After The Reichenbach Fall

CHAPTER 3

After visiting their graves, John decided to go and visit Mrs. Hudson.

Before he gets to the front door a boy shouted at hin "Oi, mate! Penny for the guy?" He just rolled his eyes remembering his adventures with Sherlock and (y/n).

He unlocked the front door and goes inside. Partway down the hall, he stopped, and stared at Mrs Hudson's front door before letting out an anxious breath.

Looking at the stairs slowly, he can hear Sherlock's violin playing a fragment of Irene's lament then a snippet of an old conversation sounds inside his mind.

"That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done." He said.

"And you invaded Afghanistan!" Sherlock said.

That was from his and Sherlock's first case. The sound of the violin faded when Mrs. Hudson opens her door and comes out, staring at him in surprise.

He raised his hand as a greeting, and cleared his throat before walking towards her after a final glance up the stairs.

Meanwhile somewhere in Europe...

"You have been busy, haven't you?" Mycroft Holmes- Sherlock's brother; said while reading a file in his hands. "Quite the busy little bee."

"Moriarty's network - took me two years to dismantle it." Sherlock said who's reclined flat on his back in a barber's chair whilst a man is shaving his face with a cut-throat razor.

"And you're confident you have?" Mycroft asked as he looks at Sherlock.

"The Serbian side was the last piece of the puzzle." Sherlock answered.

"Yes. You got yourself in deep there..." Mycroft said as he checks the report on his table, "... with Baron Maupertuis. Quite a scheme."

"Colossal." Sherlock said.

"Anyway, you're safe now." Mycroft said then shuts the file and place it on his table.

"Hmm." Sherlock mumbles.

"A small 'thank you' wouldn't go amiss." Mycroft said, confidently.

"What for?" Sherlock asked, slightly raising his voice.

"For wading in."

Sherlock raises a hand to the barber to stop shaving him and rhe man steps back a little.

"In case you'd forgotten, fieldwork is not my natural milieu." Mycroft added.

Grunting in pain, Sherlock slowly sits up and looks at him angrily. "Wading in? You sat there and watched me being beaten to a pulp."

"I got you out." Mycroft said frowning indignantly.

"No - I got me out. Why didn't you intervene sooner?" Sherlock spat.

"Well, I couldn't risk giving myself away, could I? It would have ruined everything."

"You were enjoying it." Sherlock said.

"Nonsense."

"Definitely enjoying it." Sherlock mumbles.

Leaning forward, Mycroft said,"Listen: do you have any idea what it was like, Sherlock, going under cover, smuggling my way into their ranks like that?" Then he grimaces. "The noise; the people."

Sherlock sits back. Groaning softly, as ge painfully sinks back to lie down in the chair again.

"I didn't know you spoke Serbian." Sherlock said completely changing the subject.

"I didn't, but the language has a Slavic root, frequent Turkish and German loan words." Mycroft said and he shrugs. "Took me a couple of hours."

"Hmm - you're slipping."

"Middle age, brother mine. Comes to us all." Mycroft said smiling tightly.