CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: CEREMONY INTERUPPTED
"So?" said Amelia, stepping out of the room, and giving a spin. "What do you think?"
The youngest Watson stood in doorway, one hand gripping her shoulder, and her head ducked. Her mess of dark hair had been curled and pulled to the side, and the red lipstick she used to wear so very often once again painted her lips. The neckline of her dress plunged as far as it could without being immodest, adorned in metallic sequins he had heard her call gaudy before flaring out into light navy fabric that fell down to her ankles. She adorned no jewellery save for the ring Sherlock had given her hanging from a silver chain around her neck.
Sherlock glanced up from his book, rendered speechless as he met her nervous gaze. She shifted in the spot. "Well?" she asked. "Don't tell me I've rendered you speechless."
"I am afraid you have," Sherlock said, setting his book down on the table. "I daresay there are few words I could summon to describe what it is I wish to say." He cleared his throat. "You will be able to..."
"Possibly kill someone?" she asked. "In this dress? Yes, I suppose I will be able to. You will need to lock the door to the balcony behind me, we wouldn't want anyone coming after me, now would we? If they want to go after Mary, they'll have to do it at close range which should give me enough time to..." She swore, pinching the bridge of her nose as she cut herself off. "God, I thought I'd left this life behind." The words fell from her lips in a whisper, her horror stealing any ounce of confidence in her skills that she had possessed moments before.
She despised thinking of the person she had been before. The person James had manipulated her into a weapon that only he could wield, and his favourite means of destruction. She had almost revelled in her power, if only to be less affected by the terrible things she'd been made to do. She had convinced herself that if she enjoyed following James' orders, then she was doing what she did of her own free will. It was only when she finally managed to escape the man who had been such an integral part of her life for such a long period of time.
He had taken everything from her, including her free will. He had convinced her that everything she had done was to benefit herself, that every decision she made, she made on her own. It had taken her such a long time to realise that none of this had been true, and it had taken even longer for her to stop blaming herself for what she had done. The man bled lies and fantasies, exuded charm and flattery—his manipulation was an extension of him, and it was for this very reason that she had been unable to separate him from his actions.
He'd had her so convinced, so certain that she wanted to stay, wanted to be with him, even after what he had made her do to Jackson.
And Amelia, in an effort to not face the horror that her life had become, had made herself blind to his manipulations. She had thrown herself into her...assignments, losing herself in her work, in her relationships, if only to keep herself from lingering in the present.
Something, she was guilty of doing at the present moment.
"You are doing it for the right reasons," he said in an attempt to reassure her.
His words had the opposite intended effect, only driving the point she had just realised home. She had told herself she'd been doing it for the right reasons, then. That she killed her targets to protect them from James' wrath, knowing that whatever he had in store would be a hundred times worse. That she played God to protect those she believed deserved justice, and damning those who had crossed her.
Her gaze fell to the ground, mentally tracing the hem of her dress to keep herself from overthinking any further. "That is not the point," she said, letting out a breath, "but this is my cross to bear. Of that, I am aware. After all, what is one more life compared to the countless I've already stolen? There is blood on my hands, blood I can never wash off. I hardly think it matters if another soul joins the fray."
Excuses, excuses, excuses. She was lying to him, lying to John, lying to herself. It did matter if another tally was added to the already extensive list, and she knew that. She knew that killing someone wasn't as easy as simply crossing them off of a list. She could still see the faces of those whose lives she'd stolen, often wondering what had happened to their friends, their families, their lives. Had they had a child at home? Was there someone waiting for them, uncertain of their fate, and plagued by worries that they had left them? Had they too lied to themselves and done what was necessary, only to fall at the hands of the woman who had said the same thing to herself?
The dull screech as Sherlock pushed out his chair barely registered in her daze. "It may be your cross to bear, Amelia, but you shall not bear it alone," he said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Not this time. Not again."
She swallowed, hard, and turned her head. Sherlock's fingers fell short as she moved away, recoiling into herself. "Perhaps," she said, "but if I am going to hell, then I shall go there with my head held high, and I shall laugh in the Devil's face. If this is what is required of me, then I will do what I must to ensure that no one has to do what I have done."
"Amelia—"
"Don't," she said firmly, placing a hand on his chest as he took a step towards her. Her eyes fluttered closed, "Please, just don't. If you say anything, I won't be able to do this. I am this close to reverting back to who I was, Sherlock. I saw a glimpse of that person after..." She bit her lip, keeping back tears. "I saw a glimpse of that person after you died, and it terrified me so much that I went to your brother for help. I let your brother lock me up, and force me to recover. You know just how unsupportive your brother can be so if I was that desperate that I would go to him, then you know just how much that scared me. If I think about this for even a second, I am not going to be able to do this."
"Distancing yourself from this is hardly healthy—"
"No, it's not, but as it is with the rest of what I am doing, it is necessary."
"Necessity is negated by—"
"Sherlock, please," she hissed. "I need to do this."
"No, you don't!"
"Yes, I do!" she cried out. "Because if I don't, I'll lose you again, and that is one thing I can't have!" She clapped a hand over her mouth, struggling not to shed any tears and ruin her makeup in the process. "We need to get going, or we're going to be late."
"We need to talk," he said, knowing that his attempts were futile. She grabbed her rifle case, slinging it over her shoulder, and marched towards the door, her countenance set in stony determination. He couldn't do anything besides follow after her, knowing that he couldn't change her mind, not if she'd made it up. The best thing he could do was to ensure that she didn't hurt herself while she did what she thought she had to do.
♠
"I'm so happy you're here," Mary said, pulling a very reluctant Sherlock into a hug. She looked to Amelia by his side, and force a smile to her lips. "Both of you."
Amelia still couldn't quite understand why Mary had made her the honorary maid of honour—a substitute for an olive branch, no doubt. She couldn't help but think that a pile of twigs was more useful to her than a frivolous title, and an unnecessary amount of work. Nevertheless, she cracked a small smile. "Normally, you'd have to pay for this sort of service, you know." Mary visibly blanched at the idea, and Amelia rushed to console her. "Sorry, that was a joke."
"Ah."
"I'm..." Amelia said quietly. "I'm going to go set up. Sherlock, can you...Can you check up on John?"
The detective nodded. "Best man. Duties. The like." He bowed his head, "Mary, I'll see you at the ceremony. Amelia...Be careful."
"You know me," she said with a small smile, despite the grave situation. "Always careful."
"As I'm always tactful," Sherlock said wryly.
She couldn't help but laugh at that, shaking her head as the detective left the room. She looked back towards Mary, who was frantically knotting and unknotting her hands if only to give herself something to do. "Don't worry. I'll be watching. If anything happens, anything at all, I'm there," she said, reaching out for her soon-to-be sister-in-law's hands, and clutching them in her own. Mary's wide blue eyes met her own grey ones, the bride desperate, frightened, and uneasy. "Mary, trust me. Everything will be fine."
"Will it?"
"Yes, that's why I'm here." she assured. She closed her eyes, then reopened them. "Listen, Mary, I know we've never really got along but clearly you're important to John. Important enough that the only thought he had when a building was collapsing on him was that he never got to marry you. That he never got to meet your child, and that speaks volumes. I often do not understand my brother, I think that's clear, but I understand this. He needs...stability in his life. He never was particularly fond of either of our parents but I think our father's death affected him more than he likes to let on. I haven't even managed to talk about to him about it since the funeral." She pursed her lips, "I haven't really managed to talk to him about anything since the funeral."
"That might be something you should look into resolving."
"Trust me, it's on my plate," she said, "but so are a lot of other things right now. I'll clean up my messes when new ones stop being created. In the meantime..." She readjusted the strap of her rifle case. "I'll see you when this is over."
Mary nodded, weakly, and glanced back over her shoulder towards the door behind her. Even through the thick wooden doors separating them from the chapel, they could still hear the commotion as people rushed to take their places before the ceremony began. "Don't miss," she whispered.
Amelia didn't reply, letting out a breath to steady herself as she made her way towards the stairs. She had insisted on coming to this church, if only because it possessed the best loft of all the nearby churches. From this vantage point, she could see the entirety of the small crowd gathering in the pews below. How they had managed to invite their friends and family on such a short notice, Amelia wasn't quite certain. It was nothing in comparison to the crowd they could have drawn if they'd had an extra couple of weeks, if not months, but it had made the catering cheaper, despite all the bribing Amelia had needed to do to get their orders prioritised.
God knew there were certain days she appreciated her ludicrous salary.
She donated most of what she earned from her job to charity, and various other organizations, knowing that she hardly deserved her pay. She got paid to do something she would have otherwise done of her own free will, and Amelia had spent enough time barely scraping by that she didn't want anyone to suffer the same.
Amelia locked the door behind her with the key she'd managed to convince the church's janitors to give to her, dragging out a stack of chairs to block it even further before setting her rifle case down on the ground. The thing hadn't seen the light of days in years, and she hadn't come anywhere near it since she'd boarded it up all those years ago.
That didn't stop her from assembling the gun in less than a minute. Her hands knew what to do before her mind did, muscle memory taking over. There was a familiarity in the procedure that she had missed, a pattern that had dictated her life for so long she welcomed its return.
None of that compared to the familiarity of the weight of her rifle in her hands. She wasn't the best sniper she knew, after all that title had gone to Jackson before he'd been replaced by Moran but it was he who had trained her, he who had taught her how to pull the trigger, he who had taught her to focus on her actions, not the end result.
She steadied her rifle against the railing, briefly wondering if she should have risked being seen and taken up a spot by the organ, instead of in the loft, where there was a large blind spot underneath her. Regardless, she was here now, and as the music began to play, she pressed her eye to her scope, scanning the crowd. No one was visibly carrying a weapon, though that was to be expected. If Sebastian Moran was sending anyone after Mary, after any of them, they would have to be clever enough to be discreet.
The world seemed to stop for John as Mary strode down the aisle, dressed in a white vintage gown that had once belonged to Mycroft's wife. Pearls were beaded throughout her golden hair, catching the light streaming through the stained glass windows but they paled in comparison to the radiant smile upon her lips. This was hardly a happy event, not with the shadow of Death looming over them, but it hardly mattered, not when his soon-to-be wife was mere feet in front of him.
His dream of a house with a loving wife, and children running about was hardly achievable with the hand life had dealt him, but he was so close now, to getting what he'd always wanted. A normal life, with a normal job... Why was normality such an outrageous thing for him to want? If someone had told him years ago that this would be his life—fearing that someone would kill him or his pregnant fiancée on their wedding day—he would have thought them insane. Now, it seemed like one of the least strange things to ever happen to him.
His gaze travelled up to the outline of Amelia on the balcony, silhouetted by the window behind her. If anything went wrong, she would step in, he had faith in that—he had faith in her. Nervously, he glanced at his side, at Sherlock, and cracked a small smile just as Mary reached the altar.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..." began the priest.
"Stay focused," said a voice in Amelia's ear. "You're not use to anyone if you can't remain focused. You need to relax."
She froze, her heart hammering in her chest as she felt his fingertips press into her shoulders, forcing them downwards. She knew he wasn't there, knew that Jackson Moriarty was six feet under, and buried nowhere near London. No, he'd been buried in an unmarked grave by an abandoned house in the countryside, the house that he had bought for her, and promised to live with her in. She felt as though it was the least she could do for him.
"Jackson..." she whispered.
"Sh, stay focused," he murmured. "You aren't any use to anyone if you're distracted. Now, the most likely time that someone will pull something is during the vows or the exchanging of the rings. If he wants to send a message that will have the most impact. So breathe, take a moment. Scan the crowd. Does anyone stand out? Is there anyone you don't recognise?"
Amelia moved her gaze over the crowd, counting the unfamiliar faces. "Thirty," she said.
"Thirty out of a hundred and ten," Jackson hummed. "You've cut out seventy three percent, given that he paid someone that you don't know. Anyone here have something out for Mary?"
"Not as far as I'm aware."
"Then stick with the twenty seven percent you don't know," Jackson said gently. "Pay attention. Who can't be carrying a weapon? Who would be an unwise, unreliable choice? Think of Sebastian. You know him better than you know Mary. Who would he not choose?"
Amelia focused on the old man sporting a cane, and the red haired woman wearing a short and tight fitting dress that hid nothing.
"Good," said Jackson. "You're paying attention."
"You keep being so condescending, and I'll slap you," she said under her breath. She did not care if he wasn't truly there, the mere idea of him being there comforted her. Her racing heart began to slow, her breath no longer coming in frantic gasps. She let out a shaky breath, swallowing. "Right. Twenty five point five percent."
"There you go," Jackson said. "Process of elimination. Keep going."
"John Hamish Watson, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to hold, till death do you part?" continued the minister without interruption.
Amelia shifted her position, scanning the length of the church once more. "You're running out of time, Amelia," warned Jackson.
"Fuck, I know," she hissed.
Below her, in a voice that rang throughout the entire hall, "I do."
"And do you, Mary Elizabeth Morstan, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, and to cherish, till death do you part?"
"I do," she said, in a voice not quite as confident.
"The rings, if you please," the minister said, holding out his hand.
"Amelia..." Jackson said, voice growing.
Not the man with the glasses—the lenses were thick enough for him to be considered legally blind. Not the pregnant woman towards the back. Manoeuvrability would be too hard for her to be much use. Not the woman who kept placing her hand on her girlfriend's thigh, grinning like a madwoman—too distracted to be worrying about needing to kill someone. But who was it? Who was it, who was it, who was it, who was it who was it whowasitwhowasit—
John picked up the golden ring from the velvet cushion and slid it onto Mary's ring finger. She hesitated for a brief moment, letting out a delighted laugh, blinking back tears of joy before picking up the matching gold ring, sized for John's finger.
"Amelia!" Jackson yelled.
Her mind raced. Who could it be? Who was it? Who could be partnered with Moran? What had he said? In their few interactions together, what had he said? Any names? She wanted to scream, but then she'd be giving away her location. Think, goddammit! What had Sebastian said to her?
"You'll want a life outside of this, and I can tell you right now," she recalled him saying, his voice low and dangerous, "out of all of us, John, Mary, Rachel, Sherlock, Mycroft, Charlie, Sherrinford, and myself, you're the only one with any chance at escaping the knife."
Rachel?
She remembered seeing a blonde woman hanging out with a darker, taller figure oddly reminiscent of Sherlock. Sherrinford, perhaps? There were still twenty five people remaining, but only one woman with blonde hair, and wearing a coat. She was mere metres from the altar, so close that if she shot from where she stood, it would be equivalent to shooting from point-blank range.
"You may now—" said the minister but before he could finish, the blonde haired woman stood up, pulling something out from the inside of her coat.
Screams erupted from the crowd, John immediately pulling Mary behind him, and throwing Sherlock to the ground, his military training kicking in. Rachel raised her pistol higher, aiming for Mary. "John, I don't want to have to shoot you," she said.
"Well if you want to shoot her, then you'll have to go through me," he growled, praying that Amelia would intervene any moment now.
"Amelia!" Jackson all but screamed in her ear.
She couldn't pull the trigger on Rachel, not at this angle, without risking shooting Mary, but dammit, she had to take the risk. She didn't think twice, and pulled the trigger just as the blonde-haired woman did the same. Her bullet veered off course as she recoiled, Amelia's bullet striking her just below the ribs.
Her head shot up towards the balcony, narrowing her eyes towards Amelia's figure before sprinting towards the door. Amelia threw her gun aside, ripping off her heels as she leapt over the side of the balcony, damning safety altogether. Her ribs creaked as she collided with the ground, all but ruining any progress she'd made towards her recovery in one split-second decision. Her desperation overrode any pain she experienced, grim determination forcing her to march straight through the pain and chase after Rachel.
She looked back over her shoulder towards Sherlock, John and Mary, the detective getting to his feet, and checking up on his friends. "Go!" he yelled. "I've got this!"
She lingered for a moment but then continued running, pushing past the crowd who were desperate to flee the building. This would be a disaster to explain to the attendees, provided that they still attended the reception. She burst out on to the road, looking wildly for the sight of the blonde woman. There. The end of the street, leaving behind a trail of blood.
"Rachel!" she yelled, raising her own pistol. "If you move, I swear to God, I will shoot you."
She froze, raising her hands above her head, not letting go of her gun. She turned around slowly, lips pursed in pain. "Amelia Laura Watson-Holmes," she said. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure."
"I don't think that we could have ever met under pleasurable circumstances," she hissed, taking several steps closer. "You just about killed my brother and his wife. His pregnant wife. If you think for one moment that I'll let you walk out of here—"
"I don't think you have much choice," said Rachel, lowering her hands, and aiming her gun at Amelia. "Looks like we're at a standoff. You missed the first time you shot. I won't."
"Trust me, if I'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead already," she said, sirens beginning to wail. Sherlock must have called the police—God knew that Lestrade would hold that over his head till the end of his days, though she wasn't quite certain if Lestrade had been made aware of Sherlock's return. "Tell me, Rachel," she continued after a moment's pause, meeting the woman's eyes, "what do you want?"
"What does anyone want?" she asked, gritting her teeth in pain. "To watch the world burn."
A/n: Ooh wow, look at me, two updates in less than a week, and one of them's pretty long too, all things considered. I think I deserve a medal...Although considering how few updates I've posted in the past couple months, I don't think I do...