A cab sprinted along Millbank towards Vauxhall Bridge, breaking the silence of the early morning. Hermione observed how the sun's reflections on the Thames danced over Sherlock's features. The bruise covering his left eye had bloomed soon after he had arrived at Baker Street, and now it was an angry purple against his pale skin. He had been drifting in and out as his system tried to fight the last of the drug he had inhaled, only grunting when the car had taken a hump too fast, and the impact had gone to his healing ribs. Hermione herself was not much better. Sitting against the leather warmed by her own body heat, the lack of sleep and the events of the last 24 weighed on her. Currently, Hermione was dissecting the last conversation she had shared with Mary in her head. She should have pressured her more, Hermione thought. She had known something was amiss.
'Stop blaming yourself,' Sherlock said, staring through the window. 'No one saw this coming, not even me.'
Hermione thought about answering with a witty remark about how people were not as predictable as he thought, but she was too emotionally exhausted. And Sherlock was partially right. How could they have known that Mary's past was going to come back this quickly and so soon? They had been too naïve, thinking that erasing Magnussen would suddenly erase years' worth of enemies.
The cab exited the bridge and slowed down near the main gate of the MI6 headquarters. The security guard took Hermione's credentials and registered Sherlock, and they took the corridor to their right and down the stairs leading to the basement. Mycroft's door was open, and he was already waiting for them behind his desk.
Hermione entered and sat in the chair right in front of Mycroft. Sherlock stood behind her, the door closing with a loud thud.
'I assume Dr Watson is seething at home?' Mycroft asked.
'Someone had to stay with Rosie, brother.'
Mycroft smirked. 'Of course.'
Hermione felt Sherlock's knuckles brushing her back as his hands curled over the backrest. 'What do you know about AGRA?'
'Agra? A city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the nor—'
'Mycroft.' Hermione cut him off. 'Please. Enough with the riddles.'
Mycroft shifted his eyes to her and cleared his throat. 'They were a team of agents, the best. Mary was one of them. But you already know that,' he said, looking at Sherlock.
'One of them, Ajay, is looking for Mary.'
'Indeed? Well, that's news to me.'
'Is it?' said Sherlock in a disbelieving tone.
'Our sources said nothing about anyone surviving the whole ordeal. No one but Mary.' Mycroft reclined in his chair. 'AGRA were very reliable; then came the Tbilisi incident. They were sent in to free the hostages, but it all went horribly wrong. And that was that.'
'So you hired them, then?'
'The Government hired them.' Mycroft emphasised. 'After that incident, we stopped using freelancers—my initiative. Freelancers are too woolly, too messy. I don't like loose ends. I proposed the creation of our own in-house dedicated operatives.' He gestured to Hermione with his head.
'There was something else; a detail, a code word.' Sherlock stepped closer to the desk and pulled a notepad towards himself. He scribbled something and pushed it round to Mycroft.
'AMMO?' Mycroft frowned and tapped on the notepad.
'It's all we've got, brother.'
'Little enough.'
'Mycroft,' said Hermione. 'That's a codename if I ever saw one.'
'Could you do some digging as a favour?' asked Sherlock.
Mycroft regarded them and then at the note. 'Neither of you have many favours left. Especially you, Sherlock.'
'Then I'm calling them all in,' answered Sherlock.
Mycroft kept quiet for a moment, looking at his brother. As if they were having a conversation Hermione was not privy to, in a language she could not understand. 'Very well, then. Hermione, I have a couple of things to discuss with my brother, if you don't mind.'
She thought for a second of challenging Mycroft—after all, she had a higher clearance than Sherlock, and it wasn't like the brothers were going to discuss their mother's birthday present. Instead, she stood up. She just wanted to go home.
'I'll go call a taxi.'
Mycroft waited until Hermione was out of earshot to address his brother.
'May I ask, what is your plan, exactly? If you find who's after Mary and neutralise them, what then? Do you think you can go on saving her forever?'
'Of course.'
'Is that sentiment talking?'
'No. It's me.'
'Difficult to tell the difference these days.'
'Told you I made a promise.' Sherlock buttoned his jacket and turned to leave.
'Sherlock,' Mycroft leaned forward, clasping his fingers together. 'Remember this, brother mine: agents like Mary...' He paused for a second, letting his unsaid words hanging in the air. Like Hermione. 'They tend not to reach retirement age. They get retired in a pretty permanent sort of way.'
Sherlock's determined voice made a very definite statement. 'Not on my watch.'
Back at the Watsons', a crumpled letter laid on the centre table, next to a bottle of amber liquid. Mary's elegant handwriting covered an entire page, full of promises Hermione was not sure Mary could fulfil. Hermione cradled her own glass in her hands while Sherlock brought his to his eye. They had been drowning their sorrows in alcohol more times than she would have liked, lately.
John sat alone in the same couch he and his wife had celebrated the birth of Rosie, who had cried herself to sleep, missing her mother. He dragged a hand over his face and his mouth and grabbed the paper again.
'"Every move is random, and not even Sherlock Holmes can anticipate the roll of a die... I need to move the target far, far away from you and Rosie. And then I'll come back, my darling. I swear I will."' John finished reading, got up and paced around the room. They had been at this game for what felt like hours: John reading the parts of the letter he found particularly offensive under the silence of the others. 'She swears? What good is her word anymore?'
Neither Hermione nor Sherlock answered. John had never been exceptionally reasonable when angry.
'Is rolling a die a figure of speech?' asked Sherlock, turning to Hermione.
'No. We... You use it when you want to go under the radar. No one can find you if not even you know where you are going. You spend at most a week in one place, then you move to the next.'
'Just bloody brilliant.' John buried a hand inside his hair, messing it as he did more often as of late. Hermione looked briefly at Sherlock. His eyes were closed, but he was not resting. The wheels in his head were turning, but there was no answer to the laws of probability. She bit her lip. Her own training told her that Mary had done what was best in the face of danger, despite Hermione feeling betrayed. However, Hermione could not stop thinking about someone finding her in the dead of night and Mary dying alone in some dingy motel room. The idea that had been forming in her mind was dangerous and complicated, but it was the only resort they had left.
'I might be able to help.' Sherlock opened his eyes, and John turned to her. 'I could try a tracking spell.'
'It's illegal for you to use magic over...us,' said Sherlock.
Hermione shrugged. 'Wouldn't be the first time I broke the rules for a friend.'
'What do you need?' asked John.
'John, before you get excited, I have to warn you. I have never done a tracking spell. It might not work.'
'What do you need?' John repeated.
'The only thing I know for sure I need is something with her DNA.'
'On it. I'll bring it right back.'
'John!' He stopped on his way to the stairs. 'I need time.'
'How much?'
'I don't know, a couple of days, a month—'
'A month?' John had raised his voice, and Hermione could see his anger was again ready to boil over. 'I've seen you do magic before, you can do the otter-thingy, but you cannot do this?'
'It doesn't work like that, John, this is not a movie—'
'Who knows, maybe you are in on it with Mary. After all, you are just like her.'
'That's enough, John.' Sherlock stood up. Rosie started crying, and John disappeared upstairs without a word. Hermione let out a watery sigh and started gathering her things.
'I should get going. I'll keep you both updated.'
Sherlock gently took her arm, stopping her. He came closer to her, and his eyes bore into hers. 'I'll go with you.'
It could be so easy to let him follow her and get a small reprieve from the anguish covering their lives. After the many times they had drowned unwelcome feelings on each other's bodies, Hermione knew that tonight could be one of those occasions. But then she remembered Sherlock telling her they could not afford distractions, and she untangled herself from the detective. 'You should stay with John, Sherlock. He needs a friend. I'll come by Baker Street as soon as I have something.'
Some weeks later, Hermione threw her copy of Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms onto the cluttered desk and included a Raido symbol into the conjuring writing. She had spent so much time amongst muggles she had forgotten how many variables there were in advanced spells. The tracking spell Hermione remembered having read about at Hogwarts had been a combination of ancient runes and arithmancy, and her knowledge of both had gone rusty with time. After locking herself in his library for hours, Sirius had asked her if she needed any help, which she had declined. What she was about to do was illegal, and she would not put Sirius in that position.
Hermione went over the spell several times and repeated the wand movements as the book described them. When the words felt comfortable in her mouth, she snatched a map from under the mountain of books and scribbled the conjuring on it. The piece of paper turned a glowing gold. Next, she pricked her thumb with a needle and let a drop of blood drip onto the map. Instead of soaking into it, the red dot hovered over a water-like surface. As soon as she recited the spell, the drop glided across the map towards England and stopped on top of London.
She would need a lot of maps then. And it was time to call Sherlock.
The afternoon Hermione performed the tracking spell left her with a bittersweet taste. The whole ordeal had been anticlimactic: she had done the most challenging piece of magic she had done ever since she was 17 and running for her life, but she could not savour it, for neither of the men Hermione was with understood the magnitude of it nor did she care to explain. She guessed it did not look like anything special for people who had Google maps at their fingertips. Sirius would have, without a doubt, complimented her abilities.
With the map of Morocco safely in Sherlock's jacket, John went home to get a few toiletries before boarding a commercial flight that night. Sherlock had returned to his seat in front of the empty fireplace while Hermione packed the extra maps into a box. While she was doing it, she observed Sherlock. Although his demeanour seemed to be the same, something was occupying his mind.
'So, you are going to bring Mary home,' said Hermione, handing him a just brewed tea.
'So it would seem, yes.' Sherlock took the mug and went quiet again.
'Everything alright, Sherlock?'
She was expecting a backhanded comment or simply being ignored. That's why when Sherlock spoke, she felt a shiver of something being out of place. 'When I was unconscious, after Mary drugged me, I saw something. I think I remembered something, something I never knew I knew.'
She sat in John's armchair. 'What did you see?'
' A boy... Maybe four or five, wearing red trousers and a yellow jacket, with a pirate hat and a yellow plastic sword... He's running along the shallows on a beach. I think... I think it's me. And there's an Irish setter there, watching.'
'Redbeard?'
Sherlock opened his eyes, confused for a moment. 'Yeah, Redbeard. And there are two other people. Another boy with red wellies. And a girl.'
'Who are they? Mycroft? A cousin?'
Sherlock shook his head. 'I don't know them. But her voice...' He closed his eyes for a second. Hermione saw how his Adam's apple bobbed up and down. 'She is singing.'
'What is she singing?'
'I that am lost / Oh, who will find me / Deep down below /The old beech tree?' His baritone voice recited the song as a poem rather than singing it, and she was grateful because there was something dark hidden in those words. She can almost feel it—an omen.
'It can very well be a memory, Sherlock. From when you were a child,' tried to explain Hermione.
'I don't remember having friends when I was little, and I don't remember that beach. In fact, I don't have any memories.'
'Sherlock, your memory palace is from way after that. No one has memories from that young. You'd better pack.' She stood up and grabbed her bag. She patted Sherlock's shoulder, and his hand closed around her wrist and then travelled until he was holding her hand between his.
'Don't you ever get tired of fighting?'
'Fighting is everything I've done ever since I was 11.'
Sherlock looked up at her. 'But don't you ever want it to stop?'
Hermione bowed down and left a kiss on his forehead. 'Just a while longer, Sherlock. Then we can rest.'
'You knew I had to leave. You knew I had to.'
Hermione and Mary were in the Watsons' kitchen. Sherlock had texted her when they had arrived back and explained how Ajay had followed them but was dead now. Mary had come back with a fresh scar in her already battered heart. Hermione understood that. He might have wanted her dead, but once upon a time, they had been family.
'After Magnussen, Mary, I would have thought you'd learned your lesson.'
'You told me to trust Mycroft and see where I landed. Being held hostage by a psychopath.'
'I don't mean Mycroft.'
Mary reached for her hand over the table, and Hermione did not resist her. 'Herms, I love you, you know I do. And I do trust you. But Mycroft is too close to this case, and I... Despite how much I dislike him, I would never put you in a position where you need to choose.'
'You could have told Sherlock, at least.'
'Sherlock needs to learn he cannot save everyone.'
Hermione and Mary smiled. They both knew that would not happen. 'What now then?'
Mary's expression turned sombre. 'Sherlock will try to get to the bottom of this. And I will try to save my marriage. Whatever is left of it, anyway. It's my fault, honestly. I've pushed my luck for way too long.'
'What do you mean?'
Mary opened her wallet and took out a piece of paper with a letter and a phone number. Hermione rechecked it.
'Surely John wouldn't...' Hermione trailed off as she saw Mary's tears. 'Are you certain?'
Mary nodded, and Hermione got up to hug her as she finally crumbled. Hermione shushed the other woman while pondering if she really knew John Watson.
Hermione woke up in a dark room. She had no recollection of how or when she had arrived there, wherever she was. The comforter was soft and warm under her fingertips and smelled like expensive lavender softener she knew so well.
I am at Mycroft's, she thought.
Flashes of memories came to her. She remembered Sherlock sending her a text. A short, 'we will rest today,' which had done nothing to her nerves. Then John had called her, prompting her to go to the aquarium. She had tried to reach out to Mary, but her phone had been disconnected.
She had arrived at the aquarium. The police cars had been blocking the entrance, and the area had been cordoned off. She had yelled Greg's name, hoping he would be there to let her in. And then it happened.
A gunshot.
She remembered how the noise of a gunshot in the night sent people into a frenzy in the crowded street, tourists and Londoners alike running to shelter. Her own ears had filled with blood pumping and had tuned out every other sound but that of her breathing. She had tried to get to where the officers were when Lestrade had appeared and had screamed for an ambulance. The urgency in his voice left no doubt. Whoever it was, they were dying. Sherlock had been wrong: not everything was predictable. She had fought against the mass of people trying to get through. She had kept her eyes on Lestrade and the crash team, who were running from the nearby St Thomas' hospital across the road. Hermione reached the front and stepped over the police tape, but someone caught her by the waist. She twisted and turned as she saw how a young officer instructed the A&E people but shook his head. Then everything had gone black.
That had been hours ago, as it was dark outside the window. Hermione got up and lost her balance, her head pounding. She came down the stairs handling the rail, following the only light source leading her to the living room. Mycroft stood in front of the fireplace, his waistcoat open and his jacket discarded over a chair, talking in rushed whispers on his phone. When he heard her footsteps, he turned to her and hung up the call. His sunken, bloodshot eyes told a whole story, and Hermione felt her stomach rebelling against her in a wave of nausea.
'Who.' Hermione's voice sounded raw and unused.
The man relaxed his arms, defeated. He looked at her, and his eyes were full of sorrow and regret. Mycroft was not so difficult to read when he behaved like a human being. That's how she could read the name in him before he even said it.
'Mary.'
She let out an involuntary whimper as her throat tightened. A short intake of breath and a small, pained sound escaped her lips, and before she could scramble to the floor, they had turned into gut-wrenching sobs that tore through her chest. Mycroft dropped by her side and cradled her in his chest while she wailed and cried, murmuring 'I'm sorry' over and over again.