Chapter Text
31st December 2014
Q Branch is eerily quiet despite the late hour. The silence will remain for a little longer until Danielle comes in to guide 003 through his mission in Kabul. Until then the only sounds in the room are coming from Q, yet he is currently waiting for 006 to call in and tell him he made it out of his hellhole alive.
Two years ago situations like this were enough to make Q’s pulse spike and his palms sweaty. Now, after twenty-eight months with his merry band of agents, his breath barely even hitches.
The com cracks. “Made it. Everything’s still attached,” comes 006’s voice, strained as if he is hurt. And he probably is, though unless he is losing copious amounts of blood or missing a limb, Q has learned not to worry.
“Wonderful, yet not wonderful enough to warrant ignoring communication protocols, 006.”
“You can punish me all you want when I’m back on English soil, Q,” Alec tells him, voice dropping low despite the obvious pain he is in.
Q resists the urge to roll his eyes. Every Double-oh’s default setting appears to be “flirt with everything that moves”.
“Shall I make your next gun grow poisonous spikes for your next mission? Wouldn’t have to be poisonous, just a mild paralytic will do, I think.”
“Sometimes you scare me, Q. 006 signing off.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Your flight details have been uploaded to your phone and I have booked you into a hotel until then. Do you need medical assistance?”
“Nothing dental floss won’t solve.”
“Wonderful,” Q sighs. “Q signing off.”
He switches off the coms and closes the tabs on both his laptop and the giant screens that are mounted on the wall in front of him. The only thing he leaves open are the surveillance feeds tracking 006’s progress through the city to make sure he does, in fact, reach the intended hotel and doesn’t pass out on the way like the stubborn idiot that he is. And 006 still isn’t the most stubborn idiot Q is working with; in fact, he has nothing on –
“All alone, working on New Year’s Eve? Won’t your cat miss you?”
Think of the devil, and he doth appear.
“007, I take it your flight was pleasant?”
“Very.”
He looks good. Of course, James Bond always looks good. His suits barely wrinkle, even after hours and hours on a plane, his eyes are alert and cornflower blue as always, a slight stubble is dusting his jaw and Q really needs to stop appreciating the view so much when the agent is around.
“M is expecting you in his office tomorrow afternoon for a full debrief.”
“You telling me I get to sleep in tomorrow?”
“Consider it a late company Christmas present, 007.”
The smile he receives is blinding and Q can feel the corners of his mouth curl as well. So maybe he has a little crush on James Bond. Having a crush on 007 is practically a rite of passage at MI6, at least according to Eve.
“Speaking of which,” Bond says and retrieves both his gun and his radio, as well as the small camera pin still attached to his lapels.
Q blinks at the gun. “That’s your Walther.”
“Yes.”
“In one piece.”
“Yes.”
“Still functioning.”
“Yes.” Bond definitely sounds smug now, the bastard.
“I can count on one hand the number of times this has happened in the past two years, Bond. What’s next, a dragon’s egg?”
Bond’s deep chuckle echoes in the empty room. “Sorry, it wouldn’t fit into my hand luggage.”
“Shame, really,” Q gives a fake sigh and curses the warmth that spreads through his chest.
“I did bring you this, though.”
Q looks down at Bond’s outstretched hand and sees a… Well, something small and rectangular. “What exactly is that?”
“I don’t know. One of my targets seemed pretty eager to keep me away from it, though. Thought you might like to dissemble it. I heard you enjoy such a thing.”
Now Q is genuinely smiling and he can’t do anything against it, or against the giddy feeling coursing through him. “Thank you, 007.”
He takes the… chip? Flash drive?... out of Bond’s open palm and wills his pulse to relax when his fingers inevitably brush Bond’s skin.
“Happy New Year.”
Suppressing an even broader smile, Q turns towards his other laptop, the one not currently hooked to the screens and resting on a side table next to the larger desk. While minimising several applications he notices that he still has this morning’s newspaper article open.
“Media Tycoon Commits Suicide – Only Found Five Days Later”, the headline reads above a picture of Charles Augustus Magnussen that Q chose.
“What’s that?” Bond asks immediately. Really, one would think international men of mystery and espionage were savvy in terms of politics, yet Bond probably can’t even name four of the current cabinet members.
“Not quite the tragedy the news make it out to be.”
Q used to read newspapers before he found out you shouldn’t trust a word they are printing unless you forged it yourself. Not that Q does that sort of thing − usually. It is way below his pay grade, yet he can be convinced to help out, as a favour to a friend.
Q is about to close the laptop when the screen flickers.
He spins around, eyes darting from one display to the next. They are all flickering, the same pattern on every single one. Q’s blood runs could.
And that is before the screen changes, revealing two words, a question mark, and the face of a man who is supposed to be dead.
“Did you miss me?” The disembodied voice resonates through Q Branch.
“How the hell did he get into our system!” Q more bellows than asks, fingers already on the keypad. No matter what he does, he can’t get rid of the image so he tries a longer path and when his mobile rings two minutes later his palms are damp and there is sweat forming between his brows.
“Tell me this is your idea of a joke, Q,” M barks down the line.
“No, sir, my humour is slightly less morbid,” Q replies, fingers flying swiftly across the keys. Bond’s snort barely registers.
“Then tell me you’re fixing this right now.”
“I am, sir. It’s an adaptive algorithm, so this might take a second.”
Of course Jim Moriarty would never allow his code to be broken before he intended it to. Of course the moment Q spots a weakness in the code he knows it has been put there to be found, so that after five minutes of a constant stream of “Did you miss me?” the screens flicker one last time before returning to normal.
He hears M sigh in relief at the other end of the line. “I’m coming in, Q. Be ready for a full debrief.”
“Yes, sir.”
Q isn’t too steady on his feet and he has to hold onto the table not to fall over. This is all very reminiscent of Silva, and the way Bond’s face is a shade paler than it was minutes before tells him that the agent is thinking the exact same thing.
If they ever suspected Moriarty behind Silva’s stunt before, they definitely have damning evidence now. Q gets to work, looking for traces of the algorithm, for anything to present to M once he gets here.
It takes two rings on his private mobile before he hears it.
“You stopped it, I presume?” Mycroft’s voice comes through the loudspeaker, collected and calm as always. Not that Q is surprised – it would take more than a criminal mastermind returning from the dead to faze the man.
“Yes. But only when I was supposed to.”
“Find out as much as you can. I’ll be in touch.”
Neither of them says goodbye, just the monotonous peep of the dial tone signifies the end of the conversation. Q loses himself in lines of code and when he next looks up, there is fresh tea in his mug.
Q narrows his eyes at it yet can’t dwell on the matter, since M just walked through the door.
*~*~*
John’s mind is still reeling, even hours after the revelation that Jim Moriarty is actually alive and has apparently chosen this day to make it public.
“So what, did you fake suicides at each other?”
Sherlock doesn’t answer. He has been awfully quiet the entire ride to Mycroft’s house – and John can’t even appreciate that he finally finds out Mycroft’s home is just as posh and regal as he always imagined – and is now staring into the lit fireplace while the three of them are waiting for Mycroft to return with more information.
Mary is resting in an armchair, one hand on her stomach, and just as quiet while John can’t stop pacing. He thought the Moriarty business was over and done with, finished, and how the hell can someone even fake shooting himself in the bloody head?!
He jerks around at the sound of the door opening. Mycroft looks even graver than he did in the car – not just a joke, then.
“The transmission originated from Magnussen’s network servers. Apparently an inside job if our experts are to be believed and whoever did this employed an incredibly sophisticated virus to spread it to every screen in the country.”
Mycroft’s explanation is met with more silence.
“So we can’t be sure it’s really him?” John asks, flexing his hands. “I mean everyone who’s skilled at Photoshop could’ve done that. Maybe it’s someone else and they’re just playing with us.”
“Unlikely,” Sherlock says, finally.
Before John can ask him to explain, however, Mycroft’s phone beeps with a text and then he is moving towards the television in the corner, switching it on. John isn’t entirely sure he actually wants to see what’s coming next.
They catch Moriarty – live, talking, grinning at the camera for Christ’s sake - mid-sentence.
“- back… Are you surprised? Did you miss me? Of course you did,” he answers immediately, all patronising and barking mad, just like John remembers him from the pool.
“That’s why you should never believe anything your read in the papers – you can never be sure who forged the article.”
Moriarty smirks into the camera and John recalls this morning’s headline about Magnussen’s suicide. Can Moriarty possibly know about that, too?
“Ohhhh,” he coos on screen, “I can see all your vacant little faces, so confused, so afraid… How did I do it? Have you figured it out yet? Have you, Sherlock?”
John flinches away from the telly but neither of the others even moves a muscle. It is moments like this that remind him he is married to a former CIA agent. Or at least that is the theory, since the information on the flash drive Mary handed him was utterly false. John had Mycroft check.
Shaking his head to chase off the memories, John returns his attention to the screen.
“I’ll give you… one hour. No, nothing will happen if it takes you longer, but we both know it won’t, will it? I just want to see if you’re still… in shape,” Moriarty says with a wink, popping the “p” slightly and it makes John even more uncomfortable than anything leading up to this moment.
On screen, Moriarty straightens, toothy smile in place. “And coming up next, the weather. Byeeee!”
The image flickers and suddenly it is back to the usual programme for a moment before Mycroft switches it off. John’s eyes immediately dart to Sherlock whose face is unreadable. John knows better than to say anything – Sherlock is probably already thinking. His eyes travel across the room before they widen and his lips part in a silent “oh”.
“And?” John asks because he still recognises an epiphany when he sees one.
Only this time, Sherlock doesn’t look ecstatic. He doesn’t look happy. Just utterly defeated.
“Staying alive,” Sherlock says. “Our final problem. Moriarty planned it. He knew I would have prepared a way to fake my death – and he did the same.”
“Yeah, but how?”
For the first time since they arrived at the house, Sherlock meets his eyes. “A sniper on the roof, able to shoot with surgical precision. Judging by the blood pattern on the rooftop I’d say the sniper ruptured a bag of artificial blood hidden underneath his coat collar.”
“Hang on – you’re saying that you didn’t check his pulse back then?”
Sherlock’s mouth becomes thinner. “I was rather preoccupied.”
A startled laugh escapes John, then another. He starts pacing again, flexing his hands, unable to keep still. “Great, just great.”
“How are you going to tell him?” Mycroft speaks up and by the time John turns around to look at him, the older Holmes’ face is unreadable once more, if it ever held an expression in the first place.
“The same way I solved all his puzzles.” Sherlock produces his mobile and starts typing. It takes John a moment to remember he posted his findings on his website all those years ago. The public will surely be catching on to it soon. Should John update his blog? Or should he just ignore it? He glances at Mary, her stomach protruding and illuminated by the glow of the fire.
John should keep out of this. He has a daughter to look after now.
A ringing phone startles him out of his thoughts and back to a reality that still includes Moriarty. It is Sherlock’s phone, not Mycroft’s this time, and John’s pulse quickens when he realises that this has to be the criminal on the other end.
Sherlock accepts the call and instantly switches the loudspeaker on.
“Good to see you’re still in form, sexy!”
John shivers. It’s true, then. It’s definitely true.
“What do you want?”
“Oh, why so serious, Sherlock? I guess killing a man will do that to you…”
John swallows his gasp. Neither Mycroft nor Mary reacts in any obvious way and Sherlock is just staring down at the phone in his palm.
“And with your own hands, too. Tsk, tsk. Even I have never done that…”
“You bloody well did!” John snarls, which earns him a chuckle from the other end of the line.
“Never have I ever shot a man… and I’d be the only one who wouldn’t have to take a shot.”
John narrows his eyes at the phone, then glances at his wife. Mary seems surprised, almost afraid. John can’t blame her. What else does Moriarty know? Does he know about her pregnancy? The thought is enough to make John’s stomach turn.
“Happy New Year, Sherlock… I’ll be in touch.”
A beep, then silence.
*~*~*
The fireworks in the distance near the London Eye are thinning, darkness taking over the sky once more.
Sherlock plays, filling the flat with music while his thoughts are racing inside his head, covering every possible angle, every theory he can think of and when he ends on a low, dramatic note, he can’t ignore what is staring him right in the face.
He sends a text, calls a cab. Mary is already waiting in the shadow, wrapped in a jacket, looking pale as a ghost.
Moriarty will have surveillance on her, so Sherlock chose the one blind spot near John and Mary’s flat that exists in the vicinity.
For a moment they just look at each other, assessing, and in Mary’s case just a tad worried.
“A sniper who shoots with surgical precision,” he says, aware how cold his eyes must look, how vicious his expression must be. “And less than a year later, an assassin meets John Watson. You never left his service.”
Mary’s mouth twitches. “You won’t tell him.”
“No.” Not yet, anyway. Not that it matters. All Sherlock can do at the moment is assure Mary that he knows and by extension, that he will never trust her again.
“So he is the father?”
Mary doesn’t ask how he would dare question it. She knows just as well as he does that there is room for suspicion. She doesn’t flinch either, however.
“Yes.”
“Good.” After all, Sherlock’s vow pertains to John’s child, not someone else’s. Of course Mary could always be lying, yet she has no reason to. Once the seed of doubt is there, once Sherlock brings the topic up with John, there will be a paternity test. Lying now would help no one.
Point made, Sherlock spins around on his heels, his coat billowing from the momentum.
*~*~*
John gets the call while he is in the middle of investigating a strange robbery with Sherlock. He shouldn’t hesitate, he knows he shouldn’t and he will deny that he did until the day he dies, but for one second he considers not answering.
Sherlock, genius that he is, of course knows immediately what the call is about.
“Go,” he says. “This one’s simple anyway. Give my best to Mary.”
John nods and hails a cab.
Elisabeth Willow Watson is born on 13th January 2015 at exactly midnight, weighing 6lb 13.35oz. Nothing happens that day, nor the day after. John takes Mary home, holds his baby girl and laughs his arse off when Sherlock seems completely overwhelmed with a newborn in his arms.
“She’s so… small. Well, of course, with you as the father, we’ll be lucky if she is ever able to reach the top shelf.”
“Ha-bloody-ha, very funny, Sherlock.”
“What’s her name, then?”
“Elisabeth,” Mary supplies. “My second name.”
Sherlock nods, smiling down at the bundle in his arms.
“Elisabeth Willow,” John blurts, knowing fully well that Sherlock will recognise it as the female form of ‘William’.
“Oh?”
“Elisabeth Willow, that’s her full name.”
Their eyes meet over the child but John has to look away again quickly.
*~*~*
Two weeks fly by. John is the one to get up in the middle of the night to care for Beth since Mary does it the rest of the day. She is not breastfeeding, though he never asks why. John goes to work after a week and when Sherlock texts him about a case, he makes sure to ask Mary whether she would be fine for a few hours.
She gives him a smile that doesn’t convince him but he got the answer he wanted so he doesn’t call her out on it.
There is no sign of Moriarty. He doesn’t get in touch. He doesn’t broadcast anything on national television. He doesn’t show up at Baker Street for tea, as far as John knows.
He just looms in the shadows, a constant threat hanging over their heads, while Sherlock is looking for connections and members of his web and John is changing nappies.