-Millie-
~~~~~~
The crying is incessant.
I press my lips together in an effort at containing my frustration, put the spoon down, wait for Addy's features to smooth, then try again – to no success. She bats my hand away. Puréed vegetable spatters my sleeve.
Her current mood reflects the general attitude at Baker Street: John hasn't returned, I haven't slept in a solid forty-eight hours and Sherlock, in his state of resentful, unprocessed grief, makes no effort to initiate conversation. When talking is a necessity, our exchanges are unbearably clipped. I think he blames me for John's departure and increasingly probable murder. I'm starting to blame myself, too.
Addy's cry becomes a scream – a drawn-out, full-bodied howl, continuous and grating – and my attempts to placate her are proving utterly ineffective. I lift the spoon to her mouth. Her screams become louder. I return the spoon to the table. In a display of discontent, she raises her fat fist and, with the deliberate viciousness habitual to children, knocks the jar off the counter.
I lose what is left of my patience.
I shut the front door with enough force to shake its wooden frame, seething as I step out onto the dark pavement and begin my pacing. I walk for a full hour, my footsteps quick and body tense, and as I do so I grant myself a moment of selfish speculation: I feel bitter, betrayed by the unjustness of my circumstances and cheated of a certain happiness – what have I done to deserve such misery? I've tried to be impartial, tried to keep everybody functioning, and to what avail? I'm being hunted by a face I can't remember, John's gone, Mary's dead, Sherlock and I can't bear to be around each other–
The distant slam of a car door brings me to my senses.
I look around; it's only half past five, but, as is the case with England's seasonal incompetence, it's dark now. Too dark to see.
Too dark to feel safe.
I can't locate the car responsible for the noise, and I don't like the ensuing silence. Instinctively, I quicken my pace, looking behind me with the clichéd furtiveness of a comic book caricature. My breath snags, my heart protests weakly at the sudden exertion, but I don't stop until I have the main road in sight–
My arm is grabbed unexpectedly.
I am hauled backwards, into the small alleyway behind a grey-streaked building. The base of my skull catches the brickwork and spots of condensed light – too bright to be considered colour – break apart my vision. I let out a stifled yelp.
A hand is clamped over my mouth.
No further action is taken: my head ceases its spinning, the pain fades, and I start to struggle, the reality of my situation registering fully. I look up at the perpetrator, dazed, numb and sick with terror.
Sebastian's face comes into focus.
"Don't talk."
The fear doesn't diffuse, but I arrange my expression into one of recognition. I stop my struggling. Once he's confident I'm not going to shout out, he removes his hand; cautious in his movement.
I keep very still.
Sebastian takes a deep breath, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks around. Through the grey haze of tonight's low cloud, I make out his appearance – he's changed since I last saw him, become more rugged, more unkempt, his hair left to grow longer, blond and curling at his forehead. His muscle mass has increased substantially, too; a packed bulk of strengthened tissue, straining beneath the fabric of his sleeves. It's not his physical attributes that give me cause for concern, however. It's his countenance: his eyes are too bright, the potency in his expression too acute. He looks haggard, worn to the brink of instability. He looks wild.
"Where is she?"
I blink, taken aback. "Who?"
He turns quickly; violent in his frustration.
"Schott."
"Emily...?" I repeat. "I haven't seen her in months."
He curses, and I jump, flinching at the sound. The main road looks a very long way away.
"She hasn't come back to you?"
"Back? Where was she?"
"Russia."
"Russia?"
"Haven't you heard?" He smiles, darkly. "She married the Commie. Slimy little bastard. Changes his name more times in a day than I can count."
I can only gape at him.
"Emily would never marry–"
"She married him, all right." He runs a hand through his hair, and I take a cautionary step backwards. I don't like the intensity of his emotion. "And now he's lost it. Batshit crazy."
"She isn't with Moriarty?"
"Is she hell. Left three months ago, the bitch – and now I've got to deal with the consequences. You should hear him ranting. I can't keep up with it, anymore. He tells me he wants her dead, then he wants her back, he wants her hanged, he wants to give her Yakovich's head on a platter. Or his heart. Or his lungs. I've heard it all."
"Yakovich." I recognise the name. "Who is he?"
"Conman. So he says."
I remember the man in the hospital. "Does he have blue eyes?"
"That's the one."
"Why Emily?"
He laughs, then. "Why do you think? She couldn't keep her legs together. Yakovich likes his women well-used. If they get knocked up, he can blame it on someone else." He leans against the wall. "You know the type."
The acrimony in his tone is palpable; the anger hums, vibrates in the air, pulled out thin, taut under pressure.
I try to draw the conversation away from Emily, in the hope of making an imminent departure. "I've heard his name a lot."
"I bet you have," says Sebastian. "He's everywhere – in your work, in your home, in your head. Guaranteed you'll know someone with ties to pretty Mr Yakovich."
I begin to feel the wall behind me, gauging the distance between my current position and the corner.
"I saw him," he continues. "At the dinner. You should have seen the look on his face when he wasn't smiling like he owned the place. There's something off about him. I know it. Jim knows it too. He keeps telling me to wait. Wait, he says. Wait for it to click. Wait for her to see it. Doesn't tell me what 'it' is." Sebastian raises an eyebrow at my expression. "What?"
"You were at that dinner," I say, a little hoarsely. "When the chandelier dropped."
The weight of my statement resonates. He stops moving.
I regard him with a growing sense of white fear, and begin calculating the time it would take for me to push past the arm currently blocking my exit and turn the corner: from there on out, it's a straight sprint to the main road. I could do it in five seconds.
"Please," I say, as I edge towards the corner. "Stop."
"Stop what?"
I speak slowly, meaningfully, praying he understands. "All of this."
His expression does some shifting of its own.
"I don't know what you're talking about–"
Without warning, I duck under his arm, twist from the grab he makes for my wrist, and run blindly along the length of the backstreet to the main road: I don't look to see if he's following me – instead I move out, out into the street, away from the shadows and into the neon lighting of Leicester Square, until my lungs are aching with exertion and my drug-addled heart strains at its coronary confines.
I step out into the road, reckless with adrenaline. A car swerves. Horns sound in furious protest. Panicked, I freeze, unable to move backwards or forwards for fear of collision. One vehicle slams to a halt in front of me – when I open my eyes, I could cry with relief, for I recognise the black wording and orange rectangle. Swallowing my temporary paralysis, I make a shaky gesture at the taxi driver. After giving me a very harsh, two-fingered gesture in return, he must take pity on the wide-eyed ghost-woman on a suicide mission, because he sighs and points to the door. I climb in, trembling with a terror that pins me to the backseat in a chokehold. The door shuts. The engine revs.
The smell of week-old tobacco ash has never been so thoroughly appreciated.
~~~~~~
-Emily-
~~~~~~
"Ivan," I say, prodding the side of his chest. "Ivan."
He makes a noise of acknowledgement – a hum at the back of his throat – but doesn't open his eyes or lift the arm from my shoulders.
I try again, this time with my elbow. "Ivan. Wake up."
His grip tightens. I lift my fingers to his chin and, as gently as I can manage, press it down. He's shaved recently. I'm not used to the smooth contours of his jaw. Reluctantly, he opens one eye – strikingly pale against the flush of his face; a chip of fissured ice set in rose quartz – and says, in a sleep-cracked voice that is a good two octaves lower than usual, "What is it?"
"I can't sleep," I say, shifting beside him. "It's the newspaper insert."
Slowly, with his feline fluidity, Ivan stretches, then rubs his eyes. He moves onto his side, props himself up on one elbow, and regards me with unfocused concern.
"Newspaper insert?"
"Jim. The threat. All of it." I mirror Ivan, resting on my side. "He's not going to stop."
"Surely he will grow tired of it, playing for so long."
"You didn't see him before. If there's one thing Jim loves more than a game, it's fulfilling revenge."
Ivan gives me a somnolent smile. "He will not kill me."
"No," I agree. "Not at first. He's the type of man who'd rather sit back and watch you hold the gun to your head yourself. He pushes you to self-destruct. It's his forte."
"We can elude him, no?"
"He's already found us once. We need something permanent."
"I am a conman, not an assassin," says Ivan, gently. "I cannot organise murder."
"Not murder," I say. "Distraction. We're going to need help."
"I do not think there is anyone capable of helping us against a man like Mr Moriarty."
I take a deep breath.
"There is. A group of them. They've done it before."
Ivan watches me in silence, awaiting further explanation.
"You must have seen it in the news – Sherlock and Jim had it out for each other from day one. Nearly killed themselves because of it."
"You think–" he begins, then cuts off: after a few, failed attempts at pronouncing Sherlock's name, Ivan returns to formality. "You think Mr Holmes is our solution?"
"Not just him. John Watson. Millie Shon. They've all had their fair share of Jim Moriarty – and they're still alive today. Only, we're not exactly on talking terms."
"Ah," says Ivan. "This is Ms Adamek's doing."
I try not to flinch at the memory. "Yes."
Ivan must pick up on my unwillingness to talk, because he nods, solemnly, and says, "I do not need the details. You would like to re-establish communication with Mr Holmes and his friends?"
"I've been thinking about this all night – they know what they're up against. They've done it before. They can do it again. Even if they just deflect Jim's attention long enough for us to relocate – I can disable Jim's network temporarily, make us a blind spot. You do your thing."
Ivan laughs. "My thing?"
"You know," I say, gesturing vaguely. "Lying. Scheming. Conniving."
He smiles, and leans back against the pillow. I'm becoming increasingly irritated by his lack of concern.
"I don't think you appreciate how dangerous that man is."
"I do," says Ivan, drowsily. "But he does not scare me."
"He should."
"I do not see why."
I lose my temper, then.
"You don't understand. I've seen it happen – I helped it happen. You've got it wrong. It's not bullets, with Jim. He goes for your mind. He'll play with you and torment you and take things from you until you're the one tying the noose around your neck. He forced Sherlock Holmes into hiding for two years. He drove Irene to near insanity. That was them. He'll tear you apart." My voice edges towards hysteria, but I press on regardless. "You being this casual – it's idiotic. It's dangerous. It's going to get us killed. I don't want him here. I don't want him near me, or you, I don't want him to destroy this–"
"Стоп." Ivan interrupts me mid-rant, and puts his hands either side of my head. I tear them away, desperately frustrated, but he simply places them back on each cheek, regarding me with that strange, white-blue intensity, until I am less despairingly homicidal and more rational. His thumb moves along my jaw, and comes to a rest at the corner of my mouth. "We will invite Mr Holmes here. We will talk with him."
I force myself – muscle by fiercely contracted muscle – to relax, and focus on the shifting light on the carpet. I count to six lots of ten, twice, and then return my gaze to Ivan's face. He watches me with cautious sincerity.
"Not Sherlock," I say, quietly. "Sherlock wouldn't listen. Neither would John – he'd rather disembowel himself with a blunt knife than negotiate with me. If you ask either of them, I killed his wife. Indirect murder."
He frowns. "I am sure Mr Holmes would–"
"Millie would listen."
Ivan pauses, then moves his hands up, brushing the hair back from my face and looping it behind my ears.
"You do not think the detective would be a better choice?"
"Human empathy isn't his strong point. He might come out of curiosity, but he certainly wouldn't agree to it – he wouldn't risk getting involved with Jim again. Sherlock's done it once. Jumped off a building because of it. No," I say, more confidently. "Millie would understand. She's good at that."
"Then we will invite her," says Ivan, simply. The decisiveness in such a statement is a numbing agent; it dulls the throes of helplessness, and I reach out for Ivan in gratitude, feeling the reverberations in his chest as his arms close around my back and he adds, "You can find the necessary contact details, Да?"
"Child's play."
"Хорошо. Later we will contact her. It is too early now," he says, as he tugs the sheets over our exposed shoulders. "Is it an assurance?"
I make a wordless noise of confirmation, my fingers curled at the dip of his sternum. He lifts my head, kisses me once, then settles back against the pillow.
"Am I permitted to sleep, lisichka?"
I snort. "It's morning."
"Нет," he says, closing his eyes. "Not in Russian time."
"We're in England."
He presses a finger to my lips. I roll my eyes, but decide that – after a night spent fretting over the endless, bleak possibilities – I could really do with an extra couple of hours; I lift Ivan's arm, turn over, and feel his chest against my back. His breathing softens to a rhythmic inhalation-exhalation duo.
Despair seems an intangible concept, as I fall prey to sleep's predation.
~~~~~~