A/N - Happy Easter, my loves! I hope you have been treated with chocolate but don't forget the religious importance of today if you believe in it ^-^
New chap :)
It took me a lil longer to write because I'm now transitioning out of episode-led chapters again and I was finishing off my last week of work before the holidays!
Hope you is all well :D
Warnings - minor swearing/some violence
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Elizabeth finally got back to London, to the flat on Baker Street, around eleven 'o'clock at night. The urban streets were still and quiet, few people walked the streets and some cars moved sluggishly down the roads. She thanked the cab driver, paid him, then proceeded to haul her small suitcase to the door of 221B.
Removing her necklace (that she always wore since Sherlock had gifted it to her), she used the key to unlock the door and dragged herself in.
At hearing the click of the lock and the door opening, Mrs Hudson peeked out of the door of her flat.
"Elizabeth? What are you doing back so soon? Have you solved your case already? Where are the boys?"
The thief shook her head, "I came back on my own. They are still in Devon, solving the case."
"Oh...why?"
She shrugged with a bitter smile crossing her lips, "Because...things are not doing too well and I refuse to stay in such a cursed place." Elizabeth dragged her suitcase to the bottom of the stairs, "I'm just going to head up to the flat. I'm tired."
"Of course, dear, you go rest. If you need anything - "
"I'll be alright, Mrs H, us women are a lot more self-sufficient than the men after all."
A cheeky smile crossed the landlady's lips as she gave a nod and retreated back into her own flat.
* * * * * *
Upstairs, Elizabeth collapsed on the sofa, a heavy sigh leaving her lips. It had been a lie. She wasn't tired but wide-awake, too afraid to sleep in case she saw that thing coming at her again. She had no urge to read or clean or watch TV. What her urge told her was that she needed a better distraction.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she checked the time. Eleven-twenty-six, the time read.
The heist was at two a.m.
Elizabeth found herself heading to the contacts list on her phone, stopping on the names that came under 'C'. Her thumb hovered over Cleo's name as she debated with herself over whether she should or shouldn't go.
Tapping the call sign besides her name, she brought the phone to her ear.
"Still want me on the heist?"
* * * * * *
The rendezvous was a small alley near the Bank of England - several buildings down from it. Despite needing to get to the basement, their access point would be through the top of the building. It was all part of the plan - Jim's plan. And with this second chance that she had been gifted, all Cleo had to do now was follow it and pray to God that everything would work out right.
She stood with three other girls, all of them kitted out in black catsuits - it was just easier to move in after all, more flexible and lightweight, perfect for the stealthy crimes such as the one they were about to commit. The only difference for her was that she wore a straight blonde wig that had been tied up into a pony tail to hide her noticeable hairstyle.
"What happened to you and the detective then?" Cleo asked when she saw Elizabeth strolling up to the small group.
Elizabeth was kitted out in her own black catsuit as she always was for times like these. The brunette tied her hair back as she made her way over to them, not particularly enthusiastic about the question she had been asked.
"Not really any of your business, is it?" Came her curt reply, "Got everything?"
Cleo laughed at her attitude, "You might have been doing this for longer than any of us but the main value the Forty Elephants hold is that we are always prepared."
"Prepared and missing a person?" She noted that there were only four other women instead of five.
The leader pointed above her own head.
Amber stood above them on the fire escape, glaring down at the gang's newcomer, her one hand resting against the metal, no longer bandaged but terribly scarred and stiff. If she could, she would gut Elizabeth yet she had been strictly informed not to unless she wished to be gutted herself.
Cleo chucked Elizabeth a slim, black rucksack, "Mask's inside."
Unzipping the backpack, she delved into it, reaching for the mask but her fingers also brushed past something else. Her brow wrinkled as she drew out two objects: a black elephant mask that would cover only the front of her face and also a gun. This time, Elizabeth laughed.
"If you know I used to work for Jim, then you should know that I don't kill."
Cleo and the girls looked at her as though she were acting like an arrogant bitch. Elizabeth wasn't being over-confident about her abilities - she simply did not wish to cause any violence. Theft was a big enough crime in and of itself - murder was unnecessary.
"And what do you do if you get caught by an armed guard?"
"I - "
"Shoot first." Came Amber's sharp tongue.
Cleo smiled tightly, "We don't have time for casualties. If you don't like it, I can't do anything about it, but the code is that we will leave you behind." She walked over to the thief, took the gun from her, checked the bullet chamber and handed it back to her, "I wonder what it would look like if your detective came back to find you in a jail cell for something you promised you would never do again."
Without breaking her gaze, Elizabeth shoved the weapon into the rucksack. She wouldn't use it. God help her, but she wouldn't go against her word, she would not kill anyone by her own hand and certainly not for this gang.
Elizabeth put on the mask, making sure to tie the string tightly around the back of her head to prevent it from slipping.
"Everybody clear on the new plan?" Cleo acknowledged their nods, "Then let's go."
On the way up the fire escape stairs, Amber stopped Elizabeth at the top.
"Got a problem?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Amber." Cleo warned from behind her right-hand woman, "We want this heist to go smoothly."
"It will." She said, not taking her eyes off the thief, "I just want to make it clear that if I could repeat our first encounter, I would go for your eyes."
Elizabeth took one look at her shaking, injured hand, "Think you mean eye. Because you clearly can't take out both with a hand that shakes like that."
"Watch me."
"Watch me because at least I still have the skill to not end up with a debilitating injury."
"You - "
"Girls!" Cleo barked lowly, "We do not have the time for this. You both don't like each other, so what? You are both relying on each other currently so don't screw up because of a petty dislike of one another otherwise you'll both have me to answer to." She paused, "Both of you, up these stairs now."
With a final huff and glower, Amber turned on the spot, travelling upwards, with Elizabeth and Cleo in tow.
* * * * * *
The halls of the bank were beautifully resplendent, Elizabeth found, as though it were not a bank but shared an interior similar to Buckingham Palace - all cream and golden, with a floor that shone so much so that you could see your reflection in it.
One of the six girls remained by the exit with a radio - a watcher that would insist they bail if anything got too risky. Cleo instructed her to only use said radio in the event of an emergency though. Otherwise, their boss expected radio silence.
Two of the girls went ahead with the instructions to mess with the CCTV cameras - what Elizabeth didn't know though, is that Cleo had previously instructed them to leave two of the cameras functional - the one in the room with the safe in it and one camera on the way back out.
And then that left the three other women in the middle - Cleo, Amber and Elizabeth.
They snuck past armed guards that patrolled the halls, their intimidating footsteps echoing, cutting it fine a couple of times as they darted into the shadows, trying to remain relatively camouflaged by the lack of light. They made it to the basement safe with relative ease (which Elizabeth found bizarre, particularly when she was certain they were going to be caught one time) and saw that the other two women were there waiting for them.
"Ange, you sorted out the alarm?" Cleo questioned.
The one woman nodded, her specialist computer on the floor, opened in front of her.
"Perfect. Let's open her up then."
Seconds of tapping passed before they heard the clicks of multiple locks from inside the door and then a low creaking rumble as the metal door opened. Elizabeth kept looking over her shoulder, quite perturbed by how easy it had been to get into the Bank of England - as in the literal Bank of England, the bank that was central to the British economy. Maybe the women were just very talented at hacking but the thief felt as though the bank should've had stronger technological defences. And what about guards? Yes, there were armed guards but...even they were scarce.
Something about this wasn't right.
Inside were dozens and dozens of racks of stacked cash, all packaged in plastic and shining dully in the bright light. This was more cash than any of the women had ever seen before - it was oddly beautiful to Elizabeth who, of course, still was a thief at heart. At the end of path between the racks, she had noticed a large service elevator.
"We going further down?" She asked Cleo.
The woman shook her head, "Gold bars are too heavy to carry so not worth the risk." She began to usher the women in, "Pack as much of the cash into your packs as possible. It'll be a long while before we attempt something like this again so make this one count."
And the group of women got to it, grabbing handfuls of the small, plastic-sealed packs of cash and stuffed them into their black backpacks. Elizabeth made sure to entirely cover the gun in the bottom of her pack, still not wanting to even look at it for the remainder of their heist.
Amber was finished far sooner than Elizabeth as she had been one of the first to start snatching the money. She peered at Elizabeth through her Elephant mask and then looked over at Cleo.
Her boss just gave a single nod.
Cleo's right-hand woman strolled out of the safe and approached the portable laptop that had been left near the humongous metal door by their designated hacker. Looking at the laptop screen, she moved the mouse and clicked on a single box, then typed an instruction. All of them apart from Elizabeth knew what would happen within the next fifteen seconds.
Amber moved back over to the door where Cleo now stood.
"We still get out of this, don't we?"
"We all do." Cleo answered, "Her time isn't now, remember. You'll have to put up with her a little longer."
Alarms started blaring and red lights started blinking in and outside of the safe, startling Elizabeth and the other two thieves.
"Let's go, ladies, I don't care what you have or don't have, we're out!"
The three women, while zipping up their bags, jogged over to the thick metal door, Elizabeth last to pass Cleo.
"Where's your gun?"
"Told you, Cleo, I'm not using it."
"A dozen armed guards will be hot on our tails in a matter of seconds and you don't want a weapon to protect yourself?"
"No."
Amber pulled an extra gun out of her pack and shoved it at Elizabeth, "Take the damn gun. Use it, don't use it, but at least you have it just in case." Her glare was as clear as glass from behind her elephant mask, "Now hurry up, we're going out the way we came so we need to go."
The thief looked down at the weapon in her hands for a moment, feeling a panic rising in her. She wasn't a killer. She didn't have to use it. The gun could simply be a form of intimidation...although, to an armed guard she wasn't too sure how that would work.
"Let's go!" Cleo ushered the newbie to follow after the other women.
Elizabeth pelted after them, the heavy pack hurting her shoulders slightly but it was a bearable pain. That adrenaline rushed through her, a feeling she once worshipped but now felt sick over for experiencing. As they got closer and closer to top of the building, where they had first entered, the adrenaline slowly twisted to become an overwhelming sense of dread.
Her pace began to slow as she got distracted by her own thoughts to the point of which Cleo raced ahead of her, throwing a look over her shoulder merely to yell and snap her back to reality. But her words were interrupted by another's:
"Stop! Stop right there! I'll shoot!"
Elizabeth turned to face the armed guard that had shouted at their small group, her own gun raised towards him in an instant, but not prepped in anyway.
"Put the weapon down or I'll shoot." He spoke sharply.
For a moment, as she watched her own hand shake and stared down the barrel of her opposition's gun, she asked herself if she actually had a death wish all this time, if she actually wanted him to shoot.
Cleo and Amber had lingered by the door to the roof, watching this exchange like panthers ready to pounce if need be, waiting for her to do it, to shoot, but they knew she wouldn't. Cleo still had a brother on the line and she needed Elizabeth alive for Jacob to also remain in the land of the living. She sighed, looking up at the cameras that were not facing the door they stood by, but more so at the nerve-wracking event in front of them.
"She won't shoot." Cleo spoke to Amber quietly, "Cameras aren't on us. Shoot the guard before he shoots her and before anyone else comes."
"Dead?"
"Your choice. We'll be outside." And with that Cleo had left.
Elizabeth still had her eyes locked with the black hole, the eye of death, that was the end of the guard's barrel. Did she want it to end like this?
"Put the gun down! This is your last war - "
A shot rang out.
Time distorted. Slowed. Warped. It felt surreal.
Elizabeth had raised her arms and had crouched suddenly in defence, squeezing her eyes shut for a half-second before opening them to check if she, herself, had been shot. To her relief, she found no bullet wound on her body, but was met by a tight pair of hands on her shoulders, hurriedly pulling her up and turning her so they could run to the door of the stairs to the roof. Amber snatched the gun from Elizabeth.
"Get up, go."
And as the thief was being rushed out, she peeked over her shoulder to see the fallen guard, afloat on a sea of red that now tainted the once gleaming cream floor.
* * * * * *
Elizabeth unlocked the door to 221B and shut it a little loudly, only to let her back hit the door as though she were stopping the world from breaking in. Her mask was discarded, the backpack of cash was now at the Rob'n'Cat, but she still wore her catsuit and still wore the expression of shock, of not knowing what exactly she should be feeling after what had happened.
"I thought I heard the door slam." Came Mrs Hudson's light voice, as she shuffled out of her flat in her dressing gown, "Have you been out, dear? It's nearly three-thirty in the morning!"
"Sorry if I - I woke you." Elizabeth said, barely loud enough for her to hear.
"Is everything alright, Elizabeth?" The land lady thought her female lodger's choice of clothes was peculiar, "Aren't you cold?"
"Y - yes. I'm - uh - I'm going to head up now. Sorry - sorry for waking you again." She pushed herself away from the front door and traipsed up the stairs, pale as snow.
Mrs Hudson watched her go, brows drawn together as she bit her lip, moving only to check and lock the front door which the thief had forgotten about. By the time the landlady looked around again, the young woman was gone from her view.
Perhaps they could speak about it in the morning...
* * * * * *
The day after the events at the hollow, once the detective had had time to process both his thoughts and feelings so that he could start looking for rational explanations, Sherlock headed straight to Henry's house in search of one thing: sugar.
After his brief conversation with the client, he went on his way again, now allowing his mind to drift slightly from his focus. Where was Elizabeth? Where was John? As he strolled hurriedly through Grimpen village, he scanned the graveyard out of a morbid curiosity only to spot John sat on a wall. The detective paused his walk, watching his friend look down at his own notebook intensely.
Sherlock looked down the path and then back at the graveyard, deciding that he should probably speak with his friend. With a shriek of metal, he pulled open the black-painted gate and paced into the graveyard. His heavy footsteps gained John's attention as he neared.
But at seeing Sherlock, John packed away his notebook, getting ready to leave as he stopped in front of the army doctor.
"Seen Elizabeth?" Sherlock asked quietly.
John lingered on the wall for a moment, "She went back to London last night."
The detective nodded, saddened by this, especially considering he had gone through so much effort to get her to join them on the case. Of course his words had pushed her away...had he wanted to truly push her away though? No. He never wished to do that but the harsh words had just...happened. Then again, hardly his fault when she was acting so suspicious.
"Did you, er, get anywhere with that morse code?"
John stood up from the wall now, beginning to walk away, "Nah."
"U, M, Q, R, A, wasn’t it?" Sherlock tried to show be truly was interested and followed after him, "Umqra?"
"Nothing." The army man shook his head.
"Um-Q-"
"Look, forget it. It’s...I thought I was on to something. I wasn’t."
"Sure?"
"Yeah." John kept walking.
Sherlock kept following, "How about Louise Mortimer? Did you get anywhere with her?"
"No."
"Too bad. But did you get any information?"
A tight-lipped smile crossed the doctor's face, "You being funny now?"
"Thought it might break the ice a bit..."
"Funny doesn’t suit you." John said matter-of-factly, "Let's stick to ice."
Sherlock could see his friend was hurt and the fact that Elizabeth had left altogether didn't bode well for him for when they returned either. Hurt crossed his expression and remained stuck there for a moment.
He croaked, "John - "
"It’s fine."
"Wait." Sherlock asked, "What happened last night - something happened to me; something I’ve not really experienced before - "
"Yes, you said: fear. Sherlock Holmes got scared, you said."
"No." Sherlock said, now daring to grab John's arm to stop his pacing and keep him close, "No-no, it was more than that, John. It was doubt. I felt doubt. I’ve always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night."
"You can’t actually believe that you saw some kind of monster?"
"No, I can’t believe that." Sherlock gave an uncertain smile, "But I did see it, so the question is: how? How?"
John gave the detective a hard stare, still unimpressed that Sherlock hadn't yet apologised, "Yes. Yeah, right, good." He nodded, "So you’ve got something to go on, then? Good luck with that." And then the doctor moved to walk away again.
"Listen, what I said before, John. I meant it." Sherlock called after him, "I don’t have friends...I’ve just got one."
By this point, John had stopped some distance away from the detective, only to turn and meet his gaze. One friend and one (now absent) girlfriend. Without any mention of Elizabeth, John still wasn't wholly ready to forgive him just yet.
"Right."
As the doctor continued his strong army walk out of the graveyard, something clicked in Sherlock's brain. Umqra. U.M.Q.R.A. It made perfect sense. No one would use the word 'hound' nowadays unless it were some child looking for a synonym in their English exams.
"John?" The detective called, racing after him, "John! You are amazing! You are fantastic!
"Yes, all right!" The doctor called back, "You don’t have to overdo it."
Sherlock caught up to his friend, walking at his pace now, "You’ve never been the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light you are unbeatable."
"Cheers." John frowned, for a moment, not actually quite sure what he was saying, "What?"
"Some people who aren’t geniuses have an amazing ability to stimulate it in others."
"Hang on – you were saying 'sorry' a minute ago. Don’t spoil it." John paused, never able to quash his own curiousity regardless of the emotional turmoil he found himself in, "So go on, what have I done that’s so bloody stimulating?"
As they were marching back towards the pub, Sherlock had pulled his own notebook out of his pocket and had been writing something in it, only to stop suddenly and spin to face John, showing him a page that read 'HOUND'.
"Yeah?"
"What if it’s not a word?" Sherlock brought the book back to his chest so he could add some dots between the letters, "What if it is individual letters?"
"You think it’s an acronym?"
"Absolutely no idea but..." As Sherlock looked back into the pub, the doors of which were wide open, he saw a rather tanned man with sunglasses stood by the bar, "What the hell are you doing here?"
The detective marched into the pub in a huff with his crime solving partner in tow.
"Oh, nice to see you too!" Answered Lestrade, "I’m on holiday, would you believe?"
"No, I wouldn’t." Came the detective's snarky, childish response.
"Hullo, John." Lestrade greeted.
"Greg!"
"I heard you were in the area." Lestrade said, taking off his sunglasses to pop into his shirt pocket, "What are you up to? You after this 'Hound of Hell' like on the telly?"
But Sherlock was having none of this small-talk, "I’m waiting for an explanation, Inspector, why are you here?"
"I’ve told you," Greg shrugged, "I’m on holiday."
"You’re brown as a nut! You’re clearly just back from your 'holidays'."
"I fancied another one." Lestrade gave a sassy tilt of his head in response.
"Oh, this is Mycroft, isn’t it?"
"No, look - "
"Of course it is! One mention of Baskerville and he sends down my handler to - to spy on me, incognito." Sherlock began to rant, "Is that why you’re calling yourself Greg?
"That’s his name," John frowned at this question and looked at Sherlock, perplexed. How after all this time had he still not picked up on such a simple fact?
"Is it?"
"Yes." Came the inspector's unimpressed tone as he turned to take a sip of his beer, "If you’d ever bothered to find out...Look, I’m not your handler. And I don’t just do what your brother tells me."
"Actually, you could be just the man we want." John suggested.
"Why?" Moaned the child of the trio.
"Well, I’ve not been idle, Sherlock. I think I might have found something." John fished out the receipt that he had taken from the bar yesterday, "Here. Didn’t know if it was relevant." He showed it to Sherlock, "Starting to look like it might be. That is an awful lot of meat for a vegetarian restaurant."
The detective was impressed, "Excellent."
"Nice scary inspector from Scotland Yard, who can put in a few calls, might come in very handy." John noted, dinging the bell on the bar "Shop!"
As they waited for the owner to come to the front, Lestrade wanted to elaborate on why he was here, "Like I said, by the way, it's not just your brother that prompted me to come."
Sherlock raised a single eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.
"In fact, there was a robbery last night. Bank of England." He paused, "And the Forty Elephants did it. We have footage."
* * * * * *
Nearing ten in the evening on the fifteenth of March, Mycroft sat in his room, on the edge of his bed, an old biscuit tin opened beside him and pictures of the past strewn across the top of his lavish duvet. Was Mycroft a sentimental man? He would answer 'no' if you asked him outright...but he always kept pictures, reminders of what had happened and mainly of his (and Sherlock's) achievements but also of his time at university, where he had met Rita at the drama society.
Arguably, Rita was the only woman he had ever felt anything for but again, would never admit it if you asked him.
He found a picture of himself dressed as Lady Bracknell and Rita as Cecily Cardrew, both sat together in the Victorian dresses they had worn, him smiling at Rita because of the goofy look on her face, a piece of her curly blonde wig placed over the top of her puckered lips. God, he thought, how youthful they both looked.
Another one he found of Rita as Stella from A Streetcar Named Desire, black hair curled and sat on the fake set of stairs that had been made for the stage set, looking off, away from the camera and into the distance - an image Mycroft could only describe as one of true, unadulterated beauty.
One photograph saw them slow dancing on stage as extras. He was sure it was for a pantomime for a local school in the area but the name of it didn't quite make it back into his mind.
This was why he kept pictures.
He knew he valued cold rationality over irrational emotions and knew that he would end up deleting some memories over the years to make space for new information. He always knew sentiment was a weakness and this situation proved it. A month and a half on he was still mourning her death. He hadn't left the mansion, had barely slept, had sometimes regressed to his old ways and indulged in food a bit more than he knew he should and constantly willed the universe to bring her back to him.
But he had seen her body. He had been to her funeral.
It was a closed casket because of the terrible state she was so recklessly put in after being chemically burned and then shot. He knew she would have wanted it that way (she probably would have told him she wasn't looking her best anyway) but the fact was that he would have done anything to see her one last time.
"Mr Holmes?" A maid's nervous voice came from behind his room door, "There is a woman here to see you."
He stood up, approaching his bedroom door and opened it, a stern look on his face, "Tell them to leave."
"I - uh - I did, Mr Holmes. They are refusing to leave until they see you."
Mycroft huffed, "Fine, tell them I will be down in a moment."
And with that the maid left and his door was shut again. He moved to silently grab his blazer from the top of his bed, moved to his mirror to sort out his collar and did bother to put on a tie before heading out and down the staircase.
He saw a woman, dressed in a neat, all-black suit and black heels and wearing one of those large, black, fake hair flowers, accompanied by a black mesh to hide her face. She simply stared out of the window that was situated beside his front door.
"Yes, what is it?" He asked, not really in the mood for visitors of any kind, be they business or acquaintance.
The woman turned. There was something eerily familiar about her but Mycroft couldn't place it. That was, he couldn't place it until she spoke.
"Hello, Myc."