by Janina Woods
“Oh no, doctor. The story is true, all of it. Except the gender of his friend... and he left me out, of course. Maybe he wanted to show off his earliest case but protect the identity of Victoria? Or he simply made a joke of it? I could imagine both possibilities,” I mused. “My brother can, on occasion, be quite the jester. Anyway, they were quite close for a while.”
Close was an understatement, my mind readily corrected me. A surge of pain flooded me, for once not stemming from my injuries. Watson didn’t need to know everything.
“Maybe he didn’t tell me because I could scarcely believe he had a friend at all, much less a woman,” Watson interjected.
“That could also be it. Well, he got to know her through me. The part with the dog is the only small lie, and it does seem rather farfetched if examined closely. Again: Before you ask, we weren’t involved back then, and still aren’t,” I examined the wound on my right hand, squinting my eyes in disappointment, as the movement brought only pain. “She stuck around, learned from us. Absorbed the science of deduction like a sponge absorbs water. A natural intelligence. We made it a challenge to groom her into a capable reasoner.”
“You make it sound like she was a pet?”
“I suppose we saw her like that for a while. In the end, she was a good friend to Sherlock, one of the very, very few. But then I joined the Service and she followed me, while my brother stayed behind at the University. When a position opened up in Rome she took the opportunity. I haven’t seen her in years.”
Yes, a good friend to my brother. A very good friend. Silence fell over the room, until I groaned loudly as I stood up, for once wanting to disturb it.
“Would you take a look at my back?” I asked, moving carefully. “It doesn’t feel... right.”
From what I remembered the blast had hit me from behind. Watson told me that both the shirt on my back and the bedding I had laid on were stained with blood, seeping through the hastily applied bandages. Apparently I had sustained a large, but superficial wound, which meant that my clothing must have effectively been ripped to shreds. I tested my movement range slowly and realised that I could move all muscles, they just hurt something fierce.
“Only this and your hand?” Watson joked while carefully removing the sticky shirt from my wounds. “I need to change those bandages.”
We looked around and spotted a box with medical supplies on a nearby table, partly strewn about. Whoever had taken care of us was pretty sure we were in need of further attention. Well, they weren’t wrong. Watson tested the strength of his injured leg and retrieved the tools of his trade. I supposed we could’ve simply called someone to take care of the tasks, but I could see that handling the familiar objects had a calming effect on the doctor and he visibly relaxed as he cleaned the wound on my hand with carbolic acid. It smelled sweet and irritated my skin, but was a welcome pain.
“Thank you for telling me,” Watson said after a while. “I appreciate it.”
I nodded. While I had omitted a few, rather important details, this would be enough. If there was one thing I wanted to avoid it was talk about the problems of my past. My only hope was that Victoria would see it the same way - even though I already knew she wouldn’t. She had always been so emotional. I winced in pain as Watson removed the bandages from my back, because they had stuck to my skin during the night. Fresh blood ran and dripped down my back onto the bedding.
“You are a lucky man, Mycroft,” the doctor said while applying more acid to disinfect my wounds. The way it stung didn’t make me feel all that lucky. “For what happened, the damage is quite shallow.”
“Shallow?” I huffed. “My shooting hand is injured. A large handicap.”
“You are conscious and able to walk. Nothing is broken, and your head seems to have evaded injury, something which mine should learn to achieve. Still, you should take it slow for a while.”
Watson’s eye rolling at my complaints was almost audible. He took his time to clean the abrasions and then applied a fresh layer of bandages, before I helped him to repeat the process on his own leg. A large gash through the front of his thigh, just as I had suspected. It must’ve hurt fiercely as the disinfectant ran through it, but the doctor simply gritted his teeth and wiped the few tears that had formed away without comment.
“This was designed to kill us. Again,” he said after he had regained his composure. “And we walked right into it. So the notebook was planted to lure us here. You saw it right away and notified your colleagues.”
“I alerted them to our presence in the city, nothing more. They didn’t know our exact destination. If I were to guess, I would say they learned of the explosion and deduced the rest. I am prone to attract danger, after all,” I shrugged, stating the truth. “I apologise for keeping your out of the loop.”
“Working with Holmeses, I am quite used to not getting informed of any plan until it is much too late... but you have some securities, at least, whereas your brother likes to rush into everything, relying solely on himself. It is one of his rather trying qualities,” the doctor actually laughed where I expected him to reprimand me. “That doesn’t mean I’m not angry, but rather at myself for being so blinded.”
“The concern for my brother outweighed all reason, and in our haste we both made mistakes. You aren’t to blame.”
No, I was. I could’ve brought agents with us as support. No, they would’ve been hurt in the sand explosion just as we had. But how was I to know? Could I have done something different? There had been no other clue to go on... I shook my head. There was no use dwelling on the past.
I was eager to get going, but we were still clad only in baggy nightshirts - and mine was bloodied so much I couldn’t possibly wear it much longer. The remnants of our clothing were laid out on a nearby table, but I ruled them out immediately. My coat had been torn open by the explosion, the suit jacket, as well as the shirt, was ripped in the back, everything stiff from dried blood. The trousers were usable, but looked horrible - the only thing salvageable were indeed my shoes. I cursed under my breath. The suit had been one of my favourites.
Watson’s attire hadn’t fared much better. The trousers were torn at the leg, corresponding to the gash he had suffered. He eyed the rest of the garments, but as opposed to my set, not even the shoes could be used again.
“This won’t do,” I sighed. ”Excuse me for a moment.”
I left the doctor in the room we had woken up in. Some part of me still wished that he would be unable to walk. Just for a while, so I could leave him behind. Yes, it wasn’t a very nice thing to wish for. Quite egoistically, really. But in the end, I worked better alone, and that was a proven fact.
When I entered the hallway, I needed only a few seconds to orientate myself. After all, I had visited the very same building just twelve years and twenty-three days prior - which was incidentally the same time I had last seen Victoria. I figured she would use her large sitting room as an emergency meeting place and if I hurried she might still be present. I also needed to see the church before the clean-up. As I walked, everyone I passed stared at me either out of curiosity, or simply because I was still clad only in blood stained nightclothes.
At the end of the hallway I descended the stairs and arrived in the comfortably sized entry hall, furnished with only a few low benches at the sides and a decorative table in the middle, which was curiously empty. Just as in the other rooms, the carpeting was elaborate, the colours regal, and the walls were decorated with paintings and banners, which gave the space a dignified feel... that I ruined completely with my disheveled appearance.
My suspicion was right: Voices drifted over from an adjacent sitting room. But I could only take two steps in the right direction before I felt a hand on my arm. I had been so distracted trying to get my thoughts and feelings in order, I hadn’t sensed someone approaching me. When I turned around, I was faced with the very same person I had
wanted to seek out in the first place.
“Mycroft,” Victoria said warmly. My name, uttered in her melodious voice, instantly threw me back in time. “So good to see you, love.”
She hadn’t changed at all. Well, she had in a way. Her hair was longer and braided, still as auburn as ever, and the laughter lines on her face had started to leave their mark. But her warm eyes still sparkled and her smile was unchanged, showing rather too much teeth. She looked open, welcoming... and her mere presence made me long for days gone by. I mustered my strength and pushed back the feelings that my memory so readily supplied.
“It’s good to see you too, Victoria,” I said honestly, because it was. “Thank you for helping us out back there.”
“You weren’t sleeping just now, were you?” Victoria smiled.
“I would appreciate if you could refrain from such... actions in the future.”
This earned me a frown, but no further comment. She was still so impulsive. Her carefree attitude didn’t match with her high position in the Service at all.
“I would like to examine the scene of the explosion myself,” I added.
Victoria paused for a moment, then shook her head.
“And then we go right down to business? Fine. That brings me directly to the most important question: What were you doing in a church in Rome, anyway? If you wanted to see me, there are easier ways.”
“It’s personal business,” I said quickly, even though that wasn’t much of an explanation.
“Personal business gets you blown up?”
“... sometimes.”
We stared at each other for a heartbeat, then broke into laughter, a familiar warmth, unchanged through all the years, spreading in my chest. Curses. That’s why I had vowed never to come back here.
“I am here because of Sherlock.”
I didn’t want to say his name, but there was no way to avoid it. I couldn’t keep the matter from Victoria. She had helped me and had a right to know, not even mentioning the history we three had together. Her eyes widened in surprise and shock.
“Sherlock? What’s it got to do with him? I didn’t know he was in Rome,” she asked, uncertainty clear in her voice.
“He was in Milan, where he apparently got abducted. We followed his trail here, but it was a carefully laid trap.”
“A trap? By whom?”
I thought of the figurine, left there for us to find, mockingly. Of the masks, the feathers. Of the assassin. No names, no direction, no conclusive clues.
“I don’t know. We’ve captured someone who could be responsible, but she escaped before we acquired any vital information.”
“Do you have any theories?”
“Yes. But I won’t tell you before we have examined the evidence together. It would be foolish to taint your thought process with my ideas before you form your own.”
“You never change,” Victoria smiled. ”Like Sherlock.” I cringed at the way she spoke his name, with a different intonation like all these others - even mine.
“I can tell you some details on the way to the church. Just... get me some clean clothes first. Ah, and have some brought to Watson, as well,” I said flatly and decided not to go into the whole Sherlock-related discussion right now. That never ended well.
So it came to be that I was once again dressed in the Italian version of our agent’s uniform, and noticed that they hadn’t changed all that much during the last twelve years. It wasn’t unlike a dress uniform of the military, kept almost completely in black, mixed with elements that could’ve been stolen from a riding ensemble. Simple trousers (the same uniform for men and women) were complemented by a black jacket with two rows of small, silver buttons.
I kept my own, comfortable, gray shoes, instead of the shiny, black ones and declined the round hat that came with it. My gun fit snugly under the jacket, and there was even a place for a sword at the side of my belt. I had trained with the weapon, but rarely used in a fight, so I refused the offered, elegantly decorated short rapier and picked up my cane instead, which hadn’t deserted me in the explosion. The uniform didn’t make blending into a crowd very easy, but it was still better than my torn-up ensemble.
On the way to the church, I filled Victoria in on some of the details, as promised. Since I had woken up, there had been a debate in my head. It was only right and truthful to tell her about the powers we had encountered. I fully expected to find a lot of sand in the church, and there was no other sensible explanation for its presence. I had no fear of being ridiculed for my statements.
No, what irked me was that she could actually believe me and thereby validate that everything that had happened was not just a figment of my imagination. Frankly, I didn’t know which of those options was worse. Finally, I decided to postpone these details until we found actual evidence in the church.
“I missed you,” she said then, as my cursory explanation was over. “All those years...”
“You know the reason for our lack of contact.”
“You had always been such a good friend to me, and then you decide to cut off everything?”
Twelve years was a long time, but she couldn’t actually have forgotten everything? No, it was likely a ploy to make me talk. So I didn’t.
“Do you still...?”
I turned my gaze towards the window. Five years I had waited in her shadow, and now I simply wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of the reaction she provoked.
“I guess not. Fine, I get it.”
There was anger in her voice, but also sadness. It still made me feel protective and I sighed inwardly. Yes, I wouldn’t let myself be drawn into this again, but I couldn’t deny her... no, us a chance at closure. It just wasn’t the time.
“We can postpone this until after we find Sherlock.”
If you will still want to talk as soon as we have him back, I thought. I just knew she wouldn’t. Still, she signaled her reluctant agreement. We sat in awkward silence, with a notable distance between our bodies in the narrow space, until the carriage arrived at our destination. The only sounds were the rattle of the wheels and the rhythm of horseshoes on the cobblestone streets. From time to time, the sounds of the cityscape filtered through like muffled reminders of the world outside.
I recognised the plaza with the tree in front of the church immediately. Only now, the iron barricades in front of the entrance had been removed and the snow cleared to allow entry into the devastated interior. A large number of footprints showed that the church had seen many visitors that day, and the signs posted on the wall were testament to the presence of police at the scene. I hoped they would not hinder my work and mentioned as much to Victoria.
“The explosion was audible in the adjacent houses. We couldn’t keep them from an investigation of their own. But we could get them to let us have a look before them, in exchange for help with the clean-up,” she explained. Her tone told of countless times where talks hadn’t been as smooth.
As I walked behind the woman, who was so familiar to me still, I felt a stab of regret. A reunion should be the cause of joy and fond, nostalgic feelings, while I felt mostly pain and anger. That was no reason for me to start our cooperation on such a bad note, but I needed to keep a reasonable distance between us. Even after all this time, I couldn’t trust my heart to not betray me in the most inopportune of moments, but I could control my actions.
The inside of the church wasn’t as badly damaged as my memory of the incident made me believe. Then again, the sensation of being ripped apart tends to override most other things. It was a wonder that my back was only superficially injured. Yes, it was annoying, but I wasn’t physically impaired beyond an irritated feeling. The wound was more of a large abrasion - and the pain was on the same scale. It was nothing that would keep me from my work. I had performed more strenuous tasks with greater handicaps.
Victoria led me through a group of police officers to the middle of the church. The wooden scaffolding had broken down completely and was strewn about the place. It covered the altar, pews and much in between. Many decorative items had been crushed by the impact and randomly strewn about the floor, some torn and twisted into a parody of their own self.
Above all there was a layer of coarse, reddish sand. With reluctance I touched the substance and braced myself for the same impact I had felt back at Baker Street. When nothing happened, I rolled a few grains between my fingers and brought them to the tip of my tongue. There was a hint of salt, a sharp and metallic taste that remained. So the initial reaction had been an explosion, which was probably triggered through me as I moved the ceramic tile. That didn’t explain the sand, but it brought me back on more stable ground, as at least a part of it was explainable through mundane means.
I stepped cautiously through the rubble, inspecting all parts I could find, but nothing unusual jumped out at me at first glance. No, it was the absence of certain parts that was suspicious. Only the wood had been destroyed. If I wanted to kill some people, I would’ve made sure the ceiling came crashing down on them, at least. Victoria appeared at my side then, the arm of a destroyed statue in hand, pointing its fingers at me with a grin.
“Want to see the exact spot we found you in?”
“It’s closer to that door, isn’t it?”
“Only you would remember the exact place you were blown up in.”
“What can I say? It’s what I do. Remembering, that is. Not being blown up.” The familiar, light humour came easily. We fell back into the same patterns naturally, and I already knew that every moment shared in joy would make it even harder to say goodbye in the end.
The floor, on the other hand, looked quite serious, as it was bloodstained. I could make out parts of my coat clinging to the splintered wood. The sand grains in the vicinity were soaked in red liquid. Parts of Watson’s garments were still stuck under a wooden beam, ripped and crushed together with a statue of an angel, whose face was the only thing still intact, staring at me with dead eyes. It really didn’t look like anyone had made it out alive, and I thanked God for having sustained only such a shallow wound.