Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter XCVII - Sociopathy

-Emily-

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I groan, pulling the blankets around my sorry self and reaching for another tissue. I sit surrounded by them – a cornucopia of crumpled paper – and cups of half-drunk water. John insisted hydration was key, and, given my previous solution had comprised lying inert on the Baker Street sofa in a miasma of misery and blocked sinuses, I had little choice but to follow orders. I sniff dejectedly, sinking back into my sheet cocoon. Death is preferable to the choking head cold that keeps me tight in its grip.

My return to Baker Street was unsettlingly uneventful. I'd succeeded in slipping upstairs in my stained jeans and borrowed shirt-bandeau, managed to bypass John – sleeping on the sofa with Addy curled at his feet – and navigate the dark surroundings. I'd turned the corner with every intention of getting dressed and catching up on some much-needed sleep, but was abruptly halted by Sherlock, who was sitting on the corridor floor, back to the wall. He was surrounded by newspaper cut-outs, at least twenty of them, bearing headlines with capitalised proclamations: Yakovich, Iris Killings, Schoolgirl Missing, Moriarty, Philippines, Massacre. Sherlock was sorting them into piles. He looked up briefly as I stood there, guilty and reeking of sex and whiskey, raised an eyebrow, then turned back to his work disinterested. We didn't discuss it again.

I sigh, bored beyond coherency. There's nothing to do, nothing we can do regarding Millie's hospital abduction. I reach for my laptop and, tucking the loose strands of hair behind my ears, pull up three tabs. They show the hospital security footage, recorded by three individual cameras; our little tragedy, in all its pixelated glory. I rewind it for the umpteenth time, click play, watch the familiar order of events play out. Millie is wheeled from the room by the imposter nurse. Ivan pauses, bends down beside our unconscious bodies, holds his palm out to our mouths, checks our breathing. Satisfied we won't be making a comeback any time soon, he stands, ignores Addy's silent screams and promptly exits. If I continue watching, I see what my eyes did not: Addy's howling alerts a junior doctor, who finds the three unexpected casualties and sprints to get help. We are swiftly packaged up in our own stretchers, strapped down and pricked with needles, stabilised, rushed to the toxicity wing. A part of me wonders if Ivan chose snake venom deliberately, knowing that this particular hospital had the facilities to provide us with the antidote. I smile, bitterly. I shouldn't be so lenient.

I bring up the second tab. The nurse is seen wheeling the stretcher down the corridor, past an unassuming reception, past the ICU and the X-Ray department and the laboratories. She stops by the delivery doors, checks over her shoulder and presses the button that lifts the metal barricade. Millie disappears. Five minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, and Ivan – hands in his scrub pockets, surgical mask obscuring his face – follows the same path, exiting the building.

The third tab rubs salt in the proverbial wound. Millie is manoeuvred into the back of a waiting ambulance, parked between two lorries, by three men. Ivan appears just as the last adjustments are being made. Quickly, and with clear irritation, he scribbles on the back of four cheques and hands them out, before wrenching open the ambulance door and climbing into the driver's seat. The vehicle reverses, then lurches out of the delivery bay, out of sight.

That is the last retrievable footage of Millie Shon. I should know. I've scoured every piece of taped drivel from every functioning security camera in the vicinity, and nothing – Ivan must have mapped the cameras in advance, because the required vehicle change occurred out of the government's watchful gaze. I sniff again, and close all three tabs.

The door opens without warning. I look up, startled, and am surprised to see Sherlock emerge from his bedroom. He hasn't left his personal laboratory in days. John and I have tried unsuccessfully to draw a response from behind the closed door; Mrs Hudson provides the food, which is left on a plastic tray and touched infrequently. He's taken Millie's abduction personally. Seeing him now, in the flesh, is a miracle in itself.