Consulting Daughter (BBC Sherlock)

His Last Hurrah

Sherlock's POV:

Molly.

John.

Molly.

John.

Molly.

John.

"Choose!" Moriarty laughed.

"Wait!" I raised my arms in surrender. "I choose myself. Kill me."

"No!" I heard Molly scream.

"Shut up, Molly!" I growled. I glared at Moriarty. "That's what you want isn't it? You want me to die." I turned to the metal man and nodded. "Shoot me."

"Sherlock!" Molly pleaded.

"Sherlock, be reasonable!" John hissed. I shook my head.

"First let Kyna go." I told Moriarty.

He chuckled. "You must be joking."

"I'm not!" I demanded. "Let her go and then you can do whatever you want to me."

"Dad?" Kyna's eyes were wide open.

"Kyna, stay still. I'm going to get you out of this."

"Wha-" She sounded confused and her pupils were blurring and dilating from her concussion.

"Your daddy's going to play hero for his last hurrah." Moriarty murmured in her ear. She flinched away from him.

"Stop it." I ordered. "Stop playing games. Let her go."

With rough moments, Jim threw Kyna to the ground at his feet. She whimpered when her wrist collided with the cement floor. I had noticed earlier that she had broken it, and it did little to control my anger.

I knelt down next to her and picked her up easily. She was barely a feather weight.

"Dad, no. Wait, no, no." Her eyes fluttered. She pulled against my jacket like she was going to resist me.

"Be quiet, Kyna."

"No! Stop!" She hit me with her good arm. I handed her to John, who cradled her against his chest.

"No!" She screamed. "No! STOP! STOP!"

"That's enough, Kyna!" I shouted above her sobs. "Do it." I nodded to the metal man. "Do it and let my family go."

"NO!" Kyna shrieked, struggling in John's arms.

The man raised the gun in his left hand. I had just enough time to look at John. His eyes were clouded with grief. I nodded to him.

"Take care of them."

His bottom lip trembled. "I will."

The barrel clicked into place. I closed my eyes in anticipation. Moriarty laughed gleefully.

"The great Sherlock, belittled by a sixteen year-old girl." His laughter continued as the man pulled the trigger, and a shot rang out.

There was a deafening scream from both Molly and Kyna, and-

... and nothing.

I opened my eyes.

The metal man was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

"Idiot." Mary spat, stepping over his dead body.

"Mary!" Four voices, including my own, spoke at once, all laced with different emotions.

"John's wife?" Moriarty snapped. He raised his gun in defense and found it being knocked out of his hands by Detective Lestrade.

"Bloody fucking bastard." With a swift fist, he punched Jim Moriarty unconscious, knocking him completely off his feet.

"That's for messing with my friends." Greg growled. Kyna let out a shaky and relieved laugh and fell from John's arms and into Greg's. She kissed him soundly on the cheek, her face stained with blood and dirt and tears.

I found myself groping for her, pulling her from him and to me. She made a soft noise of surprise and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

"We need to get you to the hospital." I muttered, holding her wrist in my hand.

"Dad." She shivered. "It's over. It's over. It's over." She couldn't stop repeating those words, her breathing coming in hiccuped pants. In that moment she wasn't a thing to be stared at. She wasn't someone particularly important to the world. She was just a girl. She was just Kyna.

Lestrade was handcuffing Moriarty, forcing him to his feet and walking him out the doors. "You're going to prison for a very long time." He snarled. Moriarty remained silent, his head lolling around, the left side of his face bruised and purple. "I told you not to mess with the Holmes and Watsons."

"Where does that put me?" Molly demanded.

"You're an honorary Watson and Holmes." Mary smiled and wrapped her arm around the other woman.

"All according to plan." I couldn't help but brag.

There was an intense silence in which every head turned to stare at me.

"What?" Molly asked.

John held his hands up in a timeout gesture. "You mean you planned this entire thing?"

Kyna smiled weakly, leaning heavily against my shoulder.

"Of course he did," She said quietly. "It was absurdly obvious."

Greg sighed. "I hate to break this to you, Kay, but not everyone here is a consulting detective."

"I'm not," Kyna defended.

"Your like a miniature detective," He argued. "A 'consulting daughter'." I chuckled at the phrase.

"We should make that an official title," I suggested.

"That'd be a good book," Lestrade pointed out.

"I'd read it," Kyna shrugged.

"Hang on!" John insisted, pulling the conversation back to its original subject. "How did you plan this entire thing?"

"Oh honestly,John." I sighed. "Did you really think that Mary was going to listen to you? I figured that she would run straight for back-up and return just in time to heroically shoot down the metal man." I nodded to her. "Kudos to you."

She smiled and returned my nod.

"So, you knew she wouldn't listen?" John asked, turning to look at his wife in disbelief.

"It was written all over her face like a billboard," I told him.

John pressed his lips together and snaked a hand around his wife's waist. "As much as I appreciate the rescue, don't ever do that again."

"No promises." She kissed him on the mouth.

"Stop the lovey-dovey stuff. I've had enough for one lifetime." Kyna grumbled.

There was an awkward moment in which every eye in the room landed on a body lying in the corner. I heard Molly's sharp intake of breath as she realized who it was.

Kyna turned pointedly away from it, her face impassive. I decided it was in everyone's best interest to focus on something else.

"Let's go, daughter." I wrapped my arm around her for support. "I feel like going home and having Mrs Hudson's tea."

"That sounds lovely," Kyna sighed. I could hear the melancholy in her tone.

"Come along, Watsons and Hooper," I called. I wrapped my left arm around Kyna and her eyes met mine briefly. For a moment, we were silent as we observed each other. Finally she spoke.

"I'm glad you're my dad," She said.

"I know," I told her, and I knew by her slight smile that I had said the right thing.

"Let's go home," she said simply.