Freya bolted down the stairs of 221B, John at her heels and holding the laptop. They burst outside onto the corner of the busy street and Freya stepped out into traffic to hail a cab. The irony wasn't lost on her.
John slammed the cab door behind him once he was inside and started giving the cabbie directions according to the map on his laptop screen. Freya pulled out her phone and was calling Lestrade. She knew the man would be annoyed at her practically waiting until he was out of her flat before calling him with a lead, but she couldn't do anything about it now.
She huffed in irritation when someone else picked up the office phone.
"May I speak to Lestrade please?" She asked anxiously. "I need to speak to the Detective Inspector."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Detective Inspector isn't in his office," the too-kind voice replied. "May I take a message?"
"No, you may not! You can go find Lestrade and tell him it's an emergency!"
Next to her, John was busy calling out directions to the cabbie. They turned a sharp left corner and Freya grabbed onto window. The person on the other side of like was silent, hopefully doing as she requested. A few seconds later, a familiar voice answered.
"Freya?"
"Lestrade, listen! The cabbie was the murderer the whole time, and Sherlock left Baker Street with him. John and I are on the way right now, we're tracking the phone, but we're going to need backup!"
She was trying to keep her nerves calm as she spoke. This was the most excitement she had had in a while and she had missed it. This made her feel alive.
"Where are you?" Lestrade asked after pausing to yell to his officers that they were needed for backup.
Freya glanced out the window of the cab. John shut the laptop and began climbing out of the vehicle, motioning for Freya to follow him. John paid the cabbie as Freya looked around and tried to determine her location.
"They're at Roland-Kerr Further Education College," she finally was able to tell Lestrade. "Hurry. I don't know what we're going to find inside."
She hung up before he could tell her to wait for his officers.
John had tucked the laptop into his coat and was regarding the tall, dark building with an expression of fortitude. Freya was grateful to have him with her; the bravery of the solider.
"So how do we do this? They could be anywhere?" John turned and asked her. She sighed lightly, her eyes flicking up the entire five stories of the massive building.
God, she really hoped not.
"We stick together, for one thing," she replied, moving towards the entrance. "And we hurry. We'll try every door on the first floor before moving up to the second. They haven't got that much of a head start on us. We'll find them."
"Right."
The front doors were unlocked and so Freya and John easily slipped inside. John took the lead, jogging down the long corridors and trying every door on the left hand side of the hallway. Freya did the same on the right hand side.
Two pair worked with amazing efficiency, winding their way around the first story of the long building. Every once in a while they came upon a door that wasn't locked and they took the time to search the entire room and check the view from the windows.
But time ticked past and they were no closer to finding either Sherlock or the cabbie. John threw open the door leading down another long corridor and came to a stop when the hallway split into two.
Freya ran past him, taking the left side, trying every door she saw. John did the same on the opposite side, turning to call back to her, "Anything?"
"No," she breathed. "Nothing." Her chest was heaving with exertion and she saw that John's was doing the same.
They followed John's side of the hallway, unwilling to split up and make matters more complicated. John shouldered open the first door he saw, the door swinging back and slamming into the wall behind it.
Freya was across the hall, pushing open the doors and scanning the dark rooms. Her actions of turning the knob to another door were frozen when she heard John shout, "Sherlock!"
She turned from the door and bolted across the hallway to join John inside the room he had opened. He was facing the tall windows on the opposite wall which were giving him a perfect view of the hallway across the courtyard.
Freya could see both people, Sherlock and the cabbie, through the two sets of clear glass. Sherlock had his back turned to the windows but she could see the cabbie's face as bright as day. He seemed to be smiling, taunting, even.
Freya's heart thudded in her throat. They would never get there in time. Why the hell had she listened to Sherlock and given him a head start? She didn't even know him and now he was going to die because of her.
John brought his hands up to cover his mouth. The cabbie was holding something in his hand, something small and rounded.
A pill.
The two watched as Sherlock unscrewed the bottle he had been holding and turned to hold his own pill closer to the light. The cabbie was speaking incoherent words but Freya didn't care what he was saying.
"John, we have to do something." She frantically looked around the room for anything to help them. She didn't know what, she had stupidly left her gun in her room with all her other belongings. She looked over at John, who hadn't moved.
"John!" She yelled. "Do something!"
And so he did. He stepped closer to the glass and pulled a handgun out of his coat. With a perfectly steady arm and impeccable aim, John fired a single bullet through the two sets of windows and across the courtyard that separated him from Sherlock.
Freya winced at the noise but was able to see the bullet as it tore through the cabbie's sternum and dropped him like a stone.
John reached over and pulled her to the floor as Sherlock turned towards the source of the gunshot. She lost sight of him just as he was sliding over the table to peer into the opposite windows.
She met John's eye in the darkness. He looked taught as a wire, his eyes ablaze with the adrenaline of having just killed a man.
She swallowed heavily. "Good shot."
John blinked, snapping out of his daze. He didn't reply, just motioned for her to follow him as he carefully stood and made his way out of the room.
By the time of two of them had exited the building, the wailing sound of sirens were piercing the air. Freya's nerves were still singing and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself before anyone could notice.
An ambulance was parked up on the grass and Sherlock was seated in the back of it, looking irritated as an EMT placed an orange blanket over his shoulders. Freya turned when she heard a car and saw Lestrade pull up to the curb and climb out.
She twisted her mouth to mask her smile and looked at John out of the corner of her eye. "Ready to lie to the police?" She asked. John glanced at her but didn't reply.
Lestrade passed them on his way to Sherlock.
"Is he alright?" He asked, nodding in the direction of the ambulance. Freya shrugged innocently.
"We just got briefed, haven't spoken to him yet."
Lestrade nodded, buying the lie, and ducked under the police tape to make his way towards Sherlock.
John and Freya stood by the perimeter and watched as Lestrade questioned the consulting detective.
"Will he figure it out?" John wondered suddenly. Freya looked at him and then over at Sherlock. She smiled.
"Oh, yeah. But don't worry, I don't think he'll let on."
She whispered a quick apology when Lestrade raised an arm and waved her over to him. She ducked under the police tape and went to join Lestrade where he stood next to the ambulance.
"This shooter," Lestrade started slowly, his eyes alternating from Sherlock to Freya. "Anything to go on?"
The two detectives met eyes. Freya raised a brow and turned back to Lestrade, sighing slowly.
"A little," she told him. "The bullet they dug out of the wall was from a handgun. And over that kind of distance with that kind of weapon, that's a good shot we're looking for. But not from any marksman. His hands couldn't have shaken so clearly he's acclimated to violence. It wasn't his first kill." She spoke slowly and carefully, trying to choose her words in a way that informed but never actually narrowed anyone down. Sherlock stood from the ambulance and began to pick up from where Freya had stopped.
"But he didn't fire until I was in immediate danger, though, so strong moral principle." He paused for half a second. "You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service and nerves of steel..." he trailed off rather suddenly, his gaze having wandered over to land on John who was still standing by the police car. Lestrade followed Sherlock's line of sight but didn't understand what he saw.
Sherlock looked over at Freya and the girl held his gaze for a moment before slowly moving it to linger on John for a moment more.
That was all Sherlock needed to confirm his suspicions. He turned back to Lestrade.
"Actually, do you know what? Ignore me," he said. Lestrade frowned.
"What?"
"Ignore that. Ignore everything I just said, it's the...ehm, the shock talking." Sherlock lifted the sides of his orange blanket as if to remind Lestrade of his condition. He turned from the D.I and started off towards John, clearly searching for some answers.
"Where are you going?" Lestrade asked in confusion.
"Just to...talk about the rent. Freya, come, now that you'll be helping," Sherlock motioned for her to follow him. She shot Lestrade an apologetic smile before walking after Sherlock.
"But I've still got questions for you-"
"Oh, what now?" Sherlock interrupted Lestrade. "I'm in shock, look, I've got a blanket!" He held it up again. "And I- we just caught you a serial killer...more or less."
Freya smiled contentedly at the given credit.
"I'll make sure he gets home alright," she told her boss. "You can bring him in first thing tomorrow for questioning."
Lestrade folded his arms across his chest and regarded the two before him.
"Okay," he allowed. "I'll pull you in tomorrow. Off you go, both of you."
Sherlock and Freya turned from the D.I and tried to make it back under the police tape to John without looking like they were hurrying. Sherlock slid the shock blanket off his shoulders and threw it into the open window of the police car John was standing by. He came to stand in front of the shorter man, his hands in his pockets.
"Sergeant Donovan has just been explaining everything to Freya and I," John said innocently. "The two pills..." he broke off, shaking his head. "Dreadful business, isn't it? Dreadful."
Sherlock was silent. He looked down at John with the tiniest glimmer of a smile and something resembling respect gleaming in his eyes. "Good shot." Was all he said.
John nodded and shrugged a shoulder.
"Well, it would have to be. Through that window..."
"Well, you would know."
This made John fall silent. He looked up at Sherlock and then eventually over at Freya who was standing nearby. She gave him the smallest nod, enough to subside his fears.
"We'll have to get the powder burns off your fingers," Sherlock continued. "I don't suppose you'll serve time for this but let's avoid the court case."
John cleared his throat nervously and glanced away. Freya noticed how his hands were shoved deep into his pockets and his jaw was rigid.
"Are you alright?" She asked mildly. John looked up at her.
"Of course I'm alright," he replied quickly.
"Well, you have just killed a man."
"Yes." John paused, holding her stare. "That's true, isn't it?"
Freya nodded slowly, her eyes drifting around the three of them to make sure nobody was overhearing their conversation. Then she sighed. "But he wasn't a very nice man," she told John. She was rewarded by the sight of his mouth turning up in a smile.
"No," Sherlock agreed with her. "No he wasn't really, was he?"
"Frankly a bloody awful cabbie," John said. Freya stifled a laugh and from next to her Sherlock was chuckling.
"That's true, he was a bad cabbie. You should have seen the route he took us to get here," he replied.
John and Freya laughed again, John ducking his head down so a passing officer wouldn't hear him.
"Stop it! We can't giggle it's a crime scene, stop it!" Freya chastised the two but she wasn't one to talk, her mouth was still in a wide smile.
Sherlock turned them away from the police cars and they began walking back towards the main road so they could find a cab back to Baker Street. John cleared his throat after he pulled himself together and turned on Sherlock with a more serious tone.
"You were going to take that damn pill, weren't you?" He asked. Sherlock turned to face him.
"Of course I wasn't," he said airily. "I was biding my time. I knew you two would show up." He caught Freya's eye. "You only waited eight minutes, not ten like I told you."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "If we had found you two minutes later we would have found out if you were right about that pill or not," she reasoned with him. She rocked back on the balls of her feet, her hands in her coat pockets, looking very much like a child who knew they had outsmarted their sibling.
Sherlock looked affronted for half a second before he slowly smiled.
"Dinner?" He asked the two, changing the subject.
"Starving," John hastily agreed. Freya's face lit up and she hurried to catch up to the two taller men as they continued towards the street. She was starving as well.
"There's this amazing Chinese place at the end of Baker Street. They stay open until two," Sherlock told them. "You know, you can always tell a good Chinese restaurant by the bottom third of the handle..."
Freya let his sentence run out of her circle of attention when she saw an unfamiliar car pull up and stop just ahead of their route. It was sleek, black, and low to the ground. She couldn't imagine who it belonged to. She heard John's exclamation of doubt as Sherlock spoke but she cut the two off when she saw who climbed out of the car.
"Sherlock!" She hissed, immediately drawing his attention to her. "Sherlock, that's him, that's the man I was talking to you about!"
Sherlock saw the man Freya had met earlier that night in the hotel but his expression didn't change. It was almost as though he was unsurprised.
"I know exactly who that is," he told her. He veered off towards the car, meeting the man halfway. John and Freya glanced at each other and slowly followed.
"So...another case cracked," the stranger said smoothly, his umbrella twirling in his hand. "How public-spirited. Although, that was never your motivation, now, was it?" He asked Sherlock.
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock's question sounded as though he was dealing with a pesky sibling who wouldn't stop following him. It made Freya attempt to deduce the stranger a second time but she got little more than the first attempt. He was in a high-stress job, one that paid well, and he was somewhere in his early forties. That was all she could determine.
"As ever, I'm concerned about you," the stranger replied. His gaze fell on John and then Freya standing by Sherlock. "And it seems we have added to our family," he said in a mocking tone. Freya didn't think she would able to get away with flipping this man off like she had with Anderson.
"Yes, I've been hearing about your concern." Sherlock looked towards Freya out of the corner of his eye. The man laughed.
"Always so aggressive," he observed. "Has it ever occurred to you that we belong on the same side?"
"Oddly enough, no," Sherlock said without a shred of basic respect. The stranger looked serious.
"You and I are more alike than you think. This petty feud between us must come to an end, it is simply childish. People will suffer. And you know how it always upset Mummy."
Freya's eyes widened at the mention of 'mummy'. She glanced back up at the two tall men standing before her and wondered why she hadn't seen it before. Siblings.
Of course they were siblings. And she was assuming Sherlock was the reckless younger brother that made the other develop stress aneurisms.
"I upset her?" Sherlock asked. "Me? It wasn't me that upset her, Mycroft."
"No, no...wait," John interrupted, still clueless. "Mummy, who's Mummy?"
"Mother. Our mother," Sherlock answered shortly. "This is my brother, Mycroft."
"He's your brother?"
"Of course he's my brother," Sherlock said. Freya smirked. He was right, only siblings would behave in such a way.
"So he's not..." John trailed off, looking for words.
"What?"
"I don't know, a criminal mastermind?"
Freya let out a short laugh that drew the attention of Mycroft to her. She pressed her lips together in a way that let him know she wasn't sorry about laughing.
"He's close enough," she told John. "He occupies some kind of government position and going off the way he presents himself without any visible clues as to who he is, it's a position in intelligence." She looked up at Mycroft who seemed relatively surprised. "Am I wrong?" She asked innocently.
Sherlock was smirking the way he always did when something impressed him.
"Mycroft is the British government when he's not too busy being the secret service or the CIA on a freelance basis," he told Freya. She smiled, always glad to be correct.
"Good evening, Mycroft," Sherlock said distractedly. "Try not to start a war before I get home, you know what it does to the traffic." He turned on a heel and started down towards the main road, John following after he had said a polite 'goodnight'. But Freya lingered back for a moment. She turned to Mycroft and saw him staring at her with an unusual expression.
"So...when you say you're concerned about him... you actually are concerned?" She asked.
"Yes, of course," Mycroft answered sincerely.
"And it actually is a sibling rivalry?"
"He's always been so resentful." Mycroft sighed ruefully. "You can imagine the Christmas dinners."
Freya smiled. No, she didn't want to imagine the Christmas dinners in the Holmes' house. She turned to Mycroft with one last question that had been nagging at her.
"At the hotel, when I told you I didn't know Sherlock..."
"Yes?"
"I told you I didn't work with him and I didn't even live with him, you said 'yet'."
Mycroft smiled thinly down at her.
"And now you're moving in at 221B Baker Street," he finished for her. "How interesting."
"How did you know I would do that?" She asked. "The thought hadn't even occurred to me when you first spoke to me, there's no way you could have deduced that." But Mycroft simply smiled at her and twirled his umbrella. He nodded over her shoulder to where Sherlock and John were waiting for her down the street.
"Hurry along to your boys," he told her somewhat kindly. "Good evening."
Freya rolled her jaw. Fine, let him have his secrets. She'll find out one day.
She turned and left Mycroft standing by his car, his assistant behind his shoulder. She caught up with the other two quickly enough and they were soon on the main road.
"So, dim sum," John said, clearly hungry.
"Mmm! I can always predict the fortune cookies!" Sherlock told him. Freya laughed.
"No, no you can't," she told him. His eye twinkled.
"Almost can."
"What are you so happy about?" John asked Sherlock, not accustomed to this jovial mood of his.
"Moriarty," Sherlock replied.
"What's Moriarty?" Freya asked. Sherlock smiled once more.
"I have absolutely no idea."
~~
Mycroft watched the three walk down the road away from the crime scene. His brother's tall, thin frame was next to Freya's shorter figure with John on her right. He hummed thoughtfully as he watched them talk as though they had known each other their whole lives.
They were an interesting set, those three.
"Those two could be the making of my brother," he observed aloud. His assistant looked up from her phone, still silent.
"Or they could make him worse than ever. Either way, I think we better upgrade their surveillance status." He turned to his assistant. "Grade three, active immediately."
"Sorry, sir. Who's status?" The assistant questioned. Mycroft looked down at her.
"Sherlock Holmes, one Doctor John Watson, and one Freya Beck."
He turned to look back towards where the three in question were down the street. He could practically feel them smiling as though they knew they were being talked about.
Freya's blond hair seemed to wave at him over her shoulder as she disappeared around the block with John and Sherlock on either side.
-----
A/N: So the very first episode is completed and I couldn't be more excited!! I've definitely said this before but I just wanted to tell you guys that I'm REALLY happy to be finally writing this book.
I've had this story floating around in my head for such a long time that I'm super stoked to actually be sitting down and writing it.
That being said, the number of reads don't matter that much to me. This is something I'm doing for fun and mostly for myself, as much as I do love my readers.
But if you do feel so inclined then definitely hit the like button, everyone loves a little support!
Thanks so much for making it this far!
FloraFey