take her with them when they eventually returned to London if that ever came to be an option. She stroked the dog’s muzzle, knowing it soothed a nervous constitution.“Victoria?” She tried again. The dog lifted it’s head a bit, the ears twitched, and she thought the tail wagged. Smiling, Sherlock leaned over.“Victoria.” Like magic, she was at attention, looking up at the two strangers who had rescued her, wide brown eyes adoring.“I guess we’ll call her Victoria, then.” Janine chuckled and they spent a bit more time with the dog before going home. They had work to do, anyway. The rest of the day was quiet, and it was a week before she returned the four boxes they had taken out of Rowena’s archives and got another four.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After bringing Victoria home from the surgery, they made a whelping-box for her in the kitchen and waited for her puppies to come into the world. Hamish’s ultrasounds had shown twelve tiny “zippers”, so they anticipated at least ten puppies, perhaps a bit less than that due to stress. Sure enough, the puppies came eight weeks later between the hours of 10.30 pm and 4.00 am, they took two away when they were stillborn. Another was unlikely to survive long, born sickly. At one point, making the rounds to see if any new pups had come, Sherlock came across the sight of Janine asleep on the floor, a pillow tucked under her head and a blanket haphazardly wrapped around her. Leaving his host alone for the moment, he did another puppy-count and quietly took one away. Victoria had cleaned the dead puppy and nudged it aside to make room for the survivors. That was two now. He was surprised it hadn’t been more, given they’d pulled Victoria out of the Loch. Wrapping the puppy in a scrap of muslin, he set it aside to be buried later. Victoria opened her eyes to look at him and he gave her a scratch on the muzzle.“Good mum. Lots of hard work, hmm?” Her tail swished and he just smiled. Sherlock was ever so fond of dogs, had been for ages. He had memories of owning a dog as a child, but he could have sworn his father was allergic to dogs. It didn’t really matter, though, he loved dogs and had wished for one of his own. In a strange, round-about way, he’d gotten one. As he sat on one side of the whelping-box tucked under the kitchen bar, back to the lower cabinets, a hand closed around his wrist and he looked over.“Did we lose another one?” Her eyes weren’t even open. Of course she knew he was there.“Just one.”“That’s two. Hopefully no more.” Hazy eyes opened to half-mast and she looked at him before resettling, “What are you doing down here?”“Came to see how many we had. Looks like we’re up to…” he looked into the whelping-box, “six puppies?”“Oh.”“You’re not going to sleep down here, are you?”“Might just. Too tired to get up again.” Janine made a vague shrugging gesture and Sherlock snorted. Looking at his watch, it was just past two in the morning. Ruffling Victoria’s fur, he did another puppy-count and got up. They could leave Victoria to her business and get some rest. Going around the breakfast bar, Sherlock reached down and tugged on Janine’s blanket.“Ge’off.” She muttered.“Not if we have to keep to that ridiculous schedule of yours, dear. Come on, you.” He got her up and somehow got her upstairs. About three weeks ago, Rowena Douglas had offered them reliable employment, but it came with a caveat. Sherlock was used to doing police work, was rather good at it in fact, better than most if he was honest, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with doing things on a consulting basis or even part-time as a Special Constable. Rowena Douglas, the woman who ran most of Fort William’s police force, was giving him no choice but to go official. If he wanted a badge, he’d earn it the old-fashioned way and she would hear no whining. If he wanted to work with the police, he would, he would work for them. About time he did things properly. He liked Douglas, he really did, she was smarter than most and just the kind of person he enjoyed working with. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if he could just survive the Scottish Police College and training. But he would have Janine there, she knew how to handle it and, possibly, how to handle him. After getting Janine back to bed, it was quiet until 6 am. Right on schedule, he heard her moving around in her room at exactly 5.50 and ten minutes later, she banged on the door as she went downstairs.“Come on, Sherlock!”“Coming!” He called back as he tied his shoes. Grabbing a lightweight jacket, Sherlock headed downstairs to meet up with Janine. She was in the kitchen with two cups of coffee and two water bottles. He checked on the puppies and chuckled.“How many?”“Eight? The sick one may or may not thrive, so…seven? We’ll just have to see.” He shrugged and gave Victoria a scratch on the muzzle. After a cup of coffee, they collected their gear for their morning run and he fetched the muslin-wrapped bundles from the freezer, where he had stored them last night to keep them until they could be buried. In a corner of the massive yard around the house, under a pair of blooming crab-apple trees, they buried the two deceased puppies. Once that sad business was taken care of, Janine led the way on a familiar routine. She waited for him at the bottom of the drive, as was her habit, stretching as she went through a brief warm-up. And, as he always did, Sherlock watched as her running jacket rode up just a bit, displaying a tiny expanse, a peek of pale skin still tan from her years in high mountain deserts in the Middle East. There was something intimate about it, but she did it every morning.“Y’know, I know you’re looking.” She glanced at him under her arm as she finished her warm-up. “You do this every time.”“So do you.”“At least you’re subtle about it, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been ogled by creeps.” She shrugged and straightened, “Not half of ‘em were nearly as good looking, or as nice about getting caught.” Sherlock frowned, trying to imagine anyone cat-calling his partner. It was one of a short list of things that bothered him. He may not get along with people and have the manners of a belligerent toddler ninety percent of the time, but he had far more respect for women than to assume unwanted advances were welcome. Not that he had much reliable experience to speak of, his few encounters had been short-lived, unremarkable, and the last woman he’d been intimately involved with in any fashion had been a lesbian dominatrix who made a killing on the sexual humiliations of paying clients. And that had been for a case, so it didn’t exactly count.“Have you been harassed, Janine?”“Only by a couple of idiots who didn’t understand that no is absolute and me ignoring them was not an invitation to continue making commentary.” She looked at him level, “I can handle myself, Holmes.”“Anyone stupid enough to verbally harass a veteran deserves whatever they get from the encounter.” Not that Janine would have done any serious damage, but Sherlock could imagine any of her harassers landing themselves in jail on handy unrelated charges for some petty theft or even something far more serious. There weren’t very many people his brother respected, or even liked, but Janine was one of them and he had the feeling Mycroft would ensure that anyone who thought it was a good idea never made the same mistake twice. That morning, he outpaced Janine and they ran a five-mile loop. She ragged on him for being in better shape than they’d thought, and forgetting that her legs were just a bit shorter than his so she would fall behind if he wasn’t paying attention.“At this rate, I’ll have you running the pacer tests in no time.” Janine shook her head as they got back to the house. When they got to the kitchen, Victoria came to greet them with a lick to their hands and then insisted on showing off her puppies. All...eleven? Discounting the two deceased they had buried already and still including the sickly pup, who got special attention from Victoria, Sherlock did a recount. Eleven pups.“We missed one.” He picked up the last pup.“We did?”“Thirteen, we missed a little zipper.” He showed her the pup.“Oh, look at that! You sneaky little thing!” Janine chuckled and they looked at Victoria, who just wagged her tail calmly. If the sickly one died, they would still have ten pups, that was nothing to sneeze at.“Two dead, one sickly, and here’s the runt.” Janine smiled as they returned the last pup to Victoria, who just wagged her tail placidly as if it was no matter to her that she’d hidden one from them. There had never been thirteen zippers on the ultrasounds, not once.Hamish stopped by at noon to get a look at the new family and declared, with exception for the sickly one, that the puppies were all as healthy as could be hoped for.“How many did it end up being, altogether?” he asked over tea.“Including the two we’ve buried and the sickly one, Victoria was proud mum to thirteen puppies. We missed one on the scans.” Janine smiled at the pleased new mum under the breakfast bar, “Smug little thing, aren’t you, Victoria?” Victoria just raised her head and wagged her tail. Hamish chuckled and shook his head.“That’s the dogs sorted. What about you pair of trouble-makers? Did Rowena Douglas get her claws in you yet?”“Yes, sir.”“Oh, so you’re going honest to the law now, is it?” Hamish looked at Sherlock and his smile turned wicked, “Never thought we’d see the day a Holmes renegade went honest like that, never mind the likes of you, son.”“Can I change my mind?”“Absolutely. You’re human, aren’t you?”“I’ve been reminded of that several times over the last three weeks while your granddaughter whips me into proper shape.”“Oh, like you’ve been complaining that loudly.” Janine scolded as she set down a cup of tea in front of him, “You know, if we get into SPC, you might have to cut your hair.”“I might anyway. It’s in the Uniform and Appearance Standards.” Which he had read over and over so many times he practically had it memorized. Which was just as well. If nothing else, cutting his hair would also make him less-recognizable in public. -&-Two months later, Janine and Sherlock were inducted into the Scottish Police College and said goodbye to whatever civilian lives they’d been living. All testing had been passed with high marks, among the highest in the incoming class, one instructor said, and between Janine’s past-life as a soldier and Sherlock’s hands-on experience with The Met in London, they had plenty of skills to bring to the table that could be put to good use with Police Scotland. The two-month period of training at SPC was gruelling and put Janine and Sherlock through their paces, pushing limits they hadn’t known they possessed, but they kept pushing back, kept going. Fellow trainees began to gang up on them, to try and see them fail, but Sherlock tore them down verbally and Janine did the physical tear-down. They were hated by other students but their instructors appreciated their skills and respected what they were capable of together. Reprimand was doled out where required, but they were never dismissed from the service. Finally, they were turned out from the college and returned to Fort William, where they were then dispatched to work with tutors to show them the ropes. Further training was undertaken at other Training & Recruitment Centres as needed, but they served primarily out of the Fort William Area Office.-&-Despite some initial misgivings, and an unstable relationship with law enforcement in the past, Sherlock found honest police-work to be quite to his liking. His personality was a little hard to swallow for some people, and his habits, but Janine and her friends and family were very good about helping him become “less English”. And, just like he had once teased her, Janine’s old brogue gradually came back to her accent and her speech-patterns changed. But so did his. Family neither of them had reached out to in far too long reached out to them and bridges were mended and relationships rebuilt. Life assumed a pattern and he had work aplenty to keep him busy. Habits taken for granted or abused were slowly shed, among them his addiction to cocaine and cigarettes. He did have an oral fixation, however, but Janine had a fix for that. She took to carrying food in her pockets and stashed in the patrol-car and the workspace they shared. Sometimes he would hold a stir-stick or sip-straw or Collins’ straw, it served the same purpose. Theirs was a perfect partnership in the ways that mattered, and when their coworkers started taking bets on if they were dating, it was just something that made them roll their eyes at each other. So far, that was a strictly platonic relationship. Not purely professional, but very much non-romantic. At least that’s what they told each other and themselves. Not that anyone actually believed them, the way they acted sometimes was pretty damn romantic. Three years, not technically dating, but they didn't really deny it when anyone asked. Friends-with-benefits, maybe? It was the single longest stable relationship either of them had ever been in, and they certainly had their ups and downs. Arguments over everything from procedure on a case to whose turn it was to do the wash-up, do the laundry, who had left the wet towels on the floor. But even the worst blow-ups, and there were a few between them, were solved after a few hours to cool down and things were talked over. Janine had a mean temper when pushed, and Sherlock? Well, he was guilty of pushing a bit harder than might be considered wise. The most blatant realization of how non-platonic their relationship had become came one afternoon when they, along with others on the force, had been chasing down a fugitive from…somewhere south of them who had used Fort William as a stop-over for a couple of days. Always one to do her duty without question, Janine was usually the first one to take on a suspect if she was anywhere in the area of a call of that nature, and this call was no different. Using their cars for protection, most of them had taken cover with weapons drawn on the suspect, waiting for him to make a move. But Janine, not content to just sit, waited for any sign of movement from the car the suspect was using as shield and shelter, and the minute she saw…something, Sherlock didn’t see anything unusual, she was gone. A flash of movement and she had cleared the bonnet of their car.“Janine!” He yelled, reaching belatedly for his partner, “Shit, she’ll get herself in trouble doing that!”“Soldier, Holmes. Your fucking partner’s never going to give up that part of her life.” Rowena Douglas growled in his ear, pressed to his back as she looked over his shoulder, “Damn idiot! Watson, get back here!” For all the good that did any of them. They watched, waiting, as there was a struggle, and then…well, they all knew what a gunshot sounded like, but it had never quite caused his blood to run so cold. Without waiting for Douglas, who had been like a mother to Janine and Sherlock for the nearly three years they had been in Fort William, amazing it had been so long, Sherlock was up on his feet and on the move. He called the shots-fired and officer-down codes to his radio as he chased down the fleeing suspect, who wasn’t going to get very far if any of them had any say. He wouldn’t kill the man, they needed him alive, but it was going to be very hard. Running wide, no longer worn down by bad health-habits like erratic eating habits and smoking and drug-use, Sherlock swung around, cut off his suspect, and was pleased to bring the bastard right to ground. He flipped the man onto his front and knelt on his shoulders as he slapped him in handcuffs, reading him as he did so.“God help you if you killed my partner, Mr Baker. She’s well-liked in this town, city-daughter practically. They like the Watsons in Fort William, you’re a dead man if anything’s happened to her.” He snarled, taking pleasure in how the man whimpered. A couple of constables, regulars, came up and he let them take Damian Baker away. Then he ran to where Janine had fallen. He couldn’t tell where she’d been shot, or at what range, it had all happened so quickly, and she had fallen face-down. Skidding, he fell to his knees and ripped off one glove with his teeth, pressing two shaking fingers to her neck in search of a pulse. He had one, faint but steady. Had that moron actually missed? Leaning down, he put his mouth close to her ear.“Janey? Can you hear me, love? Come on, girl, please be alright.” He brushed gravel from her hair and cheek, not above begging. He tightened his hand on the strap of her ballistics vest, “Janine Alestra Horatio Watson, you had better wake up. Right now. I will drag you to the hospital if I have to, but you will open your eyes for me.” Desperate, he grabbed her by the shoulders of her vest and flipped her over. He could see where the bullet had hit the vest, and slid one hand under the armour, praying he wouldn’t find another hole. Nothing. No defect in her shirt, or on the underside of the vest. Halfway to a full-blown panic, and Sherlock was not the sort of person who panicked, Sherlock straddled his partner’s still body and tore away the vest, which had miraculously done its job. He panted out the counts of “one, two, three, four” as he tried to get her breathing again. He was well-aware of the gathering crowd as he worked over her, but paid them no heed. A hand on his shoulder got his attention and he pulled back. The medics took over, but he stayed where he was. They used a portable defibrillator to get her heart beating properly, and combined with CPR, it was a work of patience and skill. It was terrifying to wait, to keep trying, but God be praised when she started breathing on her own. It was violent and glorious and Sherlock nearly broke down in tears. When Janine seized and started coughing, he quickly turned her onto her side and held her as she reacted. When she was able to get a breath in, he almost squeezed it out of her with a hug.“Sherlock?”“Oh thank Christ you’re okay! Fucking mother of god, Janine Watson, you’ll get yourself killed being a bloody hero like that!” He dragged her into a hug and held her tight, “Don’t scare me like that! Please!”“Did you get him?”“You bet your arse I got ‘im! He’ll be going away somewhere nice and secure for a very long time once we’re done with him.” He leaned back, letting her go long enough to look her over more carefully, “Do you need a hospital? We do have paramedics here if you do. What happened?”“Jesus. I’m…I think I’m fine.” She coughed, pressing her forehead to his shoulder, “Oh, God, Sherlock.”“Your vest did its job, love, or you wouldn’t be with us right now. Oh, Janine.” He rocked her, unable to help the instinct, “Jesus, you scared me.”“Sherlock?”“Hmm?”“Um. What are you doing?”“Thanking whatever lucky stars I have I didn’t lose my partner today.” He moved so she could get more comfortable and looked up over her head at Douglas, who stood off to one side with the rest of them. “I think Damian Baker was about to become the most wanted man in this part of Scotland.” And body-cams would have caught the whole mess. Everything from when this chase started to this moment. His, if he wasn’t wrong, was still running. Oh well.“Was it really that bad?”“Janine, we had to use a defibrillator.”“Jesus.” Janine sagged against him, “What an idiot thing.”“You’re the one who ran after him first, love.” He rubbed the back of her neck, “Janey?”“Yeah.” She leaned her head back and looked up at him, her eyes a little dim but she was aware. “Hi.”“Hi, idiot.”“Mm. Pretty sure I’m your idiot, Sergeant* Holmes.”“Yes, you are.” He smiled and watched her tilt her head in that cute way of hers. She was piecing things together in her head, debating on something. Well, if it was what he thought, he could help her along. The hand on the back of her neck moved into her hair and he tugged not too hard. Coming back online she was touchy and when shaky fingers reached for him, he caught her hand in his and carelessly used his teeth to pull off her glove. It dropped between them and she touched his face, reminding herself that this was real.“Of course it’s real.”“Can’t be too sure if you had to use CPR and a defibrillator to bring me back to life.” She looked up at him, her eyes a strange grey colour. “Sherlock?”“It’s okay, Janine. It’s fine.” He smiled and leaned close until he brushed noses with her. It was just a shame that their first kiss had been under such dire circumstances.“Sherlock, it doesn’t count.”“Yes, it does.”“Then you’d better make this one count for making up for it.” She nuzzled along his cheek, “For fuck’s sake, just kiss me already, Holmes.”“Yes, ma’am.” Never mind half the police-force was watching. Maybe they’d settle a few bets? It wasn’t the perfect second-first kiss, by any means, it was sloppy and a little off-target, but it counted. And for them, it was perfect. He didn’t miss the rather gorgeous sunset currently colouring the sky in shades of red, orange, and blue, and felt a selfish sense of relief that Janine had lived to see it. It wasn’t the first time they’d had a close call, by any means, but…it was the first time either of them had been in so much trouble. I mean, how many times had a suspect tussled with one or the other of them? How many times, God bless her, had Janine done just this and ended up swimming because she got tossed into the loch? But never, ever had anyone shot her. She made a noise of discomfort and he backed off. She hadn’t been shot, but she had been injured. God help them if she’d broken anything.“Sorry, oh Christ, I’m sorry.”“Not your fault.” She looked up at him, “Just…that hurt.”“What was it?” He looked her over and she offered her left arm. The sleeve was damp and he looked at his hands. Blood. Sherlock raised an eyebrow and held up his hand.“What’s this?”“Moron tried to knife me first, blade’s over there.” She indicated where a switch-blade sat nearby, “Knocked it out of his hand before he got more than a scratch.”“That’s more than a little scratch. Jesus, Watson.” He took her hand in his and pushed her sleeve back, “Oh, you idiot.”“I’m fine, Sherlock.”“Like hell you are. It took me two minutes to catch Baker, and almost nine to get your heart started again. You were unconscious for ten minutes.” He looked over his shoulder at the medics, “You’re going to The Belford and I won’t hear a word out of you otherwise.”“Okay, okay, fine. Jesus.” She rolled her eyes and he backed off to let the medics do their job. She’d be going in for observation and to get that wound looked at, they’d keep her overnight at this rate. That was okay. Well, no it wasn’t, but there was nothing for it. He’d stay with her if he was allowed to. As they got her loaded up in the ambulance, he hopped in to check on her, nodding to the medics and staying out of their way.“Hey.”“What are you doing in here?”“Making sure you’re okay.”“I’m fine, Sherlock. I’m alive, yeah?”“Janey, when I heard that gunshot, I thought I’d lost you. I went right after him first, I should have gone to you.”“It’s okay.” She took his hand, “You got the baddie and, if I’m not mistaken, Mycroft might be useful making him go bye-bye.”“Oh, I forgot about Mycroft. He likes you, this won’t go over very well in Whitehall, will it?”“Nope!” She snickered, coughed a little. “My love to London?”“Oh, absolutely! I’ll go see what kind of dirt I can dig up on our Mister Baker and see you later.” He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, “Don’t be stupid.”“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes, “Get out of here, you idiot!” She pushed him out of the way and he abandoned the ambulance. As badly as he wanted to go with her, he had work to do. Paperwork, for one thing, and a couple of phone-calls to make. There was a history to their suspect, and he would be more than happy to figure out what it was.“Well, Holmes?” Rowena was at his shoulder again, “She’s alive.”“Thank Christ for it.”“I guess you’ll be wanting a go at Baker, then?”“Oh, yes. If I may?” He always asked before going after a suspect in the interview room. Rowena nearly always said yes, but it was nice to ask.“Of course you can. Get back to base, get cleaned up.”“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at his uniform and made a face. He didn’t need a shower, but he did need a clean shirt. Saluting his boss, Sherlock retrieved the car and got back to base. The first thing he did was get a clean shirt while he started digging up everything on Damian Baker. It didn’t take long, of course, and he got back several warrants and wanted notices out for Baker everywhere from London all the way north to little Fort William. Word had gotten to them recently of a fugitive, and now they had him. Sherlock looked over those records and grinned. Lovely. This would bring The Met in no time, he just had to get them here. Nicely done. But before making that anon-tip call, he called a certain office in Vauxhall Cross. Sherlock had a suspicion he’d reach his brother, and if not in Vauxhall Cross, then he’d call around. The phone rang three times and picked up before turning over to voicemail. Hmm. Must have caught him while he was busy, Mycroft usually didn’t take this long to answer.
“Well, to what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your phone-call, dear brother?”
“Mycroft.” He chuckled, “I’m sure you know exactly why I’m calling.”
“Yes. Is she alright?”
“Conscious and spitting at me when I left her.” He messed with a biro, “We have Baker in custody.”
“Of course you do. I assume you’ve gotten permissions from Douglas?”
“I always do.” Sherlock sighed, felt a knot in his chest, “My god, Mycroft. I thought I’d lost her.”
“It was awfully close, wasn’t it? A terrible time for you both.”
“I told Baker that he had best hope Janine was alright, or he would have a bad time of things.” He sniffled, “Mycroft, what happened to us?”
“I couldn’t say, but I was not expecting you to do so well. You…surprise me.”
“I never could.” He rubbed his forehead. Surprising his brother wasn’t the hard part, it was impressing him that was so difficult. But then, he hadn’t really expected to become a legitimate detective, a police officer in every sense of the word.
“You are doing well in Fort William, and your…attitude has not affected your work-ethic. You are rather good at your job, I understand.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’m good at it, but Douglas likes me. I guess that counts for something.” He leaned against his desk, looking forlornly at the empty desk on the other side of the office space. “My partner is quite a help keeping me in check.”
“Of course she is, Sherlock.”
“Oh, Mycroft?”
“Yes?”
“We’ve been…keeping track of things from Fort William.” He cleared his throat, “Have you, uh, reached the end yet?”
“Yes, actually. We tied up a few last loose ends, one slipped our nets. But, with any luck and being wanted by as many organizations as he is, it may not be much longer.”
“Was Baker one of Moriarty’s, then?” It wouldn’t surprise Sherlock, and it would explain how he’d gotten this far.
“I’m afraid so. But he was a low-level flunky. We missed him on initial sweeps, and he got smart.”
“I’ll let Douglas know, then. She’s…aware of the situation that brought us here.” Sherlock pulled a sip straw from the small glass on his desk, and pulled open a drawer on the desk, rummaging for the box he knew was supposed to be there. The box was there, but it was empty. Cursing under his breath, he chucked the empty box into the bin and raided Janine’s desk. She always had a few nicotine patches, and he was apparently clean out.
“I’ll leave you to your business, brother. Thank you for calling.”
“I figured you should know about Janine.” He found what he was looking for and grinned. “Ah, there you are.”
“Be well, dear brother.”
“And you, Mycroft.” He ripped off the backing of the patch and hung up with Mycroft. Pulling back his sleeve, he slapped the nicotine patch onto his wrist and dialled another number as he reviewed the information on Damian Baker. This time the phone rang four times and was picked up by a tired-sounding woman.
“Crime-Stoppers UK London, this is Maggie. This call is being monitored for accuracy and security. What is the purpose of your call?”
“Yes, I’m just calling to report a sighting/encounter with a wanted fugitive.” That ought to get their attention.“Yes, sir?” Not so tired, suddenly, was she? Sherlock smirked and provided the necessary information, but retained his anonymity. He made a point of dropping the London accent he’d adopted to talk to Mycroft on the principle that he didn’t really feel like scaring his brother that much. These days he spoke Gaelic as fluently as he spoke Queen’s English, and his Scottish accent was just hard enough to throw off tourists and southerners. Those with sharp hearing could pick out the Saxon accents, he usually told them he had family in Sussex and London.
“He’s been sighted in…where did you say it was, sir?”
“Fort William, Lochaber, Scotland. If he’s a wanted man, you’ve got ‘im up here.”
“I…don’t suppose you’d speak to someone over at The Met, would you?”
“No thank you. But you can tell them if you’d like.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for your tip. That’s…well, it should be rather helpful.”
“I figured as much. You’re welcome, Maggie.” Sherlock hung up with the Crime-Stoppers UK clerk and put together a file on Damian Baker, papering the walls of the office with everything they had.When Douglas came in and found him staring at a web of print-outs and string, she snorted.“Oh, for God’s sake, Holmes! Really?”“Yes, ma’am.” He folded his hands behind his back. “Turns out our slick Mr Baker is a wanted man.”“Well, yah, figured. What’d he do?”“Oh, plenty. This little fishie was one of Moriarty’s people.”“Bet your brother was pleased to hear we had him.”“He was. I also called in a tip to Crime-Stoppers to pass along to The Met. Anonymously, of course.”“Oh, you’re a wicked man, Sherlock Holmes.” Douglas looked at the Evidence Wall and chuckled, “Nice work, lad. Want to go for it?”“Yes, please.”“Alright, come on, you mad thing.” Douglas grinned and patted him on the shoulder. Taking his file and a notebook and biro, Sherlock went to question Damian Baker. He spent two hours with Baker before calling it a night and leaving the office. He got a full confession and a rehashing of Baker’s part in Moriarty’s network on top of that. It was a good night as far as getting his suspect to sing went. Instead of going home, he drove over to The Belford and spent the rest of the night at his partner’s bedside. Rowena had notified Hamish and Alasdair for him and he met them at the hospital. They were, appropriately, devastated but so relieved that Janine was alive and would be going home sooner than later. Once they were certain that Sherlock was going to stay with Janine, not that he had any intention of staying elsewhere tonight, they took their leave and offered to look after Victoria for the duration. “If you don’t mind? She would appreciate having some company.”“Oh, absolutely! You take care of yourself and that rascal granddaughter of mine, Holmes, and we’ll look after your pup.” Alasdair waved him off, “She’ll just keep company with Bowser.” Sherlock chuckled. Bowser was Hamish and Alasdair’s Sussex Spaniel, named by a great-grandchild for the popular video-game character. The old dear was almost twelve years old and getting on well in her old age, content to greet patients at the surgery and go on rambles with her masters. Sometimes, on his days off, Sherlock took the dogs out on hikes. Janine joined him most of the time, seeing it as a routine way to keep in shape for their jobs. They ran five-mile loops in the morning before reporting to work, and Sherlock had to admit he had never been in such good shape in his life. Three years and he smoked two cigarettes a day, hadn't used or looked at drugs since leaving London, and he was pretty sure now that he could outpace anyone at The Met on a take-down foot chase. There were occasions where all he wanted to do was call and gloat and say "Hah. Look what I did! Look what I can do now!", but he wasn't quite that petty and he knew it wouldn't help anyone. Sherlock was not the same person he had been three years ago, so much had changed. He wondered, often, if anyone he had worked with before would even recognise him if they met on the street. Greg Lestrade might, he was familiar enough with Sherlock to recognise him if the circumstances were just right. Not that Sherlock would out himself, exactly, but it would be interesting to see if anyone he knew intimately would be able to recognise him if he was standing before them. His brother, of course, and Mrs Hudson would know him in a flash, it was his resentful Met counterparts he was curious about.  Those thoughts kept him company while he sat with Janine, waiting for her to wake up again. She was on several drugs, he would have to read her chart to get their names, and sleeping off the traumatic chase and getting shot. Unable to help himself, Sherlock put one hand on his partner’s chest and tracked her heartbeat, the steady rise-and-fall of her chest as she slept. Her breathing was a bit shallower than usual but not laboured, and her vitals were a bit higher than normal-baseline but not worryingly so. A nurse came in at some point, he had fallen asleep at the bedside and was aware of motion but did not wake up.“Well, at least you’re getting some rest.” A hand came to rest on his shoulder for a moment, squeezed gently. “God knows you need it. Work too damn hard as it is, silly idiot.”  “Christine?” Sherlock cracked an eye open and turned his head enough to look up at the nurse. She just smiled at him and ruffled his hair, putting a finger to her lips. “Don’t mind me, son. Just on a pass-through.” She made a soft sound as she noted the length of his hair, due for a trim soon. “Getting long again, Billy boy.”“Worry about it later?”“We’ll see about that, you mad thing.” Shaking her head, she headed for the door. She’d accomplished what she needed and was on to her next patient. “There’s room enough for the both of ya on that bed, son. No need to sleep in that awful chair. I won’t tell.”“You’re an angel, Christine.” Sherlock sighed, getting unsteadily to his feet and shedding a couple of layers. He got his boots off, dumped his coat and duty-belt, making damn sure his radio and phone were silent, and tucked his gun under the pillow, safed and with one round chamber, clip out. The nurse only left once he was settled and turned the lights down more for him. “Get some rest, you. I’ll be back through later. Or one of the girls will be.”“Thank you, Christine. She’s…going to be okay.” He rested alongside his partner, so glad he could get away with this kind of contact. There were rules against it, but no one ever complained if he decided bed-sharing was on the schedule when either he or Janine were in the hospital for something requiring a longer stay. Hopefully, after this latest scare, they would manage to stay out of trouble for a while?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Shortly after Sherlock made the call to Crime-Stopper’s, an office door was suddenly thrown open in The Met’s Victoria Street building, much to the occupant’s displeasure.“Damn it, Donovan!” Those words were uttered rather more often than not, paired up with a very dirty look that usually got the job done nicely. “What!”“Sorry, sir!” The breathless DI was trying to catch her breath even as she held a phone to her ear, simultaneously holding two conversations, “Sorry! Say again, Dispatch?”“Oh, for…Jesus, I don’t get paid enough for this!” the harried DI put his head in his hands, “Donovan!”“Sorry! Yes, sir!” Sally Donovan lowered the phone, eyes wide, “Sir, you’re never going to believe this!”“Try me.”“We found him, sir!”“Found…whom?” Greg Lestrade looked up a bit.“Damian Baker, sir! We’ve got ‘im!”“What?” Oh, thank Christ! “Where?!”“That’s what’s so unbelievable, sir! They have him up in…where is it again?” She listened to the clerk on the other line, “Oh, yes, thank you so much. Right. Bye.” She hung up and looked at Greg, “Scotland!”“Oh, that’s just great. I knew he’d made for the border, I knew it! Where?” Greg put his computer on power-down after getting a train-ticket, he wasn’t coming back here for a few days.“Er, Fort William, sir? Some little place on the coast, I think?”“Fort William. I know the place.” He was already on his feet, looking at his watch, “Has anyone informed Intelligence? Home Office? MI-6?”“Yes, sir. All of them know.”“Good, less for me to worry about.” Greg grabbed his badge, gun, and work-bag, hooking his coat from the coat-tree by the door. Passing by his former sergeant, he shooed her out and locked up after turning out the lights. “Thanks, Donovan. Sorry I snapped at you like that.”“No problem, sir. Are you…going up there, then?”“Yep. My suspect, ain’t he?”“Yeah, I guess. You’ve been after him for a while, too.”“We both have. I’d love to meet the lucky bastards who got to put that sonuvabitch in handcuffs.” He ruffled his hair as he shrugged into his coat, a new Burberry Westminster Long Heritage trench coat he had gotten for Christmas. His scarf was next, and then gloves. It was mid-April, the weather was atrocious. Both here and in Scotland, he wasn’t going to be stupid about this. Looping the strap of his work-bag over his head, he waved to a couple of coworkers, not at all sorry he was leaving them behind. There were a few things he hoped to accomplish on this trip, roping a wanted criminal lackey was just one.-&-Getting to the car-park in record time, Greg left the building and headed for his car. His watch read 9.15pm, his train left at 11.53pm. He kept go-bags packed at the office, so he loaded his overnight suitcase and his work-bag and headed for Soho. He wasn’t leaving without getting something decent to eat first, and he could always count on Angelo, who had been a friend of Sherlock Holmes before the Moriarty scandal and still was. Angelo was one of a small cult of believers who were absolutely convinced Sherlock Holmes was still alive, just in hiding somewhere or working his way across Europe taking apart the networks. Greg knew for first-hand information that there was a dedicated team of agents put together from MI-5 and MI-6 taking that web apart, no sign of the disgraced detective. It didn’t help, though, that Greg had identified the man’s body for Molly Hooper that day. There was no way, absolutely no way beyond a fucking miracle, Sherlock Holmes had survived. Maybe he had, but if that was true, then God bless him. When he reached the cosy little Italian restaurant on Northumberland Street, Greg was glad to see that the regular crowd was in and it wasn’t terribly busy. Smiling, he pocketed his keys and headed for the warm restaurant. A server named Billy held the door for him with a friendly smile.“Evening, Inspector.”“Billy.”“On the job tonight?”“Yep. Got a train to catch, got time enough to eat.”“Your regular table’s ready, sir.” Billy indicated one of the “Reserved” tables and removed the placard as Greg sat down. The table had been saved for Sherlock, but Greg had always sat here every time he visited in the aftermath. He was scrutinizing the menu, despite knowing exactly what he would get, when Angelo came lumbering over to the table, all smiles and cheer.“Lestrade, it’s good to see you, sir!” the friendly Italian-born Angelo boomed, hauling Greg to his feet, “How’s business?”“Same as it always is, Angelo.” He chuckled, grunting as Angelo hugged him hard enough his feet left the floor for a moment. “Sure could use Sherlock Holmes sometimes, though.”“Ah, he was a smart one, wasn’t he?”“Smarter than the rest of us, that’s for damn sure.” Greg shook his head, “Well, we make do. I make do.”“Bah! Sit down! I’ll bring your usual!” Angelo just smiled and ushered him back into his seat. Ten minutes later, Angelo brought a plate of the house Pasta Carbonara with a glass of white wine. Greg took time out to eat and enjoy a brief respite before the work ahead. Two glasses of wine did the trick to keep him content and Angelo gave him an unopened bottle as a gift, and the rest of the opened bottle. He usually did. Greg smiled and promised to be back later, business took him to Scotland of all places. Oh, if Angelo didn’t just light up when he heard that.“Oh, where are you going?”“Fort William. A suspect of mine skipped town and went north of the border.” He shrugged into his coat and double-checked for his keys, badge, and gun. All right where they were supposed to be. “A couple of lucky blokes up there got to put Damian Baker in handcuffs.”“Oh! Oh! That’s where, oh yes!” Angelo caught himself saying something he probably shouldn’t and Greg raised an eyebrow.“Walk me out, Angelo?”“Absolutely! Come along, Inspector! Keys?”“After you, sir.” He gave his keys to Angelo, who pocketed them. Billy held the door for them and went out after them to hail a taxi. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d left his car parked at Angelo’s, and it wasn’t very likely to be the last. As Billy hailed a cab to get Greg to Euston Station, Angelo helped him collect his luggage and tucked the wine into his work-bag.“Angelo?”“Word’s gotten to us that Fort William is where Sherlock went to ground all those years ago. That wasn’t him, Inspector, that day in Saint Bart’s.” Angelo looked at him sternly, “You know what that boy looked like. You know what a dead body looks like.”“And I know it’s not that difficult to switch.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “You really think he’s out there, Angelo? You think he’s alive?”“Oh, absolutely. I’ve got my suspicions he found something to keep himself occupied up there and found a way to put those skills of his to perfectly good use.” Angelo smiled and squeezed his shoulder warmly, “You scoff at us when we talk about it, but you can’t tell me you don’t believe a bit of it? You want to, don’t you?”“I’d give a ransom to have Sherlock back, Angelo. His name’s cleared up, and Christ knows I need him back before I lose my fucking mind.”“Go find him, then, Inspector. He’s not likely to be the same man the whole city turned our backs on that day, but I doubt he’ll be unhappy to see you.”“Who’s up there with him? Someone must have gone up there to keep him straight.”“Girl named Watson. Worth her weight in gold and more.” Angelo looked a little teary-eyed, “Never seen a better pair. Whatever work they’re doing, they’re having a blast doing it.”“You don’t think Sherlock became a cop, do you?” It was something Greg had tried to plant in that brilliant mind on so many occasions. There were legitimate ways to use his smarts, and with his skills of observation and his knack for working out puzzles the rest of them just couldn’t piece together, he’d be a fucking stellar police detective. But he had never been interested, he was far too independent-minded, too outrageous, too…unpredictable. Not to mention his history with drug-use was abysmal. And he had scoffed at procedure so many times Greg had wondered why he ever thought the genius would be interested. He was too smart for honest police-work, wasn’t he? Or, was he?“He used to call us all idiots, wondered how any of us got our jobs done.”“It wasn’t police-procedure he was scoffing at, it was the way your lot went about it.”“Ineffective, always kind of has been. They all do it by the book, he does it going by his gut and what he sees.”“Go find him. He’ll be happy to see you.”“Christ, I can’t believe he alive.” Greg wondered why he wasn’t taking it harder that Sherlock had never actually been dead. He’d lost his fucking job because of that mess, but they’d given it back to him after a few months because he really was the best they had, despite his habit of using an unreliable resource when he couldn’t figure something out by himself.“You didn’t hear that from me, Inspector.”“Sure I didn’t.” Greg smiled and hugged Angelo. “Thanks, Angelo.”“Always a pleasure to have you, Inspector. Come back soon!”“Yeah, I’ll try. Maybe I’ll have some company with me next time.” He grinned and ducked into the waiting cab. “Thanks, Billy. See you ‘round.”“Got it, Inspector. Anything for the Network?”“Nope. Thanks, though.”“Good luck!” Billy and Angelo stood on the kerb, watching until the cab was out of sight.-&-When they got to Euston Station, Greg got out, nodding to the hovering driver, who collected his luggage and took the stack of bills Greg handed him. Collecting his luggage on a trolley, Greg headed into the station. It didn’t take long to get to his train and find his cabin. He had booked a Standard Class double-berth. Once they were underway, he got comfortable for a long trip. His berth-mate was a handsome fellow about eight years his junior with an unseasonably dark tan, several weeks’ worth of stubble, and a heavy bag full of camera gear that he held up in offer to Greg, who was sitting on the top bunk when he shouldered his way into the cabin. Greg shrugged and took the bag, putting it up on the small shelf above his bed with his work-bag.“Christ, what’s in here?”“Cameras.”“Weigh a bit, don’t they?” He raised an eyebrow, “What kind of photography?”“Bit of everything. War photography, mostly.”“Oof.” Greg winced, “You’ve been to Afghanistan, then?”“Loads of times. Pretty country, though. People are nice, too.”“When they’re not shooting at you?”“Yeah.” The younger man grinned at him. “You look like a cop.”“I look like a cop?”“Got family in law-enforcement is all. You look like one of the likes of Rowena Douglas’s folk. But you’re not from Scotland at all. Accents are all wrong.”“I may not be, but you certainly are.” Greg rolled to look under at his berth-mate, who had taken the bottom bunk, “You didn’t want tops, did you?”“Nope. That one’s all for you, mate.”“Thanks.” He snorted. “You got a name, son?”“Name’s Iain. Iain MacKelpie.”“Proper Scottish name.” Greg chuckled and stuck out one hand, “Name’s Greg Lestrade.”“Oh, I was right! You are a cop!” MacKelpie beamed as they shook hands, “I thought you looked familiar!”“Let me guess.”“You’re the one who used to work with Sherlock Holmes, ain’t you?”“Yep.”“Ooh! Lucky bastard.”“Don’t know if I’m lucky or not.” He looked up at the ceiling, “You said you had family in law-enforcement.”“Got a cute cousin up in Fort William, she just cleared to Sergeant a bit ago.”“That’s where I’m going.”“Ah, we’re going the same way, then!” MacKelpie chuckled as Greg climbed down the ladder to take care of a few things. With the couple of weeks he’d had, it didn’t take Greg long to fall asleep. A Sominex helped him along after he brushed his teeth. As he climbed back up the ladder, MacKelpie handed him a pair of ear-plugs.“What’s this for?”“I’ve been told I snore. Save you the noise.”“Oh. Tah for that.” He smiled at the young photographer and got comfortable. Between the Sominex, the earplugs, and Greg’s state of exhaustion, Greg was out in no time and if MacKelpie snored, he didn’t hear it.-&-After a surprisingly restful night’s sleep, Greg was up at his usual time and had just pulled on his trousers when the door opened and MacKelpie popped his head in, grinning like he’d discovered buried treasure.“You hungry, Inspector?”“A bit? Why?”“There’s a couple seats up in the Lounge Car.” MacKelpie made a “come on” gesture and Greg grabbed his work-bag and MacKelpie’s camera bag, just instinct, and decided breakfast was a good idea. When they got to the Lounge Car, there were indeed a few spots left and they took over a table. Greg got coffee for both of them and two plates of Highland Breakfast.He worked on paperwork while MacKelpie did enough talking for both of them and shared some of his pictures, showing them on a tablet with a card-reader attachment.“Turns out my cousin was a bit of an idiot recently and got herself landed in the hospital.”“Oh. Is she okay?”“She’ll be just fine, but she’s lucky she had her vest on.” MacKelpie shrugged, rather laid-back about his cousin.“She’s the one who’s a cop?”“Yep. That’s her there.” MacKelpie nodded at the tablet Greg was looking at. Displayed on the screen was a picture of a female soldier in full field-kit, but he could see the family resemblance.“Your cousin’s a pretty girl. Single?”“Sort of. Depends on who you ask.”“Sort of?” Greg raised an eyebrow, “You’re either single or you’re not.”“Well, half the force is convinced she and her partner are dating, but no one believes them when they say they aren’t.”“Who’s her partner?”“I’ve met him a couple of times, nice bloke. One of yours, used to be.” MacKelpie took the tablet from him and swiped to a different album. This one was nothing but pictures of his cousin Janine, going back as far as her service with the Army and as recently as this year.“You have an awful lot of pictures of your cousin, Mr MacKelpie.”“Can you blame a bloke?”“No. She’s pretty.” He found a picture of Janine Watson with her partner, and the minute he saw the man, Greg knew exactly who it was. He raised an eyebrow.“Who’s that?”“That lucky fucker is her partner, name’s William.”“He’s the one who use to be one of mine?”“That’s what he told us, anyway. Chief Douglas liked him enough to keep him around. Solved a six-month backlog of cases in a week and roped the Finley kids being stupid almost right away.”“Define “being stupid”.” Greg swiped through more pictures of Sherlock. If he hadn’t known the man before, he would have never recognised him on the streets now. He made the uniform look good. And he was happy, Greg could see it in his face.“You couldn’t have taken all of these pictures.”“Most of ‘em. The rest I get from Douglas and her lot. Apparently, that pair of idiots got themselves a nickname of sorts.”“I can only imagine. How did he get anyone’s attention?”“Caught the Finley boys trying to get rid of a dog.”“Animal cruelty?” Greg hissed. If there was one thing, one crime, that Sherlock Holmes just absolutely could not stand, it was cruelty to animals in any form at all. “Oh, he wouldn’t have liked that at all.”“Apparently the boys were informed that they were lucky. If Janine or Sherlock had gotten hands on them before they were dragged to the station in cuffs, it probably would have ended with the pair of them in hospital.”“What’s he call himself?” Greg looked up at that name. It wouldn’t have been something the boffin would just freely offer someone as his name if he was hiding from trouble.“Sherlock.”“Sherlock?” Greg stifled something trying to get out. He wanted to laugh. “William? Hmm. He’s handsome. I think I remember him.”“So he was one of yours?”“Not formally, but he was definitely smarter than anyone else on my team. He wasn’t really…popular. People didn’t get along with him.”“Well, I like him. He’s great fun.”“Having a partner to look out for him like that must have changed him. He hated following the rules.”“Still kind of does, but he respects the law and if he catches you breaking it, good luck and run.”“God damn it, Sherlock.” Greg rubbed his jaw, “Jesus Christ.”“He’s supposed to be dead, ain’t he?”“Yep.”“And he’s not.”“Nope.”“Is that going to be a problem?”“Not for me!” Greg looked up and checked the time. “Can you…uh, could I bother you for these pictures?”“Oh, sure!” MacKelpie grinned, “All of ‘em?”“Yeah, if you don’t…don’t mind? Christ, I’ve spent three years worried about him, wondering if something could have gone differently that day, if I could have done something differently.”“Nah, you’d probably be dead by now if you had. That was a nasty business you were lucky you didn’t know about.” MacKelpie took the tablet back and powered it off. Greg packed up his work-bag and wondered if it would be stupid to cry.“Did they tell you?”“Yah they did. Janey’s never really been one to keep things from me, never has, and when I knew who he was on sight the first time we met, they just came out and told me. After all, who the fuck was I going to tell, and who would believe me?”“What else did your cousin do, Iain, before she became a cop?”“Oh, she did a bit of everything. Left the service for a few years, they marked it private work in government facilities.” MacKelpie just gave him a smile. Intelligence, then. One of Mycroft Holmes’s people? Most likely.“Intelligence, then?”“Yep.”“Figures. Jesus. I think I know her boss.” “She was one of their best. I’ve never met a finer marksman. Or a more humble one.”“Yeah, the few times I met her, she seemed pretty down to earth.” He had met Janine Watson a couple of times in London, either when she called in a tip or, by chance, turned up at a crime scene. Used to seeing Sherlock and having him around, Greg had been happy to feed the curious pensioner tidbits whenever she came around. She wasn’t looking for them, exactly, but she always seemed to know how to find them. For a while, he’d honestly thought she and Sherlock were working together. And he had never seen evidence to suggest otherwise. Sherlock had talked extensively about an informal member of his Network, who lived nearby to Baker Street and was both an invaluable source of information and a friend of sorts. She didn’t know his real name, he had kept it from her, but she was a friend when he needed one.“I think I know how Holmes got out of London that day.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Watson got him out somehow. And she must have said something to Mycroft Holmes.”“Yes on both accounts.” MacKelpie just smiled as they went back to their berth to clear it before debarking from the train when they pulled into Tom-na-Faire Station Square, Fort William. Collecting his small luggage, Greg was looking for the nearest car-hire. He needed a way to get around Fort William independently while he was here. A check of the time showed that it was exactly 9 am. He was still tired, despite the good night’s sleep he’d gotten on the trip up, which made for two items on his to-do list that needed fulfilling at the soonest.“Lestrade!” MacKelpie’s shout got his attention and he looked up.“Yeah?”“Come with me. I’ve got a place here, family’s got a couple of houses and we all stay when we need them. I’m not letting you anywhere near that station until you’ve gotten some sleep, and maybe another meal. I’ll drive.”“You’ve got a car, then?”“Yep. Cousin would have moved it if my grandparents didn’t.” MacKelpie grinned and put an arm around his shoulders, “’Sides, I like you. You’re fun company.”“Most people I know wouldn’t call me fun.”“Their loss. You’re smart, funny, and almost unfairly handsome. Not to mention you’ve got a place for those who matter.”“Yeah, I guess I do. But when you’ve spent as much time as I have looking after Sherlock Holmes whether he wanted it or not, it’s kind of second nature.” He didn’t think he was particularly good-looking, but there were plenty of people who thought otherwise. Some were obvious about it, others not so much. Greg managed to find his sunglasses. They weren’t strictly necessary, but they sure helped. MacKelpie led the way to a beat-up red Land Rover, a 2010 model by the looks. It was a nice car, but it had clearly seen extensive use. It ran like new, so it was maintained properly. A family-car, if he had to guess.-&-It was a quiet drive from the station to MacKelpie’s house out on Achintore Road, a short five-minute jaunt during which MacKelpie pointed out Belford Hospital, and the Fort William Area Office where Sherlock and Janine apparently worked. Or, had worked. A new complex had opened further north close by to the high school and they were transitioning out of the waterfront offices. He also pointed out another family property, notable for the sign out front declaring it a place of business: Fort William All Creatures Great Clinic. It was a veterinary surgery clinic, apparently run by his grandfather who would die before he ever retired. This place really was home to the Watsons, wasn't it?“Forgot to ask before I bolted from London if there was any chance of this bastard slipping the net.”“Not damn likely, the way I hear.” MacKelpie shook his head. “What’s your suspect’s name?”“Damian Baker. I’ve been after him for months.”“Oh, no, he’s not going anywhere. He’s the one who put my cousin in the hospital, he either has terrible aim or my cousin had phenomenal luck.”“You said her vest had saved her life?”“Pulled a knife on her first, she got rid of that real quick. It was when he pulled a gun on her next that it got messy. But the vest caught the bullet and she’ll go home…tomorrow, I assume?”“Jesus Christ.” Greg put a hand over his eyes. “You said your cousin and her partner had a nickname up here?”“Yeah. Locals call ‘em the Baker Street Twins.”“Baker Street Twins?” Greg chuckled, “Fuck. They used to live half a mile from each other! She lived on Gloucester Street, he lived on Baker Street.” Greg looked out the windscreen, wondering how settled Watson and Sherlock seemed to be from the evidence he had in photographs. “Wonder if I could talk ‘em into coming back to London for me. God knows we could use some good detectives and I would give a ransom to have Sherlock back.”“They might. But you’ll have to play nice with Chief Douglas, she’s very fond and very protective of those two.”“I guess I’ll worry about that later.” He looked out at the house they had pulled up to. It was simple but comfortable, built of brick and attractive with phenomenal views of the loch. MacKelpie took him inside and showed him an upstairs room. Greg took another Sominex and pulled the black-out curtains before dumping his clothes and climbing into bed. This house was well-maintained, the bed was probably the softest thing he’d slept on in…felt like forever. But he’d made it to Fort William and he could take a quick break. Not to mention his host was surprisingly kind towards a complete stranger and didn’t judge him at all when he put it together in his head that Sherlock was still alive. He wondered how long MacKelpie had known, it sounded like he’d known for a while. Well, whatever else, he had his man. After almost six months, they finally had Damian Baker. Last weak link in a broken chain. Maybe things could go back to normal, now?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

As soon as the house was quiet, and he was absolutely certain his guest was asleep, Iain MacKelpie checked the time, wrote a note for his guest explaining where he’d gone and how long he expected to be gone, and drove up to Belford Hospital to visit his cousin. He had found out almost as soon as it happened, and had grabbed a ticket on the Caledonian Sleeper to get him home to Fort William. The place was suitably busy when he arrived and he stopped by the proper desk to sign himself in.“Which patient are you here to see, sir?” The nurse asked cheerfully. Iain gave her a kind smile as he wrote his name in the log.“Watson?”“Here, you’ll want this, then.” The nurse took the log when he’d done signing and handed over a visitor’s badge for him to wear while he was in the hospital. She gave him the room-number and wished him luck.“Uh, just…look for the uniform!” She called after him. Iain just nodded. It would make sense that his cousin’s room would be guarded by a constable. He suspected his cousin’s handsome partner would be there, so he stopped to get whatever passed for coffee around here. When he got to the room, it was, in fact, guarded by a uniformed constable who was half-asleep at his post. Iain showed his badge and the constable cleared him with a nod.“She’s not awake yet, don’t think either of ‘em are, really.” “Doesn’t surprise me. Thanks, lad.” He smiled at the constable and shouldered his way into the room, nudging the door shut with his heel. Sure enough, his cousin slept on the cramped hospital bed, looking smaller than she usually did hooked up to a couple of machines, and her partner was folded into the chair at the bedside. Smiling, Iain went around the bed and kicked at Holmes until the tall idiot woke up with a gruff “what!”“Oi! What’s that kind of behavior!”“Take it easy, Holmes, just me.” He chuckled and held out one cup of coffee to Sherlock Holmes, “No need to go biting my head off just yet.”“Oh. Iain. Where’d you come from?” Holmes shoved into a more upright position, taking the offered cup. If he was embarassed by being caught sleeping, it didn’t show.“London, of course. Where else?” He reached over and messed with the detective’s hair, kept shorter these days than it had been before 2011. “How’s she doing?”“She’ll be going home tonight or tomorrow morning. They wanted to keep her twenty-four hours.” Holmes took a sip of coffee. “Ta for this.”“Figured if I needed it, you would, too.”“No kidding. God, Iain.”“She’s going to be fine, Sherlock.” He promised, looking at his sleeping cousin, “Trust me, this is nothing compared to the last time I saw her in a hospital.”“I can’t begin to imagine how awful that must have been, for all of you.” Holmes held onto the cup like it was the only stable thing in his world, and probably to keep him from reaching for Janine.“It was pretty awful, the wait to find out of she’d survive or not.” He did not recall that heart-skipping moment of terror fondly at all. It was worse because he had actually been there when Janine was shot, he had been travelling with her unit on assignment and they had come under fire from insurgents. Janine had shoved him to the ground and then pulled him to cover, told him to stay put, and went right back out into the fray to take care of her people, collecting them and bringing them to cover. She had run out once into the line of fire to get a wounded Marine and that had been the moment. Three of Janine’s guys had tried to keep Iain from running out, but when he saw his cousin fall under fire, he’d bolted. She had saved his life, he wouldn’t let her die out there. Dragging her back to safety, they had done everything they could to save her. And right before she’d lost consciousness, she had grabbed him by the hand and pulled on him until he got close enough she could talk to him without straining.“Don’t let me die out here, Iain. Please don’t let me die!” She had begged, “Take me home!” Please don’t let me die. Who ever wanted to hear a loved one say that to them?“Iain?” He must have been out for a while, he was aware of someone talking to him. Refocusing on the present, he looked up and realized that he had switched places with Holmes and was sitting in the chair. His empty cup sat on the bedside tray-table, he must have finished it without realising, and Holmes was in front of him, resting on his heels.“Holmes?”“Hey. What happened? I thought I was the only one who did that.”“God.” He looked over at the bed, “I’m so sorry.”“Don’t be sorry! She’s your cousin! Weren’t you there when she got shot in Afghanistan?” Of course he knew where Iain had gone.“Yeah. I, uh…I’m the one who pulled her to safety.”“Makes you sick remembering, doesn’t it?”“A little. You know what she told me? She said “Please don’t let me die.” Who says that kind of thing?”“Someone who’s dying. But she survived. And she’ll get out of here tomorrow. It’s okay, Iain.” Holmes smiled, “Thanks for coming up, I can only imagine where we found you this time.”“I was in London, just got back from…Egypt.” He remembered the exhausted DI sleeping in one of the guest-rooms back at his house. “Oh, reminds me. Ran into a friend of yours.”“A friend of mine?” That got an eyebrow. Iain smiled and leaned forward a little, glad to have something to take his mind off of the past.“Should’ve told me you had such handsome friends, Holmes. Met your DI buddy on the train.”“Lestrade?”“Lovely man.”“What on earth is he doing here?”“Well, you called in a tip, didn’t you? About the moron who shot my cousin?”“Yeah.”“Well, he’s the one who took the tip.”“Oh no.”“Oh don’t worry about it, Sherlock. He’s not a complete idiot.”“I owe him an explanation for everything, and an apology.” That was the face of a man who had done awful things to people he cared about, told lies and meant none of it.“Hey.” He tugged on dark locks, “Saxon. Look at me.”“What?” Always use the nickname, it’ll work every time.“He knows.”“Oh.”“It’s all fine, Sherlock. He’s here for Baker, you’re an unexpected and welcome bonus.”“He’ll probably want to talk to Baker himself, and we’ll have to look into extradition. We caught him up here running from the law.”“The Met wants Baker, but so does MI-5. Probably MI-6, if I had to hazard a guess. If he was one of Moriarty’s people?”“He was.”“There you go.” Iain smiled and took a minute to touch what he was allowed to. Janine and Sherlock weren’t exclusive, despite being in a very serious relationship, and he was allowed to flirt if he wanted. Being the happily-content bisexual he was, Iain enjoyed the full spectrum and had a few favourites. Sherlock was a happy partner whenever he was in town. Leaning in, Iain tipped that unique face up and kissed Sherlock. Just a little something to get his mind somewhere else.“Did you know, you’re rather good at that?”“I’ve been told. Did I distract you?”“With annoying efficiency.”“Good. Means I did my job properly.” Iain smiled. A nurse came through to check on Janine, who showed the first signs of life he’d seen since coming in.“When can I go home?”“Sweetie, your heart stopped. You won’t be going home until tomorrow at this rate.” Sherlock scolded his partner. She made a face.“For your own sake, love.” The nurse soothed, “You were lucky yesterday, Sergeant. Don’t take it for granted.”“I don’t. I just don’t like being stuck in the hospital when there’s work to do.”“Which isn’t going anywhere. I promise.” Sherlock shook his head, smiling at the nurse, “Thank you, Jaren.”“Of course, Sergeant Holmes. Don’t let her break out of here, alright?”“Not on our watch she won’t,” Iain promised. Clearly not trusting any of them, Iain got the feeling (and knew from experience) Sherlock and Janine had in their turn both broken out of the hospital before they were supposed to be discharged or just simply let themselves out when it was time, the nurse left them to their own devices. He still remembered the phone-call he’d gotten from Rowena Douglas informing that his cousin had gone AWOL from the hospital back in 2012. He’d just gotten home from Afghanistan and instead of going back to his had made the trip around the lochs to Ferry House to see if his cousin had gone to ground there. Sure enough, she’d holed up at the house, defiant and miserable. Iain had quickly informed Douglas and promptly and properly introduced himself to Janine’s handsome partner. That had been the first time he’d met the man and recognised him right away. He had never once said a word to another soul, they didn’t have to ask him to keep his silence on the matter. He knew what had happened in London, he knew Sherlock Holmes was supposed to be dead, and if he needed to be able to hide out in plain sight, then Iain and the citizens of Fort William would be more than happy to help him do that. And for three years, they had. There were locals who didn’t know his real name, and plenty of pass-through tourists who had seen him, met him, and never connected the pieces. That was going to change soon.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After arriving in Fort William, and sure his suspect wasn’t going anywhere without police-escort, Greg Lestrade took a couple of days to get his head on straight. He got some sight-seeing in and could see why this might be a good place for the likes of Sherlock Holmes to go to ground and pretty much disappear from sight. Up here, he was nobody, and those who knew wouldn’t out him. That was the mentality of the Highlanders, and it wasn’t something to be underestimated. During his downtime, he actually caught a few glimpses of his elusive friend while out and about. The first time anything was done about it was while he was in one of the many local pubs for breakfast, counting his lucky stars these places accounted for early risers who might be looking for something a bit more filling than a pint first thing in the morning. Greg had seen a couple of those lot but passed no judgment on them. He had been one of them, not all that long ago. He was sitting by the window near the door, a perfect place for people-watching, when the door opened and a couple of patrons filed in. At the rear of the group, he saw a glimpse of hi-vis yellow. In a small town like Fort William, he wasn’t surprised to see the local force stopping by. Their cars were easily marked and their uniforms comfortingly familiar. As the officer in question cleared the entry, stepping into the pub with a sense of purpose Greg was all-too-familiar with, he studied the man. Despite the uniform, he knew this wasn’t any regular constable. This was someone higher, probably allowed plain-clothes but electing to wear the uniform by choice. And damn he made it look good. He was tall, just a bit above six-foot, slim but muscular (that would be the required physical training routine to maintain his station and fitness) from what Greg could see beyond the bulk of the hi-vis parka and armoured vest. Standard was protection against blade weapons, but Greg knew of officers in his own force who wore vests classified for ballistics and blades with different plating than standard. This officer wore that kind of vest, by the looks. He had unique facial-features with slightly bloodshot eyes that looked green and grey at the same time, and dark hair which was tucked under a peaked cap that was removed as the officer stepped into the pub. Greg thought he looked tired. Or sad, even.“‘Morning, Gracie!” He called out to the proprietor, ruffling his hair a bit as he did so, and Greg raised an eyebrow at the man’s accent. He wasn’t a local after all, not with that kind of accent. Scottish, definitely, but it was adopted. He heard a very different accent first, a metropolitan accent. London? Something posh.“Oh, ‘morning, Sherlock!” The proprietor called back, beaming at the sight of her latest patron, “How’s Janine?”“Back at her desk, she’s not happy with that,” Greg swore his heart skipped. Good lord, it was Sherlock Holmes. He hadn’t set eyes on the man in three years, and wondered that he hadn’t recognized him at all! Of course, Sherlock was always a master of disguises and Greg had missed him in a crowd one or two times when he wasn’t wearing his standard Belstaff and scarf. That explained his bizarre accent! Greg stayed put, watching his long-missed friend and resource scan the whole place with those sharp, all-seeing eyes that never missed a detail. Greg was sure he wouldn’t stand out in the morning crowd, and the likelihood of Sherlock knowing he was in town was kind of slim. Not that the man missed much, and a newcomer the likes of Greg would have stirred the pot a bit. Iain would have certainly said something to his cousin. He owed the photographer more than few nights of boarding, giving him a place to stay while he was in town. And not the first clue how to properly repay him. He liked Iain, more than he liked most people. Sherlock had rubbed off on him that way, he wasn’t real fond of most people in his life and his circle of friends was pitifully small.-&-Sherlock stood at the bar, leaning against it as he chatted with the proprietor like they were old friends. By this point, they probably were. Sherlock could be charming and friendly when he felt like it, and if someone caught his interest, he would make an effort to be outstandingly nice to them. These people had sheltered him for three years, giving him a chance to do…well, quite a few things with his life and none of them had ever leaked intel that London’s disgraced city son was alive and well in their little town, going about his life and his business with what seemed to be his usual skill. He could see Sherlock being very good at police-work and had lamented more than once that he just didn’t have the discipline to follow the rules as necessary to become a badged officer of the law. Greg waited for the tall boffin to turn his way and took a sip of coffee. At one point, he must have come up in conversation because Gracie Dawson suddenly broke into a sly smile and pointed towards Greg’s table. Maybe not by name, but by mention of someone from The Met arriving in town to pick up the doomed and unlucky Damian Baker. The way Sherlock turned was typical, sharply and smoothly all at once. The smooth grace of a ballet dancer on a pirouette, turning on one foot with practised grace. Greg was on his feet by the time the tall detective had gotten to his table, he wasn’t going to be caught sitting down for this. It was a good thing he did, Sherlock decided a hug was in order.“Greg.”“Sherlock. Jesus.” He wasn’t sure what was more of a surprise, the hug or the fact that Sherlock got his name right for once. “You look good.”“I’d say you do, too, but that would be lying. You look terrible, and I haven’t slept in a week.”“Guess you haven’t changed much, then. Sit down.” He tugged on Sherlock’s sleeve and took his seat back, glad when the once-disgraced detective joined him without question.“So, you’re here for Baker?”“Yep. Thanks for your tip, by the way.” He raised his coffee-cup, “If you hadn’t made that call, we’d still be looking for him.”“He shot my partner, I wasn’t letting him get out of my fucking sight.” Oh, if looks could kill, Damian Baker would be a dead man.“Sounds like you weren’t the only one upset by that. How’s she doing?”“Tied to her desk for a few weeks until Douglas clears her to field-work again.”“Boss’s orders don’t mean you have to like it.” Greg chuckled, “How are you doing?”“I don’t like her sub very much, but Randall’s smart enough to know he’s a temporary placement and replacing Watson is not his job.”“She’s your fucking partner, and I didn’t get the impression your boss was the sort to just split up a team like that.” He hadn’t had a chance to meet Rowena Douglas yet, but he kept hearing about her and figured she was the kind of woman he’d get along with alright.“No, Douglas is good to us. She’s…taken care of us while we’ve been here.”“Good. Someone had to. I keep hearing good things about Douglas, but I hear more about you.” He set his cup down and looked across the table at Sherlock, who really did look good in uniform, “You know, you don’t really have to wear that?”“Habit. Besides, I like it.”“Well, you look good in it.” He smiled, “Never thought I’d live to see the day Sherlock Holmes became a legitimate police officer. What do you do up here?”“Same thing I did in London.”“So, you follow the rules?” That would be a shock.“I can follow the rules, Lestrade.” Sherlock’s voice was soft and he heard a note of…pain? “No one doubts me here, no one ridicules me here. My past doesn’t mean anything to them, it’s who I am right now and what I do right now that they care about.”“And these people all know?” Meaning the locals. “Not everyone, but those who do have never judged.” Sherlock messed with the fork from his place-setting, “I grew up around here, Greg, these people knew me before I was famous or wanted.”“So, coming to Fort William after the Moriarty scandal was probably more like coming home for you.”“It was, for both of us. This place is home to the Watsons, you know. So when Janine showed up here with me in tow, no one really batted an eyelash. ” Sherlock looked up at him with those eyes, studying him, “There was question, of course, neither of us had been here in more years than reasonable, but we were welcomed as if no time had passed at all. Douglas offered us jobs and the rest is…well, kind of history.” Gracie came by with a couple of plates and gave them both a stern warning to clear those plates before either of them thought for a minute about leaving the pub. She gave Sherlock’s hair a fond ruffle and he got a kiss on the cheek before Gracie disappeared back to her station behind the bar.“I see you’ve charmed the locals, Sherlock.”“It wasn’t that hard. I told you, some of these people knew me when I was much younger.”“Good. You needed a safe place to hide.” He eyed his plate wistfully. “I think I’ll miss the food up here the most when I get back to London.”“Your waistline probably won’t.”“No, probably not. Too bad.” He shrugged and set in on breakfast. He had never been very fond of breakfast, but with his lifestyle, it wasn’t always practical or economical. With his hours, he was lucky to get one solid meal in any given day and Pat had never been one to cook anyway. Not that she couldn’t, she just didn’t see the point where her busy ex-husband was concerned. Greg didn’t miss Pat, but sometimes he missed having someone to go home to after a very long day at work.On the other hand, this trip to Scotland had kind of been just what he’d needed. Staying with Iain was like being back at uni with his roommate, absolutely zero complaints on Greg’s part. Iain was a very good host, great fun, and a bit of a shameless flirt when he felt like it. Not that Greg minded.“Iain’s been taking care of you while you’ve been in town, then?”“Bloody mind-reader.” He rolled his eyes. “Your partner’s cousin is a good man. He can work bloody magic with that camera of his.”“That’s not the only thing Iain MacKelpie can work magic with.”“Yeah, I know.” Greg grinned at Sherlock, “The reputation of the Watsons is well-earned, hmm?”“Yep.”“Y’know, Sherlock, I missed you.” Greg sobered and took a sip of coffee. “I really did.”“I know. I’m so sorry, Greg.” Sherlock looked up at him, making eye-contact, “Not just for what happened that night, but for everything else. Why did you keep coming back to me?”“Because you deserved a friend, someone who believed in you when the rest of us ridiculed you. When you started working with Watson, I kind of hoped someone else had taken my job.”“She has. I’m not sure I deserve a partner like Janine, she’s…amazing.”“Putting up with your sorry arse for three years, the girl deserves a medal.”“A sainthood, actually. She keeps me right.”“I’m glad you had someone up here to look after you, Sherlock.” Greg studied his friend, “You’ve needed that for a while.”“I know.” Sherlock smiled, but it was that sad smile he wore when he was thinking about something. “I’m glad you came, Greg. How long are you here for?”“As long as it takes. I’ve got warrants I can access, but I need extradition orders.”“Mycroft can handle those for us.”“I guess he’s invested in this, isn’t he?”“Absolutely.” Sherlock just shrugged, “He has as much stake in ensuring Baker sees justice as any of us do.” After clearing their plates, three cups of coffee later, Greg split the bill with Sherlock and they left the pub together. His next stop was up to the headquarters on Bhlair Mhoir. Sherlock helpfully offered him a ride, in a bizarre echo of all the times Greg had done the same thing for him in London. The role-switch was kind of unnerving, but Greg was here as a guest on official police business and, maybe, a bit of holiday.-&-The building Fort William’s branch of the Police Service of Scotland (otherwise known as Police Scotland) was located in was rather nice and brand new. It housed the local force as well as an ambulance station. Greg was impressed. For a small-town force, they were well-equipped. Sherlock got him logged into their system and gave him a visitor’s badge. Then it was upstairs to the bullpen and offices of the Criminal Investigation Division, smaller here in Fort William but still surprisingly busy. Sherlock and his partner had a little office to themselves, which he thought was nice. No surprise that the place looked just like Baker Street had prior to 2011. Greg poked his head in and snickered.“Boy, you might have gone right-side to the law, Sherlock, but you’re still a slob!”“Yes?”“As long as that mess makes sense to one of you.” He rolled his eyes and glanced at the other desk. The girl sitting behind it looked uncomfortable and a little too pale for his liking. But it was definitely Janine Watson. She hadn’t heard them, she wore headphones as she focused on her work. It was clear an injury was causing her some discomfort and he glanced at Sherlock, who pushed the door open further with his foot. His hands were full with coffee. Greg took one to free up a bit of mobility for him and followed him into the office. Sherlock set down the coffee in his hand on Watson’s desk and knocked on it to get her attention.“What!” She snapped, deeply annoyed by the interruption.“Company, love. Say hi.” Sherlock rolled his eyes at his partner and sat down at his desk, cluttered but still strangely organized. Greg wasn’t sure if Watson even remembered him, but it was fine if she didn’t.“Oh! Hang on!” There was a clatter as she removed and tossed aside her headphones, “Greg Lestrade! What the hell are you doing up here?” Sherlock gave Greg a smug “told ya so” smile as Watson got to her feet and cleared her desk, “Hi!”“Hi. Sorry about this.”“Oh, not nearly as sorry as Damian Baker will be once Intelligence gets their hands on him.” Watson hugged him with surprising strength for what she’d been through, “It’s good to see you again.”“Yeah, you too, sweetie. How’s your shoulder?”“It’s a bloody good thing I was wearing my vest that day.”“Sure sounds like you had a close call. Twice now?”“Yeah, something like that.” She made a face and returned to her desk, “I’m stuck in here until the boss says I can go out again.”“And you don’t like that.”“Did I ever strike you as a sedentary person, Inspector?”“Nope! Not once in the few times we had a thing to do with each other.” He smiled and looked around the office, “Place looks like home.”“We’ve slept here a couple nights.” Sherlock poked a thumb over his shoulder at a couple of folded camp-cots tucked into a corner, covered with equipment and boxes, “Long cases and such.”“Oh, I hate those.” He sat down by Sherlock’s desk, “I wouldn’t think you get many of those up here.”“Missing Persons cases come through all the time when some poor schmuck gets lost in the hills around here.” Watson replaced her headphones and went back to what she’d been doing when they came in, “Usually an overzealous, underprepared tourist who underestimated what they were up against and dropped off the radar. Sometimes we’ll get a careless murder or accidental homicide.”“Charming.” He picked up one of a number of files stacked on Sherlock’s desk and flipped through it, not missing the look he got for it.“Just can’t help yourself, can you?”“Neither could you.” He didn’t even look up. How many times had Sherlock done just this to him? Watson snickered. Sherlock just hissed at her. Not surprisingly, Sherlock had solved the case rather neatly. He was much better about note-taking and reporting than he had been, it seemed. Greg wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected to do with his time once he eventually found Sherlock, but this wasn’t bad. There was actually something very normal about sitting in a quiet station office while work was getting done regardless. It was clear that Watson maintained a different level of organization than Sherlock did, her side of the office was nearly spotless while Sherlock’s desk honestly reminded him of Baker Street. Papers and files everywhere, every available inch of wall space covered in maps, photographs, and print-outs, random objects scattered here and there. On top of a filing-cabinet, Greg spotted what he swore was a human skull. Curious, for the skull kept on the Baker Street mantle had gone missing about a month after Sherlock’s disappearance, he got up and went over to inspect. It looked like the same skull. Taking it down from its perch, he studied it.“Sherlock?”“Hmm?”“Is this…?”“That’s Billy.”“Oh.” He put the skull back, “I was wondering what had become of it. Went missing about a month after you disappeared.”“I had Mycroft send him to me.” There was that boyish smile, the one Greg loved to see and never got much of because Sherlock was rarely happy about anything enough to smile.“And you’re okay with that?” He looked over at Watson, who just shrugged.“I was a soldier, Lestrade, a human skull is not the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, trust me. And certainly not since I started working with him.” A thumb at Sherlock, who just made a face at her. She wasn’t even looking at them, she was just that tuned into what her partner was doing. Lestrade chuckled and went over to inspect Watson’s workspace. It was very clear she was at home here, comfortable here, there were personal touches all over the workspace. Photographs were set on her desk and tacked to the wall, most of them from her years in the British Army. It was interesting to see her then and compare that to now.“My god, you were young. Just a wee thing, weren’t you?” He picked up a photograph of Watson when she must have been just out of basic. She looked up and he showed her the picture. She made a face.“Oh, god, I was nineteen. None of my clothes fit, I spent three weeks making adjustments to my uniforms so they’d fit. I didn’t get uniforms that actually fit me until I’d been in a year. I got very good at mending my own clothes.”“Looks like it! Jesus, you were cute when you were young.”“I’ve always had a bit of a childish face, I’m afraid.” She wrinkled her nose, “Filled out a bit as I got older, of course, but looking young never did hurt the reputation.”“Reputation?”“Just a bit of one.” Sherlock looked up from his work and smiled at his partner, “Not sure how much you know about the Watsons, but that one got the charm in spades and spent years taking anyone she pleased.”“I am familiar with the, uh, affectionate side of the Watsons, thanks.” He thought of Iain, who knew exactly how to flirt and when, and how he used it to distract Greg from getting stuck in his own head. He’d only been in Fort William for three days and to be honest, he didn’t remember most of it. That was okay, though, the bits he did remember were fantastic. The unlikely pair looked at each other and Sherlock raised his eyebrows.“My cousin get to you then, Inspector?” Watson’s tone was knowing.“Might’ve.”“Cheeky bastard. He’s always been better on the pull than I have. Always hated that about him.” Watson made a face, “As long as he treats you well.”“Knowing Iain, he’s treated Greg like he deserves to be.”“Which is more than can be said for others of his acquaintance.” Oh, that look of disgust. It didn’t surprise him that Watson knew about Pat, or that she felt so strongly about it. Loyalty and respect were important to the likes of the unassuming veteran. Watson looked up at him, studying him.“I always said you needed someone to take care of you proper, Inspector. Kind of thought maybe Mycroft would step in for you.”“He wouldn’t.” Sherlock shook his head, “Not that Greg isn’t my brother’s type, he just has more respect for him than that.” Greg snickered. Oh, he’d entertained a dalliance or two with Sherlock’s handsome, influential older brother, but theirs was a platonic friends-with-benefits kind of arrangement. If Greg needed something done and he couldn’t do it himself, Mycroft could do it for him. And most of the people who worked under him at The Met knew better than to bring up the boss’s intimacy with the government agent. People had lost their jobs because of it, and Greg wasn’t sorry about any of it. He hadn’t dipped into the dating-pools much since the divorce, it was easier to just focus on his career and take a night with Mycroft whenever their schedules aligned. A couple of weekends in the country were good for a necessary break from the monotony and grind.-&-Things were quiet until Sherlock and Watson’s boss came sniffing around, word had gotten to her about the outsider who had come into town three days ago but didn’t seem in a hurry to do much. Greg was flipping through a file from Watson’s desk when the door squeaked open and a woman in uniform poked her head in. Before she said a word, Greg knew she was local. This was the woman holding the leash of the detectives sharing this office. Rowena Douglas. He shot a quick look at Sherlock, who just nodded with a sly grin.“Well, it’s awfully quiet around here. Should I be concerned?” God bless her accent! Not the same rough Highland brogue that coloured Sherlock and Watson’s speech, something a little softer. There was a metropolitan touch, something a little more…aristocratic. It was still a very thick native accent, but far less obnoxious than either of the other two. She had worked in the big cities before coming home to Fort William. This was her hometown, her family was here.“No, ma’am. Nothing to worry about here.” Sherlock gave Douglas that soft smile, “Everything’s fine.”“And I don’t believe either of you for a fucking minute.” Oh, Greg liked this woman. A lot. Her good looks did not hurt at all. He got the feeling the Douglases were a handsome clan, but her attitude and her smarts, he didn’t need a whole lot more to go on. Desperate, much? Damn.“We didn’t say you had to believe us, ma’am.” Watson was focused on her work, still, giving her boss barely a glance, she hadn’t even removed her headphones. Cheeky little shit.“And I don’t. I think we have a ghost around here.”“A ghost, ma’am?”“Got word a couple days ago The Met sent someone our way, or someone came up here on their own, but I’ve got nothing but dead ends.”“Oh. In that case!” Watson looked at Greg and beamed, he kind of hated her just now. “Rowena Douglas, let us do you the honour of introducing you to one of The Met’s best. This is Greg Lestrade.” Shaking his head, Greg got to his feet to shake hands properly. Rowena Douglas was about Watson's height, a bit taller and not quite as broad in the frame as the veteran. She wore black tac-trousers, tucked into sturdy boots, a duty-belt with a radio, phone-holster, cuffs, and gun-holster, a white button-down blouse without cravat, and a black waistcoat. Dressy enough for the office, rugged enough for the streets. And, was that a necklace? That chain looked awful familiar. Hm, was Douglas wearing identification tags?“Oh, you’re a sight better than I was expecting!” Brown eyes sparkled with concealed mirth that peeked through in a bit of a grin that twitched at one corner of her mouth. “Lestrade, was it?”“Yes, ma’am. I used to marshal this pair of ungrateful slobs back in London a few years back. Had a leash for Holmes.”“Which makes you the unfortunate bastard who had to make him play nice with the other kids.” Douglas’s smile was sly, “I was expecting some fresh-faced constable with a point to prove, or an old codger with a grudge to bear. Instead, I get blessed with the likes of you. Smart as they say?”“Smarter, I’d like to think, ma’am.” Greg couldn’t help smiling. He got a once-over from Douglas and her smile softened a bit as her grip tightened. He’d passed muster. Good. Well, one part of it, anyway. Hmm.“Well, in that case. I’m stealing you from this lot. You belong to me from now until you leave this miserable place with our shared suspect. He’s all yours if you want a good go at ‘im. I’ve had my fun, and both those two have had a round or two in turn.”“You left Holmes alone with a suspect?”“May not have been wise, seein’ as it was the same suspect landed Watson the hospital.”“His self-control must have been incredible.”“What self-control?” Oh, that smile. Swapping stories about Sherlock was going to be a blast!“You two behave yourselves, the adults have some talking to do.”“You are joking, right?” Watson looked scandalized, even Sherlock’s eyes were wide. With a cheeky wave, Greg shut the door once he was out of the shared office.“I think those two have a bet going.” Douglas murmured, chuckling. “Two of my best. Most effective team I’ve got right now.”“I can only imagine. Holmes was always better at it than the rest of us, used to run laps around us and made us look like idiots.”“He still laps the rest of us up here, and he has his moments.” Douglas smiled and tugged on his sleeve, “But I’m not interested in those two, or even in Baker. You can have him for an hour, but then after that, you’re mine.”“At your pleasure, ma’am.” Greg couldn’t stop a slightly dangerous smile. If Douglas wanted to play that game, Greg would play. He might be a bit out of practice, but he wasn’t a complete loss when it came to the dating game.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

As soon as the door of the office she shared with Sherlock Holmes had shut behind the two senior detectives who had just walked out, Janine Watson let out the breath she’d been unconsciously holding. It turned into a giggle and even Sherlock broke down.“Oh my God.” She caught her breath, “Oh, I thought she would take him down right here in the office! Oh, Sherlock!”“Worth every minute.” Her partner just looked pleased with himself.“You did tell Mycroft to take his time getting those extradition papers in order, yeah?”“Oh, no. We’ll have those by tomorrow, but Greg’s off for…oh, the next week and a half? He hasn’t had a proper break in God knows how long, and once he has his reports filed after interviewing Baker, he has no obligations to The Met.”“You’re awful.”“I know.” He chuckled. “I hope Greg doesn’t mind cats.”“Doubt it. The question is, will Loki mind Greg? You know that cat doesn’t like much of anyone.” Janine thought it almost funny that the first thing either of them actually worried about regarding their bosses was Rowena’s Bombay tom Loki, a four-year-old terror who disliked most people on principle and only put up with Janine and Sherlock because they brought him catnip and cheese when they visited.“Loki likes us, doesn’t he?”“That’s true.” Janine shrugged and decided to worry about her boss’s private life and romantic prospects later. They got some more work done, Sherlock went off on a couple of calls with Janine’s sub, and she clocked out at seven. It was quiet that night, Iain was quick to let them know, very smug about the whole mess, that Greg did not return to his place that night. Or the night following. -&-Three days later, agents from MI-5 and MI-6 came to Fort William to collect Damian Baker and as soon as he was on his way back to London, unlikely to see the light of another day, Rowena Douglas declared a night to celebrate. Arrangements were made to meet up at the Alexandra Hotel’s bar as schedules allowed. The senior detectives in charge of the case, which had spanned two countries by the time they caught up with their suspect, held court over a rotating group of officers that changed as the night progressed. If anyone thought the behaviour of the seniors was a little atypical, unprofessional, they didn’t say. And they didn’t say anything because they knew that two of the detectives would make it very unpleasant for them if an unkind word was uttered. Sherlock Holmes and Janine Watson were two of Douglas’s best detectives, and they had a history with Douglas’s visiting MPS counterpart, who had come up from London acting on a tip called into Crime-Stoppers and settled in for a while. There was talk among the ranks that Holmes and Watson were being courted away from Police Scotland and would go back to London to work for The Met, but the legitimacy of that claim was uncertain. They had worked in London once before, what was going to stop them from leaving for the big city? But any time the subject came up, and it had, the pair just rolled their eyes and denied any plans to leave Fort William in the near future.-&-Janine sat tucked against the wall with Sherlock to her right, a bank of windows behind her. Members of their team, and others affiliated, were gathered at the table, the whole lot of them watched carefully by their seniors. It had been kept pretty low-key, but watching Greg flirt with Rowena had been a lot of fun for her and Sherlock. Greg was well clear by years of a very nasty divorce, just hadn’t bothered with the dating pool much despite his unfair good looks and badge, and Rowena had focused on her career. As she should. But really, it was a pity Greg hadn’t hunted the ranks a bit more, Janine could think of plenty of women who adored a badge and the man behind it. There was some air of the precarious, a promise of a thrill, dating a cop. But most people were, unfortunately, not cut out for the requirements that came with it. It was the idea of dating a cop that appealed to many, the real thing was very different, and often not as much fun. Missed dinners, missed family holidays, late nights, uncertain moods. Patricia Connelly had learned that the hard way, young infatuation had turned into lust and that had turned into a rushed marriage and a cheery, carefree honeymoon phase. Then reality had set in and Greg had spent more and more time away from home as he progressed his career. But he had remained faithful, as far as he could, to a woman who couldn’t seem to be pleased regardless of what the true circumstances were. She had repaid him with indifference and passive hostility, flaunting a growing string of affairs in his face while knowing damn well he would never do a thing about it because he was just enough of an honourable man. When the divorce had taken place, it had been a bit of a relief, really, and life had moved on for Greg. But now, over a couple of days and watched by their underlings, he had done some flirting. Not his best work, of course, being out of practice like he was, but he was making good headway. No complaints on his end, or on Rowena’s. Janine was pulled from reflecting on the past by a giggle from the head of the table, which turned into a muffled squeal. She turned her head and made eye-contact with Greg, who just flashed her a charming smile. Next to him,  Rowena was bright red.“Show-off.” She muttered, rolling her eyes, “Chief, you know you can get back at ‘im, yeah?”“Oh, that’s not the trouble, love!” Rowena sniffed, setting her glass down and shooting Greg a look, “This one should come with a warning, for Christ’s sake!”“Well, he did spend three days living with my cousin, ma’am.”“No excuses!”“Sorry?” It was worth a shot to try, wasn’t it?“Phht.” Oh, that expression.“Did she just…razz us?” Sherlock leaned over with a stage-whisper. Janine snickered and shrugged.“Pretty sure we just got razzed by a forty-eight-year-old woman.” She took a sip of her drink, “And her fifty-one-year-old boyfriend.”“Oi!” Greg snapped, glaring at them, “You two, knock it off!”“Love you always, Greg!”“Tosser.” He grumbled, “More trouble than you’re worth, aren’t you, Watson?”“Aw, but you love me.”“When you’re useful.”“Shots fired?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow.“Maybe. I’ll fire back later. He is dating our boss, y’know.”“Yeah, that is true.” Sherlock shrugged. Around the table, the others snickered and elbowed each other. They’d had as much fun watching Greg and Rowena flirt as Janine and Sherlock had. Bets were running in the whole department about just how serious those two were and how hard it would be for Greg to return to metropolitan London at the end of his mini-holiday. If this lasted past the end of Greg’s visit, Janine could see weekend trips being made between Fort William and London as schedules allowed. And seeing as Greg and Rowena were heads of their respective divisions and departments, time off was easier for them to arrange for a three-day extended weekend.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Greg Lestrade didn’t know what woke him up, he’d slept better every night he’d been in Fort William than he ever did in London, so when he couldn’t get back to sleep, it kind of miffed him. The house was quiet, except for Loki hunting mice and the occasional spider, neither his phone nor his host’s had made any sound (and he had set them both to vibrate/silent before getting ready for bed and double-checking because Rowena was just as awful as he was about turning her phone back on), and Rowena was sleeping at his back. Then why the hell was he awake? Long instinct had him messaging a couple of people. London was quiet from both of his sources there, and all three of his Fort Williams sources had nothing for him. It was almost 2 am, why was he still awake? Knowing Rowena didn’t sleep all that soundly, he carefully kicked out of bed and grabbed a tee-shirt from the pile of clothes on the floor. Dragging the shirt over his head, he visited the loo at the end of the hall before trudging downstairs. The house, as expected, was quiet and secure. Disturbed from his hunting, Loki came looking for pets and treats. Greg chuckled and gave the feisty tom a bit of cheese and scratched him on the nose before turning to fix a cup of tea for himself. There was something calming about tea, making it, drinking it. It helped Greg re-center himself, too. When the tea was done, Greg drank it standing up, leaning against the counter. Why was he awake at 2 am? He had his phone with him and flipped through some of the pictures he’d taken this week. Tons of Sherlock and Janine, at work and leisure alike, he had several of Iain MacKelpie in various activities, some would never see the light of broad daylight, and nearly as many of Rowena Douglas. He looked at one picture of Iain and sighed. All his adult life, Greg had been bisexual. He had experimented broadly in uni, entertained partners of both sexes, before finally settling down with Patricia Connelly into a marriage that had lasted almost fourteen years. He had regrets about that, wondering how he had missed so many obvious signs so early, and decided that he had been purposely oblivious because he wanted to believe things were okay, that things would work out. They hadn’t been okay, and they hadn’t worked out well at all. But that was behind him, he had been divorced for three years, almost four, and…oh. That explained a bit of his problem. With Iain, it had been the kind of reckless flirting and bedding he’d been familiar with during uni and his early years on the force, done carefully back then because things had been very different regarding sexuality. He hadn’t wasted any time taking a tumble with Janine’s handsome cousin because it was almost a bloody fucking relief there was anyone who saw past the badge and still thought he was handsome. He’d looked like shit on that train and Iain had dragged him back to his place and the rest was kind of history. Blissful, fantastic, cherished history. With Rowena, it was…different. It was still pretty reckless, but it was more careful, more deliberate. Their flirting bordered on indecent, causing quite a ruckus up at Bhlair Mhoir. There were a few betting-pools, he knew, and Janine and Sherlock had their opinions about it. They didn’t seem to mind too much, which kind of surprised him. But he supposed it was just another sign of Sherlock’s new maturity that he wasn’t ragging on Greg for dating his boss, not like he would have three years ago, even…eight years ago. Rowena was his equal in so many ways, important ways, smarter than most women he knew and certainly that he worked with, but she was also clever. And compassionate. She respected her officers, and they returned that respect. Greg was the outsider, but everyone had welcomed him practically as family. But, he hadn’t slept with Rowena, despite sharing her bed nearly every night he had been a guest in her house. He didn’t feel the same pressure to bed Rowena, the same…urgency. It wasn’t a matter of want, because God he wanted, it was just…he didn’t think it was necessary as part of their relationship. He got the feeling she might feel otherwise, as others did without a doubt. But would bedding Rowena Douglas really change things the way he wanted them to? Or would something go wrong? He had never really doubted his performance until he got the cold shoulder from his ex-wife, and that had…scarred him. Badly, it seemed. Any time a woman came after him, he felt like it was a pity-fuck. Rowena was his equal, better than him in so many ways, she deserved someone who didn’t have the kind of messy hang-ups from a borderline abusive failed marriage like his. This was self-doubt, the worst kind. Having at least labelled what was bothering him, he finished his cold tea, rinsed the cup, and padded back upstairs. Rowena had turned over in her sleep and had her back to his side of the bed, but that was okay. Getting back under the covers, Greg got close enough to touch and laid a hand on her flank, content with that bit of contact. The rhythm of her breathing was the centring he needed and he fell asleep wishing he was a better person capable of being the kind of partner any woman deserved. Not just the kind of partner Rowena Douglas deserved.-&-When the sun rose four hours later, Greg got up and fixed breakfast. Just a simple little fry-up, nothing elaborate, but when it was ready, he took upstairs to Rowena, who was genuinely surprised and pleased by the gesture.“What’s this for, then?”“No reason, just felt like it.” He shrugged and took a cup of coffee for himself.“Well, it’s lovely.” She smiled, “And you didn’t burn the toast.”“Believe it or not, I can cook.” He rolled his eyes, “I may be a bachelor, ma’am, but I’m not completely useless. I can fix a decent breakfast if the occasion calls for it.”“And the occasion called for it, then?”“Might’ve.” Greg shrugged.“Well, whatever the case, there’s enough here for you, too.”“I’m fine with coffee.”“Coffee and toast is no breakfast at all. Maybe it’ll do for our idiots, but not for you.” She gave him a look and handed him the second plate. “You did all the hard work, you should get to enjoy some of it.” He couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t. It was quiet for a while, and he thought back on his early-morning session. With his plate empty, he set it to one side on the tray, which was safely out of danger of being dislodged from the bed. When the dishes had been stacked, he took the tray back to the kitchen and did the wash-up. Rowena had work, of course, and got ready for what was probably going to be a far more exciting day than his would be. He was standing in the kitchen, looking out to the back garden, when he heard her come through.“You boys stay out of trouble, hear?” She teased as she took the takeaway cup of coffee he had ready.“No promises, ma’am.” He sighed, “Don’t do anything stupid.”“I’m not a fresh-faced constable, Inspector. I can take care of myself.”“You’re also stubborn, and a Scot. Those two things can spell trouble.”“Yeah, yeah. I make no promises. Call if you need anything.” She rolled her eyes, kissed him on the cheek, and was gone. Once the house was quiet, Greg took a shower, got dressed, and got the keys Iain had given him. Since he was in town for a good while, he was borrowing Iain’s red Range Rover to get around. Pocketing his badge, wallet, and gun out of habit, Greg tossed Loki a cat-nip spider and left the house on his own.“Don’t shred the furniture while I’m gone, Loki!” He called, “She’d have both our heads.” Loki was fully engaged chasing the toy and ignored Greg entirely. Shaking his head, Greg set off on a familiar drive. Forty minutes later, he turned up the drive at Ferry House and sat in the car for a few minutes, getting his thoughts in order. Sherlock was at work, of course, but Janine was home. She worked two days in the office and was home the rest of the time until she was back on her feet. Greg sighed and got out as the front door opened. Janine came out, accompanied by her Retriever Victoria.“Greg! Hey!” She stood by the on the footpath from the house to the drive, arms folded carefully across her chest, shoulders hunched. “What are you doing down here?”“Hey. Sorry I didn’t, uh, call first.” He made a face and looked back over his shoulder at the Loch now separating him from Fort William. Victoria distracted him as she came to say hello and he took the diversion at face-value, giving her a scratch behind the ears. “Hi, lovely girl.”“Everything alright, then?” Janine’s eyes were narrow and he sighed. No, but she didn’t have to know what kind of awful things were going on in his head. Intuitive thing, she probably suspected.“Greg.”“Sorry.”“Not sorry enough. Come inside and sit down. I guess we should count ourselves fortunate you didn’t make for the border on the next available train, going by that expression on your face.”“Oh, god, no. I wouldn’t…” Wouldn’t what? Run away? He’d contemplated that once already. But he was an adult and running from your problems never solved them. The wrong people would get hurt. They might still get hurt anyway, but he’d face up to and own up to his short-comings, his demons. Maybe he would still have some hope at the end? Maybe?“I don’t need to call anyone, do I?”“No, I shouldn’t think so, Sergeant.” He sighed and went into the house ahead of her, knowing she didn’t trust him to follow her. Once inside, she closed the door and directed him to the sitting-room, disappearing into the kitchen to fix tea. Victoria kept him company and he listened to Janine in the kitchen. She took long enough he suspected she might just have made that phone-call anyway. Well, nothing for it, was there? And it wasn’t like she would get anything useful from it. It wasn’t like he had broadcasted his exact feelings on things. To be fair, his interest in and affection for Rowena were no secret, but his creeping self-doubt and the shadows of his past failures weren’t exactly something the rest of them knew about. Sherlock knew, of course, and Janine knew, but he didn’t think that knowledge had gotten much beyond the Baker Street Twins. Greg’s greatest fear wasn’t that he would disappoint anyone, he was afraid of that, he was afraid of asking for more and being violently rejected out of hand because of some misunderstanding. It wasn’t very likely, but it was very possible. He knew he should talk to someone, to Rowena specifically, but he didn’t…how could he come at all close to this making sense to anyone? How could he hope Rowena would understand his reasoning? It wasn’t that he didn’t want more, because God knows he was willing to lay himself open for a bleeding heart and a holiday romance and Rowena was everything he desired in a partner and wanted in a partner, but…he had so much emotional baggage she didn’t deserve to be burdened with. He didn’t want to mislead her somehow and then have her suddenly change her mind over things.“Hey, can you come back to the real world for a minute there, Inspector Lestrade?” A tap on his calf got his attention and Greg looked up to see Janine standing in front of him, holding out a cup of tea with a very particular expression on her face.“Would saying I’m sorry help at all?”“Probably not.”“Worth it to ask.” He sighed and patted the couch, inviting her to sit with him.“Well?”“What?” He looked at her, issuing a quiet challenge. He outranked her as far as police-standing went, but she had outranked him otherwise a long time ago. He dared her to pull rank on him, probably not a smart thing to do. She’d be happy to whip him into shape, he’d seen the results of her resolve with Sherlock. That was a sight to behold, and beautiful besides. If she had the patience to get someone like Sherlock Holmes into line, he would be a piece of cake.“Jesus Christ, you’re impossible.” She narrowed her eyes, “Stubborn bastard, aren’t you?”“So?”“Boy, getting you to talk is going to take a work of patience.” Janine muttered, shaking her head, “Good thing I’ve got nothing but time on my hands.”“You can’t hold me here against my will.”“I’ve got handcuffs stashed in six places in this house, just on this floor alone. Not to mention the pair on my belt right now.” She looked at him, gaze hard, “You make one move towards that door before I say you can go and you won’t get far at all. I may be on injured reserve, but if you make the mistake of thinking I’m incapable of doing my fucking job, I’ll be happy to prove you wrong.” Part of Greg was tempted to test her resolve, but even he knew that was a stupid idea. For one, his host was a veteran, she was a trained fighter. Her skills as a surgeon were only secondary to her skills as a soldier. Injured or not, she was probably fast enough to catch him before he got far enough to make a difference. She had taken her training and turned her back on her medical expertise, springing for a badge and a pair of speed-cuffs in exchange for a lab-coat and stethoscope. Just like she’d gone for fatigues instead of scrubs all those years ago. Medicine had never really been her passion, medical school was something she had done to pacify someone else. A family member, perhaps? Her mother, most likely, considering she didn’t get on well with her step-father. Something she had been expected to do and had just found an unorthodox way of paying for it, in the process getting an escape from a home-life not to be envied. But they weren’t here to talk about Janine’s problems. Not that Greg wanted to talk about his, either. Once their cups were empty, she collected them and got up. Without a word, she went into the kitchen and he heard her moving around. Victoria came over and put her head on Greg’s knee, looking at him with liquid brown eyes holding no judgment in them. He smiled and ruffled the soft ears. Dogs were intuitive creatures.“It’s not alright, girl, but it could be a whole lot worse. I’m a little messed up, but I’m still alive.” He rubbed the bony crest of Victoria’s head, “Good dog.” It was nearly twenty minutes before Janine came out of the kitchen, during which time he heard her on the phone with someone. When she came out again, he knew without asking that she had spoken to…someone. Rowena or Sherlock, most likely. This would be interesting. Potentially unpleasant.“You called Rowena, then?”“Of course I called Rowena. She would have called me first if I didn’t. I’m kind of surprised I hadn’t heard from her already, before realizing what the time was and why I hadn’t.” Janine looked at him sideways, “You’re an idiot, did you know that?”“Well, that’s a given.”“Greg!”“I’m allowed to be hard on myself, thank you, Sergeant Watson.” He sighed and looked up at his host. “What am I supposed to do?”“That depends on a few things.”“Like what?”“What do you want, Greg?”“Oh, come on, Janine.”“Just answer the damn question. What do you want?”“I…want her to be happy.”“Greg.”“What?”“Did it ever occur to you that you make her happy?”“I’m a fluke, Janine, we all know this. She can do and deserves better.”“Oh, you’re just a proper martyr, aren’t you? Did Patricia really fuck you up so badly you’re afraid to push for a happily ever after you deserved when you were in your twenties but didn’t get because you settled for a harpy disguised as a princess?”“Yeah.” He wished it didn’t hurt to admit that, but it did. It hurt bad, because it made him feel like an idiot for not realizing sooner and doing something about it. Greg felt that awful weight in his chest again, it made him feel sick.“Talk to me, Greg.” Janine’s voice was soft and the hand on his shoulder friendly. He looked up and wondered if there were any words for what was sitting on his conscience.“You might want to sit down.” He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands again. “This could…take a while.”“And I’ve got nothing but time. Start talking.” Janine sat down nearby and Greg talked. And talked for hours. About everything, not just his failed marriage to Patricia, but everything that had somehow built the road that had brought him to this exact miserable moment in time, and the chance he was willing to let go because he just didn’t know any better. It took two hours, but when the whole sordid story was out, he actually did feel a little better. He still felt guilty, of course, and woefully inadequate, but he didn’t feel like such a complete failure of a human being. There were things he had never told a living soul, ever, that had come out to Janine. He had cried, several times, but Janine had never told him to pull himself together, she had just sat there, watching him, offering a silent support that did more wonders for his psyche and state of mind than any platitudes were capable of.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After laying out everything for his sake, Greg spent most of the day with Janine, solving a few cases she’d brought home to keep herself from going mad while she was on injured reserve. It was a quiet day at the office and he went back to Rowena’s place to get dinner started since she would be home at a decent hour for once. Nothing terribly fancy, but he really did love to cook and any excuse to do so was fine with him. When she got home, she looked kind of tired. Paperwork days always did that to Greg, too, he kind of hated that part of the job. He just handed over a glass of wine and told her to go sit down.“You know, Greg, none of my ex-boyfriends really bothered to cook for me.”“I told you, I love to cook.”“I’ll take the fruits of your labours and share them.” She looked over his shoulder as he stirred the contents of the sauce-pan. “What is it?”“Chicken scallopini with red wine mushroom sauce.” He grinned, “Made from scratch.”“No kidding!”“Cross my heart.” He just shrugged, “Got this recipe from my roommate in uni. He had family in Italy.”“Ooh, it smells amazing!” Rowena looked wistful, “Anything I can do to help?”“Get a couple of plates?”“Roger that.” She put her glass down on the adjacent work-top and got down plates as he pulled the pan off the heat. It was his uni roommate’s family recipe for chicken scallopini and a wild rice risotto that was perfect for just about any dish needing a complimentary side. Plating the food, he covered what was left in the pan and set it on the back of the range to keep warm. Dinner was quiet, and not unpleasant. Greg wondered if the subject of his trip to Ferry House would come up or not. He knew Janine and Rowena had spoken at length about the matter.“So, Janine called me this morning.” Apparently, it was going to come up whether he wanted it to or not.“I know. I’m sorry.”“We talked, she promised to talk to you.”“She did.”“And I talked to Sherlock.”“He would know better than anyone else, I suppose.” Greg looked over his shoulder from stacking the dishes after wash-up. “I own my mistakes, my faults, whatever they are. Plenty of them, if you had asked Sherlock a few years ago. My ex-wife never did, laid everything on my shoulders.”“I’m trying to remember how Janine described her to me once. It was rather poetic.” Rowena sipped her wine, a fresh glass post-dinner.“A harpy masquerading as a princess?”“That’s it.”“She wouldn’t be wrong.” Greg frowned, “One of those regrets I can’t do anything about.”“Oh, bollocks you can’t do anything about it! You can absolutely do something about it! You owe that woman nothing. Not another minute of your time to think about her or put the effort into conjuring her face.” Rowena rolled her eyes and levelled him with a look he suspected she gave many of her subordinates. “She hurt you in ways that should never be condoned. What she did to you was abuse, pure and simple. The worst kind, because it wasn’t obvious outside. She hurt you, humiliated you, and gloated because she was getting away with nothing short of murder.”“Might as well’ve.” He hated admitting that Rowena was right. “How, though? How do I…get over myself?”“Find yourself a partner who loves you hang-ups and all, for every flaw you possess, who sees the scars on the outside and on the inside and loves you anyway.” Her eyes softened, she looked almost sad, “Someone who is your better and your equal at the same time, smart enough to keep up with you but not enough to make either of you feel like an idiot.”“If that person exists, I haven’t found them yet.” Greg didn’t want to say that he had found that person, it was too soon. “I don’t know if I ever will.”“Perfect may not exist, can you put up with the next best?” Rowena crossed the little distance between them and set her empty glass in the sink.“Next best what?” Greg raised an eyebrow, “Oh no, you don’t. Only one person in this house gets to feel sorry for themselves. That’s my job.”“And you’ve done quite enough of it for today.” She grabbed him by the hand before he went after the wine-glasses, pulling him out of the kitchen, “What is it going to take to distract you, Gregory?”“What did you have in mind?”“Nothing outrageous, just some simple things.” Rowena smiled and took the lead. All Greg could do was follow. Up the stairs, she stopped him at the top, blocking his way.“I want one thing to be very clear tonight and every night after.” She looked down at him from a slightly elevated position. “You return to London at the end of the week. Whatever happens between now and then is between two fully-consenting mindful adults. None of this is anything remotely in the realm of a “pity-fuck”.”“Rowena, we can’t...”“Make me one promise.” She shook her head, “Just one.”“Anything.” Damn it. She was good.“Our safe-word is “Stop”, this goes at your pace and not mine, because Christ knows I’m an impatient bastard when I feel up to it. This is not because of your status, or your badge, or your past history with a woman who didn’t deserve you at all and should be condemned to rot in a cage in hell for what she did wrong by you.” Rules. Ground-rules and negotiation points. “Greg, the minute I laid eyes on you in that office, I knew you were something special. Never mind the fact that those two idiots won’t shut up about you. You’re smart, you’re kind, you’re handsome. Any woman worth herself would be damn lucky to have you. One woman gave up the chance of a lifetime and burned you so badly you barely touched the dating-pool after your divorce.”“You told me downstairs to find someone who is my better and my equal at the same time, smart enough to keep up with me but not enough to make either of us feel like an idiot.” He kept his hands behind his back, this was hard enough without trying to touch her. “I have dated since the divorce, but not one of them was there for the right reasons. They wanted to “fix” me, like any of them had a first clue about putting me back together. It was the badge, the glory, they wanted. Not the man behind any of it.”“You came here from London on a tip, and got a whole lot more than you were expecting.”“And I regret nothing.” Greg took a deep breath, “Jesus, I just…I can’t screw this up. I don’t want to do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing.”“Come to bed with me, Gregory Lestrade. I didn’t bring you home because I was looking for something quick and dirty.” She held out one hand to him, all the invitation necessary, “If that was the case, I would have tumbled you long before now. That’s not what I’m after any more than you are.” Up the last two steps, into the bedroom, through their routine, and right into bed. Greg wasn’t expecting anything, but Rowena was interested in playing around a little. The first thing she did was roll him and warn him to stay still.“Or what?”“You’ll have to explain the cause of some very obvious restraint marks on your wrists when you return to The Met next week, I guarantee they won’t have faded by the time you go back to your regular job.” There was a hint of…something in her voice, and Greg raised an eyebrow. Was she threatening him with handcuffs? That would be a first for him.“You wouldn’t dare.”“To keep you still and keep you out of your own head? I would absolutely dare.” She sat on him, pinning him at the thighs, and leaned down until he could feel her breath against the side of his neck. “Hands under the pillow, now. Do. Not. Move.” Defiant to the last, Greg seriously considered testing her resolve to carry through with that particular threat.“You’re the second person today who’s threatened me with handcuffs.” He looked over his shoulder, “And just as likely to use them on me, too.”“Who was the first?” An eyebrow went up at that. Greg just grinned at her and got comfortable, linking his hands together under the pillow.“Your sergeants are clever, did you know that?”“Watson.” A sharp, vaguely annoyed huff, “Should’ve known she’d threaten you. You were smart enough to take her seriously, I hope? I didn’t see any signs of restraint.”“I’m not stupid enough to challenge someone the likes of Janine Watson.” He felt her weight shift and grunted when a hand landed on the back of his neck with a knee between his legs.“Oh yes you are, but you never said anything to her.” Rowena’s voice had a dangerous edge to it, “You are stubborn, petulant, and absolutely perfect for the right person who can handle you.” Greg snorted.“Yeah? And you think you’re the one for the job, then?”“Well, if the position’s open.”“The pool of applicants  is pretty small, but I promise nothing.” He resettled his weight more comfortably. She stilled for a minute and the weight on his back disappeared. Before he could move, she had flipped him over onto his back and straddled him, handcuffs in one hand. “Do you trust me?”“Mm.” He scrunched his nose and thought about that. Did he trust her? Absolutely? But with a pair of handcuffs in the bedroom? Not bloody likely, ma’am. “No, no I do not.”“Pity. Not that I don’t love a good fight, but you don’t seem interested in playing fair.”“What gave you that idea?”“Because I know your type.” She said matter-of-factly, “Stubborn, don’t like to surrender without a damn good fight.”“Smart woman.”“I know a thing or two. Now, will you come quietly?” Dangling the handcuffs in warning. Those would end up being used regardless of his answer, Greg knew what was what.“Do I have to?”“There’s that answer.” Rowena rolled her eyes and shifted. Before Greg could move a finger, she was kneeling on his chest, pinning him by the shoulders, and very quickly and deliberately snapped on the handcuffs. Her position, unfortunately for her, put her eye-level with Greg. Now, being a formerly married man, and having worked several years in patrol and narcotics at The Met, Greg knew what a healthy vee was supposed to smell like, and knew just by his frustratingly exceptional sense of smell that Rowena was clean in the ways that mattered the most. He leaned forward and nuzzled the soft skin of her belly, smiling when it made her hesitate.“Ooh, that’s just mean.”“I’d touch, but my hands are tied.” He grinned up at her, “If this is going where I think and hope to dear God it is, I just have a question.”“Just one?”“Only one that matters. I know the way a woman is supposed to smell when she’s healthy. You, dear Inspector, smell truly divine.”“I haven’t had a partner in two years, testing every six months for work. Likewise for you, I take it?”“Right about.” He kind of hated the handcuffs just at the moment. He wanted to touch, now that he knew he was allowed to. Well, touch had been allowed for a while, but now...it was so frustrating. Explaining the restraint-abrasions would be interesting when he got back to the office. Handcuffed and partially immobilised, Greg could still play dirty. Being this close, and with explicit permission given if not verbally, was driving him mad. Also...oh, hello? Was that a bobby-pin? Thanks to extensive experience with Sherlock in his younger, rowdier days, Greg knew several ways out of a pair of handcuffs if you didn’t have a key. And, if used properly, a hairpin was quite effective. Getting the pin in hand, he carefully and subtly got to work on Rowena’s handcuffs. And with his hands directly beneath his head and under two pillows, she wouldn’t know what he was about until too late. She was busy teasing him, distracting him, but he kept his focus.-&-It took ten minutes to break out of handcuffs with the delightful distraction because he dropped the pin twice and had to start over. Just as she decided to go for some very interested bits, Greg finally got the damn handcuffs off! He would definitely have marks to explain at work, and there was nothing to keep them from using the handcuffs again later. Leaving the handcuffs and pin just within reach, Greg folded his hands together under his pillow, gritting his teeth together to keep from making any noise. Greg grunted and swore under his breath as Rowena licked a broad stripe from root to tip without warning him. She chuckled and turned her head, kissing the inside of his thigh.“Come quietly, I said.” She scolded, applying a quick nip to warn him.“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”“Oh, absolutely! Not every day I get to play with the likes of you, is it?”“And you play a rather dirty game.” Greg raised an eyebrow. Not that he was playing by the rules, exactly.“Not like you do, either, Inspector.” Rowena shot back, making her way back up for a proper kiss. Which was kind of what Greg wanted her to do. Of course, she slid a hand under the pillow to check for the handcuffs, and he used that to turn the tables. The same instant her eyes narrowed, he grabbed her by the wrist and flipped them over.“How the bloody hell did you do that? You sly cheater!”“With this.” He brandished the hairpin, “Can’t tell you how many times I had my cuffs nicked by Sherlock, or even used on me. I got clever breaking out of them.”“I’ll say you did! You sly bastard! That’s not fair!”“Ah, but favour for a favour returned, my dear.” He grinned and leaned down to kiss her, “Nothing says we can’t still use ‘em, y’know?” That got her eyes wide, and he chuckled. This was great fun, and really, it felt...liberating. Rowena moaned as he used his new freedom to explore by touch. She was soft in all the right places, hard in others, and made some of the prettiest noises Greg had ever heard. She was, unsurprisingly, quite wet below, and he couldn’t help a wistful noise of his own. What a beauty. Hot, slick, and quite wrecked. He rocked against her, just experimenting, revelling in the thrill of foreplay. He was nearly to full hardness, and she was equally aroused. Eager to experiment further, he kissed his way down the body beneath him, pausing when he reached his ultimate goal. He looked up the length of her body, rubbing his cheek against her thigh and loving the soft sighs and squeaks she made as a few days’ worth of stubble scratched soft, pale skin. There was a bit of extra padding down here, stretch-marks from gaining and losing weight throughout her lifetime, from exercise regimes that had never quite been abandoned and wouldn’t likely be until she retired from police work. And that, with any luck, was still many years in the future. He paid the pale silver marks a bit of loving attention, knowing that most women absolutely hated this part of their bodies as they got older. But Rowena didn’t seem to be very body-shy, or shy of much at all. Greg nuzzled the crease of thigh and groin and breathed deep of that absolutely intoxicating scent. Clean, with that familiar healthy tang. He couldn’t name it, it reminded him of fresh yeast or even the smell of water, the smell of the Loch. It was clean, bewitching, and by god he wanted.“Nena?”“W-what?”“Can you orgasm more than once?”“In a row?” She tilted her head and looked down at him, “Why on earth do you want to know?”“A matter of precedence. Kind of dictates how this goes down. Well, how I go down, more precisely.” He grinned and tilted an eyebrow. “Well?”“I’m...not sure, actually. I’ve never had a partner who bothered to find out.”“May I, then?”“Do your worst.”“Say Stop if you must.” He warned, “That safe-word wasn’t just for me. Goes both ways, y’know.” If Rowena didn’t know if she was capable of multiple orgasms, that meant she hadn’t had any boyfriends interested in more than a casual fuck every now and then. Not the sort of bloke she deserved. He was guilty of practising the fuck-and-run policy in his own past, but he knew how to treat a woman right in the bedroom. God knows he had tried with Patricia, but she was...well, whatever she was, it certainly wasn’t his problem anymore. Time to see if he could still work a bit of magic between the sheets. She kept herself trimmed but not the degree he had seen in other women,  fuzzy but not untamed. Getting her legs over his shoulders, he tugged her into ideal position and spread her labia with careful fingers. The smell was so much stronger and drove him to action. He made some kind of noise, help them all if he was whining, and licked his lips before going in for the first exploratory nuzzle. It had been so fucking long since he’d been between a woman’s legs like this it was pathetic, but he knew what to do. Millennia of instinct bred into the species and that business. Greg took a deep breath and went in for the kill. He licked, nuzzled, and suckled, adding a couple of fingers just to spice things up a bit, spent what felt like hours learning what kind of things made her twitch, gasp, squirm, and outright beg for mercy. Her hands found purchase in his hair and tightened just to the point of pain, but she never asked him to stop. Her thighs trembled, her fingers tightened, and through a litany of his name interspersed with Gaelic profanities, he heard her warning him.“G-regory!” She gasped, “Gregory!” He chuckled and held on as he pushed her into that orgasm. It was beautiful and almost heartbreaking. He’d done that. When her body went limp, he squirmed out of her grasp and hopped from the bed.“W-where do you think you’re going?”“Clean up. I’m not kissing you with this mouth, darling.”“I wouldn’t mind.” She sounded sleepy and slurred, “Holy hell, how did you do that?”“Always been kind of good at that.” He smiled and gave her a quick peck on the lips before heading to the loo to clean up, even going so far as to brush his teeth. Some rummaging found an unopened box of condoms, well within the expiry date, and he stole one. There was a small thing of lube, so he took that, too. Grabbing some tissues as a precaution, he headed back to the bedroom. Rowena, naughty thing, was pretty much where he’d left her, the way he’d left her, but she had recovered rather quickly.“What are you doing?”“What does it look like?” She challenged him, and it was fantastic. Greg chuckled and hopped onto the bed, straddling her hips and batting her hand away.“That’s for me, ta. Hands off.”“Did you...get a condom?”“Yep.” He wagged the little packet at her, “If you’re game for another go?”“Oh, God, yes!” She grabbed the packet and lube from him and spent some time bringing his slightly neglected manhood back to full arousal. Slicking up with a bit more than strictly necessary, he lined up and pushed carefully. Rowena was still quite sensitive from the first round, so he took it slow and easy. Finding the right rhythm took a bit of searching, a couple of false starts, but when he finally bottomed out after finding that magic combination, it felt like heaven.“Oh, God.” Greg lowered his head, “Rowena, my god.”“Didn’t take you for a man of religion, Lestrade.”“I’m not, but...Christ, you feel amazing! You wonder!” He leaned down and kissed her as he rocked his hips forward, sliding just a bit deeper. Pulling back, he pushed forward again and smiled at the soft moan. A familiar game of push-pull was played out, and Greg paid very careful attention to his partner’s needs. After what felt like hours of slow, steady pounding, that little hot coil right behind his belly-button finally let go and he fired off a full load. Thank God for condoms. Greg choked as his arms finally gave out and he collapsed. Rowena threw her arms around him and held him tight, breathing hard. It took almost five full minutes before either of them could put two words together properly, or even move more than an eyelash. Pulling out carefully, Greg groaned from deep in his chest, a bit hoarse. His hearing had gone a bit fuzzy at the end, so he couldn’t recall if he’d made any noise. So much for coming quietly, eh? Collapsing on his back, he tried to catch his breath. Rowena lay beside him, equally wrung out. After a bit, he removed, tied off, and bundled the condom. Getting up to dispose of it properly, he shuffled back to the warm bed, shivering as his body rapidly cooled off after the rigorous activity. Rowena was nice and warm, the sheets were soft and now smelled properly like sex and the two of them. Once he was situated, Rowena rolled over and used him as a pillow.“Heart’s still racing.”“So is yours, love.” He rubbed her shoulder, “Jesus Christ.”“Hmm?”“That was a proper fuck.” He frowned, “Mm. That’s a bit vulgar, yeah? True, but, it was more than that.”“Oh?”“That was love-making. Not done proper, I’m disgustingly out of practice, but that was not just a “go for it” kind of get-together.”“Sure could’ve fooled me about being out of practice. My god, you’re good at that, did you know that?”“Don’t hear it much. Most of my partners aren’t in it for the long run.” He played with her hair, studying the patterns on the ceiling cast by light-shadows from the window.“Wouldn’t call this a pity-fuck, would you?”“Nope! Not by a long fucking shot! No way.” Greg frowned, “That? That was not pity. That was...hell knows what it was, but it was too beautiful to be pity.”“Didn’t solve the root of the problem, but we made progress.” Rowena sighed and nuzzled against his skin. “There’s something so very soothing about your heartbeat, did you know? I could spend hours like this, just...listening.”“There’s something about the heartbeat of a loved one, content and happy.” He smiled and tightened his arm around her. Over the short time he had been staying with Rowena, he had familiarised himself with the sound of her heartbeat, the feel of her pulse, and she had done likewise for him.“I’m so very glad you didn’t listen to the evil little voice in your head, Greg. You deserve so much more. So much...better.”“Sweetheart, I’ve found my more, my better. I’m so sorry I almost botched it all up because I’m an idiot.” He tilted his head down and kissed her hair. He really had been a proper idiot about things. What if he’d panicked and instead of going to Janine, he’d just jumped the train and taken off for London? Honestly, he probably would have hated himself. This was so much better, and it was the proper thing to do.“Well, if you’re an idiot, Greg Lestrade, you’re going to be my idiot. And if anyone has a thing to say about it, they can come to me.” Rowena leaned up for a kiss and got comfortable again.“What would you have done if I’d chickened out and gone back to London without saying anything?”“Oh, that? I’d have waited a couple of days before hunting you down in London. Demanded straight answers out of you. Probably would’ve done exactly what I did up here.”“Yeah, you would have.” He smiled and pulled the blankets up a bit more. “More misadventures tomorrow, I suppose.”“Mhm. Plenty of mischief to be had.” Rowena yawned, “Bet you’ll sleep well tonight, lovey. We both will.”“Just a bit, and if we haven’t earned that good night’s sleep the hard way.” He rubbed down her flank as she rolled over, presenting her back to him. It didn’t take long for Rowena to fall asleep, and Greg was very nearly right behind her. If he fell asleep smiling, who was going to know? Or judge?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

If Janine had been curious about the status of Greg and Rowena’s fledgeling relationship, she shouldn’t have worried about it. The stability was made quite clear when Rowena promptly put in for time off that coincided with the remainder of Greg’s short visit to Fort William. Sherlock reported back to her from patrols whenever he saw the two, sending along pictures and video-clips taken in stealth. It was obvious to any bystanders that, all brief and private troubles aside, the two senior detectives were rather intimately involved. And with the gossip-chain charging full steam ahead, it was all a matter of debate. Her cousin was a good source of intel on the couple, as well, and Janine just smiled. Well, at least one of them was getting the happily ever they deserved. Not that she had much to complain about. She was at her desk, Sherlock was out on patrol again with Randall, when the door of her office slammed open. Only a couple of people didn’t knock, and one of them was gone at the moment. Janine looked over the top of her monitor and raised an eyebrow.“Can I help you, Chief?”“Watson!” Rowena Douglas flinched at the sound of her own voice and checked over her shoulder, clearing the hallway outside before deciding it was a good idea to close the door. Janine just watched, wondering what was up. It was bad, whatever it was, Douglas locked the door. Janine quietly fired off a text to Sherlock that he’d be needing a key to get into the office if he was planning on getting back to base any time in the next hour. He sent back an affirmative and she watched Douglas pace the small office. Pulling up surveillance cameras at Tom-na-Faire, she looked at archived footage. Oh, right. Today was the day Greg Lestrade had gone back to London, wasn’t it? Janine felt like some kind of warning might have been in order for the rest of them, considering the way things had been going prior.“He’s hasn’t been gone an hour. You’re not handling this very well, are you?” She looped her headphones around her neck and watched her boss pace. All she got was a look and a dismissive gesture. “Oh, boy, you fell hard, didn’t you?”“Not. Helping.”“Well, I’m not exactly sure what you’re expecting me to do about this, Chief. I mean...what’s this about?”“I don’t suppose you’ve got the faintest what it’s like to...to...damn it, I’m a grown adult! This is stupid!”“Oh my god.” Janine tried not to laugh, “You fell in love! Good and properly hard! Oh no!”“Don’t laugh.”“Oh no!” She glanced at her monitor, “And you just let him walk right back out of your life, didn’t you?”“It hurts, Watson! It’s a physical pain! This is not supposed to hurt!” Douglas turned to her, an absolute wreck of a woman almost in tears. It was kind of weird to see someone so much in control of her life otherwise reduced to this particular state. And it was hard.“Hang on.” She got up after locking out her computer, “I’m gonna get coffee and then you’re gonna sit there and tell me everything.”“Everything?”“Every last thing.” Janine let herself out of her office, “You stay right there.” Closing her door, she locked it again and went to find coffee. It didn’t take long, and she deflected a couple of questions.“Hey, Watson. Have you seen Douglas?” The Superintendent caught her in the break room and she shook her head. She was fully prepared to lie to protect Rowena, and the Super probably knew that.“No, sir. I thought she was still off the rosters?”“Yesterday, yeah. And this morning.”“Oh, is that how she...well, that makes sense, I guess.” She shrugged.“If you see her, send her my way?”“Absolutely, sir.”“You...haven’t seen her, have you?”“No, sir.”“Damn. Well, you know what to do, Watson.” The Superintendent, a smart man named MacGregor with five grown children and a couple of grandchildren, sighed and shook his head. “Gotta worry about it, y’know?”“Sir?”“I’m afraid if I let Douglas out of my sight for another hour, she’ll go AWOL on me and pop up in a week down in London.”“Douglas wouldn’t do that, sir.” Which was a huge lie. At this rate, that was exactly what Rowena would do if they gave her half a shot.“Watson?”“Yes, sir?”“Would you go back?”“Back, sir?”“Back to London. Back to The Met. Back to the life you left behind three years ago.”“Oh.” Janine leaned against the work-top and folded her arms. She had considered it, but not seriously. “Well, maybe. I mean, I wasn’t even employed when I left London. It wasn’t until we got up here to Fort William that Holmes or I took any consideration to legitimate police work. Back in London, we were...kind of shunned.”“Because you did their jobs better than they did in half the time with a fraction of the resources and you did it right.” MacGregor sighed, “I can’t stop any of you from leaving, if that’s what you want to do. I just can’t. Just...give me a warning when you leave?”“We aren’t thinking about leaving Fort William anytime soon, sir. Don’t worry.” Janine handed him a cup of coffee, “You need that.”“Read my mind, didn’t you?”“You didn’t come in here just to talk to me, sir.” She smiled, “Don’t worry, it’s a very big “if” right now. I know for fact that Lestrade needs good, reliable officers, but we won’t just pull up stakes and leave without doing things properly up here. We owe you too much.”“You’re a good one, Watson. We’re damn lucky to have you and Holmes.”“We’re the lucky ones. You let Douglas take a risk on a couple of fugitives and gave us a chance to disappear.”“And I don’t regret a minute of it. You’re the best we’ve got, if we lose you to London, they had better appreciate what they’re getting.”“Honestly, sir, the only reason Holmes or I are even considering going back south to London is so we can rub it in the faces of those who scorned us all those years ago and spited us because we didn’t do things their way. Look what we became? Who would ever believe we were capable?”“Sure took your friend Lestrade by surprise, didn’t you?”“Should’ve seen his face, sir. It was perfect.” She smirked.“Well, you know what to do if you find Douglas. Thanks, Watson. For...everything.” MacGregor smiled and did something kind of out of character. Superiors didn’t generally go around hugging their subordinates, but MacGregor was one of those who had known Janine and Sherlock as children. So watching them grow up, move away, and return with their tails between their legs on the run from trouble in London, he knew a thing or two.“Anytime, Mac.”“You grew up on me, didn’t you? Didn’t say you could do that, Watson.”“Sorry, sir.”“Nah. Go on, you. Back to work.” He smirked and walked out of the break room with his coffee in hand, “Remember, Watson, resignation letters are very much a thing!”“Yes, sir.” She smiled and let him walk away. As soon as she was alone again, she grabbed two cups of coffee and went back to her office. Getting in was simple, and she locked the door once she was in. Rowena hadn’t moved and took the coffee when she offered it.“What took you so long?”“MacGregor stopped me.”“You lied to him, didn’t you?”“It’s none of his business, or anyone else’s, where you are right now.” She sat down on the other side of her desk and studied her boss. “So?”“What?”“How was it?” She didn’t specify what “it” was, but she didn’t really have to. Rowena choked.“Watson!”“Oh, come on! You do not get to spend a bloody week cooped up with Silver Fox Lestrade and think I’m going to let you get away with keeping the details to yourself! That man’s got a reputation!”“So do you, you bloody menace!”“But we’re not talking about me, are we?”“Oh, you’re a cruel woman, Janine Watson. Cheeky little shit.”“Start talking.” She took a content sip of coffee. This was going to be very much worth it. It took her a while to start talking, but once Rowena got going, it all came out. Every glorious, explicit detail.“Well, that explains those bruises! Jesus Christ!” Janine sputtered during one re-telling of a particularly hot bout of sex that had included hand-cuffs. On Rowena this time, as evidenced by the carefully covered bracelet-abrasions on her wrists. Greg had been spotted bearing the exact same marks on his wrists, and Janine was only sorry she couldn’t be around when he got to try and explain away why he had them. He’d be wearing long sleeves for a long time.“He’s...amazing. His ex-wife never deserved him.”“Damn near about ruined him, selfish bitch.” Janine muttered, “She can rot in hell, thanks.”“But I got him.” Rowena’s eyes narrowed, “And if any woman comes sniffing around what’s mine...”“Don’t think they will, Chief. It’s gonna be obvious, physical evidence aside, that he’s off the market. Men like that have a particular way of behaving when they’re unavailable.” She thought of how Sherlock’s behaviour especially had changed over three years.“I guess if anyone would know, you’d be the one, wouldn’t you?” Rowena just smiled, “Where is he anyway?”“Working. Being scarce.” She shrugged, “So, does this mean we’ll be seeing less of you and more of Lestrade, then?”“Probably. Perks of being the boss.”“You get to make your own time off.” Janine smiled, “How long are you going to wait?”“Maybe a month or two. Or less, if that happens.”“Ooh, you’re desperate.”“Can you fucking blame me?” Rowena shot her a dirty look and Janine just started laughing.-&-When Sherlock got back and found them giggling like teenagers, Janine felt just a little sorry for him.“Did I miss something?”“Of course you did!”“Uh huh.” He just gave them a wide berth as he hung up his gear and sat down, “I don’t want to know.”“Who said we were going to share?”“Oh, be nice to the lad, Watson.” Rowena scolded, winking at Janine. “You two idiots behave yourselves, I have work to do.”“MacGregor wanted to see you when you had a minute.”“If he’s afraid of me walking out of here without fair warning, he’s got nothing to worry about.”“He doesn’t know that.” Janine just shrugged. Rowena flipped her off as she left the office, off to play nice with MacGregor. The minute the door closed, Sherlock was on her.“What happened?”“Oh, it’s bad. They fell hard and proper. Give it six months before she’s put in for a transfer.”“Do you think we’ll go with her?”“She’s not going to give us a choice.” Janine picked up her headphones, “Like you mind a chance to show off in front of The Met again?”“This time as one of them. Oh, that’s perfect!” Sherlock’s smile was evil, “That’s just perfect!”“Thought you might like that. How’s it on the streets?”“Quiet as usual. Mrs McKay gave me this to pass on to you.” He put a bundle down on her desk, “Said you’d like it.”“God bless Annabeth McKay.” Janine smiled and unwrapped the small package.“Oh, that’s lovely.” Sherlock saw what McKay had given Janine, “Did she make that?”“I don’t know. It’s beautiful.” She carefully unrolled the soft wool scarf, a specific tartan plaid. It was her family’s tartan, Watson Ancient. She was one of a handful of family members who was allowed to wear the Ancient colours, but she rarely did so. The amount of effort put into the gift she had received was humbling, she would have to make sure she thanked McKay properly for her generosity. Sherlock had gotten one of his own in Home Modern, she saw it peeking out from under the collar of his fleece jacket. She smiled and looped her scarf around her neck, not even thinking twice about it. Sherlock sat down at his desk and it was quiet as they worked in a familiar rhythm. Janine wondered how much of their routine would change when and if they returned to London.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the months that followed, Janine and Sherlock saw more of Greg Lestrade than they had expected and about as much of Rowena Douglas as they’d predicted. Which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot. She spent most of her time in London when she wasn’t in Fort William. So when word got back to them that Lestrade had been house-hunting for somewhere to set down roots, they put in a quiet word with Mycroft, who in turn had a word with Mrs Hudson. Mrs Hudson, of course, had no problem at all opening the doors of 221B Baker Street to Lestrade and Douglas. At the same time Lestrade began transitioning from wherever he was living at the moment to the Baker Street house, the basement flat was repaired and brought up to date. Entirely on Mycroft’s bill. Janine had every intention of living on Baker Street, as did Sherlock, they would take the basement for themselves and give Greg the upstairs. Mrs Hudson made up special rental agreements for them, seeing as pets would be involved in the move. She didn’t mind cats or dogs, and since Loki and Victoria were familiar with each other and got along, there wouldn’t be that much trouble. Loki would go wherever he liked and Victoria would probably spend her days up in 221A with Mrs Hudson, who absolutely said no when Janine suggested they could safely leave her to her own devices down in 221C, she was used to be on her own.“I think our dog is going to get fat and spoiled, Sherlock.” She mused one night as they worked a long case. Victoria snoozed on the floor behind her desk on a bed they kept there just for this purpose.“Which is no less than a dog deserves.” Sherlock just smiled at her from across the work-space they shared. It would be hard to leave this place, after all this time. But Janine knew damn well that they would always be welcome in Fort William, and their jobs would probably be available if they ever wanted them back. MacGregor would fill their vacancies, of course, but they were welcome to come back and work for the Fort William brance of Police Scotland if the fancy struck them. A distraction came when her phone buzzed. Since Sherlock was currently sitting across from her at his desk, it wasn’t likely to be him. Aware of the commotion, he looked up.“What’s that, then?”“Uh. Douglas needs me.” She dug into her desk for the kit she kept handy, looking for something specific. Douglas needed her for one thing and had begged her to keep it quiet. Finding what she needed, she shoved it into her pocket as she got up. “Be back in a bit.”“Everything okay?”“Should be fine. She’s a bit under the weather is all.”“And you’re the most reliable doctor in town. Too bad you carry a badge.” Sherlock just smiled as she headed out the door.“Just because I carry a badge doesn’t stop me from taking care of people who need my help, sir.” She flipped him off as she stepped out, heading for where she thought she might find Douglas. Along the way, she stopped by the break-room to grab a cup. When she found a small clear plastic drinking cup, she heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. Letting herself into the women’s bathrooms, she tracked her boss down to the end stall and tapped on the door.“You alright, Boss?”“Ask me in five minutes. Did you bring it?”“Yep.” She handed the cup and wrapped EPT under. “Mind my asking how long it’s been?”“A month.”“Rowena.” She leaned against the door.“Two. Damn.”“Take it easy, boss.” She listened to the rustling, muffled cursing, and wondered if Douglas had cried already. “Remember, five seconds’ hold.”“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She listened and set up a five-minute timer.  “Time.”“Yep.” She clicked the timer and sat down. “Y’know, it’s been six months. I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t popped the question.”“Who says he hasn’t?”“Sorry?” She turned her head.“Oh, you heard me.”“Oh my god! He didn’t! He did?” Janine leaned over to peek under the door, not that there was much to see from this angle, “No! He did not ask you!”“He certainly did!”“Holy shit! When was this? How did I miss it? How did we miss it?”“Because we’ve been quiet about it.”“I’ll say you have! Did he do it properly?”“Of course he did it properly! What kind of man do you take him for?”“Just asking.” She stifled a squeal. Of course, Lestrade would do things properly, he was a gentleman. When the five-minute mark came, she knocked on the door and it swung open. Douglas held the pregnancy-test in one hand, face-down so she couldn’t see the result. It wasn’t every day Janine saw a grown adult woman acting like a nervous teenager, but she’d seen a lot more of it since Douglas and Lestrade had gotten serious about each other. The phone-calls she’d walked in on were too many to count on both hands, and she was always careful to make sure she was the one walking in. She had become the office’s designated liaison to Douglas just so no one else had to get caught in the crossfire of something they may not want to overhear.“Give it here.” She held out her hand for the test, which Douglas surrendered. “Is this the first one you’ve taken?”“No.”“Right.” She flipped the test over and looked at the display window. “Positive.”“Oh, thank god!” Douglas looked like she wanted to cry.“How many of these have you taken, Rowena?” Janine let her out of the stall and binned the cup and the test, after taking a quick picture of it for proof. No one else would ever see it, but she needed a record. Rowena washed her hands and leaned against the sink as Janine washed up next.“Four. They’ve all come back positive, even the first one. I thought I was imagining it, but...”“Jesus Christ. Four? Was this the fifth one?”“Yep.”“How long has it been since you first missed?” Janine leaned against the sink and studied her boss.“Two months.”“Oh, Rowena.” She tried not to smile, “How do you feel?”“Kind of like I’m stuck in a dream.” Rowena shook his head.“Write down whatever symptoms you’ve been having and give me the diary once a week. And see about getting an ultrasound, if you haven’t already.” She knew what Rowena’s next question was going to be and headed her off at the pass. “And no, before you think about it, I can’t do it for you.”“Word gets around small towns faster.”“Then we’ll go down to Glasgow. I’ll go with you. But word’s going to get around here whether you want it to or not, Boss.” Janine took Rowena’s hand, “I take it Greg has no idea?”“No. I kind of...I want to wait.”“Don’t wait too long.”“I won’t. I’m just...I’m so nervous. What if something goes wrong?”“You would be a high-risk pregnancy just because of your age-group. I know a couple of people in London who take care of high-risk mothers, want me to make a few calls for you?”“Would you do that for me?”“I would absolutely.” She smiled and hugged Rowena, “But you realize, this means Sherlock and I will be at work for The Met before you are?”“Not unless we put in our papers this week and make the move right away.”“You’ll be on bed rest, mandatory by orders, if there’s any sign something’s wrong.”“I know. But I want to be in London, I want to do the right thing.”“Alright. I’ll make a couple of phone calls tomorrow morning and see if there’s anything at The Met Sherlock and I can put in for on transfers.”“Thank you, Janey.”“But you have to promise me that you’ll tell Greg as soon as you can, this is no secret to keep to yourself.”“I will, I promise I will.”“Good. Now, go home, Boss. Get some sleep.” Janine let Douglas out of the bathroom and followed her to her office. She helped the woman collect her things and walked her to the door, stopping by her shared office and letting Sherlock know she was sending Douglas home.“Is she okay?”“She’s alright. Just a bit under the weather.” She smiled, “Be right back.”“Why don’t I believe you?”“Because you’re the smartest bastard in this office. I’ll be back.” She closed the door and looked at Douglas, “Alright, after you.”“Do you think he knows?”“Not yet. Can I tell him?”“Just don’t let it get out.”“We aren’t gossips.” She smiled reassuringly. It was only after Douglas was on her way home that Janine let out the breath she’d been holding. “God damn it.” Going back to her office, she let herself in and returned to her desk. She pulled up the site for The Met and started scouring listings. Anything she could put in for on transfer to get back into London on a legitimate job. There were a couple of positions open in Greg’s division, she noticed a posting up for a DI in the same department and a few SD postings. That would do. She sent the SD posting to Sherlock and started filling out her own paperwork. She tagged the DI posting for Douglas and drafted a letter of resignation.“Didn’t we say six months?”“Something like that.” She looked over her monitor, “Remind me I need to call Vandy Stamford tomorrow, will you?”“Doctor Stamford’s wife?”“Yep.”“Why? You’re not sick, are you?”“I am not, but she’s one of the best I know and one of the only people I trust to take care of high-risk pregnancy.” She finished her draft and focused on her application, printing a hard-copy just to have one once she was finished.“Janine?”“Rowena’s pregnant. Almost three months along.” She glanced at her partner, “It’s Greg’s.”“Oh my god. Does he know?”“No, he doesn’t. She wants to tell him herself, and I made her promise to tell him as soon as she could.”“Oh, Janey.”“Why do you think I’m job-hunting right now? We’re going home to London within the next two weeks, I’m not going down there without a job waiting.”“Smart girl. I guess this is hush-hush?”“Very.”“Roger that.” Sherlock was beaming, “Is that what she needed you for earlier?”“Yes, it was.”“I’ll be damned.” He chuckled, “So, home to London, then?”“Home to London.” She grinned, “Ready or not.”“Here we come.”“God help The Metropolitan Police Service.”“Amen to that.” Sherlock just looked so very pleased with himself.  -&- Janine held onto her letter of resignation until she’d heard back from The Met, and as soon as she got an acceptance letter with her start-date and position three weeks later, she submitted her letter in person to MacGregor. She had three letters in hand when she knocked on his door.“Come in.”“Sorry to disturb, sir.” She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her.“What’s on, Watson?” MacGregor asked patiently.“These are for you, sir. Effective immediately.” She gave him the letters. He took the file and read over the letters within.“Have you received confirmation of your positions in London, then?” He looked up, expression neutral.“Yes, sir. We all have.” She stood at-ease, hands folded behind her back. Acceptance letters from The Met had come in for Janine, Sherlock, and Douglas, as had phone-calls from one of the Superintendents to ensure they had received their letters and were coming to London. They had also sat down for in-person interviews. Apparently, names and histories weren’t as important as capable detectives and fresh blood in what was a nearly-stagnant division. And Sherlock hadn’t fibbed his name on the application. Not...exactly. William Holmes had applied for a position, which wasn’t exactly a lie. William was his proper name. Janine couldn’t wait until people put together that William Holmes of Fort William, Scotland was Sherlock Holmes of London. That would be such a deliciously nasty shock for a couple of people, and Janine didn’t feel sorry at all for the upset they would bring to the division. And really, he didn’t act or look much like he had in 2011, so it could take a while for anyone who had known him prior to 2011 to recognize him at all.“I don’t suppose your friend Lestrade knows about this, does he?”“As far as I’m aware, sir, no.”“Has anyone ever accused you of being unusually cruel?”“One time or two, sir, always in good humour.” She grinned, “But really, can you blame us?”“No, I can’t. I only wish I could be there to see their expressions when they finally put together who you really are.” He chuckled, setting the file aside. “Do any of them remember you?”“After this long, sir, I very much doubt it.”“Good luck then, Watson. Don’t be a stranger.” He got up and shook hands with her, “And if you ever need a place to go, we’ve the room for you up here.”“Thank you, sir.” Janine smiled, “We’ll come back to visit, I promise.”“You’d better,” MacGregor smirked. “I take it you’ve packed out the houses up here in Fort William, then?”“Just this week, sir.”“And you’ve arrangements for London?”“Yes, sir.”“Good. Now, you two trouble-makers behave yourselves, hear me?”“We make no promises, sir.”“Of course you don’t.” MacGregor followed her back to her office, where Sherlock was quietly packing up what few things they would take with them. Janine collected their badges and gear into a separate box and returned it to HR and the armoury, leaving MacGregor to help Sherlock. They would be leaving Fort William on the 7.50pm Caledonian Sleeper, which would put them in London around the same time the following morning at 7.50am. From Euston, they would report to The Met for work and start their new jobs.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After packing the last of their boxes and closing up Ferry House it was off to the train station. Time to go home. It was a quiet trip down, they slept for most of it. Arriving in London found them reporting to The Met around 8.45. The first thing they did was report to their division offices and hunt down their Superintendent. Who, apparently, was one of the few people at The Met who remembered Sherlock well enough to recognize him almost three years after the scandal that had forced him into hiding.“Oh my god.” He leaned back and sized up the odd sight Janine and Sherlock made standing next to each other, “Oh, you have to be kidding me. Sherlock Holmes?”“Not quite dead, sir.”“I’ll be damned! What brings you our way, then? This is official? Done right?”“Absolutely, sir.”“Well, fuck.” A chuckle, “I’ll. Be. Damned. So, that’s what you did with yourself? High-tailed it to Scotland, went right-side to the law, and became a cop?”“Yes, sir. Is that going to be a problem, sir?”“Not for me! Christ knows we could use a couple of good detectives around here! Best I’ve got right now is Lestrade, but he keeps faffing off on weekends. Where’s he going?”“Up to Fort William, sir. But I think he’ll be around a bit more.” Janine smiled, “He was visiting his fiancée. She’s transferred in with us, sir.”“Right. Right. Um, Douglas?”“Yes, sir.”“You must be Janine Watson.” The Super sized her up and grinned, “Oh, lord, have I heard about you two. Never thought you’d show up here for work like this! God damn.”“If you don’t terribly mind, sir, if you could keep this quiet from the rest of Lestrade’s lot, we would be very grateful.” Janine folded her hands behind her back.“Oh, I’m not saying a word!” The Super just chuckled, “Oh, no no. Don’t you worry yourself, Inspector Watson. They won’t find out about this from me. All anyone in our bullpen knows is that we’ve got a few transfers from Police Scotland, no names or anything like that.”“What about Lestrade?”“He knows about Douglas, talked about it all week, but don’t think he knows about you two.” The Super shook his head, “Well, I’ll be damned. So, why don’t I give you two the grand tour of the place and show you where you’ll be working, then? I’ll leave the introductions to themselves.”“That would be...nice.” Janine and Sherlock looked at each other. How many times had they come in here on business with Lestrade, and now they were here officially? As part of the officer force? But it was work they were both rather good at and had worked for through all proper channels. The Super, a surprisingly friendly bloke by the name of Benjamin Grant with four grown children and a gaggle of grandchildren in a long, loving marriage to the same woman he’d been dating since uni, got up from his cluttered desk and shook hands with them before taking them off on a whirlwind trip through HR, armoury, and finally back up through Homicide and Major Crimes.The first thing they did was get their uniforms and badges, then they picked up weapons with the allowance to carry personal side-arms on the job if they preferred that instead. Janine had her Army SIG-Sauer L901A1, she’d prefer to carry that; Sherlock had a Browning L9A1 that he’d had for years. Between them, they decided to carry their personal side-arms on duty. The Arms Master just shrugged and put them on the schedule for range-training next week. It would take maybe a full day, and that was fine. They could make time for it. After taking care of the back-office business, it was back up to Homicide, where Grant showed them to their work-space. Like they’d had in Fort William, they had a shared work-space in one of the bullpen cubicles. After seeing that they didn’t need anything else of him just at the moment, Grant left them to get moved in and told them to just let him know if they had any questions or needed anything.“Thank you, sir.”“And don’t worry. Mum’s the word.” He just smiled at them, touched a finger to his lips, and was gone again. Janine let out a low whistle as she set up her desk-top pictures.“Wow. I like him.”“I think it’s mutual.” Sherlock smiled as he looked for somewhere to put Billy the Skull.“Put him somewhere where we can see him but he won’t be the first thing people see when they come in,” Janine said over her shoulder. “Where you had him in Fort William was perfect.”“Then I’ll put Billy over...here.” “Here” was on a high shelf that was just out of first line-of-sight of anyone coming in, unless they happened to know there was a human skull in the office to begin with. Janine chuckled and decided coffee was in order. It was barely 10, and she felt the drag. Grabbing one of the plastic-covered uniforms from the hooks, checking the tags to make sure she wasn’t grabbing Sherlock’s kit, Janine headed out.“Where are you going?”“To change and find coffee. Want me to bring you some back?”“Please?”“My pleasure.” She smiled and headed out. For the hour, the bullpen was pretty quiet. She slipped into the ladies’ and made quick work of changing into uniform. God, it felt good. She had worn her work-boots, so it was just her clothes that she was trading out. Bundling the clothes she’d worn to The Met in the plastic garment bag, she made quick work of setting things right with her uniform. Returning to the office she shared with Sherlock, she found him making similar adjustments.“You know you look good in that fucking uniform. That’s why you wear it when SDs and DIs in Homicide aren’t required.”“Yes?” He raised an eyebrow at her as she added her bag to his. “Mycroft’s offered to collect our things for us, do you mind?”“Absolutely I do not. Be back in a mo.” She stole a kiss before heading out, knowing he would insist on a proper one and giggled when he grabbed her by the arm with one foot out the door and laid one on her that might have been indecent if someone had seen them.“What was that?”“I know you, you silly git.” She chuckled, “What are you going to do about it?”“You’re a bad woman.”“I’m your bloody partner, Holmes.” She rolled her eyes and smacked him on the hip as she escaped the office. He made an aborted grab for her and she wondered how many people heard her squeal. By the time she met Mycroft down in the main atrium, she was laughing.“Good morning, Mycroft!”“Good morning, Janine.” He smiled, “What has you in such a good mood, my dear?”“Oh my god. Nothing, nothing. Absolutely nothing.” She caught her breath, “I promise.”“My brother up to his antics again?”“Possibly.”“You’ve been very good to him, and for him. Thank you for...everything.”“I was happy to do it.” She hugged Mycroft, one of the only people allowed to, “Thanks for doing your bit back here in London while we were up in Fort William.”“My pleasure, my dear. I...have something for you. I suspect you may have need of it, seeing the hour and where you came here from.”“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow as Mycroft took the bag of clothes from her and handed it to Anthea in exchange for a cup-carrier with two takeaway cups and a small paper bag. “What’s this?”“Every detective’s best friend beyond solid evidence.”“Coffee?”“And a treat from your landlady.”“Mrs Hudson made biscuits again.”“She seems convinced that I’m underweight for my frame, I can’t seem to convince her otherwise.”“She’s not quite wrong, Mycroft.” Janine sighed, “Thank you for breakfast.”“Good luck here, Janine. It’s not quite Fort William, but I have great faith that you and my brother will fit in here just fine.”“I think we’ll be alright.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek now that her hands were full. “Thanks for coming by, Mycroft. See you around.”“I plan on it, my dear. Have a good day.” Mycroft saw her off again and she waved over her shoulder. Getting back to Homicide didn’t take very long and she presented Sherlock with his brother’s offerings. The morning was mostly quiet, they got moved into their office and did some paperwork on a couple of cases that Grant had for them on top of papers to be filed in their personnel files. They saw Sally Donovan several times but never approached her. She didn’t go out of her way to approach them, and they didn’t go out of their way to approach her in turn. No one really seemed to notice them or care if they did, they were just two of many faces. Which was fine. People would figure out eventually what was what. -&- Grant stopped by around noon with a look on his face they were both familiar with. Janine took her headphones off as he came into their office.“Where?”“Whitechapel. You can flip for who does the driving.” He tossed a set of keys to Sherlock, “It’s right up your alley, Holmes.”“Yes, sir.” Janine didn’t miss the way her partner’s eyes lit up as he took a case-file from Grant.“Be smart about this, alright?”“Absolutely, sir. We know what we’re doing.” Janine was collecting their gear. “It’s been a few years since we ran London, but how different can it be? A suspect is a suspect is a suspect.”“You do your own running I take it, Watson?”“Much as I can, sir. Always sort of have.” She shrugged into her hi-vis parka, “Come on, Sherlock. Duty calls.”“Good luck, you two!” Grant called after them, “Radio’s on?”“Always is, sir. We’ll call if we need anything.” Sherlock took his gear from Janine and they headed for the motor pool. The car that was theirs for today was a silver Range Rover with proper markings. The minute she saw the car, Janine made a grab for the keys.“I’m driving!”“Says who?”“He said we could flip for who did the driving, I’m doing the driving. Hand over the bloody keys!” She made another reach, but her partner was a sneaky bastard and dangled the keys right out of her reach.“What’s the magic word, Watson?”“Fuck you.”“Aw, you don’t mean that!”“Willing to bet I don’t?” She raised an eyebrow. There was another way to get those keys, a suitably sneaky, nonviolent way. Stepping into Sherlock’s space, and well aware of a couple of very interested DIs loitering nearby on their smoke-break, Janine put herself chest-to-chest with her partner and made eye-contact. He had no idea what she was about, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Before he could say anything, she grabbed him by the front of his coat, pulled hard, and took pleasure in the startled noise he made when she kissed him. Sure enough, he let go of the keys. She smoothly slid them from his hand and chuckled at the expression on his face.“I’m driving.”“Oh, you don’t play fair.”“Neither do you!” She teased, going around the car to the driver’s side.“Hey!” One of the DIs nearby yelled. “Hey, did you get the keys?”“Yep!” She held them aloft, “Got ‘em!”“Oh, that’s not fair, is it?”“Never said I played fair.”“What’s your name?”“Watson!” She waved as she dropped into the car, “See you around, boys!”“Oh, you’re mean.” Sherlock muttered as they backed out of their space.“Wanna bet someone figures it out before we’re halfway to Whitechapel?”“I’ll give you until we get back. Ten quid is yours.”“Double it if it’s before we get there.”“Fine. I hate betting with you, though.”“Yeah, yeah, you like to say that.” She rolled her eyes as they left The Met and made their way to Whitechapel. Sherlock called it in over the radio that they were responding to the call for additional assistance and asked for the names of the DIs on the scene already. Who was in charge over there? They got back a couple of familiar names and grinned.“This should be a good one.” Janine murmured. “They put Douglas on the case right out of the gate. That was bold of them.”“She hasn’t been restricted to bed-rest yet. Any running will be done by the two of us.” Sherlock mused, propping one foot on the dashboard to mess with the laces of his boots. Janine rolled her eyes at her partner’s bad manners and turned on both lights and sirens. Time to get back to work. Same job, new city.“Well, if you wanted to get a feel for London, to get London back in your blood, I can’t think of a better way to do that.” Janine manoeuvred the car through traffic with practised precision. “I don’t miss the lack of traffic we had in Fort William. This is madness!”“Welcome to London.” Sherlock muttered. Janine chuckled. -&- The twenty-minute drive took fifteen with blues-and-twos and slow-moving traffic, but when she finally saw the familiar lights and tape, Janine raised an eyebrow.“Well, there it is.”“Can’t see Greg from here, can you?”“Not from this distance, but he’s here.” She spotted the familiar unmarked silver BMW Greg had always driven and parked nearby it. “That’s his car.”“I suppose we should see about saving The Met from themselves again.” Sherlock rolled his eyes as he unbuckled his seat-belt and kicked his door open.“Oh, be nice, Sherlock. We’re here on business.” She followed him after locking the Range Rover and pocketed the keys.“Do I have to be nice to Anderson?”“If he’s still on Forensics? Yes, you have to be nice to him.”“Damn.”“Sherlock.”“I don’t like Anderson.”“Sherlock!” Janine grabbed him by the arm and pulled him around, forcing him to look at her. “You do not turn into an arsehole just because we’re back in London! Just because we know what they don’t in a single look! You do not turn into the person you were three years ago, or so help me God I will bury you!” Sherlock blinked at her, startled by her outburst. She took a deep breath and tightened her grip on him. “Listen to me. I’m only going to say this once. You got this job the hard way, I’ve been with you since the beginning. You worked so hard to earn the respect of Police Scotland in Glasgow and Fort William, you earned your badge. Sherlock Holmes was a nobody in Scotland, and you loved that! Do not become the awful, spiteful man you were before Jim Moriarty turned your life upside down and I had to save your ungrateful arse.”“But...”“We don’t even know if Anderson is here or not! Last I knew of it, he was still on that stupid crusade of his trying to clear your name and convince everyone else that you were innocent, that it was all an elaborate set-up!” She looked her tall partner in the eye, “But if he’s here, by some miracle, then you will be nice to him. You will be civil with him, and you will treat him decently. Asking you to respect him is asking too much, just treat him like his feelings actually matter.”“But you didn’t like him either.”“I didn’t go out of my way to insult him to his face, though, did I?” She raised an eyebrow, “And whoever IS on Forensics, you still have to be nice to them. You can’t treat people like they’re clueless idiots and expect them to like you for it.” Turning away from Sherlock, she headed for the line. A baffled, wide-eyed Constable lifted the tape for her as she flashed her badge.“Excuse me, ma’am?”“What?” She snapped, feeling a bit sorry for the poor man when he flinched.“Er, what about him?” The Constable pointed to Sherlock, who stood where she’d left him. Janine groaned and rubbed her forehead.“Jesus Christ. Hey! Holmes!” She yelled, “Case on, let’s go!”“Coming!” He called back quietly.“I’m s-sorry, Sergeant, but...wh-where are you from, exactly?” The Constable gulped, “Not from anywhere around these parts, I wager.”“You heard that?” Janine looked at the frightened Constable. “You’d be right, Constable. I’m not from around here.”“Where’d you come from?”“Fort William, Scotland.”“Ooh. I thought you might’ve. Accent was a little rougher than I expected. You’re the new girl?”“New to The Met, not to the business.” She folded her arms, “Sorry if I scared you.”“No! No, it’s...fine. But...who’s your partner?”“That’s William Holmes. He and I were together in Fort William for three years.”“Oh.” The Constable watched Sherlock, who wore a slightly stricken expression on his face. “Oh! Hang on! Wait a minute, that’s...oh, that’s Sherlock Holmes! He’s alive!”“More or less. Keep it quiet, for your own sake, until it goes public.”“Oh, where has he been?”“Where do you think?”“Oh. Right! Scotland. That was clever of you!” The Constable, named Richardson, grinned at Janine, “Y’know, I never believed a word of it? Not a bloody word, always knew better. Might’ve been rude about things, but he was good at his job. Better than we were.”“He liked to brag about it, too. I’ve tried to train that out of him.”“God bless you, Sergeant Watson! Hello, Mr Holmes! Welcome back to London!” Richardson beamed as he lifted the tape for Sherlock, who stared at him for a minute.“Oh. Mark Richarson.” Sherlock’s expression smoothed into something friendly but neutral. “How is your wife doing?”“She’s hanging in there, sir. We have our good days and our bad ones, but she’s a fighter.” Richardson’s smile faded a bit, “Keeps telling me not to jeopardise my job just to spend time with ‘er. God knows I want to, sir.”“Is your wife sick, Mr Richardson?”“A bit.”“A bit?”“She’s...fightin’ cancer, has been for years. Got worse in the last year just after Christmas, it’s been rough for all of us. I’ve got a job to keep me busy, but...”“Oh, that’s...I’m so sorry, Mr Richardson. Haven’t you applied for sick leave?”“Can’t. Spent all of my time back when she first got sick. I’m working overtime trying to make ends meet.” Richardson shrugged. Janine looked at Sherlock and raised an eyebrow. He cocked his head in question. Richardson’s radio squealed and they all winced.“Richardson!” It was Greg. “Any sign of our reinforcements?”“I just let them through the line, sir. I’ll send them your way.” Richardson cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Richardson. God knows we need all the help we can get!”
“Yes, sir.” Richardson released his radio and looked at Janine and Sherlock. “That would be for you. Good luck.”“This is something we happen to be quite good at, Richardson. We’ll be in touch.” Sherlock smiled at the helpful, cheerful Constable and they headed in the direction he pointed them toward.“So, what are you thinking?”“See about getting Mycroft involved. Richardson deserves to be with his wife while she’s dying, there’s no telling how much time she’s got.”“That’s what I thought.” Janine nodded as they reached the house containing their scene.“We’ve been here before.”“Yes, we have. On at least two separate occasions.”“Great. This ought to be a good one.” She huffed. They were met inside by Philip Anderson, who looked nothing like himself.“Oh no.”“Be. Nice.” She hissed. Anderson didn’t recognize them, which was probably a good thing, as he held out two bundles of blue cotton-paper fabric.“You’re going to want these. Trust me.”“Is it that bad?”“Worse than we thought.”“Well, let’s see what London’s idea of crime is.”“Oh, stop it.” Janine rolled her eyes as they put the protective gear on. “You know bloody well what London’s idea of crime is. You just want to know how it compares to Fort William.”“Can you blame me? It’s been three years!”“Yes, I know. You like to remind me rather often.” She looked over at Anderson, “Just be nice to people.”“Do I have to be nice if they’re idiots?”“Yes.”“Why?”“Because I said so, and we’ve already discussed this.” She shook her head. “Anderson, where are we?”“Upstairs, left at the top. Shout for Lestrade.”“Thank you.” She grabbed Sherlock by the arm, “Come on, you mad thing.” She dragged him up the stairs, leaving Anderson below to wait until the scene was released to Forensics. Which probably wouldn’t take long now that they were on-scene and Sherlock could work his magic.